Constructions of Space III: Biblical Spatiality and the Sacred 9780567115164, 9780567661647, 9780567061973

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LIBRARY OF HEBREW BIBLE/ OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES

540 Formerly Journal of the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series

Editors Claudia V. Camp, Texas Christian University Andrew Mein, Westcott House, Cambridge

Founding Editors David J. A. Clines, Philip R. Davies and David M. Gunn

Editorial Board Alan Cooper, John Goldingay, Robert P. Gordon, Norman K. Gottwald, James E. Harding, John Jarick, Carol Meyers, Carolyn J. Sharp, Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, Francesca Stavrakopoulou, James W. Watts

ii

CONSTRUCTIONS OF SPACE III

Biblical Spatiality and the Sacred

Edited by Jorunn Økland, J. Cornelis de Vos and Karen Wenell

Bloomsbury T&T Clark An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Bloomsbury T&T Clark An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Imprint previously known as T&T Clark 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

1385 Broadway New York NY 10018 USA

www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY, T&T CLARK and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

First published 2016 © Jorunn Økland, J. Cornelis de Vos and Karen Wenell, 2016 Jorunn Økland, J. Cornelis de Vos and Karen Wenell have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editors of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the authors. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN:

HB: ePDF:

978-0-56711-516-4 978-0-56706-197-3

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Økland, Jorunn, editor. Title: Constructions of space III / edited by Jorunn Økland, J. Cornelis de Vos, and Karen Wenell. Other titles: Constructions of space 3 Description: New York : Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016. | Series: The library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament studies ; volume 540 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015040650 | ISBN 9780567115164 (alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Bible--Geography--Congresses. | Cities and towns, Ancient--Middle East--Congresses. | Space perception in the Bible--Congresses. Classification: LCC BS630 .C644 2016 | DDC 221.9/12--dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015040650 Series: Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Series, volume 540 Typeset by Forthcoming Publications (www.forthpub.com) Printed and bound in the United States of America

Contents Abbreviations vii List of Contributors ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction Jorunn Økland, J. Cornelis de Vos, and Karen Wenell

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Part I Hebrew Bible Holy Men in Space Stuart Lasine

3

Egypt as a Space of Fear and a Space of Hope Roland Boer

23

Mythical Space and Mythical Time: Jerusalem as the Site of the Last Judgment Klaus Bieberstein

37

The “Threshing Floor” as Sacred Space in the Hebrew Bible: A Spatial and Anthropological Perspective Tamara Prosic

58

Taking Issue with Thirdspace: Reading Soja, Lefebvre and the Bible Christopher Meredith

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Part II New Testament and Intertestamental Literature What Happened to the Heavenly World When the Righteous Finally Arrived? Transformation, Space and Redemption in 2 Baruch 51 Liv Ingeborg Lied

107

vi Contents

Death, Burial, and Sacred Space in the Temple Scroll Nóra Dávid

123

The Kingdom of God as “Space in Motion”: Towards a More Architectural Approach Karen Wenell

135

Lukan Narrative Spatiality in Transition: A Reading of Acts 11:19–12:24 for Its Spaces Matthew Sleeman

151

Hebrews 3:7–4:11 and the Function of Mental Time-Space Landscapes J. Cornelis de Vos

169

Carnelian and Caryatids: Stone and Statuary in the Heavenly Sanctuary Jorunn Økland

184

Outlook The Space of Liturgical Being David Jasper

217

Index of References Index of Authors

227 239

A bbreviations AAR AB ABD

American Academy of Religion Anchor Bible Anchor Bible Dictionary. Edited by D. N. Freedman. 6 vols. New York, 1992 ATD Das Alte Testament Deutsch Bib Biblica Biblical Interpretation BibInt Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft BZNW Catholic Biblical Quarterly CBQ EABS European Association of Biblical Studies Forschung zur Bibel FzB Forms of the Old Testament Literature FOTL Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen FRLANT Testaments ICC International Critical Commentary IDB The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Edited by G. A.Buttrick. 4 vols. Nashville, 1962 Int Interpretation Journal of Biblical Literature JBL Jewish Quarterly Review JQR JSNT Journal for the Study of the New Testament JSNTSup Journal for the Study of the New Testament: Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the Old Testament JSOT Journal for the Study of the Old Testament: Supplement Series JSOTSup Loeb Classical Library LCL Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies LHBOTS Library of New Testament Studies LNTS Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha: Supplement Series JSPSup Library of Second Temple Studies LSTS New Century Bible NCB NTS New Testament Studies OTL Old Testament Library Old Testament Studies OTS SBL Society of Biblical Literature Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series SBLDS SJOT Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament SNTSMS Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series Studien zum Alten und Neuen Testament StANT

viii Abbreviations VTSup WBC WESBC WUNT ZAW

Vetus Testamentum Supplements Word Biblical Commentary Westminster Bible Companion Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

L ist

of C ontributors

Klaus Bieberstein is Professor and Chair of Old Testament Studies, Faculty for Humanities, Otto-Friedrich-University Bamberg, Germany. Roland Boer is Research Professor at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Nóra Dávid completed her doctoral studies at Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Hungary, in 2009, and is Assistant at the Institute for Jewish Studies at the University of Vienna. David Jasper is Professor of Literature and Theology at the University of Glasgow, and Distinguished Overseas Professor at Renmin University of China, Beijing. Stuart Lasine is Professor of Religion in the Ransom-Butler Department of Religion at Wichita State University. Liv Ingeborg Lied is Professor of Religious Studies at MF Norwegian School of Theology. Chris Meredith is Senior Lecturer in Biblical Interpretation in the Department of Theology, Religion and Philosophy at the University of Winchester, UK. Jorunn Økland is Professor of Gender Studies in the Humanities, Centre for Gender Research, University of Oslo, Norway, and Director of the Norwegian Institute at Athens, Greece. Tamara Prosic is Lecturer in Religious Studies in the School of Philosophical, Historical and International Studies at Monash University, Australia. Matthew Sleeman is the Friends of Oak Hill Lecturer in New Testament and New Testament Greek at Oak Hill Theological College, London. J. Cornelis de Vos is Adjunct Professor in New Testament and Early Judaism and Researcher at the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” at the University of Münster. Karen Wenell is Lecturer in New Testament and Theology at the University of Birmingham.

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A cknowledgments The current volume emerged out of the “Bible and Sacred Space” research programme of the European Association of Biblical Studies (EABS). Most of the chapters were originally papers presented as part of this programme. The programme was initiated by Jorunn Økland and launched in 2005 at the Dresden meeting of the Association; Karen Wenell and J. Cornelis de Vos later succeeded her as chairs. The editors want to thank the Association for the space provided for the research programme under their auspices. Special thanks go to Philip Davies, who as committee member and soon president of the EABS (2006–2009) was inspiring and helpful in setting up the programme, and who, as it happens, is also founding editor of the current book series. The volume is number 3 in the Constructions of Space sub-series under the Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies series. The volume has been long in the making. The editors want to extend their sincere gratitude for the support of the series editors Claudia V. Camp and Andrew Mein, as well as for the patience of both series editors and chapter authors. The continuing strength of the Constructions volumes pays tribute to those who have commissioned the work and contributed through their research and writing to furthering attention to space in academic biblical discourse. In finalizing the manuscript, there are two younger scholars who should be thanked: first, Chantal Jackson, Oslo, who has done excellent proofreading, as always. Yet the deepest debt of gratitude goes to Cathinka Dahl Hambro, formerly Økland’s Ph.D. student and research assistant, now Associate Professor at the Arctic University of Norway. Her involvement with the project has been essential at the final stages, patiently acting as messenger, coordinator, proof-reader, collector of manuscripts and vital information, and she has also given the manuscript its final layout. Thank you very much! The Editors

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I ntroduction Jorunn Økland, J. Cornelis de Vos, and Karen Wenell Issues of spatiality are placed in the foreground for the reading of biblical narratives in this third Constructions of Space volume, following on from the first two volumes, which focused on Theory, Geography, and Narrative and The Biblical City and Other Imagined Spaces, respectively. All volumes in the series recognize that critical engagement is needed in the interpretation of biblical notions of space, and this edited collection draws together a variety of approaches – spatial-theoretical, ritual and phenomenological – to address and respond to this need. With an emphasis on the sacred in relationship to biblical spaces, dynamic and mutually shaping relationships between holiness and space emerge throughout the volume in analytical dialogue with modern spatial-critical theory and ancient texts from the different perspectives of the authors. The illumination of such relationships contributes to, and develops, the ongoing discourse on critical spatiality in Biblical Studies, taking account of temples and sanctuaries, but also other spaces described or implied as holy or sacred in the biblical texts. 1. Locations: North America and Europe Spatial-critical approaches to the Bible have become more widespread in the last ten to fifteen years. The spatial turn in Biblical Studies has resulted in a broad range of publications – among others by the editors of this volume.1 Importantly, a body of work has come out of the “Constructions of Ancient Space Seminar” of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) and the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), published in the two multi-authored volumes that precede this one, Constructions of Space I–II (Berquist and Camp 2007 and 2008), and in “Imagining” Biblical Worlds: Studies in Spatial, Social and Historical Constructs in Honor of James W. Flanagan (Gunn and McNutt 2002). The North American 1.  Monographs include: Økland 2004; de Vos 2003, 2012; Wenell 2007; also George 2009; Moxnes 2003; Sleeman 2009; Stewart 2009.

xiv Introduction

“Constructions” seminar lasted from 2000–2005, at which point another programme was launched in a different part of the world: the “Bible and Sacred Space” seminar of the European Association of Biblical Studies (EABS) was initiated in 2005 at the Dresden meeting. It is the fruits of this research programme that are presented in the current volume. All the editors were present in 2005, either as speakers (de Vos and Wenell) or as chair (Økland), and the programme is still ongoing. The widely different spatial locations of the seminars themselves (but not of their contributors, as both seminars include North American, European and Australian scholars) have inevitably infused them with different local flavours. Spatial location is critical also in the modern era. Different local discourses, material and political conditions, histories – and their combination – put a local stamp on an allegedly common and unified discipline around the globe. Even among the editors of this volume, all living in Northern Europe, we find this to be true. We have all taken our spatial interest in the Bible into our teaching courses; but the different locations of our respective departments within the larger university systems, their confessional/non-confessional nature, and various other local concerns mean that our respective courses on space and the Bible have been rather different. The AAR/SBL and the EABS seminars have had slightly different profiles. The AAR/SBL seminar, which is by far the largest, has made a more concentrated effort to come up with a set of shared theoretical tools specifically adjusted to critical studies of ancient spaces (esp. Berquist and Camp, 2008). By the time the EABS programme started, the current “after theory” (Eagleton 2004) intellectual climate had set in. Hence, some of the spatial-theoretical adaptations were less relevant; also because, of course, this was where the AAR/SBL seminar did so much pioneering work. Thus the EABS programme had the advantage of another seminar already having made the academic and theoretical case for spatial-critical perspectives on the Bible; hence the sharp focus on theory was perhaps less necessary also for that reason. This pattern is shared across the Humanities – which is probably the reason why so much of the focus has shifted from theory to other areas recently. Further, the different spatial locations of the seminars may also have a bearing on this positioning: some, but by no means all, of the essays in the current volume engage less in theoretical discussions not because they are not aware of the theory or are “theory-tired,” but because they are produced within an academic culture with a firm belief in developing the analytical grasp in very close interaction with the primary texts.

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A further difference between the previous volumes and this one is that here we are not discussing ancient spaces in general, but spaces somehow associated with the sacred: either because they are described as such, or because of their association with a sacred text. This association can also happen at the receiving end in modern times (cf. Jasper’s contribution). We will return to this issue below concerning Biblical Studies as “Transportwissenschaft.” A final difference is that the AAR/SBL seminar analysed various types of data from the ancient world. The EABS programme has focused mainly on biblical literature, both Hebrew Bible and New Testament. The current volume also has a relatively stronger participation of New Testament scholars – in fact, all three editors are working in the area of New Testament, early Judaism, and early Christianity. 2. Locations: Western Discourses of Space There is no doubt that the current volume comes out of a Western setting. From an historical perspective, Western discourses of space have undoubtedly been closely tied to biblical texts which have supported colonial attitudes and practices of subjugation. The present volume also shows a dependence on the development of liberation hermeneutics and the significance of location in the colonial systems of the world. Even a brief mention of texts such as Gen 15, wherein God “gives” the land of other peoples to Abraham and his descendants, or Matt 28, where the disciples are to “go and make disciples of all nations,” draws our attention to the importance of readings of biblical space, their dangers, and also their potential for reading in new, liberative ways. As we have exemplified above, the increased interest in critical spatiality has a variety of reasons, and many of them have been outlined in the previous volumes of this series. We will not revisit these matters in detail, but rather briefly mention that the obvious precedent is the occurrence of spatial theory within critical social theory and radical geography. The most frequently drawn upon theorists are Henri Lefebvre, Doreen Massey, David Harvey, and Edward Soja. Within Biblical Studies in particular, the interest in spatial-critical approaches may also be due to the fact that the spatial approach has provided a lens through which the ancient texts on buildings and spaces become more accessible and make better sense: the ancient texts show more interest in space, are more conscious about space, than modern sensibilities have allowed for, caught as we have been in a predominantly temporal and chronological way of understanding the texts.

xvi Introduction

Especially in a European context we find that many biblical scholars interested in issues of sacred sites and sacred buildings are still not acquainted with spatial-critical approaches. When it comes to spatial theory, the volume builds on the previous work in Biblical Studies, where we find a set of theoretical tools specifically adjusted to critical studies of ancient spaces. Even if the development of a “school” of biblical-spatial-critical studies has never been the main focus in the EABS programme, we are still interested in how a variety of theories (such as ritual theory, psychoanalytical theory, speech act theory, narrative theory, etc.) can be used to tease out the spatial aspects of texts in the biblical tradition once the eye has been trained to look critically for them. An appropriate use of theory tailored to the text in question has always been part of the discussion. Close, sensitive readings of sacred spaces with spatial and critical awareness but not necessarily drawing on the most frequently mentioned spatial theorists will be presented here. 3. Approaches to the Sacred Within the milieu of spatial discourse described above, the importance of engaging with the social meaning(s) of biblical spaces is clear. Yet, at this point our attention is drawn to the difference in emphasis already mentioned for the EABS group in distinction from the work of the AAR/ SBL research programme: that is, the attention the EABS group has paid to the sacred in relationship to biblical space. It perhaps goes without saying that any sacred space will have particular social meanings to explore and investigate. However, the reverse does not hold true: not every socially important space has a sacred meaning. Therefore, what can be said about particular biblical spaces in terms of how they are, or are not, made sacred? What interactions occur, and what connections are made to the divine? Religiously significant space is not simply equal to socially significant space, yet both social and sacred considerations must be taken into account. The main critical approach to the sacred in the volume is a constructivist one, supplemented by various forms of culturalanthropological and psychoanalytical approaches. Most biblical scholars are aware of the way holiness and space are interlocked in the discourses surrounding such key biblical spaces as the tabernacle, the land, and the Temple in Jerusalem; most are also aware of how the holiness of those spaces materialized in different ways in different periods. But a spatial-critical perspective can help us better understand how the relationship between notions of holiness and of space was a more dynamic one – as notions of space changed, notions of

Introduction

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holiness changed, and vice versa. Such a perspective also opens up further questions, such as how the Temple’s periphery is constructed, and how a human being can move and orient him- or herself in such a space overloaded with meaning. The wider postmodern shift from time as primary category and space as contingent to space as primary category of perception and time as contingent has been an eye-opener for many biblical scholars: Suddenly a range of ancient texts on temples, holy sites, sanctuaries, travels, and so on, has become more accessible and meaningful. In this new intellectual climate, spatial-critical approaches have provided a vocabulary through which the ancient texts are allowed to speak in new ways and also to address modern people in new ways, as especially Jasper’s essay in this volume highlights. The book engages space both as a focus in the texts under discussion as well as from an analytical perspective. It explores more specifically how the Bible does not contain one, or even several, notions of sacred/ holy space, even if there are undoubtedly many spaces described as such. It rather tries to trace how the discourses on space and those on the sacred intersect and interact in various writings of the Bible, more like points in a diagram, resulting in highly different ways of conceptualizing the sacred. 4. Textuality and the Sacrality of Space Within a text, it is possible to open up and construct other spaces apart from the “real” spaces of temples and sanctuaries. This volume also considers such “other spaces” as heavenly realms, places of judgment, and the elusive kingdom of God. Yet whether the biblical descriptions under consideration relate to buildings like the Jerusalem temple, or to the space of ascension, all are communicated through literature. As Verónica SallesReese put it, though nothing prevents an individual from having their own experience of the divine, for it to be shared and understood “it must first be conveyed through language” (Salles-Reese 1997, 6). Biblical spaces have come to us specifically as textual spaces, and a further question could be asked: Does the putting-into-text of a land, a building, a threshing floor or even a heavenly realm somehow make it more sacred? It certainly makes it more mobile, echoing the foundational narrative event when Moses leads the people of Israel out of Egypt, bringing with them only what they could carry, and succeeding “in recoding God from the medium of stone to that of the scroll” (Sloterdijk 2009, 47). Thus:

xviii Introduction The science of the religions becomes a sub-discipline of transport science. Transport science, for its part – or political semio-kinetics – becomes a sub-discipline of writing and media theory. (Sloterdijk 2009, 45–46)2

The biblical text is essentially mobile, and Harold Adams Innis also writes about the difference between cultures with regard to how transportable they are. Pyramids and temples are less mobile than books (or pillars of fire or cloud!), but then on the other hand they are also more permanent and stable (Innis 2007). The Bible is a movable object seemingly obsessed with permanent building structures, particularly the temple(s). Writing about the Jerusalem temple, to select a prominent example, then also becomes a form of building transport.3 5. Overview of Contributions The volume proceeds in two main sections, moving in a roughly canonical order through the texts of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and New Testament, and also including two chapters dealing with Intertestamental Literature. In the closing essay, Jasper focuses less on particular texts, but addresses more overarching issues and themes. To begin, then, with Genesis, Stuart Lasine’s essay draws attention to the dangers of holy space which enter the world of the biblical narrative with the account of Moses and the burning bush, but are not prominent in the Genesis narrative. Rather, in Genesis, we find a different spatial world from later texts, which is also a safer world, not yet divided into holy and profane zones. Thus, Lasine offers a different perspective on the missing root qdš in the Genesis narrative, seeing this as related to the specific dimension of holiness in Genesis, rather than a mere instance of omission in “vocabulary rather than substance.” The dangers and ambiguities of biblical space are picked up and explored in relationship to Egypt in Roland Boer’s essay. Understanding Egypt as both a “space of fear” and a “space of hope” (David Harvey), Boer insightfully explores the relation between these oppositional terms. As a utopian space, Egypt is characterized by openness, refuge, and 2.  “Die Wissenschaft von den Religionen wird eine Teildisziplin der Trans­ port­ wissenschaft. Die Transportwissenschaft ihrerseits – oder die politische Semio-Kinetik – wird eine Teildisziplin der Schrift- und Medientheorie” (original German text from Sloterdijk 2007). 3.  Someone who has described this in great detail but is not part of the current book is Timothy Beal in his Roadside Religion: In Search of the Sacred, the Strange, and the Substance of Faith (2005).

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renewal; as a dystopian space, it enslaves, attacks outsiders, and is oppressive. Whether an open, alternative space, or a closed, authoritarian space, the symbolic space of Egypt provides insights into dimensions of the sacred economy. Boer and Lasine both consider dangerous, or fearful, aspects of the sacred in biblical narratives of space, and Boer takes further the notion of oppositions and ambiguities in search of a materialist history for Egypt. Klaus Bieberstein’s essay draws together many diverse threads in relation to Jerusalem and the idea of the Last Judgment, setting out to define a framework for mythical language about the Last Judgment. He draws on Ernst Cassirer’s work as well as Maurice Halbwachs’s studies on collective memory. In the second part of his essay, Bieberstein concentrates on biblical sources, outlining a diachronic survey from the eighth to the third century B.C.E., and finally, the realization of these ideas “in the scenery of Jerusalem” is outlined in the spaces of the city and surrounding areas. In Tamara Prosic’s essay on the threshing floor in the Hebrew Bible, a liminal space appears in a variety of narratives, with a variety of functions. Because threshing floors are not connected in the biblical narrative with other symbolic, sacred spaces, they remain in between the immanent and the transcendent, the human and the divine. In an ordered sacred economy of holy and profane space, they function as spaces which blur boundaries and bring into question strictly divided and separate worlds. Finally, Chris Meredith brings this section to a close by asking broader questions about the ways that the work of Lefebvre and Soja are used in biblical scholarship, arguing for a more careful evaluation of such work and expansion of theoretical insights which enter the conversation across disciplines. Bringing in insights from reception history, and in particular Bernard’s reading of the Song of Songs on the Langres Plateau, Meredith suggests the very pertinent and real contribution that biblical studies might make, insisting that it “need not scamper for the crumbs that fall from the table of critical spatial theory.” In the next section, two essays, those of Liv Ingeborg Lied and Nóra Dávid, consider themes and spaces in Intertestamental Literature. Dávid’s essay considers corpse impurity at Qumran, and the cemetery as a permanent place of uncleanness. She considers how the authors of the Temple Scroll tried to handle corpse impurity and separate it from various spaces of human life, progressing from the cemetery through the houses towards the human body itself. Lied, on the other hand, focuses on the imaginative spaces set out in the narrative world of 2 Baruch. She gives careful attention to the precise ideas found in this visionary text

xx Introduction

(focusing on 51:1–13) and to the changing nature of both humans and the spatial environment, drawing out the ways that both are transformed, and posing a strong challenge to the notion that texts such as this are merely interested in “post-judgment anthropology”; spatiality is also crucial to the transformations of the text for both the righteous and the wicked. As the heavenly world becomes a “place of redemption and assembly” for the righteous, there is an emphasis on visibility in the spatiality of the text, and on what can be seen, particularly in a more didactic sense by those who have listened in the present world. Moving to investigations of New Testament texts, and with a focus on Mark’s Gospel, Karen Wenell’s chapter considers whether the shape of the kingdom of God as a sacred space has become dominated by the shape of the first-century context that scholars describe in their work. In dialogue with Bruno Latour’s critique of “the social,” and challenging Lefebvre’s notion that “social space is a social product,” Wenell argues for the establishment of connections rather than context in discussion of the kingdom, and makes suggestions regarding the moral contours of Mark’s kingdom using this alternative way of working. The next contribution, by Matthew Sleeman, whose background is in geography, takes a “broadly Sojan” approach to the narrative spatialities in Acts 11:19–12:24. Here, Sleeman identifies Acts 11:19–30 as a crucial point in Luke’s narrative, with its “heavenized space” in the setting of Antioch. Having undergone a “trial by space,” the narrative shows the early church establishing itself in sustained, yet new and innovative, space. The book of Hebrews, with its abundant spatial referents, is the focus of J. Cornelis de Vos’s chapter, which considers the spatial contours of Heb 3:7–4:11. In this section of Hebrews, hearers are guided on a journey through time and space that reminds them of the wilderness experience and points them toward the not-yet-reached heavenly rest. Time and space become mingled in the mental map that emerges in the text, and which also has a strong pragmatic function. Bringing a fitting conclusion to this section of the book is Jorunn Økland’s essay on sacred space in the Apocalypse of John. Økland demonstrates how aspects of the description of John’s vision of God’s throne room are evocative of other apocalyptic and rabbinic texts, yet also show resemblances to Roman public religion, thereby offering a counter discourse to the Roman imperial order. Examples from architecture and statuary of ancient imperial temples suggest the possibility of reading John’s description of heaven as a sanctuary dedicated to imperial cult.

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This reading, then, has important implications for understanding the broader meaning of the Apocalypse. The book closes with a reflection which is less focused on specific biblical texts, but turns our attention to fundamental issues of spatiality in relation to memory, pilgrimage, liturgy, and phenomenology. David Jasper’s essay takes us on a different sort of journey, through a reading/ writing of liturgical space informed by Martin Heidegger, Jean-Yves Lacoste, and Maurice Blanchot among others. For Jasper, the space of the silent text, functioning as a sign, may become the space of liturgical living in community. Though stumbling “in the darkness of God,” it may yet be possible to approach the secret sanctuary, the “impossible possibility of the sacred community. That is to dare, scandalously, to accept the gift and thus to be ‘sacred,’ to be set apart.” Jasper’s meditations on biblical themes in a provocative and poetic proposal of writing and text as the space of liturgical living, where community may become a place of understanding something of “the absent presence of the Other,” perhaps points us toward what we hope readers will encounter within this volume: a dynamic engagement between reading/writing of texts, and the touch of the sacred which, though remaining ultimately unknown, momentarily comes near in the textual spaces of community and story. Works Cited Beal, Timothy. 2005. Roadside Religion: In Search of the Sacred, the Strange, and the Substance of Faith. Boston, MA: Beacon. Berquist, Jon L., and Claudia V. Camp, eds. 2007. Constructions of Space I: Theory, Geography, and Narrative. LHBOTS 481. New York: T&T Clark International. ———. 2008. Constructions of Space II: The Biblical City and Other Imagined Spaces. LHBOTS 490. New York: T&T Clark International. Eagleton, Terry. 2004. After Theory. London: Penguin. George, Mark K. 2009. Israel’s Tabernacle as Social Space. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature. Gunn, David M., and Paula M. McNutt, eds. 2002. “Imagining” Biblical Worlds: Studies in Spatial, Social and Historical Constructs in Honor of James W. Flanagan. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic. Innis, Harold A. 2007. Empire and Communications. 4th ed. Toronto: Dundern. Moxnes, Halvor. 2003. Putting Jesus in His Place: A Radical Vision of Household and Kingdom. Louisville: Westminster John Knox. Økland, Jorunn. 2004. Women in Their Place: Paul and the Corinthian Discourse of Gender and Sanctuary Space. JSNTSup 269. London: T&T Clark International. Salles-Reese, Verónica. 1997. From Viracocha to the Virgin of Copacabana: Representations of the Sacred at Lake Titicaca. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Sleeman, Matthew. 2009. Geography and the Ascension Narrative in Acts. SNTSMS 146. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

xxii Introduction Sloterdijk, Peter. 2009. Derrida, an Egyptian: On the Problem of the Jewish Pyramid. Translated by Wieland Hoban. Cambridge: Polity. [2007. Derrida ein Ägypter – Über das Problem der jüdischen Pyramide, Suhrkamp.] Stewart, E. C. 2009. Gathered Around Jesus: An Alternative Spatial Practice in the Gospel of Mark. Cambridge: James Clarke. de Vos, J. Cornelis. 2003. Das Los Judas: Über Entstehung und Ziele der Landbeschreibung in Josua 15. VTSup 95. Leiden: Brill. mentlicher ———. 2012. Heiliges Land und Nähe Gottes. Wandlungen alttesta­ Land­vorstellungen in früh­jüdischen und neutestamentlichen Schriften. FRLANT 244. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Wenell, Karen J. 2007. Jesus and Land: Sacred and Social Space in Second Temple Judaism. LNTS 334. London: T&T Clark International.

Part I H ebrew B ible

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H oly M en

in S pace

Stuart Lasine

1. Introduction In 2 Kgs 4:9 the “great” woman of Shunem tells her husband, “I know that [Elisha] is a holy man of God.” She is the only character in the Bible who describes someone else with these words. She then proceeds to build a special space in her home suitable for this holy man. What concepts of holiness and sacred space are implied by the Shunammite’s words and actions? Is her perception of Elisha as holy presented as a consequence of his character and behavior? To answer these questions, I will examine how Elisha’s perceived holiness expresses itself in his location and movements in space, especially when he exhibits his power in relation to others. I will then contrast Elisha’s character and career to that of his predecessor Elijah, and discuss the ways in which the holiness of these two violent “men of God” mirrors the holiness of Yahweh, Israel’s jealous and often wrathful suzerain. I will conclude by examining how the Shunammite – and various readers of her story – view Elisha’s holiness after the events reported in the story have taken place. 2. Elisha’s “Holiness” in Private and Public Spaces Why does the Shunammite call Elisha “holy”? Within the textual world of 2 Kings, not everyone wants to build Elisha a well-furnished apartment when they see him walking down the road. Some mock him as a charlatan or attempt to capture him, while others ask for some sort of help, whether financial, oracular, medical, environmental, or culinary.1 All view him as 1.  Mocking: 2 Kgs 2:23–25; attempts to capture: 2 Kgs 6:8–23; request to Elisha for financial help: 2 Kgs 4:1–7; for oracular help: 2 Kgs 3:11–19; for medical help: 2 Kgs 4:8–37; 5; 8:7–15; for environmental help: 2 Kgs 2:19–22; for culinary (or possibly medical) help: 2 Kgs 4:38–44. People also ask Elisha for help in locating lost items and people (2 Kgs 2:16–18; 6:1–6). In 2 Kgs 8:8, Ben Hadad thinks of Elisha as a prognosticator, not a healer. In 2 Kgs 5, Elisha thinks of himself as a healer, and seems to associate that with being a “prophet.”

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a man of power or wonder-worker in some sense, except the forty-two “little youngsters” who have to learn about his power the hard way (2 Kgs 2:23–25). Are we to assume that the Shunammite has heard stories about Elisha’s miraculous power like those recounted elsewhere in 2 Kings? Scholars often refer to Elisha’s miracles as private in nature. However, they are not at all “private” in one sense: we are told about them. Their subject matter is often domestic and consequently they occur in private spaces, but the stories themselves become crucial in forming Elisha’s potent public image, not merely for us but for characters within the text. In contrast to Elijah,2 Elisha’s reputation as a miracle-working healer plays an important role in his career. In 2 Kgs 5 we learn how Naaman becomes aware of Elisha’s prowess as a healer as far north as Aram. In ch. 6, one of the Aramean king’s courtiers is aware that Elisha knows what the king says even in the privacy of his bedroom (v. 12). By ch. 8 Elisha’s international reputation is so great that when the Aramean king falls ill and hears that the man of God is in town (v. 7), he knows that it is Elisha without having to ask. In ch. 8 we also discover that Elisha’s servant Gehazi functions as transmitter of all his master’s “great deeds” (‫כל־הגדלות‬, v. 4), speaking to the king of Israel himself (see Lasine 2004, 131). Elisha is the only human to whom the term ‫ גדלות‬is applied in a positive sense. The fact that the word is elsewhere paired with ‫נפלאות‬ (Ps 131:1) and ‫( בצרות‬Jer 33:3) underscores that Elisha is being described as the possessor of knowledge and power beyond normal human capacity. Nevertheless, the Shunammite is not afraid to touch Elisha, or rather, to grab him by the feet or lower legs (‫ברגליו‬ ‫ותחזק‬, v. 27; cf. v. 8)3 – or to enter the prophet’s room to lay her dead son on Elisha’s bed.4 Nor is the 2.  On the role of Elijah’s reputation, see Lasine 2004, 131 n. 32. 3.  Long (1988, 172) correctly views her action as an expression of her assertiveness, not the submissive “gesture of falling at a superior’s feet.” Simon (1997, 247) describes Gehazi as being “shocked by this violation of reverence and good manners.” Contrast the manifestly worshipful action of the two Marys when they are met by the risen Jesus, and proceed to “seize him by the feet” (Matt 28:9). On the question of whether the Shunammite is expressing submissiveness when she later falls at Elisha’s feet after her son has been resuscitated (v. 37), see below. Since the word ‫ רגלים‬can refer to the legs rather than to the feet, and because it would seem difficult to grab or clasp another’s feet when that person is standing, I imagine the woman to be grabbing the man of God around his lower legs or ankles. 4.  Parker (1983, 152) argues that relations between profane and sacred reflect “in intensified form, the patterns of respectful behavior…in everyday life.” Thus, “the more respected a person is, the less conceivable does it become to…enter his room unasked…or occupy his special seat.” If the Shunammite regarded the holy man’s room as requiring the intensified form of veneration characteristic of sacredness,



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Shunammite hesitant to tell the man of God that he is deceiving her (2 Kgs 4:16, 28).5 Everything would be easy if Elisha’s holiness were as clearly visible as some midrashim suggest. In these traditions, Elisha’s eye was so awe-inspiring that no woman could look him in the face and live (Pirke R. El. 33). The Shunammite observed that “not even a fly dared approach close to the holy man, and a grateful fragrance exhaled from his person” (Ginzberg 1941, 242). Of course, no such visual or olfactory clues are included in 2 Kgs 4. It is instructive to compare the Shunammite’s interaction with Elisha to the way that Samson’s future mother reacts to the divine messenger who announces the impending birth of her son. Like the Shunammite, Manoah’s wife describes her visitor as a “man of God.” Here there is a “fear factor,” precisely because she thinks the man of God is an angel (Judg 13:6). This man of God disappears suddenly, as the prophet Elijah is in the habit of doing (1 Kgs 18:12; 2 Kgs 2:16). Is the lack of such fear on the part of the Shunammite due to the fact that she does not mistake Elijah’s successor Elisha for a divine being?6 Or does she not assume that holiness necessarily brings mortal danger to the human who comes too close to it? While the Shunammite does not exhibit fear of the holy man, it is possible that Elisha may interpret her behavior as implying fear of him. He twice refers to her efforts on his behalf using the root ‫חרד‬. This verb denotes trembling, usually in fear or trepidation, as when the elders of Bethlehem greet the uninvited guest Samuel, and the priest Ahimelech would she risk entering it to lay the body of her son on Elisha’s bed without him commanding or permitting it? In contrast, in 1 Kgs 17 Elijah the boy is taken to the prophet’s room by Elijah himself, and laid on the prophet’s bed. 5.  There is no hint that the Shunammite views her son’s death as a punishment for sin brought to light by Elisha’s invited presence in her home, as did the widow in 1 Kgs 17. The widow complains to Elijah that his presence in her household was tantamount to his killing her son by bringing divine attention to her and leading God to notice some prior blameworthy act on her part (1 Kgs 17:18; cf. v. 20). For the Shunammite the child’s death means that Elisha’s original prophecy that she would embrace a child has proven false and therefore deceptive, as she had suspected from the start. 6.  In Judg 13, the husband does not learn from his wife’s correct perception of the messenger as divine, intruding upon the angel’s “privacy” or sanctity by asking the visitor’s name and offering him food. Manoah ends up believing that both he and his wife will die for having seen God. On the fear of dying from seeing God and its relation to the danger of encroachment on holy space or objects, see Lasine 2010, 41–42, 52–53.

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greets his uninvited guest David (1 Sam 16:4; 21:2). As Bergen (1999, 95) points out, ‫“ חרד‬is Elisha’s interpretation of her actions, which the reader can choose to believe or disbelieve.”7 If Elisha does mis­perceive the Shunammite as being anxious or fearful in her care for him, it raises the question whether the two of them ever really understand one another’s character and intentions. The strangely oblique manner in which Elisha speaks with the woman through Gehazi hardly seems designed to promote effective communication and mutual understanding. Amit suggests that Elisha keeps his distance from the Shunammite because the “prophet’s holiness was maintained not only by the surrounding society but also by his own efforts to keep his distance from ordinary people.” He therefore “appears to be a captive of his own holiness – that is to say, his separateness” (2003, 284–85). In this reading Elisha is concerned with impression management; the Shunammite’s perception of him as holy is at least partly the result of the image of himself which he is striving to project. Asking what the Shunammite considers to be the signs of holiness forces us to ask what we think those signs might be. Should we look for a concern with separation from the impure, the danger of encroachment into the divine sphere, dread in the presence of the “numinous” (Otto 2004, 14–22), the possibility of contagion, or an expectation of divine presence or power? We should keep in mind all these understandings of the holy when we consider the events which take place in Elisha’s new room.8 It is not immediately obvious why the Shunammite’s perception of Elisha as “holy” leads her to make him this private space, precisely because she does not ask him for any kind of help in return. In fact, when Elisha later expresses a desire to reward her for her hospitality, she makes 7.  Some commentators (e.g., Jones 1984, 405) and almost all standard English Bible translations downplay the significance of the verb’s usual or “normal” meaning in this verse. However, scholars like Gray contend that the verb indicates a “real fear of infringing the sanctity of the man of God” (1970, 495). While Sweeney notes that the root “means literally ‘to tremble, show fear, anxiety,’ ” he nevertheless concludes that here it merely means that the woman has shown “the proper respect” to the holy man (2007, 289). Long (1991, 55) thinks that Elisha is referring to “her awe-filled service” for the prophet. Amit (2003, 284) believes that Elisha’s repeated use of ‫“ חרד‬harks back to God’s theophany at Mount Sinai (Exod 19:16, 18), where the people and the mountain are described by this same root.” This makes the invited guest Elisha analogous to the dangerous God Yahweh, rather than to the dangerous uninvited guests Samuel and David. 8.  For differing opinions concerning the basic meaning of ‫קדש‬, see, e.g., Jenson 2003, 96–98, and Lasine 2010, 32–38.



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no request. While his offer to use his political or military connections on her behalf does not directly involve his powers as a holy man, Elisha goes on to prophesy that the woman will have a son the following year (vv. 13–16). The Shunammite’s only recorded response to this prediction is to tell Elisha not to lie to her (v. 16; cf. v. 28). Does she feel that she has nothing to gain by having Elisha in her house, or not care whether she profits from his presence?9 Or does she believe that she is constructing a “little sanctuary” in her home, which “his presence convert[s] into a Bethel,” as Krummacher suggests (1956, 61)?10 The fact that the Shunammite describes Elisha as holy has attracted little attention from most commentators.11 However, according to Gray (1970, 495), “the fact that Elisha is holy, i.e. ritually sacrosanct,” prompts the Shunammite to put him in a separate room as a protective measure; it was unsafe for the woman and her husband to entertain Elisha in their common premises. Gray takes the woman’s perception of Elisha to be an objective fact, and holiness to be dangerous. Nelson (1987, 173) contends that “by judging him ‘holy,’ she is [recognizing]…the aura of power, perhaps even dangerous power, of one who is in close contact with God.” Bergen, on the other hand, argues that the Shunammite “confers” holiness on Elisha, setting him apart by making a separate room for him (1999, 92). Stipp views the issue in terms of genre. He calls the opening scenes a “θεοξένια story,” with Elisha being a human representative of the divine sphere (1999, 46; 46 n. 8).

9.  Victor Matthews is hesitant to take the Shunammite’s refusal of help at face value. He writes, “it seems to me that few people do things without an ulterior motive. If she is in fact a ‘great woman,’ she got that way by acquiring property, having influence over others, and being recognized as such by the community. People of influence generally want to not only maintain that position, but strengthen or enhance it. Elisha has a reputation, is well known…, and has shown in other stories to be willing to repay his supporters” (personal communication). 10.  Hepner attributes an entirely different motive to the Shunammite. He argues that when the woman insists that the man of God “eat bread” when he comes to Shunem, she is actually “importun[ing] Elisha to have sexual relations with her.” Her “small, walled attic” makes it possible for this private intimacy to occur (2010, 391–92). Interestingly, Hepner attempts to bolster his opinion by appealing to the talmudic suggestion that the woman learned of Elisha’s holiness by spreading a linen sheet over his bed and never finding any evidence of a nocturnal emission (‫ )קרי‬on the sheet (b. Ber. 10b). 11.  Not even Gammie’s monograph on holiness mentions it in his section on “holy persons” (Gammie 1989, 32–37).

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Würthwein (1984, 291) and Stipp (1999, 46) both describe Elisha’s new upper room as “luxuriously” furnished. Würthwein notes that the “simple man of the ancient orient” slept on the floor and was “accustomed to squat down” for sitting, when eating for example. Nelson (1987, 173) calls Elisha’s room a “solid chamber with real walls”12 and speaks of its “elaborate furnishings.” But luxury may not be the only message communicated by this wealthy woman’s interior decorating. The cases in which ‫ כסא‬is translated chair, seat, or stool almost always have to do with people in positions of high authority, especially political authority – particularly when one considers that rendering judgment is a royal duty. In fact, Auld (2001, 31) believes that ‫“ כסא‬appears throughout the Bible to be exclusively a royal ‘throne’ ”; it is “a significant ‘prop’ that denotes the royal persona.”13 The fact that the Shunammite provides a ‫ כסא‬for Elisha’s room shows how powerful and authoritative she considers this man of God to be. Polzin and Auld both assert that in the Eli narrative ‫כסא‬ is a “silent indicator” of royalty, and of the fall of royal houses (see Auld 2001, 31; Polzin 1989, 60–62).14 Could something analogous be going on here? Is the woman’s providing Elisha with a ‫ כסא‬an indicator that she or the author – or even Elisha himself – regards the man of God as the true political authority, rather than King Jehoram? Elisha’s dismissive treatment of Jehoram in the following two chapters does seem to point in that direction. 12.  In contrast, Victor Matthews argues that Elisha’s accommodations consisted of “a temporary structure, perhaps a lean to or other shaded affair.” This space “has some privacy with respect to the rest of the house, is not associated with either a gendered area or a familial area and therefore is open to be used and transformed by his presence” (personal communication; emphasis added). 13.  McCullough (1962, 260) cites only three cases of “ordinary chairs or stools” in the Hebrew Bible, involving Eli, Elisha, and Job. On the case of Eli, see below. In Job 29:7 the term used is not ‫ ;כסא‬it is ‫( מושב‬seat, assembly, dwelling-place, dwellers). This mention of a seat comes in a context in which Job is describing himself as having acted like a king, not as an “ordinary” person. 14.  However, in 1 Sam 4:18 the narrator reports that Eli judged (‫ )שפט‬Israel for forty years. Polzin (1989, 60) contends that the priest Eli sitting on his “throne” in 1:9 and 4:13 indicates that “Eli is not just a royal figure but, more specifically, a Davidic one.” Eslinger (1992, 479) objects that “in vain one looks for the philological work on the word ‘seat/throne’ (‫ )כסא‬to show us that it is incongruous in reference to the priest’s seat and that it stands out as Polzin suggests. What is left is the assertion that the word is oddly placed and that this is supposed to cue us to Eli’s symbolic role.” While Eli’s “throne” has a clear function in that story (particularly in the manner of the priest’s death), in Elisha’s case it is the bed, not the throne or chair, which plays a role involving life and death.



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Of course there could be other reasons why the Shunammite would build the holy man this “small” upper chamber with walls (‫עלית קיר קטנה‬, v. 10). Amit (2003, 283–84) assumes that the woman is taking “great pains to acquire a little of [Elisha’s] holiness and keep the prophet under her roof.” Like Krummacher, Amit (2003, 284) argues that the room is “like a small sanctuary.” She notes that the furnishings “might recall God’s abode.” Thus, Amit takes the ‫ כסא‬to be “suggestive of God’s seat” rather than an indicator of royalty in general. Similarly, the bed “might recall an altar.” Yet “God’s seat” is itself suggestive of royalty, as illustrated by the midrash in which the Israelites want to furnish the Tabernacle with objects such as the table and lamp, because “the kings of ‫ ”הגויים‬possess them and the Lord is their King (Midr. Agg., Terumah; quoted in Leibowitz 1976, 657–58). If we accept Krummacher’s and Amit’s notion that the Shunammite is preparing a small sanctuary for the well-traveled holy man of God, does that make the Shunammite akin to Micah in Judg 17? Micah erects a private shrine for the various molten images in his possession, and then hires a “holy man” to live in his house, as Niditch describes the young traveling Levite (2008, 183; cf. 182). The narrator stresses Micah’s actions in the interior spaces of his domain by constantly referring to the “house of Micah,” his “house of gods” (Judg 17:5), and the house of the Levite young man (18:15). Micah only loses the services of the Levite – and the idols themselves – when the existence of the shrine becomes public knowledge (18:14). The Hebrew word for “house” or “household” (‫ )בית‬appears sixteen times in Judg 17–18, including in references to the “house of the god” in Shiloh where Micah’s idols and the Levite finally end up (18:31), the houses of those who live near Micah’s house (18:22), and Micah’s household (18:25).15 Micah’s motivation is clear: he is certain that Yahweh will do good for him, now that he has cloistered a Levite priest on his premises (Judg 17:13). 3. Elisha Behind Closed Doors The Shunammite is not always this explicit about her motivation. For example, why do both she and Elisha shut the door of the room after she places her son in the prophet’s bed – a feature which is absent from the parallel story concerning Elijah and the widow in 1 Kgs 17? Before offering possible answers, I should note that the Elisha narratives as a whole include an unusually large number of scenes involving houses and 15.  This number does not include three additional appearances of ‫ בית‬in reference to the Levite’s home town of Bethlehem (‫בית לחם‬, 17:7, 8, 9).

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doors, both open and shut. A door is shut three times in 2 Kgs 4.16 First Elisha tells the impoverished widow to shut the door behind her and her sons, and she does so (4:4, 5). Next, the Shunammite stands in the doorway of Elisha’s room (v. 15)17 and later shuts the door of that room (v. 21). Elisha then shuts himself in the room with the boy (v. 33). In ch. 5 Naaman stands at the door of Elisha’s house (5:9). In ch. 6 Elisha is sitting in his house with the elders and tells them to shut the door and “press [Jehoram’s messenger] with the door” (6:32).18 In ch. 8, we learn that Elisha had advised the Shunammite to take her ‫בית‬, that is, her household, and leave her ‫ – בית‬that is, the house in which Elisha had his room – and years later she begs the king to return the house to her (see Roncace 2005, 122). Finally, in 2 Kgs 9, Elisha tells the son of the prophets to make Jehu separate from his fellow soldiers, take him into an inner room (‫)חדר בחדר‬, close the door,19 anoint him, open the door, and run out.20 Commentators differ on why the doors are shut in the stories in ch. 4. For Long (1991, 49), Elisha instructing the widow to shut the door behind her suggests the mystery of wondrous things happening in secret. Similarly, Nelson (1987, 171) thinks that the concern for shut doors and isolation in ch. 4 reflects the world of magic (see vv. 4–5, 33). In contrast, Gray (1970, 492) and Bergen (1999, 85) argue that the repeated mention of the widow closing the door emphasizes the absence of Elisha. Fretheim (1999, 147) simply describes the widow as working “behind closed doors…[because] this is not a public event.” 16.  Hobbs (1985, 50) points out that the “motif of the ‘shutting of the door’ ” figures most prominently in 2 Kgs 4–6. 17.  Roncace (2005, 115) says that “Gehazi calls her ‘into the doorway,’ ” but this is inaccurate. Stopping in the ‫ פתח‬seems to be her own idea. 18.  “Press” is Jones’s literal rendition (1984, 434). Hobbs (1985, 75) describes Elisha as “terrified” and “cowering behind a door” here, forming an “almost painful” contrast with his earlier entrapment of the Syrian army. Readers may be surprised that someone who has recently blinded a group of hostile soldiers has to resort to such prosaic maneuvers to protect himself from the anger of his usually submissive king. Cogan and Tadmor (1988, 80) find it difficult to imagine that the order to bar the door was to prevent the king from entering, since such behavior would not have been appropriate toward a royal personage. However, Elisha has displayed a contemptuous and brusque attitude when dealing with Jehoram in earlier scenes, so barring the door is not out of keeping with Elisha’s former behavior toward the king. See further in Lasine 1991. 19.  This can be taken for granted since Elisha goes on to tell the young prophet to open the door when leaving Jehu. 20.  As it turns out, Jehu is outdoors with his friends, so the prophet just takes him into the house (v. 6). In v. 10 he leaves as Elisha had instructed.



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According to Long (1991, 56), when the Shunammite shuts her dead son in Elisha’s room (v. 21) she is entombing him among the effects of the man of God. Gressmann, Gray and Nelson all contend that she closes the door “to retain the nephesh or life-essence [of the boy]” and prevent the death process from going any further (Gressmann 1910, 292; Gray 1970, 496–97; Nelson 1987, 173–74). Jones (1984, 406) disagrees, suggesting a more practical reason, namely, to conceal her child’s death until she had visited the prophet. Simon (1997, 244) concedes that the symbolic, mystical, or magical significance of the door-closing is rather obscure. Nevertheless, he insists that the Shunammite carries the body to the man of God’s “sphere of influence” and conceals it from others so that “those of little faith” don’t accept the death as incontrovertible and begin preparing for burial.21 For Hobbs (1985, 52), Elisha closing the door in v. 33 is another indication that “secrecy and private miracles are a distinctive part of his ministry.” Stipp (1999, 54–55) is more suspicious. He believes that Elisha’s goal is to lock out eye-witnesses. He is preparing himself for a test which has an uncertain outcome. In view of possible failure, he wants to take steps to protect himself from the eyes of strangers. Stipp points to Elisha’s earlier admission that God had denied him important insights concerning the child’s death, and says that this raises the question for readers whether the Shunammite was correct to acknowledge Elisha as a “holy man, and, if so, what does that mean for those who seek to be in close proximity to him?” (1999, 52). Once Elisha has shut himself in his room with the dead child, he revives him by employing a dramatic form of intimate contact. Scholars differ in their understanding of what this contact involves. Many claim that he is practicing “contactual magic,” symbolically transferring his life-force or his energy to the boy.22 Others claim that Elisha is acting “like a witchdoctor” (Martin-Achard 1960, 59) or “shaman” (Overholt 1996, 37; Pleins 2000, 111–15), who “seems to possess the power of bringing the soul back into the body of the departed” (Martin-Achard 1960, 58). Others believe that Elisha is removing a demon (Becking 1996, 47–48) or a death-spirit (Martin-Achard 1960, 59) from the child rather than implanting his own life-force in the boy.23 In the case of Elijah and the reviving of the widow’s 21.  Simon (1997, 251) views the reference to the child laid out on the prophet’s bed and Elisha’s shutting the door in v. 33 as reaffirming the correctness of the Shunammite’s preparatory actions. 22.  See the commentators cited in Lasine 2004, 122–23. 23.  There is a fundamental difference between healing which puts something into the patient (the healer’s energy or the patient’s lost soul) and that which takes something out (a demon or other pathogenic influence). See Lasine 2004, 123 n. 16.

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son there is no explicit evidence that the man of God transferred his lifeforce or energy into the child or that he extracted a pathogenic influence from him. The more elaborate description given of Elisha’s point-forpoint contact with the boy’s body (“mouth upon…mouth,…eyes upon… eyes, hands upon…hands”), and the boy’s sevenfold sneezing, seem to provide more evidence for the kind of contact magic commentators find in the story.24 Indeed, one thing about which commentators all seem to agree is that Elisha makes more use of “thaumaturgy” than does Elijah (Martin-Achard 1960, 58). However we characterize what happened, the procedure is ultimately successful and Elisha instructs the mother to retrieve her son. The Shunammite is not said to utter any words at this point, although her bowing and falling at Elisha’s feet – no longer needing to grab or clasp them – is usually understood to imply that she continues to view the prophet as a holy man (e.g., Amit 2003, 288). If so, should we agree with her?25 After all, the story also includes moments when Elisha’s power is questionable: he is ignorant of the boy’s fate at first, his initial longdistance attempt at reviving the boy by means of his staff fails, and his full-body contact technique requires two applications before it is fully successful. When Elisha sends Gehazi with his staff, does he mistakenly assume that his personal presence isn’t required for the resuscitation to be effective? Does he see himself as “contagiously” holy, that is, making objects holy (and therefore powerful or enlivened) by their contact with him?26 For that matter, does the Shunammite put her dead child in the prophet’s bed precisely because she thinks that Elisha is holy and therefore contact with the prophet’s bed – in Elisha’s own room – is a way of enhancing the boy’s chance of returning to life? And what should we make of the fact that contacting the bones of dead Elisha later causes a corpse to spring back to life (2 Kgs 13:21)? Does Elisha’s body have more contactual life-giving potency when dead than when he was alive? If we compare this miracle – and Elijah’s translation – to Greek stories concerning the death and translation of wonder-workers 24.  Descriptions of the healer getting into bed with the patient can be found in Mesopotamian texts, shamanistic traditions, and even modern European literature. One story even includes the element of the healer laying down on the victim matching body-part to body-part, as does Elisha. See Lasine 2004, 122–30. 25. Cohn (2000, 28) not only agrees with the Shunammite’s presumed opinion, but assumes that her perception of Elisha as holy before he offers any demonstration of it is a sign of her “greatness.” 26.  Compare the use of Paul’s “laundry” (handkerchiefs or aprons; σουδάρια ἢ σιμικίνθια) for healing in Acts 19:12; see Klauck 2003, 98–99.



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and heroes,27 one difference stands out in terms of space: neither Elisha’s burial place nor the spot where Elijah ascended are called sacred, made unapproachable, or turned into a shrine. The location of Elisha’s grave isn’t even mentioned. In fact, we are not told who buried him or that he was mourned by anyone, in spite of all his former deeds on behalf of the sons of the prophets. Considering how many of the ‫בני־הנביאים‬ accompanied Elijah on the day that he was “taken,” their absence here is particularly noticeable.28 4. Spirit and Sacred Space: Elisha in Relation to His Predecessor Elijah Elsewhere I have argued that Elijah and other ancient wonder-working healers like Empedocles and Asclepius are typically portrayed as having narcissistic personalities. In Elijah’s case, it is necessary to take the prophet’s personality into account when assessing his behavior (see Lasine 2004). Is the same true of Elisha?29 Is he, for example, inviting 27.  On these questions, see Lasine 2004, 119–20, 130–32. On holy sites associated with Greek wonder-workers and heroes, see, e.g., Sophocles, Oed. Col. 1760–64: “that man [Oedipus] told me that no one should approach the place, or speak of the holy grave, which he occupies” (trans. Wilson [1997, 177]). On shrines built for Apollonius and the translated Aeneas, see Philostratus, Life of Ap. VIII, 31 and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, I:64 4–5. Nagy (1979, 120) notes that “the reality of the cult…is based on localization; Pyrrhos was Hero of Delphi because of the local belief that he was buried there”; cf. Lohfink 1971, 48. 28.  Bergen (1999, 169) remarks that “the grave of Elisha would become a major pilgrimage site should its location be known.” There is no textual support for this assumption. Some of the Rabbis explained Moses’ unknown burial place in this fashion, but the narrator of Deut 34 calls readers’ attention to the fact that the site is unknown, and adds that Moses was mourned for thirty days. The narrator of 2 Kgs 13, on the other hand, shows no interest in reporting either Elisha’s burial site or any mourning for Elisha. 29.  Elisha goes through a number of experiences together with, or reminiscent of, his mentor Elijah, in addition to the events and actions which are unique to him. Modern scholars disagree on whether the Elisha narratives were written under the influence of the Elijah stories, or vice-versa. Both early and more recent commentators have debated which of the two is portrayed as being the superior “man of God.” To make this determination, one would need to grapple with the literary features of both sets of stories, including the ways in which the two men of God are characterized. Amit’s treatment of 2 Kgs 4:8–37 is weakened by the fact that she does not even mention Elijah by name, let alone contrast his resuscitation of a dead boy to that of Elisha.

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others to view him as a holy man of God when he increases his fame by blinding the Aramean army and then allowing them to go home and spread the news (2 Kgs 6:18–22), or when he makes himself available for feats like floating the axe-head (2 Kgs 6:5–7)?30 According to Stipp (1999, 69), in the parallel tales about the resuscitation of dead boys Elijah is portrayed in a “flat and one-dimensional” manner, while the “sensitive” Elisha’s characterization is complex and ambiguous.31 I would suggest that when each story is viewed in the context of all the narratives concerning each of the prophets, it is the depictions of Elisha which do not add up to a coherent and multi-dimensional portrayal of a vivid personality. For example, there are crucial differences in the ways in which the narrator portrays the personalities of the two prophets. Elisha and Yahweh never engage in dialogue; in fact, as Bergen (1999, 175) points out, there is no direct speech by Yahweh in the Elisha narratives. This is in sharp contrast to the Elijah stories, where Yahweh and the prophet engage in a dialogue in which Elijah describes how he views both himself and his situation (1 Kgs 19:9–18). This allows readers to compare the prophet’s image of himself and those around him with the “facts” given by the narrator elsewhere. It also allows readers to observe Yahweh’s response to the prophet’s self-presentation. Similarly, when Elijah attempts to resuscitate the widow’s son he cries to Yahweh – twice – and the boy’s life-force returns when Yahweh responds to his plea (1 Kgs 17:20–22). Even the words he addresses to Yahweh are quoted. In contrast, Elisha’s words are not included when his prayer is briefly alluded to at the corresponding point (2 Kgs 4:33). In addition, because God gives instructions to Elijah in directly quoted speech in several chapters, we are able to gauge the extent to which Elijah changes what God has told him to say when he repeats it, and to know 30.  Elisha’s declaration “let him [Naaman] come to me, and he’ll know that there is a prophet in Israel” in 2 Kgs 5:8 may strike readers as supreme self-confidence or arrogance, but it could also be confidence in the healing power of the prophet’s god Yahweh. This is less indicative of self-absorption than Elijah’s repeated (and inaccurate) complaint that he is the one and only prophet left (see Lasine 2004, 133–34). On the characterization of Elisha in 2 Kgs 5, see Lasine 2011. 31.  Stipp’s literary analysis begins with the assumption that 1 Kgs 17:17–24 is a “daughter-story” to 2 Kgs 4:8–37. Stipp claims that 1 Kgs 17 “disambiguates” 2 Kgs 4. He is able to do so because he does not acknowledge the ambiguities contained in 1 Kgs 17, both those which concern Elijah’s character and those features of the narrative which undermine his assumption that the theology of the story is simple and expectable (see Lasine 2004). Put another way, it is Stipp who disambiguates 1 Kgs 17, rather than 1 Kgs 17 disambiguating 2 Kgs 4.



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when Elijah goes beyond what God has told him to do (see Lasine 2012, 67–76). Readers of the Elisha stories do not have the opportunity to learn about his personality in this fashion. Moreover, readers are able to observe Elijah’s interaction with another complex character, King Ahab, while Elisha’s relations with Ahab’s son Jehoram are far less revealing about the personality of the prophet and his royal foil. Finally, the Elisha narratives are characterized by “the absence of a general sense of prophetic mission”; both “Baal and Baalism are absent from the main body of the stories” (Bergen 1999, 175–76). The result of all these absences is that Elisha’s actions from chapter to chapter lack development and depth.32 A final contrast between Elijah and Elisha concerns their experiences in space. Elisha is at home in interior spaces. As noted earlier, two stories refer to Elisha’s own “house” (2 Kgs 5:9; 6:32). Hobbs (1985, 80) and Bergen (1999, 124) both conclude that Elisha had an indeterminate number of “dwelling places in various locations.”33 It is certainly true that Elisha moves quite a bit. His father’s home is in Abel-Meholah, but at various times we find him in Gilgal, Jericho, Bethel, Carmel, Samaria, the wilderness of Edom, Shunem, the Jordan river, Dothan, and Damascus.34 32.  In addition, Bergen (1999, 175) asks how Elisha can be a messenger for Yhwh in the absence of the divine word. While “Elisha still claims the divine word…, the narrator is not consistent in assuring me that this is so.” Bergen also points out that Elisha does not lead Israel as Moses and Samuel did, or challenge the people to return to Yhwh as Elijah did. Nor does he act as conscience to the king of Israel as Nathan did. 33.  Hobbs (1985, 64) thinks that Elisha’s two houses are located in different places. Commenting on 2 Kgs 5:8, in which Elisha sends a message to Jehoram to have Naaman come to him, Hobbs suggests we are probably to understand that Elisha is still at Gilgal, whose proximity to the Jordan fits Naaman’s cleansing. However, if 2 Kgs 5:3 is referring to the town of “Samaria” rather than the region, it is more likely that house referred to in v. 8 is in Samaria. Jones (1984, 416), citing Gray, takes 5:10, in which Naaman comes with horses and chariots to Elisha’s door, as a possible indication that Elisha lived not far from the royal residence in Samaria rather than in the narrower and poorer quarters of the city. Commenting on 2 Kgs 6, Hobbs (1985, 80) suggests that Elisha’s house referred to in v. 32 is presumably in Samaria, and adds that “Elisha then had dwelling places in various locations in Israel.” Bergen (1999, 124) suggests that readers are allowed to picture Elisha as “the wandering prophet, with various possible homes available to him should he chance to be there.” He notes that in 2 Kgs 6 Elisha stays with the sons of the prophets as well as being present in Samaria and Dothan. Calling his movements “wandering” implies a degree of aimlessness for which I find no warrant in the text. 34.  See 1 Kgs 19:16, 19; 2 Kgs 2:1, 18–21, 23–25; 3; 4:1–7, 8, 25, 38; 5:3, 9, 24; 6:2–7, 13, 19, 32; 8:7; 9:1; 13:14.

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Perhaps more important than the fact that Elisha can be found in a number of places is the fact that he stays with people. This is in stark contrast to his mentor Elijah, who prefers to be alone or to turn others into an audience to whom he can display his vision of himself. Unlike Elisha, Elijah is not said to have any house of his own; even his place of origin is unclear. In fact, Elijah is defined by his unlocatability and elusiveness, his angel-like sudden disappearances and appearances, and his long fearful flight from Jezebel. In contrast, Elisha is easily locatable even for those who seek to harm him, without the benefit of GPS. We do learn about a “spiritual” connection between the two men of God. When Elijah is about to be translated, Elisha requests a double portion of Elijah’s spirit, and Elijah replies that it will be so if Elisha sees Elijah being taken from him (2 Kgs 2:9–10). After Elijah ascends, Elisha takes his mentor’s cloak,35 strikes the waters of the Jordan, and crosses over after the waters part. When the sons of the prophets see him they exclaim, “the spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha” (‫על‬...‫נחה‬, v. 15). Long interprets the scene in terms of sacred space. He describes the Jordan as “the barrier between sacred and profane.” In the “liminal…visionary” space of the Transjordan (1991, 26, 28), Elisha undergoes a shamanlike experience and returns to “ordinary space” with Elijah’s cloak, the “trappings of power” (1991, 27, 28). These references to Elijah’s spirit are remarkable because there is no mention of it being the spirit of God or Yahweh. The only other narrative in which a prophetic spirit is said to “rest on” (‫ )נוח‬someone is in Num 11, in reference to the seventy elders, plus Eldad and Medad (Num 11:25–26; 2 Kgs 2:15). Here it is Yahweh himself who calls attention to the spirit on Moses, and who invests this spirit in the elders (Num 11:17, 25).36 35.  In 1 Kgs 19:19 Elijah had thrown his cloak on Elisha and continued on. Gray (1970, 413) takes this as an example of a contactual magic rite; since the cloak was in intimate contact with Elijah’s body, it was “thought to be imbued with his personality and power.” This goes far beyond the evidence. 36.  While most commentators believe that the hiphil of ‫ אצל‬describes a with­­ drawal of spirit here, others believe that it indicates an extension of Moses’ spirit. Numbers 11:17 (‫)ואצלתי מן־הרוח‬. Sommer (1999, 610, 610 n. 18, 617) cites rabbinic and modern commentators who do not believe that the transfer of power “dilute[d] Moses’ own prophetic ability”; as examples of the opposite view, he cites Calvin and Milgrom. Sommer himself contends that “both opinions are right.” Sommer posits as “original” the “B story” in which there is no loss of spirit. This story was inserted into a larger “A story” to become the version we encounter in Num 11. In this redacted text “we sense that Moses is punished through the weakening of his prophetic gift” (1999, 617). For a critique of Sommers’s approach, see Lasine 2012, 65–66.



