March 10

On the last day of class, we handed in our final papers and learned about modern-day Jerusalem.  We started off with the Six Day War that happened in 1967 where Israelis pre-empt the Arab's pre-emptive strike and take control of the Sinai peninsula.  The UN rejects the Israelis annexation of Jerusalem.

The War of Independence in 1948 resulted in a divided Jerusalem.  It became east versus west, which is how we come to get Jerusalem as a state itself.  Palestinians are made because they were supposed to have a state, but the Arabs rejected the Peel Commission, so now Palestinians do not have a state.  Israelis do not want to give back this land because they have worked on building it up and they have people occupying it now.  Israelis say that Palestinians had their chance, but they gave it up.

After Yasser Arafat died, the other military group Hamas wins in the election, but they do not know how to rule so they end up continuing to pick fights with the Israelis.  The main reason that Hamas won that election is because after Arafat died, people were no longer afraid to mention all of the corrupt things he had been partaking in, and they didn't want to vote for that again. I personally don't have a solution for this unfortunately.  Any solution that comes up though will be much more easily said that done.

March 8

In class on March 8, Professor Cargill mentioned that Jordan was one of his favorite places, but I have to disagree.  I lived in Jordan for 4 months, and while I had some interesting experiences there, it definitely never became my favorite place, nor would I ever want to live there.  I understand that I am not an archaeologist and Jordan does have amazing archaeological sites, but if I were to be one, I would still choose to live in Egypt, but I am probably bias seeing as how I travel to Egypt quite often.

During lecture though we learned about the Sykes-picot agreement, Churchill's White Paper, & the Peel Commission.  The agreement of 1916 state that the British were going to control everything below the border between Lebanon and Israel. They're going to have influence on Iraq and Jordan.  The French were going to control Beirut, Lebanon & Syria.  Churchill's White Paper was written in 1922 and it clarified how Britain viewed the Balfour Declaration.  Originally, Britain didn't support a Jewish national home, but they supported the continuation of a Jewish community in Palestine.  The Peel Commission of 1937 established boarders in Israel between the Arabs and the Jews.  The Arabs were granted most of the land, but they were discontented because they wanted all of it, so they did not agree to the commission.  Jewish people then began to build up infrastructure and grow in numbers in land that was originally proposed to Arabs under the Peel Commission. Then there was the Arab-Israeli war, or the War of Independence, in 1948.

March 3

For Thursday's lecture, we backtracked a little bit to finish talking about the time up until the crusades, then we finished up Crusader Jerusalem, and moved onto the Mamluks. Before the crusades we had the Abbasid Dynasty that ruled out of Baghdad and was in power from 750-969.  Al-Mamum claims that he built the Dome of the Rock, but when he changed the name, he forgot to change the date so it was clear that he was lying.  The Fatimids were a group of Ismaili Muslims who ruled out of Egypt from 969-1099 and depending on the ruler the Fatimids either tolerated or persecuted those who were not Muslim.

Finishing up the crusades, Saladin conquers Jerusalem and Jerusalem eventually surrenders to Saladin in 1187.  After he wins the city, Saladin allows people to leave.  In learning about Ayyubid Jerusalem, we learned about the 3rd-7th crusades.

Mamluk means owned and the Mamluks were slaves who became soldiers and converted to Islam.  It was a grassroots slave movement.  Their architecture included red and white stones, maqarnas which are architectural features, and the buildings would have a semi-dome and a large niche.  They established Islamic schools known in Arabic as madrasa, and they built on the western and northern sides of the temple mount, which today is the area known as the Islamic quarter. 

March 1

On Tuesday, March 1 Professor Cargill was out of town and Ryan Roberts took over to teach us about Crusader Jerusalem.  In the beginning of the class he took a minute to review what we talked about the previous class period: the five pillars and the Dome of the Rock.  He gave a couple of factors that lead up to the crusades.  There was a political emergence of the holy Roman Empire which lead to divisions in Christianity, and there were also religious reactions to the persecution of Christians in Jerusalem.  He talked about what a crusade is and indulgences, and the four crusader principalities which were Antioch, Odessa, Tripoli, and Jerusalem.

Crusader Jerusalem was divided up into different areas.  The patriarch's quarter is where all of the religious activity took place.  The knights were based in the templar's quarter on the temple mount, and the Syrian quarter is where the walls are first breeched.  There was also the location of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the Armenian quarter.

