Jerusalem Without God

There is no escaping the Jerusalem of the religious imagination. Not once but three times holy, its overwhelming spiritual significance looms large over the city's complex urban landscape and the diurnal rhythms and struggles that make up its earthbound existence. Nonetheless, writes Paola Caridi, in this intimate and hard-hitting portrayal of the city, it is possible to close one's eyes and, "like the blind listening to sounds," discern the conflict and plurality of belonging that mark out the city' secular character. Jerusalem without God leads the reader through the streets, malls, suburbs, traffic jams, and squares of Jerusalem's present moment, into the daily lives of the men and women who inhabit it. Caridi brings contemporary Jerusalem alive by describing it as a place of sights and senses, sounds and smells, but she also shows us a city riven by the harsh asymmetry of power and control embodied in its lines, limits, walls, and borders. She explores a cruel city, where Israeli and Palestinian civilians sometimes spend hours in the same supermarkets, only to return to the confines of their respective districts, invisible to each other; a city memorable for its ancient stones and shimmering sunsets but dotted with Israeli checkpoints, "postmodern drawbridges," that control the movement of people, ideas, and potential attackers. Describing Jerusalem through the lenses of urban planners and politicians, anthropologists and archaeologists, advertisers and scholars, Jerusalem without God reveals a city that is as diverse as it is complex, and ultimately, argues its author, one whose destiny cannot be tied to any single religious faith, tradition, or political ideology.

Jerusalem without God leads the reader through the streets, malls, suburbs, traffic jams, and squares of Jerusalem's present moment, into the daily lives of the men and women who inhabit it. Caridi brings contemporary Jerusalem alive by describing it as a place of sights and senses, sounds and smells, but she also shows us a city riven by the harsh asymmetry of power and control embodied in its lines, limits, walls, and borders. She explores a cruel city, where Israeli and Palestinian civilians sometimes spend hours in the same supermarkets, only to return to the confines of their respective districts, invisible to each other.

The saga of the city from its founding thousands of years ago to the present.

The story of King Hezekiah and King Sennacherib, 2 Kings 18-19 and 2 Chronicles 32:1-23. When Sennacherib sent his army to conquer Jerusalem, he sent a message with them: the God of Israel was insignificant. Sennacheribs great sin was unbelief, a direct contrast to Hezekiahs unshakeable belief in the God of Israel. God answered faithful Hezekiahs prayer and sent an angel to destroy the Assyrian army gathered around Jerusalemall 185,000 of them, all at the same time.

Explains why apocalyptic thought, despite often being dismissed as bizarre, has persistent appeal in political life.

Venerated for millennia by three faiths, torn by irreconcilable conflict, conquered, rebuilt, and mourned for again and again, Jerusalem is a sacred city whose very sacredness has engendered terrible tragedy. In this fascinating volume, Karen Armstrong, author of the highly praised A History of God, traces the history of how Jews, Christians, and Muslims have all laid claim to Jerusalem as their holy place, and how three radically different concepts of holiness have shaped and scarred the city for thousands of years. Armstrong unfolds a complex story of spiritual upheaval and political transformation--from King David's capital to an administrative outpost of the Roman Empire, from the cosmopolitan city sanctified by Christ to the spiritual center conquered and glorified by Muslims, from the gleaming prize of European Crusaders to the bullet-ridden symbol of the present-day Arab-Israeli conflict. Written with grace and clarity, the product of years of meticulous research, Jerusalem combines the pageant of history with the profundity of searching spiritual analysis. Like Karen Armstrong's A History of God, Jerusalem is a book for the ages. BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Karen Armstrong's Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life.

In the year 2000, Dr. Ernest Martin in his book The Temples that Jerusalem Forgot proposed that the Israelite Temples of God were not located on the Temple Mount which had been the location of the Roman Fortress of Antonia but to the south in the city of David. For the past 800 years, people were not sure of the correct location of the Israelite Temples. Jewish, Christian and Islamic religious authorities lost site of the true location of the former Israelite Temples of God that once stood in Jerusalem and suggested they had been on the Haram esh-Sharif or Noble Sanctuary although the Bible seems to indicate a different location. Jesus prophesied that not one stone of the Temple of King Herod I and its walls would be left upon another and that Jewish Jerusalem and its walls would be leveled to the ground. These predictions by Jesus have been fulfilled precisely. All stones have been taken away and used in other buildings or construction projects and this has resulted in the total obliteration of the former Temple of King Herod I and the city of Jerusalem. "'And as some spoke of the temple, how it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts', he [Jesus] said," "'As for these things which ye behold, the days will come in which there shall not be left one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.'" (Luke 21:5-6)

Jerusalem, with its turbulent history, is without doubt one of the best-known cities of the world. A long line of foreign powers have ruled over it, from as far back as biblical times. But the city owes its importance not to them but to the fact that it is the birthplace of the monotheistic currents that shape Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Othmar Keel sketches in broad brush strokes the historical development of Israelite-Jewish monotheism in and around Jerusalem, arguing that monotheism is “a product of the city, not of the desert,” and describes its integration of polytheistic symbols and perceptions into its worldview. Keel relies on biblical and extrabiblical texts as well as the rich iconographic evidence of archaeological discoveries. Abundant maps and sketches of archaeological artifacts enhance his argument.