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Moses then expresses the wish that Yahweh would put his spirit – that is, Yahweh’s spirit – on all the people (v. 29). However we understand the few references to Elijah’s spirit, it is clear that it is an act of miraculous power which convinces the sons of the prophets that Elijah’s spirit now rests on Elisha. The association between Elisha’s spirit and miraculous power is immediately reinforced by the miracles Elisha goes on to perform. It is now possible to determine whether the unparalleled use of ‫ קדש‬in reference to Elisha is significant or merely an example of what Gammie calls “vocabulary rather than substance.”37 Elsewhere I have discussed the significance of the fact that ‫ קדש‬does not appear in Genesis after the proleptic reference to the Sabbath in ch. 2. That investigation led to the conclusion that the concept of holiness in the full sense is also absent from Genesis, and makes its entry into the biblical landscape only when Moses happens upon “holy ground” and Yahweh takes on his role as Israel’s divine king (see Lasine 2010). Because Yahweh is holy and imposes the duty of holiness on his subjects, the division of his realm into holy and profane space is also an expression of the divine king’s exclusive and absolute rule over the nation he has set apart from all other nations. This rule is fraught with danger for the subjects who must negotiate zones of holiness and avoid impurity, constantly keeping in mind their suzerain’s traits of jealousy and wrath, so that they do not offend his royal dignity, and incur punishment commensurate with the dignity and holiness of the offended divine king. The same is true for those who must deal with “men of God” like Elijah and Elisha, whom Yahweh chooses to be mirrors of both his personality and his power. For example, how holy and jealous38 of Yahweh’s prerogatives must Elijah be in order to assume that it is appropriate to burn to death over one hundred men for addressing him as “a man of God” when they are on a mission to take the prophet to their ailing king who had offended Yahweh (2 Kgs 1:2–12)? Similarly, how jealous for his own majestic dignity must Elisha be in order for him to be comfortable having forty-two “little youths” (‫קטנים‬ ‫ )נערים‬mauled by bears because they are teasing him about being bald (‫קרח‬ ‫עלה‬ ‫קרח‬ ‫עלה‬, 2 Kgs 2:23–25)? Admittedly, the youngsters’ taunts may have had a more serious intent, 37.  Gammie is referring to the fact that “except in psalms, none of the prophetic traditionists favored the use of terms of holiness in connection with the deity.” He sees this “attenuation” as “largely in vocabulary rather than in substance” (1989, 123). 38.  Elijah is one of only three biblical figures who are said to be (or who call themselves) “jealous for Yahweh,” the others being Phineas and Jehu. Note that Jehu is commissioned by Elisha. All three express their jealousy for Yahweh through murderous violence. See Lasine 2012, 125–26.

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namely, to imply that the bald Elisha could not “go up” to heaven as the hairy Elijah did.39 But would most ancient or modern readers consider even this to be a satisfactory justification for Elisha’s action?40 In neither 2 Kgs 1 or 2 do we read about Yahweh telling his men of God that they have engaged in overkill, or been reckless in their use of the divine power he had lent them. This is hardly surprising, since they are behaving just as Yahweh himself does on many occasions.41 5. Conclusion The private–public distinction plays a crucial role in the stories which show Elisha to be a wonder-worker. “Private miracles” contribute to Elisha’s public image and international reputation. This distinction involves basic features of topological space, such as inclusion–exclusion, enclosure– exposure, and connectivity (see Lasine 1977, 81–85). The commentators discussed above understand the significance of these factors in varying ways, in accordance with their understanding of holiness, their assessment of Elisha’s character, and the extent to which they view Elisha’s holiness through the Shunammite’s eyes. As discussed above, a number of scholars believe that the Shunammite is attempting to construct a “sanctuary” in 39. Or could they even be expressing doubt that Elijah actually ascended? Marcus (1995, 61) cites Malbim’s comment that “they mocked him: ‘go up to heaven you baldy just like your hairy master went up.’ ” Marcus himself asserts that the boys were taunting Elisha to get out of the way, to “beat it” (1995, 59). Schmitt (1973, 99–100) evaluates arguments for and against the view that ‫ עלה‬here should be understood as “go up [to heaven]” in the manner of Elijah. Schmitt concludes that the twiceappearing imperative ‫ עלה‬in 2:23 would need the preposition ‫ אל‬with personal suffix if it meant that Elisha should come up to the location of the youths. 40.  Shemesh (2008, 10–11) is one commentator who does find Elisha’s act to be justified. She argues that “the boys who offended the ‘holy man of God’ (2 Kgs 4:9) are punished for sacrilege.” She “believe[s] that the story presents the boys…as deserving their punishment.” Her conclusion is based on two assumptions. The first is that the Shunammite’s perception of Elisha as holy is supported by the story as a whole. The second is that the “genre” of 2 Kgs 2:23–25 demands this conclusion: “punishment of those who offend the dignity of a holy man, even slightly, is an important convention of saints’ legends.” In addition, Shemesh works hard to come up with additional crimes to fit the punishment. For example, she assumes that the boys are from Jericho, and are therefore guilty of “contemptible ingratitude” toward the man who had made their town’s water supply drinkable. For other examples of scholars inventing crimes in order to explain the deaths of those killed by manifestations of holiness, see Lasine 2010, 45–46. 41.  See Lasine 2001, 177–263; 2010, 38–51.



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her home. According to some, her motive is to acquire a bit of Elisha’s holiness. Others believe that she is attempting to protect herself from the danger of Elisha being “ritually sacrosanct” or attempting to “confer” holiness on him through separateness. Readers may judge her extreme hospitality as laudable or as condemnable, in the sense that readers are invited to condemn Micah’s attempt to create a private sanctuary for his idols and their Levite caretaker. Similarly, Elisha’s room may be interpreted as a kind of “Bethel,” a royal abode, or as “a travesty of the tabernacle and temple” in a larger anti-prophetic polemic (Hepner 2010, 393). The unusual emphasis on open and closed doors in the Elisha narratives expresses the importance of inclusion in, or exclusion from, zones of interior space. Siegert points out that doors also serve an epistemological function: “As long as doors play their role as operators of difference between inside and outside, they also create, with the help of the public– private distinction, an asymmetry in knowledge. Doors produce an information gap” (2012, 15). This function is taken into account by the scholars who understand Elisha’s instruction to shut the door in 2 Kgs 4:4 as suggesting the mystery of wonders taking place in secret or as reflective of the world of magic. Readers can do nothing more than “suggest” here, since the narrator does not enlighten us about Elisha’s motives, just as we cannot know for certain whether Elisha sends Gehazi with his staff because he views himself as “contagiously holy.” We are not given open access to the prophet’s thought-processes. Nor are we “insiders” when it comes to the Shunammite’s motives for shutting the door of Elisha’s room, after laying her son’s body on his bed. In this narrative, the epistemological dimension of the inside–outside dichotomy also applies to mental space. As a result, our interpretations of the Elisha’s stories can tell us about how we have “furnished” our own mental “room” with specific assumptions and expectations concerning holiness and the possibility of the sacred playing a role in mundane domestic spaces. When all is said and done, what should readers think about Elisha’s perceived holiness? Amit believes that most readers focus on Elisha’s “miraculous powers” and view the narrative as praising and exalting the prophet, while “the more sophisticated reader” should be aware that the story “shows the prophet being tested and found wanting” (2003, 289–90, 91; cf. 279).42 Stipp (1999, 57) agrees that Elisha is not being “glorified” 42.  Amit contends that the “the miracles…teach the prophet a lesson”; by the end he “has learned to acknowledge his limitations and dependence on God (vv. 27, 33)” (2003, 279, 289). I find little evidence in this story or later chapters that Elisha has learned this “lesson.”

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in this tale. According to Shields (1993, 59) it is the Shunammite who is “elevated,” while Elisha’s power is subverted. For Bergen (1999, 104), the narrative as a whole “questions both the source and the usefulness of Elisha’s miraculous activity,” leaving us “with a picture of a prophet whose claim to power/status arises from his ability to do unnecessary miracles.” At the same time, Bergen concedes that the story “continues to highlight the power of Elisha,…even to the point of his ascension to God-like status” (1999, 104). Amit (2003, 288) also concludes that the prophet “maintains his stature as a holy man” within the “story-world,” including in the Shunammite’s opinion. Whether this is in fact the Shunammite’s view at the end depends on whether we assume that her bowing at the feet of the man of God in 2 Kgs 4:37 is an unequivocal indicator of obeisance, as do commentators Amit and Niditch (1999, 309). Earlier I mentioned that the Shunammite says nothing at this point, unlike the widow in 1 Kgs 17, who at the end affirms the truth of Yahweh’s word in Elijah’s mouth (1 Kgs 17:24). While Shields (1993, 66 n. 12) describes the woman as bowing “in gratitude” and “in thanksgiving” at the prophet’s feet, she also suggests that the lack of a “final verbal interchange” may be ironic. That is, her silence may indicate implicit mocking of Elisha. Clearly, the way in which her action is described leaves this possibility open. If Elisha does “maintain his stature as a holy man” in the “storyworld,” holiness in the world of the Elisha stories is reduced to the power to perform miracles, even when the one wielding that power is a fallible and flawed human being, and the miracles are “unnecessary” – or, in fact, cruel and immoral. These events transpire in a space from which the ethical dimension of holiness has been excluded.43 And since this amoral notion of holiness also characterizes some of King Yahweh’s actions,44 the Elisha stories not only call into question the holiness of this man of God, but the morality of the holy God who empowers him.

43.  Cf. Otto’s contention that holiness in its initial “daemonic” stages does not include an ethical aspect. He believes that the ethical dimension is a necessary part of holiness in the full sense, as it is displayed in the biblical prophets and psalmic poetry, as opposed to earlier Old Testament narratives such as Exod 4:24–26 (Otto 2004, 21–22, 92–97). 44.  This aspect is discussed in detail in Lasine 2010, 43–53, 56–57.



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Works Cited Amit, Yairah. 2003. A Prophet Tested: Elisha, the Great Woman of Shunem, and the Story’s Double Message. BibInt 11: 279–94. Auld, Graeme. 2001. From King to Prophet in Samuel and Kings. Pages 31–44 in The Elusive Prophet: The Prophet as a Historical Person, Literary Character and Anonymous Artist. Edited by Johannes C. de Moor. OTS 45. Leiden: Brill. Becking, Bob. 1996. “Touch for Health…”: Magic in II Reg 4,31–37 with a Remark on the History of Yahwism. ZAW 108: 34–54. Bergen, Wesley J. 1999. Elisha and the End of Prophetism. JSOTSup 286. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic. Cogan, Mordechai, and Hayim Tadmor. 1988. 2 Kings. AB 11. New York: Doubleday. Cohn, Robert L. 2000. 2 Kings. Berit Olam. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical. Eslinger, Lyle. 1992. Polzin on the Deuteronomist: A Review Article. JQR ns 82: 461–82. Fretheim, Terence E. 1999. First and Second Kings. WESBC. Louisville: Westminster John Knox. Gammie, John G. 1989. Holiness in Israel. Minneapolis: Fortress. Ginzberg, Louis. 1941. The Legends of the Jews. Vol. 4, Bible Times and Characters from Joshua to Esther. Translated by Henrietta Szold. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society. Gray, John. 1970. I & II Kings: A Commentary. 2d ed. OTL. Philadelphia: Westminster. Gressmann, Hugo. 1910. Die älteste Geschichtsschreibung und Prophetie Israels (von Samuel bis Amos und Hosea). Die Schriften des Alten Testaments. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Hepner, Gershon. 2010. Three’s a Crowd in Shunem: Elisha’s Misconduct with the Shunamite Reflects a Polemic Against Prophetism. ZAW 122: 387–400. Hobbs, T. R. 1985. 2 Kings. WBC 13. Waco, TX: Word. Jenson, Philip Peter. 2003. Holiness in the Priestly Writings of the Old Testament. Pages 93–121 in Holiness Past and Present. Edited by Stephen C. Barton. London: T&T Clark International. Jones, Gwilym H. 1984. 1 and 2 Kings. NCB. vol. 2; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Klauck, Hans-Josef. 2003. Magic and Paganism in Early Christianity: The World of the Acts of the Apostles. Translated by Brian McNeil. Minneapolis: Fortress. Krummacher, Friedrich Wilhelm. 1956. Elisha. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. Lasine, Stuart. 1977. Sight, Body, and Motion in Plato and Kafka: A Study of Projective and Topological Experience. Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison. University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, Mich. ———. 1991. Jehoram and the Cannibal Mothers (2 Kings 6:24–33): Solomon’s Judgment in an Inverted World. JSOT 50: 27–53. ———. 2001. Knowing Kings: Knowledge, Power and Narcissism in the Hebrew Bible. Semeia Studies 40. Atlanta: SBL. ———. 2004. Matters of Life and Death: The Story of Elijah and the Widow’s Son in Comparative Perspective. BibInt 12: 117–44. ———. 2010. “Everything Belongs to Me”: Holiness, Danger, and Divine Kingship in the Post-Genesis World. JSOT 35: 31–62. ———. 2011. “Go in Peace” or “Go to Hell”? Elisha, Naaman and the Meaning of Monotheism in 2 Kings 5. SJOT 25: 3–28. ———. 2012. Weighing Hearts: Character, Judgment and the Ethics of Reading the Bible. LHBOTS 568. New York: T&T Clark International.

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Leibowitz, Nehama. 1976. Studies in Shemot. Translated by Aryeh Newman. Vol. 2. Jerusalem: World Zionist Organization. Lohfink, Gerhard. 1971. Die Himmelfahrt Jesu: Untersuchungen zu den Himmelfahrtsund Erhöhungstexten bei Lukas. StANT 26. Munich: Kösel-Verlag. Long, Burke O. 1988. A Figure at the Gate: Readers, Reading, and Biblical Theologians. Pages 166–86 in Canon, Theology, and Old Testament Interpretation: Essays in Honor of Brevard S. Childs. Edited by Gene M. Tucker, David L. Petersen and Robert R. Wilson. Philadelphia: Fortress. ———. 1991. 2 Kings. FOTL 10. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Marcus, David. 1995. From Balaam to Jonah: Anti-prophetic Satire in the Hebrew Bible. Brown Judaic Studies 301. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Martin-Achard, Robert. 1960. From Death to Life: A Study of the Development of the Doctrine of the Resurrection in the Old Testament. Translated by John Penney Smith. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd. McCullough, W. Stewart. 1962. Seat. IDB 4: 259–60. Nagy, Gregory. 1979. The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Nelson, Richard D. 1987. First and Second Kings. Interpretation. Atlanta: John Knox. Niditch, Susan. 1999. Eroticism and Death in the Tale of Jael. Pages 305–15 in Women in the Hebrew Bible: A Reader. Edited by Alice Bach. New York: Routledge. ———. 2008 Judges: A Commentary. OTL. Westminster John Knox. Otto, Rudolf. 2004. Das Heilige: Über das irrationale in der Idee des Göttlichen und sein Verhältnis zum rationalen. Munich: Beck. Overholt, Thomas. 1996. Cultural Anthropology and the Old Testament. Minneapolis: Fortress. Parker, Robert. 1983. Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion. Oxford: Clarendon. Pleins, J. David. 2000. The Social Visions of the Hebrew Bible: A Theological Introduction. Louisville: Westminster John Knox. Polzin, Robert. 1989. Samuel and the Deuteronomist: A Literary Study of the Deuteronomic History. Part 2, 1 Samuel. San Francisco: Harper & Row. Roncace, Mark. 2005. Jeremiah, Zedekiah, and the Fall of Jerusalem: A Study of Prophetic Narrative. LHBOTS 423. New York: T&T Clark International. Schmitt, Armin. 1973. Entrückung – Aufnahme – Himmelfahrt: Untersuchungen zu einem Vorstellungsbereich im Alten Testament. FzB 10. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk. Shemesh, Yael. 2008. The Elisha Stories as Saints’ Legends. Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 8: 2–41. Shields, Mary E. 1993. Subverting a Man of God, Elevating a Woman: Role and Power Reversals in 2 Kings 4. JSOT 58: 59–69. Siegert, Bernhard. 2012. Doors: On the Materiality of the Symbolic. Grey Room 47: 6–23. Simon, Uriel. 1997. Reading Prophetic Narratives. Translated by Lenn J. Schramm. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Sommer, Benjamin D. 1999. Reflecting on Moses: The Redaction of Numbers 11. JBL 118: 601–24. Stipp, Hermann-Josef. 1999. Vier Gestalten einer Totenerweckungserzählung (1 Kön 17,17–24; 2 Kön 4,8–37; Apg 9,36–42; Apg 20,7–12). Bib 80: 43–77. Sweeney, Marvin A. 2007. I & II Kings: A Commentary. OTL. Louisville: Westminster John Knox. Würthwein, Ernst. 1984. Die Bücher der Könige, 1. Kön. 17–2. Kön. 25. ATD 11/2. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

E gypt

as a S pace of F ear and a S pace of H ope Roland Boer

1. Introduction Pharaohs, slaves, brick-making and pyramids, a baby in the bulrushes, a drowning army in the Red Sea – these are the initial associations that might come to mind with the word “Egypt,” especially in terms of the Bible. Others may then start to make their presence felt, such as food in times of famine (Jacob and Joseph) and seeking refuge from a childmurdering despot (Jesus, Mary, and Joseph). These few associations merely scratch the surface of such biblical references. In fact, there are 671 references to Egypt in the Bible as a whole, references that include the themes of oppression, slavery, invading armies, and a place to be condemned; but then, Egypt also represents a source of food and fertility, and refuge from oppression and ruthlessness, from Jeroboam to Joseph, Mary, and Jesus. Egypt, it seems, is not merely present as a background space in biblical narratives; rather, it saturates the biblical text. Moreover, Egypt occupies a very curious and contradictory space, one that I wish to call, following Henri Lefebvre, a “symbolic space.” What I propose to do here is to explore what such contradictory representations of Egypt might mean and what their function might be. My argument has three steps. First, by analyzing the biblical texts on Egypt, I argue that they fall into two groups: on the one hand, Egypt is a “space of fear”; and on the other a “space of hope.” These terms come from David Harvey and they designate the two possibilities that arise in terms of the issue of utopia/dystopia. The second step of my argument is that the difference between a utopian space of hope and a dystopian space of fear depends on the question of closure. If the symbolic space of Egypt remains open, delaying closure, then it is a space of hope, a space where one is welcome for food, refuge, shelter, and recuperation (rather like a vacation). However, closure of such a space

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requires an authoritarian decision or move to make that closure. Once closed off, Egypt becomes a space of fear, where visitors are oppressed and put into slavery, from where armies emerge and attack neighbors, seeking imperial domination. All of this remains at the level of the text – the issue here being how Egypt is represented in the various texts of the Bible. So, the third step is to ask what the real historical conditions of this opposition between Egypt as a space of hope and one of fear might be. Here, I argue that this ambivalent representation of Egypt is a spatial feature of what I call a “sacred economy.” 2. Space of Fear and Space of Hope As I mentioned earlier, there are 671 references to Egypt in the Bible, in both Hebrew and Christian versions. In order to be comprehensive, I am going to construct an exhaustive taxonomy of the texts, that is, gather them under some main categories, and then engage in spatial analysis. Although I hardly expect you to read through the entire list, it does provide a striking visual sense of the pervasiveness of certain themes surrounding Egypt in the Bible. Egypt is, first, a place of oppression and slavery in a number of stories. To begin with, Joseph is sold into slavery in Egypt and has a number of dreams while in captivity (Gen 37:25, 28, 36; 39:1–2, 5; 40:1, 5; 41:8, 19, 29, 30, 33–34, 36, 41, 43–46, 48, 53–56). Israel then suffers oppression in Egypt, from which it escapes (Exod 1:1, 5, 8, 12, 14, 15, 17–19; 2:11, 12, 14, 19, 23; 3:7, 8–12, 16–22; 4:18, 19–21; 5:4, 12; 6:5, 6–7, 11, 13, 26–29; 7:3, 4–5, 11, 18, 19, 21–22, 24; 8:5, 6–7, 16–17, 21, 24, 26; 9:4, 6, 9, 11, 18, 22–25; 10:2, 6–7, 12–15, 19, 21–22; 11:1, 3–7, 9; 12:1, 12–13, 17, 23, 27, 29, 30, 33, 35–36, 39, 40–42, 51; 13:3, 8–9, 14–18; 14:4, 5, 7–13, 17–18, 20, 23–27, 30–31; 15:26; 16:1, 3, 6, 32; 17:3). This theme echoes throughout the Bible. For example, Yahweh brings the people out of Egypt (Exod 18:1, 8–10; 19:1, 4; 20:2; 22:21; 23:9, 15; 29:46; 32:1, 4, 7–8, 11–12, 23; 33:1; 34:18; Lev 11:45; 18:3; 19:34, 36; 22:33; 23:43; 24:10; 25:38, 42, 55; 26:13, 45; 15:41; Num 14:19, 22; 20:15, 16; 22:5, 11; 23:22; 24:8; Deut 1:27, 30; 4:20, 34, 37, 45, 46; 5:6, 15; 6:12, 21, 22; 7:8, 15, 18; 8:14; 9:7, 12, 26; 10:19, 22; 11:3, 4, 10; 13:5, 10; 15:15; 16:1, 3, 6, 12; 20:1; 23:4, 7, 9, 18, 22; 25:17; 26:5, 6, 8; 28:27, 60, 68; 29:2, 16, 25; 34:11; Josh 2:10; 5:4, 5, 6, 9; 9:9; 24:4, 5, 6, 7, 14, 17, 32; Judg 2:1, 12; 6:8, 9, 13; 10:11; 11:13, 16; 19:30; 1 Sam 2:27; 4:8; 8:8; 10:18; 12:6, 8; 15:2, 6; 2 Sam 7:6, 23; 1 Kgs 12:28; 2 Kgs 17:7, 36; 21:15; 1 Chr 17:5, 21; 2 Chr 5:10; 6:5; 7:22; Neh 9:9, 10, 18; Pss 78:12, 43, 51; 80:8; 81:10; 105:23, 38; 106:7, 21; 114:1; 135:8, 9, 10; Isa 10:24, 26; Jer 2:6; 7:22,



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25; 11:4, 7; 16:14; 23:7; 31:32; 32:30, 21; 34:13; Ezek 20:5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10; Dan 9:15; Hos 2:15; 11:1; 12:9, 13; 13:4; Amos 2:10; 3:1; Mic 6:4; Hag 2:5; Jude 1:5). On a slightly different variation, the Exodus from Egypt becomes a chronological marker, in terms of the number of years passed since Yahweh delivered the people from Egypt (Num 1:1; 3:13; 8:17; 9:1; 26:4, 59; 32:11; 33:1, 3, 38; 1 Kgs 6:1, 8–9, 16, 21; 8:5, 11, 53; 9:90). The remaining examples are variations on the preceding themes, such as the need to ensure the people are not forced to return to Egypt (Deut 17:16), or Joseph taking a stance against Egypt (Ps 81:5), the idolatrous traps of Egypt (Ezek 16:26; 17:15; 19:4; 20:36; 23:3, 8, 19, 21, 27), the second return from Exile as a repeat of the Exodus from Egypt (Isa 27:12, 13; Mic 7:12, 15), and then the New Testament retelling of the whole story (Acts 7:9, 10–12, 15, 17, 18, 22, 24, 28, 34, 36, 39, 40), even as an example of faith (Heb 3:16; 8:19; 11:22, 27, 29). The second major feature of the “space of fear” is the army that pours out of Egypt at regular intervals and threatens to invade. There is of course Pharaoh’s army that hunts down the fleeing Israelites, only to perish in the sea (Exod 14:21–31). After this story, one Pharaoh after another leads an invading army. Shishak (1 Kgs 14:25; 2 Chr 12:2, 3, 9, 10), Neco (2 Kgs 23:29, 34; 24:7; 2 Chr 35:20; 36:3, 4), and Tirkhakah (2 Kgs 23:29, 34; 24:7) make various appearances at the heads of armies, as do a number of unnamed Pharaohs and Egyptian kings (2 Kgs 7:6; Isa 37:9, 25; Jer 37:5, 7). A final twist on this theme is in 1 Kgs 9:16, where Pharaoh, “king of Egypt,” attacks Gezer, slays the Canaanites in the town and gives it as a dowry for his daughter to Solomon. In light of this bad press, it should come as no surprise that Egypt should be the subject of prophetic judgment, replete with all the various end-time themes of God’s vengeance and desolation (Isa 11:11, 15–16; 19:1, 2–4, 6, 12–25; 20:1, 3–5; Jer 25:19; 46:2, 8, 11, 13–14, 17, 19–20, 22, 24–26; Ezek 29:1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16, 19, 20; 30:1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26; 31:2; 32:12, 15, 16, 18, 21; Dan 11:8, 42, 43; Joel 3:19; Zech 10:10, 11; 14:19). In a sublime twist on this theme, Egypt either becomes an agent of punishment of Israel in the latter days (as with the flies from the sources of the streams of the Nile in Isa 7:18) or the point of comparison for the destruction of Israel: it will have plagues like those in Egypt, or its land will rise and fall like the Nile (Amos 4:10; 8:8). Finally it is a metaphor for the apocalyptic city full of bodies that is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt (Rev 11:8). This space of fear is, as I have suggested, the primary association with Egypt. Jan Assmann, the Egyptologist and cultural critic, suggests that such a fearful space was the main way in which Egypt was remembered

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for two millennia afterwards. This is true as far as it goes, but Assmann is mistaken when he attributes that “traumatic memory” of Egypt, one that was “the quintessence of idolatry and despotism” (Assmann 2006, 180–81), to the Bible. Usurping this negative memory, he goes on to paint a different, highly positive, picture that comes from the ancient Greeks, one that was rediscovered in the Renaissance and began to revolutionize the traumatic memory of Egypt.1 As far as Assmann is concerned, “The [Greek] image was as unambiguously positive as the biblical account had been negative” (Assmann 2006, 181). In this respect, I wish to caution against hasty conclusions, since the Bible itself reveals this ambivalence. Egypt as a space of hope is not a minor, buried theme in the Bible; rather, it reverberates throughout. It is, first of all, a source of constant food and fertility, which people long for. For instance, in the wonderful Murmuring Stories, Egypt is a place of leeks and lentils, of cucumbers and fleshpots that the people recall in the Wilderness wanderings and owing to which there are murmurs of dissent and revolt against Moses and Aaron (Num 11:5, 18, 20; 13:22; 14:2–4; 20:5; 21:15). Egypt is also the place where various characters in different stories go, or long for, usually due to famine in their own place; Abram, Joseph’s brothers, and indeed all the peoples converge upon Egypt seeking food in times of famine (Gen 12:10–14; 13:1, 10; 41:57; 42:1–3; 43:1, 2, 15; Lam 5:6). It is a place of “fatness,” where a lost son may prosper and father his own sons, and an old father may visit to be reunited with his son, settle with his clan, and die in peace (Gen 45:2, 4, 8–9, 13, 18–20, 23, 25–26; 46:1, 3–4, 6–8, 20, 26–27, 34; 47:6, 11, 13–15, 20–22, 26–30; 48:5; 50:3, 7, 11, 14; 50:22, 26; see also Isa 42:4). Indeed, the people themselves may grow and prosper (Gen 47:27; Exod 1:6). Egypt is also a source of wisdom (1 Kgs 4:30), the famed fine embroidered and colored linens (Ezek 27:7; Prov 7:16), treasures (Heb 11:26), and even Solomon’s horses and chariots (1 Kgs 10:28, 29; 2 Chr 1:16–17; 9:28). Not merely a place of food and plenty, a second major feature of the space of hope is that Egypt offers a refuge from oppression and ruthlessness. It offers political asylum and respite for people fleeing from pursuers. A significant group of such refugees includes Hadad in his flight from the ruthless Solomon (1 Kgs 11:17, 18, 21); Jeroboam after his rebellion against Solomon, before he successfully takes on Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, and thereby gains the larger part of the split kingdom (1 Kgs 11:40; 12:2; 2 Chr 10:2); Uriah in his flight from Jehoiakim (Jer 1.  He dates the moment when perceptions began to change with the discovery of the Corpus Hermeticum to 1463 C.E.



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26:21–23); the people of Judah, in fear of the Babylonians (2 Kgs 25–26); the survivors from Mizpah (Jer 41:16–17). Also, Joseph, Mary, and a rather young Jesus flee to Egypt, where an angel appears to Joseph in a dream (Matt 2:13–15, 19). Indeed, with all this trekking back and forth, one suspects that these individuals might have encountered each other on the coastal road. In fact, such a convergence upon Egypt was so popular that in the texts of Jeremiah we find curses against anyone who would go to Egypt for refuge (Jer 42:14–19), and then judgments against those who do opt to head off (Jer 43:2, 7, 11–13; 44:1, 8, 12–15, 24, 26, 27, 28, 30). Finally, Egypt is a place of strength, offering the possibility of alliances. As Nah 3:9 points out, along with Cush, Egypt has “boundless strength.” Indeed, Solomon thought so, and so made an alliance (1 Kgs 3:1), as did Hosea (2 Kgs 17:4). Yet, this is where we come across the ambivalence of Egypt. What appears to be a source of strength can very quickly become treacherous, as Egypt is, after all, a “splintered reed” (2 Kgs 18:21, 24). Warnings against alliances with Egypt become a prophetic staple, and Egypt rapidly becomes a space of fear rather than hope (Isa 30:2, 3, 7; 31:1, 3; 36:6, 9; Jer 2:18, 36; Hos 7:11, 16; 8:13; 9:3, 6; 11:5, 11; 12:1). With such an exhaustive treatment, I run the risk of boring readers witless. But I have provided a rather comprehensive treatment in order to show how deeply these spaces of fear and hope run in the Bible. Tracking the way these spaces show up is, of course, merely the first step, a catalogue if you will, in the way Egypt is represented. Indeed, I would suggest that the refrain that echoes countless times throughout the whole Bible – “who brought you up out of Egypt” – is a little more ambivalent than we may have assumed. It is not clear sometimes whether Yahweh did the people a favor or not as they often begged to differ and desperately wanted to go back. The leeks, lentils, cucumbers, fleshpots, and fine-colored linen proved a fair match to the land flowing with milk and honey. 3. Openness and Closure in Utopia Cataloguing the spaces of hope and fear is but the first step; I now wish to ask why we have such a pattern, why Egypt is represented in such a positive and then a negative light. My argument here is that Egypt functions as both a utopia and a dystopia and that the key to such an opposition is the tension between openness and closure. However, rather than a long theoretical exposé on that topic, it is time to descend from the lofty synoptic view I have taken thus far and to take up a specific text.

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The paradigmatic text I wish to focus upon is Gen 47; this is a section of the larger Joseph cycle in the later chapters of Genesis, which tells of Joseph’s father, Jacob, and his arrival and settlement in Egypt and how the Egyptians coped with the years of famine. The lead-up to this section deals with the Pharaoh’s double dream of the seven fat and skinny cows and then the blighted and full ears of corn, Joseph’s interpretation that the dream means that seven years of plenty will be followed by seven years of famine, and then Joseph’s appointment as governor of Egypt to ensure that enough grain is stored up for the years of famine (Gen 41). At the end of ch. 41, when the famine hits, Egypt, under the guidance of Joseph, is generous to a fault, selling grain not merely to the Egyptians but to “all the world” that came to “Joseph in Egypt to buy grain” (41:57). However, by Gen 47 things look a little different. Let us pay particular attention to three features: the contrast between Israel and Egypt, the role of the famine in the story, and the way that Joseph goes about his business. As for the contrast between Israel and Egypt, ch. 47 begins with Jacob/ Israel arriving in Egypt after the drawn-out narrative of the meetings of Joseph with his brothers. Careful provision of land is made for Jacob, even “the best part of the land” (47:6), and food is provided: “And Joseph provided his father, his brother, and all his father’s household with food, according to the number of their dependents” (47:12). The picture as a whole from the first part of Gen 47 and up to v. 12 is of a space of hope: Jacob arrives with the clan, they are welcomed, given the best food and lodgings, and settle down in comfort. The next verse, however, sounds a different note entirely: “Now there was no food in all the land, for the famine was very severe” (47:13). How is it that the clan of Jacob can be provided with the food that they need in the preceding verse when there is “no food in all the land”? Indeed, this is a crucial contrast in this chapter: while Israel prospers, Egypt suffers; while Israel has enough to eat, Egypt does not. Space of hope comes face to face with space of fear. Later on, I will argue that this tension is necessary, indeed, that one side cannot do without the other. The contrast shows up again a little later in the chapter, for here, after the Egyptians have sold their bodies into slavery in order to eat, we find the following verse, “Thus Israel settled in the land of Egypt, in the region of Goshen; and they gained possessions in it, and were fruitful and multiplied exceedingly” (47:27). It is as though the famine has barely touched them. The second feature is the agency of Joseph in the story, especially in vv. 13 to 19. Here is the depiction wherein the Egyptians gradually descend into slavery, or, rather, Joseph corners them into slavery. To



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begin with, people pay money for food, from both Egypt and Canaan, and Joseph “collected all the silver to be found” (Gen 47:14).2 When the money runs out, the focus shifts purely onto the Egyptians. They come before Joseph and request food, and he suggests they hand over their livestock in exchange for food (47:16). So, Joseph collects all the horses, flocks, herds, and donkeys, but even this lasts only for a year. A third time, the Egyptians return and ask for food. With no money and no cattle, they say, “[b]uy us and our land in exchange for food. We with our land will become slaves to Pharaoh” (47:19). Is it not the Hebrews who are eventually enslaved in Egypt? Of course, they are enslaved at the beginning of the book of Exodus, but only after the Egyptians have all become debt-slaves: their money, flocks, land, and bodies all belong to the Pharaoh: “So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh” (47:20). Joseph’s specific task is as an agent of closure. Or rather, he acts in an authoritarian manner that closes off options for the Egyptians. Little by little, the Egyptians become slaves, first by handing over their money at his demand, then their flocks, and then their land and bodies. What was a land of plenty, even a few chapters earlier (note especially Gen 41:56–57), what was open to all should they require food (albeit upon payment), is now closed. In other words, utopia has become dystopia, a space of fear through an act of authoritarian closure. This situation is reinforced by vv. 20–26 in Gen 47, where Joseph now rations out seed to the people. He instructs them to sow the seed and harvest it, and then give a fifth of the harvest to Pharaoh and use four-fifths for themselves (Gen 47:24). To which the people respond, “You have saved our lives; may it please my lord, we will be slaves to Pharaoh” (Gen 47:25). Apart from observing that the famine suddenly seems to have disappeared for the sake of a little aside on the origin of a law (the source critics of course have had a field day with this text, suggesting that another source was interwoven here), here lies the deeper narrative reason for the enslavement of the Israelites at the beginning of Exodus. It is not that “a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph” (Exod 1:8), but that all the Egyptians were already enslaved; the Israelites were just following suit. The well-known dystopian space of fear of the enslaved Israelites begins, at this juncture, with the enslaved Egyptians.

2.  Often mistranslated as money, keseph refers to silver metal exchanged by weight rather than coined, as the Greeks tended to do. Without a market economy or any extensive system of trade, such use of silver for exchange was a minor feature (see Finley 1999, 166–69).

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The third feature is the famine itself: if Joseph is an agent of closure then the famine is the means of closure. Joseph is able to carry out the measures of enslavement because of the famine and his preparations beforehand. The famine enables Joseph to gain everything on behalf of Pharaoh. In other words, the famine is the literary device for turning Egypt into a dystopian space. In the years of plenty, Egypt is an open, welcoming place, but, with years of famine, it is closed off, providing Joseph with a means for doing what he would not have been able to do in the years of plenty. Genesis 47, in other words, is an excellent example of David Harvey’s point concerning the interplay of openness and closure in the depictions of utopia and dystopia. In a discussion of Henri Lefebvre (1991; see also Boer 2003, 87–109), who has deeply influenced Harvey, Harvey argues that Lefebvre leaves his utopias open, especially in terms of space. Lefebvre does not like closure: he finds closed utopias authoritarian, rationalized, bureaucratized, and technocratic. The problem, Harvey suggests, is that Lefebvre is too much of a romanticist, as utopia does in fact need some sort of closure: “to materialize a space is to engage with closure (however temporary) which is an authoritarian act. The history of all realized utopias points to this issue of closure as fundamental and unavoidable…the problem of closure (and the authority it presupposes) cannot endlessly be evaded” (Harvey 2000, 183). Harvey’s point specifically relates to actual, realized utopias, rather than literary utopias. Yet, this is also a necessary feature of literary utopias (see Jameson 2005), and my suggestion, in this vein, is that Egypt functions as a literary utopia, especially when it is a space of hope in the Bible. However, when closure occurs, it is an authoritarian act, one that Joseph enacts in this story from Gen 47, and utopia threatens to become a dystopia – a space of hope becomes a space of fear. 4. Utopia and Dystopia in the Sacred Economy There is one final step in my argument. Thus far, I have argued that Egypt is both a space of hope and a space of fear in the Bible, I then went on to suggest that the reason for this opposition lies in the pattern of openness and closure – in particular as is apparent in the welcoming of Jacob and the enslavement of the Egyptians in Gen 47. Now I wish to ask a final question. What is the social and economic context of that which comprises a metaphorical geography? What is the underlying logic of this pattern of utopian openness and dystopian closure?



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Before I proceed, I draw on three more points from David Harvey, surmised in the following quotation. Places, like space and time, are social constructs and have to be read and understood as such. There are ways to provide a materialist history of this literal and metaphoric geography of the human condition and to do it so as to shed light on the production of spatially differentiated otherness… (Harvey 1993, 25, emphasis mine)

Although the first point is well known, it is worth repeating: place, space, and time are social constructs. My focus is on place and space, but Harvey’s point is that rather than being a given, space is something constructed and produced by human beings, in their thought, literature, culture, and so on. While it may seem counter-intuitive to suggest that a worm was only five centimeters long after the invention of centimeters, we only have to think of the various spaces we construct. A home, replete with walls, a roof, beds, and shelves is not a home until we have made it so, nor is a road until made so, nor indeed a forest. This is the case with Egypt too, in the biblical text. It too is a social construct. Even more, it is a metaphoric geography. The Egypt of which I write is a product of the biblical material. It does not exist as that “Egypt” outside the biblical text. Thus, the Egypt of hope and fear is a literary Egypt – one that has influenced many subsequent representations of Egypt and indeed very real political and economic policies relating to Egypt – but a literary and metaphoric Egypt nonetheless. It is the third point in the quotation from Harvey that brings me directly to the final part of my argument. Egypt in the biblical texts is a spatially differentiated otherness. By this, I mean that Egypt is on the edge of the constructed spatial worlds of the Bible, and is therefore liminal, at the boundary of what we might call the “known” worlds of the Bible. A group of texts presents Egypt in this fashion. The overall refrain is twofold: this known world extends from Egypt to the river Euphrates; items may come from as far away as Egypt (see Gen 15:18; 25:18; Num 34:5; Josh 13:3; 15:4, 47; 1 Sam 15:7; 27:8; 1 Kgs 4:21; 8:65; 1 Chr 13:5; 2 Chr 7:8; 9:26; 26:8; Jer 24:8; Ezek 48:28; Amos 3:9; Acts 2:10).3 This brings me to my final point: as a boundary-limit space, Egypt may function as a space in which to invest a series of hopes of fears. In the realms of imagination, it is so far away, at the edge of the known world,

3.  Cush, Libya, and Nubia are also regarded as part of this border zone (Ps 68:31; Isa 11:11; 20; 43:3; 45:14; Ezek 29:10; 30:4, 5, 9; Amos 9:7; Nah 3:9; Dan 11:43).

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that it may therefore become a space in which to place one’s various hopes and fears. By virtue of this, it may therefore be utopian and dystopian. Yet, what sort of utopia/dystopia is it? We now come to the materialist history of the constructed space of Egypt in the Bible. As a space at the limit, Egypt gives voice to the fundamental tension of what I would like to call the “sacred economy.”4 It is either a space where everything is freely available, even in abundance, all of which is provided by God, or, it is an aggressive, hostile, imperial space where one must work as a slave, and even then barely survive, since someone else takes what one produces. These two features may be called a logic of allocation and a logic of extraction. One either has food, lodgings, and refuge freely allocated in abundance, or one has these things (and more) taken away and extracted, often by force. The two are inseparable from one another; in just the same manner that Egypt, the space of fear, and Egypt, the space of hope, are two sides of the same coin, allocation and extraction are the two basic elements of the sacred economy. The sacred economy is a model I have developed for understanding the marginal zone of the southern Levant (and thereby ancient Israel) in the context of ancient Southwest Asia, especially in light of the lamentable lack of an adequate economic model and, indeed, economic history. Let me briefly outline what a sacred economy looks like. Drawing upon soviet-era Russian scholarship and the Marxist school of economic thought known as Régulation theory,5 I distinguish between three levels of economic activity: the basic institutional forms; their varying constellations as economic regimes; and then the overarching mode of production that is constituted by the regimes. Into this threefold structure I introduce a further distinction, between allocative and extractive economic patterns. As the terms indicate, allocative patterns depend on the allocation and reallocation of labor and the produce of labor, while extraction means the appropriation of the produce of labor by those who do not work (the willing unemployed, namely, the ruling class and its hangers-on). Of the building blocks known as institutional forms, there are: subsistence survival, kinship-household, patronage, estates, and tribute-exchange. The first three are largely allocative, while the remaining two are extractive, although there are overlaps between them. At different 4.  For a full treatment of the sacred economy, replete with more than a full range of references, see The Sacred Economy (Boer 2014). 5.  The best introduction to Régulation theory is that of Boyer and Saillard (2002). In the first chapter of The Sacred Economy (2014), I offer a full theoretical discussion and indicate the inadequacy of neoclassical economic theory for studying the ancient world (and indeed our own world).



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economic periods, the institutional forms are arranged in different ways, in patterns of dominance and subservience. These arrangements or constellations are the regimes: the subsistence regime, the palatine regime, and the regime of plunder. Here only the first is allocative, characteristic of the bulk of the population engaged in agriculture, while the other two are extractive, the approaches of the little and big kingdoms and their brutish potentates. These regimes indicate the internal workings of the mode of production I call the sacred economy. Let me outline the building blocks (or institutional forms) of the sacred economy in a little more detail. Three of the five institutional forms are primarily allocative in structure, by which I mean that they operated according to economic patterns of allocation and reallocation – of labor, tools, tasks, and produce. First, subsistence survival emphasizes the importance of agriculture, which was characterized by optimal usage, diversity, security against risk, a focus on labor and usufruct (and not land), and small surpluses for tough times. Second, kinship-household provided the social determination of subsistence survival: through religion and cultural assumptions, customary law, division of labor, and social sanction, it determined who did what where and who received what from whom. These households were characterized by flexible and fluid rhythms of spatial production and everyday life. Third, although it is less important, patronage bridges allocation and extraction, moving in either direction depending on the prevailing tenor of the times. The remaining two institutional forms are extractive, namely, the estates and tribute-exchange. By estates I mean temple and palace estates, along with the development of the state. I understand the state as the result of intractable class conflict, the machinery of which is then seized by one class and turned into an instrument of its own agenda. This ruling class also develops agricultural estates: as non-producers they must find some way to live in the way to which they have become accustomed. The estates were administered either directly or by tenure, and laborers were indentured permanently or temporarily (corvée, debt, and so on). Given the perpetual labor shortage, the estates constantly sought to draw more laborers from the village communities, with little concern for their viability. The final and extractive institutional form concerns tribute-exchange. Here the many faces of plunder appear, whether crude, polite external, polite internal, or elite plunder. These are usually known as plunder per se, tribute, taxation, and exchange. However, they are all forms of booty, since the underlying purpose is acquisition through some form of extortion. Apart from dealing with the patterns of taxation and tribute,

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here we find exchange, markets, and coinage. It is quite clear from the textual and archaeological records that long-distance exchange was in preciosities (high value, luxury items) since it was simply impossible to shift bulk goods over such distances. At a local level, usually between villages within eyesight of one another, some exchange did take place for items not obtainable locally. Yet an important shift did happen in the first millennium, when the need to provision ever larger armies, the invention of coinage, and the search for new mechanisms of taxation saw the expansion of local markets. Yet their primary function was logistical (provisioning empires) rather than for profit, for they were byproducts of the state’s concerns.6 How did such institutional forms relate to one another over time? This takes place through constant rearrangements of institutional forms into the regimes that responded to different economic situations, with one or another institutional form dominant and determinative. These constellations may be designated as the subsistence regime, the palatine regime, and the regime of booty. The subsistence regime was characteristic of what are usually called times of economic “crisis” or “chaos” – everpresent, but notable in the third millennium, the middle of the second millennium, and in the closing centuries of the second millennium. It was the dominant regime found in the southern Levant and thereby of ancient Israel. The scarce quotes around “crisis” and “chaos” appear for a reason, since these periods were by no means a crisis for the 90% of those involved in the agriculture of the subsistence regime. It was in fact the most stable of all regimes, and usually the most creative of times – usable inventions happen during such periods. The palatine regime (an extractive one) characterized the efforts of various potentates and despots to seize control of states and support themselves and their dependents by means of agricultural estates. Inherently unstable, the palatine regime rose and collapsed time and again, only to run completely out of steam by the thirteenth century. In its place, the regime of booty characterized the first millennium and its large empires. It varied between crude plunder (Assyrian Empire) and the more refined forms of taxation and tribute, enabled by the use of coinage and development of markets as byproducts of the state’s over-riding concerns with provisioning its military and bureaucracy (Persian or Achaemenid Empire). The regime of booty was also deeply unstable, falling apart readily. 6.  It should be clear that here I undertake some redefining of terms, such as market, surplus, and trade. Thus, they had markets, but not primarily for profit; they had trade, but for preciosities; they had surpluses, but for subsistence.



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For the sake of my analysis here, the fundamental tension in the sacred economy is that between allocation and extraction. This is a tension that both kept the sacred economy functioning and also led to its eventual demise. So, what is the relation between this excursus into the sacred economy and the tension between spaces of hope and spaces of fear in the representation of Egypt? When it is a space of hope, Egypt operates according to an ideal or utopian form of an allocatory economics. It is fertile, productive, and open: land, food, and children are freely produced. Upon his arrival, Jacob settles in the best part of the land, Israel flourishes and grows, and there is abundant food. Such a space of hope is unfettered by an extractive economics. However, when Egypt is a space of fear, it becomes a nightmare of an extractive economics. Armies march out of Egypt to conquer and extract tribute; its people are enslaved as they have to sell their bodies for food, they must pay 20% of the produce they make as a tax when they have become slaves, and then, eventually, the Israelites are also made slaves and must work for the Pharaoh, with barely enough food to survive. 5. Conclusion The utopian space of hope is, I suggest, an ideal literary manifestation of one half of the sacred economy, while the dystopian space of fear comprises the literary geography of the other half. Yet, such extremes can only take place because Egypt is a border zone, a limit space where these fears and hopes may find expression. I am arguing, therefore, that the tension between the spaces of hope and fear in Egypt is a literary manifestation of the tension between allocatory and extractive economics. In the same way that the allocative and extractive elements of the economy cannot live without each other, so it is the case with the two sides of Egypt: the spaces of hope and fear are inseparable from one another. Works Cited Assmann, Jan. 2006. Religion and Cultural Memory. Ten Studies. Translated by R. Living­ stone. Stanford. Stanford University Press. Boer, Roland. 2003. Marxist Criticism of the Bible. London. Continuum. ———. 2014. The Sacred Economy. Louisville: Westminster John Knox. Boyer, Robert, and Yves Saillard, eds. 2002. Régulation Theory: The State of the Art. London: Routledge. Finley, M. I. 1999. The Ancient Economy. Updated ed. Sather Classical Lectures 43. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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Harvey, David. 1993. From Place to Space and Back Again: Reflections on the Condition of Postmodernity. Pages 3–29 in Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global Change. Edited by J. Bird, B. Curtis, T. Putnam, G. Robertson and L. Tickner. London: Routledge. ———. 2000. Spaces of Hope. Berkeley: University of California Press. Jameson, Fredric. 2005. Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions. London: Verso. Lefebvre, Henri. 1991. The Production of Space. Translated by D. Nicholson-Smith. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

M ythical S pace and M ythical T ime : J erusalem as the S ite of the L ast J udgment * Klaus Bieberstein

1. Mythical Space and Mythical Time To understand space and time no longer as units existing in nature but rather as transcendental forms of perception was the first fundamental thesis of Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason. However, the criticism can be leveled against Kant that he proceeded from more or less scientific reason, but did not take into consideration other ways of perceiving and interpreting the world as independent means of world creation such as language, myth, religion, or art. So it was left to Johann Gustav Droysen, Wilhelm Dilthey, and Heinrich Rickert, and above all Ernst Cassirer, to expand Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason via a Critique of Historical Reason into a comprehensive Critique of Culture and to ask about a grammar of all possible ways of world making (Cassirer 1923–29, 1953–57). Along with the pure function of cognition we must seek to understand the function of linguistic thinking, the function of mythical and religious thinking, and the function of artistic perception, in such a way as to disclose how in all of them there is attained an entirely determinate formation, not exactly of the world, but rather making for the world, for an objective, meaningful context and an objective unity that can be apprehended as such. (Cassirer 1953: 1:79–80)

Cassirer recognized that Kant’s conception of space and time is based on a naive, modern trust in scientific knowledge as the allegedly single legitimate way of interpreting the world, and he could show through * I extend my heartfelt thanks to Dr. Olaf Rölver for his comments and corrections and to Dr. Robert Schick for translating my German text. This study was finished in November 2009.

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exemplary analyses of other forms of understanding the world – such as language, myth, religion, or art – that each of them are grounded in their own formations of space and time. a. Mythical Space While space in scientific thought – at least in Euclidean geometry – is thought of as homogenous and endless, mythical thinking draws fundamental differences between “holy” and “profane,” “central” and “peripheral”: In contrast to the homogeneity which prevails in the conceptual space of geometry every position and direction in mythical space is endowed as it were with a particular accent – and this accent always goes back to the fundamental mythical accent, the division between the sacred and the profane. (Cassirer 1955, 2:85)

Thus, according to Cassirer’s understanding, to set boundaries, to constitute centers, and to divide in a polar way the unity of the world spiritually and spatially are constitutive of mythical consciousness. By means of this central or polar structuring, the mythical view and understanding of the world produce “a ‘copying’ in space of what is intrinsically unspatial” (Cassirer 1955, 2:85) and assigns each thing to its own place, which is not chosen arbitrarily, but rather corresponds to its nature and value: The zones and directions in space stand out from one another because a different accent of meaning is connected with them, and they are mythically evaluated in different and opposite senses. (Cassirer, 1955, 2:98) Wherever mythical thinking and mythical feeling endow a content with particular value, wherever they distinguish it from others and lend it a spatial significance, this qualitative distinction tends to be represented in the image of spatial separation. (Cassirer, 1955, 2:103)

Thus in mythical space mutually contradictory connotations are bound in polar arrangements, like center and periphery, north and south, or east and west: The characteristic mythical accent of the sacred and profane is distributed in different ways among the separate directions and zones and lends each of them a definite mythical-religious imprint. East, west, north, and south are not essentially similar zones which serve for orientation within the world of empirical perception; each of them has a specific reality and significance of its own, an inherent mythical life. (Cassirer 1955, 2:97–98)



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This fundamental principle of the polar character of mythical space thus not only achieves a visualization of the invisible in space, but – in view of the polar structuring – also a view of the invisible whole in a bounded space. b. Mythical Time The same holds for time. While time in scientific thought – at least in Euclidean geometry – is also thought of as homogeneous and endless, mythical thought produces rhythmizations, and distinguishes between “holy” times and “profane” ordinary days: What we have found to be true of mythical space applies also to mythical time; – its form depends on the characteristic mythical-religious accentuation, the distribution of the accents of the sacred and the profane. From a religious point of view time is never a simple, uniform process of change but obtains its meaning only through the differentiation of its phases. (Cassirer 1955, 2:118–19)

Furthermore, mythical thought anchors the constituents of the present, in that it formulates the human condition in creation myths. Beyond that, in some traditions such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Zoroastrianism, mythical thought also develops an absolute end that gives the course of history the determination of a goal, a direction, a sense which in scientific categories would be senseless, as it would be impossible. Mythical time anchors the constituents of the present in an absolute past, in that it formulates the human condition in creation myths. Mythical time also features a function that is prospective and provides orientation in cultures such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Zoroastrianism that recognize an absolute beginning as well as a corresponding absolute end to history. This leads to action and marks in an absolute future the options that lead to action for its completion: It is more than mere expectation; it becomes an imperative of human life. And this imperative reaches far beyond man’s immediate practical needs – in its highest form it reaches beyond the limits of his empirical life. This is man’s symbolic future, which corresponds to and is in strict analogy with his symbolic past. (Cassirer 1944, 55)

This orientation, periphrased by Ernst Bloch as the “principle of hope” and by Max Horkheimer as “the desire that the murderer may not triumph over the innocent victim,” on the basis of which the scientifically meaningless question about a sense of history was first possible, found

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expression in Old Testament prophecy and Zoroastrianism that was course-setting because it formed the future, and, as Karl Löwith showed in a survey of the history of European thought, also continued to work in only superficially secularized guise in newer and superficially secular conceptions of history (Löwith 1949). Thus the mythical turning to the world and comprehending the world in their specific “symbolic concision” (Cassirer 1957, 3:191–204) also make possible, in regard to time, the view of the whole that is impossible in the time and space of Euclidian geometry, for which Kant coined the term “Weltanschauung” (Kant 1790, 91 § 26). Thereby mythical thoughts acquire independent, indispensable functions that cannot be fulfilled through other symbolic forms, other scientific ways of turning to the world. Only the mythical turning to the world, its continuation in systems of religious symbols and different forms of expression of art,1 such as painting, music, literature, theatre, and film, provide a view of the whole and function as regulating ideas and conditions of sense-founding orientation equally in a temporal, spatial, and ethical sense. To transmit this orientation is not only something for the individual, but also the object and task of collective cultures of memory, and within these cultures of memory symbolically stamped spaces play a particular mnemotechnical function. 2. Space as a Medium of Memory2 a. … in Individual Memory In memoirs of his childhood, Walter Benjamin transmitted a small anecdote that spotlights the peculiar affinity of space and memory. He tells of his father who came to his bedside to give him the news of a cousin’s death (who had died of syphilis, which his father did not mention): I did not take in everything he said. But I did take special note, that evening, of my room, as though I were aware that one day I would again be faced with trouble there. (Benjamin 2006, 85 [1950, 49])

1. For the continuation of mythical world attention in art and other forms of world creation, see Goodman 1978 and Jamme 1999, 259–301. 2. The following contribution is based on my study Bieberstein 2007a, 3–20. I extend my sincere thanks to the Neukirchener Verlagsgesellschaft for their gracious permission to reuse this material.



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Benjamin indicates a peculiar affinity between space and memory, to which Cicero had pointed. In his remarks about memory, Cicero has Marcus Piso say in a fictional conversation during a walk through the Athenian academy: Whether it is a natural instinct or a mere illusion, I can’t say; but one’s emotions are more strongly aroused by seeing the places that tradition records to have been the favourite resort of men of note in former days, than by hearing about their deeds or reading their writings. My own feelings at the present moment are a case in point. I am reminded of Plato, the first philosopher, so we are told, that made a practice of holding discussions in this place; and indeed the garden close at hand yonder not only recalls his memory but seems to bring the actual man before my eyes. This was the haunt of Speusippus, of Xenocrates, and of Xenocrates’ pupil Polemo, who used to sit on the very seat we have over there. For my own part even the sight of our senate-house at home (I mean the Curia Hostilia, not the present new building, which looks to my eyes smaller since its enlargement) used to call up to me thoughts of Scipio, Cato, Laelius, and chief of all, my grandfather; such powers of suggestion do places possess. No wonder the scientific training of the memory is based on locality. (De finibus V 2) (Cicero 1971, 391–92)

Proceeding from these “powers of suggestion that places possess,” in his remarks about mnemonics Cicero has Simonides of Keos, the legendary founder of mnemonics, advise future speakers that they themselves may make use of this affinity of thoughts and places as crystallization points for memory and divide their thoughts, contained in concise pictures, into real or imaginary spaces, in order to be able, while delivering a speech without a manuscript, to pace out and call up thoughts in an imaginary course in the same sequence: And he concluded that those who would like to employ this part of their abilities should choose localities, then form mental images of the things they wanted to store in their memory, and place these in the localities. In this way, the order of the localities would preserve the order of the things, while the images would represent the things themselves; and we would use the localities like a wax tablet, and the representations like the letters written on it. (De oratore II 86,354) (Cicero 2001, 219)

b. … in Collective Memory What in individual mnemonics may be possible in imaginary spaces, can only be realized in a collective culture of memory by means of a semiotization of real spaces, carried out in very different ways: unintended or

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deliberately staged; according to concentric, axial or contingent base forms; through purely verbal connotations, through ritual observances, or through permanent monumentalizations, and can serve very different functions: mythical anchoring in cosmic order, care of identity-providing narrative, or visualizations of claims to power.3 This semiotization of real spaces, as in the case of the Place of Heavenly Peace in Peking as the location where the Chinese democracy movement was defeated in 1989, can follow involuntarily, but it can also be deliberately staged and can find its expression in a specific spot, as in a single monument, a building, or a spatial ensemble of places, and can function as a mirror, as reference frames of memory for a shared history that marks identity and thereby establishes community. The semiotization of landscape that is required in a collective culture of memory can remain very unobtrusive, and so be scarcely perceptible to outsiders, on a purely verbal plain of connoting selected places with mythical or historical memories. Thus over the centuries in Jerusalem the place where Judas hanged himself was shown, without this tradition having undergone visualization or monumentalization. But in rites bound to places and observances that connect places, it can also find a temporary visualization mostly confined to holidays. Thus in the Byzantine-early Islamic period, during the night between Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, the route of Jesus’ passion was followed in a liturgical procession with readings “suitable to the place and the day” (Egeria 31.1).4 And finally, in a third stage of fixation, in a corresponding construction of the landscape through monuments, temple compounds, and processional ways, it can even experience a permanent objectivation, visible not only for group members or spectators of the observance who happen to be present, but also for complete outsiders and in this way constitute a “sacred landscape.” Beside the distinction of the landscapes of memory according to staging media lies the distinction according to geometric forms, where again three groups can be distinguished. Thus, proceeding from very different situations, the foundation myth of the Swiss is localized around the Vierwaldstätter See with the house in Bürglen where William Tell was born, a monument in Altdorf, the Hohle Gasse near Küssnacht, the Tell Chapel on the Tell Ledge on the east shore of the Urn See, and the Rütli Meadow on the west shore, while in the modern state of Israel a myth representing the state is established by visits and ritual processions such 3.  For places of memory and landscapes of commemoration, see Assmann 1999, 298–339. 4. Text Egeria 1995: ch. 31:1; 258–59; translation Egeria 1981, 132.



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as the oath-taking of army recruits at Masada. Thereby historical narrative is anchored in relative contingent cultural landscapes. Yet other examples can be named, in which not only is a community of memory anchored within history, but also, collectively, the microcosmos of the everyday space of experience of a city is anchored in the mythical macrocosmos of the order of creation; and this is visualized by means of a corresponding semiotization of the landscape in the everyday space of experience. Thereby, dependent not least on pre-existing natural topography, two basic geometric figures can be distinguished, which do not exclude each other, but indeed interact as they meet and can be designated with keywords such as “axial” and “concentric.” The cultic orientation in Egypt serves as an example of basic axial orientation. At first it was to the south, corresponding to the course of the Nile coming from the south, but since the Fifth Dynasty it was overlaid by an east–west axis in the context of a strengthened new orientation according to the course of the sun. Thereby an orthogonal combination of two natural axes resulted. Yet this axial orientation is also given in those cases where cult places such as temples and churches are oriented according to the life-giving rising of the sun, and the realm of the dead was placed in the west – not only in Egypt and Greek but also in parts of biblical literature. In contrast to this axial orientation to the cardinal directions is the concentric model, often thematized by Mircea Eliade in particular. This model is based on a gradient between a center that is cultic and usually also political, and the periphery between cosmos and chaos. It finds its ritual expression in observances, in which people walk around the center itself, or the city as a whole, or processions follow a star-shaped route between the center and periphery. Indications of such observances can be gleaned in the case of Rome from the remarks of Marcus Tarrentius Verro about the collapse of culture and religion in late republican times, on the basis of which Hubert Cancik interpreted the republican city as a “sacred landscape” (Cancik 1985–86). But above all one thinks of the city cults of Syria and Mesopotamia. For their perception of space, the gradient between center and periphery was basic, as observed in Babylon and Assyria in the akītu processions reconstructed by Beate PongratzLeisten (1994). There, the temple as image of the cosmos and place of highest order forms the center, the increased sacralization of which found its built expression not least in forecourts and steps. Next to the temple lay the palace, with the city surrounding both, while on the city’s edge, there were artisan quarters with pottery kilns and foul-smelling tanneries. The necropoles were situated beyond the city wall that served as a borderline

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and marked the transition from the culture space of the city to the surrounding land hostile to life, beyond which the steppe appeared as the region of anti-order, which was settled by nomads, persons without rights, enemies, wild animals, and daemons, and whose horizon was limited by mountains or the sea as the embodiment of chaos. The functions of such semantized spaces changed into symbolic landscapes was the theme of Maurice Halbwachs’s groundbreaking investigations into collective memory in 1925, which initially received little notice. When he referred to “collective memory,” he meant no diffuse unit, no spirit without feet. Rather, his speaking of collective memory was a provocative abbreviation of his thesis that the memory of the members of a society was in no way purely private in nature.5 Rather, they only remember what they are asked about in daily interaction and forget that which is no longer asked about. By remembering and forgetting, society shows itself to be formative; it stamps perception, thought, and forgetting. The formation of public spaces thereby plays a decisive role, for example between symbol and rites, and also through continuing semiotization to landscapes of memory. And so it was only consistent that Halbwachs followed his theory of the collective memory, which initially was purely social and philosophical, in 1941, with a historical empirical case study on the legendary topography of the Gospels in the Holy Land (Halbwachs 1941), in which he took up the archaeological and historical studies of Hugues Vincent and Félix Marie Abel, in particular concerning the history of the holy places of Jerusalem,6 and placed them on the new foundation of his sociology of memory. Although some of his ideas about the history of the holy places may no longer be tenable in today’s view, his study shows a way beyond conventional investigations of the holy places that so often continue to be apologetical, questioning the authenticity of the holy places, and into wider horizons of cultural scientific questioning about the construction of landscapes of memory and their function in visualizing orienting narratives in cultural memory. In Jerusalem, over the course of centuries, many overlapping landscapes of memory arose, in which all three modes of semiotization (purely verbal connotation, temporary visualization, and permanent monumentalization) and all three basic forms of spacialization (axial, concentric, 5. Halbwachs 1925; elaborated further in the posthumously published study Halbwachs 1950. For an introduction to the life and work of the French sociologist, see Becker 2003 and Montigny 2005. 6.  Vincent and Abel 1914 and 1922. The fourth and last fascicule of 1926 was not yet available to him.



