With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Tracing Abraham's path to show region's common roots

Using a tiny global-positioning device to measure their location via satellite and a map superimposed on topographical images provided by Google Earth, Daniel Adamson and Mahmoud Twaissi are tracking the route that Abraham might have trod.

The ends, however, are as ancient as can be. The two researchers – one British, one Jordanian – are tracing the footsteps of the ancestral patriarch of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in the hope that people today will rediscover the common roots of many generations past – and inspire coexistence and understanding in the present.

This is the making of the Abraham Path, a route that will start in Harran, Turkey – the place where many sources suggest Abraham heard "the call" from God – and will continue into Syria, down through Jordan, across the river into the West Bank, winding through both Israeli and Palestinian territory before ending in Hebron, or Al Khalil, described in the Book of Genesis as Abraham's burial place.
Read entire article at Christian Science Monitor