Information Related to "A Close Encounter"
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When the Roman general Pompey successfully entered Jerusalem in the first century
B.C., he was determined to satisfy his curiosity about certain stories circulating
around the Mediterranean world about the worship of the Jewish people. After
conquering this city he made it one of his personal priorities to ascend the
Temple Mount to find out the truth behind the puzzling reports that the Jewish
people had no physical statue or image of God in their most sacred place of
worship, the Holy
of Holies.
Pompey the Great To Pompey it was inconceivable to worship God without portraying Him in a type of physical likeness, as a statue. So Pompey "bravely" entered forbidden territory, the most-holy sanctuary—and lived to tell about it. What Pompey saw left him greatly puzzled and bewildered. He found no physical statue, no religious image, no pictorial description of the Hebrew God—only an empty space. He left the temple without saying a word!
What this powerful emissary of Rome experienced in Jerusalem, he had seen nowhere else on his travels in the empire. How unlike the worship of other nations! How different from other religions! Jerusalem represented a totally different God from those to whom the rest of the world paid homage.
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