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and contingent) came to be employed. The landscapes of memory connect individual points like a spider’s web and give them meaning, in order to lend “orientation” to the daily life and interactions of the city’s inhabitants in a now more literally perceived, original sense of the word. The landscapes of memory are also to be “paced off” as a localized narrative by pilgrims from abroad, and after their return home these landscapes serve the remembrance as imaginary landscapes of memory. Yet in this study only one of these symbolic systems will be examined, which, in a connotation that is mostly only verbal, carries out in a concentric base form a visualization that provides orientation of the eschatological horizon in space of Jerusalem’s everyday experience. 3. Jerusalem as the Place of the Day of Judgment a. The Temple Mount: The Constitution of the Center The oldest landscape of memory of Jerusalem, as far as is reconstructable, took its starting point from the temple as a monumental and cultic staging of what was to serve Jerusalem society as the center and found its expression in the (not unproblematic) so-called “Zion theology.” In the research of the last few decades, much ink has been expended to present this as a “theological conception that is enclosing, reflected and closed” (Steck 1972, 9), without having arrived at a convincing conclusion about the dating and assumed uniformity of the conception.7 Yet descriptions of the furnishings of the building before its destruction by Nebuchadrezzar II, through wall reliefs with the trees of life flanked by cherubim (1 Kgs 6:18, 23, 29, 35), as well as lavers (1 Kgs 7:27–39, 43; 2 Kgs 16:17; 25:13, 16; Jer 27:19; 52:17–18, 20; 2 Chr 4:6, 14), and the monumental brass sea (1 Kgs 7:23–26, 39, 44; 2 Kgs 16:17) testify that the temple served to present fertility as an expression of god-granted wellbeing (Keel and Uehlinger 1992, 189–96). This symbolism also lay at the base of a motif of a spring going out from the temple (Pss 46:4; 65:9–10; Ezek 47:1–12; Joel 3:18; Zech 14:8) and found its narrative development in the subsequent myths of the attacks of the hostile peoples and the pilgrimages of peaceful peoples, or even a connection of both (Mic 4:11–13; Zeph 3; Zech 14). Therefore for a long time the attention of research was focused only on the center. But a concentration on the center alone cannot describe a “sacred landscape” comprehensively, since a point – however central it may be – does not form a landscape. And so for a description of the 7. A newer research report is offered by Herr 2000, 52–77.

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symbolic system it is indispensable that, in opposition to the life-representing center, the periphery that was connoted with death and chaos is brought in. Only then does the tension between center and periphery enclose that symbolic system that permits orientation.8 b. The Hinnom Valley: The Western Periphery Roughly since the western extension of the city under King Hezekiah in the late eighth century B.C.E., the Hinnom Valley west of the city and the adjacent plateau on the west were connoted as chthonic in regard to three aspects.

Plan 1: The Semiotization of the Hinnom Valley in the Late Pre-Exilic Period

First, the Hinnom Valley west of the city served as a necropolis. The earliest graves lay in the area of today’s Mamilla Street. Over the course of the centuries since then the main area of the burials slowly moved down the valley and, in Hasmonaean-Herodian times, their greatest concentration was in “Hakeldama” at the mouth of the valley. Only in the Byzantine period was it the site for subsequent burials by Christian monks and nuns from nearby convents. Second, the plateau to the west on the other side of the Hinnom Valley, which drains into the Mediterranean, was designated as the valley of Rephaim (Josh 15:8; 18:16). The “Rephaim” were thought of as the spirits 8. For the following, see in more detail Bieberstein 2001.



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of the dead. On the one hand they were thought to need care; on the other hand they were considered to be knowledgeable and healing and were invoked in necromantic practices. A connection between the function of the valley in the west of the city as a necropolis and the naming of the plateau to its west as the “plain of the Rephaim” is to be assumed, even when the sequence can no longer be clarified. Possibly the function of the mythical west as the place of the setting sun played a not insignificant role, as in the case of the necropoles of Egypt. Third, according to literary witnesses, in the Hinnom Valley at a place designated as “Topheth,” a cult for Molech was performed, at which people would sacrifice their sons and daughters as an offering to Molech (2 Kgs 23:10; Jer 32:35, passim). The interpretation of this cult was disputed for a long time. Ancient and late antique authors reported sacrificies of children in Carthage and other Punic colonial areas, and, since 1921, fields of cremation urns with calcified bones of small children, mixed with bones of goats, sheep, and birds, discovered in Carthage and other Punic areas in North Africa, Sicily, and Sardinia (eighth–second century B.C.E.), were interpreted as child sacrificies in the light of those literary witnesses. Because the Punic inscriptions on the stelea over the urns often attest the word mlk (probably offering), Otto Eißfeldt in 1935 attributed the Molech cult of Jerusalem to Phoenician influence (Eißfeldt 1935). However, no comparable cremation urn fields are known east of Malta, and the formulation of Lev 20:5 “playing the harlot after Molech” presumes that Molech designates not a type of sacrifice, but rather a divinity. Indeed Ebla, Akkadian, and Ugaritic texts are completely clear in attesting a god named Maliku or Milku, who in the Akkadian lists of gods was equated with the Babylonian god of the underworld, Nergal. According to Ugaritic witnesses (KTU 1:100) the god resided in Ashtaroth in northern Transjordan, which in the Old Testament was considered to be the residence of the legendary King Og, also a one-time god of the underworld (Deut 1:4; Josh 9:10; 12:4; 13:12, 31), who is designated as a “remnant of the Rephaim” (Josh 12:4; 13:12) (Heider 1985; Day 1989). Molech was probably only a local variant of the Syrian god of the underworld Maliku, and in the area of the Hinnom Valley necropolis, a cult was established for this god of the underworld (Isa 57:9), who was associated with necromancy (Lev 20:2–6; Deut 18:10–11; 2 Kgs 17:17; 21:6; 2 Chr 33:6). Whether children were really sacrificed to him (Deut 12:31; 2 Kgs 17:31, passim) or whether statements to that effect are only based on a polemic designation of his cult, remains an open question.

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It is obvious that this cult fell into discredit in the context of an increasing demand for monolatry. Thus Jer 2:23 polemicized against the “way in the valley” and 2 Kgs 23:10 named the profanation of the cultic places in the list of the reform measures of Josiah in 622 B.C.E. But continued polemics against the cult lets one suspect that Josiah’s reform measures did not mean the immediate end of the cult (Ezek 16:20–21; 20:31; 23:37–39). Finally, after Nebuchadrezzer II in 597 B.C.E. deported a portion of the upper class to Babylon, and in 587 B.C.E. had the city destroyed after a second deportation of the higher classes, the catastrophe was interpreted as a punishment and (among other things) was attributed to the activities in the Hinnom Valley (Jer 7:30–31; 19:5; 32:34–35). The Hinnom Valley thereby became a memorial for the activity that had led to the fall of Jerusalem. Thus Jer 7:32 and 19:6, 11 not only recall past offences, but in their announcements formulated after the fact of a future renaming of the valley from “Hinnom Valley” to the “Valley of Slaughter” and a future use of the Topheth as a burial field, they carry out the decisive course-setting step from a connotation of the valley as the location of past behaviour to a new connotation where it is the location of future punishment. Isaiah 30:33 also shares with the two last attestations of the book of Jeremiah the step from the location of the offences to the place of punishment and expands the announcement of disaster through fire and death by a comparison with a stream of burning sulfur. Originally, Jer 7:32 was formulated only in view of the catastrophe of 587 B.C.E. But when the Molech cult lost importance and the memory of the catastrophe of 587 B.C.E. faded, the word of God could be related – in the sense of an open work of art – to all pending punishments, whereby the location of the faded offences advanced to the location of all pending punishments in the Last Judgment. According to Ezek 39:11–15, Gog from Magog will rise at the end of days with many peoples, but fail, and Israel will need seven months to bury their dead in the “Valley of the Travelers.”9 Also Jer 31:38–40 designates the valley west of the city, in a preview of the coming time of salvation, as the “valley of the dead bodies and the ashes.” According to Joel 3:1–3, 9–17 Yahweh himself calls the peoples, in order to carry out the judgment in the “valley of Jehoshaphat.” And, according to Isa 66:24, all who have gathered in the time of salvation in the city will go out in order to see the mountains of corpses. Finally, in 1 En. 27:2–4 the valley southwest of the city is designated as the place of judgment for the eternally dammed: 9. For ‘ōbrīm as the designation of the dead, see Spronk 1995, 1652–53.



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This cursed valley is for those who are cursed forever. Here will be gathered all the cursed, who utter with their mouth an improper word against the Lord and speak hard things against his glory. Here they will be gathered, and here will be (their) habitation at the last times, in the days of righteous judgment in the presence of the righteous for all time. Here the godless will bless the Lord of glory, the King of eternity. In the days of their judgment they will bless in mercy in accordance with how he has apportioned to them.10

And, in 1 En. 90:26, the ravine south of the city was named as the location of the disposal of the blinded sheep at the end times: And I saw at that time that an abyss like it was opened in the middle of the earth, which was full of fire. And they brought those blinded sheep, and they were all judged and found to be sinners. And they were thrown into that fiery abyss, and they burned. And that abyss was to the south of that house. And I saw those sheep burning and their bones burning. (Nickelsburg 2001, 402)

The attestations extend from the late seventh century B.C.E. to the second century B.C.E. and form a chain of intertextual relations among themselves, whereby a three-fold change stands out. First, the valley west and south of the city, after various renamings and circumlocutions that no longer mention its name, lost its names. Flavius Josephus (War 5:108, 507) mentioned it without giving its name, and we no longer know what it was called from the Hellenistic period onwards. Second, the location of the punishment was no longer connected with the land west or south of the city, but was unlocalized. Third, the former name of the valley, after the valley was separated from the location of punishment, underwent a new and unexpected renaissance in Aramaic and Greek form as ‫ גיהנם‬or γέεννα (Matt 5:22, 29–30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:15, 33; Mark 9:43, 45, 47; Luke 12:5; Jas 3:6) as the name of the location of punishment. Yet Gehenna did not remain unfixed for long; already in the Roman period it found a new home again in the immediate vicinity of the city – only this time to the east. c. The Kidron Valley and the Mount of Olives: The Eastern Periphery Roughly simultaneous chronologically, yet at once completely independent, a second eschatological landscape of memory arose east of the city on an axis between the Temple Mount and the Mount of Olives, which is said ultimately to also have incorporated the inheritance of the first in order to integrate both partial scenarios into a single eschatological scenario. 10. Nickelsburg 2001, 317–19. For topography see also Milik 1976, 36–37; Wacker 1982, 245–50; Black 1985, 171–74.

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Plan 2: The Semiotization of the Mount of Olives in the Post-Exilic Period

Ezekiel, in his first temple vision (Ezek 9–11), announced that the glory of Yahweh – until then, the guarantee of the well-being of the city – would leave the temple and take position on the mountain across to the east in order to guarantee the demise of the city. In his second temple vision (Ezek 40–48), he promised a new city with a new temple and the return of the glory of Yahweh from the east, whereupon as an expression of the blessing of Yahweh a spring arose from the temple, which changed the Kidron Valley into a landscape of Paradise.11 Through these two visions, an antithetical axis of the judgment over the city was established between the temple and the Mount of Olives, which was developed further in later texts in thick intertextual back references. Thus Joel 3:1–3, 9–17, with its announcement of a judgment over the peoples in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, not only refers transparently to Ezek 38–39, but in 3:18–21, also takes from Ezek 47:1–12 the image of the stream dispensing blessings, leading from the temple to the Dead Sea. Indeed Joel 3:1–3, 9–17 and 3:18–21 were possibly initially connected redac­tionally, and the topographic connections between the unlocated Valley of Jehoshapat, on the one hand, and the valley watered by the temple spring, on the other hand, were not made explicit, but in Joel 3 for the first time the two scenarios – initially related to two different 11. The source of Ezek 47:1–12 belongs to a later revision, according to Konkel 2001, 192–201.



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valleys – were brought together into a literary unity. Following on, it was probably only a question of time before they merged into a coherent total picture. Zechariah 14 continued the line in so far as Yahweh appeared on the Mount of Olives to save his people and his city from their enemies, whereupon springs emerge from two sides, flowing to the west and the east. This way the life-giving stream of the Kidron Valley was replaced by the fire of Gehenna, whereby the two sketched partial views of the Day of Judgment merged into a monumental painting, which in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam was continued jointly.

Plan 3: The Semiotization of the Mount of Olives in the Byzantine-Early Islamic Period.

According to the apocryphal Questions of Bartholomew 4:7–71 from the third century C.E., Jesus showed his curious disciples the kingdom of Belial at the foot of the Mount of Olives, which already implies a carryover of Gehenna to the valley east of the city. But the Hinnom Valley and the Valley of Jehoshapat were first explicitly equated with Gehenna around 300 C.E. in the Onomasticon of Biblical Names of Eusebius and

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localized in that valley between the city and the Mount of Olives, which previously had born the name Kidron Valley: Kidron. The wadi or ravine of Kidron. It is located near Jerusalem. Valley of Jehoshapat. It lies between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives. Valley of Hinnom. In Hebrew “Ge-hinnom.” Therefore, some say it is Gehenna. It lies near Jerusalem, and is called until this day “the valley of Jehoshapat.”12

A logion, whose origin from Jochanan ben Zakkai or Jehoshua ben Levi is disputed in the Talmud, localized the gates of Gehenna between two date palms in the Hinnom Valley (b. Suk. 32b; b. ‘Erub. 19a). That presumes the transfer of the name Hinnom Valley together with its connotations to the land east of the city: Two date palms stand in the Hinnom Valley, between which smoke rises.… There is the gate of Gehenna.

A Jewish pilgrim guide from the early Fatimid period from the Cairo Geniza mentions the entrance to Gehenna next to the “shrines that So[lomon] built”13 and a palm tree referring explicitly to Joel 3:12: And to its side a date palm is planted.… This place [is] across from the gate of Gehinnom, as it is said: “Then there I will sit in judgement over all peoples.”14

Likewise Christian pilgrim guides localize the place of the judgment and the stream of fire at the end of time up to recently in the area of Gethsemane. Thus, in the late fifth or early sixth century, in the Jerusalem Breviery (version B, ch. 7) with reference to Isa 30:33, it is written: To the right of that is the Valley of Jehoshapat where the Lord will judge the righteous and the sinners. There too is the little brook which will belch flame at the end of the age. (Latin edition: Weber 1965, 112; English translation: Wilkinson 2002, 121)

12. Eusebius 1904, 118, lines 11–12; 118, lines 18–19; 170, lines 8–10; translation Eusebius 2005, 113, 115, 159. 13. Presumably the Hellenistic-Roman funerary monuments in the Kidron Valley were interpreted with 1 Kgs 11:7–8 and 2 Kgs 23:13 as cultic places that Solomon was said to have had erected for Kemosh and Milkom. 14. Alobaidi, Goldman and Küchler 1987, 43 and 49; commentary Braslavi 1987, 67–68.



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Bernard the Monk notes in the late ninth century C.E. a missing church that lay slightly to the south of Gethsemane (ch. 13): There is another church in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, which is in honour of St. Leontius, and to this the Lord is said to be coming for judgement. (Latin edition: Tobler and Molinier 1879, 316; English translation: Wilkinson 2002, 267)

According to early Islamic sources, the gathering of the resurrected was assumed, with reference to Surah 79:14, to be in a plain (al-Sahirah), which was placed in Wādī Jawz and which gives Herod’s Gate its Arabic name, Bāb al-Sāhirah. The Persian pilgrim Nāṣir-i-Khusrau notes in 1047: Passing out of the mosque you come out onto a large, expansive, and flat plain called Sāhera. They say that this is where the Resurrection will take place, where all men will be gathered together. For this reason many people have come there from all over the world and taken up residence in order to die in that city. When God’s appointed time comes, they will already be in the stipulated place. O God! On that day wilt Thou be Thine own servants’ protector and Thy mercy. Amen. O Lord of the universe! (Nāṣir-i-Khusrau 1881, 20 [1986, 22])

The conception of a bridge, by means of the crossing of which the judgment will be carried out, came from (pre-)Zoroastrian sources. It is attested around 905 C.E. by Ibn al-Faqīh in Jerusalem: The Mount of Olives overlooks the mosque with the Jahannam Valley between them. From there Jesus was raised and on it al-Ṣirāṭ will extend. (De Goeje 1885, 101)

According to the Quranic vision, the sinners who fall from the bridge fall prey to the fire (al-nār) of Gehenna (Jahannam), this is the reason the Kidron Valley is designated in Arabic as Wādī al-Nār or Wādī Jahannam. Nāṣir-i-Khusrau reported in 1047 C.E. that people claimed to be able to hear the cries of the inhabitants of Hell in it: Between the cathedral mosque and the Plain of Sāhera is a large, deep valley shaped like a trench. Therein are large edifices laid out by the ancients. I saw over the door of one house a carved stone dome, and a thing more amazing that this could scarcely exist: I could not figure out how it had been raised. Everybody said it was Pharaoh’s House and that this was the Valley of Gehenna. I asked how it came to be called thus and was told that, in the days of the caliphate of Omar, the Plain of Sāhera had been the site of an army camp. When Omar looked at that valley, he said, “This is the Valley of Gehenna.” The

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common people say that anyone who goes to the edge of the valley can hear the voices of the people in hell. I went there but heard nothing. (Nāṣir-i-Khusrau 1881, 24–26 [1986, 22])

Surah 57:13 mentions a dividing wall (sūr) between the hypocrites in Hell and the believers in Paradise with a gate, on the Paradise side of which is mercy (al-raḥmah). Ibn ‘Abd Rabbihi designated around 913 C.E. the (so-called) Golden Gate in the east wall of the Haram al-Sharif as the Gate of Mercy (Bāb al-Raḥmah): And the Gate of Mercy, which God mentioned in His book “It has a gate, on the inside of which is mercy and on the outside of which, along side is punishment,” that is the Jahannam valley lying east of Jerusalem. (Abū ‘Umar Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad 1987, 292)

d. The Ḥaram al-Sharīf: The Place of Paradise The former place of the biblical temple in a renaissance of biblical tradition – now designated as the Ḥaram al-Sharīf – was considered as the garden of Paradise, in which, according to Quranic descriptions, pools of milk, wine, and honey flow and the believers lie on beds in green brocaded garments in order to delight in fruits, meat, and wine from the Salsabil spring. For that reason, the Dome of the Rock (Qubbat al-Ṣakhrah), which crowns the keystone of creation, was decorated both inside and out with gold-based mosaics, which in an Islamic interpretation of Jewish temple and paradise traditions show mostly floral motifs (Bieberstein 2007b, 236–54). Thus this landscape of memory of Jerusalem is based, on the one hand, on the basic form of concentric landscapes of memory, with their characteristic polar tension between center and periphery, and, on the other hand, on the basic form of axial landscapes of memory, with their characteristic tension between opposing cardinal points, in the present case oriented to the course of the sun between east and west. It functions mostly only by means of verbal connotations in the outskirts of the city and by means of architectural monumentalization only in its center, namely, the Solomonic temple in pre-exilic times and its re-erection in the Dome of the Rock in early Islamic times. Through continuous updating over the centuries it serves to spatialize imperceptible protological and eschatological options. Thus it provides orientation under a – this time to be taken literally – protological and eschatological horizon.



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Works Cited Abū ‘Umar Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad. 1987. al-’Iqd al-Farīd. Edited by Mufīd Muḥammad Qumaiha. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-’Ilmīyah 1407 AH/1987 AD. Alobaidi, S.-J., Y. Goldman, and M. Küchler. 1987. Le plus ancien guide juif de Jérusalem: Der älteste jüdische Jerusalem-Führer. In Küchler and Uehlinger 1987, 37–81. Assmann, A. 1999. Erinnerungsräume: Formen und Wandlungen des kulturellen Gedächtnisses. Munich: Beck. Becker, A. 2003. Maurice Halbwachs. Un intellectuel en guerres mondiales 1914–1945. Paris: Viénot. Benjamin, W. 1950. Berliner Kindheit um Neunzehnhundert. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. ———. 2006. Berlin Childhood around 1900. London: Belknap. Bieberstein, K. 2001. Die Pforte der Gehenna: Die Entstehung der eschatologischen Erinnerungslandschaft Jerusalems. Pages 503–39 in Das biblische Weltbild und seine altorientalischen Kontexte. Edited by B. Janowski and B. Ego. Forschungen zum Alten Testament 32. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. ———. 2007a. “Zum Raum wird hier die Zeit.” Drei Erinnerungslandschaften Jerusalems. Jahrbuch für biblische Theologie 22: 3–39. ———. 2007b. Der biblische Tempelberg in seiner islamischen Rezeption. Pages 220–77 in Orte und Landschaften der Bibel, IV 2. Jerusalem: Ein Handbuch und Studienreiseführer zur Heiligen Stadt. Edited by Max Küchler. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Black, M. 1985. The Book of Enoch, or I Enoch: A New English Edition. Studia in Veteris Testamenti pseudepigrapha 7. Leiden: Brill. Braslavi, J. 1987. Un guide de Jérusalem de la Geniza du Caire. In Küchler and Uehlinger 1987, 55–81. Cancik, H. 1985–86. Rome as Sacred Landscape: Varro and the End of Republican Religion in Rome. Visible Religion 4–5: 250–61. Cassirer, E. 1923–29. Philosophie der symbolischen Formen. 3 vols. Berlin: Paul Cassirer. ———. 1944. An Essay on Man: An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture. New Haven: Yale University Press. ———. 1953–57. The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. 3 vols. New Haven: Yale University Press. Cicero, Marcus Tullius. 1971. De finibus bonorum et malorum. Loeb Classical Library 17. Edited and translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 2001. On the Ideal Orator. Translated by J. May. New York: Oxford University Press. Day, J. 1989. Moloch: A God of Human Sacrifice in the Old Testament. University of Cambridge Oriental Publications 41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Egeria. 1981. Egeria’s Travels to the Holy Land. 2d ed. Translated by J. Wilkinson. Jerusalem: Ariel. Warminster: Aris & Phillips. ———. 1995. Itinerarium – Reisebericht. Edited and translated by G. Röwekamp and D. Thönnes. Fontes christiani 20. Freiburg: Herder. Eißfeldt, O. 1935. Molk als Opferbegriff im Punischen und Hebräischen und das Ende des Gottes Moloch. Beiträge zur Religionsgeschichte des Altertums 3. Halle: Niemeyer. Eusebius. 1904. Werke, III 1 Onomastikon. Edited by E. Klostermann. Griechische christliche Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte 11/1. Leipzig: Hinrichs. ———. 2005. Onomasticon: The Place Names of Divine Scripture. Jewish and Christian Perspectives Series 9. Boston: Brill.

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de Goeje, M. J. 1885. Bibliotheca geographorum arabicorum, V. Compendium libri Kitâb al-Boldân auctore Ibn al-Fakīh al-Hamadhânî. Leiden: Brill. Goodman, N. 1978. Ways of Worldmaking. Cambridge: Hackett. Halbwachs, M. 1925. Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire. Paris: Alcan. ———. 1941. La topographie legendaire des Évangiles en Terre Sainte: Étude de mémoire collective. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. ———. 1950. La mémoire collective. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Heider, G. C. 1985. The Cult of Molek: A Reassessment. JSOTSup 43. Sheffield: JSOT. Herr, B. 2000. “…Deinem Haus gebührt Heiligkeit, Jhwh, alle Tage”: Typen und Funktionen von Sakralbauten im vorexilischen Israel. Bonner biblische Beiträge 124. Berlin: Philo. Jamme, C. 1999. “Gott an hat ein Gewand.” Grenzen und Perspektiven philosophischer Mythos-Theorien der Gegenwart. Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft 1433. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Kant, I. 1790. Critik der Urtheilskraft. Berlin: Lagarde. Keel, O., and C. Uehlinger. 1992. Göttinnen, Götter und Gottessymbole: Neue Erkenntnisse zur Religionsgeschichte Kanaans und Israels aufgrund bislang unerschlossener ikonographischer Quellen. Quaestiones disputatae 124. Freiburg: Herder. Konkel, M. 2001. Architektonik des Heiligen: Studien zur zweiten Tempelvision Ezechiels. Bonner biblische Beiträge 129. Berlin: Philo. Küchler, M., and C. Uehlinger, eds. 1987. Jerusalem: Texte – Bilder – Steine. Novum Testamentum et orbis antiquus 6. Freiburg Schweiz: Universitätsverlag. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Löwith, K. 1949. Meaning in History: The Theological Implications of the Philosophy of History. Phoenix Books 16. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Milik, J. T. 1976. The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumrân Cave 4. Oxford: Clarendon. Montigny, G. 2005. Maurice Halbwachs: Vie, oevres, concepts. Paris: Ellipses. Nāṣir-i-Khusrau. 1881. Sefer Nameh: Relation du voyage de Nassiri Khosrau célèbre poète et philosophe persan […]. Edited and translated by C. Schefer. Publications de l’École des Langues Orientales Vivantes 2e série, tome I. Paris: Leroux. ———. 1986. Book of Travels. Translated by W. M. Thackston, Jr. Albany: State University of New York Press. Nickelsburg, G. W. E. 2001. 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of Enoch, Chapters 1–36; 81–108. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress. Pongratz-Leisten, B. 1994. Ina Šulmi Īrub: Die kulttopographische und ideologische Programmatik der akītu-Prozession in Babylonien und Assyrien im 1. Jahrtausend v. Chr. Baghdader Forschungen 16. Mainz: von Zabern. Spronk, K. 1995. Travellers. Pages 1652–53 in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible. Edited by K. van der Toorn, P. W. van der Horst and B. Becking. Leiden: Brill. Steck, O. H. 1972. Friedensvorstellungen im alten Jerusalem: Psalmen – Jesaja – Deuterojesaja. Theologische Studien 111. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag. Tobler, T., and A. Molinier. 1879. Itinera Hierosolymitana et descriptiones Terrae Sanctae bellis sacris anteriora et lingua latina exarata, I,1–2. Publications de la Societé de l’Orient Latin, Série géographique 1–2. Geneva: Fick.



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Vincent, H., and F.-M. Abel. 1914–26. Jérusalem: Recherches de topographie, d’archéologie et d’histoire, II. 1–2, Jérusalem nouvelle. Aelia Capitolina, le Saint-Sépulcre et le Mont des Oliviers; II. 3 Jérusalem nouvelle. La Sainte-Sion et les sanctuaires de second ordre; II. 4 Jérusalem nouvelle. Sainte-Anne et les sanctuaires hors de la ville. Histoire monumentale de Jérusalem nouvelle. Paris: Gabalda. Wacker, M.-T. 1982. Weltordnung und Gericht: Studien zu 1 Henoch 22. Forschungen zur Bibel 45. Würzburg: Echter. Weber, R. 1965. Breviarius de Hierosolyma. Pages 105–12 in Itineraria et alia geographica. Corpus christianorum, series latina 175. Turnholt: Brepols. Wilkinson, J. 2002. Jerusalem Pilgrims Before the Crusades. 2d ed. Warminster: Aris & Phillips.

T he “ T hreshing F loor ” as S acred S pace the H ebrew B ible : A S patial and A nthropological P erspective *

in

Tamara Prosic For the majority of people in modern Western cultures, threshing floors have become words void of any real content. Replaced by combine harvesters, they have disappeared as physical realities and then gradually also from people’s consciousness and cultural memory, leaving only linguistic echoes of their former significance in words such as choir, choral, carol, choreography, or halo, which all relate to Greek words denoting threshing floors.1 Before the industrial revolution, however, they were one of the most common and most enduring physical elements of the ancient Mediterranean landscape. Almost as if following G. S. Brown’s “first Law of Construction”2 to the letter, their open-air, flattened and usually circular surface, made of paving stones or well-beaten earth, sometimes with a low wall running along its edges, immediately presented itself to the eye as a separate spatial entity, a carefully constructed otherness to the surrounding continuity of the open fields or the natural terrain. But they were not just physically distinct places; they were also culturally meaningful spaces, like spatial vortexes fusing and interlinking a variety of social, political, economical, and religious aspects of ancient agrarian Mediterranean civilizations.

* My gratitude for writing this study is extended to Joseph Blenkinsopp who, during an informal chat on the fringes of the annual meeting of the European Association for Biblical Studies in 2006 in Piliscaba, Hungary, claimed that biblical threshing floors are meeting spaces between the living and the dead. 1.  Χώρα and ἅλων, respectively. 2.  “Draw a distinction. Call it the first distinction. Call the space in which it is drawn the space severed or cloven by the distinction” (Brown 1971, 3).



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1. Threshing Floors: Only Lived Spaces? Old as the first villages and the first attempts at systematic agriculture,3 as Nicoletta Isar remarks, threshing floors were “literal markings on the land and human consciousness” (Isar 2009, 41). Biblical texts and their space, both in their implied actuality and constructed symbolism, also carry the imprints of the multifaceted significance of threshing floors. They are a source of powerful metaphors; important events take place on or near them; and the most sacred biblical place, Solomon’s temple, the first permanent dwelling of Yahweh, the sign that he is indeed unchanging like the physical contours of the land he promised to the people of Israel, is built over a threshing floor. In recent years, following the development of new spatial concepts, most notably by H. Lefebvre (1991), M. Foucault (1986), and E. Soja (1989), and attempts to overcome traditional binarism in thinking about space, there has been a wave of works trying to deal innovatively with biblical space as well.4 Only one of them, however, has touched upon threshing floors. In “Physical Space, Imagined Space, and ‘Lived Space’ in Ancient Israel,” Victor Matthews (2003) tries to investigate the social and economic aspects of biblical references to threshing floors. Analyzing a variety of stories and individual verses in terms of Lefebvre’s “lived space” and Soja’s “third space,” which he understands in a somewhat reductionist manner as “places in which human occupations and activities occur” (Matthews 2003, 12) and using a pervasively economic conceptual framework, Matthews concludes that the biblical texts mainly reflect threshing floors’ utilitarian, practical nature as working sites and centers of grain distribution. According to Matthews, in the Bible they are associated with “economic prosperity, fair dealings under established, customary laws and traditions, and covenantal ties to maintain a just society” (Matthews 2003, 14). So, in connection with Deut 15:12–155 we learn that freed debt slaves get a “financial stake from the 3.  It is not really known when the first purposeful construction of threshing floors began, but by the third millennium B.C.E. they had become an indispensable part of the agrarian landscape (Avner 1998). 4.  See Flanagan 1999; Gunn and McNutt 2002; Berquist and Camp 2008a, 2008b; Boer and Conrad 2003. 5.  “(12) If your brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you, he shall serve you six years, and in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. (13) And when you let him go free from you, you shall not let him go empty-handed; (14) you shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, out of your threshing floor, and out of your wine press; as the LORD your God has blessed you, you shall give to him. (15) You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this today.”

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flock, the threshing floor and the wine press” (Matthews 2003, 13) and in connection with David’s purchase of Araunah’s threshing floor (2 Sam 24:18–25) we hear about a “business transaction,” certain “property rights,” the “economic value of the land,” and the “formal transfer and legal purposes in connection with future claims” (Matthews 2003, 13–14). While I can accept the view that biblical threshing floors to some extent reflect economic relations and therefore have social implications, I find it quite difficult to accept their untroubled cultural perception and understanding which Matthews paints: first of all, because threshing floors in the Bible are often places where anxiety, death, and violence lurk in the background. The threshing floor of Atad is a stage for mourning Jacob’s death (Gen 50:10–11); the threshing floor of Ruth and Boaz exudes the existential anxiety of widows (Ruth 2–3); pestilence is the backdrop of the story about the purchase of Ornan’s threshing floor and an angel with a drawn sword stands next to it (1 Chr 21:15–16); Uzzah dies on the threshing floor of Nacon (2 Sam 6:6–7); Gideon’s test of Yahweh on the threshing floor happens in the context of foreign oppression (Judg 6:1–6). Biblical metaphors building on imagery from threshing floors are also mostly about war, violence, and death. The chaff that is blown away when the grain is winnowed on the threshing floor is used to evoke a picture of quick destruction and swift disappearance without a trace (Hos 13:3; Dan 2:35). Job 5:26 compares threshing floors to graves. Israel’s enemies will be destroyed as sheaves on the threshing floor.6 In this respect it is perhaps not without significance that the Hebrew word for “threshing” (‫)דוש‬, similar to its English translation, has violent associations and means to trample, tread, break, crush, or tear. Rather than social harmony, biblical threshing floors, narratively and metaphorically, seem to spell controversy, trouble, and strife. The second reason I cannot accept Matthews’s views about biblical threshing floors without huge reservations is that he completely ignores the nature of the texts he analyzes, which are not just intensely religious, but also, openly and more frequently implicitly, highly intentional, polemical, and programmatic texts promoting and advancing particular religious ideologies. Had Matthews considered this point then David’s purchase of the Jebusite threshing floor would have sounded a rather more intriguing event than the completely legalistic and, to my mind, very twentieth-century procedure he sees in it; threshing floors would have also revealed themselves to be much more captivating spatial concepts than his labor and distribution centers evoking social harmony and a just society. The specific religious preoccupation of the biblical texts simply 6.  Judges 8:7; 2 Kgs 13:7; Isa 25:10; 41:15; Jer 51:33; Mic 4:13; Hab 3:12.



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has to be taken into consideration, since places, and in particular those that are “lived spaces” in a Lefebvrian sense,7 are not empty shells void of any meaningful content which the ideology promoted by the texts can incorporate into its own religious referential landscape without attempting to put its own gloss over it. What the texts can and often do with relative ease is to design their own ideologically framed, and therefore idiosyncratic, spatial references. But such spaces are usually only abstractions, or as Lefebvre would call them, “representations of space,”8 conceived mixtures “of knowledge and ideology” (Lefebvre 1991, 41), places reflecting conception of places by the biblical authors, which can only with the passage of time acquire the quality of being “representational” or “lived spaces,” an everyday dynamic reality bearing historical sediments and embodying complex and often coded symbolisms (Lefebvre 1991, 33). There are many such “representations of space” introduced by the Bible. Some of them, like the land whose boundaries are outlined in Num 34:2–12, have remained forever locked in the intellectual as mere denotations of biblical territorial ambitions, while others became real “lived spaces,” spaces imbued with connotative dimensions. Perhaps the most ready example of the latter is “the Promised Land” which began its existence as an ideological concept, but which today we witness as “lived space.” 2. Threshing Floors from Lived Space to Sacred Space In contrast to the imaginary beginnings of “the Promised Land,” threshing floors, however, were not something that the Bible introduced in accordance with its ideological ambitions and theological views and values. They were indeed “lived spaces,” spaces that were part of the physical and ideational landscape, which were “directly lived” through associated images, symbols, feelings, practices, and ideas and which already had an established religious language and narratives in which they spoke to the users. In a sense, they were not just lived, but also living 7.  “Representational space: space as directly lived, through its associated images and symbols, and hence the space of ‘inhabitants’ and ‘users’… Thus, representational spaces may be said, though again with certain exceptions, to tend towards more or less coherent systems of non-verbal signs and symbols.” (Lefebvre 1991, 39). 8.  “Representations of space: conceptualized space of scientists, planners, urban­ ists, technocratic subdividers and social engineers…all of which identify what is lived and what is perceived with what is conceived… Conceptions of space tend…towards a system of verbal and (therefore intellectually worked out) signs.” (Lefebvre 1991, 38).

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spatial realities whose meaning and significance was already bound to a certain religious understanding of the world that quite certainly did not completely agree with the biblical authors’ worldview. There are different ways to deal with such spatial competition. Physical destruction is one way, but as the case of the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim demonstrates, not necessarily the most effective way to erase their “living space” encoded symbolism. The temple, which was the center of the Samaritan brand of Judaism and in competition with the Jerusalem temple, was destroyed in the second century B.C.E. during the short reign of the Hasmonaeans, although the site itself has not lost its sacred character and is still a focal point of Samaritan worship. A more subtle and at the same time usually more effective way, in particular when it comes to sacred places which, like threshing floors, also have strong utilitarian purpose, is to re-interpret their sacredness and their symbolism, giving them new meanings that grow out of the old, thus providing a sense of continuity, a link with the past to which people can relate, but which, nevertheless, shift the ideational focus into a direction which is more in agreement with the new ideology. And we encounter this tactic in every religion, in particular during the formative period. In the foundations of some of the oldest churches in Rome, such as the Basilica di San Clemente (fourth century C.E.) and Santa Prisca (fourth–fifth century C.E.), are remains of old Mithraic sites9 and each one of these has its own story regarding how and why the church was built there. According to M. J. T. Lewis, at least eight Romano-Celtic temples in Europe were replaced by Christian churches at the same site (Lewis 1966, 145). Islam’s most sacred space, Mecca, was also an old cultic site;10 its potential to serve as a powerful uniting center was understood only too well by Mohamed, in choosing not to ignore it while designing the new religion’s landscape. Contrary to popular understanding, religious conversions are not restricted to people. They also include cultic practice, imagery, symbols, metaphors, and narratives and most definitely, time and space: the two basic dimensions in which every person lives and moves. So, what the Bible presents as David’s purchase of a Jebusite threshing floor, in my view, does not have anything to do with the economic value of the land, legal purposes, or things of that kind. Rather, it is a symbolic act of a religious conversion of a cultic site or, if you prefer, an ideological de-semanticizing and re-semanticizing of a particular “lived space.” In other words, what was Jebusite, or rather, what was lived and experienced 9.  See Webb 2002, 89; Vermaseren and van Essen 1965. 10.  Kaaba, the most revered site in Mecca, was originally dedicated to the moon god Hubal (Armstrong 2000, 11).



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as a sacred space of a different religious tradition, as some other god’s place, became Yahweh’s. It is basically a theological spatial usurpation, which might be expressed in economic terms, but the value of the land is primarily in its cultic significance. J. M. Lundquist argues (2008, 6) that the circumstances surrounding the purchase of the threshing floor – David’s improper conduct, the pestilence and the threat of destroying Jerusalem, the last moment escape from danger, the word that Yahweh sends to David and the angel standing next to the threshing floor – represent a classical case of Eliadean “irruption of the sacred,” of a sudden manifestation of the divine in the human world which saturates the otherwise profane place with sacrality (Eliade 1959, 5). However, I would like to argue that the narrative is actually an attempt to provide a justification for the appropriation of a place that was already an established sacred site, and that in this case “irruption of the sacred” is not a genuine “irruption” into the profane, but an attempt by the biblical authors to re-semanticize the site’s existing sacrality by representing it as a purely profane space. In other words, the story is an attempt to legitimize theologically the site as Yahweh’s, by connecting its sacredness with Yahweh’s actions. One of the indications that this is the case is the alleged private owner­ ship of the threshing floor in question here, which is in stark contrast to the communal ownership of other threshing floors mentioned by the Bible.11 The majority of them are coupled with a name of a city pointing to the notion that they were also owned collectively by the population of that city. There are threshing floors of Atad, Keilah, Chidon, and even the kings of Israel and Judah have to use the communal threshing floor of Samaria12 for their meeting. If all the other threshing floors were commonly owned, what makes Araunah/Ornan exceptional so that he can claim ownership rights over the threshing floor that Yahweh wants for his altar? His emphasized Jebusite origin shows that he does not belong to Israel13 and even more importantly, he most probably does not worship Yahweh and could either be a representative of the god who is residing over the threshing floor (as much as David is representative of Yahweh) or the god himself, disguised as a human. 11.  Judging by Palmer (1998), private ownership of threshing floors seems to be a modern development. 12.  Genesis 50:10; 1 Sam 23:1; 1 Kgs 22:10; 1 Chr 13:9. 13.  Many have suggested that Araunah/Ornan is of non-Semitic origin and that biblical Ornan is a foreigner of Hurrian origin. See the history of suggested linguistic connections and suggested translations from Hurrian in McCarter, Jr. (1984, 512), or more recently Wyatt (1990).

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The second indication that the story of David’s acquisition of Ornan’s threshing floor is nothing more than a Yahwistic gloss over an already established sacred site comes from the story itself, which, on close reading, betrays a very poor structure. It is full of external and internal inconsistencies and contradictions suggesting numerous revisions,14 and more importantly there is an interplay of conscious intentions and a kind of narrative Freudian slips, ideas that the author(s) consciously omitted, but are unconsciously revealed through the tensions of the text. The story comes in two slightly different versions (2 Sam 24; 1 Chr 21). The one in 2 Sam 24 is somewhat shorter and lacking in the dramatic details found in 1 Chr 21, such as the description of the angel, who is in this version described as standing next to the threshing floor between heaven and earth with a sword stretched out over Jerusalem; the description of David and his followers when they see the angel (1 Chr 21:16); the fire that Yahweh sends upon the newly erected altar as a sign of acceptance (1 Chr 21:26), as well as the concluding comments which provide justification for David’s decision in 1 Chr 22:1 to continue sacrificing at the new altar rather than the tabernacle. Samuel’s version lists places where the census was taken, while Chronicles omits them. The name of the threshing floor’s owner is also slightly different: in 2 Sam 24 it is Araunah, while in 1 Chr 21 it is Ornan. There is also a discrepancy regarding the character responsible for making David take census of the people, a move that sets into motion a sequence of events which eventually leads to the purchase of the threshing floor. In 2 Sam 24 it is Yahweh who, for no apparent reason, becomes angry, spurs David on to transgress by engaging in tabooed action, namely, in conducting a census (2 Sam 24:1), which he then punishes with pestilence. Chronicles, however, as if trying to correct Yahweh’s mystifying behavior from Samuel, introduces an outside element, namely Satan (1 Chr 21:1), who takes over the unsavory role of agent provocateur. More important than these obvious differences are the internal inconsistencies, regardless of the version. Within the story itself there are actually two parallel and quite distinct themes that the author is attempting to orchestrate and to blend into one, albeit not quite successfully. One is concerned with the establishment of Yahweh as the divine owner of the threshing floor, the other with appeasement; both of them find their resolution through the purchase of the threshing floor.

14.  See, for example, all the different threads that McCarter identifies (1984, 514–18).



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The theme of establishing Yahweh as the owner is introduced in the second half of the story and suffers from several contradictions. First of all, it is not really clear why David tells the Jebusite that the reason for buying the floor is to avert the plague (2 Sam 24:21; 1 Chr 21:22) since Yahweh stopped it (2 Sam 24:16; 1 Chr 21:15) even before David was ordered to make him an altar on that particular spot (2 Sam 24:18; 1 Chr 21:18). In a more general sense, it is also not clear why David has to purchase this spot at all, since all the land is Yahweh’s anyway and, moreover, he has already given Canaan, including the land of the Jebusites, to the Israelites as possession (Gen 15:18–21). Within this context, David’s offer of money to Araunah/Ornan for the floor does not seem very logical. Its logic, however, becomes apparent in the context of the second theme, the one that deals with appeasement, and the one with which the whole story begins. The sequence of events of this second theme, that is, the census which triggers the plague which is finally put to rest by the money business and the animal sacrifice,15 follows almost to the letter verses from Exod 30:12–16 where we read that whenever a census is taken in order to avert plague everyone who is numbered has to pay ransom money as atonement. This is a curious commandment and I am not really sure why making a census is taboo,16 but in this context that is not really important. What is important is that these verses and the sequence of events in David’s story structurally agree with each other. In both cases we have the same three interdependent elements: census, danger, and ransom from danger. To strip it down to basics, in both cases census, an implied sacred activity and hence inherently dangerous for humans, causes plague unless ransom money is paid to a god. The only, but nevertheless fundamental, difference between the sequence of events implied by the commandment in Exodus and the events in the story about David’s purchase of Ornan’s threshing floor – which also brings down the biblical edifice of presenting the future site of Yahweh’s temple as a profane place with strictly practical purpose and without any existing sanctity – is that the ransom money in the case of David’s story does not end up with Yahweh. It ends up in the

15.  2 Samuel 24:1, 15, 24–25; 1 Chr 21:1, 7, 14, 24–26. 16.  Census was usually taken for military purposes and it might be that disease outbreaks were common during war times. Military campaigns usually meant impos­ing a very long siege on a city, which easily might have been the reason for disease outbreaks, both among the besieged and the besiegers, which in turn could be the reason for the belief that census itself brings pestilence and that some particular god (of war, of disease, or even god of death) has to be propitiated in advance.

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hands of Araunah/Ornan: it is Ornan and not Yahweh who is appeased by the money and the animal sacrifice. Araunah/Ornan means “strong”17 and is perhaps a euphemism, hiding a powerful god who, according to the story, can cause plagues and bring destruction.18 Gods related to death were feared in ancient times and were often referred to by descriptive names. Hades, the name by which we know the Greek lord of the netherworld, is actually the designation of his realm rather than his personal name and means “unseen” (Rose 1991, 64), which is a curious parallel to Sheol, the biblical world of the dead, which also means “unseen.” The implied, unnamed divinity standing in the shadow of the biblical human Ornan is also connected with death and dying, as the plague suggests, and on the other hand, with threshing floors and most certainly with harvest, since Ornan is threshing the grains when David approaches him (1 Chr 21:20). What we have here is an implied correlation between threshing floors – or in a wider sense, agriculture – and a deity which has death connections, something that was very much part of the religious beliefs and cultic practice of ancient Mediterranean cultures. In Egypt, we find it as part of the cult of Osiris, who is successful at both being the lord of the dead and god of life and fertility, expressed specifically through the idea of growing crops, harvest, and harvesting activities. He was celebrated for bringing agriculture to the people (Myśliwiec 2004, 56) and the myth about his death and revival was ritually expressed in a variety of agrarian associations. His death was commemorated on the first day of sowing, while his revival was symbolically represented by germinating seeds (Myśliwiec 2004, 60). We also find threshing floors as an important ritual space for ceremonies that connected Osiris and Min, the god of harvest. The so-called ritual of the “driving of four calves,” a solemn representation of threshing grains, dedicated principally to Min, was depicted as being carried out on a threshing floor. In some texts, though, that space is called “the tomb of Osiris” and Myśliwiec argues that this ritual, among other rituals, might have also accompanied funerary rites (Myśliwiec 2004, 16–17). In Mesopotamia we also find a strong connection between the world of the dead and their gods and agriculture. Nergal, the lord of the underworld and the god of war and pestilence, was also regarded as fertility and vegetation deity (Leick 1998, 128), since he was a son of Ninlil (Leick 1998, 133), the goddess of grain. Ninazu, another 17.  According to scholars who claim Hurrian derivation of the word, Ornan means “king,” “lord,” or “the lord” (e.g. McCarter 1984, 512). 18.  Some scholars suggest that a non-Israelite god, such as the plague god Resheph, hides behind the angel of death (e.g. McCarter 1984, 511).



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underworld divinity, had the title of “the lord who carries the stretching line over the fields,” which makes him also an agrarian deity (Leick 1998, 129). In Greece, we find this mixture of agriculture and ideas about the world of the dead and their divine rulers as part of Demeter worship, the goddess of grain who is inseparably tied to the world of the dead through her daughter Kore, the representation of spring and the emerging grain, but also the wife of Hades, the god of the underworld (Burkert 1987, 159). Demeter’s temple in Eleusis, like Yahweh’s, seems to have been built on a threshing floor (Vanderpool 1982). In Athens, one of the major festivals, the Haloa festival, which was dedicated to Demeter and Dionysus, another god with strong connections to death, took place between two threshing floors. The procession began at the threshing floor of Athens and finished at the temple of Eleusis. The very name “haloa” means a threshing floor (Simon 1983, 36). Our word “halo” comes from the same root and the circular light surrounding heads of saints reflects not just the shape of threshing floors, but most certainly also the sacred status these spaces enjoyed in antiquity. Threshing floors were also the first performing spaces. Dionysian dithyrambs were sung on them and according to Aristotle this is how and where theatres began (Simon 1982, 3). 3. Threshing Floors as Liminal Spaces Between Death and Life According to Mircea Eliade, the mythological and ritual interaction between agriculture and death, the realm of the dead and their human and divine residents is based on the analogy that the ancient farming societies drew between human existence and the cycle of growing plants (Eliade 1958, 349–54). As in the biblical phrase, from dust to dust, people feed on the fruits that grow from the soil and like seeds thrown back into the soil, in death they return to it; like the seeds buried in the womb of the earth, the dead also hope for their return to life. This idea that humans, like the seeds, have an inherent capacity to return from the realm of the dead gains momentum particularly at times when, as he says, “the vital tension of the whole community is at its height” (Eliade 1958, 350), when the (re)generative powers of nature and humanity are stirred and unleashed to excess, as happens during harvest time. In such times, the dead draw close to the world of the living, attracted by the biological abundance and the organic wealth that compensates for their own impoverished existence (Eliade 1958, 349–54). Threshing floors are in this context indeed special places. Marked by their median position between the life-teeming open fields and the tombs of the granaries, they are spaces where the whole drama of life and death reaches its paradoxical climax, where the death

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of the plants becomes life for the people. In a sense, they are openings between the otherwise strictly segregated worlds of the dead and the living, disruptions that reverse and negate the insurmountable binarism between death and life. In the Bible we also find them in this role, as places with liminal properties with references to death and life. The mourning for Jacob happens on a threshing floor of Atad (Gen 50:10–11) that serves as a meeting ground between the dead and the living. In this case, the interplay between life and death that is associated with and happens on the threshing floors is very subtly orchestrated. It involves the notion of ancestral land and the realm of dead ancestors as the living entities. The true netherworld with all its negative connotations here is Egypt, the foreign land in which Jacob died, while Israel and its soil with its ancestral world of the dead is symbolically the living community. To die in a foreign land means to die twice and Jacob can descend to his fathers only after his body passes through the spatial conductive liminality of a threshing floor. Another of the biblical threshing floors on which the theme of life and death takes center-stage is the story of Ruth (Ruth 3). Like in the Jacob narrative, the threshing floor is again an opening between the world of the dead and the living, a spatial conduit between these two worlds, but with an important distinction. While in the Jacob narrative it led to the realm of Jacob’s dead ancestors, in this case, the direction is the opposite. It is Ruth’s dead husband who is to be brought back to the world of the living. According to the story (Ruth 1–4), Ruth is a widow and the only way to continue the name and the line of her dead husband is through some kind of levirate marriage, which actually happens at the end of the story when she marries Boaz, her husband’s close relative. The decisive moment in the story, the nocturnal sexual encounter (Levine 1998) between Ruth and Boaz, takes place on a threshing floor (Ruth 3) which, in contrast to Jacob’s story where we have it as a space where mourning rites are performed, here serves as a chamber where marriage rites are consummated. Associated with a typical agrarian space, this marriage is a kind of hieros gamos, a sacred marriage ritual, which was in many ancient Mediterranean cultures performed in order to promote and sustain fertility.19 In Ruth, the purpose is the same, although it is expressed as a continuation of a particular bloodline that leads to the birth of David, one of the most important figures in biblical ideology, which endows his life with so many extraordinary episodes that even his lineage has to be a miracle 19.  See Kramer 1969, 49; Blundell and Williamson 1998, 17–20.



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in itself. Namely, Boaz and Ruth become parents to Obad who is David’s great grandfather (Ruth 4:13–22). And that miracle of continuing lineage, in other words, of enduring fertility despite death’s interference, is actually performed twice. In general outline, the Ruth story is a repetition of the Tamar and Judah story (Gen 38), who are ancestors of Boaz himself.20 Both women are widows searching to continue the line of their dead husbands by marrying their relatives, and both women achieve their goals by trickery involving sex, which in the end becomes apparent to be the right thing to have done. David’s line thus progresses by a sequence of deceptions, which only at first sight appear to be ploys, played on men. What the women actually do is cheat death from stopping the line which leads to David. In a sense, Tamar and Ruth are metaphorical representations of the fertile earth that can perform the miracle of transforming the otherwise sterile and dead seeds into life-generating forces. So, what happens between Tamar and Judah and then Ruth and Boaz concerns maintaining life and fertility, something that was indeed done by the sacred marriage ritual. It is hard to know exactly where rituals of this type were performed in Israel, but the indication that something similar took place on the threshing floors is found in Hos 9:1 where the prophet accuses Israel of enjoying harlot’s hire on threshing floors. Is this a metaphor or reference to real practice? We shall probably never know for sure, but the fact that the miracle of bringing a dead man’s name back to life in Ruth’s story effectively happens on a threshing floor certainly speaks in favor of the later. In many ways, biblical threshing floors are singular spaces that anthropologists would call liminal following A. Van Gennep’s definition (1961) or V. Turner’s use (1969) of the same term. They are spaces between two borders, a no man’s land between sacred and profane, between life and death, transcendent and immanent, exclusive and egalitarian, where no set of definitive relations exists and which are, because of that quality, spaces in their own right. In modern spatial theory, the power of such places to incorporate, contest, and invert functions and sets of relations associated with them would render them akin to Foucault’s places of Otherness, of “heterotopias” (Foucault 1986), in particular because biblical threshing floors serve as a non-intrusive background, as a kind of a stage on which certain events take place. Stages, on the other hand, are places of freedom – where everything is possible – which can simultaneously reveal and hide, be objective and illusionary. And this is their primarily 20.  Ruth 4:18, 21. Pharez, the forefather of Boaz, is one of the twin sons of Tamar and Judah (Gen 38:29).

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function in the Bible. In the last two stories they were stages on which the blurring of life and death happened, and they assumed a role of a spatial warp zone between the two, where performance of necessary rites of passage, both funerary and marriage, takes place. Its main characters are humans and in these cases threshing floors are places of human concern, as much as death is a human and not a divine concern. However, the next two narratives in which threshing floors appear are somewhat different. They could actually be summed up under the common title “testing Yahweh on the threshing floor.” Apart from humans, the cast also includes Yahweh, which demonstrates that they are also places of divine concern. In these cases the threshing floors serve as an implicit arena in which Yahweh repeatedly proves his divine powers. The stories present the challengers as humans, but given that the events happen on threshing floors, or near them, it is right to ask whether in light of their heterotopic properties, those challenges, even if they are passed on through human agency, actually come from other gods. The first one among them is the story of Gideon in Judg 6, in which Gideon asks Yahweh to produce dew, first on the fleece which is laid on the threshing floor (6:36–37), and then inversely to make dew on the threshing floor while leaving the fleece dry (6:39–40). The general outline of the story is that Israel had sinned by worshipping other gods (6:7–11) and the land had fallen to Midianites, who in company with some other named and unnamed tribes steal Israel’s food, the produce of the soil, as well as sheep and beasts of burden (6:1–5). The Israelites have to do the harvesting in secret rather than on threshing floors; the beating of the grains is carried out in wine vats and this is where Yahweh’s messenger approaches Gideon and asks him to lead a rebellion against the invaders (6:11–14). Convinced by the fire that springs from the rock and consumes the offering he brought out to his visitor – the first testing of Yahweh’s divine prowess – Gideon builds an altar on the spot and, following Yahweh’s instructions, also destroys Baal’s and Asherah’s altars which he then replaces with an altar to Yahweh (6:17–28). Gideon wants to extend the battle against Midianites as well, but in order to establish whether Yahweh will truly help him on the battlefield as he promised, he asks him to undergo the two tests with the dew. Yahweh obliges (6:34–40). This is probably one of the very few texts in the Old Testament where Yahweh is asked to prove himself three times in a row without exacting revenge for such an open demonstration of doubt. And, of course, the main question that comes to mind is why he is so ready to oblige Gideon’s demands. Or is it that Gideon is not testing Yahweh’s powers on their own, but instead in counter position to some other god’s powers, since



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one of the story’s themes is Yahweh’s competition with other gods and taking over their cult sites, which is clearly indicated by the destruction of altars dedicated to Baal and Asherah and the re-occupation of the site by Yahweh? Since they are merely well-beaten clearings with a very practical purpose and without any built structures, threshing floors as perceived domains of rival gods cannot be physically destroyed before they are re-claimed by the competing god. In the story about David, Yahweh’s authority over the threshing floor of Ornan is established through a purchase. In the story of Gideon, Yahweh’s control is established through his successfully passing Gideon’s tests. In this context, the major question is who is the god of the threshing floor against whom Yahweh is supposed to demonstrate his omnipotence? Similar to other biblical events that are played out on threshing floors, here as well we find references to death and the world of the dead, although in an implicit manner. According to Isa 26:19, dew, which Gideon asks Yahweh to produce, is a substance that can resurrect the dead: “Thy dead shall live, their bodies shall rise. O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For thy dew is a dew of light, and on the land of the shades thou wilt let it fall.”21 Yahweh’s acceptance of the dew tests could be a move to demonstrate that he is indeed an all powerful god and that his authority extends over the threshing floor as well, that is, over the chthonic god who is in charge of this opening between two worlds. Gideon’s challenge might be playing on the idea that the dead, attracted by the abundance of life during harvest, are lurking near this conduit between death and life. And if he was really the powerful god he claims to be then he would be able to prevent them from consuming the dew, which, because of its reviving qualities par excellence, they would be unavoidably attracted to. Perhaps these are all mere speculations, but the same uncertainty about Yahweh’s powers when it comes to threshing floors can be found in the story of transporting the ark in 2 Sam 6, and its repetition in 1 Chr 13. Though not in the same open manner as is the case with the Gideon narrative, nevertheless the doubt and the consequent proof to the contrary are still present here. Furthermore, there are again references to death. In the ark story, oxen pulling the cart on which David is transporting the ark stumble when the procession approaches the threshing floor of 21.  In post-biblical tradition, the reviving properties of dew became a very important topic in a variety of Haggadic stories involving death and resurrection themes. See for example stories about creation, the bird phoenix, the Torah on Sinai, Messiah and the future resurrection of the dead, treasury of souls and the sixth heaven, in Schwartz (2004).

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Nacon.22 One of the drivers, Uzzah, presumably to prevent the ark from falling over, gets hold of it. The move angers Yahweh and he kills him (2 Sam 6:7; 1 Chr 13:9–10). The traditional explanation regarding this deadly incident is that it is a parable regarding violation of god’s commandments. Transporting the ark on a cart violates Yahweh’s order that it must be carried by people (Exod 25:14), and Uzzah dies because he violates the commandment not to touch the holy object. But, one could ask, why does Yahweh not intervene at the very outset, and why do the oxen stumble and the ark begin to fall upon reaching the threshing floor? Is it an accident or is it an indication that the party is entering a special area where Yahweh’s sphere of influence is diminishing: hence the oxen stumble and the ark, his symbol, begins to fall? Uzzah’s attempt to hold the ark to prevent it from falling might be just a hasty, thoughtless movement, but in doing that he is actually treating the most holy of Yahweh’s holy objects as a plain, common, thing, void of any sanctity or special powers. Like Gideon’s tests, Uzzah’s action is implicitly an expression of doubt in Yahweh’s rule and it is indicative that, like in the Gideon story, it is the threshing floor that provides the scene on which Yahweh re-asserts his control and puts reservations about his divine powers to rest. Moreover, Yahweh demonstrates his authority in a deadly manner as if proving that he is ruler even over death, something that, according to Isa 25:8, he is yet to conquer. 4. Concluding Remarks Very different stories featuring threshing floors have been discussed here, but there is one common theme, apart from the floors themselves, that is present in all of them. Sometimes explicitly, like in the case of Jacob’s mourning rites or Uzzah’s demise, more frequently though as only a marginal detail, in all of them we encounter death and ideas associated with it. That idea has two modes in which it appears in the stories: one refers to human death and the other to a chtonic divinity or divinities associated with threshing floors. In “human death” mode, threshing floors seem to be places of a very peculiar nature where the dead and the living meet, while in “divinity mode” they are places where Yahweh’s divine hegemony is contested. The Hebrew Bible most often represents threshing floors as seemingly physical, real, spaces, as mere descriptive details supporting the Yahwistic obsession to present events of the story as occasions bounded by real, linear time and real, physical space. However, this role of mere spatial descriptors is undermined by the constant lurking of death 22.  Chidon in 1 Chr 13:9.



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and contest in the background, an indication that they are metaphorical liminal, heterotopic spaces where things that cannot, or may not, happen are indeed happening. As in Greece, where threshing floors were turned into theatrical stages, into places where everything is possible, where, as Baudrillard says “things can transform themselves, can be played in another way and not at all in their objective determination” (Gane 1993, 61), threshing floors in the Bible are also stages where things are both sacred and profane, revealed and hidden, present and absent. Works Cited Armstrong, K. 2000. Islam: A Short History. New York: Modern Library. Avner, U. 1998. Settlement, Agriculture, and Paleoclimate in ‘Uvda Valley, Southern Negev Desert, 6th to 3rd Millennia BC. Pages 147–202 in Water, Environment, and Society in Times of Climatic Change. Edited by A. S. Issar and N. Brown. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Berquist, J. L., and C. V. Camp, eds. 2008a. Constructions of Space I: Theory, Geography, and Narrative. The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 481. London: Continuum. ———. 2008b. Constructions of Space II: The Biblical City and Other Imagined Spaces. LHBOTS 490. London: Continuum. Blundell, S., and M. Williamson. 1998. The Sacred and the Feminine in Ancient Greece. New York: Routledge. Boer, R., and E. W. Conrad, eds. 2003. Redirected Travel: Alternative Journeys and Places in Biblical Studies. JSOTSup 382. London: T&T Clark International. Brown, G. S. 1971. Laws of Form. New York: Julian. Burkert, W. 1987. Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical. Translated by J. Raffan. Oxford: Blackwell. Eliade, M. 1958. Patterns in Comparative Religion. Translated by R. Sheed. London: Sheed & Ward. ——— 1959. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. Translated by W. R. Trask. New York: Harper & Row. Flanagan, J. W. 1999. Ancient Perceptions of Space/Perceptions of Ancient Space. Semeia 87: 15–43. Foucault, M. 1986. Of Other Spaces. Diacritics 16, no. 1: 22–27. Gane, M. 1993. Baudrillard Live: Selected Interviews. New York: Routledge. Gennep, A. van. 1961. The Rites of Passage. Translated by M. B. Vizeldom and G. L. Caffee. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gunn, D. M., and P. M. McNutt, eds. 2002. “Imagining” Biblical Worlds: Studies in Spatial, Social and Historical Constructs in Honor of James W. Flanagan. JSOTSup 359. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic. Isar, N. 2009. Chôra: Tracing the Presence. Review of European Studies 1: 39–55. Kramer, S. N. 1969. The Sacred Marriage Rite: Aspects of Faith, Myth, and Ritual in Ancient Sumer. London: Indiana University Press. Lefebvre, H. 1991. The Production of Space. Translated by D. Nicholson-Smith. Oxford: Blackwell. Leick, G. 1998. A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology. London: Routledge.

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Levine, A. J. 1998. Ruth. Pages 84–90 in The Women’s Bible Commentary: Expanded Edition with Apocrypha. Edited by C. A. Newsom and S. H. Ringe. Louisville: Westminster John Knox. Lewis, M. J. T. 1966. Temples in Roman Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lundquist, J. M. 2008. The Temple of Jerusalem: Past, Present and Future. London: Praeger. Matthews, V. 2003. Physical Space, Imagined Space, and “Lived Space” in Ancient Israel. Biblical Theology Bulletin: A Journal of Bible and Theology 33: 12–20. McCarter Jr, P. K. 1984. II Samuel: A New Translation with Introduction, Notes and Commentary. AB 9. New York: Doubleday. Myśliwiec, K. 2004. Eros on the Nile. Translated by G. L. Packer. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Palmer, C. 1998. Following the Plough: The Agricultural Environment of Northern Jordan. Levant 30: 129–65. Rose, H. J. 1991. A Handbook of Greek Mythology. London: Routledge. Schwartz, H. 2004. Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Simon, E. 1982. The Ancient Theatre. Translated by C. E. Vaphopoulou-Richardson. London: Methuen. ———. 1983. Festivals of Atica: An Archeological Commentary. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Soja, E. W. 1989. Postmodern Geography: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory. New York: Verso. Turner, V. 1969. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. New York: Aldine. Vanderpool, E. 1982. The Sacred Threshing Floor at Eleusis. Pages 172–74 in Studies in Athenian Architecture, Sculpture, and Topography, Presented to Homer A. Thompson. Hesperia Supplements 20. Princeton, NJ: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Vermaseren, M. J., and C. C. van Essen. 1965. Excavations in the Mithraeum of the Church of Santa Prisca in Rome. Leiden: Brill. Webb, M. 2002. The Churches and Catacombs of Early Christian Rome: A Comprehensive Guide. Eastbourne: Sussex Academic. Wyatt, N. 1990. David’s Census and the Tripartite Theory. Vetus Testamentum 40: 352–60.

