Search results for " Biblical Israel"

Memory lost, memory regained. Considerations on the recovery of Sacred Texts in Messenia and in Biblical Israel: A Comparison

2013

The fourth book of Pausanias’ Periegesis may be read as an excursus in the collective memory of the Messenian people, condemned to almost 300 years of sorrowful diaspora after a conflict with the Spartans. According to the oracles, the possibility of a homecoming is linked to a small secret object, which, if properly kept, would guarantee the recovery of the lost land. Legend has it that this object was hidden in the mounts of Ithome by Aristomenes, the hero of the Messenian resistance against Sparta’s oppression and an expert of oracular knowledge. Many years later, a dream vision reveals to Epaminondas and to the military chief Epiteles the exact site where Aristomenes supposedly buried t…