BYU Studies Quarterly BYU Studies Quarterly

Volume 37 Issue 4 Article 18

10-1-1997

Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths Karen Armstrong; Karen Armstrong; Jerusalem:

The Eternal City David B. Galbraith, D. Kelly Ogden and Andrew C. David B. Galbraith, D. Kelly Ogden and Andrew C.

Skinner Skinner

Gordon A. Madsen

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Recommended Citation Recommended Citation Madsen, Gordon A. (1997) "Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths Karen Armstrong; Jerusalem: The Eternal City David B. Galbraith, D. Kelly Ogden and Andrew C. Skinner," BYU Studies Quarterly: Vol. 37 : Iss. 4 , Article 18. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq/vol37/iss4/18

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KAREN ARMSTRONG jerusalem one city three faiths new yorkalfred A knopf 1996 xxiaxi 471 ppap index illustrations maps bib-liographylio 175017.501750

DAVID B GALBRAITH D KELLY OGDEN ANDREW C SKINNER

jerusalem the eternal city salt lake city deseret book 1996 xi493 ppap index illustrations maps appendices bibliography 249524.952495

reviewed by gordon A madsen an attorney in salt lake city utah

two summary histories ofofjerusalemjerusalem the holy city both writ-ten in 1996 on the eve of the three thousandth anniversary ofdavids establishment ofofjerusalemjerusalem as israels capital could scarcelybe more different one is written by a former roman catholic nunwho left her order to study at oxford and later taught at leo baeckcollege for the study of judaism she has written a biography ofmohammed a history of the crusades and more recently her his-tory of god the other study is a collaboration written primarilyfor a mormon audience by three LDS educators all of whom haveserved for various periods on the faculty of the BYU center fornear eastern studies at jerusalem

the subtitles of both books give us a clue as to their thesesarmstrong writes of jerusalem as one city three faiths with thesmooth prose of a seasoned storyteller her history recounts mansrepeated inhumanity to man in the holy city galbraith ogdenand skinner on the other hand see jerusalem as the eternal cityconstantly in gods mind and purposes one is secular history theother is providential history

three faiths has a threefold agenda its first basic premise is

that the old testament is a collection of myths at least until thetime of david armstrong argues that the first five books of the biblecannot be considered historical in our sense 25 by which shemeans that the stories of abraham moses the judges and otherpre davidic personalities were the invention of later chroniclersand were created to legitimatize israel as a chosen people of god andto justify their claim to the land of canaan she ignores a consider-able body of pre davidic evidence and scholarship in holding tothat premise

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armstrongs second undergirding premise is that mortalcontact with the divine is unknowable or better essentiallyindescribable 147 48 she rejects out of hand divine explana-tions for forjerusalemsjerusalemsJerusalems history preferring rationalist interpretationsthat describe the cityscites history in terms of purely human foiblesand appetites

these two prenpremisesasesdses lend themselves to the broader frame-work she builds contrasting the irrational history and experienceof the true believer against the scientific and historically moreaccurate account she provides unfortunately armstrongs use ofthe tools of scientific history is not always sure handed at onepoint she asserts that david adopted wholesale the religious prac-tices of thethejebusitesjebusitesJebus ites the inhabitants of jerusalem at the time ofdavids conquest 394139 41 in so arguing she leaves many featuresand furnishings of the temple unaccounted for features thatother scholars assert originated in israelite history before thetime of david moreover armstrong ignores the whole subject ofprophecy and specifically those prophecies that concern jeru-salem itself

the third and most pervasive premise repeated throughoutthree faiths is that all the great religions insist that the test oftrue spirituality is practical compassion some of the worstatrocities have occurred when people have put the purity ofjerusalem and the desire to gain access to its great sanctity beforethe quest for justice and charity axixxi having gently chidedchidedjewsjewschristians and muslims through most of the book for not living upto their belief systems she concludes the societies that havelasted the longest in the holy city have genegenerallyraBy been the onesthat were prepared for some kind of tolerance and coexistence427 she thus deplores the use of myth or religion to justify land

grabs as she views the cityscites history and unapologetically tells all

factions in jerusalem that they should get along with each other itis one thing to take all three faiths to task for not living up to theirsystems of belief in terms of human relations but it is quiteanother audacious presumption to tell them in the name of objec-tive history that their religions are all wrong it further becomeshypocritical when objective history takes factual vacations anditself is used to promote one albeit attractive political objective