T aking I ssue with T hirdspace : R eading S oja , L efebvre and the B ible * Christopher Meredith It would not be an exaggeration to say that for the last ten years or so the writings of Henri Lefebvre and Edward Soja have provided the main theoretical basis for biblical spatial studies. The work of these two theorists, and particularly their use of “spatial trialectics,” is visible almost anywhere one cares to look in the literature.1 But while Sojan and Lefebvran readings of biblical space are legion, critical reflection on the theorists themselves is much harder to come by, as is close treatment of the ways in which biblical scholars have put this pair of theorists to use. In this discussion I want to look at the way Soja and Lefebvre have been * The first portion of this essay is a reorganized and expanded form of some of the methodological arguments I outline in the first chapter of my book on literary spatiality, Journeys in the Songscape: Reading Space in the Song of Songs (2013). In the present study, I am interested in exploring some of these ideas in a different intellectual context (and allowing some of the footnotes to see the light of day) so as to raise some alternative questions to those addressed in the monograph. The book maps a fully fledged alternative to the Soja–Lefebvre hybrid I have grown so uncertain of. Here, though, I wish simply to problematize some of the “assumeds” of so much existent biblical spatial analysis, and in so doing suggest alternative ways of figuring the specialism’s approach to theory. I trust readers will forgive the moments of crossover. 1.  If one takes three major collections of essays on biblical space, for example, twenty-two of the thirty-five published essays employ a Sojan or Lefebvran “trialectic” as their controlling methodology (Berquist and Camp 2007, 2008; Gunn and McNutt 2002). Tellingly, of the remaining thirteen contributions only one essay appeals to any kind of critical or theoretical discourse on space (Pippin 2008). Major monographs on space follow suit. Christl Maier’s Daughter Zion, Mother Zion: Gender, Space and the Sacred in Ancient Israel (2008) relies on a combination of Soja’s and Lefebvre’s ideas, while Mark George’s Israel’s Tabernacle as Social Space (2009) reads the biblical tabernacle alongside Lefebvre more directly. In other words, in biblical spatial studies, to “do” spatial theory has, on the whole, been synonymous with reading Soja or Lefebvre.

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deployed in biblical studies – partly, it has to be said, as an attempt to destabilize their curious roles as methodological mainstays, a task for which I, for one, suspect they are radically unsuited. For not only is the Lefebvran theory we find in biblical studies of a curiously Sojan flavour, with “authentic” Lefebvran work all but missing, Soja’s Thirdspace is itself a more troublesome and nebulous concept than is often advertised. How do we deal with the widespread criticisms Soja’s work elicited from his own field, where by all accounts Thirdspace does not enjoy anything like the same popularity?2 Most importantly, I wish to suggest here that in biblical studies the trialectic approaches of Soja and Lefebvre have principally served to obscure the indebtedness of spatial theory to biblical texts themselves. The Bible is already tied up with the Western philosophical discourse of space, Lefebvre’s included, and in our rush to “apply” Lefebvre to the Bible we have not always taken account of the ways in which Lefebvre’s work is a product of the very religious discourses it is wheeled out to enrich. In other words, theory and its subjects of analyses are sometimes more indebted to the biblical texts than contemporary modes of interpretation are indebted to theory. The fluid relationships that run between bibles, literatures and interpretive histories need as much careful consideration in spatial analysis as the fluid relationships that run between physical, ideological and experiential spaces. 1. No More Thirdspace Please For that lucky and uninitiated band who are not familiar with the terminology of Thirdspace, some preliminary introductions are probably in order. Edward Soja is a left-wing geographer and town planner whose work attempts to foreground the collusions between space and power in contemporary society. Soja “maps” space using a three-way model (or trialectic) that breaks down space into three interconnected aspects. Soja calls these three elements Firstspace, Secondspace and Thirdspace. Firstspace is the physical aspect of space, space as a measurable empirical reality; Secondspace is space as imagined and ideologized, the conceptions of space that govern its use and its representation (maps, cultural spacestereotypes etc.); Thirdspace, the privileged term of Soja’s three, is space as lived and experienced. Thirdspace thus encompasses and transcends First and Secondspace, reopening the dichotomy between physicality and ideology. Thirdspace is, in other words, intended to disrupt this dichotomy’s claims to exhaustiveness by introducing embodied, experienced space as a third-way: 2.  Lefebvre 1991; Soja 1989, 1996 and 2000.



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Everything comes together in Thirdspace: subjectivity and objectivity, the abstract and the concrete, the real and the imagined, the knowable and the unimaginable, the repetitive and the differential, structure and agency, mind and body, consciousness and unconsciousness, the disciplined and the transdisciplinary, everyday life and unending history. (Soja 1996, 56–57)

Using this model, called Thirding-as-Othering, Soja goes some way to breaking the binary of physicality/ideology, with Thirdspace becoming an embodied arena in which controlling ideologies can be disrupted by practical action. Soja’s Thirdspace thus becomes a readymade location for social emancipation,3 offering biblical scholars a kind of spatial politics of liberation.4 The application of this tripartite schema varies slightly from biblical scholar to biblical scholar. To begin with, let us take some examples from earlier volumes in the Constructions of Space series, which has obviously been a kind of flagship project for the development of biblical spatial studies, dealing with biblical spatial imaginaries as manifest in a variety of geographies and epochs. So, for instance, Susan Graham breaks down Justinian’s Nea Ekklesia in Jerusalem into its physical dimensions (its Firstspace), the concepts and mapping projects that depict and codify it (its Secondspatial representations), and argues that the Nea Ekklesia’s failure to enter into the cultural gestalt – which she sees as corresponding to Soja’s Thirdspace – accounts for its eventual disappearance from the city (Graham 2008). The problem, of course, is that living involves a good many things, and the Nea Ekklesia’s worshipping community, hospice patients and the numerous individuals involved in its construction “experienced” the edifice in a variety of ways. Though, importantly, perhaps the mismatch here between “actual” experience, in all its frustrating, invisible and often unquantifiable diversity, and experience as critically imagined in academic essays – where cultural gestalt can work as a form of complex praxis – is less a problem with Graham’s discussion or approach than with the awkward, all-encompassing nature of Soja’s Thirdspace itself. Similarly, Kathryn Lopez uses Soja’s model to map the spatiality of Jewish apocalyptic literature. For Lopez, Jewish Firstspace is “the little strip of land on the shore of the eastern Mediterranean”; its Secondspaces are the numerous, controversial attempts to map (“or even name”) this 3.  As Paula McNutt puts it, these lived, experiential Thirdspaces are to be “spaces of resistance to the dominant order that arises from within subordinate, peripheral or marginalised contexts” (McNutt 2002, 35). 4.  As Claudia Camp puts it: a “politics akin to what more theologically oriented readers have developed in the enterprise of liberationist hermeneutics” (2008, 3–4).

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land (these, says Lopez, “quickly reveal the ideological nature” of spatial representation) (Lopez 2008, 141). So far this all seems clear. But in Lopez’s discussion Thirdspace turns out to be synonymous with apocalyptic literature itself, which, says Lopez, creates an “alternative lived space” within the tradition, a space beyond the everyday (Lopez 2008, 141). The term “alternative” is suggestive, of course. It assumes there are other kinds of lived experience outside apocalyptic literature. This stands to reason but it introduces two types of Thirdspace – apocalyptic literature, and “normal” life – which it would seem are vying for attention behind Lopez’s argument. But Thirdspace is supposed to subvert binary oppositions; it is supposed to be their final and inexhaustible answer.5 Is the trialectic categorizing space, or infinitely multiplying its own structures, and is this multiplication at odds with its value as a parsing tool? Again this is not a comment on Lopez’s insightful essay but rather a query about whether Soja’s paradigm, semantically and epistemologically, can work as hard as Lopez needs it to. Is the difference between Lopez’s Thirdspace and Graham’s a result of Thirdspace’s own epistemological vagueness, its tendency to collapse when it is supposed to delineate? Claudia Camp raises precisely this point in one of the earlier essays on biblical Thirdspace, “Storied Space, or, Ben Sira ‘Tells’ a Temple”: I struggle with this formulation of Thirdspace as “lived” space. There are two issues here. First, in what we usually call “real life,” lived space is infused with the ideologies that would in the spatial trialectic be categorized as Secondspatial. This is not simply true in the sense that Secondspace represents the power that Thirdspace resists…[r]esistance is also a form of power and requires its own ideologies, all the more so if it is to be used effectively… Secondly, oppressors also have lived spaces…living involves a lot of things, including the production of power that makes critique and resistance necessary. […] This more jaundiced approach to Thirdspace is not the result of abstract reflection on my part regarding Soja’s theory of critical spatiality. It is, rather, the result of my attempt to apply this theory to the book of Sirach. Sirach has spatial discourse aplenty and seems ripe for this sort of analysis. Yet I have struggled in applying the spatial trialectic here, partly because the boundaries between one sort of place and another keep collapsing when the matter of power comes into play. (Camp 2002, 68–69)

5.  Surely the view that apocalyptic literature acts as a “representation of alternative religious and political realities,” as Lopez says, is more an ideological stance than a lived one anyway.



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Camp’s comments raise the question of how useful Thirdspace can be for the critical biblical scholar. In Camp’s ensuing discussion on Sira, the trialectic all but disappears – her account of the mutuality of Sira’s temple and Sira’s text does not really need it – and Soja’s terms become largely descriptive as a result. The term Thirdspace, for example, is most often used by Camp as a synonym for “ritual” (which, of course, it does not describe nearly so well as the word itself) and because Soja’s categories make materiality (First-) and concept (Second-) prior to “lived” (Third-), Camp’s discussion on the temple-cum-text cannot really afford to invoke the trialectic as a fully fledged method of critical apprehension, since text, reader and spatiality are mutually reinforcing roles rather than ordinate ideas. The Sojan trialectic acknowledges the inter-relationship of arena, idea and praxis, certainly, but it only presents us with tools for isolating each of these three aspects of space from their fellows. Thinking about the mechanics of their collusion is beyond the programme’s scope. In other words, and in relation to Camp’s frustrations in her Ben Sira essay, how can one separate out the lived experience of reading from the lived experience of ideology, or how can one separate out the ideological experience of reading from the spatial fact of reading, that is, of reading being a negotiation of the physical gap between reader and the material page? Camp cannot be faithful to the text as a text and engage with Thirdspace as Soja orders it. This impasse in Soja’s theorizing of space comes down to the way space mediates power, how it manipulates and facilitates particular ideas and so particular modes of agency. Loading revolutionary agency onto the idea of Thirdspace – as Soja does: it is the arena where re-ordering “norms” becomes possible, remember – is intended to invest human experience with power over and against the force of ideas and geographical “facts.” But of course in loading agency onto Thirdspace as a privileged category, Soja succeeds not only in positing an outlet for resistance, but in (a) masking the redemptive and experiential possibilities of concept and geography (Second and Firstspace) and (b) masking the abusive possibilities inherent to experiential space: “oppressors also have lived spaces,” as Camp points out. The tool designed to parse-out cannot properly account for relations-between. Crucially, other (that is, non-biblical) spatial theorists have suggested that the kinds of problems Camp describes may be endemic in the Thirdspace model. Earlier I quoted Soja’s own attempt to define Thirdspace: “Everything comes together in Thirdspace….” This very definition prompted one reviewer, Clive Barnett, to enquire as to whether Elvis might still be alive in Thirdspace (Barnett 2007). Though Barnett’s

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tongue was obviously lodged in his check when penning this remark, his comments are indicative of widely perceived problems with Soja’s position. Thirdspace means far too much, and as a result not nearly enough to be useful as a tool for critical reflection. Thirdspace seems, in fact, to function as an all-purpose nostrum, a formula that covers up a lack of phenomenology in a study that is indebted to personal perspective. Alan Latham writes: Thirdspace is claimed to encompass everything there is to say about anything (and perhaps, as a result, nothing at all?)… In his keenness to stress just how new his “radical postmodernism” is, Soja seems to completely de-anchor himself from any established intellectual tradition. This compels him to work at a level of abstraction that undermines some of the most productive and interesting elements of his argument. (Latham 2004, 273)

A good example is Soja’s discussion of “Disneyfied” districts in Orange County. This discussion is one of the most compelling parts of Thirdspace and, obviously, focuses on real, specific communities, honing in on particular spaces and spatial responses. But nowhere does Soja discuss individual or on-the-ground experiences within these communities. In fact Soja assiduously avoids the embodied subject upon whom his theory relies and for whom it apparently tries to win freedom. As Latham put it, “a question remains about the connection between Soja’s theoretical foundations and his empirical narratives” (2004, 273). If Soja himself cannot marry theory, narrative and character in discussion, should we be asking some serious questions about whether Soja’s model “works” for biblical scholars – for whom narrative, text and character are primary concerns – particularly when there are so many other spatial approaches available?6 The issue of gender refocuses these problems particularly well, since it is an issue in which particularity, ideology and social praxis are intimately connected; the concept of gender fuses bodily space with social ideology and lived experience in especially recognizable ways. Soja’s own relationship with gender criticism is famously uneasy. His first book on the spatial trialectic, Post-modern Geographies, omits women entirely (bar an odd reference to those who conflate Marxism with totalitarianism and “radical feminism [with]…the destruction of 6.  Lefebvre famously cautioned against the use of the trialectic in text: “The problem is that any search for space in literary texts will find it everywhere and in every guise” (1991, 15). This is an important issue for Camp, who discusses the limitations of seeing text as merely Secondspatial using work by, among others, Wesley Kort, Space and Place in Modern Fiction (1994).



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the family”) (1989, 74). The omission drew the attention of his feminist colleagues, particularly Doreen Massey who mounted serious charges against Post-modern Geographies, questioning its postmodern credentials on the one hand, and highlighting its narrow treatment of social inequality on the other.7 As Massey herself puts it, patriarchy does not appear in Soja’s index: Racism and sexism, and the need to refer to them, is recognized [in Post-modern Geographies] but it is assumed throughout, either explicitly or implicitly, that the only axis of power which matters in relation to these distinct forms of domination is that which stems fairly directly from the relations of production. No other relations of power and dominance are seriously addressed. (Massey 1994, 221–22)

Feminist approaches to spatiality are not dealt with at all in Post-modern Geographies and the andocentric ordering and conceptualizing of urban goes entirely without critique. Despite Soja’s claim that a “reconstituted critical human geography must be attuned to the emancipatory struggles of all those who are peripheralized and oppressed,” his readers are left with very simplified categories of both human struggle and human oppression. Soja simply does not acknowledge diversity or individuality in society, content instead to sketch overarching mega-categories: “peripheralized-and-oppressed” versus “relations of production” (1989, 74). This single oppressed mass is not only ungendered but viewed from the exclusive vantage point of the white Western heterosexual male.8 The result is what some geographers have called a “god’s eye-view” of Los Angeles in the last chapters of Post-modern Geographies. Soja’s attempt to illustrate thirdspatial emancipation becomes an example of hegemonyby-culture and of hegemony-by-gender, imbibing the very hierarchical dualisms that postmodern projects usually try to subvert. Soja’s emancipatory Thirdspace is pitched exclusively from the point of view of the white, Western male God.

7.  This makes the lack of socio-economic discussion in biblical studies’ use of Soja all the more curious. 8.  Massey makes the following observation, for instance: “At the very end of ‘Taking Los Angeles apart,’ in the Afterwords, Soja himself says ‘I have been looking at Los Angeles from different points of view’ (p. 247), but he hasn’t, at least not in the way in which many feminist or postmodern arguments would have us do. The views are all quite clearly his… Too few auteurs, too much hauteur!” (Massey 1994, 224).

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These issues are particular thorny for biblical studies, not simply because of the discipline’s frequent dalliances with the aforementioned deity, but because ours is a text-focused discipline. Soja’s overriding preoccupation with Thirdspace as a category of experience inevitably leads biblical scholars to look at how individual characters relate to, and in, their spaces. How does Abraham relate to the arenas around him? How does Ruth? How does Ben Sirach? The troublesome issue with individual experience – assiduously avoided in Soja’s own work, as I have said – is that it muddies the tri-partite divisions. At the level of an individual character, ideology, body and action are too mutually formed to undergo meaningful separation and analysis. (In that sense, they are distinctly reminiscent of texts.) What is gender but an embodied ideology? What is embodiment but an experience of organizing space around a centre? It is not simply when power is in play that the boundaries collapse between one sort of place and another (as Camp says), but whenever gender, and thus whenever Humans – fictional or not – are in play too. How are we to parse out physicality, ideology and experience without either negating the body, erasing a character’s or an author’s gender, or diluting our notion of experience to the point that it becomes unrecognizable? In short, Soja-as-parsing-tool is incapable of recognizing the interplay of matter, idea and life and so is sometimes at odds with its own rhetoric of social emancipation. Camp suggests that biblical scholars “have ‘talked back’ to the theorists as well as listening to them” (2008, 4), but it might be more accurate to say that biblical scholars have drafted in secondary theoretical voices in order to plug the gaps in Soja’s “onto-epistemology.” Susan Graham uses Maurice Halbwachs to this end; Lopez calls upon Foucault; Marie Huie-Jolly recruits Winnicott and Freud; Miller: Bakhtin. Perhaps this accounts for the marked differences in how Thirdspace is imagined to function as a “critical” term in each of these essays.9 2. Glimpses of a Pushmi–Pullyu: The Soja–Lefebvre Soja’s work is not the only framework in play in biblical spatial studies, of course. As the main influence on Soja’s thinking, Henri Lefebvre frequently crops up in discussion too. Despite the overlaps between Soja 9.  Crucially, these secondary theorists are seldom allowed to speak on their own spatial terms. Each is subjected to a lengthy enculturation into Soja–Lefebvre’s trialectic model, turning trispace – a theory of multiplicity – into a disconcertingly one-dimensional sub-specialism, and, arguably, forcing useful intellectual work into a mould that has been debunked in its own field.



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and Lefebvre, though, their work is really very different. Lefebvre’s The Production of Space is a work of enormous energy and complexity: His [Lefebvre’s] is an ambiguous, festive, urban Marxism. Alongside Marx, we find Hegel; alongside Hegel, we find Freud; alongside Freud, we find Nietzsche. In Freud, Lefebvre found the unconscious; in Hegel, consciousness; in Marx, practical conscious activity; in Nietzsche, language and power. In the city, Lefebvre made space for all four. But there, in the city, unconscious desires and real passions lay dormant, dormant beneath the surface of the real within the surreal. There, Lefebvre reckons, they are waiting for the judgment day, for the day when they can be realised in actual conscious life. (Merrifield 2000, 178)10

It is sometimes difficult to reconcile this energetic Lefebvre with the three-step plan of spatial categorization implemented by biblical scholars; Lefebvre’s project is distinct in several ways. First, Lefebvre aims to reverse the post-Enlightenment separation of spatial inquiry into the fields of physics, philosophy and sociology, seeking instead a unified approach to space that resists theoretical fragmentation (he sees disciplinary divides as controlling manoeuvres that shape discourse to suit certain interests) (Merrifield 2000, 170). Second, Lefebvre aims to use this unified approach to space to expose and decode space’s role in modern capitalism, so empowering socialists in their struggle against a pervasive, urban, capitalist project (Lefebvre 1991, 24). Revolution, Lefebvre reasoned, is not the only inevitability in human society: architecture is unavoidable too, and a revolution that has not developed its own unique spatiality is not a revolution at all. “What is an ideology,” Lefebvre asks, “without a space to which it refers, a space which it describes, whose vocabulary and links it makes use of, and whose code it embodies?” (Lefebvre 1991, 44). For Lefebvre, going to the roots of capitalist production involves delving into the ways in which human spaces are “produced”11 by particular social movements. 10.  My summary here is particularly indebted to Merrifield – a long-time scholar of Lefebvran philosophy and spatiality – and the comments he makes on Lefebvre’s work in the aforementioned essay. This is partly because of his adroit observations of Lefebvre’s writing and partly because of his unrivalled eloquence on the subject. See also Merrifield 1995. My present discussion also draws on the more recent work of Mark George in which George adopts Lefebvran poetics in such a way as to actively resist methodological reduction and an overreliance on, or assumption of, the Lefebvran trialectic as some kind of epistemologically fixed point. See George 2009. 11.  The terminology is crucial here; Lefebvre uses the term “produce” and “product” not as vague analogues for the socially “constructed” but because his

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Lefebvre’s own (albeit unorthodox) dialectical Marxism is central to the whole work.12 Dialectical Marxism is not the ideological backdrop to the Production of Space but rather the manner in which it proceeds.13 Lefebvre’s analysis runs according to a Marxist periodization of history: “absolute space” (the primal, natural space of Neolithic hunter/gatherers); “sacred space” (during the reign of divine [“despot–”] kings); “historicized space” (of the Greco-Roman city-states); “abstract space” (cf. Marx’s abstract labour) in early capitalism; “contradictory space” in late capitalism (a global community in which meaning remains localized).14 Differential space, the space that celebrates particularity in body and experience, is the spatiality attributed to socialism: the climactic moment in human spatial production, where the city-dwelling crowd – channelling Marx, Hegel, Freud and Nietzsche – is engulfed in festivity.15 But this dynamic, almost utopian, urban poetics is sometimes difficult to locate in biblical studies’ engagements with the theory. Biblical studies tends to focus on the “trialectic,” as I have noted. Certainly, conceptual spatial triads do underpin Lefebvre’s project, and as is perhaps obvious, these dialectique de triplicité are key points of crossover between Lefebvre’s work and Soja’s. Lefebvre’s trialectics are quite different, though, comprising: representations of space (ideological constructions of space, like maps); representational spaces (space as experienced and “lived-in,” but not in the simple, practical sense; they include one’s street, the temple, but they also include the Ego); and spatial practices (broadly speaking, the practices which [re]produce16 a particular society’s spatiality for the next generation). Crucially, Lefebvre does understanding of space is built around the Marxist edifice of production and economic relations of production. 12.  He was actually expelled from the French Communist party in 1957 for being too unpredictable and for being a little too far left of Joe Stalin. For more, see Boer 2008, 80; also Merrifield 2000, 178: “His Marxism is more about love and life than Five Year Plans. His Marxism sounds more like libertarian anarchism.” 13.  In terms of examples of Lefebvre’s “missional” quality, see, for instance, Lefebvre 1991, 412. 14.  Boer offers a comprehensive summation of this in tabulated form. See Boer 2008, 86. 15.  Indeed, this is quite a feature of Lefebvre’s introduction, though its final few paragraphs are perhaps the best exemplar (Lefebvre 1991, 66–67). 16.  Lefebvre uses the term “secrete” here. I am aware that this is not how biblical scholars would usually understand these divisions. See, for instance, Maier 2008, 10–12. I take my definitions here from Merrifield as both a geographer and a Lefebvre specialist. This divergence is part of a wider point I wish to make on the use of spatial theory in the biblical academy.



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not expound this triad in any great detail in The Production of Space. It enjoys a brief outline in the opening chapter but as the book goes on the triad becomes a more tacit part of the discussion; Marxist periodization is Lefebvre’s overriding concern. The trialectic serves as a kind of barometer, measuring the spatial character of particular moments in history. It is not, however, a theory, a model or a postulate in any determined sense. The trialectic of representations/representational/practice is not the only threesome in the book, either. Lefebvre also employs the triad of conceived space, lived space and perceived space – rather more melodic in their original tongue: l’espace conçu, l’espace vécu, l’espace perçu. These three map very loosely onto the first triad, but not exactly. The trio of representations/representational/practice applies to the broader, macro view of historicized space, whereas conçu/vécu/perçu describes spaces of a more experiential flavour, individual bodily interactions, personal engagement with social space, etcetera.17 The two schemas overlap but do not have any rigorous methodological equivalency. (On top of this, there is also the disciplinary triad Lefebvre is resisting – physics, philosophy and sociology – which also maps onto these two schemas, but, again, only vaguely.) Lefebvre’s seminal “volume” (a three dimensional space!) comes into being around this dizzying triple dance of triads. His text is less a waltz than it is a nine-man-morris. Soja’s work, then, does not really represent a development of Lefebvre’s text so much as its transposition into a more manageable key. Stripping out Marxist periodization, Soja collapses and simplifies a complex system of trialectics, reducing it down to a three-step plan that can be deployed programmatically. As a result, and despite its rhetoric, Soja’s work is far less mindful of Lefebvre’s own preoccupation with particularity in body and experience: The critique of the illusions of transparency and opacity lays the groundwork for the thematic trialectic that is so central to a re-reading of The Production of Space, that which inter-relates in a dialectically linked triad: –Spatial Practice (espace perçu, perceived space); –Representations of Space (espace conçu, conceived space); –Spaces of Representation (espace veçu, lived space) These “three moments of social space” are described twice in the introductory chapter, “Plan of the Present Work,” both times as a numbered list with underlined emphasis. As always, Lefebvre modifies his descriptions as he moves along, and in subsequent chapters seems either to ignore his earlier formulations or to push their limits, ever ready to move on to something else. I will 17.  This is briefly discussed in George 2009, 31.

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try to capture the meanings of at least his first chapter approximations of this thematic trialectic, referring back to the original French text whenever I think this will help.18

Soja, though admitting the fluidity of Lefebvre’s terms, collapses two schemas into each other here and embarks on a process of standardizing Lefebvre’s poetry. Soja follows this prologue by “capturing,” on Lefebvre’s behalf, what the trialectic really “means” before folding his conclusions into more pragmatic neologisms. This kind of adaptation fits the task of the systematic town planner very well of course, but needs to be recognized as a departure from, and not a necessary evolutionary progression of, Lefebvre’s own writings. Lefebvre resists abstraction and fixed epistemology.19 Despite these differences, in biblical scholars’ dealings with Lefebvre it often seems as though Lefebvre has been read through Soja’s (problematic) reductions. Jon Berquist’s introduction to critical spatial theory says, for example: “Soja followed Lefebvre’s tripartite conceptualisation of space, but used different terminology” (Berquist 2007, 3). But terminology is just one of several substantive differences between the two theorists’ works. Millar reads Lefebvre’s “lived space” as an equivalent to Soja’s reductions (through the canny use of parenthesis): “lived space (Soja’s Thirdspace)” (Millar 2007, 132). Huie-Jolly sums up Lefebvre’s work as a series of conspicuously Sojan categories: “Lefebvre understood spatial awareness as a potentially liberating dynamic process of interaction, a tensive movement within a threefold dialectical (trialectic) process, often encapsulated in the phrases perceived space (or spatial practice), 18.  Soja 1996, 65; the reference to the French here is important. “Capturing the original meanings” is Soja’s stated modus operandi, and the reference to the language-work required to perform this feat re-enforces the claims Soja is making on the “real” intentions behind Lefebvre’s writing. This, we must note, is despite the fact that Lefebvre’s aim is to frustrate the stability of intellectual formations of space/ meaning rather than to lend them the credibility of a programmatic three-part system. 19.  Lefebvre writes, for instance: “A code of this kind must be correlated with a system of knowledge. It brings an alphabet, a lexicon, and a grammar together within an overall framework; and it situates itself – though not in such a way as to exclude it – vis-à-vis the lived and the perceived. Such a knowledge is conscious of its own approximateness: it is at once certain and uncertain. It announces its own relativity at each step, undertaking (or at least seeking to undertake) self-criticism, yet never allowing itself to become dissipated in apologias for non-knowledge, absolute spontaneity or ‘pure’ violence. This knowledge must find a middle path between dogmatism on the one hand and the abdication of understanding on the other” (1991, 65).



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conceived space, and lived space” (Huie-Jolly 2007b, 70).20 Claudia Camp is forced to resort to hyphenating the two names into a single encompassing neologism, “Soja(–Lefebvre),” as though the theorists comprise a single bimorphic creature (Camp 2008, 4). The chimera creeps into discussion in subtler ways too, though. Roland Boer’s “Henri Lefebvre: The Production in Space in 1 Samuel” is an impressive exception to the trend of stripping out Lefebvre’s periodization; in the essay Boer flexes his (considerable) Marxist muscles to place Lefebvre’s Marxism within a wider intellectual framework.21 But, when it comes to applying Lefebvre’s thought to the biblical text, Boer’s discussion lapses back into a threefold “schema” – Boer’s word – that is largely standardized and lacks the disruptive energy of Lefebvre’s own poetics. Boer admits, when turning to the biblical text: “My use of Lefebvre then…is more interested in reading for the production of space, specifically in terms of the threefold dialectic of spatial practice, the representations of space, and the space of representation” (Boer 2008, 89). Here we seem to be back on more familiar, and quite Sojan, methodological ground where the trialectic (singular) is applied as something of a method.22 As Mark George rightly points out in his careful marriage of Lefebvran politics and New Historicism, “Lefebvre’s method for analysing social space is not much more defined that spatial poetics…spatial poetics is more a stance than a method” (George 2009, 32). Christl Maier’s Daughter Zion, Mother Zion (2008) represents a pronounced instance of this Sojan retrojection. Lefebvre’s work forms the methodological bedrock of Maier’s spatial analysis of Jerusalem in the Hebrew Bible, and in her opening chapter she seeks to set out 20.  Huie-Jolly does acknowledge the fluidity of Lefebvre’s discussion, though this mixedness seems not to touch her overall discussions. 21.  Boer 2008, 89. This is explained more fully in his Marxist Criticism of the Bible (2003, 95–98). See also the discussion in George 2009, 32. 22.  George 2009, 32. As a brief aside, it is also worth noting that on the few occasions where other theoreticians are referred to by Seminar essays – Donald Winnicott, Mieke Bal, Lakoff and Johnston, for instance – they are invariably placed as cogs in a Sojan, or a Sojan–Lefebvran, machine, worked into the overarching trialectic analysis which characterizes almost all discussions on the subject. Mary Hui-Jolly’s articles on Donald Winnicott’s notions of self are a prime example in this respect, with Winnicott’s terms undergoing a lengthy enculturation into trialectic discourse prior to being put to use, despite their own intrinsic value as modes of spatial/liminal thought in their own right. See Huie-Jolly 2007a. One honourable exception to this trend is George’s Israel’s Tabernacle as Social Space (2009). George is sensitive to Lefebvre’s romantic approach to ancient spaces while avoiding any debt to Soja’s reading.

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Lefebvre’s “theory.” The concept of periodization does not appear at all in this summary. The Marxist overtones of the term “production” – from Lefebvre’s title – are not mentioned either. Indeed, Marx appears only as one name among others (Hegel, Neitzche, Merleau-Ponty), and the fact that Lefebvre’s work represents, as Andy Merrifield puts it, “a spatialized rendering of Marx’s famous analysis on the fetishism of commodities from volume one of Capital” is entirely missing from the synopsis (Merrifield 2000, 171). Maier’s summary focuses instead on the trialectic. As with the aforementioned works of Soja, Maier conflates Lefebvre’s multiple (and vaguely imagined) trialectics into a single, clearly defined triad. The definitions of these three terms have far more in common with Soja’s reductions than with Lefebvre’s text. Maier makes perceived space about “physical space, the mere materiality of space” as produced by the “spatial practices” of architecture and urban planning (Maier 2008, 11). But Lefebvre’s perceived space is more about people’s individual sensitivities to their surroundings, and spatial practice is not simply about material construction but about “patterns of interaction…societal cohesion, continuity,” and what Lefebvre calls “spatial competence”; perceived space and spatial practice appeal more to sociological patterns than physical laws (Merrifield 2000, 175). Furthermore, Maier makes conceived space about the language of space – its metaphorical associations and its maps (Maier 2008, 11). This is certainly part of the issue, but conceived space is less of a surface-level phenomenon for Lefebvre. Conceived space includes buildings themselves and speaks to the economic motivations that are codified in space (the phallic verticality of the skyscraper and its direct relationship to the penetrative, rampant, globalising market might be a good example). Maier’s lived space comprises the realm of the experiential, particularly the “collective experience” (2008, 11–12). But for Lefebvre lived space (representational space) is itself alive: “it speaks…it is essentially qualitative, fluid and dynamic,” he says (Lefebvre 1991, 42). Lived space is thus the experience that the dominant economic powers seek to colonise. Maier is closer to Lefebvre’s text here, then, though for Lefebvre the issue cannot really be separated from its economic context. When one comes to Maier’s subsequent heading: “Lefebvre Interpreted by Edward W. Soja,”23 it is reasonably clear that the interpretive work 23.  Similar critiques can be made of the early use of Lefebvre in geography, particularly David Harvey’s appropriation. Andy Merrifield refers to this as “Lefebvrelight” (2000, 169). Contrary to what some scholars have suggested it was Harvey – not Soja – who introduced Lefebvre to the English-speaking world in 1973 (in his book Social Justice and the City).



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has already been done, with Soja’s re-reading of The Production of Space having all but erased Lefebvre from analysis. Lefebvre’s biblical disciples are thus only half correct in their assumption that Lefebvre aimed to overcome a physical/mental dichotomy in philosophical discourse. Instead, Lefebvre’s “theory” – if indeed it can be called that – is that space is “produced” by society just as commodities are and the modes of its production therefore need to be captured in critical thought so as to compromise the “fetishizing” of space as a “thing in itself” (Lefebvre 1991, 90). One cannot help but wonder if treatments of The Production of Space in biblical studies are symptomatic of the very problem Lefebvre was combating; Lefebvre’s “space” has become a fetishized intellectual commodity in our discourse, a “thing in itself,” a conceptual designation which Lefebvre’s own style and politics tries to explode. 3. Lefebvre and the Bible at Clairvaux To explore some of the issues that arise from applying Lefebvre’s “explosive” project to the Bible, I want to now turn to the figure of St. Bernard of Clairvaux and to the space of the Langres Plateau in the Aube Valley near Ville-sous-la-Ferté, where he founded his monastery. Bernard was a prodigious writer, most famously of sermons on the Song of Songs,24 and stands out as arguably the great political actor of twelfth-century Europe. But Bernard also has an enormous architectural legacy in the form of the Cistercian Abbeys, which Bernard himself designed, and at times even helped oversee their construction.25 By the time of his death in 1153, in fact, 351 monasteries, all patterned on Clairvaux, peppered the European continent. In this section, I am interested in the interplay that exists between Bernard’s reading of the biblical Song of Songs and this colossal, continent-wide building project, since the two enterprises are by no means distinct. The connections that run between Bernard-as-reader and Bernard-as-builder raise interesting questions about how biblical texts have influenced the development of space as we understand it, and might challenge how we in the guild imagine the interplay between the Bible and “Theory” to work more broadly. My issue-taking with certain kinds of spatial theory notwithstanding, applying “space” as a critical designation 24.  These sermons were probably written down and not drafted from oral presentations. See Leclercq 1981. 25.  Bernard was, in fact, personally involved with many of the construction projects, his brother was an architect by profession – and worked on his Cistercian building programme – and the abbot himself even suggested practical improvements for the water systems in Villiers. See Leroux-Dhuys 2006, 39–41.

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to the Bible is never methodologically straightforward, since the Bible is rolled into the formation of Western space itself and into the formation of critical discussions on “space,” Lefebvre’s included. In light of my earlier discussions on theory, Bernard’s particular significance comes from the role he plays in Lefebvre’s periodized history of European space. The importance of Bernard’s construction projects to the development of the European political context is such that Lefebvre can hardly afford to ignore them, and in particular Lefebvre uses Bernard, along with Abelard and Suger, to shape his sense of the transformation from “absolute space” to “abstract space” in continental Europe: Consider the Church. What a narrow, indeed mistaken, view it is which pictures the Church as an entity having its main “seat” in Rome and maintaining its presence by means of clerics in individual “churches” or villages and towns, in convents, monasteries, basilicas, and so forth. The fact is the “world” – that imaginary-real space of shadows – was inhabited, haunted by the Church. This underworld broke through here and there – wherever the church has a “seat,” from that of the lowliest country priest to that of the Pope himself; and wherever it thus pierced the earth’s surface, the “world” emerged. The “world” – that of religious agitation, of the Church suffering and militant – lay and moved below the surface. This space, the space of Christendom, was a space that could in the twelfth century be occupied by the powerful personality of a Bernard of Clairvaux. Indeed, without its magio-mystical imaginary-real unity, it would be impossible to account for the influence of this genius, who controlled two kings and told the sovereign pontiff, “I am more Pope than you.” Just as something new was appearing on the horizon Bernard of Clairvaux revalorized the space of the signs of death, of desperate contemplation, of ascetism. The masses rallied about him – and not only the masses. His poor-man’s bed epitomized his space. (Lefebvre 1991, 254–56)

For Lefebvre the monastic spaces founded by Bernard are sites that resisted the emergence of early capitalism. “Monastic culture was on the ebb,” writes Lefebvre, “what was about to disappear was absolute space” (1991, 256). Lefebvre sees the absolute space of the Church, Clairvaux included, as a kind of decentralized subterranean force. Though it breaches the surface of the “world” in certain ways – the chapel, the monastery, the basilica – these are only small manifestations of a wider haunting spectre that has no single home. Bernard was the product and the champion of this religious under-world. The subterranean power of the Church as “absolute space” eventually worked its way to the surface, exploding into palms and fronds, into gothic arches and stained-glass windows. As outward growths of this underground “world” the urban cathedral began to invert the power of absolute space, we are told, transforming the power of the subterranean



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Church Militant into a public exhibition that went beyond Gothic architecture and came to involve “towns, political action, poetry and music and thought in general” (1991, 260). In other words, the bursting, phallic verticality of the urban cathedral turned an underworld of absolute space into an urban spectacle; it transferred social meaning from the abstract “Church” to the medieval town, so transforming the sacred bell-tower into the commercial clock tower, the defining space of early market capitalism: The urban landscape of the Middle Ages turned the space which preceded it, the [subterranean] space of the “world,” upon its head. It [the urban landscape] was a landscape filled with broken lines and verticals, a landscape that leapt forth from the earth bristling with sculptures. In contrast to the maleficent utopia of the subterranean “world,” it proclaimed a benevolent and luminous utopia where knowledge would be independent, and instead of serving an oppressive [ecclesiastical] power would contribute to the strengthening of an authority grounded in reason. What do the great cathedrals say? They assert an inversion of space as compared to the previous religious structures. They concentrate the diffuse meaning of space onto the medieval town. They “decrypt” in a vigorous (perhaps more than rigorous) sense of the word: they are an emancipation from the crypt and from cryptic space. The new space did not merely “decipher” the old, for, in deciphering it, it surmounted it; by freeing itself it achieved illumination and elevation…[a]n extraordinary trio mobilized and resisted this great movement of emergence: Bernard of Clairvaux, Suger and Abelard. (Lefebvre 1991, xxx)

Bernard, Lefebvre insists, was the staunch champion of the outgoing, subterranean, absolute space of the Church, and his building projects sought to further concretize the realm of the “world” by further mobilizing the subterranean power of ecclesiastical space. Ironically, by this logic, Bernard’s Cistercian resistance made possible the spread of urban capitalism in Europe. For if Bernard increasingly “en-crypted” this subterranean space of the Church, then capitalist urban ideology would later justify itself through “de-crypting” it, through bringing the subterranean ideologies of ecclesiastical power into the light. The city began to grow out of an intellectual rationale, that is, which was predicated on this magico-mystical space. The urban grew from the embryonic desire for a deciphering, rational system of independent knowledge that sat “upon” creation, rather than beneath or “behind” it. It is true that Lefebvre does not deal directly with the role of the biblical text in this whole process, though he does accept the general principle that particular ideas shape particular spatial configurations (the rose des vent, for instance, or the imago mundi). And the ways in which Bernard puts the Song of Songs to use in his sermons to politicize the spatiality

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of Clairvaux fits rather well with the Bernard that Lefebvre describes. Indeed, it provides part of the apparent rationale for Bernard’s approach to space and ecclesiastical power in the first place. 4. The Sung Clairvaux The Song of Songs is one of the Bible’s more curious books, owing mainly to its intimate subject matter, its salacious imagery, and its absence of any explicit reference to the divine.26 The Song’s oddness, and, frankly, its refusal to be put neatly into any kind of rigid interpretive schema, has meant that numerous reading traditions have grown up around it over the centuries. Bernard’s allegorical readings of the Song, penned in the first half of the twelfth century as eighty-six sermons, represent an important development of that tradition, partly because of Bernard’s thoroughness (he takes on the whole Song), and partly by virtue of the elaborate and fearless nature of the readings themselves.27 The paramour-styled God throws out red-hot words of passion, exuberant double entendres and lusty excitements aplenty, but Bernard barely skips a beat. In the following quotation Bernard opts to read St. Paul into the first verses of the Song, “let him kiss me with the kisses of his lips, for your lovemaking is sweeter than wine,” figuring Pauls’ faith as part of the great love affair between humanity and God: Paul was certainly a great man, but no matter how high he should aim in making the offer of his mouth, even if he were to raise himself right to the third heaven [1 Cor 12:2], he would still find himself remote…let him humbly ask that it might lean down to him, that the kiss might be transmitted from on high…he [Paul] does not beg from an inferior position; rather on equally sublime heights mouth is joined to mouth… (Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon 8:8)

This is racy stuff.28 But my point here is that there is a profound spatial element at work in Bernard’s readings of the Song that, as with this citation, attempts to mediate between “earthly” and “heavenly” impulses, positing Clairvaux as part of “the third heaven,” so to speak, 26.  For a comprehensive summary of these issues see Exum 2005, 70–73. 27.  Bernard thus followed Origen’s attitude toward the text, itself borrowed – and adapted – from the Midrash and Targum, which take the Song to be about God’s love for Israel. Arguably, though, Bernard’s allegories are so elaborate as to make any one of his ancient allegorical forebears blush. 28.  For more on the queer subtext produced in the Church Fathers’ allegorical readings of the Song of Songs, see Moore 2001.



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and implicating the heavens in the social fabric and configuration of the community at Clairvaux. This is especially clear in Bernard’s twenty-third sermon, which is devoted to the Song’s poetic world, a focus which is itself somewhat curious. For if the Song’s relationship with the sacred is somewhat casual, its attitude toward spatiality is positively cavalier. The only real scholarly consensus on the Song of Songs in fact is that the world imagined by the text is a fluid and distortative environment that pays little heed to the laws of spatial and temporal continuity.29 The Song uses numerous settings, among others: a royal court (1:4, 14), vineyards (1:6; 7:12), gardens (4:12; 5:1; 6:2), cities (3:2, 57), houses (3:1; 5:2), a royal palanquin (3:9), a wilderness (3:6). These settings are in a constant state of flux. Gardens give way to cities; cities melt into wildernesses, or sedan-chairs; forests become wine-houses; the body and the landscape rub against each other and, tingling with poetic energy, collapse together only to emerge as discrete categories again a moment later.30 Bernard’s interest is piqued by an initial point of apparent stability in the song’s world, Song of Songs 1:4, “the king has brought me into his rooms.” From these rooms, Bernard goes on to address various spatial references in the text, clarifying the nature (and spiritual meaning) of these “rooms” for the worshipper as he goes. Bernard identifies three main spaces through which the reader of the Song must figuratively progress as they read, (1) the gardens (2) the storerooms (3) the bedroom: By your leave then, we shall search the Sacred Scriptures for these three things, the garden, the storeroom, the bedroom. The man who thirsts for God eagerly studies and meditates on the inspired word, knowing that there he is certain to find the one for whom he thirsts. Let the garden, then, represent the plain, unadorned historical sense of Scripture, the storeroom its moral sense, and the bedroom the mystery of divine contemplation. (Bernard, Sermon 23:3)

29.  Kathryn Harding sums it up superbly when she writes that Song is a text in which “narrative logic is suspended and the boundaries between wishes, fantasies, dreams and what could be called poetic reality are blurred and unstable” (Harding 2008, 49). 30.  As some commentators have pointed out, this is all to be expected given the Song’s tempestuous subject matter. See, particularly, Bloch and Bloch 1995, 15; Munro 1995, 124; Fisch 1988, 88–89; Fox applies E. H. Falk’s observations regarding romance in the French Novel to ancient literature: Fox 1985, 226. Perhaps, though, the Song of Songs shares more with the surrealist movement than with Balzac and Zola; Exum 2005, 45–47. For a fuller discussion on the Song’s paracosm, see Meredith 2013, 31–68.

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The Song’s garden represents the Bible’s historical narrative. This historical garden is subdivided into the three plots of creation, reconciliation and “the renewal of heaven and earth.”31 The storeroom, the second of Bernard’s spaces, is also subdivided into three: “the wine room” (cf. Song 2:4), “the room of spices” and “the room of ointments” (Bernard, Sermon 23:5). These three rooms are symbolic, says Bernard, of “discipline” (the spice room), nature (the ointment room) and grace (the wine cellar) (Bernard, Sermon 23:6). Having progressed through this gauntlet of cupboard space, the reader reaches the “king’s chambers.” These, again, are divided into three sub-rooms. First is the room of divine judgment (Bernard, Sermon 23:12), second is the room where God’s “wisdom [works] as a teacher in a lecture hall” (Bernard, Sermon 23:14) and third is the boudoir of Christ Himself, the “place where God is seen in tranquil rest, where He is neither Judge nor Teacher but Bridegroom” (Bernard, Sermon 23:15). Thus, for Bernard, the Song’s poetic landscape is read as a coherent, highly regulated space consisting of rooms rendered in triplicate; produce is gathered from the triune gardens and it is kept in three storerooms, progression through which leads one on to judgment, instruction and a deity with come-to-bed eyes. It goes without saying that the Song itself does not necessarily suggest the kind of orderly layout that Bernard describes. But it is important to note that the Song’s combination of fluidity and evocative scene-setting gives Bernard room to read the text in imaginative ways, figuring it as a kind of corridor of spatial types, imposing an order on the text and using the text to legitimate a kind of theological reasoning where dedicated sacred space and one’s proximity to the divine are paramount concerns. The most obvious significance of this reading strategy is that it gives the Song a conspicuous likeness to the patterning of the Monastery at Clairvaux, and those several hundred communities modelled on it. Their design was what architectural historian Jean-François Leroux-Dhuys calls a “deliberate architectural program” of Bernard’s own, a program that sought to translate the Rule of St. Benedict into spatial terms so as to facilitate the life of the community.32 Bernard sought, in other words, 31.  Which, according to Bernard, also roughly correspond to the three stages of planting, growing and harvesting from the “branch of the lord [Isa 4:2].” Bernard, Sermon 23:4. 32.  This is in pointed contrast to the ostentatious abbey at Cluny, which Bernard abhorred. Indeed, the gold-leafed ostentation of Cluny was a major point of contention between the Cistercian and Benedictine orders: “more vain than foolish! The walls of



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to create a material world using the building blocks of his own ethical system. As George Duby writes: In truth, Cistercian architecture owes everything to him. St. Bernard was indeed the patron of this vast building site and, as they say, the master builder. For this art was inseparable from the ethical system of which Bernard was the incarnation, one that he wished at all costs to impose on the universe, and in the first instance on the monks of his order. (Duby 1976, xxx)

In practice, the patterning involved a kind of tripartite division of land, with a series of concentric arenas that become more religiously charged as one works one’s way towards Clairvaux’s centre.33 At the outskirts of Clairvaux were three types of garden: vegetable garden, herb garden and orchard. Designed to feed the brothers, these plots resemble the three scriptural gardens of Bernard’s Song, in which believers harvest scriptural truth to nourish and sustain themselves. In Bernard’s reading of the Song, these gardens lead to store rooms. So too at Clairvaux. Organized around a cloister were the monastic dormitories and the quarters of the lay-brothers (or conversi),34 the latter doubling up as storerooms for produce. At the centre of the monastic grounds was the sacred space of the church, which had both the chapter house (a room for confession and judgment) and a debating hall adjoining.35 As Viollet-le-Duc points out the lecture hall was a vital part of Cistercian life, and a marked feature of Cistercian houses the church are ablaze with riches, while the poor go hungry” tirades Bernard in his Apologia ad Guillelmum. 33.  For a detailed walk-through of Clairvaux see: Viollet-le-Duc 1856 and Leroux-Dhuys 2006. 34.  The conversi were lay brothers, brothers whose illiteracy disqualified them from the liturgical and theological duties of the choir monks. They performed manual labour and the domestic chores of the abbey. They took vows, but were not permitted either to learn to read or to participate in the political or administrative life of the abbey. Leroux-Dhuys 2006, 50–51. 35.  “Au sud du petit cloître on voit une grande salle, c’est une école ou plutôt le lieu de réunion des moines, destinée aux conférences en usage dans l’ordre de Cîteaux. Ces conférences étaient de véritables combats théologiques, dans ce temps où déjà la scolastique s’était introduite dans l’étude de la théologie; et, en effet, dans le plan original, ce lieu est désigné ainsi: Thesiū p. pugnand” [“South of the small cloister we see a large room, this is a school, or rather a meeting room for the monks that was intended for the conferences of the Cistercian order. These conferences were genuine theological battles, by this time scholasticism had already been introduced into the study of theology and indeed in the original plan, this place is designated as follows: Thesiū p. pugnand [lit. thesis battle].” Viollet-le-Duc 1856, 268. Translation mine.

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in particular, since one of the hallmarks of the order was its high regard for theological debate. Beyond the sanctuary, the positioning of the two dormitories was designed to reflect the relative importance of their incumbents, with the monks attached to the sanctuary and the lay brothers to the gatehouse, and so the outside world.36 Outside the cloistered space, between the brothers and the gardens, one could find the practical sphere: tanneries, grain mills, forge, etc. It would not be too much to say that Clairvaux functions on the ground as a kind of tabernacle space with a holy-of-holies defended by a gradating axis of consecration. Or, as the possibly self-aggrandizing Bernard himself once put it: “Tabernaculum, Clarevallis domum non manufactum intelligo” (“Clairvaux is a tabernacle not made by human hands”).37 Bernard’s Song is structured in this same way, according to a series of concentric arenas that become more religiously charged as one works one’s way towards the centre, and, like Clairvaux, these arenas start with peripheral gardens and terminate with God’s sanctuary. Between these two areas are three intervening “storerooms” which Bernard describes in terms of saintly status (“In the first you bear the status of learner, in the second that of companion, in the third that of master”),38 raising the question: Is the equivalency between the spatial and the sacral in Bernard’s reading of the Song intended to mirror the initiate’s movement through Clairvaux, from novice, to brother, to enlightened contemplative? In Cistercian houses the quarters for the lay brothers were directly above the storerooms, after all, and at one point in the Sermon Bernard directly relates one’s attainment to the Song’s “ointment room” to one’s acceptance into a cohabiting brotherhood.39 The equivalencies between the three chambers of Christ 36.  As Leroux-Dhuys writes: “The abbey had two clearly distinguished buildings, one for each community without communicating access. To the east lay the choir monks’ range giving on to the transept of the church so that they could go directly to the services; on the opposite side to the west was the lay brothers’ range, open to the gatehouse and the secular world.” Leroux-Dhuys 2006, 51. 37.  Given Bernard’s close associations with the Templars, there are some interesting links between space, temple and the sacred in Bernard’s life and writings. For instance, when a young cannon from Lincoln undertook a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, stopped for hospitality at Clairvaux and petitioned his sponsor for permission to stay, Bernard wrote a letter on the young man’s behalf arguing that to be in Clairvaux was to be living in the midst of the true Jerusalem already. Evans 2000, 25, 12, 29. 38.  Bernard, Sermon 23:6. 39.  Bernard reminds us: “How good and pleasant it is when brethren dwell together in unity! It is like precious ointment on the head…” (Ps 133): Bernard, Sermon 23:6.



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and the three central spaces at Clairvaux can hardly be overstated. As Viollet-le-Duc points out, the apse of Clairvaux’s church contains nine square chapels, so there is even a possible resonance between Clairvaux’s nine-part sanctuary and Bernard’s nine-part Songscape.40 The effect of Bernard’s imposition of rigid Cistercian space onto the Song is profound. Bernard erases the fluid relationships between the Song’s scenes, imposing a new structure that takes the varied settings of the poem as its raw materials and works them (hard) into an intelligible design.41 The equivalencies between the text’s space and the abbey’s are not exhaustive or meticulously maintained – Bernard is more artful than that! – but there is definite interplay between the two worlds. The Song’s messiness is tamed into the cowl, pressed into the service of a more coherent world as if the text were itself a boisterous novitiate. For once, the most obvious question (which “space” came first, which structure is the imposition here?) is not the most poignant because in practice, each reshapes the other. The text’s ideological imposition on Cistercian space cannot be pitted against the idea that the Cistercians ideologically impose on the twelfth-century Song of Songs. For in practice these two moves interlock and overlap; the text shapes and colours Clairvaux; Clairvaux shapes and colours a high-profile reading of the Song. By making Clairvaux manifest in the biblical text, Bernard makes Clairvaux a manifestation of the biblical text. Bernard’s carefully ordered pile of stones near Ville-sous-la-Ferté becomes a concretization of the Song, an earthly manifestation of a heavenly vision, a perfected city winched down from on high. This is Bernard’s message, that the Song – the divine and cosmic romance that gives humanity meaning – is being played out, for real, on the warm contours of the Aube Valley. With a suggestive wave of his pen the abbot biblicizes his order and turns the monks in Clairvaux into extensions of the divine epistle. Through Bernard the Canticle has been realized as Clairvaux.

40.  As Viollet-le-Duc puts it: “On remarquera tout d’abord que l’église…est terminée à l’abside par neuf chapelles carrées” [“First of all it will be noticed that the church…is finished, at the apse, with nine square chapels”]. Viollet-le-Duc 1856, 268. Translation mine. 41.  Bernard himself seems only vaguely aware of his impositions on the text. “I join these rooms together because when examined each becomes clearer,” he says (23:3). A few paragraphs later, however, he has changed his mind; the text itself suggests the Bernadine complex of rooms: “it was for this reason perhaps that she [the Song’s female protagonist] used the plural rooms, instead of room, since she must have been thinking about these apartments.” Bernard, Sermon 25:5.

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Taking another view, we can see how the magico-mystical transference works the other way. Under Bernard’s imposing gaze the Song of Songs, that ancient paean to romantic love, ceases to be just a text. Words and lines, inflections and conjunctions, all of them fade in the shadow of an emergent space, a virtual Clairvaux composed of ink and ideological affectation that rises up out of the vellum, obscuring and overwhelming the poem’s messiness. Clairvaux is not only a strategy by which Bernard can resist the Song’s awkward style. The Song is also a strategy by which Clairvaux can be realized as Scripture itself. Clairvaux, the “heavenly tabernacle,” its clergymen and their whirlwind bromance, each, ultimately, becomes located on the surface of the illuminated page. Likewise, those who encounter Bernard’s teaching become inhabitants of Clairvaux, entering the abbey by means of “reading” the biblical text. We as readers of the Song can tour Clairvaux’s mighty structures and strictures, ascending into realms of glory on a pre-arranged flight path. Through Bernard, Clairvaux is everywhere preserved – as Canticle. Bernard’s sermon is able to detach Clairvaux from Clairvaux, textualizing its space and so releasing it from the limitations of its physicality. But Bernard is also able to cast his home as divine outpost, as a concretization of Scripture to which the Langres plateau plays willing host. These issues are not merely literary or ideological. They have far-reaching sociological and cultural implications because of the wider roles both Clairvaux and Bernard played in shaping the spatiality of medieval Europe. As I have said, virtually all Cistercian houses were based on Clairvaux (compare the Abbeys of Fontenay in Burgundy, Poblet in Catelonia, Maulbronn in Germany and Fountains in England, for instance).42 Thus, Clairvaux was not simply the epicentre of a rampant Cistercian expansion but its spatial template. Clairvaux was everywhere, and so Bernard’s ideology and Bible with it. The textual rendering of the Abbey, whether or not the sermon predates the building process, is wrapped up with the edifice that came to colonize a rapidly changing Europe. By means of this project – architecture as exegesis – Bernard’s Song of Songs becomes a very real part of the medieval European landscape – a “lived” space, the livingness of which is bound up with, gives rise to and springs from a very specific understanding of biblical textuality. 42.  And as Anselm Dimier’s Recueil de plans d’églises cisterciennes demonstrates very clearly, of the 69 daughter houses founded by Clairvaux in Bernard’s lifetime, not one of them deviates from the layout of its mother house. Even the great Cîteaux, which did not get a foundation stone until 1140, was based on Clairvaux. Leroux-Dhuys 2006, 38–40.



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The spaces generated by Bernard’s version of the biblical poem, his Clairvaux/Song, also have pervasive shadowy existences, they too detach spatiality from matter and enact a “magico-mystical imaginaryreal unity.” Indeed, Lefebvre’s designation of the fantastical spatiality of the subterranean “Church militant” works as an accurate description of the tabernacle Bernard erects in and through the Song: a real-imagined unity that derives its ideological power by trading on both the physical reality of space and on the universal, abstract force of the “imagined” at the same time. Bernard’s reading of the Song is not simply about staging a monastery in the biblical canon, then, but about further creating the space of the “world” by mobilizing the idea of an ecclesiastical utopia. In concert with the “abstract space” of the ecclesiastical order, biblical space makes its entrance into theological debate, and the European countryside, not as an imposition on the landscape but as the concretization of another worldly order, a bursting forth – here from above rather than below. Bernard, in other words, uses ideas about space and the Song of Songs both to propagate a “maleficent subterranean utopia” and serve an ecclesiastical power, and Bernard’s twenty-third sermon is an exemplar of, and perhaps even a foundation of, Lefebvran “abstract space” as we know it (Lefebvre 1991, 256). Or to put it slightly differently, we can see the dynamics Lefebvre describes at work in the nitty-gritty ways Bernard deploys a specific biblical text in his context, rather corroborating our sense of Lefebvre’s stance on Bernard and implicating the Bible in the historical processes that give rise to “space” and, also, those processes that give rise to the theories that attempt to deal with and explore it. Bernard’s copy of the Song is a very small square in a much larger tapestry, but provides an object lesson in the already-involved status of the biblical texts in space, spatial discourse, and spatial “production.” The Bible43 is a vital part of the ideological resistance that Bernard fronts, and as such it is already in play in The Production of Space before that text is even applied in biblical studies. True to form, the Bible sits just beneath the surface of Lefebvre’s discussion, a subterranean force in its own right, informing the subject of Lefebvre’s analysis in tiny but crucial ways, subtle and pervasive in equal measure. Some questions therefore present themselves. Can we set biblical text and readerly ideology aside in our thinking about Cistercian space? Probably not. For the great builder of monastic space, biblical spatialities 43.  It strikes me that if the social role of the humble Song of Songs can yield such questions, what might we find if we focused our energies on the spatial impact of a more “mainstream” biblical book, or a more mainstream set of biblical spaces? What circularities would Sodom yield in the literature? Or Eden?

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and monastic ones seem intimately linked, causally, interpretively or something of a mixture between the two. Can we cast Cistercian spatiality itself – the colossal building project of the twelfth century – aside in our engagement with Lefebvre’s tightly woven thesis? Again, no. Bernard, and indeed the ideological politics that seem to be at work in Bernard’s reading process, underline Lefebvre’s schematizing of absolute and early capitalist spaces. Yet if we acknowledge that the European’s, the monk’s and the academic’s theoretical spaces have been defined and sustained with the aid of the biblical text, or use processes of ideological interpolation that biblical texts have themselves inaugurated in parts of spatial development in the West, there are some undertheorized questions about our application of spatial theory to the Bible. “Soja-Lefebvre” cannot, surely, be uncritically “applied” to the text, since the Bible has already coded to some degree the very theories with which we are attempting to apprehend it. No doubt Lefebvre would have little problem with the idea of the Bible underpinning certain spaces, and in fact the Bible’s role in Bernard’s understanding of ecclesiastical space seems to help Lefebvre’s arguments in this instance. But where there is more of a problem – not insurmountable, but, as I have said, under-acknowledged – is when we apply Lefebvre to the Bible without proper recognition that we are applying ideas that emerge from the Bible’s historical involvement back onto the Bible, especially when that move comes without recognition of the potential circularities it involves. Moreover, as Bernard’s sermon and his historical involvement in the changing spatialities of Europe attest, the Bible is not immune to the spatial ideologies of the age. The designation “Bible,” its imagined social purpose and the nature of its cultural currency, are changing, and bound up in the same overarching ideas that define and characterize an epoch. That is, Bernard’s is clearly an “abstract” Bible for an “abstract” ecclesiastical space. What might “our” Bible be? If we are going to assent to Lefebvre’s theories, at least enough to cite him in academic papers, we need to acknowledge these theories rely upon and imply “the production of Bibles” (and a good many other things) alongside the production of spaces. Has the abstract power of biblical texts survived in the biblical academy? (I think some of my foregoing examples demonstrate in places that it has, the reproduction of Soja’s selective gods-eye view being a case in point.) It is thus not simply a question of the problematic application of bible-fuelled theory onto the modern-Bible that intrigues me, but the idea that if Lefebvre is right about the relatedness of spatiality and productive development, the “Bible” we are applying his work to today is as much a spatial product as anything else. Claudia Camp helpfully informed us



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earlier of “lived space,” that “living involves many things.” I would add that it includes academic enterprise: a complicating produced space of its own, with its own subterranean forces, and its own modes and methods of producing, whether that be producing Bibles, sub-specialisms or hybrid theorists. Applying theory to the Bible becomes a much more slippery process than we tend to imagine it being, where both “Theory” and “Bible” are unstable, interrelated designations. 5. Concluding Reflections In terms of the Sermon itself, Bernard’s engagements with text and space make the interplay between an ideological landscape and its physical counterpart clearly visible. “Real” worlds work themselves into textual re-presentations of space, and textual landscapes work themselves into the fabric of our everyday lives. Text, reader and spatial configuration are not simply interpenetrative (so the “Soja-Lefebvre”) but mutually formed. Physicality is not first to ideology’s second (much less to experience’s Third) because space derives its cultural power from complex social processes of ideological intercalation, of which we can never truly stand “outside,” even, and especially, when we write about it. But my treatment of theory here is not intended simply to query how unnecessary the rhetoric of First-, Second- and Thirdspace might be in practice. Nor is my discussion, fleeting as it is, supposed to represent a fully fledged model for how socially or culturally engaged spatial analysis might function in biblical studies. The issue I have sought to foreground is that of the interplay between the Bible and theoretical discourse itself. To appropriate a quip of Lefebvre’s, there is “an old alliance between the Logos and the Cosmos,” and it is this alliance which biblical studies is uniquely placed to engage (Lefebvre 1991, 260). Such connections and alliances should not, and certainly could not, end the practice of reasoned application of theory to biblical texts, nor would I wish them to, but they do point I think toward more nuanced questions than, as Camp disparagingly puts it, “Is it First, is it Second, is it Third?” (Camp 2002, 68). Works Cited Barnett, Clive, 2007. Review of Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-andImagined-Places. Transactions, Institute of British Geographers 22: 529–30. Berquist, Jon L. 2007. Introduction: Critical Spatiality and the Uses of Theory. In Berquist and Camp 2007, 1–14.

