Description

Hagith Sivan offers an unconventional study of one corner of the Roman Empire in late antiquity, weaving around the theme of conflict strands of distinct histories, and of peoples and places, highlighting Palestine's polyethnicity, and cultural, topographical, architectural, and religious diversity. During the period 300-650 CE the fortunes of the 'east' and the 'west' were intimately linked. Thousands of westerners in the guise of pilgrims, pious monks, soldiers, and civilians flocked to what became a Christian holy land. This is the era that witnessed the transformation of Jerusalem from a sleepy Roman town built on the ruins of spectacular Herodian Jerusalem into an international centre of Christianity and ultimately into a centre of Islamic worship. It was also a period of unparalleled prosperity for the frontier zones, and a time when religious experts were actively engaged in guiding their communities while contesting each other's rights to the Bible and its interpretation.

Features

• An original study, emphasizing themes of polyethnicity and cultural, topographical, architectural, and religious diversity
• Essential to an understanding of the present-day Middle East

Reviews

"Sivan is to be particularly commended for having adopted, throughout this book, a resolutely panoramic vision. She makes us look at everything and everybody. This is not the usual scholarly perspective, content to see the world through narrow slits. Sivan's book is not a history of Jews in Palestine, nor is it a history of Christians in Palestine. It is a history of Palestine and of all the groups within it. For that reason, for all its exuberance and magnificently fair-minded outreach to every group and every religion, it is not intended to be reassuring. it is a book, alas, for good or ill, written 'for anyone interested in the Middle East, then and now.'" --New York Review of Books

Product Details

400 pages; 3 maps; ISBN13: 978-0-19-928417-7ISBN10: 0-19-928417-2

About the Author(s)