background on The Promised Land

This is the song of Israel. It begins with the starlit hope of the patriarchs as they sing bleary-eyed songs of their promised future. It becomes a slave song, sung in the chains of Egypt, and evolves...

In addition to worship in the temple, Jews met in synagogues for prayer and for reading the Scriptures. Jesus and Paul taught in synagogues. Jesus was executed by crucifixion, a Roman method of punish...

The Desert Fathers believed that the wilderness had been created as supremely valuable in the eyes of God precisely because it had no value to men. The wasteland was the land that could never be waste...