Thursday, January 8, 2009

Strife in the Holy Land

This is a short history of strife in the Holy Land.

The children of Abraham and Cana have shared the land we call “The Holy Land” off and on for a very long time.  When Abraham left Ur {which is now is South Iraq} about 2000 BC and arrived in the Jordan River valley the children of Cana were already living there for thousands of years. One of the children of Cana Melchizedek the king of Salem, now Jerusalem, welcomed Abraham as a friend.

 

Later the great grandson of Abraham named Joseph was betrayed by his own brothers and sold as a slave to Egypt. He rose above it to become powerful in Egypt and in a time of famine invited his family to live in Egypt. Jacob abandons Cana to live in Egypt for four hundred years. Then Moses led them back to Canaan. Joshua led them across the Jordan river to take the land away from the Canaanites. He was supposed to have cleansed the land but he failed to do so and the Children of Abraham and the children of Cana shared the land for a long time.

 

After the death of King Solomon the land split with 10 tribes to the North as Israel and Benjamin, Judah and some of the Levites formed the kingdom of Judah in the South.  Later Israel was assimilated by Assyria and disappeared altogether. Judah later was captured by Babylon and was take captive to Babylon for 70 years. The children of Cana remained in the land.

 

Judah, Benjamin, and the Levites returned once again to share the land with Cana, living first under the rule of the Persians and then the Greeks.  Then for a short time they had their own King until the Romans came to rule them in 63 BC. In 68 AD they rebelled and in 70 AD the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and covered it with dirt. A second revolt in 130 AD was also put down and the Jews expelled from Judea and Romans even renamed the area Palestine. Canaanites became Palestinians.  There after they lived under the Romans, Eastern Romans, Arabs, European Crusaders, and Ottomans. The children of Cana abided in peace.

 

 In 1917 England gained control of Palestine as a protectorate. Slowly European Jews began to move back to the Holy Land. After 1946 the flow became a flood and the conflict was on until 1948 when the UN saw fit to divide the land with one part Israel and the other Palestine. Neither the Children of Abraham nor the Children of Cana liked the division.

 

Today radicals on both sides urged that the other be destroyed. War brings death to both sides. It must stop and both must find a way to live in the same place in peace.

5 comments:

  1. I have always found it hard to follow the history of after Solomon's death and the tribes split. So much going on!

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  2. Hi Larry,

    This is a very thorough and interesting history. I love reading the way you break the bible down in a very historical rather than evangelical way. For those of us like myself who are still finding their path and tend to look at things from a "science" or "factual" perspective your writings are very helpful.

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  3. I love reading this. Thank you so much, Pastor Larry. :)

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  4. Stella
    There is a lot of history there for sure.

    Misty hi good to see you here and I am glad you like my writings.

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  5. VERY interesting. Thanks. :)

    S

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