Jumping straight into the works of this book, I wanted to point out the very great detail Karen Armstrong goes into when writing. This book is easy to follow and easy to read.
In the first chapter, I was specifically interested in learning more about the Canaan. I read somewhere that the Palestinians' ancestors were Canaanites and then reading more about Canaan really gathered some of my thoughts for me. However, the author started out with saying that we know very little about the original inhabitants of Jerusalem. Most of which she writes about are from resources like the Hebrew bible (the Tanakh) and further texts such as these. It makes it almost impossible to think otherwise about the formation of Jerusalem and present day Palestine/Isreal from reading this book. To me, it is almost also a discouragement.
Further on in the book, she mentioned something I had already known or had a hypothesis of. She asked the question: "Who were the Israelites?" (22) In my own research I had thoughts to myself that the ancient people of Israel were all from Egypt because that is where they lived before coming to Canaan. Karen Armstrong mentioned in the book that Israelites, according to the Bible, originally came from Mesopotamia and temporarily settled in Canaan before relocating to Egypt because of a famine. It is just interesting solely because we know very little of anyone yet information keeps coming up and revealing itself from the works of historians and archeologists.
The first seven chapters really dissects the entire region piece by piece in order for us to get a glimpse of the history. I was not frustrated when reading the first parts of this book at all as I normally would be. I think the bigger picture here is that Jerusalem was not only the holy place for all three monotheistic religions but it once inhabited people of more ancient faiths and languages. For instance the Akkadians and Canaanite language then from what it seems paganism or polytheistic religions originally existed there.
I am really excited to read more of this book.
Questions:
1. Before reading Karen Armstrong's book, what exactly were your thoughts about who were the first inhabitants of Jerusalem?
2. Sometimes Karen derives her work from texts such as the Bible and the Tanakh, like we discussed in class about validity of these articles, do you personally think information from these resources are valid?
In the first chapter, I was specifically interested in learning more about the Canaan. I read somewhere that the Palestinians' ancestors were Canaanites and then reading more about Canaan really gathered some of my thoughts for me. However, the author started out with saying that we know very little about the original inhabitants of Jerusalem. Most of which she writes about are from resources like the Hebrew bible (the Tanakh) and further texts such as these. It makes it almost impossible to think otherwise about the formation of Jerusalem and present day Palestine/Isreal from reading this book. To me, it is almost also a discouragement.
Further on in the book, she mentioned something I had already known or had a hypothesis of. She asked the question: "Who were the Israelites?" (22) In my own research I had thoughts to myself that the ancient people of Israel were all from Egypt because that is where they lived before coming to Canaan. Karen Armstrong mentioned in the book that Israelites, according to the Bible, originally came from Mesopotamia and temporarily settled in Canaan before relocating to Egypt because of a famine. It is just interesting solely because we know very little of anyone yet information keeps coming up and revealing itself from the works of historians and archeologists.
The first seven chapters really dissects the entire region piece by piece in order for us to get a glimpse of the history. I was not frustrated when reading the first parts of this book at all as I normally would be. I think the bigger picture here is that Jerusalem was not only the holy place for all three monotheistic religions but it once inhabited people of more ancient faiths and languages. For instance the Akkadians and Canaanite language then from what it seems paganism or polytheistic religions originally existed there.
I am really excited to read more of this book.
Questions:
1. Before reading Karen Armstrong's book, what exactly were your thoughts about who were the first inhabitants of Jerusalem?
2. Sometimes Karen derives her work from texts such as the Bible and the Tanakh, like we discussed in class about validity of these articles, do you personally think information from these resources are valid?
