In a recent sermon, I mentioned the work of Francis of Assisi and referenced an episode in which he traveled to Egypt during the Fifth Crusade solely to share the gospel with the sultan, Al-Kamil. (His full name was al-Malik al-Kamil Naser ad-Din Abu al-Ma’ali Muhammad; and the crusaders just called him Meledin.) There is… Read More »
Why does the teacher of the Scriptures need to know history? Why should we invest the time to not just be acquainted with the languages and cultures of the biblical authors? In the post-Protestant Reformation era, the idea of using just the Bible (sola scriptura in Latin) has become the battle cry of many independent interpreters of the… Read More »
We have filled the last three weeks looking at the Church of the Resurrection (also known as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher). Hopefully, the story of this revered but often neglected site gives us a little bit of perspective on the difficulties faced by the Church in all its various manifestations. Constantine and the… Read More »
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 »
This is part 4 of a series of posts on the history of the Church of the Resurrection. In a previous part, we saw how the Church was badly damaged during the brief period when the Sassanids controlled the city (614-622 CE) and then the period of relative peace after the Muslims took the city… 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 »
In my last post, I talked about the construction of the original basilica and rotunda built on the site of Jesus’ burial and resurrection. Those buildings were built in 337 CE and stood unmolested until 614 CE. What happened next is probably one of the worst things you have never heard of. In 476 CE,… Read More »
I love medieval history. I know that makes me weird. It’s ok. Once, my father brought one of his friends up to New Hampshire to visit me. While sitting in a diner, my dad says, “Joe, ask him what he does with his free time.” His friend looked at me. I told him, “I study… Read More »
