In the Valley of Hinnom near Jerusalem stood a giant statue of the god Moloch. The valley and the deity are infamous for their historical association with child sacrifice. According to some historical accounts, the statue had its arms outstretched, and a fire was kindled within.
The popularity of trashy romance fiction with pirates abducting beautiful virgins and selling heroes as slaves, mistaken identities, shipwrecks, lust, lost lovers reunited and happy-ever-after-endings existed in even antiquity, although it was disapproved of by respectable society.
The conquest to free the Holy Land was a vital component of the late Middle Ages. Sacred to all three major religions, Christians, Jews and Muslims, control of Jerusalem was significant to each.
During the 16th century a Christian slave, captured when only 15-years-old, shattered the traditional rules of the Ottoman Empire and through her intelligence and charm became its first Empress, Hurrem Sultan.
It is often assumed that the biblical ‘Nephilim’ were all Giants. The Nephilim, however, entail much more and can be traced back to a much richer tradition found in ancient Mesopotamia about the Scions of the Gods, with the Giants only having been one group amongst them.
