Pilgrimage

Pilgrimage, Day 3

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Today has been a long day. We started the day at the Jerusalem University College campus for a briefing on Dr. Jack Beck’s approach to geography in the Bible.

If it’s not clear that I’m a nerd, this may have been my favorite part of the day. By my understanding, Dr. Beck’s approach is essentially existential–the geography of the land formed a crucial and central part of the worldview and cosmic understanding of the Biblical authors. Understanding the geography of the Holy Land helps us to understand the way that they thought and felt about the subjects about which they wrote.

This existential–and unfortunately, mostly intellectual–understanding informed my day today more than I had anticipated.

After our morning classroom session, we proceeded through Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter to the Western Wall, the part of the late retaining wall built for the Second Temple that is closest to where the Holy of Holies once stood. Many of those traveling with our group felt the tangible presence and power of the Lord in approaching the wall. I, unfortunately, did not. I saw a pile of old stones. Historically and religiously significant, of course, but no more directly relevant to my spiritual understanding than any rock formation built from Creation. In some ways, I envy those whose experiences were more profound than my own, and I take some solace in the fact that that’s the majority of our group.

But my own experience also directly relates to some points that Dr. Beck has made as well as more expansive conversations I’ve had with fellow pilgrims. Both Judaism and Islam have significant attachment to physical location Christianity, focused ultimately on the person of Jesus Christ (and, perhaps, on orthodoxy rather than orthopraxy), does not have as strong a (institutional or faith-wide) focus on geographically significant places.

Considering the journey I’m on, with its particular focus on geography, that statement requires some unpacking. For Jews, the physical presence of the Lord within the Temple constitutes a central locus for the religion. For Islam, the Holy City of Mecca represents a physical place strongly tied to the faith it represents and embodies. For Christianity, however, the focus of embodiment is a focus on God adopting human flesh, not upon a geographic locale. And the God who dwells among us is simultaneously more universal and more ephemeral than geography–that is the way of all flesh. In some sense, that perhaps undermines the (temporal) power of Christianity. Ultimately, though, it makes the theology of Christianity far more applicable and far more enduring than those of the other “faiths of the book.”

If that is the case, then the geography of the Holy Land holds power to better help us understand the person and words of Jesus Christ without itself verging on idolatry as the physical bearer of what the Hawai’ians might call “mana.” But the land itself is not a source of salvation as it might be considered to be in Judaism and Islam. This analysis, I hope, is what influenced my lack of strong emotional response to the Western Wall. I found myself more moved by the significance of the devotion of worshippers at the site than the site itself.

After the wall, we traveled to the City of David, that hill to the south of the Temple Mount that likely represents Jerusalem after David seized it from the Jebusites (and, indeed, the city had been called Jebus before the Israelites conquered it). I found the geography here fascinating for its claustrophobic space–an entire settlement containing only 10 acres. Solomon would follow his father by building the First Temple of the Lord, expanding the are of Jerusalem to something closer to 32 acres. The archeology, which has been ongoing for over 20 years at the site, made it clear that the location matched both the Bible in description and the material culture for the period of David.

We had intended to travel through the “wet” tunnel built by King Hezekiah to bring water from the Gihon Spring in the Kidron valley to the Central Valley on the other side of Mount Zion (the ancient mount Zion on which the City of David was built, not the more modern “Mount Zion” partially contained within the Old City walls, on the outside of which the JUC campus sits) but were hindered by scheduling difficulties. We were only able to pass through the earlier Canaanite “dry” tunnel that allowed passage to the pool tower to which water from the spring flowed from behind the fortification walls. This was quite enough.

After that, we walked down Mount Zion to the Pool of Siloam (and then back up) and back to through the Old City to the hotel. My Fitbit marked over 15,000 steps before the end of the day.

After dinner, I went to find some baklava near the Jaffa Gate to debrief on our experiences. The camaraderie certainly vied for the best part of the day, though I have to say that, ultimately, it’s sharing these experiences with K that ultimately does that.

Tomorrow, very early, we leave to head to Caesarea Maritima, Nazareth, and the Sea of Galilee.

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Pilgrimage, Day 2: Arrival

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For the previous entry, click here.

This evening, at least by Israeli time, I write to you from the Gloria Hotel just inside the Old Jerusalem city walls near the Jaffa gate.

