Jerusalem as The Center

 Karen Armstrong's Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths focuses on the importance of the land of Jerusalem.  She explores how so many religions can draw their way back to Jerusalem as a place of extreme connection to God. The land of Jerusalem has been seen as an excess to the heavens across different times and different religions. So, how can this be? In Chapter 3, we are introduced to many different reasons why Jerusalem held and continues to hold such significance. During the United Kingdom, David brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. The ark of the covenant was the footstool of the Lord and for bringing it "Yahweh gave an unequivocal sign that he had indeed chosen David to be King of Israel" (Page 41). The connection of such a holy item with the land of Jerusalem was one that was never severed and is continually felt today. Although David didn't build the temple of Jerusalem, his son Solomon did, the influence of the Ark of the Covenant still played a major part in where the temple would go. "A king could not choose the site of a temple: it had to be built at a site which had been revealed as one of the 'centers' of the world" (Pages 44-45). The Ark of the Covenant represented that access to the divine will and the temple was created to protect it. 

The temple served as the home for the Ark of the Covanent and was kept in the Devir where one the highest priest would come and visit once a year. The temple and the ark provided direct access to God in Jerusalem and was a site that was not only important to the people but the state itself. "In acient world, the distruction of a royal temple was tantamount to the destruction of the state, which could not survbive without a 'center' linking it to heaven" (Page 77). When the Kingdom of Judah feel and the ark was lost, there was no more connection to the heaven and therefore the state couldn't surive. 

The Ark of the Covenant 

https://www.livescience.com/64932-the-ark-of-the-covenant.html