Professor Roberts showed a video game that takes place in Jerusalem and he pointed out which parts of it where accurate and which parts were very incorrect.  In the game, the Dome of the Rock was plated with gold, but at the time of the video game he said it would not have been gold plated.  He commented that the dress of the character was pretty accurate according to what scholars know. 

Feb. 24

On Thursday we talked about Islam and The Dome of the Rock.  There are five pillars in the Islamic faith. They are the shahada, salat, zakat, sawm, and the hajj.  The shahada is the proclamation of faith stating 'la ilaha il-allah' meaning there is no God but God.  Salat is the Muslim prayer that is said five times each day at designated times.  Zakat is the almsgiving to the poor.  Each person is required to give a certain amount for zakat if they are able to.  Sawm is the fasting Muslims do during the month of Ramadan. They fast for a month without consuming even water while the sun is up.  When the sun is down they feast.  The hajj is the pilgrimage to Mecca that each Muslim is required to take at least once during their lives as long as they are able.

The Dome of the Rock is basically a shrine that has been placed atop a rock.  It has an octagonal shape and it was built by a Christian.  There is Arabic calligraphy around the outside of it.  Abd al-Malik built the Dome of the Rock and it was financed by tax revenues. The builders were under budget so they then decided to cover the Dome of the Rock in pure gold.  When it was damaged in an earthquake, the gold was removed and sold for currency in order to restore the Dome of the Rock.  

Feb. 22

Tuesday, February 22 was a special day. It was Professor Cargill's Birthday!  When I was in elementary school, birthdays were always the best because the birthday boy or girl would bring a tasty treat to class, usually donuts.  For Professor Cargill's birthday, he brought the class Diddy Riese cookies; they were delicious.

The topic of Tuesday's lecture was Byzantine Jerusalem, and the changes that occurred.  Much of the lecture related to what I had written my paper about.  The temple in Jerusalem in the past was the central feature of religion.  People went there to be a community and to pray, but as the Christian tradition grew, the idea of the temple became more of a spiritual one.  In the Bible Jesus said that the temple would be destroyed and it would be built again in three days.  The people said that was impossible because the temple took years to build; however, Jesus was referring to his body as the temple.  The focus starts moving from the temple itself to the idea of Jesus as the temple.

When Constantine came to power he fundamentally changed Christianity.  Under his rule, the Edict of Milan and the Council of Nicea both happened. The Edict of Milan legalized Christianity and made it acceptable for people to convert and practice the religion.  The Council of Nicea set the belief in the Trinity, the belief that God was made up of three entities, God, his son Jesus, and the Holy Spirit who lives in everyone. 

Feb. 17

On Thursday, we learned about the 1^st and 2^nd Jewish revolts, and the division of Herod’s kingdom among his sons.  The first revolt was also known as the Great Revolt, and the sources we have on this are Flavius Josephus and Tacitus. The second revolt is known as the Bar Kokhba Revolt, and this is when Jerusalem ceased to be Jerusalem. On the Jewish revolt coin, they appeal to old texts referencing Zion, declaring their own independence from Rome.  We have found coins from years 1-3 of the revolt, but not many from years past that because the Romans do not like when people rebel against them.

After Herod died, he had multiple wills, and he had three sons who ended up inheriting different parts of his realm.  Archelaus got the lion’s lair, the best part of the land.  He became known as ethnarch.  The people refused to call him king because Herod was the last king.  Archelaus ruled for less than ten years and he never put human images on his coins. Herod Antipas got the second best area of land and became known as tetrarch of Perea and Galilee.  He ruled over the Transjordan area, and he also refrained from putting human images on his coins.  Herod Philip, also known as Philip II, became tetrarch of Iturea and Trachonitis far up in the north close to Damascus.  These were the worst parts of the land, but he was able to get away with putting images of himself on his coins and a temple of Augustus because he was farther away from Jewish territories. 

Feb. 15

On Tuesday we learned about Herodian/Roman Jerusalem.  It took three months for Rome to besiege Jerusalem. Once in Jerusalem, Herod the Great helped to kick out the Parthians.  Herod goes back to Rome and tries to get people to start calling him king.  He eventually controls Idumea, Jerusalem, Galilee, and Samaria.  Herod was sensitive to the fact that there were Jews living in parts of the land that he controlled, so when he had coins minted he refrained from putting human images on them out of respect.

