The land called holy Palestine in Christian history and thought
Robert Louis Wilken
- U.S.A. Yale University 1992
- 355tr. Paperback 23cm
From the time of Jesus, Palestine has been an integral part of the Christian experience. Not only have Christians always lived in Palestine, but more importantly, since the fourth century Christians gradually came to see Palestine as a Holy Land and Jerusalem as a Christian city. In this authoritative and accessible book, Robert L. Wilken discusses how Palestine became a Holy Land to Christians and how Christian ideas and feelings toward the land of the Bible evolved as they lived there and made it their own. Drawing on both primary texts and archaeological evidence, Wilken traces the Christian conception of a Holy Land from its origins in the Hebrew Bible to the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem in the seventh century. He also discusses Jewish ideas of the land and the Jewish response to the Christianization of the Land of Israel.