The New Jerusalem

By Dr. Martin G Tharp PhD

Enjoy and in depth look at the past of the historic city of Jerusalem, the true eternal city, as well as an exciting glimpse of the promise of the New Jerusalem, the coming Heavenly city.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dr. Martin G Tharp PhD
• Release date: Sep 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311714077

Dr. Martin G Tharp PhD

Dr. Martin Tharp has been an avid student of the Bible for many years and holds a Bachelor, Master and eight Doctorates, one honorary and seven earned, including a Doctor. of Literature and two PhDs. He has been in full time ministry for over fifty-seven years and has authored forty-nine books to date, many of which are being used as curriculum in Bible colleges around the United States and abroad. He has also penned a number of gospel songs and recorded thirty-three albums as well as being actively involved in a school ministry to Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom for the past thirty-eight years, and Dr. Tharp has been honored twice by members of parliament in Ireland for their work in the Protestant and Catholic schools. He and his wife, Sharon, along with Maranda Howells, travel extensively across the USA and the whole of the British Isles holding evangelistic crusades in the churches of both countries.

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THE NEW JERUSALEM

By Martin G. Tharp Ph.D.

Copyright 2015 Martin Tharp Ph.D.

Smashwords edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes; This ebook is licensed for your own personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.. Scripture quotations identified KJV are from the Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible, King James Version. Copyright 1984, 1991 by AMG International, INC and the Living Bible Copyright 1971,1986 by Tyndale House Publishers INC

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Table Of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: Jerusalem

Chapter 2: A Historical Record of Jerusalem

Chapter 3: Zion, The City Of David

Chapter 4: Islamic Claims Versus Biblical History of Jerusalem

Chapter 5: History of Jewish Continuity in Jerusalem

Chapter 6: The Biblical Era of Jerusalem

Chapter 7: Hellenistic & Maccabees Rule Over Jerusalem

Chapter 8: Roman Rule Over Jerusalem

Chapter 9: Arab and Crusaders Rule Over Jerusalem

Chapter 10: Mamluk & Ottoman Rule Over Jerusalem

Chapter 11: The British Rule Over Jerusalem

Chapter 12: The Dividing of Jerusalem

Chapter 13: Freedom of Religion In Jerusalem

Chapter 14: The Church At Jerusalem

Chapter 15: The Prophetic Expectations Within Judaism

Chapter 16: The Tabernacle Of God In The New Jerusalem

Chapter 17: Will We Have Physical Bodies In The New Jerusalem?

Chapter 18: What About Friends & Family In The New Jerusalem?

Chapter 19: Will We Have Memories In The New Jerusalem?

Chapter 20: Will We Eat In The New Jerusalem?

Chapter 21: What Is Heaven & The New Jerusalem Like?

About the Author

Introduction

In this book The New Jerusalem, I made the decision to go into what some may consider an unnecessarily historical, document. My reasoning? Until I began this book I actually knew very little about the centuries of difficultly in regard to various nations who have slaughtered the Jewish people by the millions!

Most everyone is aware of the holocaust during the second world war when Hitler attempted to completely annihilate the Jewish race, but most people whom I have met and spoken to about the subject, are completely and blissfully unaware of how many times they were selected for extermination since God called Abram out of Ur of the Chaldees and promised that his seed would be as numerous as the sands of the seashore and more plentiful than the stars in the heavens!

Until recently, the promise that God gave Abram in Chapter 15 of the book of Genesis, that his seed would be more numerous than the stars he was looking at in the night sky, meant very little compared to the promise that they would be as the sands of the seashore, that is until in 2004 when the astronomers stated that there were actually far more stars in the heavens than there are grains of sand on all the seashores of the earth!

I doubt seriously if anyone on this earth is fully aware of just how many sons and daughters of Israeli descent there is who are scattered among the nations? Or for that matter, why Jerusalem holds such an uncanny hold on the hearts and minds of the Jewish people, which would give them the determination, the tenacity and the willingness to die for the right to be called the nation of Israel, specifically with Jerusalem as their capital!

In this book I have included a sizable amount of research in an attempt to enlighten my dear readers to the massive number of times that this people has been under fire and not only threatened, but attempted annihilation over Jerusalem! Yet God has consistently brought them back again and again to occupy what the Bible calls, Jerusalem, Zion, or the city of David!

If indeed as all the prophecy teachers and Bible theologians continue to proclaim, that what happens to Israel has a direct bearing on what will happen to us, perhaps we should consider making a valiant attempt to understand where they have come from and what they have endured in order to occupy a pitifully small piece of land and yet be powerful enough to defeat seven Arab nations who came against them in a concentrated, unified effort to exterminate them!

