An Internet Search for the Riddle of the Sepulcher

The thesis of this paper is that the architecture of the Internet (the present) can be a valuable, yet limited, approach to the study of archaeology (the past). When seeking answers concerning the past, archaeology is a valuable resource, as long as it is remembered that archaeology, when answering questions, also poses new questions which in turn must be investigated. This concept is confirmed by a study of one sub domain of a larger domain, www.us-israel.org/jsource, which is essentially a portal site that is sponsored by the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE). This site, which is an introduction to all things Jewish, was selected as the source to test this thesis. It was decided that there would be a specific research question -- "Why is there so much uncertainty about the location of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher?" -- and that the complete source for answers would be one domain and its sub-domains. The answer to this question, if it is to be found (or, more importantly, understood) could be discovered at this site, since this site is said to be a good source for the investigation of archaeological questions. It was anticipated at the beginning of this project that there could be clues to the problem, if the available evidence were correctly analyzed. This investigation revealed one important conclusion: Researching on the Internet is quite similar to archaeological investigation but ha

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h what others have said about the site, and investigations into the source material. Everything is open for observation. In the Internet situation, we are controlled by the point of view of the author and the sponsor who determine the paths we take. For example, the primary page Church.html, we are allowed four links for further investigation: John, Byzantium, Roman Empire, and Jerusalem. Since the concept of hyperlinking through the Internet allows rapid transmittal of information, it was decided to narrow the field by first analyzing the hyperlinks. Scope We investigated the "John" link first, since he was quoted immediately beneath the picture of the Church with this phrase: "At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden, a new tomb... and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there." (John, 19:41-42). The link took us to http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Bible/John.html, which was merely a collection of his verses from the Christian Bible, and not germane to our search. Next we clicked on Byzantium, trusting that the author of this page found a crucial connection between Byzantium and the Church we were interested in. This link took us to http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/His
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Church Sepulchre, Internet Conclusion, Haifa Caesura, Roman Empire, Sepulcher Introduction, Anastasis Greek, Empire Jerusalem, Holy Sepulcher, Hilla Geva, Researching Internet, roman empire, church holy sepulcher, page churchhtml, picture church, sub domain, research question, sifting ceaselessly, holy sepulcher, church holy, sifting ceaselessly layers, roman empire jerusalem, acts represent, dead sea,
Approximate Word count = 1434
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)