My blog is focused on exploring leadership questions. This review may not appear consistent with that focus but this is my thought… Differentiation and competition for dominance among religious sects has contributed to more suffering, war, and death than any other issue throughout history. Armstrong’s Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths (first published in 1996 and I read the 2005 update) provides detailed evidence that the world’s primary monotheistic religions’ claims to Jerusalem as their spiritual center are at the center of world-wide strife.
Armstrong provides a detailed historical analysis of how the three monotheistic religions - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - came to see this city as one of the most important, or central, cities to their faith. Throughout the book, she returns to two themes that she says contradict any singular claim to unique primacy by any one of them: 1) each faith is based on a commitment to social just, compassion, and charity, and 2) placing one’s faith in a place rather than practicing it in the heart and soul and in a community of believers is antithetical to true spiritual enlightenment.
Armstrong recognized that these three faiths are based on a yearning to reconnect with the ultimate and achieve a reconciliation with one’s maker, and each has constructed various myths about Jerusalem. This “Mythology was never designed to describe historically verifiable events that actually happened.” (Introduction, locator 210) While Armstrong provides considerable evidence supporting claims in the Torah, Bible, and Quran, many of the stories are not verifiable. Their importance is in symbolizing deeper spiritual messages that have been used to create liturgy portraying the transcendence of faith.
The original name of Jerusalem from the Bronze Age was “Rushalimum,” which Armstrong translates as “Shalem has founded.” (Chapter 1 – Zion – locator 350) When cities were just beginning to form, they were revered as special places; those who sought power and influence in these new environs often created imposing spaces and structures to convey a sense of mystical or sacred importance. Many of the myths of early Syria related to Baal, who was prominent among many gods worshiped at the time. Stories were created about Baal and other gods fighting for survival, stories that helped to explain the struggles against natural elements such as earthquakes, floods, and pestilence, and famine.
The origin of the name of Jerusalem, its symbolic/mythical importance as an early city, multiple gods, and how they reflected human kind’s struggle all set the stage for the contested ownership of the city. The facts are that the Hebrews (later known as Israelites or the Jewish people) didn’t settle in the area until the 1200s bce. It is unclear if they conquered or comfortably integrated with the Jebusite people who already inhabited the land of Canaan when the Hebrews came out of bondage in Egypt. The Hebrews worshipped multiple gods all the way up to 586bce when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem. Shortly after this time, and partially because of their exile to Babylon, they began to believe that there was only one god – Yahweh. King David played a mythical role for the Israelites because he unified Israel and Judah into what would become the Kingdom of Israel, with Jerusalem as its capital.
Israel and Jerusalem survived multiple destructions and rebuilding at the hands of Greece, Rome, Persia and others. The Temple for the Jewish people was built, destroyed, and rebuilt depending on who was in power. Christians made claim to Jerusalem initially through Constantine; later Crusaders would fight to control what they perceived to be their “Holy” relics. Although Muslims would build the “Dome of the Rock” to assert the importance of Mohammed’s (PBH) journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, it is ironic that the best of times for the Jewish people were when Muslim conquerors took the area. Because Islam embraced both Judaism and Christianity, their leaders sought to make Jerusalem a place where all three religions could coexist with their co-located holy sites. The succession of conquering heroes would lead to the three religions contesting who owns the city of Jerusalem and this conflict persists to this day.
I am convinced by Armstrong’s exhaustive research, and also by the “Dead Sea Scrolls” exhibit that I recently toured in Denver, Colorado, that the claims of the Jewish people to Israel contradicts the core principles of faith in Judaism. Christianity and Islam’s claims to primacy are equally unfathomable. The tensions we now see, the genocide of Palestine, naming Jerusalem as the capital of Israel by the U.S. administration, and the recent Knesset action of passing the “Jewish Nation- State” bill are the result of striving for dominance rather than the pursuit of peace. This is a leadership issue and the conflict between Israel and Palestine will not be resolved until the facts of history are understood and those in authority are willing to speak the truth rather than pander to those who elect them.
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