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Berquist, Jon L., and Claudia V. Camp, eds. 2007. Constructions of Space I. Theory, Geography and Narrative. London: T&T Clark International. ———. 2008. Constructions of Space II: The Biblical City and Other Imagined Spaces. London: T&T Clark International. Bloch, Ariel, and Chana Bloch. 1995. The Song of Songs: A New Translation with an Introduction and Commentary. Berkeley: University of California Press. Boer, Roland. 2003. Marxist Criticism of the Bible. London: T&T Clark International. ———. 2008. Henri Lefebvre: The Production of Space in 1 Samuel. In Berquist and Camp 2008, 78–101. Camp, C. 2002. Storied Space, or, Ben Sira “Tells” a Temple. In Gunn and McNutt 2002, 64–80. ———. 2008. Introduction. In Berquist and Camp 2008, 1–17. Duby, Georges. 1976. L’art Cistercien. Paris: Flammarion. Evans, Gillian. 2000. Bernard of Clairvaux. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Exum, J. Cheryl. 2005. Song of Songs. Louisville: John Knox. Fisch, Harold. 1988. Song of Songs: The Allegorical Imperative. Pages 80–103 in Poetry with a Purpose. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Fox, Michael. 1985. The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. George, Mark. 2009. Israel’s Tabernacle as Social Space. Atlanta: SBL. Graham, S. 2008. Justinian and the Politics of Space. In Berquist and Camp 2008, 53–77. Gunn, David, and Paula McNutt, eds. 2002, “Imagining” Biblical Worlds: Studies in Spatial, Social and Historical Constructs in Honor of James W. Flanagan. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic. Harding, Kathryn. 2008. “I sought him but I did not find him”: The Elusive Lover in the Song of Songs. BibInt 16: 43–59. Huie-Jolly, Mary R. 2007a. Formation of Self in Construction of Space: Lefebvre in Winnicott’s Embrace. In Berquist and Camp, 51–67. ———. 2007. Language as Extension of Desire: The Oedipus Complex and Spatial Hermeneutics. In Berquist and Camp 2007, 68–84. Kort, Wesley, 1994. Space and Place in Modern Fiction. Gainesville: University of Florida Press. Latham, Alan. 2004. Edward Soja. Pages 269–74 in Key Thinkers on Space and Place. Edited by Phil Hubbard, Rob Kitchen and Gill Valentine. London: Sage. Leclercq, Jean. 1981. Introduction to Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs. Translated by Kilian Walsh. Cistercian Fathers 2. Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications. Lefebvre, Henri. 1991, The Production of Space. Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith. Oxford: Blackwell. Leroux-Dhuys. John-Francois. 2006. Cistercian Abbeys: History and Architecture. Paris: Konneman. Lopez, Kathryn. 2008. Standing Before the Throne of God: Critical Spatiality in Apocalyptic Scenes of Judgement. In Berquist and Camp 2008, 139–55. Maier, Christl. 2008. Daughter Zion, Mother Zion: Gender, Space and the Sacred in Ancient Israel. Minneapolis: Fortress. Massey, Doreen. 1994. Space, Place and Gender. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. McNutt, P. 2002. “Fathers of the Empty Spaces” and “Strangers Forever”: Social Marginality and the Construction of Space. In Gunn and McNutt 2002, 30–50.



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Meredith, Christopher. 2013. Journeys in the Songscape: Space and the Song of Songs. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic. Merrifield, Andy. 1995. Lefebvre, Anti-Logos, and Nietzsche: An Alternative Reading of “The Production of Space.” Antipode 27: 294–303. ———. 2000. Henri Lefebvre: A Socialist in Space. Pages 167–82 in Thinking Space. Edited by M. Crang and N. Thrift. New York: Routledge. Millar, William R. 2007. A Bakhtinian Reading of Narrative Space. In Berquist and Camp 2007, 129–40. Moore, Stephen. 2001. The Song of Songs in the History of Sexuality. Pages 43–59 in God’s Beauty Parlour: And Other Queer Spaces in and Around the Bible. Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press. Munro, Jill M. 1995. Spikenard and Saffron: A Study in the Poetic Language in the Song of Songs. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic. Pippin, T. 2008. The Ideology of Apocalyptic Space. In Berquist and Camp 2008, 156–70. Soja, Edward. 1989. Post-modern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory. London: Verso. ———. 1996. Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-ImaginedPlaces. Oxford: Blackwell. ———. 2000. Postmetropolis: Critical Studies of Cities and Regions. Oxford: Blackwell. Viollet-le-Duc, Eugène. 1856. Dictionnaire raisonné de l’architecture française du XIe au XVIe siècle. Paris: Bance–Morel.

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W h at H appened to the H eavenly W orld W hen the R ighteous F inally A rrived ? T ransformation , S pace and R edemption in 2 B aruch 51 Liv Ingeborg Lied The Jewish, first- or second-century apocalypse 2 Baruch contains an intriguing description of the eschatological advent of the righteous into the heavenly, other, world. The passage in question, 2 Bar. 51:1–13, describes how the form of the righteous is transformed after the judgment of God, how the heavenly world appears before them as they arrive, and how they finally assemble under God’s throne. This passage presents the absolute peak of the revelatory dialogue that Baruch, the protagonist of 2 Baruch, shares with his followers in 2 Bar. 47–52. 2 Baruch 51:1–13 is renowned for its exceptionally detailed description of the process of transformation that provides the righteous with heavenly shapes.1 Still, with some exceptions, scholarship on 2 Baruch has not paid much attention to the character of the relationship between the descriptions of human forms and their spatial environments, nor to the possibility that 51:1–3 may also describe a transformation of heavenly spaces. In other words, an interest in post-judgment anthropology has by far overshadowed a focus on spatiality, as well as the dynamic between the two. However, a look at Baruch’s question to God in 49:1–3 – God answers the questions in chs. 50 and 51 – may suggest that space is not exempt from change. 2 Baruch 49:3 states: “Or will you perhaps transform these things which are in the world, as also the world?”2 Although it is not clear to which “world” Baruch is referring, his question indicates that a transformation of space is, indeed, something one might expect to find in 2 Bar. 51. It is, therefore, my conviction that a closer look at the spatiality of the passage, and the relationship between spatiality and anthropology

1.  Cf. Lied 2009. 2.  The italicization is my own.

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that it portrays, will provide an interesting and relevant interpretation of the description of transformation and final redemption in 2 Baruch. This essay will attempt to answer two questions. First, what is the relationship between human form and spatial environment in the description of transformation in 51:1–13? Second, is the transformation described in 2 Bar. 51:1–13 something that primarily concerns anthropology, or does the entry of the righteous involve a transformation of space as well? The last part of the essay will also discuss what the functions of spatial transformations could be.3 This orientation towards spatiality requires a note on the spatial epistemology that informs the essay. This essay is inspired by the field of critical spatial theory, and, particularly, the application of this theoretical field to biblical and religious studies.4 Crucial to most of the studies of spatiality conducted by scholars in these academic fields during the last decades is the idea that space should not be understood as something passively existing “out there.” Rather, these studies have focused on the human conception of space and have promoted the view of space as a cultural product. This means that space is not regarded as a given. Inspired by the spatial epistemology suggested by these studies, I propose that the portrayals of heavenly spaces in a literary work like 2 Baruch should neither be seen as reflections of any empirical “real space,” “a real heaven,” onto text, nor should heavenly spaces presented in text be understood as being immune to change. I will study the heavenly spaces of 2 Baruch as imagined spaces in the narrative world of a text. The portrayals of heavenly spaces will be seen as an integral part of the story, as well as of the rhetorical strategies that the work uses to convince its readers that this story is true. Moreover, descriptions of heavenly spaces will be treated like any other description of space in 2 Baruch; as spaces in a narrative world, heavenly spaces will not be granted immunity from investigation (Lied 2008, 14). 3.  I apply the word “transformation” in this particular context as the process of change that alters something already existing into something more or something else. Rather than a creation of something totally new from nothing, I understand “transformation” to be a refinement, an actualization, or, a change of use, of something already existing and awaiting that change (the form of the Syriac word most frequently used in the passage is ḥlp “change,” “transform”). Note also that transformation is portrayed in 2 Baruch as God’s reaction to humankind’s actions. God the Creator is the one who transforms. He is the only one who has the capacity to change what he has created. 4.  Cf. e.g., Lefebvre 1974, 1991; Harvey 1989; Massey 1994; Soja 1996; Gunn and McNutt 2002; Moxnes 2003; Økland 2004.



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1. 2 Baruch 51:1–13 in Context As suggested in the introduction, the apocalyptic and eschatological work 2 Baruch was, in all probability, produced by a Jewish milieu in Palestine in the decades after the fall of the second Jerusalem temple in 70 C.E.5 Most scholars interpret the work as a response to that destruction, and as a deliberation over the situation the loss of the temple brought to Jewish societies. However, 2 Baruch takes the destruction of the first Jerusalem temple as its narrative point of departure, and situates the plot of the narrative frame at the end of the life of Baruch, son of Neriah, the famous scribe of Jeremiah. From this narrative point of departure, 2 Baruch describes how Baruch gradually comes to accept that the destruction of the temple is part of God’s plan for the redemption of the righteous. 2 Baruch communicates this change from despair to consolation through a series of ordered episodes of narration, prayers and laments, apocalyptic visions or revelatory dialogues with their respective interpretations, followed by Baruch addressing his followers. These episodes of visions and sequences of communication with God grant Baruch the wisdom and knowledge typical of a visionary seer and apocalyptic teacher. 2 Baruch places clear emphasis on the latter role: it is of crucial importance that the followers listen to Baruch’s instruction and learn to live according to God’s law. The knowledge they gain from the instruction is vital. It is the remedy for surviving the hardships of the end time, a guarantee of victory in the imminent Messianic era, and, finally, the ticket to the post-judgment heavenly, other, world. Several scholars have interpreted 2 Bar. 47–52 (alternatively 47–51) as one of 2 Baruch’s constituent episodes.6 Sitting under an oak tree at Hebron (47:1), Baruch prays to God, invoking God’s role as almighty Creator (48:2–24), asking him to reveal the course of the remaining periods. The section that follows, 48:31–51:16, describes God’s revelation of things to come. I have isolated three periods in 2 Baruch’s description of divine revelation of history. The first period, described in 48:31–36, presents the first phase: the imminent end time. This period is presented as the perverted and abnormal period of wicked reign in the corruptible world. The end time is a period of affliction for the righteous, but a time of glory and peace for the wicked (48:31–36).

5.  For a detailed presentation of manuscript history, languages, date, and provenance of 2 Baruch, cf. Whitters 2003, 1–34. 6.  Cf. Murphy 1985, 21; Lied 2009; also Gurtner 2009, 20–24.

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The second period, 48:37–51:6, is presented as a time of transition. This part of God’s revelation focuses on the relationship between the wicked and the righteous as the tide is about to turn in favor of the righteous. In 50:1–51:6, the glorious destiny of the righteous, in comparison with the wicked, is delineated by God, from the general resurrection of the dead, to the judgment and the respective transformations of the righteous and the wicked, until the destruction of the wicked is final in 51:6. 2 Baruch 51:7–13 contains the third and last part of God’s revelation. This passage describes the continuing transformation and elevation of the righteous after the final defeat of the wicked; a transformation that continues until the generations of the righteous gather in the proximity of the throne of God (51:13). This essay will concentrate on the third part – transformation and elevation of the righteous – in 2 Bar. 51:1–13. Thus the essay deals with 51:1–6, presented here as the last part of the second period of God’s revelation, and 51:7–13, described as the third and culminating phase of the story of Israel’s redemption. 2. Transformation and Correspondence: Transformations of Human Form in 2 Baruch 51:1–13 A detailed study of transformation and spatiality in 2 Bar. 51:1–13 starts with a closer look at the passage in question: And it will happen when that appointed day has passed on, then after that the [elevated] pride of those found guilty will soon be transformed, and also the glory of those found righteous. For the shape of those who now act wickedly will be made more evil than it is, like those who endure torment. Also the glory of those who now have been declared justified in my law, those in whom there has been understanding in their lives, those who planted the root of wisdom in their heart, then their splendor will be glorified in transformations, and the shape of their faces will be changed in the light of their beauty, to enable them to acquire and receive the world that does not die, which then is promised to them. For because of this especially they will groan, those who come then, that they rejected my law, and stopped their ears so that they did not hear wisdom and did not receive understanding when they then see those over whom they now are exalted, who will then be more exalted and glorified than they, and these and those will be transformed, these into the splendor of angels, and those will waste away especially in amazement over the visions and the sight of the shapes. For first they will see, and afterwards they will be punished. (51:1–6)7

7.  Discussion in Lied 2009, 314.



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For those who have been delivered by their deeds, and for whom the law is now a hope, and understanding an expectation, and wisdom a firmness, wonders will appear to them in their time. For they will see that world which is invisible to them now, and they will see the time which is now hidden from them. And again time will not make them old. For they will dwell in the heights of that world, and they will be like angels, and they will equal stars. And they will be transformed into every form they desire, from fairness to beauty, and from light into the splendor of glory. For the extents of paradise will spread out before them, and to them will be shown the fairness of the greatness of the living beings under the throne, and the hosts of the angels, who are now held by my word, so that they do not show themselves, and who are held fast by the command so that they will stand in their places until their advent has arrived. And then the excellence in the righteous will become greater than in the angels. For the first will receive the last, the ones they were expecting, and the last those they used to hear had passed away. (51:7–13)8

As mentioned in the introduction, these passages provide a thorough description of the transformation process that starts after God’s judgment (50:4). 51:1–6 says that the forms of both the wicked and the righteous, visible to the onlooker according to their appearance, are transformed after the judgment. Whereas the wicked soon go away to be punished (51:6), the righteous continue to transform as they enter the heavenly world. As several scholars have already pointed out, it is likely that 2 Baruch portrays human appearances that match their spatial environments.9 In addition, as some scholars have also proposed, human forms depend on their spatial environment (Charles 1896, 89, 91). There is no reason to doubt that these observations are correct. 51:1–13 clearly suggests that human anthropology is both affected by, and related to, the spatial environment: whereas the guilty will take on more evil shapes to identify with the torment they are about to experience, 51:3 explicitly says that the form and appearance of the righteous are transformed “to enable them” (dnškḥwn) to receive the undying world. In other words, this passage of 2 Baruch not only suggests that there should be correspondence between human form and the spatial environment,10 but also explains the logic of transformation and correspondence: human form will be transformed by God to enable humans to enter into a new space. Since God has promised 8.  Discussion in Lied 2008, 287. 9.  Charles 1896, 81–83; Harnisch 1969, 228; Stemberger 1972, 89, 91; Seim 2001, 94; Lied 2008, 265, 287–88. 10.  The suggestion is not unique. The claim of correspondence made in 51:3 agrees with the descriptions of the relationships between earthly bodies and an earthly environment in 49:3.

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the righteous the world that does not die, their form must be transformed into a shape that allows them to dwell in this new environment (51:3). The identification of this logic of transformation and correspondence between human form and spatial environment is crucial both because it provides us with a more precise idea about the relationship between human appearances and their spatial environment and because it allows us to undertake a much more detailed study of the heavenly spaces described in 51:1–13. 3. The Transformation of the Righteous: Steps of Transformation and Spatial Exaltation It is evident that 2 Bar. 51 describes more than one transformation of the shapes of the righteous. In fact, 2 Bar. 51:1–6 and 7–13 together describe an ongoing process of transformation. Let us first take a closer look at the nuances of the subsequent transformations that take place in the appearance of the righteous after judgment, and how these transformations correlate to the spaces the righteous enter into. A first transformation is suggested in 51:1–6 (quoted above). As noted already, 51:3 says that the appearance of the righteous has to be glorified and made more intensely beautiful after judgment, to enable them to acquire the promised world, the world that does not die. According to 51:5, the righteous will be transformed into the splendor of angels before the eyes of the wicked. At this point in the transformation process, the righteous are comparable to angels; 51:5 does not say that they are angels – they share the glory of the angels, or have a glory of the same sort and quality as the angels. It is likely that this transformation also involves an initial spatial transition, the righteous are now exalted (‘ttrymw) above the wicked. The Syriac lemma rwm has the root meaning “to become high” and bears spatial connotations. In the ethpa’al the Syriac word is often translated “to be lifted on high” or “to be lifted up” in English.11 Hence, the use of the lemma rwm implies that the righteous not only surpass the wicked in the sense that they now aspire to belong to a superior species, but also that their spatial position is loftier than the position of the wicked. Note that the passage does not tell us where the righteous are. The important point is that they are exalted spatially vis-à-vis the wicked. A second transformation of the form of the righteous takes place after the wicked have been removed, in order to be punished (51:6). According to 51:9, the righteous are now allowed to see the invisible world and the 11.  Smith 1999 [1902], 534–35.



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hidden time, that is, some of the “miracles” implied by 51:7. At this point “time will not make them old” (51:9),12 meaning that the righteous are no longer subject to time and the fundamental ageing process of the earthly body. They are now similar to (dm’) angels and comparable to (pḥm) stars in the sense that they also have a constitution that enables them to remain in the heavenly spaces.13 According to 51:10, this qualifies the righteous to dwell (‘mr) in the heights. The righteous are not portrayed as mere visitors in the heavenly world, nor is their presence there a future promise; they are now described as residents of the heights. The transformation process does not end in 51:10, however. 2 Baruch 51:10–12 suggests a third transformation: the righteous will become more glorious than the angels. At this point they can transform into “any form they like” (51:10). They transform from fairness to beauty and from light to the splendor of glory. 2 Baruch 51:10 may already suggest that the righteous excel the angels, although this is not yet an explicit claim. The extents of paradise then spread out before the righteous, and they see the population under the throne (51:11). According to 2 Bar. 21 and 48, the population of the heights consists of hosts of angels and stars. In addition, there are “holy beings” and “living beings” there. The holy beings of 21:6 and the living beings of 51:11 are dwelling under the throne, and the hosts of angels and stars are standing under the throne in accordance with their ordered positions (48:10; 51:11). The transformational potential suggested by the choice of words in 51:10–11 – the possibility that the righteous may already be more glorious than the angels and the stars – is confirmed in 51:12. When paradise and the population under the throne have been seen by them, “…the excellence in the righteous will become greater than in the angels.” Hence the righteous even outdo the angels in rank.14 The process of transformation of human form then finally comes to an end.15 Consequently, it is likely that 2 Bar. 51:1–13 describes three steps altogether in an ongoing process of transformation that enables the righteous to enter new spaces, or spheres. The first transformation concerns the relationship between the wicked and the righteous; the wicked, which used to suppress the righteous on earth, are now themselves suppressed by the righteous. This suppression also finds spatial expression: the wicked 12.  Note the use of the word “again” (twb) in 51:9. 13.  The idea that the righteous will be similar to angels and stars is a fairly common idea in this period. Cf., e.g., Himmelfarb 1993, 4, 61, 71, 114. Cf. Lied 2008, 288, for a detailed list of references. 14.  Note that 51:12 does not mention the other beings referred to in 51:11. 15.  Cf. further Sprinkle 2007.

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go to a place of destruction, whereas the righteous aspire to the undying world. In a second step, the righteous become similar to angels and stars and dwell in the heights. The third step involves a transformation that makes the righteous surpass even the angels. Paradise unfolds before the righteous, and they see the population under and around the throne of God. At this point, the righteous literally outshine the hosts of angels which stood, or stand,16 orderly under the throne. In accordance with the logic of correspondence between human form and spatial environment suggested in 51:3, it is likely that the righteous enter into the ordered hierarchy of beings in the heights, and locate themselves spatially above other beings, at least over the angels or some ranks of angels, under the throne of God.17 This process of transformation can be interpreted as subsequent steps of transformation and spatial exaltation, possibly into higher spheres of the heavenly world. Unlike some other contemporary texts, 2 Baruch never explicitly says that the heavenly world consists of separate spheres inhabited by differing beings. However, the descriptions of 51:1–13 clearly imply a social and topographical hierarchy in the heavenly world.18 Possibly, the depiction also suggests that different categories of beings, defined by different form and glory, inhabit different heavenly spaces: each category is likely to have its own assigned place.19 Since the glory of the righteous is even more splendid than the glory of the angels, it is possible that 2 Baruch assumes the existence of an extraangelic space below the throne, one reserved for the righteous.

16.  There are (at least) two possible readings of 51:11, depending on how we interpret “until their advent has arrived.” Is this the advent of the angels, or is it the advent of the righteous? The former interpretation makes 51:11 into a description of the order of the angels until they join in the eschatological judgment. The latter interpretation would favor the notion that the angels stand orderly in their places at the advent of the righteous. 17.  This claim has some parallels in contemporaneous literature, e.g., The Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah 8–9, but is not very common. Cf. further Bogaert 1969, 2:95. 18.  Some scholars have suggested that the heavenly world in 2 Bar. 51 is modeled as a sacred mountain, with a summit and slopes. This suggestion cannot be affirmed, but points to the implicit spatial hierarchy in 51:1–13 (Bogaert 1969, 2:94). 19.  The idea that different heavenly bodies have different glory, or doxa, is well documented (cf., e.g., 1 Cor 15), and the notion that each category of beings belongs to a separate space is inherent in the idea of an orderly creation (the taxonomy of the created world).



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4. Transition, Transformation and Spatiality In the above discussion, the transformation of the righteous has been my main focus. We have seen that human form has to change to enable a transition into new spaces. Hence, it may seem that whereas human form is changeable, space is stable and fixed in 2 Bar. 51. It is time now to answer the second set of questions posed in the introduction of this essay: What happened to heaven when the righteous finally assembled in 51:12–13? Are heavenly spaces transformed, or are these spaces stable and immune to processes of transformation? a. Heavenly Spaces in 2 Baruch In order to answer these questions, an initial look at 2 Baruch’s general description of heavenly spaces is warranted. In most cases, 2 Baruch gives no detailed description of the heavenly other world in terms of landscapes or territories. This comes as no surprise though, since 2 Baruch seldom provides detailed descriptions of the landscapes or territorial qualities of the places mentioned in the work. What 2 Baruch does indeed confirm is that there is another world in the heights, during the course of the corruptible world (4:1–6). Although generally invisible the other world is definitely there. It can only be seen by exceptional visionaries, and primarily by Baruch. The heavenly world is described in two distinct, yet related, ways in the visions of Baruch. First, the other world is most commonly described as the place where God and his hosts dwell. In chs. 21 and 48, mentioned above, the focal point of the heights is undoubtedly God’s throne, whereas the population there is described as the surroundings of the throne, positioned under and around it. 2 Baruch’s heavenly world is probably a hierarchically ordered space, with God’s throne on top, and the population of the heights in their places. In this sense, it is the position of the hosts of heavenly beings in relation to the throne and to each other that provides the reader of 2 Baruch with a sense of a heavenly topography, and which enables us to grasp this as a place. From this perspective, the transformation and advent of the righteous may affect the spatial topography of the heavenly world. 2 Baruch 51:7–13 describes a transformation of heavenly topography, in the sense that the righteous enter into a place in the closest proximity to the throne of God. Hence, the assembly of the righteous affects the order of the social hierarchy in the sense that it adds to, or changes, the layout of the socially defined topography of the heavenly world.

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This change can also be described in terms of a change of function. In the period before God’s judgment, the heavenly spaces are best understood as a scene prepared for the judgment, with the angels standing in the proper places awaiting this eschatological event (21:6; 48:10; 51:11). When God’s judgment has been fulfilled and those who are found righteous enter heavenly realms, heavenly spaces are transformed into a place of redemption and assembly for the righteous. Secondly, 2 Bar. 4:1–6 provides us with some other information about the heavenly world. This passage describes the other world as a place that contains a sanctuary with the tabernacle and all its vessels, a city and paradise. Scholars have commonly understood this as a description of the heavenly model or counterpart to the earthly copy. The idea of heavenly model and earthly copy was widespread in the first centuries of the Common Era.20 Some interpreters have already suggested that these two ways of describing heavenly spaces relate to each other: the layout of the sanctuary, the city and paradise may also be described as the layout of the throne, the heavenly population and paradise.21 In this sense, the description of the heavenly hierarchy is also a description of the heavenly city. I find this to be a likely interpretation, since references to city structure and city dwellers seem to overlap on several occasions in 2 Baruch, and since the text in general seems to describe spaces by means of their inhabitants.22 This interpretation implies that the righteous at the time of Baruch leave the fallen temple and a city in ruins on earth in favor of a glorious sanctuary and city in the heights. It is tempting to suggest that the righteous are ascribed cultic roles in the heavenly world. 2 Baruch 6:7–9 describes the preservation and the retrieval of the temple vessels in resurrection language. 10:18–19 describes the transfer of cultic objects and the keys of the sanctuary to heaven, and 4:1–6 says that there is a sanctuary in heaven. However, since 51:12–13 is not explicit, but rather focuses on the aspect of ingathering, this interpretation remains speculative. 5. Fulfilling the Promises Another tendency in 51:1–13 also deserves mention in this context. 51:2–3, quoted above, describes the transformation of the wicked and 20.  Cf. e.g., Nir 2003, 19–78. See also Økland’s chapter in this volume. 21.  Cf. Murphy 1985, 89. 22.  Cf. Lied 2008, 40, 132–46, 250–51.



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the righteous as an intensification of something that they already were before God’s judgment. The wicked will become more evil than they were, whereas the splendor that already characterizes the righteous will be glorified.23 The evil of the wicked and the splendor of the righteous are not new (49:2), but the transformations that take place after God’s judgment make these qualities dominant in their appearances. Transformations reveal and intensify what is already there.24 In a similar manner, the advent of the righteous into heavenly spheres can be understood as an appropriation of something that already belongs to them. According to 51:3, the world that does not die is promised to the righteous. When the righteous finally arrive, promises are fulfilled. Hence, the righteous are not foreign to the heavenly world, nor is their entry an intrusion. The righteous enter the place that has been kept for them, and which is rightfully theirs. 6. The Context of Instruction: From Heard to Seen This brings me to my final point: at the advent into the heights, the heavenly world is transformed from a place the righteous can only hear about into a place they can see. Why is this relevant? Promises are heard. The context of 51:1–13 in 2 Baruch is a context of vision and instruction. 51:1–13 is part of Baruch’s revelatory dialogue with God concerning the events that will take place after judgment. However, as 48:48–50 explicitly says, the passage must also be understood as an integral part of Baruch’s instruction of his followers in 48:48–51:16.25 So, Baruch, the exemplary apocalyptic visionary who has seen and received knowledge from God, tells his followers what they cannot yet see, but which will become visible to them on that day. In the context of instruction in the end time, Baruch’s followers can only hear about that promised world, but in the time described in 51:7–13, that world will also be seen by them. It is crucial, therefore, to note that 51:1–13 describes the events and transformations in the post-judgment era in terms of visible categories, and favors a language of seeing;26 as is evident in the description of the transformations that affect mankind after judgment, for instance. The 23.  Cf. 49:2. 24.  Lied 2009, 328. 25.  In 48:48–50 Baruch interrupts the flow of the conversation, introducing the description of the future destiny of the righteous. 26.  Cf. Volz 1966, 46.

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Syriac word zyw’, “splendor,” in 51:3 and 51:5 is a light-category,27 as is nwhr’, “light” (51:3). And according to 51:3, the shape of the faces of the righteous will be changed into “the light of their beauty” (51:3). Likewise, the wicked will “see” the righteous and waste away in the amazement from “the visions” and “the sight” (51:5). In a similar manner, the heavenly world in 51:7–13 is presented as something the righteous see: 51:7 claims that “wonders” will be seen by them. The wonders, namely the heavenly spheres and beings described in the rest of the passage, are all “seen” by the righteous or “shown” to them.28 The righteous will see that world, which is now invisible to them, and the time that was hidden will be seen by them (51:8). The extents of paradise are to be spread out before the righteous, and they will be shown the fairness of the greatness of the beings under the throne, and the hosts of angels. In fact, when we translate the Syriac of the passage with an eye to detail, the extents of paradise are literally said to unfold “in their presence” (51:11), and the heavenly world appears as a relevant entity in the story only when it is perceived as a place in their act of seeing (51:8). Thus, even though the heavenly world definitely existed before the righteous saw it, that world was hidden and invisible to the righteous until that point – it has been a promise. The visibility changes the function of the heavenly world. This heavenly other world changes from a reality that can be seen only by the few29 into a reality graspable as a visible space to all the righteous. In this sense, then, the entry of the righteous into the other world transforms that space into a visible reality for them. It changes from a place one can only hear about, is promised and talked about, into a seen and graspable reality. Hence, the passage describes a very relevant transformation of the heavenly world: the heavenly world is transformed into a place accessible to the righteous, from a promised world they can only hear about, to a world they can see and that spreads out in their presence. The double time-reference of 51:1–13 should never be forgotten, however; this passage is Baruch’s vision of what will happen after judgment, and simultaneously part of his instruction to his followers: this is what he tells his followers that they will at one time see. This means that it is not only a description of what will happen one day, it is also a description of what Baruch can see as a fact belonging to the parallel reality of the other world which is already there, yet which is not 27.  Smith 2006 [1879–1901], 116–17. Cf. 2 Chr 5:14; Job 40:10; Ps 21:5. 28.  The passage uses forms of the root ḥz,” “to see,” throughout, except for in 51:11 when ḥw,” “to show,” is used. 29.  I.e. Baruch, Moses, Abraham, and Adam (2 Bar. 4).



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graspable until a certain point. As Christoph Münchow has suggested, the apocalyptic visions of 2 Baruch, such as this, serve the purpose of encouraging people to live life here and now in accordance with the law (Münchow 1981, 228–29). As 51:7 points out, the ability to see and be part of the miracles described in 51:7–13 depends on the choice here and now to live according to the will of God. Thus, Baruch’s vision and instruction in 51:1–13 is also a didactic device and a means to make people listen (hear) on earth. The heavenly realm is set for judgment: those who live according to the law and listen to instruction will be among those who will see the heavenly world transform into a place of redemption. 7. Thinking Redemption Spatially: Heavenly Transformations It is reasonable to say that 2 Baruch deals with issues of transformation to a relatively large extent. It can be useful to regard descriptions of transformation as one of the answers 2 Baruch provides for challenges posed by major change. Indeed, the narrative story world of 2 Baruch is set in a time characterized by change. The frame story puts the reader of the text in medias res: when we meet Baruch and his group of followers the destruction of the temple is only a couple of hours away, and the few righteous that are left in the city of Jerusalem are ordered to leave for the nearby wilderness (2 Bar. 1–91). This narrative story world facilitates the ongoing deliberation regarding how to meet change in other sections and episodes of 2 Baruch. In fact, in the prayers, laments, visions, dialogues and speeches of the work, transformation is one of the major topics. When the text is read as a compositional whole, it is evident that the fall of the temple sets off a series of three mutually related transformation processes.30 As a response to the loss of the temple, the world enters into the chaos of end time (e.g. 10:5–11:7). This chaos is then overcome by the advent of the Messiah and his intermediate reign (e.g. 29:1–30:5), before a third change takes place – the destruction of the current world order and the time of transfer of the righteous to the other world (51:1). These three major changes concern crucial events and their effect on time. In other words, these are events that inaugurate new time periods. However, descriptions of transformation in 2 Baruch are not limited to descriptions of time; these crucial events affect space as well as time. 30.  This logic is described at least three times in different language and imagery, in three different apocalyptic sections (26:1–33:3; 34:1–46:7; 53:1–77:10). The logic is present also in 47:1–52:7.

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For instance, as the temple becomes [like] a wilderness at the destruction (10:3), the once fruitful earth becomes chaotic, dry, and uninhabitable as end time sets in (10:10–11; 77:14). The earth is transformed again as the Messianic era ensures supernaturally lush landscapes (29:1–8). As these examples show, changes in time in 2 Baruch involve systematic transformation of space and vice versa. But how did the last major change in the text, the transfer of the righteous into the heavenly world, affect space? It is time to sum up the findings of this essay. I have identified three ways of expressing spatial transformation in 2 Bar. 51:1–13. First, the assembly of the righteous under God’s throne can be interpreted as a change in the order of the heavenly hierarchies. Since the topography of heaven is frequently described in terms of the interrelated positions of the various hosts of angels and holy beings vis-à-vis God’s throne, the assembly of the righteous in the immediate surroundings of the throne implies a transformation of the spatiality of heaven. Second, the function of the heavenly world in the story of the redemption of the righteous is changed. At the advent of the righteous, the heavenly world is transformed from a scene prepared for judgment into a place of redemption and assembly of the righteous. Thus, the heavenly world is clearly transformed in the sense that its function as a stage in the plot of 2 Baruch is changed. Third, when the righteous see the heavenly world in 51:7–13 it becomes a reality to them. Heavenly spaces are transformed from a place of promise (51:3) to a graspable reality. In this regard the transformation of heavenly spaces renders possible the final redemption at which 2 Baruch aims. Works Cited Bogaert, P.-M. 1969. Apocalypse de Baruch, Introduction, Traduction du Syriaque et Commentaire. 2 vols. Sources Chrétiennes 144–145. Paris: Cerf. Charles, R. H. 1896. The Apocalypse of Baruch, Translated from the Syriac, Chapters I– LXXVII from the Sixth Cent. MS in the Ambrosian Library of Milan, and Chapters LXXVIII–LXXXVII – the Epistle of Baruch – from a New and Critical Text Based on Ten MSS and Published Herewith. Edited, with Introduction, Notes, and Indices. London: Black. Gunn, D. M., and P. M. McNutt, eds. 2002. “Imagining” Biblical Worlds: Studies in Spatial, Social and Historical Constructs in Honor of James W. Flanagan. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic. Gurtner, D. M. 2009. Second Baruch: A Critical Edition of the Syriac Text. With Greek and Latin Fragments, English Translation, Introduction and Concordances. Jewish and Christian Text Series. New York: T&T Clark International.



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Harnisch, W. 1969. Verhängnis und Verheissung der Geschichte. Untersuchungen zum Zeit- und Geschichtsverständnis im 4. Buch Esra und in der syr. Baruchapokalypse. FRLANT 97. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1969. Harvey, D. 1989. The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Oxford: Blackwell. Himmelfarb, M. 1993. Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses. New York: Oxford University Press. Lefebvre, H. 1974. La production de l’espace. Paris: Anthropos. ———. 1991. The Production of Space. Translated by D. Nicholson-Smith. Oxford: Blackwell. Lied, L. I. 2008. The Other Lands of Israel: Imaginations of the Land in 2 Baruch. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 129. Leiden: Brill. ———. 2009. Recognizing the Righteous Remnant? Resurrection, Recognition and Transformation in 2 Baruch 49–51. Pages 311–35 in Metamorphoses: Resurrection, Body and Transformative Practices in Early Christianity. Edited by T. K. Seim and J. Økland. Ekstasis 1. Berlin: de Gruyter. Massey, D. 1994. Space, Place and Gender. Cambridge: Polity. Moxnes, H. 2003. Putting Jesus in His Place: A Radical Vision of Household and Kingdom. Louisville: Westminster John Knox. Münchow, C. 1981. Ethik und Eschatologie. Ein Beitrag zum Verständnis der frühjüdischen Apokalyptik mit einem Ausblick auf das Neue Testament. Göttingen. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Murphy, F. J. 1985. The Structure and Meaning of Second Baruch. SBLDS 78. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Nir, R. 2003. The Destruction of Jerusalem and the Idea of Redemption in the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch. Society of Biblical Literature Early Judaism and Its Literature 20. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Økland, J. 2004. Women in Their Place: Paul and the Corinthian Discourse of Gender and Sanctuary Space. JSNTSup 269. London: T&T Clark International. Seim, T. K. 2001. Udødelig og kjønnsløs? Oppstandelseskroppen i lys av Lukas. Pages 80–98 in Kropp og oppstandelse. Edited by T. Engberg-Pedersen and I. S. Gilhus. Oslo: Pax. Smith, J. P. 1999. A Compendious Syriac Dictionary: Founded Upon the Thesaurus Syriacus of R. Payne Smith. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1902. Repr., Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock. Smith, R. P. 2006. Thesaurus Syriacus. 2 vols. Oxford, 1879–1901. Repr., 4. Nachdruck der Ausgabe Oxford 1879–1901. Hildesheim: Georg Olms. Soja, E. W. 1996. Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Sprinkle, P. 2007. The Afterlife in Romans: Understanding Paul’s Glory Motif in Light of the Apocalypse of Moses and 2 Baruch. Pages 201–33 in Lebendige Hoffnung– ewiger Tod? Jenseitsvorstellungen im Hellenismus, Judentum und Christentum. Edited by M. Lang and M. Labhan. Arbeiten zur Bibel und ihrer Geschichte 24. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt. Stemberger, G. 1972. Der Leib der Auferstehung. Studien zur Anthropologie und Eschatologie des palästinischen Judentums im neutestamentlichen Zeitalter (ca. 170 v. Chr–100 n. Chr). Analecta Biblica 56. Rome: Biblical Institute.

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Volz, P. 1966. Eschatologie der jüdischen Gemeinde im neutestamentlichen Zeitalter. Nach den Quellen der rabbinischen, apokalyptischen und apokryphen Literatur. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1934. Repr. Hildesheim: Georg Olms. Whitters, M. 2003. The Epistle of Second Baruch: A Study of Form and Message. LSTS 42. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic.

D eath , B urial , and S acred S pace in the T emple S croll Nóra Dávid

‫ולוא תטמאו את ארצכמה‬ 11QTa XLVIII, 10–11

The main problem regarding research on the topic of death and burial in Qumran is that the two main types of sources are both problematic and difficult to interpret. Initially, it seems that the archaeological evidence tells us a lot, but we cannot draw significant conclusions in many respects on the basis of that evidence owing to the small amount of material available: only approximately 4.5% of the tombs have been excavated up to the present day.1 Secondly, the Dead Sea Scrolls themselves tell us very little about death and burial. Death and afterlife are mentioned in some of the scrolls,2 but the texts are often metaphorical and most probably, in their real meaning, have nothing to do with the death or burial of anyone actually from the community. The only practical aspect discussed in some scrolls in the field of thanatology is the impurity caused by the corpse. In the Qumran scrolls, the corpse is represented as the highest source of impurity. As in later Jewish tradition also, it is referred to as “the father of uncleanness,” or, as Rashi states, “father of the fathers of uncleanness.”3 As is well represented in several scrolls, purity was a central concern for the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls. This emphasis is also supported by the descriptions of Flavius Josephus (e.g. War 2.129–31). Among the scrolls dealing with the cult and purity, the most important is the Temple Scroll. This is the document from the Qumran caves which contains the most information about death and burial in practice. However, one has to be careful when conducting an examination based on the relation of 1.  The number of excavated tombs is disputed; here I relate the results of Brian Schultz: out of the ca. 1200 tombs, 56 were excavated by archaeologists (Schultz 2006, 202). 2.  E.g., in the Hodayot, see the works of Émile Puech (1993, 1998). 3.  See Rashi on b. Pesaḥ. 14b and 17a.

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the Temple Scroll (11QTa, henceforth Temple Scroll) to the Qumran community. As has been demonstrated by Lawrence H. Schiffman, not only the possible date, but also many peculiarities of the text4 suggest that this document was not authored by the members of the Qumran sect living at the site.5 M. O. Wise suggests 150 B.C.E. as the date of origin, and proposes the author to be a “member of the priestly elite connected with the Temple at Jerusalem” (Wise 1990, 194).6 Beyond this, what we do know with certainty is that the community living at Qumran read this text; it was important for them, and could thus influence both their belief and practice. As has already been proven by several scholars (e.g. Y. Yadin, L. H. Schiffman), the main part of the cultic and purity rules of the Temple Scroll is built up around a concentric system, with the Temple in the middle (Schiffman 1993; Yadin 1983, 1:278). This paper aims to examine how the author of the Temple Scroll handled corpse impurity, trying to set it apart from the episodes of human life. As we will see, the description gives rise to another system of concentric circles: progressing from the cemetery, through the houses, and towards the human body itself. 1. Pure/Impure and Holy/Profane in Early Judaism and in Qumran Purity in Early Judaism does not only imply physical purity but moral integrity too. This status is required by the chosen nation in order “for God’s holiness to reside among and protect them” (Harrington 2004, 8). The people of Israel had to maintain a certain level of purity not only in the Jerusalem Temple (with the holiest place, the Holy of the Holies within), but also in their homes. Abiding by the purity rules laid down in the books of Numbers and Deuteronomy was not a realistic duty for all people of Israel; accordingly, the higher the standing of someone in the religious hierarchy, the more purity rules he/she would be compelled to observe. In other respects, the members of the Qumran community applied purity rules with the maximal strictness. For example, they apply both the purification rules addressed to all Israel in Lev 11–15, and the rules for eating sacrificial portions in Lev 7:19–21 to themselves. Based on these, 4.  E.g. 11QTa XX, 10, 18. 5.  See the valuable volume, including several studies from L. H. Schiffman attesting to his view about the dating and provenance of the scroll, edited by García Martínez (2008); e.g., the chapter “The Law of the Temple Scroll and Its Provenance,” 8–10. 6.  For the detailed argument of Wise about the date and the author, see the chapter “The Redactor and a Date for the Temple Scroll” (Wise 1990, 154–94).



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the members of the community all bathe before eating any food. In many cases, they extend the priestly regulations to the entire people (Alon 1957, 149; Yadin 1983, 1:277; García Martínez 1995, 146). According to David P. Wright, an analysis of the chains of uncleanness reveals two different types of impurities: communicable, those that can pollute other profane (i.e. non-holy) persons and objects; and non-communicable, those that cannot pollute the profane (Wright 1995, 738). These two types of impurities are treated differently in their relation to the non-holy sphere: While the communicable are excluded from, or restricted in, the profane sphere, non-communicable impurities are not. If we apply this basic theory to the purity system of the Temple Scroll, the border can be drawn at the outermost part of the “City of the Sanctuary,” but, as we will see below, the issues are not so easy to determine. The line between ritual and moral impurity is blurred, for example, when the respected elders of the community, situated at the high end of moral integrity, are those most susceptible to ritual impurity. 4Q512 29–32 VII, 8–21 contains a clear mixture of ritual and moral impurity concerns. Already from the earliest times, there were two different approaches to the pentateuchal laws of purity: these were applied either to the priests and the Temple, or to all of Israel, extending priestly holiness to the entire people. During the Second Temple period, both approaches had many adherents: the minimalist (whereby such laws applied only to the priests and the Temple) was dominant among the Sadducees, the maximalist (extending the priestly purity laws to all Israel) among the Essenes, and both can be observed among the notions of the Pharisees.7 “Purity” (‫ )טהרה‬has to be discussed in its relationship to “impurity” (‫ )טמאה‬and to the “holy” (‫)קדשה‬. ‫ טהרה‬is the reasonable and practical counterpart of ‫טמאה‬, while ‫ קדשה‬is something that is impossible without purity. As Hannah Harrington suggested: “[‫ ]טהרה‬is a state of being; it refers to the absence of impurity,” while holiness “is an active force, which comes from God, and can be defined loosely as divine energy” (Harrington 2004, 9). Furthermore, God, the most holy, can be approached only in the state of perfect purity, not only in the physical, but also in the moral sphere. This means that the total absence of sin, as one of the sources of impurity, is required: impurity can bring destruction to the community.8 Moreover, impurity prohibits individuals from the presence 7.  For a detailed analysis of the problem see Alon 1957, 1:148. 8.  Also the members violating the laws of the community become impure and are excluded from handling or eating the community’s pure food (1QS V, 14). See Harrington 2004, 27. For a detailed analysis of the relationship between sin and ritual impurity in Qumran, see Harrington 2000 and Klawans 2000, 48–52.

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of God.9 An important and frequent kind of impurity is that which is caused by illnesses; in which case, the fusion of moral and physical impurity can be observed in the notion that some illnesses (e.g. leprosy) are caused by evil spirits (4Q272 I, 1–16).10 The central dwelling place of God on Earth – the holiest place in Israel – is the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem Temple. As we will see below, this is the center of the concentric system of space and purity in the Temple Scroll. This place is not only the holiest, but also the most pure: it must be kept free from all impurities. Entering is only possible after purification (by means of water ablutions; the passage of time, and, in the most serious cases, blood ritual). According to the Torah, contamination from a corpse requires one week of separation and purification on the third and seventh days by ‫מי נדה‬, which is a mixture of the ashes of the red cow with red wool, hyssop, and water. The rules of the community state that purification is also necessary on the first day: the day of the contamination. According to Jacob Milgrom, the reason for this was that “the first day ablution is to allow the impurity bearer to remain in the city” (Milgrom 1978, 515). This is why the corpse-contaminated are not listed in the Temple Scroll XLVI, 16–18 among those quarantined or expelled from the city because of impurities, such as lepers, those afflicted by gonorrhea, and so on.11 But, in XLV, 17 – as we will see below – there is a clear ban on entering the city for anyone unclean through contact with the dead.12 Besides the impurity caused by a corpse in the Temple Scroll, three other main impurity sources are discussed: nocturnal emission, sexual intercourse, and menstruating women. If we go behind the general assumptions concerning the defiling nature of these, we can see connections between 9.  Biblical origin is represented in Num 19:20; Exod 19:10–11. Also the apocryphal literature reflects the notion that without ritual purity one’s prayer to God will not be accepted (T. Levi 2:3; L.A.E. 6–7; Sib. Or. 4:165–68). 10.  For a detailed examination of the topic see, e.g., Baumgarten 1990; Baumgarten and Davis 1995, 61. 11.  On the contrary, Josephus mentions the corpse contaminated among the defiled requiring isolation: Ant. 3.261–62. Also the Torah prescribes that he had to be expelled from the Temple city (Num 5:2–3). What could be the reason for the author of the Temple Scroll to differ in this respect? According to Milgrom, it could be the pĕs̆at reading of the biblical text, therefore the phrase “and then he may return to the camp” occurs in all other cases, but not when mentioning corpse contamination (Milgrom 1978, 515). 12.  This law is opposed to the laws of the Sages. See Yadin 1983, 1:293; quoting Maimonides, Code: Laws Concerning Entrance into the Sanctuary iii, 4.



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each of these and death: all three, in some way, bear the possibility of the loss of life. In the case of nocturnal emission, the loss of the fertilizing semen is unambiguous; indeed, the loss of semen itself means impurity; in the case of sexual intercourse, the possibility of loss is an open question. The blood of women’s menstruation also signals that in the given period, the ovum of the woman did not conceive: a potential life was not born.13 Based on these observations, we can say in summary that pure/ impure and holy/profane are important basic elements to the notion of the Qumran community (particularly if we accept the common view that the community considered itself to be holy), which gives form to many of their laws and everyday practice. The most dangerous and polluting of all is the impurity caused by the corpse. As we will see below, this fear of impurities had a substantial effect on the spatial theory of the community, one which is best represented in the much-quoted Temple Scroll. 2. Spatial Aspects of the Temple Scroll14 The Temple Scroll’s author’s theory about space is mostly formed by the means of holiness and purity, which – as we have seen –in many aspects exist together. And, as Jorunn Økland puts it: “sacredness is not an inherent quality of a place, but constantly created and recreated through human action” (Økland 2005, 155). Among these human actions with regard to the Temple, rituals have their central role: on the one hand, rituals are not only taking place inside them, but “as an activity that… defines it as such” (Økland 2005, 155). Sacred places are also separated from the world at large by the rituals – or as Mircea Eliade calls them, “gestures of approach” (Eliade 1958, 370–71) – that take place before entering them. In ancient Judaism, the purification rituals discussed above can be considered approaching elements. The more holy the place is, the more rituals have to be performed, and the more rules have to be abided by. When individuals are more distant from the holiest place, purity rules are less rigorous, and more impurities may take place.

13.  Regarding the polluting nature of menstrual blood and its effects on laws of religions of antiquity, see the collective volume of Kristin de Troyer et al. (2003); especially on blood and holiness see Kristin de Troyer’s and Mayer I. Gruber’s contributions to that volume. 14.  Here I would like to thank Professor Jorunn Økland for her helpful comments on my paper presented at the meeting of the EABS (European Association of Biblical Studies) in 2008, as well as her suggestions for further directions and guidance in the secondary literature.

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In the Temple Scroll, the sequence of the spaces discussed is the reverse of that which we read in the later, Rabbinic sources, the Talmud and the midrashim (Yadin 1983, 1:278): the central point of this circle is the Holy of the Holies in the Jerusalem Temple. The Temple is illustrated textually in columns III–XIII. Although the Temple described in the scroll has a lot in common with the Temple of Ezekiel, it is unique, and not identical with any of the descriptions or visions known before the discovery of the Temple Scroll. The Temple courts are dealt with in columns XXX–XLVI: around the Temple itself, three courts have to be built: the inner, middle, and outer. Furthermore, in order to ensure the purity of the Temple and the courts, the scroll ordains that an inner wall must be erected around the Temple, and a barrier (termed ‫ )חיל‬has to be erected around the outer court. The Temple Scroll clearly expresses the borders of each of the described areas; there is an evident emphasis on the entering and crossing of limited spaces, mainly in order to avoid defilement.15 The descriptions of the three courts are arranged according to the same pattern: after defining all the dimensions of the court and its furnishings, the author defines its purpose. In the case of the third court (being the outermost part of the Temple complex), the author of the scroll discusses a variety of matters concerning the purity of the Temple. The much-debated expression “the city of the Temple” (‫)עיר המקדש‬ appears for the first time in the scroll in XLV, 11–12. Yigael Yadin, in his edition of the Temple Scroll, collected all the expressions used in the text denoting the Temple and the Temple city. Some of these unambiguously mean the Temple itself, but the compound ones – mainly the ‫עיר‬ ‫המקדש‬ – are more problematic and require further examination. The two main directions of the interpretation of the term ‫ עיר המקדש‬are as follows: (1) the expression ‫ עיר המקדש‬refers only to the Temple complex;16 (2) it refers to the entire city of Jerusalem.17 The question is not as simple as it may seem, and the answer reached can have serious consequences: are blind men, couples having sexual 15.  On the importance of gates and walls, as complex buildings themselves, see Økland 2005, 161. 16.  The Temple and the three courts, separated by the fosse from other parts of the city; this view is supported by Louis Ginzberg, Baruch A. Levine, and Lawrence H. Schiffman. For detailed discussions see, e.g, Ginzberg 1976, 73–74; Levine 1978, 14–17; Schiffman 1994; 1996, 82–83; 1998; 17.  Supported by Jacob Milgrom and Yigael Yadin. For detailed discussions see, e.g, Milgrom 1994; Yadin 1983, 1:284–86, 308–11.



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inter­ course, individuals having discharge, and so forth banned from entering the whole of the city of Jerusalem, or only the Temple complex itself? It is easier to accept the prohibition of entrance to the city of those contaminated by impurities, such as lepers or those with corpse impurity, since people suffering from such severe illnesses and impurities were usually banished and prohibited from entering cities also in other cultural contexts. In the case of Jerusalem, those afflicted with contamination were relegated to installations especially built for them outside (to the east) of the city (Milgrom 1978, 513). The deeply analytical study of L. H. Schiffman draws on several other texts from Qumran to demonstrate his standpoint. Schiffman comes to the conclusion that not only the Temple Scroll, but also the legal terminology of the Zadokite Fragments, the 4QHistorical Text (4Q248) and the text of 4QMMT (4Q394–399), use the term in the same way, that is, to refer to Temple precincts (‫= עיר המקדש‬ temenos, Schiffman 1998, 109). The dispute is difficult to settle because of the well-established arguments on both sides,18 but, in my opinion, the translation of ‫ עיר המקדש‬as the temenos [the Temple complex] best combines the everyday life and practice of that time and the purity system of the Scroll. The first differentiation of other cities outside of the Temple city is in column XLVII, although only in relation to the purity of the Temple in this regard: they – “their/your cities” as opposed to the Temple city (Schiffman 1993, 407) – can never even compare to the holiness of Jerusalem. As an independently regulated spatial unit, the city appears in column XLVIII, 13–17, in the account of the separation of impure people. It is useful to compare the text in terms of bans entering the Temple city and other cities. Here we can see that the main difference is the mention of women in an impure state in the case of the latter (XLVIII, 16), although there is no mention with respect to the Temple city. This is most likely because, according to the thinking of the sect, there was no allowance for women to reside in the Temple city, so before coming there they must purify themselves at their own separate places in cases of discharge, menstrual uncleanness, and the period after childbirth. The scroll steps over the borders of cities with commands concerning uncleanness contracted from the dead in col. XLVIII. Here (10–13), we can read a warning against the defilement of the land: people have to have a separate place for the dead, for each four cities of the country.19 Later, 18.  For the arguments see the articles cited in nn. 15 and 16. 19.  L. H. Schiffman assumes that those burial fields had to be located “equidistantly between the four cities” (1993, 402; see also 405–6).

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the Temple Scroll raises the possibility of coming into contact with the bones of a dead man, perhaps a corpse, or a stray grave in an open field (lines 4–9). This may denote the existence of the so-called Qumran-type graves: simple shaft graves, without any notable markers on the surface (perhaps covered with heaps of stones, which are easily removed); otherwise, it would be difficult to imagine the case of a grave not being recognized. Another uncleanness is also discussed, as Jorunn Økland calls to our attention: the latrines, similar to the Holy of the Holies, are also constructed to be invisible, yet they are completely the opposite: “far away from the city and temple, the excrements go into the earth whereas the Holy of Holies rises high above it (XLVI:15)” (Økland 2005, 159). Here, we can observe an interesting transition in the spatial view of the scroll, which I will discuss below. Before doing so, I would like to mention a space that plays a special role in the purity system of the community: the war camp.20 The so-called War Scroll (1QM) mentions “holy angels” occurring there (1QM VII, 5–6) and prohibits people with physical defects from entering the camp, just as the Temple Scroll prohibits the same for the Temple city (XLV, 12–14). The fact that the purification ritual of the soldiers returning from battle before entering the camp is also partially preserved in the scroll (XIV, 2–3) supports the assumption that the war camp bears a similar holy status to the Holy City. 3. Sacred Space Formed by the Impurity of the Corpse Impurity caused by the corpse, as the most polluting thing on earth, is discussed separately in the Temple Scroll.21 When the author comes to this, he changes the direction of his approach and inverts it: and, from the farthest distance, advances to a new central point: the human being itself. As one would expect from the document, he meets this impurity on the outermost part (the land with the cemeteries) of the original concentric system centering around the Temple; it would be impossible to meet it before. The first determined unit in the city is the house, in which a man has died: it becomes unclean for seven days together with everything in it, and everyone entering it. All the parts of the house are ordered to be purified: 20.  War camps have rigorous purity rules (Deut 33:10–15; 1 Sam 21:4–7); Wright 1995, 730. 21.  For a detailed analysis of the impurity of the dead in the Temple Scroll, see Schiffman 1990.



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all vessels within, the floor, walls, and doors, along with the doorpost, threshold, and lintels.22 In column L, the shift to the open field – whereby the touching of any bone of a dead man or the corpse causes impurity – can best be understood in connection to the case of the pregnant woman, carrying a dead fetus in her womb. The woman’s body is considered to be a grave, and she is understood to carry the same pollution as a corpse (lines 10–19).23 This law is entirely different from the later Mishnaic law (m. Ḥul. IV:3), where the mother stays clean and only the midwife touching the fetus becomes impure. The development of the law is certainly interesting in this case; later in the Rabbinic Sifre to Numbers (Num 19:16; Horovitz 127), and more clearly in b. Ḥul. 72a, the case of the dead fetus is connected to Num 19:13–16 (v. 16: “Whoever in the open field touches one who has been killed by a sword, or who has died naturally, or a human bone, or a grave, shall be unclean for seven days”). The biblical term “open field” refers to the fetus being outside of its mother and imparting impurity. The Qumran community – as in other cases as well – understood the Torah in a stricter way, and saw the mother as impure; moreover, she defiles even the house in which she resides. After this closed unit, corpse impurity appears once more in the scroll: in column LXIV. The man who betrays his nation and is guilty of a capital crime should be hung from a tree, but his body should be buried in order not to “defile the land, which I [God] give you for an inheritance” (col. LXIV, 11–13, cf. Deut 21:22–23). The principles in the scroll which best sum up the basic notions of the community in relation to corpse impurity and space are found in the two sentences framing the passage relating corpse impurity: “you shall not defile your land” (col. XLVIII, 10–11) and “they shall be holy” (lines 9–10). The integrity and sanctity of the land, conferred upon the chosen nation, and the achievement of the holy state, which is the only deserved condition of existence, are the prime movers of the whole purity system of the scroll. This is well demonstrated by the two sets of concentric 22.  In Rabbinic law, only a tent is susceptible to pollution (based on Num 19:14, 18). Maimonides, in discussing the tent polluted by the corpse, outlines, that “needless to say, if it is a building, it is not susceptible to uncleanness” (Maimonides, Laws Concerning Corpse Uncleanness V.12). See Yadin 1983, 1:325–26; Broshi 2006, 469. L. H. Schiffman questions this statement, assigning it to R. Akiva alone, it having then been adopted by the author of the Temple Scroll. See Schiffman 1990, 139–40. 23.  Yadin 1983, 1:336–38, also renders a house impure, like a dead body. Schiffman 1990, 150–51.

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circles discussed above, where the related corpse impurity is a reversal of the basic principle: it proceeds from the more distant (the land outside of cities) to the closer (to the human body itself). 4. Conclusions The author of the Temple Scroll not only placed the dead and the impurity caused by a corpse into the system of the scroll, but also created a similar system in order to delimit it. As we saw, the author excludes the non-living from the Temple and together with sin and impurity rules out all the bounds of humanity from the proximity of God’s existence. Sacred space is formed by the exclusion of certain things that are considered to be polluting. Reading the Dead Sea Scrolls, we see that the community considered itself as a type of “temple,” or the “holy camp” (this is why, for example, the candidates of the community were not allowed to eat from the food of the rest), and therefore as holy in some way. On the basis of this, and the system of sacred space in Qumran which we have discussed, the following questions emerge: Did the community consider itself so holy that birth and death were not allowed – at least theoretically – to take place there? Could this be the reason why they did not write about these two important episodes of human life in their scrolls? Maybe this is the reason why the cemetery is not mentioned at all: the author did not want to connect it to the “holy community.” Certainly, we cannot provide the proper answers to these questions, but the data discussed here may help to open up a new direction in the approach of research into the unique cemetery layout and burial method practiced by the Qumran community, and the ideas of sacredness and space behind them. Works Cited Alon, G. 1957. Studies in Jewish History. 2 vols. Tel Aviv: Hakibutz Hameuchad (Hebrew). Baumgarten, J. M. 1990. The 4 Q Zadokite Fragments on Skin Disease. Journal of Jewish Studies 41: 153–65. Baumgarten, J. M., and M. Davis. 1995. Cave IV, V, VI Fragments Related to the Damascus Document. Pages 59–79 in The Dead Sea Scrolls II: Damascus Document, War Scroll, and Related Documents: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translations. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Louisville: Westminster John Knox. Broshi, M. 2006. Qumran and the Essenes: Purity and Pollution, Six Categories. Römische Quartalschrift für christliche Altertumskunde und Kirchengeschichte 87: 463–74. De Troyer, K. 2003. A Threat to Holiness or Toward (Another) Holiness? In de Troyer et al. 2003, 45–64. De Troyer, K. et al., eds. 2003. Wholly Woman, Holy Blood. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International.



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Eliade, M. 1958. Patterns in Comparative Religion. London: Sheed & Ward. García Martínez, F. 1995. The Problem of Purity: The Qumran Solution. Pages 139–57 in The People of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their Writings, Beliefs, and practices. Edited by F. García Martínez and J. T. Barrera. Leiden: Brill. ———. ed. 2008. The Courtyards of the House of the Lord: Studies on the Temple Scroll. Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 75. Leiden: Brill. Ginzberg, L. 1976. An Unknown Jewish Sect. New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Gruber, M. I. 2003. Purity and Impurity in Halakic Sources and Qumran Law. In de Troyer et al. 2003, 65–76. Harrington, H. K. 2000. The Nature of Impurity at Qumran. Pages 610–16 in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Fifty Years After Their Discovery, 1947–1997. Edited by L. H. Schiffman, E. Tov, and J. C. VanderKam. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society. ———. 2004. The Purity Texts. Companion to the Qumran Scrolls 5. London: T&T Clark International. Horovitz, S. 1917. Sifre de-be Rav: Maḥberet Rishonah: Sifre ̔al Sefer Be-Midbar ve-Sifre Zuṭa. Leipzig: Fock. Kazen, T. 2010. Issues of Impurity in Early Judaism. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Klawans, J. 2000. Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Levine, B. A. 1978. The Temple Scroll: Aspects of Its Historical Provenance and Literary Character. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 232: 5–23. Milgrom, J. 1978. Studies in the Temple Scroll. JBL 97: 501–23. ———. 1994. The City of the Temple. JQR 85: 125–28. Økland, J. 2005. The Language of Gates and Entering: On Sacred Space in the Temple Scroll. Pages 149–65 in New Directions in Qumran Studies: Proceedings of the Bristol Colloquium on the Dead Sea Scrolls 8–10 September 2003. Edited by J. G. Campbell, W. J. Lyons, and L. K. Pietersen. London: T&T Clark International. Puech, É. 1993. La croyance des Esséniens en la vie future: immortalité, résurrection, vie éternelle? Vol. 2, Les données Qumraniennes et classiques. Paris: Gabalda. ———. 1998. The Necropolises of Khirbet Qumran and ‘Ain el-Ghuweir and the Essene Belief in Afterlife. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 312: 21–36. Schiffman, L. H. 1990. The Impurity of the Dead in the Temple Scroll. Pages 135–56 in Archaeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls: The New York University Conference in Memory of Yigael Yadin. Edited by L. H. Schiffman. JSPSup 8. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic. ———. 1993. Sacred Space: The Land of Israel in the Temple Scroll. Pages 398–410 in Biblical Archaeology Today 1990: Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Biblical Archaeology. Edited by A. Biran and J. Aviram. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society. ———. 1994. The Theology of the Dead Sea Scrolls. JQR 85: 109–23. ———. 1996. Jerusalem in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Pages 73–88 in The Centrality of Jerusalem: Historical Perspectives. Edited by M. Poorthuis and Ch. Safrai. Kampen: Kok Pharos. ———. 1998. Ir Ha-Miqdash and Its Meaning in the Temple Scroll and Other Qumran Texts. Pages 95–109 in Sanctity of Time and Space in Tradition and Modernity. Edited by A. Houtman, M. J. H. M. Poorthuis, and J. Schwartz. Leiden: Brill.

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Schultz, B. 2006. The Qumran Cemetery: 150 Years of Research. Dead Sea Discoveries 13: 194–228. Wise, M. O. 1990. A Critical Study of the Temple Scroll from Qumran Cave 11. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 49. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Wright, D. P. 1995. Unclean and Clean: Old Testament. ABD 4:729–41. Yadin, Y. 1983. The Temple Scroll. 3 vols. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society.

T owards

a

T he K ingdom of G od as “S pace in M otion ” : M ore A rchitectural A pproach * Karen Wenell

1. Models Spatial and Socio-Historical: Putting Context First It is high time for the Kingdom of God to come into its own as a spatial concept, and one of the most important spaces to be found in the Synoptic Gospels. Too long has the influence of Gustaf Dalman been felt on the meaning of the terminology of the Kingdom (Brown 2001), and the focus on the eschatological elements of the Kingdom (Willis 1987) have meant that consideration of its significance as a space has been severely limited. Dalman famously stated: No doubt can be entertained that both in the Old Testament and in Jewish literature ‫[ מלכות‬malkut], when applied to God, means always the “kingly rule,” never the “kingdom,” as if it were meant to suggest the territory governed by him.” (Dalman 1902, 94, emphasis added)

The “kingly rule” definition here set out within “perhaps the most influential sentence ever written” (O’Neill 1993, 130) in all of New Testament studies has made a clear impact on more than a century of scholarship, much of which has been dominated by time-focussed studies of the Kingdom. Such studies, of course, also bear the influence of the groundbreaking eschatological interpretations of figures such as Weiss and Schweitzer. Interestingly, Chrupcala’s bibliography of research on the Kingdom of God designates six entries to the category “Space (local sphere),” in comparison with the 47 entries included under the heading “Time” (Chrupcala 2007). The emphasis on time in biblical studies is highlighted by Halvor Moxnes, who stands as a notable exception to Dalman’s “rule” in his consideration of the Kingdom from a spatialcritical perspective (Moxnes 2003). If Moxnes’s work constitutes * A version of this chapter was published as Wenell 2014. Used with permission.

