wfn.org | Backgrounder: Politics of Holy Sites in the Holy Land

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John Worrell
Email: jworrell@gis.net
JERUSALEM, March 3, 2001--Much of the confrontation between Israelis and 
Palestinians has taken place near such "holy places" as Rachel's Tomb on the 
northern edge of Bethlehem and Joseph's Tomb in Nablus where violence broke 
out in early October of last year.    Following is a background essay that 
appeared in the February 7 issue of the Israeli magazine, Jerusalem Report:

Special report by Basem Ra'ad 

"Like Homer, [Nimrod] is said to be buried in many other places."
-Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad

RELIGIONS MAY have evolved as slow, benign growths in the past.  Today,
despite our understanding of their development, religions are still used
in literal ways to support claims all over the world, from India to
America.  That does not always happen out of mere faith or spirituality
or even ignorance.  It often happens because to be literal is also
politically expedient.  The case is best illustrated by the fatal
conflict centered on sites such as Rachel's Tomb and Joseph's Tomb, in a
place called the "Holy Land."

In examining the contradictions that surround the evolution of these
sites, the claims and popular assumptions about them become more obvious and 
transparent.  If the current conflict is to avoid a further rise in 
extremism, the contending sides must begin to view history differently.
It may even be necessary to consider redefining what is holy.

"Turkish" Structures

In 1703, Henry Maundrell described Rachel's Tomb near Bethlehem: "It
appears plainly to be a modern and Turkish structure."  For Maundrell, a
fundamentalist clergyman with the Levant Company, "Turkish" meant Muslim--not 
just Ottoman.

William Thomson, missionary author of "The Land and the Book" (1859),
points out that the "tomb" of Joseph near Nablus is identified and
preserved by local Muslims.  

Similarly, the skeptical Mark Twain observes that Joseph's Tomb is "built 
after the manner of Muslims."  In making these observations, the travelers 
did not exhibit any particular sympathies with the local inhabitants and 
their traditions.  

In fact, many religious Western travelers expressed proto-Zionist views.  In 
an age when religious faith was contending with scientific doubt, they could 
not quite bridge the gap between their expectations and realities on the 
ground.

Instead of seeing the Bible as literary tradition and as a source for a
belief system, they wanted to re-create it as history and trace that
imagined history onto the geography.

Not all travelers were obsessed with finding or imagining proof of
biblical narratives.  A few, like Herman Melville and Alexander Kinglake,
penetrated beyond convention to explain the origin of religious ideas on
the basis of their geographical location.  In the case of Egypt and
Palestine, Melville hypothesized in his 1856-57 journals and in "Clarel"
(1876) that the structure of the pyramids, at the desert's edge, captures the 
transcendent idea of God devised by the priesthood.  Also, the dry topography 
of Palestine, he wrote, contributed to theological developments.

Many observers cautioned against making literal connections between
locations and biblical narratives, pointing out inconsistencies in
biblical accounts and the convenient proximity of the sites.

But others could not help imagining that Palestinian shepherds and
farmers looked like characters from the biblical Orient!  For those
illustrators keen to find any proof, the villagers of Palestine were the
only surviving remnants of ancient times, and so, paradoxically,
invisible as real people.

We still find such old impressions in tourist promotion of the "Holy Land," 
even as popular media reinforces altogether different stereotypes.

1948 and 1967

What has happened over the past few decades is regressive in the worst
possible sense.  The local traditions, or superstitions, about many of
the sites have been turned into unpleasant political realities on the
ground.

Simultaneously, the "sacred geography" of 19th-century European
fundamentalist clergy has been revived with a vengeance.  After 1948 and
then 1967, the Israeli government took over and laid claim to sites like
Joseph's Tomb near Nablus and the Ibrahimi (Abraham) Mosque in Hebron, on the 
basis that the names are associated with biblical stories. 

The Israelis converted these "tombs" into armed enclaves in the midst of
Palestinian areas.  The "tombs" have become, in effect, outposts of Israeli 
occupation from which to control and to shoot at Palestinians.

In a perverse reversal, sites that were a few decades ago sacred to the
indigenous Palestinian inhabitants were taken over by the incoming
Israelis, so that the new fortresses are now (strangely) objects of
Palestinian antagonism and frustration.  These "tombs" are now places of
new contentions and new deaths.  From behind the immense fortifications at 
Rachel's Tomb, young Israeli soldiers shoot and kill stone-throwing 
Palestinian youth.

Hence, Israeli officials can declare that a "tomb" such as that
identified with "Joseph" or "Rachel" is "Jewish" and that Palestinians
are trying to have it "refurbished as a mosque" (see, for example,
International Jerusalem Post, 20 October 2000).  The sites taken over by
the Israeli military are, invariably, Muslim sites.  No Christian sites
have ever been claimed by Israel, although their presumed locations may
be just as relevant to Old Testament stories.

These sites are different from the few locations (such as the Wailing 
[Western] Wall) that were identified in the traditions of the small Jewish or 
Samaritan communities existing before the current politicization.  Local 
Samaritans and Jews did not claim or think of contesting places like Joseph's 
Tomb.  The contentiousness and control were only intensified after the 
establishment of Israel in 1948 and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank 
and Gaza in 1967.

