The Source

I've just started re-reading "The Source" by James Michener. The last time I read it (and didn't finish) was a couple of years ago, and the book has been languishing on my bookshelf ever since.

A brilliant story - it attempts to trace the development of three of the great religions of the world - Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and in parallel the history of the Middle East. This is done by the telling of short stories spanning tens of thousands of years, between 10,000 BCE and the early 1900s. Michener cleverly uses the archaeological levels of a tell (mound) being excavated In Israel, each level becoming a chapter moving up from the bottom level which is earliest history, to most recent. As the contemporary archaeologists unearth foundations and shards, the story of people whose dust forms the tell is told.

Naturally the short stories are (in the style of Michener) a mix of fact and fiction. The protagonists of the story are based on typical characters existent at the time, but real historical people are as much a part of the story as the fictional characters are.

I'm now about half way through the book, so far just tracing the history of Judaism, and Christianity is just beginning to get prominence; Islam is yet to be born. And I have already learnt so much about the history of the Jews. Some very interesting links follow:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetragrammaton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Jewish_Revolt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Jewish_History