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a beginning point, there remains a large amount of ground to make up before spatial interests could be said to rival those focussed on time.1 Recently, Eric Stewart has investigated spatial practices in the Gospel of Mark, and although he concludes that the “kingdom of God exists spatially in the area around Jesus in which the new community ‘gathers’ ” (Stewart 2009, 224), he pays little attention overall to the specific conception of the Kingdom in Mark. Stewart draws on Malina and others in order to establish models as useful for drawing out “commonsense elements” and avoiding anachronism and ethnocentrism in interpretation. He states, Without a proper understanding of the text’s original social context, then, readers are inclined to apply “commonsense” notions from their own culture to information from another culture. (Stewart 2009, 31–32)

This way of working is fairly common to the way scholarship normally proceeds, where Jesus and the Kingdom of God must be understood “in context.” Mary Ann Beavis’s book on Jesus and Utopia is a good recent example of this (Beavis 2006; see also 2004 and 2007). She understands the Kingdom as a utopian ideal, and her subtitle quickly identifies the focus on context in her method: Looking for the Kingdom of God in the Roman World. Within the book, she gives proportionately more attention to the context of the Kingdom of God in the Roman world, identifying a host of intriguing examples from ancient, classical, Hellenistic and Jewish sources (the first 70 pages) than she does investigating what it may have meant for Jesus “in that context” (the final 38 pages; compare Stewart’s noteworthy 178 pages discussing theoretical considerations and on Greek, Roman and Jewish examples, leaving only the remaining 36 for a discussion of spatial practice of the Kingdom in Mark’s Gospel). We might ask at the end of it, how many true connections have been established? In this way of working, the context comes first, the “thing you are investigating” second. Though of course any scholar would want to avoid working in an anachronistic and ethnocentric way when investigating ancient spatial conceptions, I want to suggest that the prioritising 1.  Other previous views which challenged Dalman (though not from a spatial critical perspective) include Sverre Aalen in 1962, who suggested that the βασιλεία ought to be understood, in line with a view preserved “in fragments” of Jewish documents, as designating “a realm, a community, something very near to the new concept of ‘house,’ and no longer kingship or reign of God” (Aalen 1962, 240). Also, O’Neill’s 1993 article in Novum Testamentum suggested that if “rule” was understood to be part of the meaning of the Kingdom of God, that rule was always over a territory (O’Neill 1993).



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of context is in need of critique. This does not mean taking the Kingdom “out of context” (we still need good historically viable results), but it does mean working in a meaningful sense “without context.” Stewart’s discussion draws on and takes us back to the earlier debate started by Philip Esler’s review of David Horrell’s The Social Ethos of the Corinthian Correspondence in the Journal of Theological Studies (Esler 1998) and continued in the Journal for the Study of the New Testament (2000). Esler questioned Horrell’s critique of model use in biblical studies and argued that models are essential in order to bring “new ideas to bear on ancient data” and to break free “from our taken-for-granted notions of social reality” (Esler 1998, 257). Horrell replies that models should not be “a guide to research” (Horrell 2000, 90), and “a model-based approach can lead to historically and culturally variable evidence being interpreted through the lens of a generalised model of social behaviour” (2000, 84). Further, and this is an important point, social structure does not have its own existence “aside from, or distinct from…instantiation in human action” (2000, 96) and we need “a more critical social theory” that has sound philosophical underpinnings and does not reify “social structure” (2000, 95–96). Largely in agreement with Horell’s position, I want to put forward that what is at stake here is that all these – models, theories, context – have their own inherent difficulties when they are employed to help “explain” what is going on in ancient texts, to bring it un-anachronistically and without ethnocentrism to the modern interpreter. Implied in Esler’s (among others) view is the premise that the data contained in texts is insufficient to explain what is going on, that we need to insert “social meaning” or “social reality” in order to investigate. I want to suggest that this puts matters the wrong way around and makes assumptions about the power of establishing context, whether through a spatial model or through historical investigation of comparative texts (e.g. Dalman’s use of the Old Testament and Jewish literature), or both. If a spatial conception such as the Kingdom merely “fits in” to a wider social picture, how could it ever be seen as active rather than passive? As J. Z. Smith once suggested, perhaps we should ask the question again, “What if place were an active product of intellection rather than its passive receptacle?” (Smith 1987, 26). Whilst I would not disagree that the Kingdom of God should be investigated in relation to contemporary geographical conceptions and cognate terminology, I suggest that the emphasis must be on connections first, and not on the a priori establishment of a vast and uncontrollable context.

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2. Critiquing a “Social” Meaning for the Kingdom The work of sociologist and philosopher Bruno Latour in critique of the ways that social scientists employ context and “the social” may prove helpful in investigating a concept like the Kingdom of God in a manner “without context,” or without a reliance on context. Latour argues for the need to replace the “shorthand” of the social with the “longhand” of associations: The word social cannot replace anything, cannot express anything better, cannot be substituted – in any form or guise – for anything else. It is not the common measure of all things, like a credit card widely accepted everywhere. It is only a movement that can be seized indirectly when there is a slight change in one older association mutating into a slightly newer or different one. Far from a stable and sure thing, it is no more than an occasional spark generated by the shift, the shock, the slight displacement of other non-social phenomena. (Latour 2005, 36)

Further, Does this mean we have to take seriously the real and sometimes small differences between the many ways in which people “achieve the social”? I am afraid so. (Latour 2005, 37)

Following this, we should approach the Kingdom for its connecting elements and specific associations, not for its meaning derived from a Lefebvrean ideal of a space “produced” and given its meaning by a certain (Jewish) “society.” Context, or “the social,” does not constitute its own dimension for us to access. Latour opens up for us the possibility of working in a different way, of tracing the associations of “actornetworks.” It is worth quoting Latour at length: An actor-network is traced whenever, in the course of a study, the decision is made to replace actors of whatever size by local and connected sites instead of ranking them into micro and macro. The two parts are essential, hence the hyphen. The first part (the actor) reveals the narrow space in which all of the grandiose ingredients of the world begin to be hatched; the second part (the network) may explain through which vehicles, which traces, which trails, which types of information, the world is being brought inside those places and then, after having been transformed there, are being pumped back out of its narrow walls. This is why the hyphenated “network” is not there as a surreptitious presence of the Context, but remains what connects actors together. Instead of being, like Context, another dimension giving volume to a too narrow and flat description, it allows the relations to remain flat and to pay in full the bill for the transaction costs. (Latour 2005, 179–80)



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If we are interested in what is “social” about the Kingdom of God, in how it was comprehensible to people at the time it was articulated, then we need to pay close attention to the nuances and – to put things more spatially – the architecture of the Kingdom. What traces and trails of meaning were brought to our texts and how were they transformed, but also transported there? Latour talks about enlivening the texts and archives of the past through historical enquiry (Latour 2005, 81), and in this way, something of the social may be discovered. If the social is something that circulates in a certain way, and not a world beyond to be accessed by the disinterested gaze of some ultra-lucid scientist, then it may be passed along by many devices adapted to the task – including texts… (Latour 2005, 127)

Our circulating texts constitute valuable data, and this is where we might make a case for considering the Gospel of Mark in particular for an investigation of the Kingdom, rather than beginning with the “social world” in which the conception of the Kingdom might be set. Mark’s Gospel provides for us a significant place of transformation for the space of the Kingdom of God, precisely because it can be understood as a kind of birthplace for the Kingdom of God, the beginning of its construction. Paul may make mention of the Kingdom of God chronologically prior,2 but Mark is the first to set it within the time-andspace story of Jesus. Like the figure of Jesus himself, for whom Mark offers no account of his birth or childhood, here the Kingdom of God appears fully formed on the scene of the gospel in 1:14–15. At Jesus’ first appearance in the Gospel, he proclaims (κηρὑσσω) the good news concerning God (τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ θεοῦ), that “the Kingdom of God has come near” (1:14–15). If we want to understand the Kingdom as “social,” but not social in the sense of a set of meanings lurking in the foggy mist of “culture” and “context,” then the author of the gospel of Mark is a key spokesperson: someone who gives us crucial information concerning the connections and controversies that surround the Kingdom. To think about the Kingdom in this way, we need to change our understanding of Mark as an author, and value his articulation of the Kingdom above our own as analysts and interpreters.

2.  The Kingdom of God is mentioned, but not treated extensively, and can only be found in three of Paul’s undisputed letters (Rom 14:17; 1 Cor 4:20; 6:9–10; 15:24, 50; Gal 5:21; see also 1 Thess 2:12).

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C. Clifton Black, in consideration of the Gospel of Mark in particular as the first “historian of God’s kingdom,” rightly questions some of the “practice of history” that treats a text such as Mark as a “mine of data” from which scholars may “quarry their own reconstructions of Jesus” (Black 2009, 71). Rather than picking apart Mark’s texts to feed the wider insatiable “context” of the time, Black argues for an approach that consciously raises Mark to the status of dialogue partner and subject in his own right (Black 2009, 71). This has the potential to lead to the “realigning [of] the historian’s relationship to Mark as one of a colleague consulting a specialist, instead of a pathologist carving a cadaver” (Black 2009, 76). Mark’s Gospel is more than a mine of data from which later historians may quarry their own reconstructions of Jesus. To think that is to regard that gospel only as an object for our disposition, whether academic or religious or some admixture of both. To the contrary, Mark is a subject, whose own historical and theological integrity makes of him a fully equal partner in conversation and debate with our own subjective biases as historians. (Black 2009, 71)

By treating Mark as an expert witness rather than a mine of data, we can begin to see more of the new connections which flourish in his account. We begin to value his contribution more than our own, and instead of trying to decide where to place Mark in relation to a wider context, we start to allow Mark to “unfold [his] differing cosmos, no matter how counter-intuitive [it] appears” (Latour 2005, 23). We do not need to “explain” the Kingdom or make it tidy and coherent (Law 2004), but it might be a worthwhile task to try and see how it holds together. This is an important point, and it takes us right to the heart of a critique that challenges some of biblical scholarship’s “socio-historical” ways of working, where many scholars prefer to defer to the social world of Jesus or the gospels when it comes to determining meaning for a concept such as the Kingdom. Such a way of working can easily miss or ignore the importance of the particular and specific data we have with regard to the Kingdom of God, and instead fill in what is deemed to be missing with the (modern) author’s own evaluation of “shared concepts.” If the gospel metaphors of the Kingdom appear to us strange and vague, all the more reason to try and understand them, to see what information they hold. As Bruno Latour argues in relation to the information obtained by “actors” in social enquiry:



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The mistake we must learn to avoid is listening distractedly to these convoluted productions and to ignore the queerest, baroque, and most idiosyncratic terms offered by the actors, following only those that have currency in the rear-world of the social. (Latour 2005, 47)

Saying that “the Kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground” (Mark 4:26), or that “whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it” (Mark 10:15) may sound enigmatic and unclear in its meaning to some interpreters; yet surely this constitutes interesting data about the Kingdom. Such statements are, in fact, its “explanation,” whether or not they satisfy the modern scholar’s assumptions about meaning. If we take Latour’s critique seriously, the Kingdom of God can be understood as having a performative definition (Latour 2005, 34–35). That is, it is not something you can point to and say “there it is” like a chair or a table (cf. Luke 17:21; Gos. Thom. 3), but it is actually “made by the various ways and manners in which [it is] said to exist” (Latour 2005, 34). It is not determined by meanings lurking in the “social world” around it. If we consult Mark on the meaning of the Kingdom, we might get quite a different picture than if we consult the author of the book of Daniel, or the Assumption of Moses, and indeed it may be possible to read Mark without going “through” the Pseudepigrapha and Qumran documents (Deines 2010, 345–48). 3. The “Poorly Explained” Kingdom Seeming to work against the critical approach outlined here, we find a curious, but persistent, notion within scholarship on the Kingdom: the idea that the Kingdom has been poorly explained within the teachings of Jesus. Like the dominant “kingly rule” definition, this notion has a pedigree that goes back more than a century. Johannes Weiss, in his study Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God, took the view that Jesus had not defined what he meant by the Kingdom and therefore he “adopted this concept primarily and predominantly in the sense in which it was understood by his contemporaries and without correcting it” (Weiss 1971 [1892], 102). Not dissimilarly, for Albert Schweitzer, the Kingdom had not been adequately explained by Jesus; therefore he must have employed the common view of the time (Schweitzer 1954 [1906], 90–101). More recently, Maurice Casey’s Jesus of Nazareth utilises this same premise in his evaluation of the Kingdom of God. Casey makes the following statement:

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Since this term [the Kingdom of God] permeates the teaching of Jesus, and since it is so much commoner in his teaching than in other surviving Jewish texts, it is remarkable that Jesus never explains what he means by the kingdom/ kingship of God. (Casey 2010, 212)

Indeed, this would be remarkable. Certainly, Casey is correct that the Kingdom of God is “much commoner” in Jesus’ teaching than in contemporary Jewish texts. In the synoptic gospels alone, we find 105 references to the Kingdom of God/Kingdom of Heaven. In comparison, the closest parallel in the Hebrew Bible – malkut YHWH – appears only twice, in 1 Chr 28:5 and 2 Chr 13:8. Within Jewish literature, we have a reference to “the kingdom of our God” in the Psalms of Solomon (first century B.C.E./first century C.E.), and in the Targums, malkuta daY-Y is found in ten references within the Latter Prophets Targum (Tg. Isa 24:23; 31:4; 40:9; 52:7; Tg. Ezek 7:7, 10; Tg. Obad 21; Tg. Mic 4:7, 8; Tg. Zech 14:9). If these are the closest cognates, then on frequency alone there is certainly no comparison with regard to occurrences of the specific phrase: the Kingdom of God/Heaven in the gospels (and wider New Testament) comes out on top. Even on an initial evaluation, it seems extraordinary to conclude that although the Kingdom (or any concept for that matter) has been discussed at length in particular texts, it still fails to be well explained and articulated in comparison with sparser evidence found in other texts. Perhaps the real problem is that some scholars are simply not satisfied with the ways that the Kingdom is described and defined within the gospels. When they investigate contemporary Jewish examples, they prefer the meanings and explanations they discover there to anything found in Mark, Matthew or Luke. They develop the suspicion that the “explanation” is missing or lacking. If one wants to understand a concept such as the Kingdom of God as part of the message of Jesus, this seems an unusual way to conduct the investigation, as it privileges the view of the interpreter over the data or information found in the actual text. Casey further states, following a discussion of contemporary understandings of the Kingdom in Daniel: All these points were so widespread that, because Jesus shared them, he could use the term “kingdom,” or “kingship” (malkuth) without explaining what he meant. We must accordingly infer that Jesus shared normal Jewish concepts of what the kingdom/kingship of God was, of its permanent validity and future establishment. (Casey 2010, 218)



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Here, the “shared concepts” are given priority and determine meaning.3 Statements such as these actually devalue what is represented in texts such as the gospels. If we have more references to ἡ βασιλεία in the gospels than anywhere else, this strongly suggests that the Kingdom has been explained within them. With Mark as a subject, and his text providing a time-and-place starting point for the Kingdom, ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ does not decode some pre-existing “social” reality; rather it creates a new world (Dewsbury 2010, 158). The issue for contemporary scholars must be more to do with distaste for that description, a feeling that it has not been done to their satisfaction. Articles such Duling’s entry on “Kingdom of God, Kingdom of Heaven” in the Anchor Bible Dictionary (Duling 1992) assure us of the wider relevance of the fact that God is referred to as King in the Hebrew Bible, particularly in the Psalms, as well as in Second Temple literature and the Dead Sea Scrolls. However, this does not necessarily take us closer to the meaning of the specific phrase ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ. The synoptic gospels make no direct reference to God as king, yet they do speak of the Kingdom of God. Just because we are able to locate parallel references to the “Kingdom of YHWH” or God as king, or the Danielic kingdom, does not in the end necessarily tell us anything about, say, the gospels’ (or Jesus’?) articulation of the Kingdom of God. It does not hand us a “worldview” or a “cosmology” on a plate, from which we can derive the contours of the Kingdom. Clearly, Daniel’s text is important to Mark, yet the Kingdom that Daniel built does not create some generic “you” and a set blueprint for later constructions. There is a “gap of execution” (Latour 2005, 207), and this means that new uses, and indeed new users, are not determined. The process of interpretation is a creative process, not one of “consciously planned codings and symbols” (Thrift and Dewsbury 2000, 415). We should not expect first-century interpretation to shy away from “new” connections and to always stay close to particular textual referents, even where these can be identified. If Mark speaks of “drinking new” in ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ (Mark 14:25), why should we expect to find all of the clues to the meaning of the Kingdom in Nestle–Aland’s margins? If Mark and Daniel both speak about a Kingdom and a mysterion, should we not do more than recognize the influence of Daniel, and strongly point out 3.  Even Moxnes, though more nuanced in his evaluation, underscores the sense of a lack of explanation, referring to the Kingdom as a code: “I use the term code, because it is rarely explained, but instead used to interpret the rule of God in spatial dimensions” (Moxnes 2003, 157).

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that Mark’s Kingdom is no built statue made of materials from bronze to clay; it is organic, revealed in the imagery of seeds and growth? The mystery is conveyed in parables, not dreams; it is revealed to a group of gathered disciples, not a foreign king. If we attempt to consider connections and transformation in understanding ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ rather than letting it grab hold of and appropriate any definition that may have some claim to being contemporary, this will allow us to see something of the new associations of the Kingdom. As Doreen Massey says about the openness of space, and its potential to surprise us in its (new) associations: Not only history but also space is open. In this interactional space there are always connections yet to be made, juxtapositions yet to flower into interaction (or not, for not all potential connections have to be established), relations which may or may not be accomplished… However, these are not the relations of a coherent, closed system within which, as they say, everything is (already) related to everything else. Space can never be that completed simultaneity in which all interconnections have been established, and in which everywhere is already linked with everywhere else. A space, then, which is neither a container for always-already constituted identities nor a completed closure of holism. This is a space of loose ends and missing links. For the future to be open, space must be open too. (Massey 2005, 11–12)

Any new spatial articulation must have this quality of openness, of potential and of connections made and not made. It may be that even now, despite the weight of scholarly attention, the Kingdom of God has the potential to surprise us in its associations. 4. Behold, What Kind of Text, What Kind of Built Kingdom! The openness of space highlighted by Massey brings the focus of the discussion back to the spatial aspect of the Kingdom for our conclusion. If, as we have argued, the meaning of the Kingdom of God should not be investigated in a way that prioritizes models from the “social world” of the author, or meanings transported from other texts without transformation, how then, we might ask in conclusion, can the Kingdom be understood as a meaningful space? We need a clear way of working closely and exegetically with the text which will allow us to unfold the spatial focus of the Kingdom without allowing the “social” to creep back in. Clearly the Kingdom cannot be understood as a space in precisely the same way as a “bricks and mortar” structure such as Herod’s rebuilt temple in Jerusalem. It is better thought of along the lines of Yi-Fu Tuan’s definition of a certain kind of mythical space that is “the spatial



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component of a world view, a conception of localized values within which people carry on their practical activities” (Tuan 1977, 86). Yet, even whilst recognising the potential importance of mythical spaces to spatial practice and orientation, here we still find the idea that we can somehow access a space like the Kingdom though a better understanding of a particular “worldview.” To put things another way, Lefebvre’s oft-repeated, and Marxist-influenced exclamation, “social space is a social product” (Lefebvre 1991) does not hold. “Society” does not “produce” spaces any more than it produces anything else. That is, if we take Latour’s critique seriously, society itself is not a “realm” in which we can place everything else, as if calling something “social” explains any aspect of it. The Kingdom of God as a mythical space is not a reflection of some social situation which we can access. Rather, it is a new set of associations which offers us an opportunity to explore and trace its connections. If we focus on the Kingdom as we find it in a key text such as Mark’s Gospel, it may be possible to take a more “architectural” approach to the consideration of its meaning. An essay by Albena Yaneva (whose approach is informed by Latour) reveals something of how we might change our approach to the Kingdom (Yaneva 2010). Far removed from the Mediterranean Basin of the first century C.E., Yaneva investigates the Whitney Building in New York, considering its original design and placement in Manhattan, and the subsequent two (failed) attempts at designing an extension to the building. Though the details of these architectural projects do not concern us here, in basic outline, the original design, implemented by Breuer (completed 1966) attracted later proposals for an extension by Graves (1981–89) and Koolhaas (2001–2004) which were never acted upon. Yaneva’s approach to the investigation is noteworthy, particularly for what it does not attempt to do: I do not provide a historical backdrop meant to contextualize Koolhaas’ projects for the Whitney extension. I rely on a very selective rendering of the Whitney history, the one that designing architects gained access to, used in their interpretations and mobilized in the tentative design venture of extending the Whitney Museum. Only by following their work and the experiences of designing architects, can knowledge about the Whitney building’s complex trajectory be gained, and can its own resistance to extension be understood. (Yaneva 2010, 29)

Thus, rather than looking to a particular context or social groups, the approach is to consider the building and how it gathers controversies, spokespersons, human and non-human actors, new texts, new designs and

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so on. One can investigate the “repetition of design moves” rather than try to set the plans within a particular historical period in design history. Again, from Yaneva: None of the extension projects turned out to be simply architectural in nature: they were also cultural, political and social. The Whitney example shows us that not the time and the context, but the building makes the controversies. The settlement of the design controversies cannot be explained by external social, cultural and political factors. The OMA [Office of Metropolitan Architecture] designers were not able to deduce Whitney’s architectural career from the contexts of the 1960s or the 1980s. (Yaneva 2010, 25)

Further, to redesign the Whitney, every architect was led to reopen the “black box” of its first design, break it apart and identify all the components, actors and meanings that took part in it and recollect it again. Only because it was opened so many times, the Breuer design was considered good and bad, was liked and disliked, its architecture was praised and criticised, the neighbours were happy or furious, the City Planning Commission was enthusiastic to undertake an extension and then rapidly changed its opinion. (Yaneva 2010, 23)

This suggests an approach that stays closer to the text and its controversies than some of the context-building methods we are familiar with; it is perhaps a more limited approach in some ways, yet one I believe is worthy of consideration in relation to biblical texts. Yaneva speaks of what the building does in a very active way, and refers to it as a “buildingin-motion.” If we suggest the Kingdom of God itself as a conceptual, mythical “space-in-motion” (Wenell 2012), this allows us to consider Mark’s use of Daniel in terms of opening up a previous set of architectural plans and repeating certain design moves, but also making significant changes. We can take seriously Luke’s and Matthew’s subtle changes (and significantly Matthew’s preference for the Kingdom of Heaven). We can make a closer attempt to see what is occurring in the “black box” of Mark’s text in relation to the Kingdom’s construction. Unlike the belief evidenced in Stewart’s work that somehow the Greek, Roman and Jewish geographical models (which cannot be limited so precisely as in Yaneva to particular decades!) will reveal Markan spatial practice, here we have the opportunity to explore the implications of the insight that it is not the time or the place, but the Kingdom that makes the controversies. This gives the Kingdom a much more active role as a space that “does something.” It gathers controversies, solutions and spokespersons (such as Mark, Matthew and Luke).



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A spokesperson such as Mark might take us closer to the controversy/ ies of the Kingdom’s construction. He is no mere parrot of contempor­ary understandings of the Kingdom, going along merely “meaning what everyone else meant”; rather, he is a significant architect and designer, setting out his plans for the orienting space of the Kingdom of God. Clearly, there were controversies – the meaning of the parables of Jesus (Mark 4:11), the relationship between death (and life) and the Kingdom (Mark 9:1, 47–48), an understanding of the great commands and proximity to the Kingdom (Mark 12:32–34). Mark settles these controversies in a particular moment by acting as a spokesperson for the Kingdom, by representing in text his view of the Kingdom’s impact on the world and on lived life within the world. As Latour says, “controversies provide the analyst with an essential resource to render the social connections traceable” (Latour 2005, 30). We can imagine Paul and others prior to Mark debating and discussing the meaning and boundaries of the Kingdom of God. Mark, in writing his text, settles these controversies through representation; yet the moment of representation is only fleeting, a stutter in the present tense of experience (Dewsbury 2010, 150–51). Matthew and Luke would take up the construction of the Kingdom again and modify Mark’s understanding in their own particular ways, settling the controversies in the way they see fit. As a starting point, it will not do to try and answer “big, big questions” (Crossley 2009, 175) about how this all came about, but it might make us think more seriously about design, innovation and repetition. We must strive for an understanding of the Kingdom which does not develop into, or out of, a total history – one that tries to find “the significance common to all the phenomena of a period” (Foucault 1972, 9), but one that considers, in the mode of general history, “what may be the effects of shifts, different temporalities and various rehandlings” (Foucault 1972, 10). Such an undertaking may allow us to embark on an investigation of ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ in history in a way that deploys something like Foucault’s “space of a dispersion” (Foucault 1972, 10), unbounded by “rules” and overarching logic. Thus, it may be possible to avoid the situation in which we “limit in advance the shape, size, heterogeneity, and combination of associations” (Latour 2005, 12)4 of ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ. This may assist us in the task of:

4.  See also elsewhere: “For scientific, political, and even moral reasons, it is crucial that enquirers do not in advance, and in place of the actors, define what sorts of building blocks the social world is made of” (Latour 2005, 41).

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ensuring that the concepts deployed have not so much an a priori character – having decided in advance what is “going on” in any particular situation in any given time and place – as the character of “hovering” responsively above the empirical details revealed. (Philo 2000, 212)

As the Kingdom comes into being for us, it undergoes a process of becoming, which is unlikely to be tidy and contained “in social context.” Instead, Becoming necessarily entails deformation, reformation, performation, and transformation, which involve gaps and gasps, stutters and cuts, misfires and stoppages, unintended outcomes, unprecedented transferences, and jagged changes. These breaks are not simply ungoverned transversal communications within and between assemblages that bring novel forces into play and so also new formations. They are also a function of the very way events occur, which is not rule governed, or where the rule does not apply. (Thrift and Dewsbury 2000, 418)

Our desire for the meaning of the Kingdom to “follow the rules” of its social world may actually hold back the possibility of an interesting analysis of what is actually going on in our texts. In its fluid and enigmatic movement, the Kingdom eludes our attempts at fixing it in a logical manner. After all, we are all believers, whether it be in “the social” as a category, in our own judgments as historians, or in gods and demons populating respective kingdoms (Day 2009, 733–34). The search for the context in which to set the Kingdom has in many ways no limitations. One could spend a lifetime in research trying to uncover a truer picture of first-century Judaism in which to set the Kingdom, and perhaps not find anything more specific to conclude than that “he basileia tou theou was very much at home among the many utopian/eutopian traditions of antiquity” (Beavis 2006, 103). Or, from a spatial perspective on Mark’s achievement, that it “falls very much in line with the human geography of Greek, Roman, and Jewish geographical traditions” (Stewart 2009, 218). What do such evaluations tell us exactly? Though not questioning the importance of gaining as much historical perspective and knowledge as possible, are there any actual connections being established in such work? Do the traditions creating the “home” and falling “in line” with the Kingdom of the gospels actually make a difference to what we find in the texts? The familiar method of establishing “context” in biblical scholarship suggests very strongly that we believe context holds the power to tell us what an author such as Mark meant. The “God of First-Century Context” appears as quite a powerful figure in Kingdom scholarship.



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Ultimately, we need to move from an understanding of the social as explanans – an explaining element – to explanandum – what needs to be explained. Going back to the debates about models, perhaps we could take Horrell’s insistence (informed by Giddens) on not reifying social structure even further to say that we should eliminate even a “virtual” existence for the social (Horrell 2000, 95–96) if it keeps us from the practical task of “collecting the collective” (Latour 2005, 232). If the social is already present, even in a virtual existence, the practical means to compose it will no longer be traceable (Latour 2005, 163). For the Kingdom of God, a focus on tracing its associations in a more architectural way opens up the opportunity for this mythical space to be explored for its connections – critically, philosophically and without Context. Works Cited Aalen, S. 1962. “Reign” and “House” in the Kingdom of God in the Gospels. NTS 8: 215–40. Beavis, M. A. 2004. The Kingdom of God, “Utopia” and Theocracy. Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 2: 91–106. ———. 2006. Jesus and Utopia: Looking for the Kingdom of God in the Roman World. Minneapolis: Fortress. ———. 2007. Christian Origins, Egalitarianism, and Utopia. Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 23: 27–49. Black, C. C. 2009. Mark as Historian of God’s Kingdom. CBQ 71: 64–83. Brown, R. 2001. A Brief History of Interpretations of “the Kingdom of God” and Some Consequences for Translation. Notes on Translation 51: 3–23. Casey, M. 2010. Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian’s Account of His Life and Teaching. London: T&T Clark International. Chrupcala, L. D. 2007. The Kingdom of God: A Bibliography of 20th Century Research. Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press. Crossley, J. 2009. Why Christianity Happened: A Sociohistorical Account of Christian Origins (26–50 CE). Louisville: Westminster John Knox. Dalman, G. 1902. The Words of Jesus, Considered in the Light of Post-Biblical Writings and the Aramaic Language. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark Day, M. 2009. Constructing Religion Without the Social: Durkheim, Latour, and Extended Cognition. Zygon 44, no. 3: 719–37. Deines, R. 2010. Jesus and the Jewish Traditions of His Time. Early Christianity 1: 344–71. Dewsbury, J.-D. 2010. Language and the Event: The Unthought of Appearing Worlds. Pages 147–60 in Taking-Place: Non-Representational Theories and Geography. Edited by B. Anderson and P. Harrison. Farnham: Ashgate. Duling, D. C. 1992. Kingdom of God, Kingdom of Heaven. ABD 4:49–69.

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Esler, P. F. 1998. Review of D. G. Horrell, The Social Ethos of the Corinthian Correspondence. Journal of Theological Studies 49: 253–60. ———. 2000. Models in New Testament Interpretation: A Reply to David Horrell. JSNT 78: 107–13. Foucault, M. 1972. The Archaeology of Knowledge, Andover: Tavistock. Horrell, D. G. 2000. Models and Methods in Social-Scientific Interpretation: A Response to Philip Esler. JSNT 73: 83–105. Latour, B. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Law, J. 2004. And If the Global Were Small and Noncoherent? Method, Complexity and the Baroque. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 22: 13–26. Lefebvre, H. 1991. The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell. Massey, D. 2005. For Space. Los Angeles: SAGE. Moxnes, H. 2003. Putting Jesus in His Place: A Radical Vision of Household and Kingdom. Louisville: Westminster John Knox. O’Neill, J. C. 1993. The Kingdom of God. Novum Testamentum 35: 130–41. Philo, C. 2000. Foucault’s Geography. Pages 205–38 in Thinking Space. Edited by M. Crang and N. Thrift. London: Routledge. Schweitzer, A. 1954 [1906]. The Quest of the Historical Jesus. London: SCM. Smith, J. Z. 1987. To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Stewart, E. C. 2009. Gathered Around Jesus: An Alternative Spatial Practice in the Gospel of Mark. Cambridge: James Clarke & Co. Thrift, N., and J.-D. Dewsbury. 2000. Dead Geographies – and How to Make Them Live. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 18: 411–32. Tuan, Y.-F. 1977. Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press. Weiss, J. 1971 [1892]. Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God. Philadelphia, Fortress. Wenell, K. 2012. “Ears to Hear”: The Bible, the Sower and Performative Christianity. Pages 117–32 in New Perspectives on Religious and Spiritual Education. Edited by T. Van der Zee and T. J. Lovat. Münster: Waxmann. ———. 2014. A Markan “Context” Kingdom? Examining Biblical and Social Models in Spatial Interpretation. Biblical Theology Bulletin no. 44 (3): 123–32. Willis, W. 1987. The Discovery of the Eschatological Kingdom: Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer. Pages 1–14 in The Kingdom of God in 20th-Century Interpretation. Edited by W. Willis. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson. Yaneva, A. 2010. A Building’s Trajectory. Pages 17–45 in Coping with the Past: Creative Perspectives on Conservation and Restoration. Edited by P. Gagliardi, B. Latour and P. Memelsdorff. Florence: Leo S. Olschki.

L ukan N arrative S patiality in T ransition : A R eading of A cts 11:19–12:24 for I ts S paces * Matthew Sleeman 1. Introduction and Context Somewhat surprisingly, the geographically rich narrative of Acts1 has not been at the vanguard of the rising spatial consciousness celebrated and partially mapped in this volume and its predecessors. Many commentators have been satisfied simply to acknowledge Acts 1:8 as “programmatic.”2 Some studies have gone further, but explicit engagement with spatial theory is rare, few have attempted to explore the interaction between spatiality and the theology of Acts, and analyses have tended to focus on the geographical horizons informing Acts rather than on sequential readings of the text.3 Coming to biblical studies as a trained geographer, I assumed that spatialities must infuse biblical texts, and Acts struck me as an excellent starting point for their theoretical and exegetical exploration. Using Edward Soja’s understanding of thirdspace as an interpretive lens for reading Acts 1:1–11:18, I have argued elsewhere that Jesus’ ascension into heaven orientates the narrative-spatiality of Acts.4 By this, I mean that Jesus’ ascension constitutes the spatial realignment, the critical and sustained thirdspatial impulse within Luke’s unfolding salvation geography. As such, it compels a radical reworking of existing material and mental spaces. * I am grateful to Steve Jeffery for his helpful comments on a draft of this study. Any errors, of course, remain my own. 1.  E.g. Parsons (1998, 158) emphasizes the sheer number of geographical semantic domains in Luke/Acts. 2.  E.g. Barrett (1988, 72): “little more than…an inevitable geographical expansion from the center.” 3.  For examples, and partial exceptions, compare Xeres 1988; Scott 1994; Alexander 1995a, 1995b; Parsons 1998; Nasrallah 2008. 4.  Sleeman (2009, 42–47) outlines what is meant by thirdspace; cf. Soja 1996.

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This essay picks up where that earlier work finished, engaging in a spatialized reading of Acts 11:19–12:24 which anticipates a project advancing further into the book. Acts 12:24 is a widely recognized closure in the narrative, so this section of text completes a larger narrative unit, which, I argue, confirms and further develops my earlier thesis. Though this chapter does not focus on theoretical concerns, some brief comments are in order. First, my reading is broadly thirdspatial, without giving sole allegiance to Soja’s eponymous theorizing in this area. Although Soja’s terminology can appear daunting,5 third space (understood more broadly) remains a productive exegetical lens, especially when used alongside other approaches.6 Here, my reading for productions of space parallels John Darr’s approach to characterization as: (1) holistic and contextual, (2) sequential and cumulative, (3) attentive to both the literary and social forces that conditioned reading in Greco-Roman times, and (4) observant of the text’s rhetoric. (Darr 1992, 37)

Second, I assume that spatiality parallels and inhabits the dictum that “an[y] attempt to do justice to the theology of Acts must struggle to reclaim the character of Acts as a narrative” (Gaventa 1988, 150). The production of space in Acts is inherently theological and irrevocably embedded within the dynamics of its unfolding narrative, as both a producer and product of its narrative-theology. Finally, Luke and Acts assume porous boundaries and osmosis between the narrative and the readers’ real worlds in “the things that have been accomplished among us” (Luke 1:1; cf. Acts 26:26). These texts lay claim to be(com)ing more than simply a mental construct; they seek to operate as a persuasive and generative spatiality. Within its narrative “memory 5.  Sleeman 2009, 255–56; cf. George 2009, 31–41. Soja’s firstspace, secondspace, and thirdspace categories can obscure exegesis, and the parallel terms employed by Henri Lefebvre and David Harvey can further confuse rather than clarify. Soja invites the invention of other descriptive terms (Soja 1996, 2); here, I seek greater exegetical clarity via alternating references to the real (material), conceptual (imagined), and thirdspatial (lived, visionary) elements composing a spatiality, a production of space. See George (2009, 20–31) for his adjusted Lefebvrian vocabulary deployed in spatial exegesis. 6.  Soja does engage with wider third space politics and philosophy (e.g. Soja 1996, 83–144, esp. 139–44). Baker (2007) explores third space praxis for churches, but with limited engagement with scripture. Cf. the “theology of place” developed by Inge (2003). Elsewhere, the geographer Robert Sack’s work on territoriality has initiated a recent stimulating re-examination of Paul’s geographical consciousness in Romans (Magda 2009).



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theatre,”7 Acts propounds a christocentric worldview, which it judges to cohere with and complete the spatialities of hope inhabiting the Hebrew Scriptures. These, and all other spatialities in Acts, are seen as coming under the heavenly Christ. 2. Reading Acts 11:19–30 for Its Productions of Space The great transition in Acts 11:19–30 concerns the emergence not simply of a new church in Antioch, nor a second ecclesial locale per se. Rather, it choreographs two productions of “believer-space” – Antioch and Jerusalem – as aligned with each other within an overarching thirdspatial vision. The presentation and characterization of this development sustains and enhances Luke’s narrative spatiality as still informed by Jesus’ ascension and heavenly session. First, Acts 11:19 locates the Antioch outpost as arising from the scattering (διασπείρω) following Stephen’s martyrdom (cf. 8:1, 4–5), itself triggered by Stephen’s vision of the exalted Jesus in 7:55, 56 (Sleeman 2009, 139–41, 169–71). The fact that the narrative supplies no other motivation for the Antioch mission extends the vision’s earthly impact. What might initially have appeared to be an individual, momentary revelation functions more broadly as an expanding symbol, enjoying a sustained “run” on the stage of Acts as it repeatedly restructures the unfolding narrative (cf. 22:20). Indeed, since the expanding Antiochene mission dominates Acts after 12:24, the allusion to Stephen’s vision in 11:19 locates all subsequent believer-spaces as arising from his place-(re) creating vision of the heavenly Christ. The second dimension characterizing this new space is that its pioneers are alien to Antioch, being “men of Cyprus and Cyrene” (11:20). From the outset, the believers in Antioch are depicted as a cosmopolitan community, an impression confirmed by the profile of its prophets and teachers in 13:1. From the start, this was an-Other space. The fronting of its Jew–Gentile breadth (11:20) compounds this otherness and contrasts with the immediately preceding description of other believer-spaces forming in Phoenicia and Cyprus with a more conventional Jewish scope (11:19). Readers freshly informed of the divine legitimation of Gentile-space realized in Acts 11:18, and versed in the advance of the Samaritan mission in 8:4–25, anticipate that this new kind of believer-space will thrive. Such 7.  Cf. Nasrallah (2008), though I do not share her view that Acts is a secondcentury composition.

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prospering is narrated in 11:21 and 24b. Moreover, in the intervening verses, news of this new space in Antioch (including, presumably, its mixed Jew–Gentile constituency) does not generate social anxiety among the believers in Jerusalem. This positive reception in Jerusalem contrasts starkly with the rancor evident in Acts 11:1–3. Its narrative proximity following Acts 11:18 implies that the “life” acknowledged there conceptualized the possibility of Jews and Gentiles sharing the same believer-space. Such narrative proximity reconfirms the watershed realized in Acts 11:18 and implies Jerusalem’s lack of desire to police this new space. Other narrative details confirm this reading. Only Barnabas is sent to Antioch, undermining any suggestion that Jerusalem desires a judicial assessment requiring two or three witnesses (cf. Deut 19:15). Barnabas is not an apostle, and there is no hint that he needs to report back to Jerusalem regarding the legitimacy of this new locale.8 The sending of Barnabas, as opposed to anyone else, is also significant in other ways. He is a reliable character, valued by the church in Jerusalem, where he has exhibited visionary attitudes and actions by bringing his own spatiality within the orbit of the apostles (4:36–37). Likewise, he was instrumental in convincing the Jerusalem church (particularly the apostles, no less) about the legitimacy of Saul’s encounter with the heavenly Jesus on the Damascus road (9:27).9 Barnabas creates, identifies, and connects heavenized10 third spaces on earth, and does so without the epistemic privileges afforded to the Twelve (1:21–22). Understood for his spatiality within Acts, Barnabas functions primarily as heaven’s man rather than Jerusalem’s man. His presence communicates the Antioch church’s legitimacy and unity with Jerusalem, without subduing it under a Jerusalem-centered hierarchy. The spatial insight exhibited by Barnabas cannot be reduced to the Cypriot origins he shares with some of the Antioch pioneers (4:36; cf. 11:20). Barnabas exhibits more than an ethnic sympathy: he is 8.  Contra Barrett (1994, 552), who casts Barnabas as an “official inspector on behalf of Jerusalem,” empowered “if necessary to put an end to it.” 9.  Furthermore, if 9:27 reads ὅ τι ἐλάλησεν αὐτῷ (“what he had said to him”), rather than ὅτι… (“and that he had spoken to him”), then Barnabas’ spatial discernment is especially astute. Cf. Sleeman 2009, 212–13. 10.  I am indebted to my former colleague David Field for suggesting this term to describe lived space where spatial practices and conceptualizations have been brought under the rule of the heavenly Christ. Such earthly productions of space are, in any particular place, provisional and reversible but, in the space-economy of Acts, they anticipate the ultimate restoration of all places foretold in Acts 3:21.



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geographically astute and expansive, able to recognize in Antioch a third space opened up under the space-economy of heaven. His ethics and spatiality cohere in 11:23, evident in the paronomasia between “the grace (χάριν) of God” which he saw in Antioch (presumably manifested in material spatial practices which reflected a heavenly thirdspatial connection) and the “gladness” (ἐχάρη) he experienced because of it. These two elements combine in an exhortation befitting Luke’s etymology of Barnabas’ name (provided in 4:36), as he encouraged “all” the Antioch believers to sustain an unwavering allegiance to the heavenly Jesus.11 The ensuing characterization of Antioch-space in Acts 11:26–30 presents this allegiance as evident in public, material space, not simply in privatized conceptual space. Barnabas’ spatial virtue is then explained in 11:24 (ὅτι giving the reason for his actions in v. 23). Such apparently redundant narration enhances and positions Barnabas’ heavenly discernment. First, Barnabas is described as “a good man.” The only other human explicitly characterized as “good” in Luke or Acts is Joseph of Arimathea (Luke 23:50). This description dovetails with the description in Luke of Joseph’s thirdspatial vision: he was “looking for (προσεδέχετο) the kingdom of God” (23:51). Elsewhere in Luke, the verb προσδέχομαι typically anticipates thirdspatial geographical alignments (cf. Luke 2:25, 38; 12:36; 15:2; 24:15) and, while the data is admittedly limited, being “good” connotes godly thirdspatial practices. Second, the description of Barnabas as “full of the Holy Spirit and of faith” recalls Stephen and his heavenly vision (Acts 7:55; cf. 6:5, 8). Barnabas recognized what had become heavenized space in Antioch and acted accordingly. In a similar vein, in Acts 11:25–26, he sought out Saul in distant Tarsus, bringing him back to Antioch to teach those who had been added to (or by) the Lord in 11:24. The production of believer-space in 11:26 merits careful examination. First, almost in passing, the Antioch believers are constituted as a church (ἐκκλησία), a title previously tied to Jerusalem.12 From this point onwards, there are multiple churches in Acts, and the conceptual reach of the term “church” is thereby broadened, erasing any monadic status previously 11.  The κύριος in 11:22–23 is Jesus, given the explicit antecedent in 11:20. There, “the Lord Jesus” functions as a Lukan cipher for Jesus’ resurrected – and now ascended – status (cf. Rowe 2006, 182–89). The “steadfast devotion” (NRSV; lit., “resolve of the heart,” τῇ προθέσει τῆς καρδίας) encouraged in 11:23 coheres with other spatialities of the heart evident earlier in Acts (cf., e.g., Sleeman 2009, 156–57, 163–64). 12.  The singular but geographically widespread ἐκκλησία in 9:31 is best understood as reflecting the ἐκκλησία scattered from Jerusalem in 8:1.

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asserted or implied for any one locale.13 Immediately after ascribing the term ἐκκλησία to Antioch, the text provides a basis for catholicity between it and Jerusalem: these believers are “Christians” (χριστιανοί). The name “Christians” sustains a heavenly thirdspace tenor as multiple ἐκκλησία-spaces come into being. Most scholars agree that the label was originally applied to believers, by outsiders, not least because it appears so infrequently within the New Testament (appearing elsewhere only in Acts 26:28 and 1 Pet 4:16). As such, the narrative’s unexplained declaration here that the name was “first” (πρώτως) deployed in Antioch14 encourages readers to look in the immediate co-text for an explanation of its use here. The co-text implies that this linguistic innovation resulted from a spatial novelty: the Antioch church’s mixed Jew–Gentile constituency gen­erated a hybrid identity that could not easily be classified within existing spatial categorizations. It incorporated both Jews and Gentiles, but it engaged in sufficiently different spatial practices to preclude simple classification under either category. This linguistic innovation is spatially significant.15 It is also theologically charged: they were named after their absent-but-constitutive heavenly locus, their proclaimed shared adherence, which constituted them as a third space in Antioch (11:20). The narrative supplies sufficient markers that indicate that this group was numerous and visible. Such a concrete, full-orbed spatiality proclaiming Jesus testifies to his continuing community-forming power, constituting believers in households under an absent, heavenly head.16 This confirms a 13.  From 14:23 onwards, multiple ἐκκλησίαι proliferate in Acts; as in 11:26, the ascription there comes after the converts have received some teaching from Saul/ Paul and Barnabas. This, together with the relatively late ascription of ἐκκλησία to the believers in Jerusalem, in 5:11, suggests that ἐκκλησία denotes a well-established believer-space. Concerning the unfolding unity, plurality and catholicity of the church(es) in Acts, see Alexander (2008). 14.  Soja (1996, 14–16) defends spatialized readings against the dominant modernist tendency towards a historicism that blinkers and silences the spatial imagination. Elsewhere, I have employed his critique of historicism to deconstruct conventional attempts to identify a singular “first Gentile convert” within Acts as ultimately distorting the pluriform spatiality employed by the narrative to communicate the impulse towards mission to the Gentiles (Sleeman 2009, 190–91). Here, however, 11:26 indicates a Lukan willingness, on some matters, to declare explicitly a singular first instance for a narrative innovation. 15.  Lefebvre (1991, 54): “A revolution that does not produce a new space has not realized its full potential… A social transformation, to be truly revolutionary in character, must manifest a creative capacity in its effects on daily life, on language and on space…” The alternative is to “fall to the level of folklore and sooner or later disappear altogether” (Lefebvre 1991, 53). 16.  Cf. Barrett 1994, 556–57.



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thirdspatial understanding of Acts 1:1, which describes Luke’s Gospel as recounting “all that Jesus began to do and teach” (RSV, contra NRSV; cf. 26:23). In sum, their catholicity, far from routing or rooting them back to Jerusalem, was christocentric and orientated them heavenwards. The term is important, despite its scarcity, which might simply reflect its origins and/or Luke’s sources. Its only other occurrence in Acts – on the lips of King Agrippa during Paul’s crowning defense speech – conveys the hybrid-forming power of the heavenly Christ from Antioch all the way to the governor’s residence in Caesarea, and beyond. The spatial practices of such Christians are fleshed out further in Acts 11:27–30. First, they offer hospitality to visiting prophets from Jerusalem, marking the nascent broader Mediterranean network of churches, evident later in Acts and in the wider New Testament.17 Second, their practical response to Agabus’ Spirit-given words replicates and amplifies the ethic of mutual care seen previously among the Jerusalem believers (2:44–45; 4:34–37; cf. 9:36). Indeed, all those within the Antioch church join together to extend such care beyond their immediate surrounds (Acts 11:29). This Antiochene famine response would have been distinctively countercultural in a Greco-Roman world ordered according to dependence upon rich benefactors operating within an agonistic honor–shame framework (Winter 1994). The church in Antioch acts in a distinctively Christian manner: everyone giving “according to their ability” reorders the prevalent assumptions about who had responsibility to care for the poor. Their practice embodied the expansive ethical space which the now heavenly Jesus expounded as embracing the other and the one who cannot repay, and as awaiting recompense in the eschatological banqueting space at the general resurrection (Luke 14:12–14). Within this compassionate connectivity, the space between Antioch and Jerusalem becomes a route for discovering true neighborliness. This catholicity does not dissolve places into a faceless, careless universalism – the framing of “all the world” in Acts 11:28 might lead in that direction – but rather spurs an intensive localism and “particular, intimate and selective” concern for others.18

17.  Regarding this wider spatiality, see Thompson 1998. 18.  O’Donovan (1989, 55–56), here uncovering the ethics of a sense of place encoded within the parable of the merciful Samaritan (Luke 10:29–37). Proximate and particularistic relations are discovered “where they are not looked for…under our very noses” (O’Donovan 1989, 54). Beyond the parable’s uncaring Levite, Barnabas is the only other Levite in Luke–Acts, repeatedly functioning as the ethical antithesis of his parabolic counterpart (cf. Acts 4:36–37; 9:27).

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This survey of the spatiality produced by the Antioch church has been impressionistic rather than exhaustive, but it has demonstrated two important considerations. First, the compelling cultural force19 of christocentric heavenly thirdspace is woven through this section of Acts, radically altering material and conceptual space along the way. Second, reading Acts 11:19–30 for its spatiality has illuminated the narrative’s theology and ethics. Far from being an optional “bolt-on,” such spatial readings illuminate the text in new and informative ways. 3. Reading Acts 12:1–25 for Its Productions of Space If Acts 11:19–30 mediates the spatialities of the churches in Antioch and Jerusalem, then “Herod the king,” who initiates Acts 12, exerts a spatiality of his own which is immediately at odds with the narrative’s expanding salvation geography. The naming of Julius Agrippa I by his dynastic name “Herod” is widely regarded as a deliberate and uniquely Lukan literary strategy, one which is not extended to his son Agrippa in Acts 25–26. Most obviously, “Herod” conjures up the ebbs and flows of the dynasty’s power, territoriality and legitimacy within both Judaism and the wider Mediterranean world. Acts 12 acknowledges both arenas and, as such, the dynastic name claims both real and imagined space within its orbit. Within and beyond this political frame of reference, “Herod” also recalls the previous Lukan uses of the name.20 “Herod” has previously been mentioned in Acts 4:27, where the believers’ prayer builds a pesher-like geography from Ps 2:1–2 (Acts 4:24–30). There, “Herod” refers to Herod Antipas, recalling his role in Jesus’ passion which resulted in his friendship with Pilate (Luke 23:11– 12), casting them both within a motif of the “kings of the earth / rulers” who unite against God’s “Messiah” (Χριστός). This oppositional spatiality is located specifically “in this city” (4:27), which resonates loudly with Jesus’ estimation of Jerusalem’s deadly opposition to the prophets, manifest in Herod Antipas’ desire to kill him (Luke 13:31–34). 19.  George (2009: e.g. 137, 145) uses “compelling cultural force” to describe functionally what he means by “symbolic space,” which in his schema equates with thirdspace. 20.  Examining all the references to “Herod” in Luke’s Gospel for their contributions to Luke’s textual landscape lies beyond this present discussion. Attention here focuses more closely on references to Herod in Acts, with some reference back to Luke’s Gospel.



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The sudden emergence of another “Herod” in Acts 12:1 in this same city recalls and develops these earlier oppositional spatialities. His violence against “some who belonged to the church” is directed against a group already depicted as vulnerable by their need for famine relief. This action, together with his execution of James and subsequent arrest of Peter, removes the “peace” enjoyed after Saul encountered the heavenly Jesus (9:31). Without denying the variety of intertextual references which have been raised in relation to Acts 12,21 this present reading of the chapter for its spaces raises this relatively unexplored Ps 2 motif. There are several connections. The Jerusalem setting and a re-characterization of “Herod” both evoke the Ps 2 nexus established in Acts 4, as do the two imperfect periphrastic descriptions of the church in prayer (Acts 12:5, 12). The first specifies prayer “to God” (πρὸς τὸν θεόν), echoing 4:27. Yet, unlike in Acts 4, the details of their prayers in Acts 12 are not specified beyond being for Peter (12:5), which encourages readers to recall that previous instance of prayer made in the face of persecution, and thus re-invokes Ps 2 as an interpretive framework. More inferentially, the recent description of the believers as “Christians” in 11:26 strengthens connections back to the “Christ” of Ps 2. Finally, Acts contains other allusions to Ps 2 (e.g. “rulers” in 13:27 and 14:5), indicating a generative inter- and intra-spatiality. I propose that this Ps 2 motif bridges Acts 12 and confirms its spatiality under the rubric generated by Christ’s ascension, and maintains, in Acts 12, the christocentric focus evident earlier in Acts.22 21.  An Exodus/Passover motif also informs Acts 12 (Allen 1995, 98–107), not least given its socio-political and concurrently theo-spatial implications. A broad Exodus influence runs in part through 2 and 3 Maccabees where immediate deliverance heralds spatial restructuring for the believing community (Weaver 2004, 191–204). Weaver also judges that this tradition draws more broadly on cultural tropes surrounding Dionysian resistance myths pertaining to prison-escape and cultic foundations. Wall (1991) and others suggest that Jesus’ passion, resurrection and ascension typologically structure Acts 12, but Weaver (2004, 208 n. 162) claims that both sides of such a typology link back to an underlying epiphanic emphasis. This itself promotes a christocentric reading. Just as with his understanding of the OT exodus (Acts 7:36), the Lukan “exodus” of Jesus extends through a series of arenas, incorporating death, resurrection and ascension (Luke 9:31, 51; cf. Acts 1:2, 22) with its integral promise of future return and the formation of earthly believer-spaces in the interim period. Other intertextual suggestions, such as Ezek 28 informing Acts 12:20–23, or Isa 42:7–8 relating with Acts 12:7, 23, fail to connect with Acts 12 as a whole (Allen 1995, 95–97). 22.  Acts 12 is the first of only four chapters in Acts not to refer to Jesus by name (the others being chs. 14, 23 and 27). Though chapter divisions constitute a later reconstruction, it is still worth drawing attention to this observation.

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Reading Acts 12 in the light of Ps 2 connects well with John Weaver’s “myth-critical” reading, with its focus on the epiphanic dimensions within Acts 12 (Weaver 2004, 149–217). Weaver understands myth as traditional tales which serve a social function via “the creation and maintenance of social solidarity, the legitimation of social practices, or the symbolic expression of a social structure.”23 This accords with the generative function of thirdspace, indicating that Acts 12 must be read for a “mythgeography” to interweave with Weaver’s “mythistory.” One major consequence of reading Acts 12 for its mythgeography is a movement away from ascribing the angel of the Lord’s epiphanic interventions as simply and narrowly “divine,” as Weaver habitually does. Instead, Ps 2 emphasizes what has been evident in earlier chapters of Acts, namely that the epithet “heavenly” is more accurate than “divine,” since heavenly interventions on earth now reflect God and his now heavenly Christ (and the Spirit mediated by them both: Acts 2:33). Such consistent linguistic substitution would preserve the narrative’s post-ascension focalization, to which Acts 12 conforms. Apart from 12:5, where the church is described as praying “to God” (recalling the Ps 2 context via Acts 4:24), Acts 12 consistently refers to “the Lord,” a term which in Acts frequently resists ascription to God in isolation from the absent-but-not-passive post-ascension Jesus.24 References to “God” do not resume until after the chapter’s heavenly interventions (12:23b, 24) and then occur only in narrative explanation. Phenomenologically, the light and detailed instructions in vv. 7–8 parallel the explicitly Christological interventions in Acts 9:3–16 which, while not proving a narrowly Christological intervention in Acts 12, allow for Yahweh and his Christ to be working in concert, as befitting the spatiality of Ps 2. Further, given Jesus’ self-identification with his persecuted followers in 9:4–5, this “Herod” emerges as an antagonist against the Lord’s Christ in the terms set up within Acts 4 and Ps 2.

23.  Weaver 2004, 189. Cf. Weaver 2004, 1–10. Such mythic dimensions infuse what Alexander (2008, 60) calls the “shadowy ‘double helix’ of rival interpretations” of Israel’s scriptures generated by “Luke’s invisible dialogue partners,” each with their own spatiality, among whom Acts was written and read. Psalm 2 forms part of a wider and dynamic Davidic promise tradition surveyed by Strauss (1995, 35–74), used by some to challenge Hasmonean and Herodian claims to the throne (Strauss 1995, 54). It also contributes to a wider theo-political Old Testament horizon wherein the nations are, or should be, Yahweh’s partners (Brueggemann 1997, 492–527). 24.  Sleeman 2009; cf. Rowe 2006, 189: “the ambiguity in Luke’s use of κύριος actually increases [in Acts] to reflect the locational reality of the κύριος in heaven,” cf. e.g. 7:59, 60.



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Herod’s apparently motiveless persecution in 12:1–2 attacks the churches’ production of space on both the physical and conceptual planes. His actions against James and Peter fracture the Twelve, a group whose virtually talismanic presence within Jerusalem has been a key lynchpin in constructing Jesus’ post-ascension space on earth.25 Nothing blocks Herod except the possibility of heavenly intervention. Acts 4:28 renders this possible, inferring that Herod’s intention (βουλόμενος), declared by the omniscient narrator in 12:4, lies within God’s plan (βουλή). The two reports of the believers praying (12:5, 12) form an inclusio which casts the heavenly intervention in vv. 6–11 as an (initially unrecognized) response to their prayer.26 As earlier in Acts, the restructured spatial relations brought about by heavenly thirdspace intervention are not immediately obvious, even to believers (cf. e.g. 9:21, 26; 10:1–11:18); they need to be discerned. Peter’s realization in 12:11 clarifies an uncertainty flagged in 12:9, confirming his release as materially real (ἀληθές). Furthermore, it also serves a conceptual and visionary function within the narrative’s production of space. Although narrated in detail, Peter’s escape from Herod’s physical control requires Peter’s soliloquy in 12:11, which discerns a comprehensive “spatial synecdoche,” symbolically expressing “ruptured political authority” encapsulated in rescue from “all the purposes of Herod and the Jews.”27 Such a material, conceptual and visionary conclusion is not selfevident, not least because the earlier prison-escape in 5:19–26 appeared to be engineered from heaven deliberately to result in rapid re-arrest.

25.  On the basis of 8:1 and 9:27, and the in absence of any contrary information, readers construe the Twelve as still present in Jerusalem. Unlike the apostate Judas, James need not be replaced (cf. 1:15–26). Despite James’ death and Peter’s likely displacement from Jerusalem in 12:17, the Twelve still function eschatologically, thirdspatially, being those qualified and chosen according to time- and space-specific criteria (1:13, 21–22, cf. Luke 22:30). 26.  This framing is syntactically clearer and theologically more suggestive than Weaver’s proposal that 12:1, 5 form an inclusio marking the Jerusalem ἐκκλησία as “central” to Acts 12 (Weaver 2004, 207). Acts 12:5 specifies that the prayer concerned Peter (περὶ αὐτοῦ), not themselves, and an inclusio of the church at prayer renders a heavenwards rather than ecclesial orientation across Acts 12, a focus which 12:18–23 sustains. 27.  Weaver (2004, 166), emphasis in the original. In Acts, the verb ἐξαιρέω indicates heavenly transformation of perilous spatial circumstances: cf. God’s deliverance of Joseph from all his afflictions, in Canaan as well as in Egypt (7:10); the exodus itself (7:34); and Jesus’ reassurance to Saul/Paul (26:17).

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This discernment comes to Peter in a liminal setting beyond the prison gate, on the edge of the same “city” (12:10) which was implicated in 4:27 as the site for the conflicting spatialities encoded within Ps 2.28 Acts 12:12 implies that Mary’s house lies within the city – a location which further contributes to the chapter’s Ps 2 overtones. Despite the persecution (12:1), the people defined by the heavenly one remain gathered together29 in the city where Herod and the Jews appear to hold sway but where heavenly oversight is still working. Whereas Weaver casts 12:12–17 as the second of four epiphanies in Acts 12 (Weaver 2004, 161, 172–77), it is better understood as a secondary diffusion of Peter’s initial epiphanic deliverance from prison. While there are some literary correspondences between the angel’s appearance in prison and Peter’s appearance at Mary’s house, the parallels are neither as many nor as clear as Weaver claims. In particular, reading “his angel” in 12:15 as mirroring the same term in 12:11 ignores the differing immediate antecedents in each instance, and Weaver does not consider a more natural reading whereby the believers might imagine Peter’s spirit or soul to be outside the door.30 Co-textually, the believers are not the most reliable assessors of the situation at this juncture. They have limited data since Rhoda reports Peter’s presence, but not his voice,31 and the unfolding events prove their initial estimate demonstrably wrong. Furthermore, prayers in the face of persecution and even impending death within Acts typically seek faithful perseverance; deliverance from death is not anticipated (4:27–30; 7:59, 60; cf. 14:22; 16:25). Certainly the gathered believers experience confusion and misapprehension following Peter’s release, but this is better understood as a “space lag” prior to their realization of the reordered spatiality brought about by the earlier heavenly intervention.32 Their confused response is insufficient evidence for a second, separate epiphany. Rather, they are disoriented by 28.  The areas beyond cities are important marginal spaces in Acts, associated with disruptive transgressions of conventional spatial controls, where re-territorialization creates hybrid spaces. Cf. 7:58–60; 9:3–8, 25; 14:19–20; 16:13, 16–18. 29.  The only other New Testament use of the verb συναθροίζω, in Acts 19:25, also signals a gathered spatiality laying claim to a locality. 30.  Noting, for example, that Luke assumes that the dead can appear and, even, speak (Luke 9:31). 31.  This observation does not invalidate Rhoda’s ironic status reversal from “running slave” to “reputable servant,” as identified by Shiell (2004, 181–82). She has recognized Peter’s voice. 32.  The parallel disturbance among Herod and his soldiers (12:18–19) does not transform into such realization.



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an unexpected expression of heavenly thirdspace governance over earthly affairs, a realization already granted to readers (12:11). This retrospective realization of heavenized spaces by both believers and unbelievers is characteristic of the narration of space within Acts (e.g. 2:12; 3:11; 5:22–25; 9:21, 26; 10:1–11:18). Acts 12:16 characterizes the believers as collectively opening the door to Peter, seeing him, and experiencing amazement. As well as bringing in Peter from the outside and thus resolving his liminal space, this collective appropriation together with Peter’s declaration and instructions in 12:17 sustains their christocentric space as it undergoes the wider persecution narrated in 12:1.33 In Luke’s economy anticipated in Luke 1:1–4, such telling, hearing and retelling of the things fulfilled among believers – mediated through the apostles’ teaching (Acts 2:42) – sustains characters and readers alike within heavenly third spaces on earth.34 It inculcates a realization that they are, collectively, (still) living on the cusp of a responsive Ps 2 geography of persecution and provision, as Acts 4:23–31 declared and as 12:24 will confirm. In such a perspective, the spatiality sustaining practice of listening to the apostle anticipates the ultimate heavenization of Herod’s territoriality, since Ps 2:8–12 requires kings such as Herod either to submit to the territoriality of Yahweh’s Christ or to perish under him.35 Acts supplies no time-scale for this (cf. Acts 2:35), nor is individual protection from persecution assured, but Ps 2 closes with a note of confidence for those within its christocentric space. Herod’s inclusion in its remit is assumed, as it was when a christocentric thirdspatial reordering of the geography of power within Israel was celebrated in Luke 1:51–55 and foretold in Luke 2:34. Under this theo-political schema, the narrative’s close attention to Herod, from 12:18 onwards, is expected and appropriate. Herod continues to generate oppositional spaces. First, in 12:18–19, his excessive, unjust and gratuitous reaction to the confusion following Peter’s disappearance (Weaver 2004, 199–201) generates an antithesis to the believer-space which has cohered around Peter’s release and realization in 12:11–17. Herod’s capricious attitude towards those who remain subject to his spatial power continues on his arrival in Caesarea, his capital and the center of his political power (12:19b–20). His “anger” (θυμομαχῶν) removes peace 33.  Cf. similar space-generating and -maintaining practices in Acts 4:23; 9:27; 11:4; 15:7–12 and 21:19. 34.  Peter presumably reiterated in 12:17 that which he declared in 12:11. With joy, Rhoda had recognized (ἐπιγνοῦσα) Peter’s voice, anticipating the wider desired intention informing Luke’s works (cf. Luke 1:4, ἵνα ἐπιγῷς). 35.  Cf. Paul’s appeal to King Agrippa in Acts 26:26–29.