Herod was a very successful leader, but he terrorized people; he was one of the most brutal dictators.  In Matthew 2 it states there was a 'murder of the innocence by Herod,' where he killed all boys two years old and younger.  There is no historical evidence that this happened, but it is quite characteristic of him to do something like this.  Herod loved himself so he ended up building a lot of huge monuments that would last long after his death.  This gave people jobs, which they were happy about.  With all of this expansion, Herod build the Western Wall, the holiest place for Judaism.  He did this while he was expanding the temple and building walls around it.

Jews hated Herod.  He was a dictator, impulsive, iduean, only half Jewish, collected taxes and sent them to Rome, and he worked for the man, the RoMAN.  Economically he was a good king and people appreciated that he gave them jobs, but the Jews never came around to liking him. 

Feb. 10

On Thursday, we talked about the Hellenistic period, Alexander the Great, the Hasmonean's, and more! During the Hellenistic period there was a Jewish rebellion leader named Josephus.  He remained the rebellion leader until he got caught. Josephus claimed to be a prophet and he wrote a very pro-Roman history exaggerating all of the numbers he mentioned.  Basically, each number he writes should be divided by ten and that is more realistically the number of people who died, or whatever the number is representing; however, his history is all we have.

Alexander the Great minted coins with pictures of him with horns on his head in order to resemble the Greek god Zeus.  He conquered modern day Syria, Israel/Palestine, Egypt, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, etc.  Palestine was conquered in 332 BCE. 

In Hasmonean Jerusalem, there was a Maccabean revolt around 165 BCE, which gave rise to the Hasmonean dynasty. The Hasmoneans minted their own coins, which put them in control of their own town.  They put very Jewish images on the coins such as pomegranates and cornucopias.  There were no human images. They did put Greek on the coins to appease the Greeks. During this time, Jews had control for about 100 years and this would be the last time they would have control and self government until the development of the modern state of Israel. 

Feb. 8

During the first class after the midterm, we learned about Persian Jerusalem. When introduced to the prophet Ezekial, Professor Cargill compares him to a crazy guy on 3rd street. Being from LA, I've been to 3rd street a number of times and it really isn't my cup of tea, mostly because of all the crazy people.  There are a lot of musicians and dancers and then there are always a few crazies.  There is this one guy who paints himself silver and wears painted silver clothing. The only thing not silver are his small black sunglasses.  He has a whistle in his mouth and he makes funny noises and movements when people walk by, and then he expects to get paid.  Now, this isn't normally how I would picture a prophet. Ezekial would draw things in the dirt about what was about to happen.  People thought he was crazy until these visions started to come true.  They started to believe him more and more.

We then learn about this split of the Jews.  The king of Persia basically wakes up one day and asks what all of the Jews are doing there.  So, we have the Jews who stayed in Babylon, the Jews who went back to Jerusalem from Babylon, and the Jews who were left in Jerusalem the entire time.  The Jews who stayed in Jerusalem question the Jews coming back from Babylon, asking what authority they have to come into Jerusalem and live there as if it is their home.  The Jews that are returning though are coming with money.  King Cyrus of Persia gave them money to help rebuild the temple. Then, there is a Persian province created in Judea. 

Feb. 3

I'm not sure if we need to write a blog from the day of the midterm, considering we did not go to class.  The midterm was a little bit more difficult than I was expecting it to be.  I remember there being a question on something that I did not remember learning and I could not find on the study guide.  Regardless, I did fairly well and it was mostly a painless experience.

Feb. 1

On Tuesday, we finished talking about Josiah's Jerusalem and went on to talk about Jerusalem in exile.  When finishing up Josiah's Jerusalem, we learned about the Lachish letter 3.  This letter, dated to around 587 BCE, was written by a soldier in the army.  This letter gives us the idea that people back then were able to write, when previously we were unsure that they could.  The letter is evidence that soldiers were literate.  We also looked at the idea of "Why a Book?" on Tuesday.  Once information was written down, it could be discussed, argued, and different versions could be presented. People begin to analyze communication differently once it is written down. Scripture is seen as authoritative text that believers of that tradition do not argue.

Later during class we switched directions to talk about Jerusalem in exile.  Professor Cargill emphasized again that during the 2nd Babylonian exile, in 586 BCE, the temple was destroyed. I'm pretty sure that this is now a date that I will never forget because of how many times it has been repeated.  We are also brought to the idea of cognitive dissonance.  Josiah was said to be a good king, but then he died because Neco killed him.  Why did he die?  It was then explained in 2 Chronicles that Josiah died because he did not listen to Neco and Neco's command from God. The promise then needs redefining. 