In a strange twist, it is the commonality of traditions among the three
monotheistic religions that has enabled the Israeli occupation to choose
justifications for controlling the sites.

More ironies become clear when we explore the history of arbitrary site
allocation and how this history undermines today's biblical claims.  It
is not strange to discover that what is applied through power today is
similar to the actions of other authorities in the distant past.

Helena and the suppression of paganism

How did certain sites become "sacred" in the first place?  Helena,
mother of Byzantine emperor Constantine, is usually credited with
setting many biblical sites in the 4th century A.D.  The exact role she
played in arriving at her findings is not clear, but the results are
well established.  

Emperor Constantine ordered churches to be built on the various sites in an 
effort to suppress the powers of paganism, since many of the sites had been 
places of pagan worship.  For example, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was 
the location of a temple to Venus.

In addition to identifying sites like that of Christ's burial and
crucifixion, Helena is said to have identified the location of Abraham's
burial at Mamre in Hebron about two thousand years after the supposed
biblical occurrence.  In various determinations, she relied on local
convention, superstition or outright invention. 

As E.D. Hunt points out in his study of pilgrimage in the 4th-5th centuries, 
the site at Mamre in Hebron continued to attract pagan sacrifice even after a 
basilica was built on the spot.

In the early 5th century, St. Jerome admitted that another site, the
milk grotto in Bethlehem venerated for its associations with the Virgin
Mary and Christ the child, was the same place where local women earlier
wept for the god Adonis (or Tammuz).

The older paganism

Today we can go further.  There is an older, more original paganism. 
Scholarship has now raised fundamental questions about the veracity of
biblical accounts, based on archaeological discoveries and the
unraveling of texts much earlier than the Bible.  Contradictions and
inconsistencies multiply if one wishes to consider the Bible as history
rather than as literary tradition.

The work of scholars (Philip R. Davies, Marc Zvi Brettler, Keith
Whitelam, Thomas L. Thompson, Lester Grabbe, Donald B. Redford, to name only 
a few) has cast irreversible doubts about whether David existed as an actual 
king and whether the "conquest" as described in "Joshua" ever occurred.  

The Exodus is nothing more than Canaanite cultural memory
appropriated by "Israelites" as their tradition. Such scholarship has
filtered into discussions among Israeli academicians, but some see it as
a threat to the legitimacy of Israel's creation.

What is called the "Tower of David" in Jerusalem (made into a showcase
museum by Israel) has nothing to do with David.  Meron Benvenisti, among 
others, has deflated the mythic creations around the Tower, which was built 
quite recently.  Jerusalem has no trace at all of a person called
"King David."

The name of the city "Jerusalem" (as documented in Egyptian records more than 
4000 years old) comes from Canaanite and means "the city or place of the god 
Shalim."

Archaeological records either do not support or actually contradict the
biblical accounts.  Even more compelling is evidence that many stories in
the monotheistic books have nearly exact duplicates in earlier
Mesopotamian, Ugaritic and other regional literatures.

In this way, the Bible is best seen as an adaptation of more ancient
literary heritage in the region.  "Yahweh" is traceable as one of the
weather gods in the Canaanite pantheon, according to newly discovered
inscriptions.  (In fact, one Israeli scholar tried to erase the name of
the goddess Asherah who was coupled with Yahweh in a 7th-century B.C.
inscription). 

More accurate Bible translations, for instance of some psalms and Exodus 
6:2-3, even point to internal biblical evidence of the development of Yahweh 
from the Canaanite pantheon lead by the wise chief god El.  Yet parts of the 
Bible demonize the Canaanites and devalue their culture.

The temple

A major flash point for current events is the Dome of the Rock and
Al-Aqsa compound in Jerusalem (also called "Temple Mount" or "Mount
Moriah").  First reports mentioned that there were plans to place a
foundation stone for the "third temple."   Earlier, there were several
serious attacks by extremists intent on destroying the Dome and mosque.
Israeli media has reported calls to build a Jewish temple in place of the 
Dome and mosque.

Nevertheless, the Dome of the Rock still figures prominently in Israeli
tourist promotions of Jerusalem and all leaders prefer to be interviewed
with the Dome in the background.

The Dome of the Rock is a focus of Muslim veneration.  It is also an
impressive work of architecture.  Its history falls within the realm of
recoverable history, which goes back to the 7th century when Islam came
to Jerusalem.  The Muslim caliph ordered the building in an area that
accounts tell us was then deserted (though the spot probably also had
more ancient associations difficult to trace today).

Accounts differ as to who in the local population helped the caliph to
locate the site.  Here, there seems to be some competition between
Christian and Jewish records, originating from animosities between these 
groups during the preceding centuries: the Romans, then the Byzantine 
Christians, had prevented members of the Jewish faith from living in 
Jerusalem for hundreds of years.  

One wonders then how the location of a temple could have been accurately 
preserved. According to records at the time, both religious sects exchanged 
expulsions and massacres during the period of Byzantine and Persian 
occupations.