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and causes concern regarding food among the people of Tyre and Sidon, and contrasts starkly with the compassionate and generous territoriality evident in the famine relief exercised by the Antioch believers in 11:27– 30.36 The contrast between these spatialities is especially telling, given the narrative’s likely inversion of historical chronology in its ordering of these two incidents.37 Herod’s sudden demise at the apparent height of his territorial power in 12:21–23 is depicted vividly as the death of a king – a term used twice in v. 20. The visual markers in v. 21 – the “royal robes” in which Herod had clothed himself, and his position seated on a βῆμα (RSV “throne”; cf. NRSV “platform”) – sustain this characterization. This reinforces a narrative assessment of his fate within a Ps 2 matrix and, although the reference is to βῆμα rather than θρόνος, Luke 1:51–55 colors the narrative’s (de)constructions of the scene’s geographies of power.38 Yet Acts 12:21–23 emphasizes the verbal, rather than the visual, as directly provoking Herod’s death.39 His fate conforms to the heavenly spatiality already posited by the narrative, being explained as arising from a failure to “give God the glory” (12:23) following the epiphanic claims uttered by those seeking his favor, claims which offend the predominant heavenly power relations in Acts. In sum, Herod dies as a rebellious Ps 2 king. If we understand “glory” in 12:23 as “a heaven-set…political currency” (Weaver 2004, 185) which should be reciprocated towards God, Herod transgresses both the spatiality inscribed for earthly kings in Ps 2 and the economy of glory narrated in Luke and Acts, which has swung decisively towards Jesus (Acts 7:2, 55; 22:11).40 His short-circuiting of this heavenwards orientation reprises the spatiality encapsulated in 36.  Θυμομαχέω combines anger and at least the intimations of violence (Weaver 2004, 201). Such emotional and material underpinnings to Herod’s territoriality con­ form to Herod’s characterization elsewhere in Acts 12. Barrett (1994, 589) suggests Herod had imposed “economic sanctions” on Tyre and Sidon. Regarding the firstcentury political and economic geography of these regions, cf. Theissen 1992, 66–80. 37.  Cf. Barrett 1994, 592. 38.  And, prospectively, the power geographies associated with other βῆματα in Acts are qualified by the Lukan spatiality infusing this scene (cf. 18:12–17; 25:6, 10, 17). 39.  Cf. Josephus, Ant. 19.344–50. This emphasis mirrors the verbal space-formation in 12:14–17 and anticipates the chapter’s contrastive climax in 12:24. 40.  For this christocentric development running through Luke’s Gospel, compare 2:9, 14, 32; 4:6; 9:26, 31, 32; 17:15–18; 19:38; 21:27; 24:26. Cf. Sleeman (2009, 148 n. 54, 165) concerning Acts 7:2, 55.



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Luke’s thirdspatial account of Jesus’ temptation in Luke 4:5–6. There, the devil showed “in an instant” (ἐν στιγμῇ χρόνου) “all the kingdoms of the world” (οἰκουμένης),41 envisioning their authority (ἐξουσία) and glory (δόξα), while claiming that “it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please.” Jesus decisively rejected this geographical claim (Luke 4:7–8) and later reworked the geography of authority in a christocentric fashion (Luke 19:17, cf. v. 12; note the characteristic Lukan equation of “cities” as arenas for exercising authority). Peter later recognized that the devil’s spatiality succumbed to Jesus himself (Acts 10:38, cf. 9:34). In this co-text, Herod’s retention of glory in 12:23 typifies the seriousness with which the Lukan narrative holds his misplaced rebellion against a christocentric geography. The differing angelic strikes (πατάσσω) in 12:7 and 12:23 connect the two halves of Acts 12 and intimate not simply “the partiality of divine presence” (Weaver 2004, 188) but also the geo-political consequences of Christ’s heavenly reign. 4. Conclusion Acts 11:19–12:24 recount narrative spatialities in transition, rising and falling in relation to the heavenly Christ in Israel and beyond (cf. Luke 2:34). In particular, it narrates the early church undergoing “trial by space,” whereby “ideas, representations or values which do not succeed in making their mark on space, and thus generating (or producing) an appropriate morphology, will lose all pith and become mere signs, resolve themselves into abstract descriptions, or mutate into fantasies” (Lefebvre 1991, 416–17). Having established theologically the conceptual feasibility of its ascension-geography spaces in 11:18, the realization of such a heavenized space in the novel setting of Antioch in 11:19–30 represents a crucial watershed in the narrative. The abortive movements cited by Gamaliel in 5:36–37 failed to gain a lasting spatial purchase, whereas the Jesus-movement has reproduced itself in a sustained and interdependent innovative space, becoming a polycentred situation, a presence in space as well as in time. Gamaliel’s ambivalence concerning believer-space is being progressively answered in the unfolding narrative. The “word” in 12:24 is simultaneously ecclesial42 and spatial. 41.  The Lukan account presages Soja’s evocation of thirdspace via Jorge Luis Borges’ literary invention of “The Aleph,” a place “where all places are” (Soja 1996, 54–57). 42.  Kodell 1974. Whereas Herod has exercised power silently within Acts 12, and is ultimately silenced, the church continues to speak, through both Peter and Rhoda.

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This answer is unfolding, as Acts 12 demonstrates. The narrative confirms what Lefebvre stipulates: that trial by space “does not occur in identical fashion everywhere” (Lefebvre 1991, 417). In the face of persecution and even apostolic death and dislocation, Jerusalem remains held as a believer-space. James, a subsequent protagonist within these unfolding spaces (cf. 15:13–21; 21:18–25), is introduced in the midst of bleak trials in 12:17, as was Saul in 7:58. Acts 11:19–12:24 heralds a wider world, an ongoing trial by space which 12:25 introduces with the return to Antioch-space prior to its missionary turn towards the western Mediterranean region. In this milieu, unpromised heavenly interventions still occur, but heavenized spaces still need to be discerned and are neither absolute nor necessarily irreversible. Acts 12 has not resolved all contradictions of space. James, the brother of John, is still dead, doors still need to be opened to Peter by those within, and Peter still leaves for another place. Herod is dead, but other hostile βῆματα remain. Recurring iterations of the christocentric spatiality inscribed in Ps 2 bring protection and persecution. Heavenized space is not heaven on earth: there is, rather, a here-but-not-here tension within it. Within its provisionality, it looks heavenwards for its locus and, as here in 12:17, remains peripatetic (cf. 8:1; 9:25, 30; 14:6, 20).43 To live consciously “under heaven” in Acts 11–12 is difficult, but vital. Such spatiality, in this narrative’s terms, has no incidental quality: it is, rather, as Lefebvre implies, a matter of life and death.44 Works Cited Alexander, L. C. A. 1995a. “In Journeyings Often”: Voyaging in the Acts of the Apostles. Pages 17–49 in Luke’s Literary Achievement: Collected Essays. Edited by C. M. Tuckett. JSNTSup 116. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic. ———. 1995b. Narrative Maps: Reflections on the Toponymy of Acts. Pages 17–57 in The Bible in Human Society: Essays in Honour of John Rogerson. Edited by M. D. R. Carroll, D. J. A. Clines, and P. R. Davies. JSOTSup 200. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic.

43.  Rather than a “flight to safe ground” (cf. Ley 1974), Acts sees such mobility as providentially furthering mission, as in 11:19, and never as deserting the nurture and sustenance of believer-spaces. 44.  Lefebvre (1991, 417): “…the ‘world of signs’ clearly emerges as so much debris left by a retreating tide: whatever is not invested in an appropriated space is stranded, and all that remain are useless signs and significations. Space’s investment – the production of space – has nothing incidental about it: it is a matter of life and death.”



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———. 2008. Community and Canon: Reflections on the Ecclesiology of Acts. Pages 45–78 in Einheit der Kirche im Neuen Testament: Dritte Europäischer OrthodoxWestliche Exegetenkonferenz in Sankt Petersburg 24.–31. August 2005. Edited by A. Alexeev, C. Karakolis, and U. Luz. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Allen, O. W. Jr. 1995. The Death of Herod: The Narrative and Theological Function of Retribution in Luke–Acts. SBLDS 158. Atlanta: Scholars. Baker, C. R. 2007. The Hybrid Church in the City: Third Space Thinking. Explorations in Practical, Pastoral and Empirical Theology. Aldershot: Ashgate. Barrett, C. K. 1988. The Gentile Mission as an Eschatological Phenomenon. Pages 65–75 in Eschatology and the New Testament: Essays in Honor of George Raymond Beasley-Murray. Edited by W. H. Gloer. Peabody: Hendrickson. ———. 1994, 1998. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on The Acts of the Apostles. ICC. 2 vols. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. Brueggemann, W. 1997. Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy. Minneapolis: Fortress. Darr, J. A. 1992. On Character Building: The Reader and the Rhetoric of Characterization in Luke–Acts. Louisville: Westminster John Knox. Gaventa, B. R. 1988. Towards a Theology of Acts: Reading and Rereading. Int 42: 146–57. George, M. K. 2009. Israel’s Tabernacle as Social Space. SBL Ancient Israel and Its Literature 2. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Gill, D. W. J., and C. Gempf, eds. 1994. The Book of Acts in Its First Century Setting: Graeco-Roman Setting. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Carlisle: Paternoster. Inge, J. 2003. A Christian Theology of Place. Explorations in Practical, Pastoral and Empirical Theology. Aldershot: Ashgate. Kodell, J. 1974. “The Word of God Grew”: The Ecclesial Tendency of Logos in Acts 6:7; 12:24; 19:20. Bib 55: 505–19. Lefebvre, H. 1991. The Production of Space. Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith. Oxford: Blackwell. Ley, D. 1974. The City and Good and Evil: Reflections on Christian and Marxist Interpretations. Antipode 6: 66–73. Magda, K. 2009. Paul’s Territoriality and Mission Strategy: Searching for the Geographical Awareness Paradigm Behind Romans. WUNT 2/266. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Nasrallah, S. 2008. The Acts of the Apostles, Greek Cities, and Hadrian’s Panhellenion. JBL 127: 533–66. O’Donovan, O. 1989. The Loss of a Sense of Place. Irish Theological Quarterly 55: 39–58. Parsons, M. C. 1998. The Place of Jerusalem on the Lukan Landscape: An Exercise in Symbolic Cartography. Pages 155–71 in Literary Studies in Luke–Acts: Essays in Honor of Joseph B. Tyson. Edited by R. P. Thompson and T. E. Phillips. Macon: Mercer University Press. Rowe, C. K. 2006. Early Narrative Christology: The Lord in the Gospel of Luke. BZNW 139. Berlin: de Gruyter. Scott, J. M. 1994. Luke’s Geographical Horizon. In Gill and Gempf 1994, 483–544. Shiell, W. D. 2004. Reading Acts: The Lector and the Early Christian Audience. Biblical Interpretation 70. Leiden: Brill. Sleeman, M. 2009. Geography and the Ascension Narrative in Acts. SNTSMS 146. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Soja, E. W. 1996. Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places. Oxford: Blackwell.

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Strauss, M. L. 1995. The Davidic Messiah in Luke-Acts: The Promise and Its Fulfilment in Lukan Christology. JSNTSup 110. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic. Theissen, G. 1992. The Gospels in Context: Social and Political History in the Synoptic Tradition. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. Thompson, M. B. 1998. The Holy Internet: Communication Between Churches in the First Christian Generation. Pages 49–70 in The Gospels for All Christians: Rethinking Gospel Audiences. Edited by R. Bauckham. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. Wall, R. W. 1991. Successors to “the Twelve” According to Acts 12:1–17. CBQ 53: 628–43. Weaver, J. B. 2004. Plots of Epiphany: Prison-Escape in the Acts of the Apostles. BZNW 131. Berlin: de Gruyter. Winter, B. W. 1994. Acts and Food Shortages. In Gill and Gempf 1994, 59–78. Xeres, S. 1988. La struttura geografica dell’opera storica di Luca. Pages 73–89 in Geografia e storiografia nel mondo classico: Contributi dell’Istituto di Storia Antica. Edited by M. Sordi. Milan: Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore.

H ebrews 3:7–4:11  and the F unction of M ental T ime -S pace L andscapes J. Cornelis de Vos

1. Introduction The Epistle to the Hebrews is full of imagery of movements in space and time. “The wandering people of God” (Ernst Käsemann) are on their way to the transcendental realm, to the eschatological city (Heb 13:14). This forces us to take the dimensions of time and space seriously and to analyze the mental time-space landscapes evoked by the text. Such imaginative landscapes can, just like written texts, be seen as meta-texts with their own semantics: the meaning of the points in time and space; their syntax: the meaning of the connections between those points; and their pragmatics: the impact on the mind and behavior of the addressees. It is important to know, in the analysis of such “landscapes,” that topological semes are not value-free.1 This goes without saying in a volume about constructions of space. Nevertheless, a few words on this topic can be justified. In general above, before, right, center, and proximity are considered to be good. We call, for example, our forefathers those who are before us, although they are behind us; thus, we hold them in high esteem. On the contrary, bottom, left, behind, and so on are usually deemed bad; cf. “outsider.” The time aspect, however, is also of great importance. In the example mentioned above, the forefathers can be seen both under the aspect of space and of time. The mental spaces evoked by texts can also be memory spaces or future, prospective spaces. The fascinating aspect is that the person in whose mind those spaces emerge can merge those timely different landscapes into a mental time-space landscape with four dimensions: height, length, width, and time. Within these four dimensions there is always a “here and now.” But this “here and now” is pregnant with meaning by virtue of its four-dimensionality and thus comprises 1.  See, among others, Gehlen 1995 and 1998.

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a powerful aid for the positioning and orientation of an individual or a group.2 With regard to the orientation, an even more important consideration is the sacred space, which is always in the center. Sacred space and, equally, holy time create a cosmic order and a feeling of social security. It enables individuals and groups to locate themselves within the cosmos.3 By an exemplary exegesis of Heb 3:7–4:11, I would like to demonstrate the depth of the “here and now” of the pericope by placing it on a time and space axis and relating it to “the sacred.” Interestingly, time and space before the “here and now” as well as time and space after the “here and now” mingle with or, better, “curve into” the actual “here and now” and confer its dynamics of admonition and comfort. In our pericope, the addressees have not yet reached their “homeland.” The voyage to this eschatological “homeland” is dangerous, as the past will instruct; however, it is possible to reach as the future has promised. By the way, we hardly know anything about the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, nor about his addressees. I surmise that he had lived in Rome and that he wrote to his fellow believers in Rome. Although, at the time he wrote his letter, he no longer lived in Rome.4 While we do not know the real author, we do know the voice of the implicit author of Hebrews.5 He presents himself as a teacher and preacher who directly addresses and admonishes his listeners. In this respect, the implicit author is even more vigorous than the real author; his strength is his anonymity. The narrative addressees and the implicit addressees are probably the same, as the author speaks to them in the second person plural continuously.6 The aim of his letter was probably to admonish those Christians who had come from Judaism but were on the verge of relapsing into Judaism: “recidivists,” so to speak, that he wanted to move back again towards Christianity.

2.  See Baudy 1998; Pezzoli-Olgiati 2003. 3.  Bäumer 2003, here 690. 4.  Cf. Heb 13:24 and 2:16. 5.  Whether something like an implicit author exists is a matter of debate. An implicit author is a kind of text-immanent second self of the real author. Although the concept of such a “second self” is hardly manifest, in the exegesis of the Letter to the Hebrews it works very well. 6.  See in Hebrews the many occurrences of the verbs ἀκούω and λέγω with their derivates and composites: ἀκούω; εἰσακούω; ὑπακούω; ἀκοή; παρακοή; ὑπακοή; λόγος; λόγιον; λογίζομαι; ἀναλογίζομαι; ὁμολογέω; ὁμολογία; εὐλογέω; εὐλογία; ἀντιλογία. Therefore I will hereafter use the term “addressees” indiscriminately.



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Let us return to our pericope. Hebrews 3:7–4:11 is a kind of Christian homiletic midrash7 of Ps 95:7b–11 in the Septuagint version (Ps 94:7b–11 LXX) which the author connects with Gen 2:2.8 It can be divided into three parts: (1) introduction of the Old Testament text: 3:7–11; (2) interpretation: 3:12–19; (3) consequence: 4:1–11.9 The author cites Ps 94 LXX almost verbatim,10 from v. 7 up to v. 11, in which God swears to the Israelite people in the wilderness: “They shall not enter my rest” (Ps 95 [94]:11 = Heb 3:11) – a proposition with spatial and time aspects. This rather uncomforting sentence seems to be important for the author since he repeats it three times within Heb 3:7–4:11 (3:11; 4:3, 5), and also refers to it at one time (3:18).11 The addressees will not have missed this.12 From the sentence, “They shall not enter my rest,” the author picks out the word “rest,” κατάπαυσις in Greek, as a keyword for his homily.13 Consequently κατάπαυσις occurs eight times explicitly in our pericope 7.  Kraus 2008. For an overview of questions concerning midrash, see Neusner and Avery-Peck 2004. Enns (1997, 352) labels the text a pesher. However, in a pesher each element of a text gets one specific meaning in a linear way. The exegesis of Heb 3:7–4:11 is clearly different. 8.  And he alludes to Deut 12:9 as well as to Num 14, 20:1–13, and Exod 17:1–7. See Hossfeld and Zenger 1999, 664–65. 9.  And (4) “The power of the word of God”: 4:12–13. However, it is highly debated whether vv. 12–13 belong to the pericope. Most exegetes consider 3:7–4:11 to be a pericope; a few, such as, for example, Vanhoye (1989) and Gräßer (1990), extend it to v. 13. 10.  Most differences between the two texts are of minor importance: Ps 94:7b–11 LXX :: Heb 3:7–11: ἐδοκίμασαν (94:9) :: ἐν δοκιμασία (3:9); εἶδοσαν (94:9) :: εἶδον (3:9); τῇ γενεᾷ ἐκείνη (94:10) :: τῇ γενεᾷ ταύτῇ (3:10); εἶπα (94:10) :: εἶπον (3:10); καὶ αὐτοὶ (94:10) :: αὐτοὶ δὲ (3:10). Only the place of τεσσαράκοντα ἔτη is significant. In Ps 94 LXX, God is angry with the wilderness generation for forty years (94:10); in Hebrews the forefathers have seen the works of God for forty years (3:9–10). The author connects this by the addition of the conjunction διό with the statement about the anger of God (3:10). So the meaning of Heb 3:9b becomes concessive. 11.  Erich Gräßer designates Ps 95, and even more the Septuagint version of it, a “Paradigma des Unglaubens” (Gräßer 1990, 179). 12.  This is stressed by DeSilva (2000). 13.  A large number of studies have been published about the theme of “rest” in the New Testament and in Gnosis. To mention some examples: von Rad 1958; Hofius

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and is also referred to three times implicitly.14 In addition, the verb καταπαύω, “to rest,” occurs thrice.15 In comparison to the rest of the New Testament, this is a respectable number, because beyond Heb 3:7–4:11 both κατάπαυσις and καταπαύω each occur only once.16 Κατάπαυσις shares with ‫מנוחה‬, its Hebrew counterpart, two basic meanings: first, rest as resting place; and, second, rest as a state of physical/psychological rest. To be more precise, four meanings of κατάπαυσις can be distinguished in the Greek Bible:17 “rest” as: (1) (2) (3) (4)

a state of resting;18 a synonym for Sabbath;19 a resting place or inheritance of the Israelite people;20 The location where God or the ark settles down or dwells.21

The first two meanings denote states of resting; the second two denote locations of rest. In the quoted text of Ps 95, κατάπαυσις has the third meaning: resting place or inheritance of the people; in other words: the Promised Land of Canaan. The fourth meaning, however, “resting place or dwelling place of God or the ark,” is typical in the Septuagint with six out of a total of 13 matches. Did the author of our pericope know all these meanings? Yes he did. More than that, he plays with the polysemes of the word, and eventually, combines all four meanings. I shall try to illustrate 1970; Helderman 1984; Laansma 1997; Wray 1998; Gleason 2000; Bénétreau 2003. 14.  Κατάπαυσις occurs explicitly in Heb 3:11, 18; 4:1, 3 (2×), 5, 10, 11; and implicitly in Heb 3:19; 4:6 (2×). 15.  Καταπαύω occurs in Heb 4:4, 8, 10. 16.  Κατάπαυσις: Acts 7:49; καταπαύω: Acts 14:18. There are some more occurrences of the semantically related ἀνάπαυσις: Matt 11:29; 12:43; Luke 11:24; Rev 4:8; 14:11; and ἀναπαύω: Matt 11:28; 26:45; Mark 6:31; 14:41; Luke 12:19; 1 Cor 16:18; 2 Cor 7:13; Phlm 1:7, 20; 1 Pet 4:14; Rev 6:11; 14:13. 17.  Κατάπαυσις occurs, surprisingly, only thirteen times in the Septuagint: Exod 35:2; Num 10:35; Deut 12:9; Judg LXX-A 20:43; 3 Kgdms 8:56; 1 Chr 6:16; 2 Chr 6:41; Jdt 9:8; 2 Macc 15:1; Pss 94:11 LXX; 131:14 LXX; Sir 5:6; Isa 66:1. 18.  Judg 20:23 LXX-A; 3 Kgdms 8:56. 19.  Exod 35:2; 2 Macc 15:1. 20.  Deut 12:9; Ps 94:11 LXX. 21.  Num 10:34; 1 Chr 6:16; 2 Chr 6:41; Jdt 9:8; Ps 132 [131]:14; Isa 66:1 (there as a negation of God’s dwelling on earth). Jdt 9:8, where the Temple is designated as τὸ σκήνωμα τῆς καταπαύσεως τοῦ ὀνόματος τῆς δόξης, is exemplary. See also Jos. Asen. 8:9; 15:7. Sir 5:6 marks an exception. There, rest is connected with the anger of God that rests on sinners.



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that by a sort of homiletical exegesis, fitting the character of the text and focusing on images of space and time and their pragmatic functions. 2. Exegesis 3:7a: In Ps 94 LXX (= Ps 95 MT), the quoted text, it is God who speaks; in Heb 3 it is the Holy Spirit who speaks. This connects the situation of Ps 95 directly with the contemporary presence of the hearers of Hebrews. The same God, who once spoke to the Israelites as they were going astray in the desert, is speaking now by his Holy Spirit. Please notice also the praesens λέγει.22 The author of Hebrews builds an imaginative bridge between present and past. He takes his audience thereby back to the desert and rebukes them by means of the words of the Holy Spirit, as God had once rebuked the Israelites. Διό, the first word of the pericope, connects the quotation with the foregoing statement of Heb 3:6b “(…) we [the Christians] are his [Christ’s] house if we hold firm the confidence and the pride that belong to hope.”23 The statement is both consoling and threatening: consoling, in so far as Christians belong, as a kind of family, to the house of Christ; threatening, by the condition “if we hold firm the confidence and the pride that belong to hope.” As Heb 3:7 proceeds with a rebuke, the line of argument is in the first instance that of the danger of losing “the house of Christ.” The syntactical connection of διό to the following text is less clear. There are three possible explanations:24 (1) There is no connection to the following; (2) διό connects to v. 8: “(Therefore…) do not harden your hearts”; (3) it connects to v. 12: “(Therefore…) take care, brothers and sisters, that none of you may have an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.” The whole line of thought in the pericope speaks in favor of the third explanation. The lengthy quotation of Ps 95:7b–11, thus, prepares the admonition of v. 12 in a negative exemplary way. 3:7b: The audience will relate the quotation of Ps 95 to themselves. The σήμερον, the “today” of the quotation and the direct speech in the second 22.  See Löhr 1994a, 229–31. 23.  Biblical quotations are from the NRSV. 24.  Löhr 1994b, 89.

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person plural, “Today, if you hear his voice,” are conductive to this transmission up to the time of the hearers, up to their “here and now.” Topologically there is an outside–inside relation: the voice of the Holy Spirit comes from outside (and from above) and pervades the audience. Illocutivily, a hierarchical relation emerges; perlocutively, the advertence of the hearers is pressed. 3:8 warns or blames the addressees for making their hearts hard. Up to the end of 3:8a, all the words so far can apply directly to the contemporary addressees of the Epistle to the Hebrews. The phrase “as in the rebellion” could, if technically read, already hint at the rebellion of the Israelites in the desert; but it is only at the end of 3:8 that the wilderness comes explicitly to the fore, and with that a period which lies before (or behind) the implicit addressees. This is marked by κατὰ τὴν ἡμέραν, “at that day/ at that time.” The text of 3:8b is some sort of relief for the addressees because the rebellion took place in a past time. The time perspective is now – once. Since the Holy Spirit is still speaking the connecting topological perspective for both times is outside–inside. A so-called memory space emerges. The hearers are in the desert together with their ancestors in a mental way. 3:9a relocates, again the time of the rebellion, to the time of the ancestors. This is soothing. But at the same time the phrase οἱ πατέρες ὑμῶν, “your ancestors,” links the rebellion to the present generation. 3:9b–11 plays in the past. It applies to τῇ γενεᾷ, “that generation” (3:10a). This generation was so stubborn that God swore to them that they would not enter his rest. To repeat, κατάπαυσις, “rest,” in the quoted text of Ps 95 is a terminus technicus for the Promised Land, the Land of Canaan: the land where the Israelites will come to rest. A future in the past which had been lost: the promised, but forfeited, entrance into the Land of Canaan. I do not know whether the hearers of our text still remember that the quotation was introduced by διό, although they will have understood the threatening undertone: “If you are as stiff-necked as those before you, you will not enter into the κατάπαυσις”: a future in the present which is at stake. In 3:12 it becomes obvious that the author targets his hearers when he quotes Ps 95. He warns his hearers against lack of faith, which consists of ἀποστῆναι, being distant from God. We have a new perspective here, that is, God is distant in place, he is above; and in time, he is in the future. The temptation of once (3:8b) becomes in 3:13 an admonition on and for every



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day (καθ᾿ ἑκάστην ἡμέραν) “as long as it is called “today” (σήμερον).” The author plays with σήμερον, “today”; it is the “today” of the past, an abhorring example; it is the “today” of the wandering, on the way to overcome distance; and it is the “today” of the promised future of being at home and of nearness. In short, at the end, it is a soteriological “today.”25 3:14 establishes, with its substantiation “for (γὰρ) we have become partners of Christ,” a connection with the initial διό, “therefore,” of 3:7 and then via διό with the foregoing pericope 3:1–6. Just as in 3:6, where being a house of Christ was bound to confidence, here being partners of Christ is bound to confidence to the end: a condition, which is connected with a statement in the perfect, γεγόναμεν. They have already become partners of Christ, but only if they remain confident on their way until the end. In 3:15 the first part of the initial quotation is repeated. But now it is clear that solely the Christians, the μέτοχοι τοῦ Χριστοῦ, the “partners of Christ,” are addressed, not the generation which was once in the wilderness. Σήμερον is now the “today” of the addressees. 3:16–17 focuses back on the wilderness generation. All of those who were rebellious and had sinned had died in the wilderness. This leads the author to the maxim in 3:18–19 that God lets nobody enter his rest who is disobedient, who does not believe. This is a message that applies equally to the wilderness generation and to the contemporary audience. In 4:1 there is hope. The promise (ἐπαγγελία) to come into God’s rest is still open.26 The addressees should only take care not to stay behind (ὑστερηκέναι; perfect tense). Here again, now by the word ὑστερηκέναι, “to stay behind,” nearness, distance, and movement, a being on the way, are implied. This observation is not new. Ernst Käsemann had labelled the Christians of Hebrews a “wandering people of God.”27 It is worthwhile to point to the fact that the noun κατάπαυσις, “rest,” never occurs without the 25.  Cf. for this aspect of “today” Bäumer 2003, 699. In Hebrews we find the first “today” in 1:5; cf. 1:2. 26.  For the meaning and function of ἐπαγγελία, an important theologoumenon in Hebrews, see Rose 1989. 27.  Käsemann 1957; English: Käsemann 1984.

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verb εἰσέρχομαι, “to enter.”28 The pertinent question here is: To enter into what? Are the addressees just as the wilderness generation on their way to the Promised Land? Yes, they are on their way to the Promised Land but not to the Land of Canaan/Israel. In 4:2–3a faith is connected with having heard the good news, ἐσμεν εὐηγγελισμένοι, again, as in 3:14, in the perfect tense.29 In 4:6 the author is more explicit; there he speaks about those “who formerly (τὸ πρότερον) received the good news.” We can presume that here the author means Christians from Jewish origin, but who, by returning to Judaism, did not adhere to confidence, to faith. For such cases, the author presents three biblical texts about κατάπαυσις, about rest: the multiply quoted Ps 95 (4:3, 5); the account of God resting after creation (4:3, 4); and the successful conquest of Canaan by Joshua which, however, had not given the Israelites rest (4:8).30 We can read about the creation (4:3–4) that all God’s works are established before God rested on the seventh day. That means that, among others the κατάπαυσις, as one of God’s works of creation, was extant as otherwise God could not have rested.31 The ἔργα, the works of God, occurred already in 3:9–10, with respect to the works that the wilderness generation had seen but which had not led them to obedience. The two occurrences of ἔργα in 3:9 and in 4:4 connect, by keyword connection, the history of the Israelites with the creation of the world. And in 4:10 the ἔργα pop up in relation with those who will enter God’s rest in the future. A similar keyword connection can be found in the occurrences of ἡμέρα, “day”: 3:8 – the day of testing in the wilderness; 3:13 – every day of the addressees; 4:4 – the seventh day of creation; 4:7 – a new day as today; 4:8 – a later day in the future. We can once more notice a connection of creation, past, today, and future. Rest is as a work of creation principally extant, but the Israelites have, nevertheless, not yet come to rest. The proof for the author of Hebrews is that if Joshua had given real rest to the Israelites, God would not speak later, that is, in Ps 95 by David, about another day (4:7–8). But the σήμερον, the “today” of Ps 95, is still valid both now and in the future. 28.  Hebrews 3:11, 18; 4:1, 3, 5, 10–11; implicitly in 4:6. See also other words in the pericope implying movement: τὰς ὁδούς μου (3:10), πλανάω (3:10), ἐξέρχομαι (3:16), σπουδάζω (4:11). 29.  Cf. also συγκεκερασμένους in the same verse. 30.  On the relationship between Joshua and Jesus, see Whitfield 2010, de Vos 2012a, and Ounsworth 2012. 31.  See, for space concepts in Antiquity, Zekl 1992; Algra 1995; Heuner 2006.



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The keyword connection between rest after creation and rest in Ps 95 leads to a melting of the significances of the two kinds of rest. It is impossible to use the simple word κατάπαυσις for this, and therefore the author of Hebrews creates a new word, σαββατισμός;32 a word with the connotations that it is: (1) a constitutive work of God; (2) that God rested – rest is here a state of resting; (3) that it is some sort of place, similar to the resting place of Ps 95, that is, the Promised Land. In Antiquity combining texts and their content by matching keywords was a valid hermeneutical rule.33 Only after this merging of meanings, does v. 11 acquire its meaning: “For those who enter God’s rest also cease from their labors as God did from his.” In other words, entering the rest means just like God entering into a realm of rest, entering into a divine realm of rest. In v. 11, this is not simply called κατάπαυσις, but ἐκείνη ἡ κατάπαυσις, “that (sc. qualified) rest,” a rest with all the above-mentioned connotations. Time, creation, past, present, and future as well as space, creation space, wilderness, the Promised Land, the dwelling place of the addressees, and the divine realm are connected with each other and even mingle. That which cannot simultaneously be formed in technical space, can be expressed by words and can be properly imagined and understood. 3. Striving to Be at Home In order to understand what is expressed by means of words, these words are to be translated into a mental time-space landscape. The mind brings together what written and heard texts cannot achieve on their own. The mind goes beyond borders of actual time and space. Memory spaces become actual spaces as well as future spaces and vice versa.34 With respect to the Epistle to the Hebrews: a “today” from the past situated in the wilderness is a “today” in the contemporary “wilderness” of the addressees of Hebrews; and it is a “today” of the future, because the “Hebrews” are going astray and have not yet reached their destination. 32.  See the excursus in Gräßer 1990, 218–20. 33.  In the later rabbinical hermeneutics, this was called “gezera shawa.” See Gräßer 1990, 209–11 and Bénétreau 2003. Regarding the term “gezera shawa” itself see Stemberger 1992, 28–29, and in particular Basta 2006. 34.  See the contribution of Bieberstein in this volume.

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The wilderness is the wilderness of once before, it is the “dry spell” of now and it can be the “runway” to the promised space of divine proximity. Only on one occasion, in Heb 7:19, is this divine proximity stated explicitly; it says: “there is, on the other hand, the introduction of a better hope, through which we approach God.” The author of Hebrews admonishes his hearers in many places to stay on the right path. To where does this path lead? It leads to the divine realm, considered to be spatial. The people of Hebrews are on their way to God himself – he is their “homeland” in some way.35 The “homeland” has a couple of imageries in Hebrews of which I would like to highlight that of the “house” and that of the “city.” I have already touched a few times on the subject of “the house.” The house is the space par excellence which belongs to the private sphere of an individual or group. The inhabitants of a house belong together by real or fictive family bonds. It is no coincidence that the metaphor of the “house” (οἶκός, οἴκησις, οἰκία36) occurs so often in the New Testament. Just before our pericope, in Heb 3:6, the addressees of the Epistle to the Hebrews are referred to as “house of Christ.” Just as in 3:7–4:11, in 3:6 the space of this “house” is not given, but is conditioned: “We are his house if we hold firm the confidence and the pride that belong to hope” (3:6; cf. 3:14). Only if the conditions are fulfilled does a “house” emerge, which symbolizes the familiar nearness to Christ. This space does not exist per se, it is constructed. Emmanuel Lévinas has worked out in his Totalité et infini (1961) that the house, le demeure, l’habitation, as symbol of “the own” does not only guarantee a feeling of security, but also figures the world: Concretely speaking, the dwelling is not situated in the objective world, but the objective world is situated by relation to my dwelling. The idealist subject which constitutes a priori its object and even the site at which it is found does not strictly speaking constitute them a priori but precisely after the event, after having dwelt in them as a concrete being. The event of dwelling exceeds the

35.  Many other texts in Hebrews can substantiate this. Compare the occurrences of ἐπουράνιος, κληρονόμος, κληρονομέω, κληρονομία, κοσμικός, κόσμος, οὐρανός, πάροικος, παροικέω, πόλις, πολίτης. Samuel Bénétreau points to the fact that the verb εἰσέρχομαι in Hebrews goes, with two exceptions, always together with a coming into the realm of God (2003, 213). Exceptions are to be found in 10:1 and 12:18. 36.  In Hebrews of the three words only οἴκος occurs: 3:2, 3, 4, 5, 6 (2×); 8:8, 10, 21; 11:7.



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knowing, the thought, and the idea in which, after the event, the subject will want to contain what is incommensurable with a knowing.37

Lévinas concentrates on the individual. However, what applies for the individual also applies, mutatis mutandis, for the group, and in this case for the family. To expand on this, a house and a family belong more closely together than a house and an individual. The individual can be connected to τὰ ἴδια, “the own,” at the most; the house is more comprehensive.38 This constructed house leads to a feeling of security, a feeling of being at home, a feeling of intimacy. Those who live within one house are mostly akin, and if they are not directly akin, they are close to each other. Those who live in one house belong to a family in the broad sense of the word. It is asserted by many sociological and socio-psychological studies that space creates shared identity, and this identity in turn creates shared space. This shared space does not have to be real, it can also be mental. However, when a socio-religious group positions itself in a space which is not concrete, the same group can orient itself better within the real space. In this manner, a Christian group can be at home within a non-Christian society. Identity emerges both by separation and acculturation: Divine space as orientation binds the people of Hebrews together. The Christians have defined themselves from the beginning as a family with God as father and Christ as brother. We can find examples of this perspective in the Epistle to the Hebrews as well. I would like to point to two occurrences: 2:11: For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters… 2:13: And again, “I will put my trust in him.” And again, “Here am I and the children whom God has given me.”

37.  Lévinas 1991, 153. Translation of the original French: “Concrètement, la demeure ne situe pas dans la monde objectif, mais le monde objectif se situe par rapport à ma demeure. Le sujet idéaliste qui constitue a priori son objet et même le lieu où il se trouve, ne les constitue pas, à parler rigoureusement, a priori, mais précisément après coup, après avoir demeuré, comme être concret, en lui, débordant le savoir, la pensée et l’idée où le sujet voudra, après coup, enfermer l’événement de demeurer qui est sans commune mesure avec un savoir” (Lévinas 1961, 126). 38.  Cf. the well-known phrase from John 14:2: “In my Father’s house there are many μοναί.” For the topological image of John 14 see de Vos 2012b, 175–82.

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The early Christians needed a “house” for their “family.” Since they did not really have such a center, they constructed a “house” with God as the father of the “house.” But because one cannot have God at one’s disposal, the utterances about God’s dwelling in the house are all conditional. So the conditional statements are in fact declarations of faith and hope that God will in future dwell together with the Christians in their “house.” The κατάπαυσις, “the rest,” of the pericope Heb 3:7–4:11 is, to my opinion, a kind of heavenly house. On the other hand, we have the imagery of the heavenly city. The wellknown passage from Heb 13:14, “For here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come,” tells that the perspective of the early Christians addressed to in Hebrews is a future city. Many verses in Heb 11 and 12:28–29 let us assume that the future city is the city of God. Abraham, in ch. 11, “looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb 11:10). And the following quotation from Heb 11:13–16 may substantiate my assumption: They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland (πατρίδα). If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country (κρείττονος). that is, a heavenly one (ἐπουρανίου). Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city (πόλιν) for them.39

In Heb 12:22, the Mountain of Zion is equated with the city of the living God and the heavenly Jerusalem, thus becoming some sort of “runway” for its own transcendence of being the heavenly Zion. The imageries of the house, the homeland, and the city all share the familiarity of the “partners of Christ” (3:6) with each other and with God and the proximity to God. That is why they can mingle under the heading of “being at home” or, better, “being at the real home.” 4. Conclusions In Heb 3:7–4:11 the Old Testament topic of the “rest,” there connected with the Promised Land, is taken up, but it is modified into a rest that has, first, a cosmological foundation in creation, because it was one of the works of God, and that has, second, a theological foundation in God himself, since God rested on the seventh day after the completion of the 39.  A convincing study on the “real homeland” of the addressees of Hebrews, especially in Heb 11, is Backhaus 2001.



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creation. So if the people of Hebrews are on their way to “this rest” (εἰς ἐκείνην τὴν κατάπαυσιν, 4:11), they are in fact on their way to God/his realm. That is their real, albeit eschatological home.40 Nevertheless the way and the destination are clear. “Rest” in Heb 3:7–4:11 is the keyword that binds together past, present, and future. It creates a cosmological, divine, and eschatological space that marks the orientation of the addressees of Hebrews. It admonishes and it comforts them. It gives them a position, a feeling of security in their socio-religious “today.” In short, it gives them rest and a resting place: at once actual, transitional, and eschatological. Works Cited Algra, K. A. 1995. Concepts of Space in Greek Thought. Philosophia antiqua 65. Leiden: Brill. Backhaus, K. 2001. Das Land der Verheißung: Die Heimat der Glaubenden im Hebräerbrief. NTS 47: 171–88. Basta, P. 2006. Gezerah shawah: Storia, forme e metodi dell’analogia biblica. Subsidia Biblica 26. Rome: Pontificio Istituto biblico. Baudy, G. 1998. Orientierung. In Cancik et al. 1998, 4:293–301. Bäumer, B. 2003. Sakraler Raum und heilige Zeit. Pages 690–701 in Handbuch Religionswissenschaft. Religionen und ihre zentralen Themen. Edited by J. Figl. Innsbruck: Tyrolia-Verlag/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Bénétreau, S. 2003. Le repos du pèlerin (Hébreux 3,7–4,11). Études théologiques et religieuses 78: 203–23. Cancik, H. et al., eds. 1998. Handbuch religionswissenschaftlicher Grundbegriffe. 5 vols. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. DeSilva, D. A. 2000. Entering God’s Rest: Eschatology and the Socio-Rhetorical Strategy of Hebrews. Trinity Journal 21:25–43. Enns, P. 1997. The Interpretation of Psalm 95 in Hebrews 3:1–4:13. Pages 352–63 in Early Christian Interpretation of the Scriptures of Israel: Investigations and Proposals. Edited by C. A. Evans and J. A. Sanders. JSNTSup 148. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic. Gehlen, R. 1995. Welt und Ordnung: Zur soziokulturellen Dimension von Raum in frühen Gesellschaften. Religionswissenschaftliche Reihe 8. Marburg: Diagonal-Verlag. ———. 1998. Raum. In Cancik et al. 1998, 4:377–98. Gleason, R. C. 2000. The Old Testament Background of Rest in Hebrews 3:7–4:11. Bibliotheca sacra 157: 281–303. Gräßer, E. 1990. An die Hebräer (Hebr 1–6). Evangelisch-katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament 17/1. Zurich: Benziger/Neukirchener.

40.  See also Enns 1997. I do not understand why Judith Hoch Wray concludes “that REST remains an undeveloped and unsustained theological metaphor in the Epistle to the Hebrews because ENTERING INTO THE REST has not become a part of the Christology of the writer of Hebrews” (Wray 1998, 91). Is that necessary?

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Helderman, J. 1984. Die Anapausis im Evangelium Veritatis: Eine vergleichende Untersuchung des valentinianisch-gnostischen Heilsgutes der Ruhe im Evangelium Veritatis und in anderen Schriften der Nag Hammadi-Bibliothek. Nag Hammadi Studies 18. Leiden: Brill. Heuner, U., ed. 2006. Klassische Texte zum Raum. Berlin: Parodos. Hofius, O. 1970. Katapausis: Die Vorstellung vom endzeitlichen Ruheort im Hebräerbrief. WUNT 11. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Hossfeld, F.-L., and E. Zenger. 1999. Psalmen 51–100. Herders theologischer Kommentar zum Alten Testament. Freiburg: Herder. Käsemann, E. 1957. Das wandernde Gottesvolk: Eine Untersuchung zum Hebräerbrief. 2d ed. FRLANT 55. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ———. 1984. The Wandering People of God: An Investigation of the Letter to the Hebrews. Translated by R. A. Harrisville and I. L. Sandberg. Minneapolis: Augsburg. Kraus, W. 2008. Hebrews 3:7–4:11 as a Midrash on Psalm 94 LXX. Pages 275–90 in Florilegium Lovaniense: Studies in Septuagint and Textual Criticism in Honour of Florentino García Martínez. Edited by H. Ausloos et al. Ephemerides theologicae lovanienses 224. Leuven: Peeters. Laansma, J. 1997. “I will give you rest”: The “Rest” Motif in the New Testament with Special Reference to Mt 11 and Heb 3–4. WUNT 2/98. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Lévinas, E. 1961. Totalité et infini: Essai sur l’extériorité. The Haag: Nijhoff. ———. 1991. Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Translated by A. Lingis. 3d ed. Kluwer: Dordrecht. Löhr, H. 1994a. “Heute, wenn ihr seine Stimme hört.” Zur Kunst der Schriftanwendung im Hebräerbrief und in 1 Kor 10. Pages 226–48 in Schriftauslegung im antiken Judentum und im Urchristentum. Edited by M. Hengel and H. Löhr. WUNT 73. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. ———. 1994b. Umkehr und Sünde im Hebräerbrief. BZNW 73. Berlin: de Gruyter. Neusner, J., and A. J. Avery-Peck, eds. 2004. Encyclopedia of Midrash: Biblical Inter­ pretation in Formative Judaism. Leiden: Brill. Ounsworth, R. 2012. Joshua Typology in the New Testament. WUNT 2/328. Tübingen: Mohr. Pezzoli-Olgiati, D. 2003. Orientation. Pages 655–56 in vol. 6 of Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Edited by H. D. Betz et al. 4th ed. Tübingen: Mohr. Rad, G. von. 1958. Es ist noch eine Ruhe vorhanden dem Volke Gottes: Eine biblische Begriffsuntersuchung. Pages 101–108 in vol. 8 of Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament. Edited by G. von Rad. Munich: Kaiser. Rose, C. 1989. Verheißung und Erfüllung: Zum Verständnis von ἐπαγγελία im Hebräerbrief. Biblische Zeitschrift 33: 60–80, 178–91. Stemberger, G. 1992. Einleitung in Talmud und Midrasch. 8th ed. Munich: Beck. Vanhoye, A. 1989. Structure and Message of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Subsidia biblica 12. Rome: Pontificio Istituto biblico. Vos, J. C. de. 2012a. Josua und Jesus im Neuen Testament. Pages 524–40 in The Book of Joshua. Edited by E. Noort. Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum Lovaniensium 250. Leuven: Peeters. ———. 2012b. Heiliges Land und Nähe Gottes. Wandlungen alttestamentlicher Land­ vorstellungen in frühjüdischen und neutestamentlichen Schriften. FRLANT 244. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.



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Whitfield, B. J. 2010. The Three Joshuas of Hebrews 3 and 4. Perspectives in Religious Studies 37: 21–35. Wray, J. H. 1998. Rest as a Theological Metaphor in the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Gospel of Truth: Early Christian Homiletics of Rest. SBLDS 166. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Zekl, H. G. 1992. Raum. I: Griechische Antike. Pages 67–82 in vol. 8 of Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie. Edited by J. Ritter et al. 13 vols. Basel: Schwabe, 1971–2007.

C arnelian and C aryatids : S tone and S tatuary in the H eavenly S anctuary Jorunn Økland

1. The Book of Revelation and Space The book of Revelation has surfaced frequently in discussions of WesternChristian notions of time as evolution, including some sort of penultimate rupture before the new and better era can be established. Different churches hold different views of the exact time scheme before the return of Christ, with Revelation as a point of departure.1 Apocalyptic time may have been most focused in religious speculation and in research,2 yet Revelation as a book of visions also presents powerful images of apocalyptic spaces and places before our eyes. As Tina Pippin (1994) has shown, the book has had a deep impact on the cultural imagination of places like heaven and hell, places that are not equally visually and colourfully described in other parts of the New Testament at least. Within an otherwise rather un-iconic early Christian tradition (genuinely Christian art is a late development), in the book of Revelation sight gains status as the primary sense instead of hearing.3 This is a paradox, because the vision still has to be communicated through a transformation into a hearing/reading experience – it is “encoded in writing” as David Hellholm formulates it in one of his articles (Hellholm 1990). Perhaps as a consequence of this paradox, Revelation has historically been an attractive biblical book for artists to translate back into a visual code. They must have found the spatial-visual character of the book and its vivid imagery

1.  See summary of reception history in Økland 2009a. For an alternative temporal model, see Gregg 2002, 2–3; for cultural examples, see Pippin 1999. 2.  And here I am referring to the millennialist, pre-millennialist, post-millennialist, dispensationalist readings and their academic counterparts, see Økland 2009a, 7–9. 3.  This is a main point in Frilingos 2004, see below.



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inspiring.4 Still, only a few scholars have explored this paradox by trying to actually map Revelation’s apocalyptic topography and architecture.5 I will present some of their views and attempt my own in this chapter. Among scholars who have demonstrated a spatial interest in Revelation, there was early on Catherine Keller, who in her book Apocalypse Now and Then (Keller 1996) reads Revelation against the foil of the apocalyptic rhetoric and genocide of the conquistadores when they entered the New World, that is today’s Latin America. Revelation for them functioned as a map of the overwhelming, “new” world (in their perspective) that they happened upon. Keller also points out how in the Western mind the ever mythical future holds all the promise, and the brand new continent “lacked the concreteness of a place, the peculiarities of landscape and social history. Utopia: that the ‘good place’ is always ‘no place’ ” (Keller 1996, 141). Tina Pippin, in her “Peering into the abyss” (Pippin 1994, 253), reads the abyss as a rupture in the apocalyptic landscape. The abyss, understood as the bottomless well of chaos outside the holy city, decenters the measurable ordered space of the new Jerusalem. Stephen Moore’s God’s Gym (1996), Steven Friesen’s Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John (2001) and Christopher Frilingos’s Spectacles of Empire (2004) share an interest in the Roman imperial order and state apparatus dominant at the time of writing of the book of Revelation. They address the centrality of viewing, spectacle and place in Roman imperial culture in different, but related ways. They are interested in the question of whether the author of Revelation is an ordinary participant in this culture of “spectacle” or more of a critic from the margins of the ideology thereby transferred, but disagree with regard to the answer.6 My attempted map of Revelation’s most sacred spaces will have affinity with these studies, and especially with Moore’s attempt to take the text’s literal surface at face value, so they will be further referred to along the way. If we take all the visions presented literally, visually, is it possible to synthesize them into a plan of a sacred space? If so, what identifies this space and what image of the sacred does the map convey? This task is challenging because it involves grasping the spatial organization of the worlds John describes as if through a kaleidoscope, worlds where the coordinates seem to be constantly shifting. The impression 4.  An impressive online list of examples is presented by Felix Just (Just 2014). 5.  Cf. Friesen 2001, 152: “The general lack of interest in these basic facets of the text is understandable. Revelation’s view of the world is at odds with modern secular cosmologies and with most modern religious ones as well.” 6.  See especially Frilingos’s critique of Friesen in Frilingos 2004, 12.

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that the spaces are moving and unstable7 is created either by the author’s literary/theological choice or is merely a result of the constraints of the narrative form. Barbara Snyder believes the former: she argues that space/ time transitions are used as literary structuring devices in Revelation.8 The narrative sequence must be seen as thematic and following a particular kind of logic. She would also probably agree with the latter, more general view: Because Revelation describes a vision, we cannot read the incidents and the spatial movements as occurring consecutively, in a temporal order. I have previously (Økland 2005, 152–54) drawn attention to Graham Ward’s discussion of the fact that human understanding of time and space and the bodies which construct or fill them have changed through time: “It was only late in the medieval period that ‘space’ denoted linear distance between two or more points or objects” (Ward 1997, xvii). Modernity is linked to specific conceptions of time, space and substance, which postmodernity explodes, he maintains, and I would like to add: which rendered space and time in the book of Revelation almost incomprehensible. The postmodern “explosion” that Ward refers to still comes with an embedded language to speak about and represent relations and practices within the space–time continuum, but in its wake may follow more apt ways of making sense of textually construed ancient spaces. “John,” the implied author of the book who is also the Seer of its visions, enters into heaven through an open door, and it is from the heavenly position that he looks back down on earth, Snyder points out: In the series of seals, trumpets, and bowls, the place from which he sees does not seem to change until the conclusion of the series of bowls… While the visions themselves contain events that occur in heaven and earth, and affect the entire cosmos, each of the numbered series has its origin in heaven. (Snyder 1991, 446)

The Seer is not transported up and down all the time, describing different heavens and different earths – other than when he explicitly says so (“I saw a new heaven and a new earth,” Rev 21:1). The Seer’s viewpoint (in a spatial sense) is instead presented as the most stable and permanent place in the

7.  I have expanded on this in Økland 2009c. Please also see there for a spatial reading of Revelation’s final chapters, which I will not endeavour to do here (cf. pp. 202–3, below). 8.  Snyder 1991. More recently, also Frilingos explores how the Roman provincial “culture of viewing” could have equipped the original audiences of Revelation to “see” what they “heard” read aloud to them from this letter/book. Cf. also Camp 2002.



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whole book, and more permanent than the dwelling place of God himself, who towards the end of the book relocates to the New Jerusalem on earth. This suggests that we can take the various references to the place God is inhabiting, piece them together and assume they refer roughly to the same place, although its coordinates may vary, too. This will be important for the further reconstruction of God’s favoured places in this chapter. Thus, Revelation’s presentation of the vision from a bird’s eye viewpoint in turn allows a synthesizing reading of the places in Revelation that in some way is identified or associated with the sacred. a. John’s Heaven as a Holy Place: Terminology of the Sacred Revelation mentions spaces and places on many levels. There are the cosmic coordinates of οὐρανός – “heaven” and “sky,” which are not terminologically distinguished in Greek; earth, for which various, but mostly more topologically precise designations are used, and ἄβυσσος, infinite and bottomless space without bottom, the abyss. On earth there are the seven cities with the seven churches, and there are also mother cities like Jerusalem and Babylon. In heaven there are also different places, some holy and some evil. Yes, in parts of Revelation, heaven can be filled with evil since ὁ Σατανᾶς, “the Satan,” is not thrown out until ch. 12. In the utopian new creation is another Jerusalem, and outside of her city walls remains the active lake of fire, which has no distinguishable spaces in it. The plot draws heavily on the difference and conflict between these places, their shifting relations and coordinates and their change in status. Terms relating to holiness, sacredness and its opposite are heaped upon the various spaces. There are only two spaces that at first glance seem to be constructed as “holy”: God’s heaven and the New Jerusalem on earth. God is present in both of them, one after the other, yet they are not completely identical. When looking for Revelation’s most sacred place, judging from its attributes with holiness/sacred connotations, God’s heaven looks from the outset like a good place to start. Most concepts and terms with holiness/sacred connotations are heaped onto this place, described in ch. 4 onwards. I will map this space and begin by taking special note of terms for the sacred and the holy, then follow up more widely by taking note of cultic, spatial and architectural terms and connotations. The cultic language is so pervasive that the following synthetic reading can only pick up the most important terms and concepts in this area. First, ἅγιος is the overall term used for holiness in Revelation, and it is usually translated “holy.” But what does it mean? Lexica define it as “originally a cultic concept, of the quality possessed by things and persons

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that could approach a divinity.”9 Its attachment to the divine is incessantly declared, according to Rev 4:8, by the four living creatures. Holiness could be seen as a quality of God himself that is “contagious” and sticks to those close to him. It occurs in 23 verses of the book, even several times in one verse. In chs. 21 and 22 ἅγιος is used three times in connection with the new Jerusalem. So, the new Jerusalem in John’s text is constructed as holy through his declaration of holiness to the city.10 The term ἅγιος is also used as attribute to the angels; but most frequently, and this is noteworthy, to human – or male – Christians. Secondly, ἱερός, that which sets/is set apart, is used only as the root of the common noun ἱερεύς, priest, who are Christians (Rev 1:6, 5:10 and 20:6) of various kinds. It is often translated “sacred.” Since the root ἱερός is used only in this specific designation of priests, and since ἅγιος is used frequently with reference to a variety of characters, any clear distinction between sacred and holy with their corresponding Greek terms ἱερός and ἅγιος is thus an over-determination in a spatial reading of Revelation. We further find the term γιάζω in the text. It means “to make holy,” to construct something as holy, in the epilogue in 22:11. In this verse, the angel speaks on behalf of God (the latter does not speak much himself for reasons I will return to): “Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be made filthy, and the righteous still do righteousness and the holy still be hallowed (or made holy).” The evildoer and the righteous do evil and righteous deeds inherent to them, but the filthy or unclean and the holy are made such, we must conclude from the passive form. This strong interpretation of the passive form as semantically meaningful feeds into the broader perspective of holy space in Revelation: there, holiness is something that is made and achieved. Holiness in Revelation is semantically defined by and in opposition to evil and defilement. As Pippin has pointed out, the extreme holiness of the new earth and the New Jerusalem cannot be described properly without constant references to what the people of the earth must not bring into it (dirt, filth, abomination and falsehood).11 Even when Death and Hades, Satan and Babylon are thrown into the lake of fire, evil is not done with. In other words, evil is still required for the continued stability 9.  Bauer 1979, 9, s.v. ἅγιος. Cf also Liddell, Scott, Jones 1940: s.v. ἅγιος: “devoted to the gods.” 10.  In this I build on Rappaport (1979), in particular the chapter “The Obvious Aspects of Ritual,” pp. 173–222). Rappaport builds on Austin’s speech-act theories (Austin 1975). He understands rituals as profoundly performative, they construct what they declare, they are tautological. See also below, pp. 203–4. 11.  This is one of the main points in Pippin 1994.



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and definition of the holy; the latter is dependent on the expulsion of the former. Holiness related to place in Revelation, then, does not denote a stable quality of places, things and beings. Rather, it is a quality that is constantly threatened, constantly at risk and has to be constantly reproduced, revitalized and declared through performative utterances. 2. What Kind of Space Is Revelation’s Heaven? a. Revelation 4 If we fast forward through the first three chapters of Revelation, containing the letters to the seven churches, we arrive at ch. 4 where the first vision of heaven is described. The following list includes important spatial markers from ch. 4 onwards, which will be synthesized into a draft plan of heaven: • A voice says in 4:1: “come up here.” In the spirit, John enters the door into heaven (which may or may not be identical to the door mentioned in 3:7–8). Thus heaven is a space that is defined, bounded, not available to just anyone. It is available only to the person in front of whom God has placed “an open door” (3:8). • After John’s entry, what the text draws attention to first is the area of the throne. A throne is to begin with a royal attribute, as David Aune (1983) has emphasized in his analysis of the heavenly scene as an imitation of an imperial court room. But thrones could also be found in many sanctuaries, mostly with statues of deities seated on them. In the case of empty thrones, the idea was that the deity can take a seat at any time. • On Revelation’s heavenly throne sits “someone” who is “in sight like stone – jasper and carnelian” (4:3).12 • The throne is surrounded by an iris or a rainbow that looks like an emerald (4:3). Ross Winkle has persuasively argued that the term σμαραγδίνος would not refer to emerald in the modern, specific sense, but to any gemstone mentioned in the Hebrew Bible that possessed the ability to shine, glitter or flash. That is, over the throne is something more like a monochromatic halo than the polychromatic light that characterizes a rainbow.13

12.  My emphasis (Greek: ὅμοιος ὁράσει λίθω ἰάσπιδι καὶ σμαραγδίνος). 13.  Winkle 2014. He bases this argument on a number of translation discrepancies between Hebrew and Greek (LXX), indicating that the translators were far from gemologists. I thank Winkle for access to the written version of the paper.

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• Around the throne are also twenty-four further thrones, on which are seated twenty-four elders dressed in white, and wearing golden crowns. • In front of the throne, seven lighted torches are burning. John explains that these are the seven spirits of God (4:5). • In front of the throne is an open space that to John looks like a sea of glass or crystal (4:6). • Immediately surrounding the throne are “four living creatures” in determined form, so they are supposed to be well known. They are equipped with eyes in front and behind, and inside and out of their six wings, so that they in some way must represent the 360 degree heavenly gaze. • The 24 elders also constantly sing “songs of glory and honour and thanks to the one who sits on the throne”: Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was, who is, and who is to come. (4:8–9)

The singing is carried out ritually, with the four living beings and the twenty-four elders taking turns. The 24 elders fall down before the throne (4:10). They throw their crowns in front of the throne and say, Our Lord and God! You are worthy to receive glory, honour and power. (4:11)

To make spatial sense of this vision is hard, even before we start adding the information given later in the book. Surrounding the throne is both a halo as well as 24 other thrones. How are these two features combined in one single map? Another spatial-visual problem is the four living creatures who have eyes both in the front and back, and both on the inner and outer side of their wings. For the four living creatures, however, there is a precedent in the previous prophetic literature, in Ezek 1, a chapter that shares more than the four living creatures with Rev 4.14 Among previous attempts similarly emphasizing the influence of the Roman imperial order on the vision, Moore has made explicitly anachronistic sense of the throne room vision as a posing exhibition in a gym.15 It is God’s supremely male body that is on display. Frilingos (2004) also notes the gendered and sexual connotations of the vision, but he roots them more firmly than Moore in the ancient cultural context of 14.  Moore 1996, 120–21; For a relevant presentation of Ezekiel from another angle, see Rowland 2011. 15.  Moore 1996, 123 (for “anachronistic”) and 117–38.



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spectacle as witnessed in a range of Roman authors. Given Frilingos’s focus on visuality and spectacle, one would expect him to be interested in the countless eyes on the four living creatures since they do confirm his understanding that in Revelation, sight is the “queen of the senses” (Frilingos 2004, 39–41). But he pays almost no attention to this fact, choosing to pursue instead the effects of Revelation on the human, “extratextual audience.”16 Friesen’s Imperial Cults (Friesen 2001) draws on archaeological materials from Asia Minor and other sources to imperial cults in the region to read John of Patmos as a local, religious critic opposed to a broad and strong religious-political discourse. Friesen includes a description of the kinds of space one encounters in Revelation (Friesen 2001, 152–66). Friesen describes the vision in question as a vision of God’s throne room. He notes especially the absence in this space of sacrificial activity. Sacrifice was a key feature of most sanctuaries, so its absence does speak in favour of his interpretation of the space as a royal court room (Friesen 2001, 153). I will, however, present alternative interpretations below. Thomas Osborne (2003) on the other hand, has noted that even at first sight the term ναός, “temple,” is an important one in this book. It appears no less than 16 times! Almost exclusively, the temple referred to is the one in heaven. In my view it makes most sense to compare the scene with temples and sanctuaries with which the audience must have been acquainted. Not only Roman sanctuaries for imperial cult come to mind, but also the Second Temple and the discourse in the wake of its fall – e.g. in Jewish apocalypticism, and in more mainstream literature such as the Mishnah. If the (Second) Temple proper was gone, it had a vibrant afterlife in the years following 70 C.E., in religious discourse preoccupied with temple issues, measures and symbolism.17 Let us try out this interpretation before we include further information on ritual action and on the architecture of the heavenly sanctuary from other parts of the book. At first glance, any comparison of the architecture described in Rev 4 with the architecture of the Second Temple does not quite work. There was no cult statue in its Holy of Holies, and very restricted view and 16.  Frilingos 2004, 49, 93, and 141. Frilingos is more interested in human spectators’ “culture of viewing.” This culture is what he traces in his book. 17.  Chyutin 2006, 185–219. Joan Branham discusses “The tentative transference, then, of sanctity from the Temple tradition to the developing synagogue organization” (Branham 1995, 320). Cf. also Steven Fine, who demonstrates how temple terminology and discourse was increasingly used by the Tannaim to describe and define non-temple ritual settings (Fine 1997, 55).

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access. With a standard, small sanctuary of a Graeco-Roman deity on the other hand, we find some shared architectural features: The entry area, the propylaeae, should above all be impressive, and optical illusion was often involved. The experience of passing through the propylaeae should prepare the pilgrim/visitor for the “other side” and induce a feeling of humility in the face of the grandeur of the deity. Through the gates, the gaze should be drawn more or less immediately towards the cult statue or towards the house in which it was found. In Rev 4:1–3, this is exactly what happens. “John” sees a range of people as his gaze moves around. The good ones and the ones in sacred spaces are dressed in white clothing, like the 24 elders in ch. 4 and the multitude of 7:9. White was the colour often used for ritual clothing, among other places by the priests serving in the Jerusalem Temple. White garments were commonly worn by priests and priestesses also in other cults, and in initiation rituals, thus the colour suggests a cultic setting in a generic way only.18 Yet Aune has insisted that the circle of thrones with 24 elders and their crowns is taken from Roman imperial court ceremonial, in which smaller kings presented their crowns to an emperor or sovereign higher up in the royal ranks.19 He points out that the casting of crowns is not a ritual found in the Jerusalem sanctuary. And in contrast to various proposals that 24 may refer to the number of the tribes of Israel times 2, the number of adult singers in the Temple (12 plus boy assistants, see below), or constitutes any other reference to Jewish practices,20 he suggests that the number 24 may also have been appropriate in the imperial court.21 His argument demonstrates, at least, that the 24 thrones with elders in white clothing constitute a presence that could make sense within different cultic contexts. Regarding the seven lighted torches burning in front of the throne, it is common to associate this architectural feature with the Menorah, the seven-armed lampstand of the Jerusalem Temple.

