Holy Land Studies

Obwohl die Vorstellung von einem irdischen Heiligen Land in den neutestamentlichen Schriften nicht belegt ist, wurde sie in der Geschichte des Christentums sehr wirkmächtig. Katharina Heyden zeigt in dieser Studie, dass nicht die explizite Rede von der terra sancta, sondern die Orientierung an Palästina in unterschiedlichen Bereichen – Eschatologie, Kirchenpolitik, Hagiographie und Ikonographie – zur Sakralisierung der südlichen Levante und deren Rezeption durch westliche Christen führte. Als Bedingung der Möglichkeit einer christlichen Rede vom Heiligen Land wird das „synoptische Vermögen“ identifiziert, das sich in den Diskursen der ersten christlichen Jahrhunderte entwickelt hat.

Palestine is known as the birthplace of Christianity. However the Christian population of this land is relatively insignificant today, despite the continuing institutional legacy that the 19th century Western missionary focus on the region created. Palestinian Christians are often forced to employ politically astute as well as theologically radical means in their efforts to appear relevant within an increasingly Islamist-oriented society. My thesis focuses on two ecumenical Christian organisations within Palestine, the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Centre in Jerusalem (headed by the Anglican cleric Naim Stifan Ateek) and Dar Annadwa Addawliyya (the International Centre of Bethlehem-ICB, directed by the Lutheran theologian Mitri Raheb). Based on my field work (consisting of an in-depth  familiarisation with the two organisations in Palestine and interviews with their directors, office-staff and supporters worldwide, as well as data analyses based on an extensive literature review), I argue that the grassroots-oriented educational, humanitarian, cultural and contextual theological approach favoured by the ICB in Bethlehem is more relevant to the Palestinian situation, than the more sectarian and Western-oriented approach of the Sabeel Centre. These two groups are analysed primarily according to their theological-political approaches. One, (Sabeel), has sought to develop a critical Christian response to the Palestine-Israel conflict using the politico-theological tool of liberation theology, albeit with a strongly ecumenical Western-oriented focus, while the other (ICB), insists that its theological orientation draws primarily from the Levantine Christian (and in their particular case, the Palestinian Lutheran) context in which Christians in Israel-Palestine are placed. Raheb of the ICB has tried to develop a contextual theology that seeks to root the political and cultural development of the Palestinian people within their own Eastern Christian context and in light of their peculiarly restricted life under an Israeli occupation regime of over 40 years. In the process, I argue that the ICB has sought to be much more situationally relevant to the needs of the Palestinian people in the West Bank, given the employment, socio-cultural and humanitarian-health opportunities opened up by the practical-institution building efforts of this organisation in Bethlehem.

Jerusalem and Other Holy Places as Foci of Multireligious and Ideological Confrontation brings together the papers that were read at an international conference at the Schechter Institute in Jerusalem in May 2018. The contributions to this volume develop a multi-disciplinary perspective on holy places and their development, rhetorical force, and oft-contested nature. Through a particular focus on Jerusalem, this volume demonstrates the variety in the study of holy places, as well as the flexibility of geographic and historical aspects of holiness.

Karin Schneider-Ferber describes in her book "Knights in Exile"  (Darmstadt 2016) the extensive political changes in the Mediterranean since the 12th century till to the presence.  In the focus: the Knights Hospitallers in their difficult balance between military fighters  against the "muslims" and brotherhood of the sick.  Their way back from the Holy Land, first to Cyprus, then to Rhodos and finally to Malta is a dramatic story of the Christian presence in the Mediterranean. These "knights" show today that the most important work is the caritative engagement.

