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Yaron Eliav is a professor of Jewish and Judaic studies at the University of Michigan. Yaron Eliav’s book, God’s Mountain: The Temple Mount in Time, Space, and Memory, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, won the 2005 Theology and Religious Studies Award by the Association of American Publishers, and the 2006 Salo Baron prize for best first book from the American Academy for Jewish Studies.
The Temple Mount is a hill in the old city of Jerusalem that is one of the holiest places in the world for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Jewish tradition holds that this is the place where god created Adam out of dust, and where Abraham nearly sacrificed his son Isaac as an act of faith. In the Islamic tradition, the place is called Haram al-Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary, and is thought to be the place where the prophet Mohammed ascended on the back of a winged horse, known as the Miraculous Night Journey.
The Temple Mount is a hotspot in Middle East conflicts as both Israel and Palestine both claim sovereignty over it. Both sides rely on history to prove to which tradition the Temple Mount belongs, with both sides believing their traditions have the deepest roots in that piece of land. Archaeological investigation, however, has often been prevented for precisely these religious reasons.
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