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Moving mountains and the Kingdom of Heaven
Jesus said that faith like a mustard seed could move mountains, and although this is in our time often explained as a hyperbolical review of one's private resolve, it really isn't. Moving mountains was done all the time in the old world, and it required team work, vast skills and a very good reason to do it.
In deep antiquity, people all over the world had built ceremonial earthworks from modest mounds to enormous pyramids, and in the second century BC, Antipater of
Sidon had dubbed the pyramids of Giza "man-made mountains". Even the 750 meter high hill that hosted
Herod's famous palace (called
Herodion) was "raised to a height by the hand of man" (in the words of Josephus; for more on Josephus, see our article on
Dalmanutha).
Dumping mountains in the sea was also done regularly..."
Faith: persuasion and belief