Posted on 09/26/2017 5:32:30 PM PDT by SJackson
A natural skeptic, Twain was not taken by the splendor of the Holy Land. He wrote irreverently about the country’s legendary sites.
At his peak, Mark Twain was probably the most popular American celebrity of his time. What few realize is that it was an unlikely trip to the Holy Land that established his fame as an author.
A century and a half ago, Twain traveled on an excursion with his American church group to Europe and the Middle East. The material he gathered, first published in a San Francisco newspaper, formed the basis of the humorous book that made him hugely popular: The Innocents Abroad.
But while in the Middle East, Twain, whose real name was Samuel Clemens, was not focused on the book he would eventually write, but another, holier work: the Bible.
While in Palestine, Twain took a piece of stationery with “Mediterranean Hotel” printed on the top just above the date, September 24, 1867, and wrote to a Mr. Elias, a local book-binder in the Old City, the following instructions: “Elias, fix up the little Bible I selected (I don’t want any other) – the one that has backs made of balsa-wood from the Jordan, oak from Abraham’s tree at Hebron, olivewood from the Mount of Olives, and whatever the other stuff was – ebony, I think. Put on it this inscription: ‘Mrs.
Jane Clemens – from her son – Mount Calvary, Sept 24, 1867.’ Put ‘Jerusalem’ around on it loose, somewhere, in Hebrew, just for a flyer. Send it to our camp, near head of the valley of Hinnom – the third tents you come to if you leave the city by the Jaffa Gate – the first if you go out by the Damascus Gate. Yours, Sam L. Clemens.”
The King James Bible published by the British and Foreign Bible Society was an ironic choice of gift for the man who famously quipped, “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.”
A natural skeptic, Twain was not taken by the splendor of the Holy Land. He wrote irreverently about the country’s legendary sites. The Sea of Galilee was, “a solemn, sailless, tintless lake, as unpoetical as any bath-tub on earth.” The Church of the Nativity was “tricked out in the usual tasteless style observable in all the holy places of Palestine.”
Throughout Innocents Abroad, Twain explicitly states that the area was desolate and devoid of inhabitants. His group entered Palestine from the north, passing through such sites as the Sea of Galilee, the Banias, Nazareth, Jenin and Nablus.
Riding on horseback through the Jezreel Valley, Twain observed, “There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent – not for 30 miles in either direction. There are two or three small clusters of Bedouin tents, but not a single permanent habitation. One may ride 10 miles, hereabouts, and not see 10 human beings.”
He continues, “Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince... Can the curse of the Deity beautify a land? “Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies.”
Twain was not alone in his poor impression of the land of milk and honey. Historians and travelers alike made similarly dreary observations over the centuries.
Six hundred years before Twain’s visit, another famous visitor with a nom de plume was struck by Jerusalem’s desolation. Rabbi Moses ben Nachman, known as Nachmanides (1194-1270), fled Christian Spain for the Land of Israel. After a long and perilous journey, Nachmanides arrived at the Port of Acre before traveling to Jerusalem in 1267, where he couldn’t even find nine other Jews to pray with. He wrote to his son, “Many are Israel’s forsaken places, and great is the desecration. The more sacred the place, the greater the devastation it has suffered. Jerusalem is the most desolate place of all.”
Nevertheless, the sage, whose Torah commentary is still studied, had an altogether surprising interpretation of the desolation he encountered. He saw it as a blessing in disguise.
Commenting on a verse in Leviticus that describes the curses that will befall the land of Israel, Nachmanides wrote that the devastation “constitutes a good tiding, proclaiming that during all our exiles, our land will not accept our enemies... Since the time that we left it, [the land] has not accepted any nation or people, and they all try to settle it... This is a great proof and assurance to us.”
The 13th-century scholar wrote that Israel will remain desolate until the Jewish People assume control. But when the people of Israel finally return to the land of Israel, the region will once again flourish thanks to Divine providence.
As the most famous eyewitness to the 19th-century desolation of Palestine, Twain was an unwitting collaborator of Nachmanides. Innocents Abroad brought global attention to the sorry state of Palestine and proved that Palestine was a land without a people for a people without a land just 15 years before the First Aliya and subsequent waves of Jewish immigration.
Half a century after Twain’s visit, the Balfour Declaration was issued in 1917. Fifty years later the Six Day War was won. And today, in 2017 – 50 years after that – Israel continues to flourish, moving in leaps and bounds away from Twain’s “sackcloth and ashes.”
