Why Not Again?

If I could take away one theme from all of the history lessons I have been a part of, it would be that "history repeats itself".  Karen Armstrong's Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths, almost describes Jerusalem's history like a broken record.  I was required to read three chapters, one of which was titled Exile and Return and the other being titled Destruction.  A conflict in Jerusalem exists today because of it's past, and if history does indeed repeat itself (as it always does),hundreds of years from now, somebody could pretty much copy and paste the text from the earlier chapters of this book and just change the dates.

Today in my smaller discussion group in class, some members were discouraged and disappointed by the fact that Armstrong's writing solely depends on the Bible.  In fact I even caught myself saying that the book has no artifacts to back it up.  Now, after having time to reflect upon the discussion, it hits me that the Bible really is the only evidence and therefore the most accurate evidence that Armstrong could have used while writing this book.

Interestingly, in our discussion somebody brought up a good point saying that when artifacts are found, we commonly develop different ideas or theories about certain events.  Now what if we found clear and convincing evidence that the destruction of the temple in 586 B.C.E was really the Jews in uproar in some kind of civil war.  What if the Jews destroyed their own temple and then the Babylonians came in because they were powerful, saw a weak empire in Jerusalem, and wanted the land.  Would Jewish people still consider the Western Wall, a spot that would have represented civil uproar and the defeat of themselves, the holiest spot in the world?  It's a question that has no answers, but we can continue to ask what ifs and play out all possibilities.

There may be a major archaeological discovery in the next few years that indicates that the Bible, our main source, is in fact completely incorrect.  Would we continue our beliefs and ways that have now been with us for hundreds of years, or would we scrap all tradition to better reflect the true meaning of a historical event or place.

All we can say is that history has time and time again repeated itself.  Karen Armstrong's book does not physically have an epilogue.  The epilogue of her book represents today and with history always repeating itself, the epilogue of her book (names and dates changed) might read something like this: "turn back to page 79".