Syria in the Bible and in the Early Church: A Heritage at Risk (Digital Education)
In recent months we’ve become aware as well of the tragic loss of Syria’s rich cultural heritage at the hands of ISIS and by those who profit from the looting and sale of antiquities. This loss of antiquities and the humanitarian tragedy are not unrelated. As Dr. Amr al-Azm, a former official in the Syrian Ministry of Antiquities who now teaches Middle Eastern History and Archaeology at Shawnee State University in Ohio, reminds us: “A people without a history is a lost people . . . and history without people is meaningless.” Not only the Syrians, but we too are deeply invested in Syria’s history as evidenced by the bible and in the history of the early church. The loss of Syria’s cultural heritage, then, is not only a tragedy for the Syrian people, but a tragedy for us as well.
In this NRIT presentation by Tom Lee, we will explore the importance of ancient Syria for the bible and the church and will attempt to convey some sense of the threat posed by the Syrian civil war to our common cultural heritage.