I have read very few archaeological books but the ones that I have read have been eye opening. One of the first was the discovery of the ancient city of Troy which many thought to be nothing more than myth. Heinrich Schliemann spent most of his fortune digging until he found the ancient city and put to bed the story of the Iliad. I have just finished reading another archaeological text, When the Stones Speak, by Doron Spielman, It is the story of the excavation of old Jerusalem to find the original City of David.
Most of us do not know why the Islamists hate the Jews and why there is a constant battle to remove the Jews from present day Israel. It has been a battle between the Jews and the Palestinians mostly but after reading Spielman's book you can understand that it goes much deeper. It is about Isaac and Ishmael and which of these sons of Abraham was taken up to be sacrificed per God's order and later saved. The controversy revolves about whether the Jews were ever in the place called Palestine or not. Those against the Jewish people try to put forth the notion that they were not, and King David was a myth rather than real and living in the City of David. For the Palestinians to lay claim to this area is also a misnomer because until Hadrian changed the name from Judea to Palistina for the Philistines that had lived there before and had been defeated by the Hebrews. The new name never referred to a government or specific boundary but to the area south of Syria.
The book tells the story about excavating near the Temple Mount and finding the original Pool of Silom with stairs that lead to the old Temple which was destroyed by the Romans in 70AD. By locating the Old City of David and the Pool the Bible is changed from interpretive to factual with many discoveries during the dig to substantiate this. It proves that it was Isaac that was the subject of Abraham's sacrifice and not Ishmael and the fact that the Hebrews were there first. The ancient fight between Jews and Arabs was exposed and while this discovery made a big difference in who was first the fight still remains as we have just seen in the destruction of the nuclear facilities in Iran as they built these for the express purpose to destroy Israel.
It has always bothered me why the Jews seemed to against the rest of the World with the purges in Spain and later in France in the dark ages and then in modern Germany. These were Christian countries and then now we find the antisemitism apparent in our own country which says all people are equal under God. This, I don't understand but the rift between Muslims and Jews was made more clearly with this book. I would like all who read this to think why a very small country of nine million people threaten so many in the world. Perhaps it is because they are still God's Chosen People. We are not threatened by Jews but by the challenge and judgement of our GOD.
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