We arrived at about 4:20 p.m. local time after a mostly sleepless night on the plane. An hour-and-a-half or so to get through passport control and baggage claim, an hour from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem by bus, a fifteen minute walk up to the Jaffa Gate and the hotel, fifteen minutes to get room keys and take baggage up to the hotel room, and finally dinner at 7:30. After dinner, an intrepid companion and I decided on an evening stroll through the Old City.

It was breathtaking in a number of ways. The beauty of the old stone (the city wall dates from the 16th Century and is a fascinating combination of medieval design approaches. The Old City itself is a tangled ball of streets, sidestreets, alleys, closes and stone stairs, the historical equivalent of the steel canyons of a modern downtown, with stone buildings overhanging on both sides of each street.

My intent was simply to wander and wonder, to soak in all they I could of the environment without being to focused about it, to let it wash over me. This the city did without holding back. We wandered into the Muslim Quarter, where shopkeeps and their children were closing up for the evening. From the instant we encountered the Damascus Gate (we had exited the Old City through the New Gate and followed the outer wall to the Damascus Gate to re-enter), it was clear that things were different there. Four IDF soldiers with M4s stood watch over the entrance, cordoned off by steel traffic barriers like they occupied a make-believe guard tower.

Further into the Quarter, we encountered a squad of eight IDF soldiers in full tactical gear patting down a single young Palestinian man in soccer shorts and a jersey. He cooperated (who wouldn’t with that many assault rifles around) and the whole thing seemed rather low-key, quotidian. Perhaps that’s what bothered me most about the seen, the faces on both sides that resignedly said, “This is just the way things are.”

In an instant, that experience shook me from the reverie of this trip. I came for history. I came for spiritual reflection and introspection. I came for friends and theology. And I forgot that there’s a very real and ongoing struggle here, one with victims and perpetrators and perpetuators on both sides–and dozens of those who have become used to this way of life for each one who wants to do something about it.

To be clear, I have no solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I have too little real or meaningful experience from either perspective to do anything but naively say, “Why can’t we all just find a way to peacefully and respectfully co-exist?” I have sympathy for both Israelis and Palestinians and a belief that both sides have fault to claim and both sides will have to learn to forgive for their to be any hope.

And while the particulars of Israeli-Palestinian relations trouble me (to the meager extent that I understand them), what I really took away from the scenes I witnessed in the Muslim culture is a reminder. We cannot separate the past from the present just as we cannot separate the present from the past; they are inextricably bound together for eternity. The study of this trip has little meaning if it does not relate the present needs of the world. And I, of course, firmly believe that the message and redemptive work of the Incarnation, the Passion and the Resurrection are every bit as important now as they’ve ever been. As we start our serious work tomorrow, I’ll be going in with eyes open to the need to find something with modern applicability in every past location, person and event we discover.

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This Year in Jerusalem

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In less than two months, I’m going to Israel. This will be my favorite kind of trip–a study trip with accompanying professors, homework beforehand, and the goal of coming to understand the cultures, history and geography of Israel and its surrounds to better understand scripture.

I am fortunate enough to have this opportunity because of K’s ministry; this is a trip for young clergy and their spouses. Some of my favorite people are going and we could be going to spend two weeks on the Jersey Shore (place or TV show) and I wouldn’t mind. But we’re going to Israel.

We’ve been given books to read and maps to study and mark up before we go. For me, it is a fascinating and tedious process–I see mentions of peoples or places or cultures from the ancient past and go on hours-long rabbit trails that conclude with me writing prodigious notes to myself on the backs of maps that have little to do with the main point of study. Did you know that there’s a good chance that the near-mythical “Hanging Gardens of Bablyon” were actually constructed by Sennacharib in Ninevah? The same Sennacharib mentioned in the Book of Kings as carrying off people from the Kingdom of Israel and nearly destroying the Kingdom of Judah?

None of that time is wasted, though I imagine it’s going to annoy the hell out of K as I offer (unsolicited) trivia throughout our trip. This course of study has made me feel like I’m in grad school again and–being the perpetual student–I’m loving it. Even moreso, it’s directed my thoughts in some ways that I believe will profoundly effect both my theological work and my fiction writing. Many of the things below will likely see their own posts and soon, but here’s some of what I’ve been brought to ponder lately:

Studying maps and geography has been eye-opening in terms of Biblical (and historical understanding). There are so many things that become clearer about both the broader historical context and the context of passages in the Bible when you understand (however abstractly at the current juncture) the “lay of the land.” The locations and movements of the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Arameans, the Edomites and the Moabites and all the other ancient cultures of the Levant sheds light the context of the Israelite people as they journey from polytheism to henotheism to monotheism (and back-and-forth quite a bit). The strategic importance of the Levant on the world stage and the many times it has changed hands over the millennia is just fascinating. There is much to be said about all this (much of it already written by experts in books, so who am I to spend lots of words on it?), but suffice to say that I have studied history extensively and am only now starting to see lots of things come into clarity now that I am locating events and peoples on the map relative to one another. Even some idea of motives become clear when you put things together. All in all, I’m actually a little disappointed that, in all of my historical studies, none of my classes spent a whole lot of time (if any at all) using the geography of the time and place to place events in context.