At various points throughout his journey, Twain criticized his fellow “American vandals abroad” for the petty buying and selling of holy land trinkets and religious artifacts. So what compelled this skeptical father of American literature to buy an olive wood-covered Bible for his mother? Twain might not have known it at the time, but by reporting on the “curses” of Palestine during his visit, he was lending credence to the biblical passages he famously mocked in his book, prophecies which were fulfilled less than a few decades later. Likewise, Twain’s decision to purchase a Bible over any other trinket is evidence that he was moved by the religious holiness and spirit of the land.
The author is founder of Israel365, which connects Evangelical Christian Zionists with Israel and strives to be a light unto the nations.
If you'd like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
..................
Nachmanides wrote that the devastation “constitutes a good tiding, proclaiming that during all our exiles, our land will not accept our enemies... Since the time that we left it, [the land] has not accepted any nation or people, and they all try to settle it... This is a great proof and assurance to us.”
I'll search for the article, but I once read a very detailed piece on how the weather patterns in Israel changed since 1917, through 1948, to today.
The amount of rainfall increased incredibly, and allowed a once arid and desolate land to bloom again.
That, combined with ingenious Israeli irrigation techniques, have turn Israel into a literal garden.
.
Clemons was a bit of a sourpuss.
Thanks for the post.
What is striking about his comments is his obvious contempt for historical places, and what took place in them.
Even if your an agnostic, the Biblical stories did take place. The sites where they took place add perspective to the stories. So even if you don’t believe in God, the people who wrote those stories did. They did exist. They did have lives in these places. They did document things that took place there. You can find interest in that.
People over there could come to Twain’s (Clemens’) home in the states and find nothing of value there. The fact that a well known person lived there, would be of note, and cause them to picture that setting whenever they thought of him.
The same could be said of places and things he touched on in his writings.
Some times folks are too cute by half, and tell others a lot more than they might wish to have.
Twain seems a bit of a jerk in this presentation.
Yes, but he was also a big fan of...
Samuel Clemens.
Of all of Twain's travel and/or reminiscence books, I like "Roughing It" the best, "Innocents Abroad" vying with "Life on the Mississippi"* for second place. I would never have expected anyone to tie Twain to prophecy vis-a-vis Israel... I suspect he would probably be offended by the idea of being mentioned in connection with religion, yet so delighted that someone was paying attention to him that he would take whatever credit was vouchsafed.
Mr. niteowl77
*A writer (and fellow Iowan) named Richard Bissell once wrote an interesting little autobiography coyly entitled, "My Life on the Mississippi- Or Why I Am Not Mark Twain," wherein he was a bit uncomplimentary about Sam'l.
Devoid of Arabs, who came in droves only much later, AFTER the Jewish immigrants turned the desert into an oasis.
It was just Twain's style. When he wrote about the area I live in Roughing It in 1861 when he commented that "[the area is so desolate] that even the birds carry provisions." Actually it is spectacular scenery here with 14,000' mountains and miles of beautiful open landscapes. People from all over the World come to visit this area now. He was near what later became Yosemite Nat'l Park when he wrote those comments.
Satire is so often wasted on the educated! Thin-skinned Christians are no better at judging his work than those idiots who call him a racist because Huck Finn repeatedly uses the term nigger.
Though Twain was a misanthrope, there are glimmers of respect for true faith in his writings though he openly called out the hucksters and the fools. If you really think his judgement of the trinket salesmen harsh, how do you view another’s anger that drove Him to pick up a whip?
He was a jerk I suppose, but an entertaining one. My recollection he liked nothing on that cruise. About the best thing he had to say about anyone is that the Brits had the good sense to carry their own soap, knowing no one else in Europe used soap. Funny what you remember.
.
OK smart-a$$!
150 years ago, it was more desolate then it is now.
Thanks for the mention. There’s some truth to the view you presented.
I liked roughing it too, it being America he did find virtue there in some pretty unsavory characters. He would be surprised. I'd never heard that Nachmanides quote. Does make one think.
Sometime satire is wasted because it’s just wasted.
Thanks.
I think you mix satire and humor with some appreciation for what you’re reviewing.
In all fairness, I’m sure the offering was more extensive than what I read. Perhaps he did allude to more consequential things.
I’ve liked things he has written, so this shouldn’t be taken as an overall judgment of the man and his works.
But, but the Palestinians claim that they populated the land until the Jews came and occupied it.
That looks like the Bahai temple in Haifa
Israeli “drip technique” for watering a forest or valley full of growth.
I’m really looking forward to Zechariah 8:22-23 being fulfilled!
Maranatha!
In “Innocents Abroad”, Twain spoke of the Sea Of Galilee. He wrote that the price that the Arabs were charging, for a ferry ride, was so exorbitant, that “it’s no wonder Christ walked!.”
Read later.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.