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.