ARTICLE: Jesus Was Here

But first, more importantly, X marks the spot

This article started on account of my obsession with Lord Kitchener. Part of his early career was spent in the Holy Land, and that’s where I am heading now, catapulted off on a tangent. K was certainly not alone when he made for the Middle East. Before his arrival, the late 18th and 19th centuries saw a whole slew of visitors obsessed with the place for one reason: finding proof of the contents of the bible. Buckle up, we’re going off down a rabbit hole…

Why Then?

From what I can gather, the age of enlightenment. Up till that point, tales of miracles and inexplicable traditions were more likely to go unchallenged. Before scientific progress revealed the how and the why of the world around us, it was arguably easier to believe that God’s hand was active in everything; to call something a miracle. As the 19th century approached this was changing. It was less acceptable to recount the bible as irrefutable fact without asking questions. People in the west had become more scientifically curious, in larger numbers, and they wanted proof in order to believe.

Visiting the Holy Land was not new by any means. Christians had been trampling through the region for centuries, most notably during the Crusades. This new wave was different, however. They did not come with the sole intention of pilgrimage, or protecting the cradle of their religion. Most importantly for the purposes of this article, the new wave of Western visitors coincided with the dawn of modern archaeology as a scientific endeavour.

With the emergence of this discipline, it stands to reason that westerners began pouring into the Holy Land, where their faith was rooted, in order to look for evidence to substantiate their beliefs. (There is a whole side bar to this where people began losing their sh*t in the early 1800s because the discovery of dinosaurs called into question the notion of the creation in seven days, because at no point does the bible mention a T-Rex, but that’s another article) As an aside, there is also the fact that the Ottoman Empire was crumbling at play here. Excavating the Holy land was one way for Governments to surreptitiously gain influence in this region with future land grabs in mind.

Before that, however, lets have some fun. The first wave of Western explorers, chancers, churchmen, and academics came with less noble aims in mind. Proving that the bible was documented fact was one thing, but far more lucrative, said evidence would be priceless if they could uncover it. And nothing brings people running like the possibility of buried treasure…

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