The Archeology of the New Testament

the Life of Jesus And the Beginning of the Early Church - 9780691035345

Plot

This book is a pilgrimage to Palestine, undertaken for the same reasons that inspired Melito of Sardis in A.D. 160. Christian leader and first pilgrim to the Holy Land, he sought out the places hallowed by the history of the early Church. With this book in hand, one may follow him, either in actuality or in imagination, "to learn by inquiry," as Origen expressed it, "of the footsteps of Jesus and of his earliest followers." The progress of this pilgrimage follows the order of the New Testament record. The author first investigates sites connected with John the Baptist and then proceeds to Bethlehem and Nazareth, Samaria and Galilee, Jerash, Caesarea, Jericho, the Mount of Olives, Jerusalem and Emmaus. In Jerusalem, the climactic site is reached at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Each site is illustrated and the accompanying text, numbered to facilitate cross-reference, contains a bibliography of the most important literature on the subject.