Sharing Sacred Spaces
In reading, Karen Armstrong's Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths, the author works to show the history of a place contains so much important history to the three Amrahamic religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Armstrong describes a history loaded with myths but doesn't want the reader to automatically assume that means the stories are untrue. The myths of history are to be taken seriously and can provide a real insight into the past. This myths are usually tide to a specific religion and can even have contradicting stories for the same things across the religions present in this area.
Armstrong makes note of the importance of the myths and history behind the land that is Jerusalem. This place is considered incredibly holy across all three religions. Armstrong points out that "this makes it very difficult for them to see the city objectively because it has become bound up with their conceptions of themselves and the ultimate reality - sometimes called 'God' or the sacred - that gives our mundane life meaning and value" (Page xvi). The fact that this land is not only has an incredibly strong history but that it also holds so many sacred spaces for different religions is that makes this land so holy to everyone.
Bearing in mind the significant importance of Jerusalem, many of this story of this regions history seem to contradict each other or not be entirely whole. Because these religions are all born out of Abraham, where he planned to offer his son Issac to God holds significant importance to the region. God choose a spot close to the heaven for Abraham to go to and actually created an axis mundi when God sent an angel to stop the offering. Sites like this on Mount Moriah hold major significance to the religions of the area. However, this story is born largely out of myth, as Armstrong had told us during her introduction. This doesn't mean that it is anyless important to the religions it concerns but instead helps remind us of the deep seeded roots of the area. An area this old and with this much rich history relies on information it has access to, especially myths.
Decent blog post about the idea of sacred space and Jerusalem with a reference to Armstrong's book and the idea of myth and history.
ReplyDeleteI like that you include an image, but the resolution is really low. For future posts you should find higher resolution images that allow you to make the images larger on the page (preferably the same width as the text).