Sibylla of Jerusalem

The destruction of the Jewish temple and the subsequent destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans around 70 C.E. is a significant part of the saga of the Jewish people. The destruction of this famous cultural city and its renowned temple had extreme and far fetching consequences for not only the inhabitants of the city but to all Jewish culture. When examining the causation of this destruction historians turn to one of the most important primary sources of the event the historian Flavius Josephus.…

Palestinians and Israeli people have been in a conflict for over 70 years over land. Many politicians have been searching for answers to the conflict, with the most prominent ‘solution’ being called the two-state solution. The two-state solution is the idea the Israel and Palestine are going to sign peace treaties and split the land they’ve been fighting each other for in half. The idea of Palestine and Israel getting along is strange, considering that while Palestinians don’t hate Israeli…

Throughout history two terms, Messiah and Son of God, have been used by different people to indicate differing expectations as to who the savior of Israel was going to be. The term messiah is from the Hebrew word mashiach, meaning anointed. In the Greek, the word cristos translates into Christ, and it too means anointed. By identifying Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God, Mark is conveying to his first-century audience that Jesus was a suffering Messiah and the Son of God who encompassed…

“kinetic” and “interrelated”. As a sacred city with spiritual significance in three religions, Jerusalem is depicted thoroughly and illustrated in the Hebrew Bible as one of the spaces Tweed defined. The biblical portrayal of Jerusalem emphasizes that the land was chosen by God and honored by Israelites, which differentiates it as a special, singular space; the description of Solomon’s Temple shows that Jerusalem is interrelated with secular forces as its temple is endued with royal, political…

Sanhedrin court, which was made up of seventy Jewish men and was presided over by the High Priest. Both Pharisees and Sadducees served on the Sanhedrin. This court can only be traced back to about 200 B.C.; yet, it likely had its beginning as the Jerusalem city council during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah; about 430 B.C.. The Sanhedrin, with the approval of the Roman government, had all authority over the Jews, including the death sentence; however, only the Roman government could execute…

Jerusalem is a city that spans around 60 kilometers, located at the coordinates of 31°47′N, 35°13′E. The city is elevated at around 760 meters, and it lies on the southern spur of a plateau in the Judaean Mountains, which includes Mount of Olives to the east and Mount Scopus to the northeast. Also called the “Old City,” Jerusalem lies north of Bethlehem, west of Abu Dis, east of Tel Aviv, and south of Ramallah. It is surrounded by valleys and dry riverbeds. The three most known valleys are the…

Today, many regard Jerusalem as one of the most sacred spaces on Earth. People from all over the world partake in the sacred pilgrimage to the city not only for spiritual gratification, but also for an enrichment of the mind and soul. The journey allows pilgrims to observe and experience the rich history embedded in the soil of Jerusalem, an experience that cannot be felt through literature and photographs. The sacred and holy nature of Jerusalem stems from the biblical texts of Genesis, 2…

The Star of David is a symbol used to identify Judaism. It’s supposed to represent the shape of King David’s shield (Levine 2015). This symbol is well respected in Israel, it’s part of their national flag. It’s called a hexagram or six-point star (Levine 2015). One of the first Jewish uses of the Star is part of the colophon; part of the embroidery of the title page of a book, the printer sometimes included the family name on the colophon which showed class and wealth (Levine 2015). Today the…

1300 years. The monument is the first piece of Islamic architecture funded by a Muslim ruler that was created as a work of art. It is an Islamic shrine located on a sacred stone called the Temple Mount, a large outcrop of bedrock in the Old City of Jerusalem. It has been venerated as a holy site for over a thousand years and considered one of the most important religious sites in the world by Islam, Judaism and Christian religions. The shrine was constructed with a wooden guilt dome that is…

Jews were forcefully removed from the holy city of Jerusalem.(The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Babylonian Exile.) The text, “By the Waters of Babylon”, by Stephen Vincent Benet, the son of a priest visits an abandoned sacred city, which is most likely the city of Jerusalem. “By the Waters of Babylon”, Psalm 137, and two online sources tell important details about the loss of Jerusalem. To begin with, Psalm 137 deals with the loss of Jerusalem. In the Psalm, the Babylonians request the…