Jan. 27

Religious reform is an interesting concept.  It is difficult for me to imagine someone coming into the United States, or someone emerging from the crowd in the US, and bringing religious reform so that the official religion was now Islam and everyone in the United States had to be Muslim.  If someone did not convert they would  need to get out.  Things like this still happen in parts of the world today, and they happened a lot during times when rulers such as Hezekiah and Josiah were in power.

Josiah comes in as a new king and in a way is like a second Hezekiah.  Both rulers conducted religious reforms.  They both wiped out all of the idols in the area.  Hezekiah destroyed idols and gods and even shrines for the Hebrew God, saying that the Hebrew God should only be worshipped in one place.  Professor Cargill speculates that this is the time when the Ark of the Covenant got destroyed.  No one knows for sure where the Ark is today, and Professor Cargill believes it was at one point in the list of everything that Hezekiah destroyed, but somewhere along the line it got removed from the list.  The Ark was never mentioned after this time period though, and it was also considered an idol by many so it very well could have been destroyed under the reign of Hezekiah.  Josiah came along, not quite 100 years later, and also destroyed idols, killed priests in charge of cults, etc.  These rulers were ruthless in terms of their reform.

Jan. 25

Class on Tuesday was a little bit difficult for me to follow.  I downloaded the slides online a day or two before class, but I was missing a bunch of them.  At least now I have learned that perhaps I should download my lecture slides the day of class instead of too much earlier beforehand.

In the beginning of class, Professor Cargill talked about Rehoboam, the son of Solomon.  After Rehoboam took control, the question was whether or not he should lower taxes or assert how strong he is.  He had a choice.  He went to his father's advisors and asked them.  The advisors told him to appease their demands, but Rehoboam was not happy with this decision so he turned to his friends instead, people whom he had grown up with.  His friends basically told him to "lay down the smackdown" so that is what Rehoboam decided to do.

Jerusalem eventually grew and the City of David expanded west towards the Western Hill.  Assyria and Israel teamed up to attack Judah, so Judah invites Tiglath-Pileser III to join forces which he agrees to, and Tiglath-Pileser III dominates.  Judah then had to pay him.

Back in the day (mid-9th C. BCE), the military tactics involved bragging and instilling fear.  Professor Cargill mentioned that today when people kill people, the leaders of countries apologize for it.

Funny how things change. 

Jan. 20

In class on Thursday, January 20th, we learned about Solomon's Jerusalem. Professor Cargill pointed out that we do not have evidence that Solomon existed or that he built the temple, so we are going off of literary examples. In Solomon's prayer of dedication in 1 Kings 8, it is written that Solomon built the temple for God to dwell in.

Solomon became known as 'Wise King Solomon.' There was an incident under his reign with two women who had both just had a child.  One of the children died, so the women stole the other mother's child and got rid of the body of the dead child.  The women went to King Solomon and he said the women should give the baby to him so he can cut it in half and each woman can have half.  The woman who had stolen the baby agreed, and the woman who was the mother of the child refused, and said she would rather have the other woman keep the baby than to have the baby killed.  Solomon knew that the more compassionate woman who wanted to keep the baby alive was the real mother, so he returned the baby to her.

He is also seen as a somewhat controversial king in the eyes of some.  He is said to have written proverbs, ecclesiastes, and song of songs.  Song of songs, as Professor Cargill mentioned, can be seen as the equivalent of porn in the bible.  It is inappropriate to some.  The songs basically talk about relationships between men and women, women going into men's bedchambers and the like.

We learned about types of archaeological dating and how back in the day, temples and palaces would be built on top of remains of previous temples or palaces, but that is not the case anymore.

Jan. 18

Professor Cargill was very kind to us on Tuesday, January 18th.  Because our papers were due in class that day, and most everyone looked pretty tired, he let us out about 30 minutes early, and as he even acknowledged, students were able to go home and nap, which I did. It was lovely.

In class though, Professor Cargill lectured on David's Jerusalem.  He started off by going over the Tel Dan inscription and then began to talk about Warren's shaft. Warren's shaft is basically a tunnel that runs almost to the Gihon Spring, but not all the way.  There are certain indications that Joab may have climbed up this shaft in order to get to Jebusite city.  The question was posed in class of how would people have gotten water from this shaft into the city?  Scholars are still unsure.

