The Source

I wonder how James Michener's The Source was received back in the early 60s when it was published, not long after the creation of the state of Israel.

Michener built this novel around an imaginary archaelogical site somewhere between Damascus and Jerusalem, and created a story that goes back to almost 10,000 years B.C., even before the dawn of Judaism.

The novel takes a look at the good and the bad of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic history and culture. I had the feeling that many religious people must have felt somewhat uncomfortable with the book. The inescapable idea set forth is that religions and gods are created by people, and that quite often, those concepts imprison folks and lead to a great deal of pain and suffering.

I couldn't help but think of the current situation in the Mideast, the ongoing, apparently unresolvable conflict between Israelis and Palestinians (aren't Israelis technically Palestinians?). For more info about the so-called Arab-Israeli conflict and its history, these web pages might be worth taking a look at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_conflict
http://www.mideastweb.org/briefhistory.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/country_profiles/803257.stm
http://www.israel-palestina.info/arab-israeli_conflict.html
http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_early.php
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/middle_east/03/v3_ip_timeline/html/default.stm