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ultimately her effort leaves one important problem un-addressed that is having mythologizedmythologizer the god that all three faithsowe the duty to love and obey she provides no alternative impera-tive for loving or serving one another as a basis for achieving peaceand harmony put simply armstrong assumes that stripping thethree faiths of their imperative to love god will cause their ad-herents to automatically or spontaneously love their fellowmanlowmanyellowmanfel insome form of secular utopia the last centuryscenturys experience withsecular utopias should give pause enough to consider exactly whatit means to tell one quarter of the earths population that godnever lived in his city

the eternal city although very different from three faiths is

an equally programmatic study growing largely out of the BYU

study abroad program at the jerusalem center it is a serious effortto survey and include biblical and archaeological scholarship aug-mented and interpreted primarily by latter day saint revelation

the cityscites history thus begins with melchizedek the authorsdraw heavily on texts in genesis expanded by joseph smithstranslations together with passages in alma and the doctrine andcovenants melchizedek and abraham are historic persons in thisbook not mythological creations abrahams offering of isaac onmt moriah these authors argue identifies and sanctifiedsanctifies the sitefor the temples subsequently built there

considerably less emphasis on the islamic involvement injerusalem appears in the eternal city than is found in threefaiths A wealth of information is offered however about thelatter day saint involvement in jerusalem beginning with orsonhyde and continuing to the present including prophecies biblicaland LDS concerning the holy city

since these authors include LDS sources in their study a

stronger coverage in that area would have added even furtherinsights for example they include joseph smiths translation ofluke 246 detailing jesus visit to the temple at age twelve whichmakes the distinction that he answered the doctors in the templebut asked no questions himself the authors could and should inthis reviewers opinion have included the joseph smith transla-tion version of matthew 325 and he spake not as other men nei-ther could he be taught for he needed not that any man should

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teach him the authors historical scholarship lapses occasionallyas well for example their assertion that the palestinian talmudwas composed in jamnia ororjabnehjabnehjabner is disputed if not discardedby scholars 2 on the other hand the inclusion of topographicaland geological information including maps and of a glossary ofbiblical midrashic islamic and other terms is very useful

the providential orientation in this book leads on occasionto exaggeration it surely overstates the matter to claim thatthroughout history jerusalem has stood for holiness for as-

cendancycendancy for centrality jerusalem is the connection the umbili-cal cord between heaven and earth 488 such excess not onlyreflects misdirected zeal but also can lead to potentially inflam-matory innuendos

again the eternal city describes the BYU jerusalem centeras being not unlike the temples of old where the faithful gath-ered by the thousands to be instructed in spiritual matters 470even though the authors presumably wrote this sentence intend-ing to describe the center in an academic sense rather than in ajewish context of gods house of spiritual instruction the latterassociation might easily be made it is well therefore to keep inmind the disclaimer given in the preface of the eternal city thatthese interpretations and opinions do not necessarily represent

the official position of the church of jesus christ of latter daysaints or any other ecclesiastical or educational institution x noone need conclude from this volume that latter day saints havebuilt the millennial temple or that the BYU center is destined tobecome such

much remains to be learned about jerusalem both its historyand its destiny rabbinical traditions latter day revelation and thepurposes of god among all of his children on this earth remind usthat we really do not know much about gods future plans forjerusalem and its temple the question of whether latter day saintsare to be spectators participants or both and to what extent isat best speculation

these two volumes make a direct and pervasive contrastbetween a secular and a providential approach to jerusalemsJerusalems his-tory the best of both is necessary to enable one to come to under-stand the richness of the holy cityscites past

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NOTES

see for example carol meyers temple jerusalem 636351655151 69 and jachinand boaz 3597983597 98 in the anchor bible dictionary ed david noel freedman6 vols new york doubleday 1992 and john M lundquist biblical templein the oxford encyclopedia ofaogagfaof archaeology in the near east ed eric M meyers5 vols new york oxford university press 1997132430199713241997 132413245013243030

seeee jack P lewis jamnia jabnehjabner council of 3634373634 37 gary Gporton talmud 6313 and james F strange biberiastiberiasTiberias 6549 in anchorbible Dictiondictionaryay

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