Gihon in Hebrew means gushing, and there is a gushing of water ever 6-8 hours, usually lasting around 40 minutes from the spring.  The spring gushes hundreds of gallons of water a day, which can support about 2500 people.  This would have sufficed back in the day, but in modern times, this is not enough water to support Jerusalem.

We also learned about Hezekiah's tunnel, and how there are many false pathways in it because people kept digging and then learned they were not going in the right direction.  Water was a big topic in class on Tuesday, and the idea for a paper topic came up: What is the importance of water to making a holy city? 

Jan. 13

In class on Thursday, we learned about Canaanite Jerusalem, which is pre-Israelite Jerusalem.  There have been 6000 years of continuous settlement in what we now call the City of David, and this is because of a few different factors.  As Professor Cargill has mentioned in class before, water is the key source to a flourishing city.  There is water in Jerusalem from the Gihon Spring and because of this, agriculture has been made possible. Settlements can grow different crops such as olives and they can herd animals.

One thing that I found particularly interesting from lecture on Thursday was the section on the voodoo-esque statues.  Egyptians would write the names of their enemies on these statues in Hieroglyphics and then smash them to the ground, breaking the statue into much smaller pieces.  As Professor Cargill mentioned, the name of God is not written in the Jewish tradition because it is never to be erased or destroyed, but with these statues those names are being destroyed because they are the names of enemies.  On some of these statues, the name Jerusalem was mentioned, as well as a few of the leaders, which means that there was a place called Jerusalem that was powerful enough to be worthy of having enemies in Egypt.

Another thing I found interesting is that there was a wall built near the Gihon seemingly to protect their water source.  If you have a source as important as water, especially when it is as vast as the Gihon, it is important to protect it.

Jan. 11

One thing that I have always appreciated about the Muslim tradition is its acceptance of Christianity and Judaism.  From studying the Qur'an, it is clear that Jesus, Moses, and Abraham are all key players, and Islam does not view other faiths as lower, and it does not view Islam as better, simply different.  Of course, there will always be extremist sects of every faith tradition, but in its main principles, Islam is very accepting.

This was a point reminded to me in lecture today when Professor Cargill brought up the recent attacks on Coptic Christians in Egypt.  He was explaining that Egyptian Muslims put up a human shield in front of the Coptic Church where people were worshipping, and the Muslims said that if anyone wanted to harm the Christians inside the church, they would have to go through the Muslims.  This is a prime example of the compassion that Islam holds for other traditions.

We also learned about Mesopotamian temples.  Creating spaces for the worship of a higher power was started long before Jerusalem.  There were Ziggurats used for worship.  The Babylonian temples were seen as lowered from the heavens at the time of creation, meaning that they were creating by the divine, for worship of the divine.  They kind of look like pyramids, but pyramids are used for burial and not worship.

Jan. 6

I never thought that knowing who Dr. Spock is would come in handy during a lecture on Jerusalem. In fact, I've always been more of a Star Wars fan than Star Trek, but for the purposes of this blog entry, and even for the entirety of this course, Dr. Spock is becoming a close friend of mine, or at least the hand gesture that he is famous for. On Thursday, January 6th, Professor Cargill taught us that if you hold up your right hand in the formation of Dr. Spock's greeting, and turn it upside down, it will help to show the layout of Jerusalem.  There are three valleys, Hinnom on the west between your thumb and pointer finger, the Tyropean, or central valley, between your middle and ring fingers, and the valley on the east next to your pinky finger, called the Kidron valley.  At the top of the separation between your ring finger and pinky is the temple mount.

In Jerusalem, the land is divided into quarters.  The northwest area holds the Christians, the northeast holds the Muslims, the southwest holds the Armenians, and the southeast holds the Jews. The temple mount is in the eastern part of the city and along the western border of the temple mount lies The Wailing Wall, or what is now known as The Western Wall.  This is the holiest place in Judaism; it is the closest you can get to the temple mount without going over the border.  It used to be known as The Wailing Wall, but the control of the wall has turned over and it is now known as The Western Wall because Jews no longer have to wail that they don't have control.

Professor Cargill also talked about the importance of water in relation to Jerusalem and the surrounding areas, and also the origin of the name Jordan for the Jordan River.