We love roadside attractions like this, so the last time we were in the area, we stopped off in Murphy, North Carolina to show the boys the world’s largest ten commandments at the Fields of the Wood Bible Park.
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Work here began in 1940.
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I hadn’t done a great deal of research online before our visit and was only expecting a huge hillside display.
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The park is more than the Ten Commandments feature, though. We found many people climbing ‘Prayer Mountain’
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Along the way are verses from the Christian Bible with states’ names on the bottom of each display
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I know from my study of religious serpent handlers that this verse, labeled here under ‘Signs Following Believers’ is the one the practice (and that of faith healing and drinking poison) is based on: “…they shall speak with new tongues, they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them…” from the Christian Bible at Mark 16:17,18
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Here, a small area at the top at which people left their own prayers. The prayers were on flat, unfolded pieces of paper so anyone could see. People were praying for protection from terrorism, for healing, and that friends would stop using drugs. I wondered if people left them so that others could come by and pray over them as well.
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baptismal pool
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al fresco chapel
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representation of the garden tomb in Jerusalem
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inside:
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representation of Golgatha
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When Judge Roy Moore (now the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, although perhaps not for much longer due to ongoing litigation) had a monument of the Ten Commandments made and installed in the state judicial building in Montgomery, Av took pictures of it back in 2002 (that’s Roy Moore on the left in this image below) before it was permanently removed by a court order that Moore refused to comply with.
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Av found it particularly interesting that on the backside of the granite piece, there was a copyright symbol.
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There were a few rallies in support of the Ten Commandments monument, and we were coming back from Mobile when we found ourselves in Montgomery on this day in 2003 when we saw these people protesting.
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