The coming of Islam to Jerusalem in 638 A.D. seems to have resulted, at
the very least, in a situation where Jews, Christians, and Muslims lived
there together as "people of the book" - despite any biases one may cite. 
Religions developed and were passed on from age to age without affecting
the continuity of indigenous people in Palestine, who inherited a
composite religious understanding.  

In another irony, as Karen Armstrong documents, when the Muslims captured 
Jerusalem "they invited the Jews to return to the holy city and left the 
Christian shrines and residences undisturbed" (TheNew York Times, July 16, 
2000).  In fact, it was not until then that a Jewish quarter was built in the 
city.

Real damage between the groups occurred only when movements and
interpretations were imported (as in the European Crusades, Zionism,
missionary activity and various extremist Christian, Muslim, and Jewish
fundamentalism).  All these three religions have traditions of mercy and
sympathy for the oppressed.  It is only when uses and appropriations are
politicized that religious feelings are exasperated and polarized, that
tolerance is diminished or destroyed.

Wailing Wall 

The Wailing  [Western] Wall is a focus of Jewish veneration.  It is a site
associated with a past memory, as Moshe Dayan once noted.  Due to the
division of Palestine in 1948, it was inaccessible to Jewish worshippers
from Israel until 1967.  The Wailing Wall is assumed to be what remains
of Herod's Temple.

Herod built a "temple" during the Roman period, referred to as the
Second Temple.  But the Jewishness of Herod is often debated (he came
from tribes east of the Jordan and had a Hellenic cultural background)
and is rejected by some Jews.  Judaism then was different from what it is
today.

Herod's temple was totally obliterated in the 1st century A.D., and
Judaism was excluded from the city for hundreds of years after that.  It
really cannot be documented that the Wall has any link to a temple, or
that the "temple" has any connection to the present Dome of the Rock
compound ("Temple Mount" implies such a connection).  

As documented by scholars like Herbert Niehr and Karen Armstrong, the "first 
temple" (the one ascribed to Solomon) was a pre-monotheistic place where many 
gods were worshipped and had dominant Syro-Phoenician traits.

Initially, these Canaanite-derived gods were both male and female,
including the pairs Asherah (Mother of Gods) and El (Father of Gods),
Anat and Baal, and also later Asherah and Yahweh.

Yet, no one has discredited or diminished the right of Jews to venerate
the Wall and to worship there.  No one has made calls or threats against
the Wailing Wall similar to those continuously being directed, in the
past three decades, against the Dome of the Rock compound.

On the other hand, even some earlier official Israeli actions, such as
archaeological excavations, seem to have been designed more to undermine the 
existing surface structures than to find anything historical underneath.  The 
Israeli government also destroyed many Jerusalem buildings near the Wailing 
Wall, evicting their occupants in order to expand the area.

History is deep

The "Holy Land" has always been a land of ethnic and religious
diversity.  In the ancient history of Palestine, the Canaanite period
(during the three millennia B.C.) was probably the richest in terms of
material culture and practical inventions (including invention of the
first alphabet).

Palestine has undergone many changes since.  It has retained diversity
among its people, despite being subjected to various forms of hegemony,
civil and religious.  Given this history and what we know today, it is no
longer credible to maintain any claims or justifications based on
exclusive notions of ownership or identity and on monolithic demographic
assumptions about past populations.

Palestine, like the rest of its region, is deep in history.  It is a
history that predates more recent identities and contentions.  All
religious traditions in the area evolved from and continued earlier
beliefs (including pagan religions) that persisted even after the
dominance of monotheistic developments.

The native Palestinian population is the only community that has
retained the most ancient customs and heritage by virtue of its
continuous presence in the land that now comprises "Palestine" and "Israel."

At present, to authenticate anything seems to be a low priority, and
literalness is used and abused without much challenge.  This creates a
situation where our understanding of history (history itself in fact) is
at stake.  It diminishes any effort to construct an inclusive form of
human understanding.

There is good reason to remain respectful of traditional symbols and
sensitivities.  But this does not mean that people should allow
themselves to continue to be gulled, or silenced, by political
manipulations and narrow applications of religious tradition. In such a
context, the Israelis have a responsibility to review a system of knowledge 
and a historiography out of which they created their monolithic national 
narrative.

The Palestinians, on the other hand, need to overcome the fractured
identities that divide them and to recognize more usefully the
importance of their real connections to ancient history.

All Palestinians and Israelis who desire accommodation (and all seekers
of knowledge) must search for a balanced, less monolithic accounting of
the land's meaning.  This meaning cannot be shortsighted or forgetful,
nor should it be subject to the control of exclusionary obsession and
mythmaking.  More balanced knowledge can help to bring the history of the 
region to its real dimensions - a necessary step if the future is to
have solid foundations based on some degree of truth.  What is needed
most is a fresh historiography that could result in shaping a more
inclusive future. 

===
Basem Ra'ad is a professor of literature whose research also involves
travel writing, ancient cultures, and historiography.  His long-standing
interest is landscape aesthetics, on which he initiated the 1998
conference "Landscape Perspectives on Palestine." 

(c)Palestine Report