Hi Everybody! :)
On this I found very interesting was how Jerusalem wasn't initially particularly important to Christians. In fact they called it the "Guilty City" for rejected and killing Jesus. It started to become important largely because of the ambitions of the Bishop of Aelia/Jerusalem (Cyril) - in addition to archaeological finds. This was quite a reversal for Christians who saw themselves as 'purely spiritual' and above the need of a physical site to feel close to God. On page 183, Armstrong says that this showed that the "myths of sacred geography are deeply rooted in the human psyche." This really adds to the discussion we were having last week about how our holy places still manage to have a profound effect on us.
Another quote that really jumped out at me was this: "Christianity may have been liberated from oppression but it was still embattled and defensive, poised in an attitude of resolute and destructive opposition to its rivals. " Woah. Does this remind you of anything? The modern state of Israel, perhaps. Of a people, long abused, finally achieving some power and thus being extremely defensive? Yeah. Personally I think that that is quite the parallel.
Throughout the book, we are seeing more and more Christian disdain for their parent religion, Judaism. For some reason, they seemed to think that Judaism needed to be destroyed in order for Christianity to be legitimized (or something like that). I found this very disturbing, but not surprising. Every time I come across a section about this antisemitism, I feel a little dread, because of the horror that it eventually brought.
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