Week9

This is my final blog post. And in class we moved passed the crusades and into 20th century! We see Jerusalem become a holy city for the Jewish people again and they population in the city was able to increase a lot. Now during World War I its the Ottomans and Germany against France and Britain (guess who wins?! THE BRITS! TAKE THAT HITLER!) So then the Ottoman empire is broken up into areas of control and Britain gets Palestine, Jordan, and South Iraq. The British create the British Mandate which promises to protect all places of holy faith. So the Brits are in control but their are so many people and faiths in this area its hard to keep anything under control.
They try to settle the violence between Arabs and Jews with a two state solution. It would have been Arabs getting Central Hills, West Bank, and Negev, while Jews would have gotten Galilee, Upper Jordan and Negev; Jerusalem would have been a neutral "international city". The Zionist thought this plan was the most minimal plan but they accepted but the Arabs rejected it. So the fighting begins. there is the War of Independence (Arab-Israeli War 1948-1949), the British leave and the Jordanians arrive. the UN arranges a truce and Israel and Jordan sign armistice. Jordanians get West Bank. There are new players but basically war is still going on today because people in control want more so the majority of populations have to suffer! WAR IS RIDICULOUS!! the people in power use everyone else like their personal risk game! I agree, (sounds wimpy) but everyone should just have peace.

Week8

Christianity is actually a branch of Judaism! WHAT?!? Christians use to refer to themselves as the "the way" following the "path", basically followers of Jesus. Jesus was actually Jewish, but the people that followed him believing specifically that he was the son of God separated from others of Jewish practice making themselves a whole new religion. (which I think is crazy because I meet mostly Christians so I find it interesting how much it has spread and how popular it is today) Jesus himself even made Jerusalem less important in Christian eyes. He predicted the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem changing it to a portable faith until his marker of his burial and resurrection happened.
I believe a huge change forming of now day Christianity is the rule of Constantine (he would kill and use the name of Jesus as his purpose). He conquered Jerusalem and saw the growing popularity of Christianity and used it. He legalized it and gathered leaders to create the Council of Nicaea that created the main laws of Christina concept, the doctrine of the Trinity. At this point there was less diversity and exclusion of all those who didn't follow these EXACT beliefs.....good or bad?

Week7

King Herod, good or bad. The king did a lot of good for the people that benefited them in they end, but the people still didn't like him. He was appointed to your Jerusalem from the Romans. He was from a area of forced Judaism, so he knew of Jewish traditions but was not a real Jewish follower. It was his knowledge of the Jewish traditions that allowed him to last as long as he did with out a rebellion.
"Herod the Great" ruled 37-4 BCE, he was impulsive and paranoid. He murdered anyone that threatened him, even his own children of wives. He did good for the people, his obsession with building made it so every person had a job, he allowed the Jewish people to pick their own High Priest, married one of their people (even though he ended up killing her, but at the time it helped), was generous during time of famine, his coins avoided pagans signs and human faces. He did everything not to directly offend the Jewish people. However they still hated him, he didn't do good for the people, he was a puppet to the Roman empire. He was a dictator but it worked for him as a ruler.

Week6

So moving on to the period of the 2nd Temple. Do we build it, do we not build it, do we even need at temple? Well during this period the second temple built to replace the first temple gets destroyed anyways (but we haven't really talked about that yet). Persian had liberated the people from Jerusalem from the Babylonians. I think it was more, "yeah we took over Babylonian!" then "wow how did all of these people get here?". So adopted this cool way of ruling people in a friendly kind of way. Sent all the people that had been exiled from Jerusalem back to the city with money to build a new temple (o ya, leave, be ruled by me, but I'll let you be free). Pretty smart I say, a happy employee is a good one, definitely better than a dead one.
  HOWEVER!!! this transitions of the exiled people of Jerusalem back to Jerusalem were their are already people living there (old people of Jerusalem meshed with people shoved in there from the Babylonians). Some people don't want to change how they are living and others do. The city expanded but there was conflict among the people. It was a fight to build the temple.

Week5

One lecture this week, and basically it was kind of depressing. Good new was that Jerusalem had a increased amount of literature in the common people. There were writings called the "Lanchish letters" where the righting of a common solider talk about the negative stigma with illiteracy. Also there was a braclet found with a prayer written on it from the Bible (and it brings to question how this pray came about in the Bible), but this is all a positive!
Now the bad news. Jerusalem is taken over by Babylonians in 586 BCE. First all the intelligent and skilled people of Jerusalem were exiled from the city. Then after King Jehoichin tried to rebel against the Babylonians, so they got mad and then banished all the people from Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple of Solomon. This happening made many people question the everything they had know. Everything that people had been taught from Gods promise to David was contradicted by reality.

