Donald Bridge
Christian Focus Publications 1998.
224 pages. ISBN 1 85792 272 7Book Review for Evangelicals Now & Al Aqsa
Travelling Through the Promised Land
Donald Bridge
Christian Focus Publications 1998.
224 pages. ISBN 1 85792 272 7
Book Review for Evangelicals Now & Al Aqsa
The cover promises that this is "The best for background information" touching on 4000 years of cultural history; recent archaeological discoveries; tour itineraries; 2000 years of church history; evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls. The back cover goes on to urge undecided buyers,
"If you are thinking of touring the Middle East or want to know more background information about places you have already visited, then let Travelling through the Promises Land be your best loved touring companion."
The question is, "Does it deliver?" As someone who is about to see the publication of his first book about the Holy Land, and who is therefore more acutely sensitive to the critics pen, I nevertheless have to say, "not really".
If however you forget the publishers hype on the front and back cover this is actually a good read if you want an illuminating commentary on the chronological and historical significance of places in Palestine. Donald combines insightful glimpses into the biblical narrative together with his own subjective reminiscences of the land and its people today. In his own words the book is "a kind of theological walkabout. I thought of calling it A Preacher Walks Through the Promised Land" (p. 66). It is actually, as one discovers on page 5, a revision of an earlier work published by Kingsway called "Living in the Promised Land" published in 1989.
On the biblical material Donald is excellent, on the contemporary scene he offers his personal perspective, shaped perhaps inevitably by his theology and the Israeli guides whom he refers to frequently. He does not appear to recognise how incongruous it is that Jewish guides increasingly lead the overwhelming majority of Christian pilgrimage groups now that the Israeli government restrictions placed on the training of Palestinian Christian guides has led to their virtual extinction.
His sympathy for Israel is clear. In writing of their occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967 and the confiscation of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Donald describes how,
"...a high ranking minister was minutes behind the advanced guard who stormed into the Rockefeller Museum outside Herod's Gate. He courteously advised startled scholars still examining other scrolls that they now belonged to Israel..." (p. 36).
Really? Similarly, speaking of the controversial excavations by Israel around the Temple Mount, he writes,
"...for many years the United Nations passed a stern forbidding order on any research in the area whatever; a resolution that was cheerfully ignored as regularly as it was proposed." (pp. 81-82).
It just shows what one can get away with when one is holding the gun. When speaking of Palestinian areas his observations reveal a good degree of prejudice which has coloured his appreciation of them. So for example when speaking of Nablus he writes, "...on one of our rare and perhaps rash visits (for tensions is always high here)." (p. 44).
Donald never stops to explain why tensions are sometimes "high" although I have to say I have visited Nablus frequently and never experienced any problems. The same word "tense" is used of the Temple Mount (p. 70), Bethlehem and Bethany and both in close proximity to the word "Palestinian" (p. 218). The reader is left in no doubt as to the perceived risk of visiting such places, which is in fact quite untrue.
Of a more serious nature, Donald slanders Moslems on virtually every occasion possible. In describing the significance of Jerusalem to Jews, Christians and Moslems he writes,
"Jews world-wide mark their calendars with events that took place here. Muslims world-wide are eager to engage in holy wars here..." (p. 55-56).
I had to read it several times wondering whether Donald really believes this or is repeating yet another myth told by Israeli guides. Whether intentionally or otherwise Donald is actually reinforcing racist stereotypes in this book. Walking through the Old City he describes how,
"Arab head-dresses splash the heaving crowds with black and white or red check, and about one in every fifteen looks uncomfortably like Yasser Arafat." (p. 67).
Just stop for a moment and imagine Donald had actually written, "...uncomfortably like Menachem Begin," or "Yitshak Shamir". Clearly that would been anti-Semitic, yet both were leaders of the terrorist Irgun and Stern gang who were responsible for the murder of many British soldiers between 1918-1948, as well as Lord Moyne, the British Minister of State in Cairo in November 1944. They both became politicians just as Arafat has. Why treat him differently? When speaking of the Temple Mount, Donald similarly writes,
"Arab feeling soon runs high here, and is expressed in anti-Christian and anti-Jewish frenzy. Mullahs shouting over the minarets' loudspeakers can turn a congregation into a rampaging mob within minutes." (p. 70).
