Karen Armstrong presents to us the history of Jerusalem, and that of the greater Canaan, in an engaging, provoking narrative. Equally informative and interesting, she reveals, in reliable prose, the timeless human dependence on the sacred, the symbolic, and the mythological.
In her introduction, Armstrong introduces these three recurring themes (symbols, the sacred, and myth). She insists that human beings in the ancient world attempted to make sense of the world through the sacred, attempted to "find healing in the experience of the sacred." The creation of myth was the "ancient form of psychology," engaging in the mysterious and unknown. And a symbol had the "power of introducing worshipers to the sacred realm."
It was interesting to read about how the importance of Jerusalem to Judaism did not come about in a divinely natural way- that it's importance to David lied in Jerusalem's strategic location in regards to its natural protective barriers and the fluid connection of David's Land of Judah to the Land of Israel in the north. These are things I never knew about the beginnings of my own religion. David's acceptance and embrace of the Jebusites is interesting, especially in respect to his unequal treatment of Israel. Who are the direct descendants of the Jebusites?
Also intriguing to me is the fact that, in the days of David and Solomon all the way to Nebuchadnezzar's destruction of the first temple, Judaism (or the origins of Judaism) was not necessarily a monotheistic religion. Lesser gods were acknowledged. Even more interesting is Armstrong's assertion that Yahweh was not particularly disturbed by this. This is huge and confusing. I've always been under the impression that, since the time of Abraham, there has always been one god in the eyes of the Jews. It become clear, to me, through Armstrong's historical account that religion must often change in order to adhere to the "circumstances of the people."
In these first few chapters I noticed the oft recurring mention of "justice" - "welfare of the people," "integrity of tenure," and "honor and respect." When Armstrong mentions these words, she connects them with the sacred and the holy. Justice was a part of attaining a successful land. In light of today, I fear that perhaps this notion has been lost, forgotten, or (hopefully not so) merely ignored. At the end of her introduction, Armstrong admits, "some of the worst atrocities have occurred when people have put the purity of Jerusalem and the desire to gain access to its great sanctity before the quest for justice and charity." How true these words are and how evident that, from the very beginning of its place in history, Jerusalem's keepers have often been guilty of putting faith before justice - rather than embracing the two in peaceful unison.
This is a well articulated reading response.
ReplyDeleteOld testament depictions of Yahweh acknowledging other deities surprised me as well. In Hebrew School, I learned that there were innumerable names for God, but I was never told that these names were once the names of ancient non-Jewish Semitic and Middle Eastern Deities. Once, I visited an ancient synagogue in Israel with carvings of Greek deities on the interior walls.
Perhaps borrowing and "syncretizing" myths and other religious motifs have occurred throughout Jewish history, and perhaps still occur today. Israel is such a diverse country, in a certain way, and every person practices their religion slightly differently. Moroccan Jews pray differently than Polish Jews, know what I'm sayin'? Throughout the Diaspora, it seems that Jews have been incorporating aspects of different cultures, which they have encountered in different locals, into their own religious practices.
Notions of maintaining purity in terms of monotheistic religious practice, ethnic bloodline, and sacredness in space, all seem to diminish connections to other Canaanite religious traditions. I'm curious what spawned the movement to invent the Abrahamic ancestry myths? May be it's not invented.