| Levant-The Rising: Photographs of Israel-Palestine by Skip Schiel |
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©Skip Schiel, 2004 |
Birth site (alleged) of Jesus, Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, West Bank, November 2003 Bethlehem! Church of the Nativity! The site of the birth of Jesus! Loci of history, personal and global! I can hardly wait. We were informed by our Palestinian Christian guide, Rimon Makhlouf, that the word for place of birth had been mistranslated: not a manger but a grotto, a rock table or enclosure, one among many in this land of limestone. Reach our hand thru the opening in the shrine’s floor and we could touch the birth site. I tried, I touched stone smoothed by many believers, and perhaps a few doubters, like myself, skeptical about claims of what happened where. Although the Church of the Nativity was founded in the 6th century—the belief current at least since then—I could remain skeptical. |
