The Last Few Chapters: Karen Armstrong

After finishing Karen Armstrong's historical novel I have so many questions and quite a few comments. She put herself into the personal experiences and emotions of the various religious groups she described throughout. This was helpful because there a countless number of takeovers, threats, destruction, and hatred from all sides that could have been expressed in a laundry list. I would go so far as to say that Jerusalem is a psychological history of Jerusalem. Armstrong takes a humanistic approach to a complicated story about Jerusalem, while coming from a place of religious understanding. I enjoyed the descriptive language she used throughout the novel, but it made me feel like I was bouncing back and forth from her perspective to ancient (or not so ancient as the novel ends ) times. 

I have expressed my frustrations that she basically refrains from endnotes or citations throughout the novel, but I'm retracting that statement. I do think that Armstrong wrote more than just a history. It does read like a novel and should be viewed as such. Calling the book a novel leaves room for Armstrong's personal opinion and she can give a depiction of the psychological climate or atmosphere. The endnotes may have made it seem like a textbook. I understand that people are going to have different perspectives on historical situations, but to me a textbook seems to imply something definitive or ideas that people have made general conclusions about. These ideas are so controversial that to propose a textbook about the history of Jerusalem seems laughable. Armstrong's maps and photos bolster her interpretation, but little is actually known about the events that "actually" occured. My response to that statement is: Her guess may be as good as anyone else's. She is a scholar and a former member of the clergy. The novel reads like someone that has been heavily involved in both aspects. Having a background in both areas gives her interpretation more credibility. Jerusalem's history is different than most because you cannot just look at the events as simply "group X overthrew group Y in battle Z". It is so much more than that. The religious component of it all brings in emotions and family ties, which are very sensitive subjects and to remove them would be unfair to the reader.

The main questions that remain for me: 

1. What the heck is Mount Sion? 

2. Does Karen Armstrong actually believe in the religious sentiments she proposes? She certainly sound like she does when she states that certain people felt types of emotions. Or, is it tactic to remove herself from situation by empathizing with every group?

3. If she had included more endnotes would we have read the novel as textbook? 

4. Is it possible for someone to