Le pèlerinage est-il un phénomène propre à l'homme sédentaire ? Comment s'est développé le pèlerinage de Compostelle au milieu des autres pèlerinages chrétiens et quelles ont été les clés de son succès jusqu'à aujourd'hui ? Comment voyons-nous et construisons-nous une image du pèlerinage médiéval à partir des idées que nous nous faisons de cette époque, de ses pratiques religieuses et artistiques ? Que sont devenus les pèlerinages aujourd'hui ? Quels sont les effets des mouvements de foules sur le patrimoine religieux ? Y at -il d'autres formes de périples qui se sont développées en contexte athée, mais avec les mêmes caractéristiques de vénération que les pèlerinages religieux ? C'est à toutes ces questions que ce livre tente d'apporter des réponses en donnant la parole à divers spécialistes venus d'histoire des religions, de sociologie, d'histoire, d'anthropologie, d'histoire de l'art, et des milieux de la conservation patrimoniale. Les articles édités dans ce volume sont le résultat de rencontres internationales qui ont eu lieu au mois de juin 2018 dans le cadre de la célébra-tion des vingt ans du classement au patrimoine mondial de l'UNESCO du bien 868 bis : « Chemins de Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle en France ». Le but de ces rencontres, organisées par la Direction du patrimoine de la ville de Cahors sous la direction de Térence Le Deschault de Monredon, était d'ouvrir nos horizons au-delà de la Galice pour chercher à comprendre d'où viennent les pèlerinages et où vont se perdre leurs sentes nombreuses et variées dans le panorama contemporain.

One hundred and one current maps of Israel were analysed for their modern mapping religious elements in respect of the Holy Land. The main issues of the study are which religious elements appear and their form of representation in the range of maps; the impressions that can be derived from the different maps; and the narratives that can be construed from this representation. The research methods applied were hermeneutics and semiotics. Narratives identified on the various maps were the 'holy' vs the 'secular' narrative, the 'holy Christian' narrative, the Jewish narrative, and the Muslim narrative. The Christian narrative proved the most dominant, while the Muslim narrative was rarely found in the maps, even in those with a 'Palestinian' narrative. Religious maps evinced a special cartographic status because of their subjective nature and their attempt to combine contemporary reality with the tradition of maps of the ancient Holy Land. A ubiquitous finding was disregard for political issues, although the maps' messages allow the map user to draw conclusions about ideology, images and conflicts. The semiotic method was found appropriate and suitable for reading the maps.

This volume, published by the Academy of the Hebrew Language and Yad Ben-Zvi in 2012, is the second improved edition of the Hebrew version of 'Ancient Place Names in the Holy Land: Preservation and History' (2004, Eisenbrauns & Magnes). As a rule the Hebrew version is more developed and updated than the English volume, and the second Hebrew edition includes hundreds of corrections and additions to the first one.

The late Antique mosaic of Orpheus decorated a small room, approximately 18 m2 in area, connected with two even smaller ones, in 4 m2 and the other 2 m2 in area, belonging most likely to a small funerary chapel (or tomb) discovered in the ancient necropolis by the Damascene Gate in Jerusalem; it was discovered in 1901 by H. Vincent.
The author proposes a new interpretation of the iconographic program of the Orpheus myth used by wealthy Christians in a sepulchral context (see Olszewski M.T. «Orphée endeuillé de la mosaïque funéraire de Jérusalem», in Rey Mimoso-Ruiz, B. ed., Actes du colloque «Orphée entre Soleil et ombre», à l’Institut Catholique de Toulouse du 16 au 17 novembre 2007, Inter Lignes, numéros spécial – mars 2008, pp. 205-214, 226). He also proposes a new interpretation of the role Orpheus played in Roman funerary art, concentrating on the importance of the play on words and the visual and textual punning that was popular in ancient art and especially in funerary art. He rejects the popular interpretation of Orpheus as Christ in the Roman catacombs and proposes to interpret the image as that of Orpheus, bard of the departed souls, without any ahistorical connection with Christ. The program of the mosaic from Jerusalem is thus explained as a play on the words Orpheus-orphanos and Chiron (Chi-Rho) and Pan [Παν(τοκράτωρ)].The frequently used Christian funerary formula of resting in peace, Christ or the Lord corresponds
perfectly with the mood created around the mythical bard.
Orpheus’ universal role as singer and musician moving even the most stony of hearts, extolling the beloved departed, is absolutely justified in the context of a 6th-century Christian tomb. Orpheus is a popular and neutral figure, meaning that in effect it does not constitute a threat to Christian theology and can be tolerated by the educated Christians of Jerusalem.