Without any comment as to inevitable consequences of thirty years Israeli military occupation, Donald goes on to coolly describe witnessing on TV, "Israeli soldiers dispersing one such mob with tear-gas and four foot truncheons whilst snipers deploy around the walls." (p. 70). One place Donald doesn't mention that is worth visiting on the Temple Mount is the Islamic Museum, which commemorates the martyrdom of those unarmed Moslems shot by Israeli soldiers on the Temple Mount to pray. Here, as at all other Moslem sites, contrary to Donald's swipe at the need to cover bare shoulders and knees (p. 69), Christian visitors who respect Moslem attitudes to seemly dress, are warmly welcomed.
The same pejorative and "orientalist" contrast is made when describing the walk through the Old City of Jerusalem.
"A few steps out of the Armenian Quarter took us into an astonishingly different world. The Jewish Quarter basked in golden sunshine... Take a few steps out of the Jewish into the Arab Quarter and the contrast is dramatic. It is more colourful, more noisy, more crowded, more dirty. The sounds and smells are totally different. The (to us) alien chant, part moan, part yell, part gargle echoes hauntingly from a dozen minarets." (p.60-66).
I would forgive such a description and misunderstanding from someone on their first visit to the Middle East. The whole of the Old City along with the Mount of Olives and East Jerusalem, excluding the small Jewish Quarter, and fanatical settlers, is Arab, ethnically as well as legally in international law. There is no Arab Quarter per se, although the Israeli's like to equate Islam with Arab and Christian with expatriate. The Christian Quarter is as thoroughly Arab as the Moslem Quarter. A similar slip is made of the map of the Holy Land on page 12, described on the contents page as "Israel". Significantly no international borders are inserted leaving it conveniently ambiguous.
Donald claims to have led many tours to the Holy Land. His two "recommended" itineraries included in the last chapter are, I have to say, predictable and sadly typical of probably 95% of tour groups that visit the Holy Land. As someone who has lived there it is inexcusable to fail to recommend contact with the indigenous Christians - even after Donald quotes Bishop Samir Kafity lamenting this very omission (p. 155)! To suggest celebrating Holy Communion at the Garden Tomb rather than worship with the local Christians is lamentable and one of the reasons they feel so invisible and marginalised by the wider Church. Donald does the same in Nazareth highlighting how he led a service at the chapel of the Edinburgh Medical Mission Hospital yet doesn't mention the indigenous churches in Nazareth worth visiting, such as Christ Church and its impressive two schools so popular with Moslems and Christians alike (p. 111).
The Garden Tomb in Jerusalem where Donald served as Warden is actually very pretty and very English so it is not surprising we feel at home there. It is a useful place to visit to help recreate an idea of what a first century tomb might have looked like, but it has neither history nor tradition in its favour as a site associated with the ministry of our Lord.
The same goes for the "Galilee Experience" in Tiberius which Donald recommends. Led by a group of American believers it perpetuates the Zionist myth of a land without a people waiting for a people without a land (hinted at on pp. 22-23). Its worth seeing for that view point but what about hearing the perspective of the 98% of Christians in the Holy Land who are Palestinian? One might be forgiven for thinking they neither exist nor matter. These kinds of pilgrimage itinerary are hastening the day when the Holy Land will become a Christian Disney-world devoid of a living Church like Alexandria and Ephesus.
Let me repeat, if you can ignore the personal foibles and pro-Zionist position, this is a useful book for the background material it contains which illuminates the Bible. However, it doesn't live up to the promises made on its cover. If the reader is actually looking for a guide book to carry around with them in the Holy Land, something like Norman Wareham's "Every Pilgrim Guide to the Holy Land" (Norwich: Canterbury Press; 1996). That book is easier to use since each site is given a separate page and the text is brief and to the point. Donald Bridge's book would probably be one to read before going, but check to see if you've already got it under its previous title. Personally I think the book would be enhanced in a second edition with the slurs and stereotypes against Arabs and Moslems removed, otherwise I fear Donald is in danger of being the subject of a fatua!