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In her book of this title, Karen Armstrong writes:
"(T)he devotion to a holy place or a holy city is a near-universal phenomenon.
...People have developed what has been called a sacred geography that has
nothing to do with a scientific map of the world but which charts their interior
life. Earthly cities, groves and mountains have become symbols of this
spirituality, which is so omnipresent that it seems to answer a profound human
need... Jerusalem has, for different reasons, become central to the sacred
geography of Jews, Christians, and Muslims."
For the Jews, Jerusalem is the place God chose in order to
make Himself accessible to the people of His covenant. For Christians, Jerusalem
is the place where Jesus was crucified: an act of divine self-sacrifice that
opened, for human beings, the way to redemption from sin. For Muslims, Jerusalem
is the place from which Muhammad ascended to heaven, receiving instructions from
God on the proper mode of prayer. The first view of the city arouses therefore,
in the breasts of Muslim, Christian and Jew, the strongest of emotions.
Just as the Holy Land and its Holy City inspire claims and
counterclaims, so they engender a wide range of theories. For example, Lebanese
historian Kamal Salibi argues that the ancestors of the Jews, in the First
Temple period, did not live in this land at all; he finds evidence for nearly
all the Biblical place-names, including Jerusalem, in the Arabian peninsula.
Another theory outside the consensus is that of Ernest L.
Martin. He agrees with most scholars that the massive structure containing the
Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque dates from the time of Herod the Great.
He holds, however, that it did not encompass the Temple, of which "not a stone
remains" (cf. Mark 13:1-2). Martin argues that the Temple lay farther
south, high above the Gihon spring, and that the mighty structure we see today
belonged to a Roman fortress.
In this website we have chosen to remain within the scholarly
consensus:
With fertile soil, a dependable spring, and deep valleys
defending it on all but one of its sides, Jerusalem was already a formidable
city 4000 years ago -- enough to provoke an ancient Egyptian curse! (It appears
in the Execration Texts.) One millennium later, David set eyes on it. It
straddled the border between his home tribe of Judah and the northern tribes, an
ideal place around which to re-unite Israel. Here his son Solomon built the
Temple. Destroyed by the Babylonians, rebuilt by returning Jewish exiles,
reconstructed by Herod, the Temple was the main center for pilgrimage when Jesus
made his journey to Jerusalem in 30 AD. Forty years later that Temple was gone,
but for Christians the event of salvation had occurred, drawing them to
Jerusalem ever after.
The city remains holy to the Jews as well. Three times daily,
for thousands of years, they have turned toward it in prayer, seeking the
restoration of the Temple.
As for Muslims, they name Jerusalem "the holy," al-Quds. It
includes the Koran's "farthest mosque" (Arabic al-Aqsa), from which Muhammad
ascended to heaven.
The places we associate with these events are accessible
today. We can stand on the Mount of Olives overlooking the city, as Jesus did
when he foresaw its fate and wept. We can find quiet time in the Garden of
Gethsemane. The Old City walls enfold a world of religious and historical
significance: the Via Dolorosa, Calvary, the Holy Sepulcher. One can visit the
Western ("Wailing") Wall, where Jews have prayed for centuries. Or ascend to the
Dome of the Rock, more than 1300 years old, sheltering the huge slab of exposed
bedrock where many archaeologists think the Holy of Holies was located, and from
which Muslims believe Muhammad made his ascent. Just north of the Old City wall
is the Garden Tomb, where many Protestants celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.
Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE(r),
(c) Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The
Lockman Foundation. (www.Lockman.org)
© 2003 Near East Tourist
Agency (NET)
Text © 2003 Stephen Langfur
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