The Mamluk inscription on the Facade of the Main Entrance to the St. James Monastery of Jerusalem is one of the most significant ones given by the Sultan the nicknamed Chaqmaq in 1450 C.E. The inscription is one of the rare inscriptions given to the Armenians that the monastery and the Armenian monks are tax exempted and cursed be the one who renews or inflicts injustice upon the same.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem has been actively studied since the middle of the 19th century. At the same time, the opinion was formed that the building passed through four construction stages. This periodization was developed and first proposed by Melchior De Vogüé in 1859. Later, it was developed in the research works of L.-H. Vincent and F.-M. Abel (1914-1922), Ch. Couasnon (1974), V.C. Corbo (1981-1982). However, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre has undergone much more destruction and local restoration works, as reported by written sources. The goal of this paper is to get a more complete picture of the shrine history by analyzing the medieval descriptions of it.

Keywords: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; Church of the Resurrection; Church of the Anastasis; Eugene-Melchior De Vogüé; the architectural reconstruction; Jerusalem; Holy Land

Review, Saints and Sacred Matter: The Cult of Relics in Byzantium and Beyond ed. by Cynthia Hahn and Holger A. Klein. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library & Collection, 2015, 376 pp. ISBN: 978-0-88402-406-4, Hardback, £71.95, in: Journal of History and Cultures 7 (2017), 50–52.

In The Holy Land in Observant Franciscan Texts (c. 1480–1650) Marianne Ritsema van Eck analyses the development of the complex Observant Franciscan engagement with the Holy Land during the early modern period. During these eventful centuries friars of the Franciscan establishment in Jerusalem increasingly sought to cultivate strong ideological ties between themselves and the Holy Land, participating actively in contemporary literatures of geographia sacra and Levantine pilgrimage and travel. It becomes clear how the friars constructed a collective memory using the ideological canon of their order – featuring Bonaventurian theology, marvels of the east, cartography, apocalyptic visions of history, calls for Crusade, and finally a pilgrimage- possessio of the Holy Land by Francis.

The article explores the Jewish approach towards the biblical land as this was reflected in Jewish maps of that land, and points to the formation of the visual motif of Messianic Jerusalem in Jewish art.

KEYWORDS: maps of the Promised Land /the Holy Land, a Jewish map made in Mantua in 1560s, a map in the Amsterdam Haggadah (1695), Erhard Reuwich, Rashi, Exodus, Borders of Canaan, Tribes of Israel, Messianic Jerusalem, 'East Gate', Menorah, Feast of Tabernacle, cultural memory.

The following PhD project deals with the Arab settlement processes in the Sharon Plain and Western Samaria during the Late Ottoman and British Mandate Periods. Following two hundred years of demographic decline, in the eighteenth century, these regions experienced a prolonged period of settlement expansion, involving multiple population movements from diverse origins, village formation and abandonment. The precise causes of these transformations have yet to be satisfactorily explained. The state of current research: Traditionalist Israeli scholarship has portrayed the Sharon prior to Zionist colonization as a barren land, dotted here and there by Bedouin tents and a few scattered hamlets. The Zionist project is regarded as the principal source of progress, technological development, and socioeconomic modernization. More recently, other conceptualizations have emerged, describing the region as having significant native populations, or as the prime destination for external migrations from the mountainous hinterland or from other coastal and steppe peripheries. Due to the perceived paucity of accessible native sources, researchers have long relied on Western Travelers' Literature and other foreign sources as a staple for their craft. Over the last decades, however, increased corpora of native evidence became recognized or accessible. These sources contain rich cartographic, archaeological, archival and ethnographic evidence, which still awaits scholarly attention.

As the Korean church grew explosively in the 1970s, one congregation attracted the attention of the churches of the world. Yoido Full Gospel Church (YFGC) pastored by Rev. David Yonggi Cho had the largest congregation in the world with a membership of 700,000 by the end of 1994. Cho founded YFGC in 1958 and has pastored the church since. Many view YFGC as the base of the Pentecostal movement in Korea. This paper will discuss the history, development, characteristics, and influence of this church in relation to the ministry of Cho.

