Like the theme mentioned in the last summary, destruction and rebuilding (physical rebuilding and the rejuvenation of hope) is extremely important in these chapters. The Roman occupation of the Middle East was brutal and following the destruction of the temple the Jews were left downtrodden and “life had neither value nor significance, and it seems that in these dark day many Jews lost their faith” (155), but they were not giving up easily and used “all their creativity to survive this devastating loss” (155). The Roman Empire didn’t stop there-it persecuted not only the Jews, but the Christians inhabiting the land as well. While “Jerusalem had no special status on the Christian map” (171), their tie to Golgotha, the place where Jesus was crucified and resurrected, is inevitable and to this day Christians still find Jerusalem a sacred place.
In these chapters I found Armstrong to be a little contradictory; on one page she will state that Christians are not location based (there was a new idea that God was everywhere within a community) and do not need physical statues or building in which is declare a holy land, yet they claimed the cave a tomb and set ties into Jerusalem just like religions prior. I'm not sure if this is just a misunderstanding on my part or if she really is contradicting herself, but I will watch for it in future chapters as well.
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