Reading Response 3

In the introduction of Karen Armstrong's "Jerusalem; One City, Three Faiths", Armstrong asserts that one issue that makes the Jerusalem question so hard to define is the fact that Jerusalem has become a "Mythical" place.  What she means by this is that due to the strong religious beliefs stemming from the 3 monotheistic religions who all claim right to the city of Jerusalem, the city itself has become a place of holy tradition.  This is problematic because it is considered "holy" by three separate groups of people. 

In the first chapter, entitled "Zion", I learned a lot about the physical location that is Mount Zion, as well as it's spiritual significance.  Prior to reading this article my knowledge of anything "Zion" related was limited to knowing the definition of "Zionism" from one of my Political Science classes.  So reading this chapter was especially interesting for me.  I learned about how amongst rabbi, Mount Zion was considered the highest place in the world.  What the Rabbis meant by this however, was that it was the most important location for spirituality in the world, not that it was physically larger than any other location in the world. 

In the second chapter, entitled "Israel", Armstrong gives us a brief history of the Israelites and their journey to, and from Egypt as well as their journey to Mount Sinai from which Moses descended bearing the Ten Commandments.  Something I found interesting in this part of the article would be the relationship between Saul and David.  Prior to reading this I knew that the two were connected, but I did not know the full extent of how close they really were.  It was interesting for me to learn that David inherited the kingdom of Israel from Saul through his marriage to Michal.

The third chapter in Armstrong's book is entitled "The City of David".  In this chapter Armstrong talks about David, the territory he ruled, and the eventual succession of this territory by Solomon.  I learned that Solomon was suspicious of Jeroboam due to a prophecy that stated that Jeroboam would rule the 10 Northern tribes of Israel.  Acting on this suspicion, Solomon tried to have Jeroboam assassinated. Jeroboam fled to Egypt, waited for Solomon to die, and then finally returned. I found all of this interesting, because I had very little knowledge of this topic prior to this class.