“Pellegrino” per l'uomo del Medioevo era chiunque si trovasse fuori della sua terra natale, lontano dalla propria casa e da tutti i suoi comfort e le sue sicurezze, ma il termine indicava in senso stretto colui che compiva il pellegrinaggio verso Santiago de Compostela o ne stava tornando. Dante, poi, ricorda i tre tipi di pellegrini: i palmieri, che andavano oltremare, in Terra Santa, a visitare i luoghi della vita, della Passione e della Risurrezione di Gesù e tornavano recando una palma simbolo del compiuto pellegrinaggio; i peregrini veri e propri, che, appunto si recavano a Compostela, nel luogo più remoto d'Europa, e, infine, i romei, che visitavano le tombe di San Pietro e San Paolo a Roma e da quella città prendevano il nome. Un'ultima preziosa indicazione, fornitaci dal poeta è che i pellegrini sono “le genti che vanno al servigio dell'Altissimo”.

Hekhalot literature are accounts of divine visions, mystical ascents into heaven and observance of the divine council, and the summoning and control of great angels, usually for the purpose of gaining insight into Torah  Practical Kabbalah (Hebrew: קַבָּלָה מַעֲשִׂית‎ Kabbalah Ma'asit) in historical Judaism, is a branch of the Jewish mystical tradition that concerns the use of magic. It was considered permitted white magic by its practitioners, reserved for the elite, who could separate its spiritual source from Qliphoth realms of evil if performed under circumstances that were holy (Q-D-Š) and pure (טומאה וטהרה, tvmh vthrh  The concern of overstepping Judaism's strong prohibitions of impure magic ensured it remained a minor tradition in Jewish history. Its teachings include the use of Divine and angelic names for amulets and incantations. Kabbalah has been used to refer to the whole history of Jewish mysticism, but more accurately, and as used in academic Jewish studies, Kabbalah refers to the doctrines, practices and esoteric exegetical method in Torah, that emerged in 12th-13th century Southern France and Spain, and was developed further in 16th century Ottoman Palestine. These formed the basis of subsequent Jewish mystical development. Jewish Kabbalists; secondary literature incorporating Kabbalah is enormous, particularly in the voluminous library of Hasidic Judaism that turned esoteric Kabbalah into a popular revivalist movement. Hasidism both adapted Kabbalah to its own internalised psychological concern, and also continued the development of the Jewish mystical tradition. Therefore, only formative articulators of Hasidic thought, or particularly Kabbalistic schools/authors in Hasidism are included here. In the Sabbatean mystical heresy that broke away from Judaism, only the founders are listed. Solely academic-university Jewish studies researchers of Jewish mysticism, not being "Kabbalists", nor necessarily Jewish, are not listed here; nor are separate non-Jewish derivative/syncretic traditions of Kabbalah.Talmudic tannaic sages: Maaseh Merkabah (mystical Chariot)-Maaseh Bereishit (mystical Creation) (1st-2nd centuries). Yordei Merkabah (Chariot Riders)-Heikhalot (Palaces) mysticism (1st-11th centuries). Early-Formative texts are variously Traditional /Attributed/ Anonymous/ Pseudepigraphical: Nehunya ben HaKanah Traditional attribution of the Bahir. 1st century Four Who Entered the Pardes (including Rabbi Akiva c. 40–137 CE)Simeon bar Yochai (RaSHBI) Protagonist of the Zohar 1st-2nd centuries Hasidei Ashkenaz (1150-1250 German Pietists). Mystical conceptions influenced Medieval Kabbalah:Samuel of Speyer (Shmuel HaHasid) 12th centuryJudah ben Samuel of Regensburg (Yehudah HaHasid) 1140–1217 Eleazar of Worms (Eleazar Rokeach) The Theosophical or Theosophical-Theurgic tradition of Theoretical Kabbalah (the main focus of the Zohar and Luria) seeks to understand and describe the divine realm using the imaginative and mythic symbols of human psychological experience. The Meditative tradition of Ecstatic Kabbalah (exemplified by Abraham Abulafia and Isaac of Acre) strives to achieve a mystical union with God, or nullification of the meditator in God's Active intellect. The Magico-Talismanic tradition of Practical Kabbalah (in often unpublished manuscripts) endeavours to alter both the Divine realms and the World using practical methods. While theosophical interpretations of worship see its redemptive role as harmonising heavenly forces, Practical Kabbalah properly involved white-magical acts, From the Renaissance onwards Jewish Kabbalah texts entered non-Jewish culture, where they were studied and translated by Christian Hebraists and Hermetic occultists.