The word Zion con­notes the First and Sec­ond Tem­ples in Jerusalem and for many the asso­ci­a­tion con­tin­ues even fur­ther to the future tem­ple and the Mes­sian­ic era. But Zion implies much more.
The Oth­er Zions shows how, for many years and for many peo­ple, the quest to estab­lish Zion was bound not by loca­tion, but by con­vic­tion. Many thinkers and lead­ers have tried to estab­lish Zion out­side the geo­graph­ic con­fines of Jerusalem.
Eric Maroney explains how Zion has been seen through­out his­to­ry as a pow­er­ful force that can move nations. Zion cap­tured the imag­i­na­tion of diverse peo­ples and tribes who believed that under­stand­ing and find­ing Zion would has­ten the mes­sian­ic age.
The lead­ing exam­ple of this the­sis is the search for the ten lost tribes. After the Assyr­i­ans defeat­ed the North­ern King­dom of Israel, the ten north­ern tribes were tak­en into slav­ery and lost. Even until today, myths about the exis­tence of the lost tribes abound. The Oth­er Zions cap­tures the real and the imag­ined pow­er of the con­cept of Zion.