At the dawn of the 20th century, a Church of the Resurrection had stood on the same site for nearly 1700 years. The building that presently occupied the site was an amalgamation of a Byzantine complex, Crusader additions, and contentious projects. The positions of the various factions inside the church had been established by a firman… Read More »
In 1229, the German emperor Frederick II led the Sixth Crusade to Jerusalem. He persuaded the Ayyubid Sultan Al-Kamil to allow him to be crowned “King of Jerusalem” as part of a peace treaty, and for a brief moment, Frederick might have actually believed he ruled the city. The reality was that Al-Kamil did not… Read More »
We have been looking at the history of the Church of the Resurrection from the time of its construction to the present day, and in the previous post, I wrote about the destruction of the Church by the Mad Caliph, Al-Hakim. Today, we will see how the church was transformed by the coming of the… Read More »
The previous post made a passing reference to the building of the Dome of the Rock which still sits on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The construction of this shrine and the remaking of the Temple Mount as a Muslim holy site is significant enough that we should consider it before continuing the story of… Read More »
Modern Jerusalem is quite a sight. It is a city of three-quarters of a million people, covering 48 square miles of Judaean hills. Every year, nearly 10 million tourists and pilgrims come to the city, so the city sprawls over a much greater area than would be required by the population. The air is full of… Read More »
Our family is reading the book of Jonah, and we are considering God’s grace to the people of Nineveh, and today we read Jonah’s words after the people of Nineveh repented. O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to… Read More »
1000 BCE – David conquered Jerusalem from the Jebusites 586 BCE – The Babylonians destroy the city. 440 BCE – The Persians let the Jews rebuild the city. 330 BCE – Alexander the Great takes the city. 167 BCE – Antiochus Epiphanes sacks the city. 164 BCE – the Maccabees take the city. 160 BCE… Read More »
While our congregation is reading through Exous, Leviticus and Numbers, I thought I would add some daily notes of things that caught my imagination. Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me,… Read More »
In January of 1776, a small book by a recent immigrant to America took the colonies by storm. Entitled Plain Truth Addressed to the Inhabitants of America Containing Remarks on a Late Pamphlet entitled Common Sense, the pamphlet was published in all the major cities of the colonies and in short order was found virtually… Read More »
Robert Hooke was a brilliant mathematician and natural philosopher. From 1664 until his death in 1703, he was the Gresham Professor Geometry at Oxford. Among his many accomplishments, he contributed to Boyle’s Law, helped found the Royal Society of Science, and helped lay out the city of London after the Great Fire of 1665. Christopher… Read More »
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