The Land Called Holy: Palestine in Christian History and Thought [Paperback]

Robert Louis Wilken (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 31, 1994 | ISBN-10: 0300060831 | ISBN-13: 978-0300060836

This important, wide-ranging book examines how Palestine became a Holy Land to Christians and how their ideas and feelings toward the land of the Bible evolved as Christians lived there and made it their own. Robert L. Wilken traces the Christian conception of a Holy Land from its origins in the Hebrew Bible to the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem in the seventh century and also discusses how Jews responded to the Christianization of the Land of Israel.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

University of Virginia history professor Wilkin examines the evolution of the Christian conception of a Palestinian Holy Land.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The history of Christians in Palestine and the Christian depiction of Palestine as the Holy Land (and Jerusalem as the Holy City) form the background for this textual and archaeological assessment of Christian presence there. According to Wilken, "No matter how many centuries have passed, no matter where the Christian religion has set down roots, Christians are wedded to the land that gave birth to Christ and the Christian religion." Essential to the living witness of this Middle Eastern (not European) religion, claims Wilken, is the vitality of Christian communities in the land of Jesus' birth. For academic libraries.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 374 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (August 31, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300060831
• ISBN-13: 978-0300060836
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #491,353 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What?, November 17, 2005

By 

J. Rogers "a student" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Land Called Holy: Palestine in Christian History and Thought (Paperback)

I really don't know what the other reviewer here is complaining about. I can only assume that by "modernist," he means "scholarly." Wilken is a scholar of early Christianity primiarily and any quick look at what this book is about would indicate how the author intended to tackle the question of the Holy Land. Any complaint of a lack of discussion about Muslim-Jewish conflict is a misunderstanding: the book effectively ends with the Muslim conquest of Israel! It has an area of focus, which should be taken for what it is worth.

As a review of Christian interpretations and understandings of the Holy Land, the book is excellent, particularly for someone one terribly familiar with the field. The opening sections discuss Jewish understanding. Wilken goes on to briefly analyze the New Testament sources. A large section of the book is devoted to early church fathers (Origen, Eusebius, Irenaeus and Justin Martyr in particular) and their writings on the city and the holy land. Overall, my only complaint is that some more time and space could have been devoted to a discussion of New Testament sources. This would have been interesting, at least just to see Wilken's opinion on difficult passages. He stops well short of a real textual analysis, leaving some questions he raises unanswered. His use of a variety of sources is compelling, interesting and shows a commendable thoroughness.

As an introduction to a general study of the holy land in Christian perspective, it would serve anyone quite well. If you want to get more into interpretation of the NT sources, I have found PWL Walker's Jesus and the Holy City and WD Davies' The Gospel and the Land to be informative. The latter is older, but more thorough and, at least for me, comes across with less troublesome spots.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Scholarship, March 1, 2007

By 

Christopher Riedel "azazyll" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Land Called Holy: Palestine in Christian History and Thought (Paperback)

This is a very well written, scholarly work. The style is graceful enough that a laymen ca appreciate what is clearly a lifetime of work on Wilken's part, while also remaining useful to it's intended academic audience.

It is very important to note that this book only goes up to the Muslim conquest of 638/40. Do not get this expecting to get a picture of medieval or modern Christian beliefs of the Holy Land. This fact in particular makes some previous reviews of the book distressingly misplaced. If you are interested, as so many are after "the Davinci Code", in the origins of Christianity, this is an excellent, challenging, and scholarly work that will be well worth your time. If you are interested in the Crusades or the modern conflict over Palestine, this will serve as deep background, but you'll have to fill in the gaps with other books.

3 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A modernist introduction to Christian Palestine., June 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Land Called Holy: Palestine in Christian History and Thought (Paperback)

While this book's topic is Christianity and Palestine, the author's impious approach makes it hard to understand why anyone would care that Muslims and Jews (not to mention the Crusader incubus of Latin "Christians") are forcing indigenous Christianity out of Palestine. This book is worth reading as an introduction to Christian reverence for Palestine, but only for that.