By Simon Goldhill
Jerusalem is the positioning of a few of the main well-known spiritual monuments on this planet, from the Dome of the Rock to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to the Western Wall of the Temple. because the 19th century, the town has been a most desirable vacationer vacation spot, now not least due to the numerous spiritual pilgrims from the 3 Abrahamic faiths. yet Jerusalem is greater than a vacationer site—it is a urban the place each sq. mile is layered with old importance, spiritual depth, and notable tales. it's a urban rebuilt via every one ruling Empire in its personal manner: the Jews, the Romans, the Christians, the Muslims, and for the prior sixty years, the trendy Israelis. What makes Jerusalem so exact is the heady combine, in a single position, of centuries of ardour and scandal, kingdom-threatening wars and petty squabbles, architectural beauty and peculiar relics, non secular longing and political cruelty. it's a historical past marked by means of 3 nice forces: faith, conflict, and monumentality. during this booklet, Simon Goldhill takes in this ordinary archaeology of human mind's eye, desire, and catastrophe to supply a journey in the course of the historical past of this so much image-filled and ideology-laden city—from the bedrock of the previous urban to the towering roofs of the Holy Sepulchre. alongside the way in which, we find via layers of buried and uncovered memories—the lengthy background, the forgotten tales, and the lesser-known facets of up to date politics that proceed to make Jerusalem essentially the most embattled towns on this planet. (20080415)
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Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the proph- The Center of Jewish Jerusalem ets,” Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew. ” Although the first Christians do seem to have taken part in the full panoply of Jewish ritual, as did Jesus, this idea of fulfillment came to be understood as a rejection of Temple ritual and above all the rejection of animal sacrifice, the central ritual of Jewish Temple religion, just as it was the central religious ritual of Greek, Roman, and other dominant cultures of the Mediterranean.
Could this be a fabrication, only a few years after the visit of Helena? The business in relics is big business indeed, and it has proved easy for modern critical thinkers to be suspicious of the whole story of the bishop’s discovery of the tomb, let alone the cross, through miracle and divine guidance. There is a great deal at stake in the (authentic) symbols of Christianity, especially as the nascent church is coming into power. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as German Protestant theologians in particular put rationality, science, and historical investigation at the center of religious learning, this suspicion became fully articulated.
The official went down to the church at dawn, and “did what I had to do. Do not ask me what I did . ” He then re- The Center of the Christian World turned to his office and phoned the Armenian patriarch and complained, “Why did you make me waste my time and come down to the church? ” He then phoned the Syrian authorities and said, “Why did you make me waste my time and come down to the church? ” Thus the crisis was averted. How many religious officials does it take to change a light bulb. . The Armenians were also involved in what must be the most ridiculous dispute between the groups.