response 5

It is extremely interesting to read about how Christians started to first take on wanting to know and go through the experience and travels of Jesus and how people started to develop a yearning for wanting to touch the things he did and go the places he did. Christianity seemed to have made a complete 360 in regards to their thoughts and views on “sacred geography” and feeling closer to God. If the two monotheistic religions had anything in common now it was Jerusalem and a dislike for the other to rule over them. To read of all the continued destruction still being a recurring theme is saddening and makes me think how there will ever be some kind of peace resolved today if the history they are continuously looking back on is full of such destruction. I like how chapters go into great detail the history is Islam, a lot of it was familiar to me since I took a class on the history of the Middle East last quarter a lot of the information was fresh in my head. When Armstrong brought up the issue of construction being a way for the three faiths to have a hold on the other and with their buildings and architecture was very different then what was seen in previous chapters since now the focus shifted to people out building each other but during the same time period.

Why did the Karaites build a cheese factory of all the things to build on the mount of olives? I did not realize that Jerusalem was so prone to such devastating earth quakes also. To hear how in history people justified battle through religion is just an idea that I am unable to grasp, and yet it continues to this day. To read about the crusades is always upsetting and just crazy to think of all the people that lost their lives. It seems odd how after the crusaders had killed nearly all the people of Jerusalem that they had no idea of really what to do with the city. It is a shame to read how when other communities and people were thriving intellectually Jerusalem was sort of left in the dust and more focused on military and architectural survival.To see Jerusalem go from a place where people could live, not necessarily peacefully but at least with out killing each other to complete destruction and death seems that people are just able to ruin beautiful things to easily.