[25] The syncretic traditions of Christian Cabala and Hermetic Qabalah developed independently of Judaic Kabbalah, reading the Jewish texts as universalist ancient wisdom preserved from the Gnostic traditions of antiquity Sephirot (divine attributes) and Partzufim (divine "faces"), Ohr (spiritual light and flow), Names of God and the supernal Torah, Olamot (Spiritual Worlds), a Divine Tree and Archetypal Man, Angelic Chariot and Palaces, male and female, enclothed layers of reality, inwardly holy vitality and external Kelipot shells, 613 channels ("limbs" of the King) and the divine Souls of Man.  l Sephirah Malkuth (Kingdom) with the indwelling Feminine Divine immanent Presence of God throughout Creation, adapting for it the previous Rabbinic term Shekhinah (Divine Presence), but lending the concept new hypostatic and sexual interpretation (Earlier Biblical Wisdom literature describes Wisdom as a feminine manifestation of God). The fallen, exiled state of Creation by man exiles the Shekhinah into captivity among the Kelipot forces of impurity, awaiting redemption Above by man Below. Nachman of Breslov saw this archetype in fairy tales of the world nts, veils and condensations of divine immanence. The innumerable levels of descent divide into Four comprehensive spiritual worlds, Atziluth ("Closeness" – Divine Wisdom), Beriah ("Creation" – Divine Understanding), Yetzirah ("Formation" – Divine Emotions), Assiah ("Action" – Divine Activity), with a preceding Fifth World Adam Kadmon ("Primordial Man" – Divine Will) sometimes excluded due to its sublimity. Together the whole spiritual heavens form the Divine Persona/Anthropos.sin of Adam and Eve (who embodied Adam Kadmon below) took place in the spiritual realms. Their sin was that they separated the Tree of knowledge (10 sefirot within Malkuth, representing Divine immanence), from the Tree of life within it (10 sefirot within Tiferet, representing Divine transcendence). This introduced the false perception of duality into lower creation, an external Tree of Death nurtured from holiness, and an Adam Belial of impurity.[73] In Lurianic Kabbalah, evil originates from a primordial shattering of the sephirot of God's Persona before creation of the stable spiritual worlds, mystically represented by the 8 Kings of Edom (the derivative of Gevurah) "who died" before any king reigned in Israel from Genesis 36. In the divine view from above within Kabbalah, emphasised in Hasidic Panentheism,  Prophetic revelation closed after the Biblical return from Babylon in Second Temple Judaism, shifting to canonisation and exegesis of Scripture after Ezra the Scribe. Lesser level prophecy of Ruach Hakodesh remained, with angelic revelations, esoteric heavenly secrets, and eschatological deliverance from Greek and Roman oppression of Apocalyptic literature among early Jewish proto-mystical circles, such as the Book of Daniel and the Dead Sea Scrolls community of Qumran. Early Jewish mystical literature inherited the developing concerns and remnants of Prophetic and Apocalyptic Judaisms.Jewish Sages of Provence and Languedoc in southern France in the latter 1100s, with the appearance or consolidation of the mysterious work the Bahir (Book of "Brightness"), a midrash describing God's sephirot attributes as a dynamic interacting hypostatic drama in the Divine realm, and the school of Isaac the Blind (1160–1235) among critics of the rationalist influence of Maimonides. From there Kabbalah spread to Catalonia in north-east Spain around the central Rabbinic figure of Nahmanides (the Ramban) (1194–1270) in the early 1200s, with a NeoplatonicChristian Hebraist scholars and occultists, who freely syncretised and adapted it to diverse non-Jewish spiritual traditions and belief systems of Western esotericism.[44] Christian Cabalists from the 15th-18th centuries adapted what they saw as ancient Biblical wisdom to Christian theology, while Hermeticism lead to Kabbalah's incorporation into Western magic through Hermetic Qabalah.[45] Presentations of Kabbalah in occult and New Age books on Kabbalah bear little resemblance to Judaic Kabbalah.[ Jewish Haskalah enlightenment movement from the late 1700s renewed an ideology of rationalism in Judaism, giving birth to critical Judaic scholarship. It presented Judaism in apologetic terms, stripped of mysticism and myth, in line with Jewish emancipation. Many foundational historians of Judaism
–CONTENTS - THE YOGA OF THE WEST 1 II. THE CHOICE OF A PATH 8 III. THE METHOD OF THE QABALAH 13 IV. THE UNWRITTEN QABALAH 19 V. NEGATIVE EXISTENCE 29  - VI. OTZ CHIIM, THE TREE OF LIFE 37 VII. THE THREE SUPERNALS 43 VIII. THE PATTERNS OF THE TREE 55 IX. THE TEN SEPHIROTH IN THE FOUR WORLDS 62 X. THE PATHS UPON THE TREE 72 XI. THE SUBJECTIVE SEPHIROTH 78 XII. THE GODS UPON THE TREE 84 XIII. PRACTICAL WORK UPON THE TREE 92  Part II.  XIV. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 104 XV. KETHER, THE FIRST SEPHIRAH 109 XVI. CHOKMAH, THE SECOND SEPHIRAH 122 XVII. BINAH, THE THIRD SEPHIRAH 139 XVIII. CHESED, THE FOURTH SEPHIRAH 161 XIX. GEBURAH, THE FIFTH SEPHIRAH 173 XX. TIPHARETH THE SIXTH SEPHIRAH 188  Part III.  XXI. THE FOUR LOWER SEPHIROTH 216 XXII. NETZACH 221 XXIII. HOD 238 XXIV. YESOD 252 XXV. MALKUTH 265 XXVI. THE QLIPHOTH 297 XXVII. CONCLUSION

