Given that history has spiritual significance, the way in which historians do history becomes a theologically relevant matter. This is obvious in cases like Constantine’s imperial policies, or Henry VIII’s break with Rome, but is equally important in less obvious cases, like Mao’s conflict with Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi) or how Chandragupta Maurya taxed the peasants of India.
All history is sacred history.
Seeking to unfold the spiritual implications of historical methods, author Mitri Raheb looks at the ways in which the history of Palestine has been recorded. Palestine - or ‘Philistia’ - has been documented as a geographic region for millennia, occupied or dominated by various nations at various times.
To even mention Palestine in the twentieth or twenty-first centuries is obviously a politically sensitive topic. Yet to speak of Palestine only in those centuries is to ignore at least four thousand years of recorded history.
If we examine the ancient history of Palestine, and the many different ethnic groups which lived in, or moved through, it, we can do so either in the light of contemporary events - in which case we are gerrymandering history for the sake of modern politics - or ignoring contemporary events - in which case we are refusing to examine evidence which may shed light on what’s happening now.
The history of Palestine is the history of the land - in the direct physical sense - and not the history of a nation or of a state, because various nations and various states have occupied or ruled this land.
Mitri Raheb states a bold thesis about the historiography of Palestine:
Historical writing by Christians that takes account of the Near East and Palestine falls, without exception, into one of two approaches. The first is biblical history, which starts approximately with Abraham and continues, give or take, up to the time of Jesus. Scholars in this field apply their research to the history of the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, and then reflect on the implications of those empires on Palestine. This stream of history generally ends with the second Jewish Revolt in the middle of the second century AD. Because this field is concerned with biblical history, interest in the history of Palestine ends there. After that no one is obliged to hear, study, or even research anything that has to do with the Palestinian history that follows.
According to Mitri Raheb, historians make one of two mistakes: either they treat the history of Palestine as ending between 100 and 200 A.D., or they treat its history as largely uninteresting. Naturally, these formulations are overstatements - very few historians indeed would assert such propositions - but Raheb argues that they, in practice, treat Palestine this way:
The second approach is that of church history. Church history is taught mainly as world history and mainly as Western history. It usually begins with the early church, proceeding from Constantine and the Byzantine Empire to the Holy Roman Empire, the Crusades, the era of Scholasticism, to the Reformation, and on to mission history, concluding with contemporary history. With the exception of the first two centuries and, to a certain degree, the Crusades, Palestine is not deemed noteworthy, and thus its history remains largely in the dark.
The question, then, begs to be asked: in which way should historians treat Palestine? As a question of historical methodology, Palestine should be treated in the same way as any other territory.
If history is theology, then the history of Palestine is a record of how God has manifested Himself there - just as the history of Thailand or Bolivia is a record of how God has shown Himself in those areas.
God is not interested in one’s citizenship. God is not interested in whether one is culturally Jewish or Muslim. God is interested in giving good things to people.
The religious categories of the region are a mess. To be identified as “Palestinian” does not entail automatically that one is a Muslim. God’s vehicle for reaching people is not cultural Christianity. His vehicle is Jesus.
What has Jesus been doing in Palestine for the last four thousand years? What is He doing there today?
These same questions can be posed about China or Bolivia or even the United States.
