“Living in a Land of Prophets”: James T. Barclay and an Early Disciples of Christ Mission to Jews in the Holy Land

Abstract

In the nineteenth century the West truly rediscovered Palestine. A land many western observers had long considered fallen from its former glory was roused amid its Ottoman occupation to abide the hopes, dreams, and designs not only of aspiring Jewish nationalists but of British and American diplomats, explorers, archaeologists, adventurers, Christian pilgrims, missionaries, and others in that great entourage which Naomi Shepherd has dubbed the “zealous intruders.” Protestant missionaries in the Levant, to the extent that they established an early and enduring physical presence in the Holy Land and a living link with evangelical churches in Europe, Britain, and America, played a memorable, if limited, role in this modern reopening of Palestine to the West.