The late 1880’s in Jerusalem was an age of discovery. On the one hand, textual critics, anthropologists, geologists, and philosophers combined to pour scorn and derision on Scriptural traditions; on the other, archaeology was never so popular or well-supported financially as when it set out “to prove the Bible right.” Well-endowed archaeological missions flocked to the Holy Land, and in their wake came an ever increasing tourist traffic. The railroad and the steamship brought Palestine within the compass of the European grand tour. Wide-eyed and credulous, heaven-sent manna to every imaginative rogue, they flowed into Jerusalem. It was the […]
