The Land Called Holy: Palestine in Christian History and Thought - Hardcover

Wilken, Professor Robert Louis

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300054912 ISBN 13: 9780300054910

Publisher: Yale University Press, 1992

Synopsis

From the time of Jesus, Palestine has been an integral part of the Christian experience. Not only have Christians always lived in Palestine, but since the fourth century, Christians gradually came to see Palestine as the Holy Land and Jerusalem as the Christian city. In this book, Robert Wilken discuses how Palestine became a Holy Land to Christians and how Christian ideas and feelings toward the land of the Bible evolved as they lived there and made it their own. Drawing on both primary texts and archaeological evidence, Wilken traces the Christian conception of a Holy Land from its origins in the Hebrew Bible to the Muslim conquest of Jeruslaem in the seventh century. He also discusses Jewish ideas of the land and the Jewish response to the Christianization of the Land of Israel. The heart of the book considers how Jerusalem and the biblical land came to be viewed not simply as a place of pilgrimage, but as a place to live, a country with a unique history and privileged status in the Christian world. Wilken concludes with an account of Christian hopes for restoration of Jerusalem after the Muslim conquest, the continuation of Christian life under Muslim rule, and the adoption of Arabic as the language of Christian worship and thought.

About this title

From Library Journal:

The history of Christians in Palestine and the Christian depiction of Palestine as the Holy Land (and Jerusalem as the Holy City) form the background for this textual and archaeological assessment of Christian presence there. According to Wilken, "No matter how many centuries have passed, no matter where the Christian religion has set down roots, Christians are wedded to the land that gave birth to Christ and the Christian religion." Essential to the living witness of this Middle Eastern (not European) religion, claims Wilken, is the vitality of Christian communities in the land of Jesus' birth. For academic libraries.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0300054912
• ISBN 13: 9780300054910
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 355