This article reconstructs the Holy Land installation that Frederick III, Elector of Saxony, established in the All-Saints’ Church in Wittenberg at the beginning of the 16th century. It relates this display of relics and pilgrimage imagery to the contemporary European cult of the Holy Land, and argues that this installation played a role in Frederick’s attainment of cultural hegemony in his land. In 1517, while Frederick, using relics and indulgences, encouraged Catholic worship at All-Saints’ to a record level, Luther nailed his Theses on the doors of that church and initiated the Reformation. This article explores the different fates of Holy Land objects following the Reformation – destruction, survival or adaptation into the new Protestant iconography – and argues that they played a part in the cultural transition that held in Wittenberg. Furthermore, it discusses the significance of the Holy Land in constructing cultural values and identities for both Catholics and Protestants. Keywords: Frederick III the “Wise,” Lucas Cranach the Elder, Martin Luther, Holy Land relics and book of relics, Holy Land imagery, map of the Holy Land, pilgrimage, indulgences, Reformation, cultural hegemony.

Монография посвящена еврейскому изобразительному искусству поздней античности. Впервые в отечественной традиции рассматриваютя мозаики синагог Галилеи в их культурном контексте, реконструируется уникальная культурная ситуация региона, характеризующаяся литературной и религиозной активностью евреев, которая полнее всего проявилась в сложении мира синагоги с присущими ей архитектурными чертами. В синагоге впервые начинает использоваться изобразительное искусство. Автор предлагает рассматривать синагогальное искусство как следующее иконографическому канону, представляющему собой 3-частную мозаичную композицию, игравшую существенную роль в переосмыслении пространства синагоги в символическое пространство разрушенного Храма, с главной святыней - свитком Торы.

A book about three controversial topics.
1. Messiah son of Judah or Joseph, which tribe was chosen?
2. Shiloh or Jerusalem , which place was chosen for the temple?
3. An alternative interpretation of the Land of Israel according to the book of Torah and Joshua alone without interference from the Bible.

For a century, our only published record of spectacular Hellenistic wall paintings at Maresha/Marisa in Israel have been inaccurate colour lithographs, which are actually rather crude. Now, for the first time the exquisite photographs made of the outstanding artworks almost immediately after their rediscovery can be properly appreciated. These original photographic plates of the Marisa Tombs I and 2, show detail that throws new light on the fauna represented in the animal frieze and features of Hellenistic art in the southern Levant, which are discussed.

This is an updated version of an article, that was presented in 20015 in Vi. Turkich Cultre Congress and published  in 2009. This publication was done with many very defectives due to the fact that  the Arabic font used was distorted and making it unreadable.
Therefore, after 6 years of publication I have decided to update this article, and add the newly discovered Inscriptions. The article was based on my earlier published books .