Week4

So, this week we learned about a few kings, the split of Israel and the big bad Assyrians.
  Basically in the reading I was getting frustrated mainly because I thought I was reading the same thing over and over and over again. "there was a king who rule for this long, his mothers name was this, and he did evil in the eyes of the LORD...he did evil in the eyes of the LORD...he did evil in the eyes of the LORD"...you would think these kings would start to learn and STOP doing evil. When David and Solomon die this was supposedly the end of the GOLDEN AGE. The rule under Solomon's son Rehobam split Israel into a North and South because Rehobam wouldn't appease the North. The North is most of Israel but the South has Jerusalem. Also the South has the main perspective in the Bible so...the North ditched and the South was good and stayed under their ruler.
  But either way the big bad Assyrians come in. This huge army that brags about the horrible killings and murder of thousands on art all over. So basically the Assyrians conquer the North and the people of Israel start fleeing to the South to hid in Jerusalem and Jerusalem grows big time. At this point Hezekiah is the king (the good king as he is later refereed to because he did good so he received good). The Assyrians and Rabshaken come to the wall of Jerusalem (like in Monty Python and the Holy Grail- awesome movie!) and taunt the city. Hekekiah asks question for God what he should do and God says do nothing. An angel strikes down most of the Assyrian troops and then they run away. So Jerusalem is not over taken because it is defended by God (so people see Jerusalem as sacred). Hezekian then centralizes the faith and worship of Israel. His son Manasseh undoes all of Hezekiah's work so they say Manasseh is the bad king. BUT the next ruler Josiah is a good king again and re centralized the worship (but he has a short rule because he is killed in battle). Also during Josiah's rule the Assyrian power declines (but as they fall the Babylons rise. PROBLEM!).

Week3

   David, real or not! Seriously, the story of David and Goliath is epic. Its in the Bible but has been made into a classic story of the small destroying the big guy. Even I knew the story. I didn't even know there was more to David than just that story of him as a child (to be honest I didn't know that was a Bible story). But David was a King of Jerusalem supposedly during the 9th c. I say supposedly because there actually hasn't been archaeological evidence found to support he ever existent. However there is a lot of righting of him in the Bible. He said in the Bible to be a great warrior also was depicted as a righteous man. Also there is a City of David in Jerusalem.
   So supposedly also David wanted to make a temple for God and a house for himself, but God told him not to. God told David that he was not to build them, Davids son was to build them. God said He would make the temple and thus the rule of David would go on forever, and his line would never die. Davids son Solomon supposedly built Solomon's Temple that had the room Holy of Holies which houses the Ark of the Covenant. However, all though all of this is mentioned in the Bible in great detail, there is once again no archaeological evident of Solomon and Solomon's Temple that was supposedly destroyed. All very strange.

Week2

      We began class talking about the idea of sacred space and axis mundi. Sacred space is a the "Navel of the World" supposedly this is where all the universe began from. and sacred space is where people can go to worship God. Not worship of the dead like the pyramids of ancient Egypt but a place to the divine heaven and LORD. Place that have been suggested to be sacred are Beth-le "the house of god" and the Temple Mount that houses the Dome of the Rock and the Wailing Wall. The Dome of the Rock supposedly has the original skull of Adam (in the creation story of the Bible) buried underneath the Rock. We cant really check though because of the sacred Rock in the way.
     The writing of the ultimate divine God you cant say his real name. I never knew that God wasn't the name of the all powerful person or thing that created the universe. In the writings it is referred to mainly as a he. Also written as the LORD in all caps signifying the Hebrew name. They also say God out of respect. The belief is once the true name of the LORD or God is written it can never be erased so the replaced it.
    Plus there is a theory that the original inhabitants of Jerusalem were either entirely wiped out, not defeated, or that they continued to live there and people just separated themselves or years of inhabitants. Based on pottery there doesn't appear to be a change in residence though.

Week1 ANAEA10W

So before January 4, 2011, I knew nothing to little about Jerusalem. I didn’t even know that there are three faiths residing in Jerusalem. No only is there Judaism but also Christianity and Islamic! Who knew!? Also, I knew Jerusalem was a place, I just didn’t know what was so special about it. I mean really, when I learned there was no direct water sources or trade routes for the city it just didn’t seem to make sense. It’s not in a very populated area except for the Holy City its self. Sure it’s cool that it’s well protected being on a hill and everything but that just adds to the seclusion of the city.

            However, after the second lecture in class I learned a lot about the geographic significance and other interesting stuff. Like the city is the shape of the Star Trek Spock hand sign (live long and prosper) upside down with the palm facing you. So it isn’t exactly the same hand sign but it’s a good little trick to look at the land shape. Also they have a spring that goes directly into the city (Gihon Spring) that directly fed fresh water to the city. The old architecture of it was pretty cool. Push there are these shrines (Solomon’s Temple, Holy of Holies, dome of the Rock), special quotes from the Bible (Genesis:2, Ezekiel 47, Revelation 22) suggesting the Holiness of the city. Plus the J-man (Jesus) did some cool stuff in that area.