Chapter One

Jerusalem

Ben Gurion, (the former prime minister ) wrote this in 1947; No city in the world, not even Athens or Rome, has ever played as great a role in the life of a nation for so long a time, as Jerusalem has done in the life of the Jewish people.

Teddy Kollek, the former mayor of Jerusalem, penned these words; "For three thousand years, Jerusalem has been the center of Jewish hope and longing. No other city has played such a dominant role in the history, culture, religion and consciousness of a people as has Jerusalem in the life of Jewry and Judaism.

Throughout centuries of exile, Jerusalem remained alive in the hearts of Jews everywhere as the focal point of Jewish history, the symbol of ancient glory, spiritual fulfillment and modern renewal.

This heart and soul of the Jewish people engenders the thought that if you want one simple word to symbolize all of Jewish history, that word would be Jerusalem. (DC: Washington Institute For Near East Policy, 1990, pp. 19––20).

Ali Qleibo, a Palestinian anthropologist, wrote the following words; "Throughout history a great diversity of peoples has moved into the region and made Palestine their homeland: Canaanites, Jebusites, Philistines from Crete, Anatolian and Lydian Greeks, Hebrews, Amorites, Edomites, Nabateans, Arameans, Romans, Arabs, and European crusaders, to name a few.

Each of them appropriated different regions that overlapped in time and competed for sovereignty and land. Others, such as Ancient Egyptians, Hittites, Persians, Babylonians, and Mongols, were historical 'events' whose successive occupations were as ravaging as the effects of major earthquakes.

Like shooting stars, the various cultures shine for a brief moment before they fade out of official historical and cultural records of Palestine. The people, however, survive. In their customs and manners, fossils of these ancient civilizations survived until modernity, albeit modernity camouflaged under the veneer of Islam and Arabic culture."

I read an amusing story which I thought was worth repeating at this juncture concerning that lie! Recently in a meeting of the United Nations, when it came time for an Israeli representative to defend Israel’s right to exist, he began his speech with these comments;

"In the wilderness when Moses struck the rock and water began to pour forth, he decided that if there was water, he should use this opportunity to take a bath. Removing his clothes and laying them on a nearby rock he enjoyed his time soaking in the water. When he got out of the water and looked for his clothes, he discovered that a Palestinian had stolen them!

The Palestinian representative immediately leaped to his feet and shouted; What are you talking about? The Palestinians were not even there then! The Israeli representative just smiled and said; now that we have made that point clear, I will begin my speech!" Perhaps we should consider some sacred Geography at this point?

In history, Jerusalem is and has been the only capital of a Jewish state, as well as a very unique city in Jewish history, it is in their religion as well as their emotions. In contrast, the city is so minor in Islam, it is not mentioned one single time in the Qur'an! Nor did it ever serve as a political capital or cultural center for the Islamic nations!

Through its first centuries of Muslim rule, S. D Goitein writes;"Jerusalem mostly lived the life of an out of the way provincial town, delivered to the exactions of rapacious officials and notables, often also to tribulations at the hands of seditious fellahin, peasants, or nomads. Jerusalem certainly could not boast of excellence in the sciences of Islam or any other fields.

Because of the centrality of Jerusalem in Judaism boosts the Zionist claim to that city, Palestinians in the twentieth century have retroactively enhanced Jerusalem's religious and historical stature in Islam. They came up with the by now universally accepted notion in Islam, of Jerusalem being the third most holy city of Islam (after Mecca and Medina) and they deemed it the Palestinians' eternal capital.

Palestine has undergone an even more dramatic transformation. While Jews have the concept of Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel) and Christians have Terra Sancta (Holy Land), Muslims have no parallel concept, for Palestine historically had no special status in the Islamic tradition. Further, it did not even exist as a political or cultural unit during their centuries of rule over the area.

The only time Palestine existed as a polity was either under the rule of Christians (Crusader kingdoms, the British empire) or Jews (Judea, Israel). As Bernard Lewis writes; For Muslims the name Filastin had never meant more than an administrative sub district and after the Crusades it had been forgotten even in that limited sense.

As late as the beginning of 1920, Palestine had no resonance among Muslims whatsoever!

From these inauspicious beginnings, the romance of Palestine grew into what it is today, an extremely powerful nationalistic force that now rivals its Jewish precursor. To build up such feelings, Palestinian nationalists drew heavily on the Zionist storehouse of longing for the Land of Israel.

For example, Arafat ( the president of the PLO, the terrorist arm of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Egyptian Muslims) adopted such Zionist terminology as referring to Palestine as the promised land.

Palestinians have in effect inherited the unrequited Jewish longing for Eretz Yisrael. At the very moment that establishing the State of Israel achieved the two millennia old dream of the Jews return to the land of milk and honey, Palestinians imitated their parallel longing for the lost gardens of Jaffa and Ramla.

The Zionist venture sees itself re establishing Jewish sovereignty after an interval of