Of course, all of this study of geography makes me think of Avar Narn. This, coupled with the fact that I’ve recently spent some time looking through Tolkien’s old maps and drawings and their evolution has me going back to the layout and maps of my own fantasy world. I have posted some previous maps of parts of Avar Narn on this site, but I am afraid to say (but not really) that they will soon be obsolete and superseded as I replace them with a more thorough effort at consistently mapping the world (or at least the continent where most of my stories will be set) in line with its history, cultures, and languages. I am beginning to very much envy Martin’s choice to name everything in Westeros in English. In breaks from the map work for my impending journey, I’ve re-sketched the continent, placed it longitudinally and latitudinally, worked out air and sea currents (as best I know how) and, correspondingly, the various climate zones of the space.

Because of some changes in the history of Avar Narn which have occurred both in direct rewriting of that history and from ideas better explored (or created) in the first Avar Narn novel (still very much in progress, of course), there will be further changes to the locations of some of the nations and peoples as shown on the previous maps. Alongside that, I’ll be doing some renaming of locations to tie them in better with the linguistic work I’ve done for the setting. There will definitely be more posts about all of this in the future.

Back to the theology side, where I’ve also been thinking a lot about historicity in theology. This has been something of a journey and a struggle for me. Intellectually–as I’ve communicated through the blog before–I don’t believe that concern with historicity is the most fruitful or meaningful of concerns in understanding our faith. I believe that the text of scripture is divinely inspired–but also filled with human agency and not to be taken literally–but that it’s just not that important to know whether the Exodus actually happened as written (there’s no corroborating evidence that it did). What is important is what the story of the Exodus tells us about our God and the evolving Israelite understanding of God as a macrocosm of the way in which the individual gradually struggles with an understanding of the divine.

At the same time, I cannot deny that the historical context of the Biblical writings is illuminating in its interpretation. And in addition, I find that archeological and historical research can help us understand the human motives in the Bible and perhaps filter some of that from the divinely inspired aspects. For instance, there’s very little evidence to support that the conquering of Canaan as told in Joshua occurred; the gradual occupation of the land by the Israelites as told in Judges seems far more likely.

I’m fine with this; it doesn’t bother me that the Bible may not be historically accurate on all fronts–it’s not meant to be a history (well, maybe Joshua and Judges are somewhat) and has a different purpose for us that should not be confused with absolute historicity. In the same way, Genesis is not intended to be a science manual for the creation of all things.

What I’m struggling with is how emotionally bound to questions of historicity I find myself (in spite of myself). There’s a pang of upset in my stomach when I find that an event as told in the Bible is probably not actually how something happened.

I believe in the historicity of Jesus, but I’d be a Christian even if I didn’t–I believe that the story of Jesus tells us Truth about the nature of our Creator, Sustainer and Savior that is unfettered by our existential reference points. So why do I find myself caring so much about the answers to historicity? Especially when it’s clear that–in broad strokes at least–the Old Testament narrative about the Jews’ evolving relationship with God is borne out by the historical record. I think that this is a matter of wanting things to simple, clear and absolute. And this from someone who finds great wonder in the complexity, ambiguity and mystery of existence! Perhaps that’s what it comes down to–a minor crisis of identity. And that makes me wonder whether all obsessions with the historicity of Biblical events spawns from that very human concern.

In general, I think that the Christian testimony–as an unfairly broad generalization–would be perceived as more reasonable (which I believe it inherently is) if we were able to communicate our faith in a way that incorporates questions of historicity without being dominated by them. Many a man has gone in search of Noah’s Ark (with many claims to have found it), but even an indisputable confirmation of its existence would not tell us much about who God is that the Bible doesn’t tell us already.

I’m sure you’ll hear more about that as I post (to the extent that I’m able) from Israel, where the question will, in some part, be a constant concern of mine (if not all of us traveling together). Stay tuned for more on all fronts.

See my journal of the trip here.