18.  For a broader discussion of clothing, colours and fabrics in Revelation, see Neufeld 2005. 19.  Aune 1983, 12–14; cf. Millar 1977, 140–43. 20.  Robert Mounce, for example, argues that they are a “heavenly counterpart to the 24 priestly and 24 Levitical orders (1 Chron 24:4; 25:9–13)” (Mounce 1977, 135–36). 21.  That is, they are either lictors or Augustiani. Put succinctly by Stephen Moore, these are “an elite corps of presentable young men whose principal function was to lead the applause whenever the emperor deigned to make and appearance – an imperial cheerleading squad, if you will” (Moore 1996, 125).



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This initial comparison with examples from ch. 4 suggests that the vision picks elements from different cultic contexts and building styles; some elements are shared and some are more specific to the Second Temple or Graeco-Roman/Roman imperial cult activity respectively. Together the various elements create a rich, solemn cultic atmosphere. So far resisting the preliminary answer “temple/sanctuary” to the heading’s question of the spatial genre of Revelation’s heaven, are the references to natural phenomena in cultivated form: a halo or rainbow shining like precious stone, and a sea of glass. However, these elements from the “natural” world serve to remind the reader that we are not quite in an earthly, human-made temple, but in a cosmic temple, God’s dwelling place where not even the sky is the limit. Philo puts it most succinctly: “The highest, and in the truest sense the holy, temple of God is, as we must believe, the whole universe, having for its sanctuary the most sacred part of all existence, even heaven” (Philo, Special Laws 1.66). How does this preliminary conclusion regarding a cultic setting fare as we move on to supplement the initial picture with the ritual action described, as well as with further architectural elements listed? To this we will now turn.

Figure 1: Plan of the heavenly temple. Reconstruction based on the text of the book of Revelation, © Jorunn Økland.

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b. Ritual Action The incessant declaration of the figure on the throne as holy introduced already in ch. 4 and the songs of glory and honour and thanks are performed in a way reminiscent of the antiphonal ritual music described as part of ancient Jewish temple practices. In Hebrew Bible, rabbinic, Qumran and other Jewish literature relating to the Second Temple, the music performed in the Temple is extensively described and discussed. Nehemiah 12, for example, outlines this way of singing with large choirs opposite each other. The choirs consist of Levites, whose professional job it is to sing and play music in the Temple.22 In Talmudic treatments of the Temple service, the Rabbis discuss which of the vocal or the instrumental aspects are more important, and they decide on the voice and on the song.23 1 Chr 23:5 (cf. n. 25) enlists 4000 Levites to be musicians at the Temple, and some even became famous for their well-developed voice.24 The choir proper consisted of twelve adult singers and their young assistants. Song was so central to the ritual action of the Temple that after its fall the rabbis issued a decree of mourning prohibiting all instrumental and vocal music (b. Sot. 48a). The book of Revelation might coincide in time with the origin of this decree (not the later Talmudic text, of course). If so, the excessive singing and praising in the heavenly temple also becomes an eschatological promise. Relatively speaking, more detail about song as part of the cult, more detailed content, and a larger quantity of psalms and hymns seem to be preserved in Jewish than in Graeco-Roman sources;25 they seem to have been more core to the cultic exercise and are thus a prerequisite also in any heavenly temple.

22.  For the occasion in Neh 12 (the dedication of new walls around Jerusalem), they were also joined by the leaders of the people. 23.  B. Suk. 50b; cf. b. Git. 7a. 24.  Cf. m. Seqal. 5:1. M. Yoma 3:11 mentions the case of a gifted singer who refused to teach his singing techniques to others. 25.  In Isa 6 we may have a precedent for the current vision. It describes the heavenly temple in which seraphim on both sides of God’s throne alternate in singing his praise (Isa 6:1–3). Relatively speaking, while the biblical references are modest, the Mishnah and later rabbinic literature includes much more discussion of music in the Temple. 1 Chr 15:16–16:42 and esp. 1 Chr 23:5 are interesting: of the 38,000 male Levites above the age of 20, 24,000 should help build the Temple and no less than 4000 of them should be dedicated as Temple singers. The instrumentalists (in addition to singers) are described in further detail in ch. 25. For a later description of a ritual with some resemblance to the one described in Revelation, see e.g. Sir 50:15–19.



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In ch. 5 we are told that the figure sitting on the throne holds a sealed scroll in his right hand. An angel (another Jewish cultic presence, see below) asks on his behalf who is worthy to open the scroll. Reading from the scroll was part of the synagogue service taking firmer shape after 70 C.E. Steven Fine has described in detail how the synagogue changed character during these years and gradually took over some of the features and the sanctity previously associated with the Temple.26 What happens next is that the sacrificial lamb, slain but somehow alive, has entered the centre stage and takes the scroll out of the hand of the one seated on the throne. The actual sacrifice of the lamb is not described in detail; it must have happened in the narrative past and not necessarily in the heavenly sanctuary proper, as Friesen has pointed out (Friesen 2001, 153). In my opinion, nothing in the text itself prevents the sacrifice from having taken place in the heavenly temple. It only says that “you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed (ἀγοράζω) for God” (5:9); place is unconfirmed. With the transfer of the scroll, the worship focus of the four living creatures and the 24 elders immediately changes from the throne to the figure next to him who now has the scroll, the sacrificed lamb. Now both groups, the elders and the four living creatures, prostrate before the lamb (5:8), accompanied by the myriad of angels singing with full voice (5:11). Their presence here is explained with reference to other apocalyptic texts such as 2 Enoch and some liturgical texts from Qumran: angels are thought to be present and mingle with human worshippers during cult.27 The angels respond to the living creatures and the 24 elders by singing: • “The Lamb who was killed is worthy to receive power, wealth, wisdom, and strength, honor, glory and praise!” • After the angels, every creature in the whole cosmos (see below) joins in, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb, be praise and honour, glory and might, forever and ever!”

• Whereupon the word returns to the four living creatures who close the session by their “Amen” (they clearly speak Hebrew!). And the 24 elders prostrate again (Rev 5:11–14). 26.  See n. 17 above. 27.  For more on this topic, see Frennesson 1999, 113. Scholars claim that this is also the worldview reflected in Paul’s obscure comment in 1 Cor 11:10 (“because of the angels”): Fitzmyer 1974; Økland 2004, 183–84.

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Cross-culturally generic liturgical accessories accompany this worship – harps, incense bowls and incense – which John interprets as the prayers of God’s people (5:8; cf. 8:3). Yet, the language, action, content and some of the agents (four living creatures and angels) of the ritual described here must be very far from Roman imperial court ceremonial and imperial cult indeed. c. Beyond Revelation 4–5: Architecture and Terminology: Temple or Sanctuary? In many sanctuaries of the ancient world, there was a τέμενος, an outer wall that defined the sacred space, the ἱερόν. Inside it, pilgrims and worshippers had relative freedom of movement. There was also a more shielded sacred space, which in the Greek context was called the ναός, temple, and which housed the cult statue. When some authors wrote about the Jerusalem edifice in Greek, they called the whole structure ναός, whereas the inner sanctum was translated directly from the Hebrew as Ἅγια Ἁγίων, “the Holy of Holies” (Heb 9:3) or they gave it alternative, more interpretive Greek designations such as σκηνή, “tent,” i.e. the Tabernacle, the small forerunner of the Temple.28 Philo is mostly (but not consistently) aligned with common Greek usage regarding sanctuary spaces and calls the inner sanctum ναός and the larger structure ἱερόν (Philo, Special Laws 1.71–72, cf. previous quote from 1.66). It is a confusing use of the terminology, but to be fair the confusion is also related to the problems with translating terms, concepts, architectural theories and building styles back and forth between Hebrew and Greek – as well as Latin. In all these linguistic spheres, the principle of segregated spaces within sacred spaces was a shared one, and from now on I will use the standard term “temple” (Temple when referring to the actual edifice in Jerusalem) as translation of ναός, while reminding the reader that also the English term may designate a variety of edifices. We find this spatial division also in the visions described in Revelation: an inner room where the deity is seated, with key agents carrying out a ritual, an altar inside but somewhat peripheral. Further away is the cosmos as a whole, and a multitude of people. A few comments about these more peripheral entities are in order.

28.  Cf. Rev 15:5 and 21:3 as well as numerous instances in Hebrews. Cf. further discussion of the terminology and its implications in Økland 2004, 71–72.



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First, the cosmos: Maybe this image of a large sanctuary divided accord­ing to notions of a graded holiness can also help us imagine how the cosmos at large – represented by the sea of glass and the brilliant halo – sometimes participates in the constant worship, while at other times it is more passively just there. The sea of glass is just there in front of the throne in ch. 4. In ch. 15, we get more information about it. The huge crowd first mentioned in 7:9 (see below) as standing in front of the throne, that is, logically on the sea of glass since they share the same location, are in ch. 15 told to stand ἐπί, on or by the sea. Now the sea is mixed with fire, another basic natural element. Natural phenomena are constantly there as part of God’s cosmic temple, but not necessarily central to the ritual action. Second, the multitude: The new song initiated by the four living creatures and the 24 elders mentions people from every tribe, language, nation and race, whom the lamb has reconciled to make them into one kingdom of priests serving God (5:9–10). Thus it follows that the prayers of God’s people, represented in the beginning of the ritual by incense (5:8), are in reality prayers of priests. In 7:9–10 we are told that a larger multitude than the Seer can count stands before the throne and the lamb. Like the elders, they are dressed in white robes and hold palm branches in their hands. The presence of the multitude explains to whom the angel’s question in the beginning of ch. 5 was directed: it was already there, but unmentioned, not visible at first glance and not necessarily in the inner sanctum. Their declaration “salvation comes from our God, who sits on the throne, and from the Lamb!” starts off yet another polychoral antiphony of the elders, the four living creatures and the angels. Like the sea of glass and the emerald rainbow, they seem simultaneously close to the throne and yet rather distant. In 15:2–3 this vast public also hold harps as they sing hymns. As we can imagine, in ancient sanctuaries during the festival days, the multitudes of people must have created a horrible noise. John repeatedly mentions the noise (1:15; 6:1; 8:6; 9:9 etc.), mainly caused by human voices and liturgical instruments such as trumpets, harps and so on. After this tour of the outer areas, let us return to the inner sanctum: The altar, an obligatory part of any sanctuary, could, dependent on cultic context and function, be placed either on full display in the public area or more protected in the inner sanctum. According to Rev 6:9, 8:3 and several other verses, the altar in the heavenly temple is located in front of the throne. This arrangement is on the one hand reminiscent of sanctuary architecture, in which an altar for burnt offerings was frequently

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placed in front of and outside the temple housing the cult statue (and in the Hebrew Bible context outside the entrance of the tabernacle, Exod 40:5). On the other hand, the altar is described more concretely as an incense altar (cf. that of the Tabernacle described in Exod 35:15), since an angel with a golden censer or incense bowl goes to the altar to make an incense offering. Again, the symbolic connection between incense and prayer is made. In 14:18 we learn more about the altar: it has a constant fire, and an angel in charge of it. Revelation’s altar also has some special features, such as horns and the ability to speak! For a voice at the altar of the temple declares to God: “Lord God Almighty! True and just indeed are your judgments!” (Rev 9:13 and 16:7).29 The heavenly temple also has pillars: In 3:7–12 we learn from the Spirit that Jesus will make the victorious into a pillar in God’s temple – a temple that God will never leave like he has left the Jerusalem Temple at the time of writing of the Revelation, which is commonly assumed to be around 100 C.E. or shortly after: I know that you have little strength… The victor I will make into a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on it/him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God…and I will also write on it/him my new name. (my translation)

In a non-Jewish setting, the promise to be turned into a pillar may have sounded more like a threat even if it is meant here as a reward, Human-like pillars were frequently seen, especially in female form: the Roman theorist of architecture, Vitruvius, explains that “the marble statues of women in long robes” supporting burdens and thus taking “the place of columns, with the mutules and coronas placed directly above their heads,” are said to have been called Caryatids in token of the abject slavery to which the women of Caryae were reduced by the Greeks, as a punishment for joining the Persians at the invasion of Greece (Vitruvius 1.1.5). Later critics have pointed out that this myth is probably made up in retrospect, and that the term καρυάτιδες probably stems from the Greek word for girl, κόρη.30 There also existed male versions of the same, the atlantes or in Latin, telamones, who were supporting members of a building carved to look like nude or draped male figures.

29.  Moore 1996, 121 n. 192 reminds us that this might also be God, or in my interpretation the statue, speaking. 30.  For more background, see Hersey 1988, 69–75.



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Figure 2: Erechtheion, Porch of the Caryatids, featuring caryatids as supporting columns. Acropolis of Athens, fifth century B.C.E. (photo: courtesy of J. Gregory Given and the Harvard New Testament Archaeology Project).

Neither caryatids nor atlantes can run away from their heavy burden without the building collapsing. The pillars that will make up God’s temple will, according to 3:12, get the Spirit’s inscription on them, together with the name of the sacred city Jerusalem and the speaking subject’s new name. In accordance with the genre of such dedications, the inscription should look approximately like this: “Spirit [so-and-so] set up this pillar in honour of the Lamb, ruler of the new Jerusalem.” Revelation’s author is not unique in comparing Christians to statuary. Laura Nasrallah and Denise Buell have both studied comparisons between humans and statuary in the post-canonical period, especially in Africa as this was a topic that interested the prolific writer Clement of Alexandria. Nasrallah has shown how Clement interprets Gen 2 with the aid of Roman statuary.31 In a sub-chapter with the telling title “The Human Instrument: Christian Critique of ‘Pagan’ Statues,” Buell points out how statues were viewed as effective agents and performers who interacted with their venerators, admirers, commissioners and destroyers. As such they were more “persuasive” than “representational” objects: Clement both lambastes veneration of statues and construes Christians as “authentic” statues, insofar as Christians, not sculpture, are containers for the divine… [In] the Protreptikos[, h]e writes: “we are they who, in this living and moving statue (ἄγαλμα), the human, bear about the image of God, an image which dwells with us, is our counsellor (σύμβουλος), companion, the sharer of our hearth, which feels with us, feels for us.”32 31.  Nasrallah 2008. Cf. also Nasrallah 2010, 171–212. 32.  Buell 2009, 260, quoting Prot. 4.59.2.

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In this respect, Buell maintains, humans are seen as stones with “the paradoxical capacity for life” given them by their creator who “can make ‘men out of stones’ and bring to ‘real and true life’ those who were ‘otherwise dead.’ ” Non-Christians, on the other hand, “mistake cult images (human constructs) for that which is animated by the divine.”33 Thus in the first centuries C.E. there is a fluid boundary between the animate and the inanimate – between humans, the divine and stone – a fluidity we observe also in Revelation. The pillars of God’s temple are to be imagined as humans turned into atlantes and caryatids: pillars that support the temple, but who can still participate in the worship. Perhaps they have even retained the ability to speak? Its possible ability to speak is the final feature of this temple that I will return to, one that this comparison with ancient temple architecture does not explain: When God’s heavenly temple is filled with smoke (15:8), no one can enter and the Seer can no longer see. But still this heavenly temple speaks – of God (16:1). Later another voice comes from the throne in the temple, saying “It is done” (16:17). On this occasion the throne is most explicitly placed in the heavenly temple, and I find it more likely that the speaker is the figure on the throne (see below). A final speech act is 19:5: “from the throne came a voice saying, ‘Praise our God, all you his servants, and all who fear him.’ ” These words could also come from the person seated on the throne. How do these observations on architectural features and ritual activities feed into the terminological discussion? They confirm the reading of the heavenly cultic edifice as a “temple.” But this is not an ordinary temple: the altar is made of pure gold, a rare material. The multitude is greater than there was room for in any earthly sanctuary. Finally, one of the elders explains that the multitude stands before God’s throne and serve him day and night in his temple (7:14–15). In the heavenly temple, everything and everyone are freed from earthly scarcity and limitations. If this edifice can indeed be defined as a “temple,” then in which meaning of the word? Nowhere is the problem of the ambiguous meaning of the term ναός more acute than in ch. 11. There the Seer is ordered to measure the ναός, the “temple of God and the altar,” and to count those who worship there. He is explicitly told not to include the sanctuary as a whole, as a lower level of sacrality applies to its outer areas since pagans have access to it and they will violate it. We are never told the exact measurements of the inner sanctum nor the worship area as a whole, but 33.  Buell 2009, 261, with reference to Prot. 1.4.5.



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we must assume the worshippers to be counted are present in both the inner and the outer courts.34 In this section, the understanding of ναός in the sense of an inner sanctum housing the throne, cult statue and altar is more in accordance with common Greek usage. Later in the chapter (11:19), the ναός in heaven is opened, and the ark in the inner sanctum becomes visible from the outside. A similar event happens in 15:5, when the heavenly ναός, further determined by the attribute τῆς σκηνῆς τοῦ μαρτυρίου, “the tabernacle/tent of the witness,” is opened. Both the ark and the tabernacle have clear references to ancient Israelite tradition, and the Ark belonged in the Holy of Holies – here called ναός.35 These final examples indicate even more clearly than the initial analysis of chs. 4–5 that the author uses the term ναός in the Greek architectural sense as equivalent to the Holy/Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem Temple, and not according to the common graecophone usage relating to the Jerusalem Temple, according to which ναός referred to the sanctuary as a whole. d. A Discourse of Sanctuary Space Analysing further architectural and ritual elements in Revelation has strengthened the preliminary conclusion that the vision is embedded in a visual language borrowed from sacred architecture in general and in written discourse on the Temple in Jerusalem in particular. John has constructed an inner sanctum in a heavenly place, one that also integrates the cosmos as a whole. Reception theorists have pointed out how a literary work is produced and understood within a frame of reference determined by conventions of genre, style, form and even what range of meanings and content these genres can confer.36 The contemporary images, genres and narratives that John draws on and writes himself into are the theology, architecture and ritual practice of the imperial cult, of the Second Temple (and by extension the Hebrew Bible descriptions of the Tabernacle), and Jewish 34.  In 21:22 we learn that after God’s dwelling place has been transported from heaven down to the new earth (21:3, 10), the measurements of the New Jeru­ salem (which functions like, but is not identical to, the former Temple, 21:22), is 12,000 stadia, or 2221 kilometres ×3, i.e. a perfect cube of almost 20,000 km3 (by comparison, the areal distance from the southernmost to the northernmost point in my famously tall and narrow native Norway is approx. 1800 km). 35.  The Temple is presented as a replacement of the tabernacle e.g. in 1 Chr 6:32. For a detailed description of the layout of the tabernacle, see Exod 26. 36.  Cf. Kyrtatas 1989, 157; Jauss 1982, Chapter 1 (esp. p. 23).

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prophetic-style narratives, in particular of the more apocalyptic bent (Ezekiel is often mentioned in research). In my opinion, the dependence on Second Temple discourse, and not just its apocalyptic variant, has been underestimated in research. God’s name was tied to the Temple in Jerusalem as long as it was standing. It is generally agreed that this text is written after 70 C.E., and thus temple space is preserved in discourse rather than in material reality. The absence of a material temple (e.g. after the fall of the First or the Second Temple in Jerusalem) opens up for all sorts of proposals, and there are many examples in Qumran, rabbinic, Jewish-apocalyptic as well as Christian literature. Examples have been mentioned earlier in the chapter.37 Revelation’s heavenly temple refers to and “remembers”38 the Temple in Jerusalem as constructed in Jewish literature specifically, as it also houses • • •

the ark of the Covenant – now in heaven! (ch. 11); the tent of the Covenant, the tabernacle (ch. 15); the seven burning torches reminiscent of the Menorah.

And most important: the most central and most holy features in this heavenly temple are the scroll (replacing the earlier covenantal writing materials, stone tablets; cf. 1 Kgs 8:9) and the Ark of the Covenant, symbols of the covenant with God. John seeks to speak the vernacular of sacred space to contribute to this discourse to such an extent that he is constrained to speak of the heavenly Ark as the most holy place – even if his vision also includes the throne of God himself, to which his eyes are first drawn when he enters through the door to heaven. The medium and substitute (the Ark and the writing materials recording God’s will) have become the real thing: in spite of the fact that we are led to believe that God himself is present, he is somehow overshadowed by the tokens of his presence. So far I have not discussed the concluding chapters of Revelation, with the emergence of the New Jerusalem. There is no principal difference between the sanctuary in heaven and the New Jerusalem: it is clear at this point that the most holy place is God’s dwelling place, wherever God is. In Revelation, God’s dwelling place is at first in heaven, but in Rev 21:3 37.  Ben Sira, 2 Enoch, Ezekiel, cf. Økland 2005. Many more examples are discussed in Chyutin 2006; Branham 1995; Fine 1996, and many others. 38.  The expression refers to Jonathan Smith, who studied ritual as an act of recollection. His Ezekiel study pointed out how Ezekiel does not “mirror,” but presents the temple in four different ways according to purpose (Smith 1987, 47–73).



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a voice declares that “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God.” In terms of location of the space of God’s dwelling, this is the most radical move in the book. But in terms of quality and structure, there is little change: basically, the same space that God has been inhabiting in heaven is now transported down to earth. It is portable, like a Tabernacle tent. For this reason, and because space is limited, I will not give the concluding chapters a full discussion here, but refer to my previous publications on the topic.39 3. Ritual Theory If, as Doreen Massey has stated, a “place” is “formed out of the particular set of social relations which interact at a particular location” (Massey 1994, 168), one way of making sense of the heavenly space described in Revelation is to study the social relations between the agents that construct it. This place is one of constant worship as John reminds us through his writing, and as I have surveyed above. I have already introduced some main characters: the ritual agents (the four living beings, the 24 elders, the angels), the pillars, the figure seated on the throne, the lamb, and possibly even a speaking altar and temple may be seen as social agents. In ch. 11 the place constructed through the relationships between these characters is plainly referred to as the temple in heaven. The social relations are complicated and also related to the other, numerous characters in the book. Some groups alternate in singing hymns of praise, while another group says amen and prostrates. And some figures receive this worship. When the elders prostrate and throw their crowns in front of the throne and say, “Our Lord and God! You are worthy to receive glory, honour and power” (4:11), the jasper and carnelian figure on the throne is invested with glory, honour, and power. To make further sense of these social relations, I find Roy Rappaport’s ritual theories mentioned above (n. 10) very useful. In his Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity (Rappaport 1999), he emphasizes language and ritual performance as the source of religious abstractions. Through repetition of rituals, people accept the abstractions as true. Thus, sanctity becomes a quality of discourse itself and not of the objects signified in that discourse. Rappaport uses a familiar example: “In this 39.  See list of works cited, and on the New Jerusalem cf. n. 34. The last heavenly scene, the judgment scene, has no temple or worship elements – the heavenly space constructed in 20:11–15 is rather the heavenly court. For this reason it is also left out of the discussion here.

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usage it is not Christ…who is sacred, but the liturgical works and acts proclaiming his divinity that are sacred… Divinity, when it is stipulated, is a putative property of the subject matter asserted in that discourse” (Rappaport 1999, 281). In other words: Sacredness is something that is performatively declared by those invested with the authority to do so. In the Apocalypse, those with such authority are neither the cult statue nor the Lamb, but the angels and the saints turned into priests and pillars! They declare God’s statue as holy, as ruler and so on. Communicative, non-verbal actions, such as prostration and waving with palm-branches, work together with the speech-acts to invest his statue with holiness. Through performing their non-verbal actions and their speech-acts which imitate cult in a sanctuary, through declaring heaven’s inhabitants as holy, they construct heaven as a sacred space. Revelation’s author adds to their construction work by heaping up sacred vessels, such as harps, trumpets, incense and incense bowls, menorahs or lampstands, altars, pillars, sacrifices, ritual clothing and so on onto this place. A place clearly only becomes readable as holy through looking like a temple or sanctuary with which the audience were familiar. Rappaport emphasizes how physical display indicates more than, more clearly than or other than words are able to communicate (Rappaport 1999, 140). In the heavenly temple, the saints cannot actually make God big, but they can at least make God relatively bigger than themselves by prostrating and subordinating themselves under God. 4. The Cult Statue It is finally time to explore the figure seated on the throne. The figure has to a surprising degree evaded the direct gaze of scholars, the throne almost seems to be there for nobody to sit on – it is just a symbol (of God’s presence, for example). Even among the conversation partners chosen for this chapter, Friesen is highly spatially aware, yet he does not “see” God in this text, he only notes the absence of the one who is actually to be worshipped (Friesen 2001, 165–66). Stephen Moore, on the other hand, reads Heaven as a gym where God’s supremely male body is on full, exhibitionist display, and the “vast audience of idolisers…is actually nothing more than an infinite row of mirrors lining the interior wall of the heavenly city” (Moore, 1996, 138). He notes the anthropomorphism of the heavenly space and admits that “John does refrain from attempting to describe the divine physique” (Moore 1996, 121). Building on traditional historical-critical research, which considers Revelation a concrete



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reaction to Domitian’s claims to divinity, Moore relates the extreme display of perfect male flesh, God’s flesh, to imperial cult: In and through Revelation, the emperor ascends into heaven and becomes a god, and the god he becomes is none other than Yahweh. John’s attempt to counter the magnificent imperial cult with the image of a yet more magnificent heavenly cult…has resulted in a fascinating (con)fusion of figures, the Roman emperor coalescing with the Jewish-Christian God. (Moore 1996, 134)

The present chapter represents one development on Moore’s perception of the overwhelming presence of God, a theme that Frilingos also develops in another direction with analyses of the fascinating fusion of figures, their queer sexualities and their idealized masculinities. In my view, in the heaven/temple passages there is an attempt to veil the image of God rather than reveal it, as Moore notes, too. The attempt is so successful that Revelation’s visual image of God has evaded even the gaze of the scholarly interpreters – until Moore and Frilingos. I am, however, less confident of Moore’s perception of apocalyptic spaces and how space contributes to determining which, Domitian or Yahweh, is turned into the image of the other. So how does Revelation represent God in the heavenly temple? To return to the point of departure of this chapter, Rev 4, it is stated there that “the one seated there looks like jasper and carnelian” (v. 3). Where Moore sees a body as hard as stone (Moore 1996, 135), I simply see stone, precious stone. One can explain John’s assumed reluctance to describe the divine physique in detail (cf. Moore above) with reference to his Jewish worldview, according to which such an attempt might be to go too far. And certainly, in the major part of the book, not even God’s voice can be referred to directly! But Ezekiel – much more present at the productive centre of Jewish religion, could still in a parallel passage that may have provided John with some visual language (Ezek 1:5–2:10), describe the figure on the heavenly throne in more detail as having the “likeness like the appearance of a man.”40 If we look closer, there is detail also to the figure on the throne in Revelation. In ch. 15, the saints sing: “Who will refuse to declare your greatness? You alone are holy.” First, in 19:4 the text explicitly identifies the figure on the throne that the elders prostrate in front of as God himself. In 21:5, after the heavenly cultic space has descended on earth, it is finally revealed that the one seated on the throne, whom the reader now knows to be God, really does speak: “Look, I make all things new!” The veiled references 40.  Moore’s excellent translation (Moore 1996, 121).

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to voices from the temple, the altar and the throne earlier in the book had held the reader in uncertainty up until this point. This narrative technique, which allows God to speak on two occasions only, unless the anonymous interjections are also attributed to God, has as its side effect that it creates an impression of God as having an “immobile” and “aphasic” posture (Moore 1996, 121). Throughout Revelation, then, God as the figure on the throne is represented as a shockingly passive recipient of declarations of holiness. But then the question becomes: given his muteness and passivity, is not the reader left wondering whether the figure on the throne is not God’s statue rather than God himself? This is in itself a Jewish and Christian question, as the Graeco-Roman pagan world had less of a problem with the idea that the deity was present in his or her representations, the statues, wherever they were placed. This was sort of an iconographical nominalism, if you will.41 Maybe this is another case where John is closer to Graeco-Roman, pagan sensitivities than he might want to be. Statues seen in ancient Rome were typically made of terracotta, stone (marble) or bronze. Naturally, statues at any given time could be antiques preserved from earlier periods favouring other styles, techniques or materials than the current fashion, or imported to Rome from places with other aesthetic ideals. Precious stone was a highly uncommon material in larger statues like the one described in Rev 4:3, although found in miniatures. In 4:3 we learnt that the figure on the throne “looks like jasper and carnelian.” These are both quartz types of stone, and they were typically used for carved gemstones (intaglios) carried around on the body. An interesting context for Rev 4:3 are the numerous statuettes, coins, engraved signet rings or other gemstones carrying the figure of the Roman god Jupiter seated. There are several features that make this popular and common motif a particularly apt interlocutor to Rev 4. First, the type: a seated Jupiter. Jupiter is represented as seated on his throne. Sometimes the throne is seen, other times we must just assume it from the position of the legs. In his hands he holds various attributes: usually, in his raised left hand he holds a sceptre; in his right hand he will then typically hold an eagle, a thunderbolt, or similar. These attributes demonstrate his power, authority and supreme status among the gods. A himation covers the bottom half of his body and his legs. Alternatively, the himation is caught up over the shoulder.

41.  Cf. Buell and Nasrallah above, p. 199.



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The type reflects a Republican or early imperial, seated statue of Jupiter Capitolinus in the temple on Capitol in Rome, which gradually became paradigmatic for representations of the supreme god, in full size or in miniature.

Figure 3: Limestone sculpture 50 cm tall, first-century C.E. Cyrene (Temple of Aphrodite): Seated Jupiter/Zeus on throne, naked to waist but with drapery/ himation over shoulder. Left arm outstretched, uncertain object in right hand; head lost. Museum no. 1861,1127:97 ©Trustees of the British Museum.

Second, the date: This was a very popular representation of Zeus/ Jupiter used across the late republic and early empire, in many materials and sizes. There were many gemstones of this type around by the time Revelation was written, and many of them are preserved.

Figure 4: Gold coin from the period of Antoninus Pius (pictured obverse) minted in Rome approx. 143 C.E.
Reverse: Seated Jupiter on throne, naked to waist, holding thunderbolt in right hand and sceptre in left. Museum no. R:12508 ©Trustees of the British Museum.

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Third, the material: in many cases, the gemstone used for the miniature version of Jupiter is jasper or carnelian.42

Figure 5: Dark green jasper intaglio (carved gemstone). Roman period, date uncertain: Seated Jupiter on a throne, with sceptre and thunderbolt. Eagle at his feet. Museum no. 1987,0212:107. ©Trustees of the British Museum.

Returning to the representation of God on his throne in the Apocalypse, first, I suggest that the stiff, passive, immobile and more or less mute person on the throne is indeed presented more like a statue than a living being. Second, the deity looks like stone – precious stone. Third, given his passivity and muteness, his holiness and lordship has to be asserted and repeated by others to such an extent that one is tempted to ask if it were not for the holy men, the 24 elders, the four living creatures and the angels, would there be any holy God in Revelation at all? Rappaport’s answer would definitely be no. Rather than being equipped with a sceptre, an eagle or a thunderbolt, the divine statue is presented with a scroll in his right hand – demonstrating the same supreme power but within another religious semantic system. It is less clear whether he is described in the type of Jupiter Capitolinus presented above, or in that of the Emperor, because already at this stage, the early second century C.E., the representation of Jupiter Capitolinus and of the Emperor had to a large extent fused in the iconography. This was mostly due to the fact that emperors liked to present themselves in the image of well-known and powerful deities. The visible difference was that 42.  A very good example (but unsuitable as an illustration here) is a late first-century C.E. engraved signet ring in pale yellow carnelian, carrying the figure of Jupiter seated. It was discovered in the Roman baths of Bath, England, in 1878 with a group of 33 other gems. See publication in Cunliffe 1988, 30 and 51, number 1, plate XVIII.



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deities were often represented with more archaic clothing (i.e. deities were less up to date than emperors as regards fashion trends).43 However, both the Jupiter Capitolinus type and the figure on the throne in Revelation lack the attributes required to carry out the double role of object of worship and an acting pontifex maximus (high priest), one of the emperor’s duties. The statues in question remain seated and passive. Summing up these observations regarding the figure on the throne and his identity, materiality and ability to speak: The very few statements the statue makes on his throne can be ascribed to the genre “speaking statues” (Heim 2003). Speaking statues was a well-known (but probably not frequently observed first hand…) phenomenon in the ancient world. On a different level and as Francois Heim has pointed out, the relation of the deity to the sign, of “signifié” to “signifiant,” is the product of an imagination which is uncontrollable and chaotic, and which according to some early Christian thinkers produces an error by putting life where there is only inertia and death.44 If John had heard this particular criticism (which Heim mentions with reference to Firmicus Maternus and Augustin), he probably would have been more careful in his crafting of the figure on the throne. 5. Conclusion In this chapter, building on recent spatial and visual approaches used to explore Revelation’s affinity with Roman imperial culture, I have given a “tour” of the heavenly space of Revelation and argued that the scenery has most in common with temples, and mainly with discourse on the Jerusalem Temple – with one modification: political and religious dimensions were not easily detangled in the ancient world, as has been pointed out by many critics. The throne room could still be seen as an amalgamation of palace and temple, maybe inspired by the concept of “Beet Adonai” – God’s house – a designation also used for the Temple in Jerusalem. This spatial concept, which does not exist in the Roman realm, contributes to the difficulty scholars have in identifying the “spatial genre” and the spatial organization of Revelation’s heavenly space. It mirrors both the architecture of the fallen Jerusalem Temple and that of a Roman aedes, and it uses a Greek term, ναός, for it all. The confusion that arises therefrom is in itself 43.  Regarding the significance of clothing on statues, see Nasrallah 2010, 5, 61 and 164. 44.  Heim 2003, 33–34. It also makes it harder to discuss in a systematic way…

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a symptom both of the vulnerability of the concept of “Beet Adonai” and of the later hybridization of sanctuary space also expressed in the Roman imperial cult. To be more specific, I have suggested that John’s heavenly temple fuses visions of God’s throne room as found in other Jewish apocalyptic texts with the architecture of the Jerusalem Temple as remembered in contemporary written discourse, and more modestly with sanctuaries of imperial cult as Steven Friesen has analysed them.45 John also borrows terminology and architectural elements from Graeco-Roman sacred architecture at large. Comparisons between Revelation’s throne room and the imperial court I have treated with caution. John only alludes to the imperial court system proper through references to the activity of passing judgment and decision-making. Further, only few around the empire would be familiar enough with the Emperor’s court room to draw on it for reference when reading this text. The local basilica, on the other hand, but above all the local temple of imperial cult, would have been more familiar places. To the extent that Revelation draws on imagery and language from Roman imperial contexts, I believe that the author is more inspired by the local sanctuary of imperial cult than by the political structures and the Emperor’s court. The adoration of the emperor’s statue was an important practice in sanctuaries of imperial cult. However, in the statuary, the distinction between Jupiter and the Emperor was sometimes blurred. Hence I found it very difficult to conclude whether or not Revelation fuses the images of God and emperor, as Moore suggests, or of God and Jupiter Capitolinus. The cult of the Capitoline triad was also an important feature of imperial cult. The Jupiter Capitolinus type seems in particular to have lent many features to the seated cult statue in the heavenly temple. In any case, even if John perceives the power and status given Jupiter or the emperor in the imperial cult as blasphemy, he nevertheless borrows visual language from the imperial cult in his crafting of the heavenly cult statue. John constructs the implied author as merely describing a holy space he sees in his vision, and even if his purpose for describing the heavenly space is to evoke a certain effect or reaction in his readers, I assume that the readers are not meant to respond by putting up a throne with a statue made out of jasper and carnelian, prostrate in front of it and imitate the 45.  Aune (1983) does not clearly distinguish between imperial cult throughout the empire and the imperial court proper. I am not saying he is not distinguishing between politics and religion that was impossible in any space in ancient Rome.



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perpetually ongoing heavenly declaration of God as holy. John does not prescribe how the rituals in the seven churches should be in order for them to constitute holy places. God’s dwelling place is not a holy place earthly Christians can and should construct through their regular meetings. Rather, as Richard Bauckham notes, “It is a scene of worship into which the reader who shares John’s faith is almost inevitably drawn.”46 Through use of images associated with holy space on earth, the text provides a window to the only real and lasting holy place to which all Christians are drawn – in contrast to the sinful earth the readers find themselves in. What consequences might the mapping carried out in this chapter have for our understanding of the meaning and message of Revelation? I hope to have shown how John participates in the Jewish temple discourse as it was during the first generations after the fall of the Second Temple. “The temple” was still a core concept and a focal point for dreams and hopes of restoration; it still structured thought. Just think of how central it is throughout the book compared to the figure of “The Lamb” – or Christ! I join previous exegetes in pointing out the “religious criticism” of the author of Revelation. He seems intent on coming up with something bigger and better than the imperial cult. John may be seen as ironically criticizing the hype of the imperial cult by applying language or other features of imperial cult onto the only place true holiness can be found: with God and the place in which he dwells. But the irony goes both ways. The styles and the imperial iconography, the allusions and images that John calls into the minds of his hearers, take over and start living their own life. The author loses control over his own text. For the paradoxical result is that he ends up reducing God to a statue similar to that of Jupiter Capitolinus. But at least God’s is a living statue, and made out of far more precious material than other statues. Compared to jasper and carnelian, marble and bronze are less impressive! Thus we see an example of how, when trying to be anti-imperial, the author ends up confirming the same values as he aims to undress and reject. He does that, too, but he does not alter the standards by which power, potency and excellence are measured. The emperor may be dethroned, yes, but in hierarchical terms God descends to fill his seat instead. The God of Revelation is thus reduced to a statue void of holiness in himself; his holiness has constantly to be performatively declared by the countless cult personnel in heaven – the saints. These, and the elders, are the ones who constantly have to do the laborious work of turning the heaven into a holy place, through praise and performative utterances, 46.  Bauckham 1993, 32.

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through prostrations, throwing crowns towards the throne, waiving with palm branches, blowing trumpets, all in an incredible noise. They make heaven. In this respect, Friedrich Engels grasped the meaning of Revelation very well when he, after reading Revelation as “an authentic picture of almost primitive Christianity, drawn by one of themselves,” concluded that “Christianity, like every great revolutionary movement, was made by the masses”!47 The Revelation is full of mirrors and mirror images, but the saints are not the mirrors. They are the workers, creators, constructors, without whom there would be no heaven, no holy place and the figure on the throne just a statue. Works Cited Aune, D. 1983. The Influence of Roman Imperial Court Ceremonial on the Apocalypse of John. Biblical Resources 18: 5–26. Austin, J. L. 1975. How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Clarendon. Babylonian Talmud. 1935–1948. Edited by I. Epstein. London: Soncino. Digital edition reformatted by Reuven Brauner. Cited 15 August 2015. Online: www.halakhah. com via AWOL – The Ancient World Online: http://ancientworldonline.blogspot. no/2012/01/online-soncino-babylonian-talmud.html. Bauckham, R. 1993. The Theology of the Book of Revelation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bauer, W. 1979. A Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Translated by W. F. Arndt and F. W. Gingrich. 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Branham, J. R. 1995. Vicarious Sacrality: Temple Space in Ancient Synagogues. Pages 319–45 in Ancient Synagogues: Historical Analysis and Archaeological Discovery. Edited by D. Urman and P. V. M. Flesher. Leiden: Brill. Buell, D. K. 2009. Imagining Human Transformation in the Context of Invisible Powers: Instrumental Agency in Second-Century Treatments of Conversion. Pages 249–70 in Metamorphoses: Resurrection, Body and Transformative Practices in Early Christianities. Edited by T. K. Seim and J. Økland. Berlin: de Gruyter. Camp, C. V. 2002. Storied Space, or, Ben Sira “Tells” a Temple. Pages 64–80 in “Imagining” Biblical Worlds: Studies in Spatial, Social and Historical Constructs in Honor of James W. Flanagan. Edited by D. M. Gunn and P. M. McNutt. London: Sheffield Academic. Chyutin, M. 2006. Architecture and Utopia in the Temple Era. New York: Continuum. Clement of Alexandria. 1999. Protreptikos – Exhortation to the Greeks. Translated by G. W. Butterworth. Exhortation to the Greeks, The Rich Man’s Salvation, To the Newly Baptized. LCL 92. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, repr. of 1919 ed. Cunliffe, B., ed. 1988. The Temple of Sulis Minerva at Bath. Vol. 2, The Finds from the Sacred Spring. Oxford: Oxford University Institute of Archaeology. Engels, F. 1957. The Book of Revelation. Pages 205–12 in K. Marx and F. Engels, On Religion. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House.

47.  Engels 1957, 205 and 211. See further analysis in Økland 2009b.



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Fine, S., ed. 1996. Sacred Realm: The Emergence of the Synagogue in the Ancient World. New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 1997. This Holy Place: On the Sanctity of the Synagogue During the GrecoRoman Period. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Fitzmyer, J. A. 1974. A Feature of Qumran Angelology and the Angels of 1 Cor. 11:10. Pages 187–204 in Essays on the Semitic Background of the New Testament. Edited by J. A. Fitzmyer. Missoula: Scholars Press. Frennesson, B. 1999. “In a Common Rejoicing”: Liturgical Communion with Angels in Qumran. Studia Semitica Upsaliensia 14. Uppsala: Uppsala University. Friesen, S. J. 2001. Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John: Reading Revelation in the Ruins. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Frilingos, C. 2004. Spectacles of Empire: Monsters, Martyrs, and the Book of Revelation. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Gregg, S., ed. 2002. Revelation: Four Views. A Parallel Commentary. Nashville: Thomas Nelson. Heim, F. 2003. Le dieu et sa statue: des traces d’hermétisme chez les apologistes Latins. Revue des sciences religieuses 77, no. 1: 31–42. Hellholm, D. 1990. The Visions He Saw or: To Encode the Future in Writing: An Analysis of the Prologue of John’s Apocalyptic Letter. Pages 109–46 in Text and Logos: The Humanistic Interpretation of the New Testament. Edited by T. W. Jennings. Festschrift Hendrikus W. Boers. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Hersey, G. 1988. The Lost Meaning of Classical Architecture. Cambridge, MA: MIT. Jauss, H. R. 1982. Towards an Aesthetic of Reception. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Just, F. 2014. Art, Images, Music, and Materials Related to the Book of Revelation. No pages. Cited 1 August 2015. Online: http://catholic-resources.org/Art/ Revelation-Art.htm. Keller, C. 1996. Apocalypse Now and Then: A Feminist Guide to the End of the World. Boston: Beacon. Kyrtatas, D. 1989. The Transformations of the Text: The Reception of John’s Revelation. Pages 144–62 in History as Text: The Writing of Ancient History. Edited by Averil Cameron. London: Duckworth. Liddell, H. G., R. Scott and H. Stuart Jones, eds. 1940. A Greek–English Lexicon. 9th ed. Oxford: Clarendon. Lyons, W. J., and J. Økland, eds. 2009. The Way the World Ends? The Apocalypse of John in Culture and Ideology. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix. Massey, D. 1994. Space, Place and Gender. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Millar, F. 1977. The Emperor in the Roman World, 31 BC–AD 337. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. The Mishnah. 1988. Edited by J. Neusner. New Haven: Yale University Press. Moore, S. 1996. God’s Gym: Divine Male Bodies of the Bible. New York: Routledge. Mounce, R. H. 1977. The Book of Revelation. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Nasrallah, L. S. 2008. The Earthen Human, the Breathing Statue: The Sculptor God, Greco-Roman Statuary, and Clement of Alexandria. Pages 110–40 in Beyond Eden: The Biblical Story of Paradise [Genesis 2–3] and Its Reception History. Edited by K. Schmid and C. Riedweg. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. ———. 2010. Christian Responses to Roman Art and Architecture: The Second-Century Church Amid the Spaces of Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Neufeld, D. 2005. Under the Cover of Clothing: Scripted Clothing Performances in the Apocalypse of John. Biblical Theology Bulletin 35, no. 2: 67–76. Økland, J. 2004. Women in Their Place: Paul and the Corinthian Discourse of Gender and Sanctuary Space. London: Continuum. ———. 2005. The Language of Gates and Entering: On Sacred Space in the Temple Scroll. Pages 149–65 in New Directions in Qumran Studies. Edited by J. G. Campbell, W. J. Lyons and L. K. Pietersen. London: Continuum. ———. 2009a. Setting the Scene: The End of the Bible, the End of the World. In Lyons and Økland 2009, 1–30. ———. 2009b. The Spectre Revealed and Made Manifest: The Book of Revelation in the Writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. In Lyons and Økland 2009, 267–88. ———. 2009c. Why Can’t the Heavenly Miss Jerusalem Just Shut Up? Pages 88–105 in A Feminist Companion to the Apocalypse of John. Edited by A.-J. Levine and M. M. Robbins. New York: Continuum. Osborne, T. P. 2003. Le conflit des cultes dans l’Apocalypse de Jean. Pages 237–54 in Dieux, Fêtes, sacré dans la Grèce et la Rome Antiques. Edited by A. Motte and C. M. Ternes. Paris: Brepols. Philo. 1937. The Special Laws. Translated by F. H. Colson. Philo Volume VII: On the Decalogue. On the Special Laws, Books 1–3. LCL 320. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pippin, T. 1994. Peering into the Abyss: A Postmodern Reading of the Biblical Bottomless Pit. Pages 251–67 in The New Literary Criticism and the New Testament. Edited by E. S. Malbon and E. V. McKnight. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic. ———. 1999. Apocalyptic Bodies: The Biblical End of the World in Text and Image. New York: Routledge. Rappaport, R. 1979. Ecology, Meaning, and Religion. Richmond: North Atlantic Books. ———. 1999. Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rowland, C. 2011. William Blake and Ezekiel’s Merkabah. Pages 229–45 in After Ezekiel: Essays on the Reception of a Difficult Prophet. Edited by P. Joyce and A. Mein. London: T&T Clark International. Smith, J. Z. 1987. To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual. Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Snyder, B. W. 1991. Triple-Form and Space/Time Transitions: Literary Structuring Devices in the Apocalypse. SBL Seminar Papers 1991: 440–50. Vitruvius. 1914. The Ten Books on Architecture. Translated by M. H. Morgan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Digital edition. Cited 1 August 2015. Online: via Project Gutenberg, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20239/20239-h/29239-h.htm. Ward, G., ed. 1997. The Postmodern God. Oxford: Blackwell. Winkle, R. 2014. The End of the “Emerald” Rainbow. Unpublished paper presented at European Association of Biblical Studies Annual Meeting, Vienna 2014.

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of L iturgical B eing * David Jasper

(In memory of my father, liturgist and priest)

Jean-Yves Lacoste’s book Experience and the Absolute (2004) asks what it is to exist liturgically in the “place” of prayer. The question “Who am I?” must be asked concurrently with the question “Where am I?,” and this essay will seek to ground this phenomenological discussion in a fresh appraisal of the biblical foundations of Western liturgical “being.” It will offer not so much a revisiting of biblical themes as a meditation upon them in a new proposal as to the nature of “liturgical living” and the space that it occupies in the post-ecclesial societies of the West. But we begin in a very different place of writing, very far from such societies: in China. The place in which we write, the space of writing, cannot be without fundamental importance to what we say or the community to which we give utterance. I cannot write from nowhere and the particular place in which the writing occurs gives voice to an apology which you, the reader, must accept as a prerequisite of any possible community of understanding: understanding, that is, not in any banal sense of mere cognition but understood as a condition of “understanding between” those who agree willingly to meet in the space of literature; that is, a capacity to say “we have an understanding, you and I.” Two immediate senses of space now impinge upon me and upon who I am. I have placed myself before my computer to begin to write, while around me is a study, a room which happens to be “in” Beijing – a temporary place of work. This has its consequences. Most of the books behind which I would normally hide (I mean this quite literally) – full of * The author wishes to express his deepest thanks to Professor Yang Huilin and his colleagues in the School of Liberal Arts, Renmin University of China in Beijing, who bestowed upon him the honor of a Changyang Chair Professorship, thereby providing him with time and the study – the space – within which this essay was given and written.

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their references, their crude identification of “me” as a writer – are not here but “at home” in Europe. We readily identify with places and thus in this place I am “away from home,” exposed and lonely, dependent as a writer to a high degree on the resources of my memory – dependent on “myself.” In that word is found the second sense of space. Not this office in China, but the space of myself or in myself, which (who?) is a space in which resides an imperfectly remembered hidden library about which I can warn you, my reader, in advance – here we will find near the surface although in various stages of decomposition (for texts are composed and therefore must also suffer a process of decomposing) the remains of Martin Heidegger’s thought, Jean-Yves Lacoste, the Anglican Book of Common Prayer (which has inhabited “me” the longest of all), the Bible, and Maurice Blanchot. It would be boring to go on further. It is a strange and mixed community presented through the hermeneutical screen that is “me.” If the first sense of space is, though only for the moment, materially present and familiar to “me” (though not to anyone else, and certainly not to any possible reader who can only imagine it), and shortly to be left behind for another material space, the second sense moves with me, although its absence does make a difference. For I am not simply body (material) but a self, a body and soul, an “I” which talks to itself (foolishly and possibly idiotically at times), a tiny community of thought and being which ever anxiously seeks communion with others through all the complexities of speech, writing and text – or perhaps even just the Other – in a condition that we ought to call the liturgical. Only when we begin to understand each other (an understanding that allows the possibility, and only the possibility, that this writing may eventually evoke understanding as meaning) does that action (liturgy is most deeply a commitment to “doing” in remembrance lest we forget ourselves and each other) provoke my sense of being-here (in myself) into becoming a sense (more deeply felt and known) of being-toward. Thus, as I reach out to you, the other, however foolishly, the possibility of community is the beginning of redemption from what can otherwise only be a negation of self, a condition of pure idiocy in the confines of an eternal present, and in that possibility only can I (we) begin to understand being as entertained, impossibly, by the space of the pure absence that is beyond all possible being here, and therefore beyond your absence to me which is, after all, always experienced as a hoped for and theoretically possible presence. Properly speaking, then, being here can then be said to be ordained, not actually as being-in-the-world but a being-before-God (Lacoste 2004, 39). Thus, we, in community on a journey towards the other, our own Emmaus road, can ourselves entertain (truly a celebration and a running together) a



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divine presence that is, in its end, known only as perfect absence, for that which is most deeply with us “here” is always, in the time given to us, unknown (Blanchot 1988, 56). Such entertainment, which is truly a liturgical living (though always lived in becoming and therefore eschatologically) is wholly unknown to Plato when he speaks in The Republic of the ideal city (πόλις) that exists only in the ideal (τῇ ἐν λόγοις κειμένῃ): “For I think that it can be found nowhere on earth.” “Well,” said I, “perhaps there is a pattern (παράδειγμα) of it laid up in heaven (ἐν οὐρανῷ) for him who wishes to contemplate it and so beholding to constitute himself its citizen.” (The Republic ix:592 a,b)

The eternal and immutable ideas that for Plato constitute reality, and which for him are present everywhere and always (McElvey 1969, 38–39), although important in the traditions of thinking of both Judaism and Christianity, can ultimately have no place in liturgical living which has its roots in the flesh (σάρξ) of my being. Furthermore, it is only across the space of the text which my writing is ever becoming (writing itself becomes a form of coming into being in an actual present that is at the same time present only as an anticipation) that community can, impossibly, become a (non) space, a place of understanding of what it is to be in the absent presence of the Other. Thus it comes to be in both Judaism and Christianity that the Temple, or more precisely the sanctuary, can never be reduced to an idea which is “laid up in heaven,” and thus everywhere and always, for contemplation. Rather it is realized and made actual for us in celebration as that which is, at the same time, wholly other (of God) and therefore has its roots (if such a crude word can be used) not in but before time: before, indeed, any possible world in which being can be said to be. Inbuilt into the being and existence of such a Temple is that restlessness which knows liturgical living as a continual transgression or waiting in anticipation that alone allows us (you and I) to dare to dissolve the seeming safety of the present moment into the condition of being-towards. Two crucial thoughts now present themselves. The condition of dwelling liturgically, which is close to, though not identical with, Heidegger’s sense of dwelling poetically on earth (Heidegger 1975), differs crucially from it in the decision which we make thus to dwell in the place which is ever becoming non-place. Reaching out to one another (what other option have we?) across the space of writing we only realize ourselves as essentially nomadic beings. Dwelling thus (as our ancestors dwelt in tents that were simultaneously pinned to the earth and yet demanded nothing permanent of it: it matters

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that I am here for the moment, but tomorrow I will be elsewhere) permits us, as it did Hölderlin (who, we must remind ourselves, was probably mad), to claim to know the unknown God. We decide, thus, to dwell then without permanence (καὶ ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν) as an act of deliberate disappropriation. In daring to write as an act of faith and hope (of my faith in you, a humble enough beginning, and in hope of friendship) I empty myself into the text in a precise and useless gesture that yet subverts my being-towards-death (which is inevitable), and a gesture of pure being-toward in the space of the not yet. Such a gesture is known only in its utter uselessness and its absolute, perhaps impossible, refusal of any sign of appropriation. It is the act of a fool, if not of a madman, a gesture of foolishness and deliberate weakness. I write as to one unknown – I do not know that I know you and you, perhaps, know me only by a name on the page, the name at the head of this paper which I, as a writer, have left behind so that I have no claim upon it. Only now, in this instant, can we become (or even for this fleeting moment can we be said to be) that unavowable community that with angels and archangels and with the whole company of heaven (a heaven unknown to Plato whose ideas constitute a reality that is self-existent and self-identical – but who am “I”?) in this instant alone can we sing the Sanctus: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Have we, then, in our stumbling, in the darkness of God, touched – no more, a merest trace of a sense at the end of the finger-tips – the sanctuary of the sacred community? Or should we say, first, without presumption, the secret community? The decision, in the first place, was ours, for which we must admit responsibility, but we stumble upon the gift, without deserving anything. To us has been given the secret of the kingdom that remains as wholly unknown (ὑμῖν τὸ μυστήριον δέδοται τῆς βασιλείας τοῦ θεοῦ) and only in the darkness of such unknowing is there the impossible possibility of the sacred community. That is to dare, scandalously, to accept the gift and thus to be “sacred,” to be set apart: in this instant we, you and I (though the pronouns are now without significance), are set apart after (though not as a result of) the free choice and decision not to possess. The subordination (by our ordination – for as we have already acknowledged in the words of our writing and reading, we have been ordained) of being-in-the-world thus proves that nonpossession defines man more primitively than does his participation in the play of appropriation. And it proves – in particular – that this more primitive determination can govern the experience we have of ourselves and of the world. (Lacoste 2004, 173)



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In our writing, in my reaching out to you as my unknown neighbor in this place and at this time, I seek, though in hope only, the extravagance of the pure poet; that is, the one who does nothing but in pure speech undoes or overwhelms the abyss which divides poetry from praxis. This is only possible within the purity of thought that dares to think nothing or aspires to know what it is to know nothing (Georges Bataille). That is why I am doomed to failure, though, miraculously, the very failure continues to prompt in me the gift of unknowing. Even as I admit that I cannot unthink thought, my stumbling upon my presumption to know leaves a trace of the passage through the world of the Unknown. Such, were it all, would leave us only in the pure abjection of fear – the fear, merely, of knowing that we do not know – but yet in the voice of the pure poet there is a reminder, a remembrance, in us of the call to believe, in faith and hope, in the possibility of being-before-God, of the trace that dissolves, as in the Emmaus room, the moment it draws us into recognition. How then (and the question is not a new one) before the claims of pure art, the claims of the space of the silent text that is alone the space of liturgical living in community which knows no distinction between reading and writing, is any literature, any liturgy, possible? For such would claim to create a system that is absolute, comprehensive and indifferent to the ordinary circumstances of things, a system constituted by intrinsic relations and able to sustain itself without support from outside. (Blanchot 1996, 40)

Such pure collapse of the distinction between form and content, if it were, indeed, possible, as it may be, perhaps, in music, would be an act of pure faith that yet leaves intact the abyss that divides poetry from praxis. Even the purest of poets, Paul Valéry or Stéphane Mallarmé, would not dare to embark upon such an act of faith whose only possible end is silence and madness. Rather, as Hölderlin knew (in the deep sanity which was his madness, barely touching the world), the greatest work of literature begins with a necessary act of bad faith – the poet the priest (ordination again) but always and necessarily the bad priest, just as the true saint is not the one who repents, but the one who knows with utter and infinite pain the impossibility of true repentance and therefore utter dependence on the gift. The text between us, between you and I, then, continues to function as a sign – that is it continues to say something however banal and useless that may be, yet dares to carry that poor and humble deed, its feeble attempt at representation, into the vanishing point of signification, into the disappearance into pure nothingness. Thus, in the work of art, the simplest of commonplaces are at once lost and found in the darkness of

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God and in our stumbling upon this in ways barely to be seen or heard, let alone (heaven forbid – μὴ γένοιτο) understood, at least by us, the community which can begin to know itself as liturgical as it offers its useless gift back – to each other, to the Other – across the space of the text. Thus we can say that the most profound liturgical moment in the art of the West, infinitely exceeding every elaboration and exactitude of the theologians and even the liturgies of the church, is the discovery in the fifteenth century (is discovery the right word?), by Donatello, Perugino and Masaccio, of the vanishing point in perspective, the point of disambiguation, the centre in which we are lost, upon which our eye is fixed (though we do not know it) and which gives form, depth and vitality to the world which at once emerges from it and disappears into it. At the vanishing point we are consumed by unknowing, an aching longing for that which is beyond the void, and thus the world, this world – our world – is made. How then may we speak of the necessity of bad faith; that without which, as Hölderlin reminds us, there would be no poetry and therefore no liturgical possibility? Do we speak, singing in unison, with communal bad faith in daring to utter the Sanctus, our poor voices lost in the infinite music of the Eucharistic Thanksgiving? Is not this, after all and above all, pure liturgical space, the sanctuary that is at once wholly set apart and emptied, neither within us nor outside, a space of utter purity where even the merest traces of knowing are swept clean? Here we are both lost and found. And yet, in the necessary narrative (for are we not restless even here, restless to share with one another our thoughts, however trivial, our feelings, however boring) we move on. The instant of eternity passes almost at once to a single moment in the history of the world – the night of betrayal. And it is here that we stay to consume and to be consumed. Without the act of betrayal, the necessity of bad faith, there is no word of communication, no place for the liturgical community (which is the community of being-towards) in the world. True, its place in the world is to do nothing (which is the hardest of all things to do, for this is to touch the world with its trace, not to wound it with the idleness of negation or the busyness of work), and yet, for the gift to be given, we must admit, at the very heart of liturgical celebration, our guilt of betrayal, admit the truth of the words of Nietzsche’s fool (beyond even what Nietzsche’s parable intends), that God is dead and we have killed him. And so, even as we come to the place of invitation, foolishly expectant of participation, it is with the burden of the knowledge that we are the betrayers. Archbishop Thomas Cranmer knew well this dark secret when he calls upon us to utter, at the crucial moment of celebration in the 1549 Anglican liturgy



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(drawn from the earlier Sarum Rite), the Prayer of Humble Access. We participate knowing only that we are presumptuous, unworthy to do what we presume (by the gift granted to us) to do. In this prayer we are unworthy (in our being-in-the-world) but yet (in the Other who alone is without the restlessness of our being, ever the same Lord) “our sinful bodies may be made clean” (in our being-toward). We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us. Amen.

What utter presumption, to draw within ourselves (body and soul) the being (flesh – σάρξ) of the vanishing point of the Unknown: but only thus do we communicate, you and I, in the enormity of this act, this doing (ποιεῖν) in a remembering – a re-membering, perhaps even a rebuilding, of the manifold into one across the space of the Table in the words spoken and consumed. It is this enormity that Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Irenaeus never let us forget. We act liturgically, and yet, crucially, thus we do precisely nothing. For only in this space, in this presumption (not unmixed with cowardice and ignorance – by which we claim to know and are known in the world) of doing nothing does this moment of betrayal (a royal feast in anticipation of the moment of utter impossibility) open a way for the supreme, uninterpretable moment of the Cross and its searing exposure. The Cross is, in fact, and in the mode of a paroxysm, the place of inexperience. The existence of God is affirmed there, for one does not speak. (“My God, my God, why…?”) to one who does not exist. God, however is not absent: just as the humanity of Jesus of Nazareth is the humanity of God, so the death of Jesus is his death, his Passion, and not a human drama for which he might show a distant compassion. (Lacoste 2004, 191)

Only here can the perpetual hermeneutics of our existence cease, and yet at this moment, in this space, and only here, do they aspire to be a remote possibility. We here, who have already, though unworthy, consumed, and been consumed by, the body in anticipation, do nothing. It is to this that all our exchanges, all our writings and readings, our stumbling, our wanderings and self-effacements, the moments of impossibility in literature and art – lead us. And we do nothing. We who, but moments before,

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have presumed to sing the Sanctus, with angels and archangels, know that we know in our dim discernment, nothing in the terrible conjunction of presence and absence. Only now, and it remains yet the faintest of all possibilities, the merest trace on the material of the world and upon our flesh, no sooner recognized than it is gone, may we, you and I, claim (presumption upon presumption) to know the joy of the sacred community, set apart from the world while yet its deepest reality. Even to whisper this claim between ourselves, you and I, writer to unknown reader, is to speak as fools. “I speak as a fool.” The words are not new, but how hard it is for us to utter them, knowing that they may be believed, and that they are indeed true (a term I prefer to dismiss as too hard). But it is the fool, in his humour, who knows the terrible truth that God is dead. It is the fool who, finally, lives most lightly in his being-in-the-world and yet remains, who is closest to the contentment of doing nothing, and who laughs (how we despise that laughter) at our deepest woes – the laughter that is heard at the foot of the Cross. It is the fool, in his naïveté, who dares to enter the sanctuary, and yet who rejoices in the désert absolu – knowing that they are one. The fool alone knows nothing of the bad faith of literature as he enters its depths and finds in them the silence of the vanishing point. We, poor fools that we are, dare not even to be truly foolish, at best tragic artists who turn again in relief to the world after the book is closed or the last scene has been played. What then is true joy? I return from Perugia and arrive here in the dead of night; and it is winter time, muddy and so cold that icicles have formed on the edges of my habit and keep striking my legs, and blood flows from such wounds. And all covered with mud and cold, I come to the gate and after I have knocked and called for some time, a brother comes and asks: “Who are you?” I answer, “Brother Francis.” And he says: “Go away; this is not a proper hour for going about; you may not come in.” And when I insist, he answers: “Go away, you are a simple and stupid person; we are so many and we have no need of you. You are certainly not coming to us at this hour!” And I stand again at the door and say: “For the love of God, take me in tonight.” And he answers: “I will not. Go to the Crosiers’ place and ask there.” I tell you this: If I had patience and did not get upset, there would be true joy in this and true virtue and the salvation of the soul. (Armstrong and Brady 1982, 165–66)1

We have come, you and I, in a short space, a long way from my study, this room in Beijing, where I write, sitting at a desk, in spirit both here and not here, and you – whom I can but imagine. But you are there, with 1.  Also, Lacoste 2004, 193–94; Jasper 2009, 171–72.



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me in part, and, perhaps, in part, shutting me out. But yet for fleeting moments we are one. And the hardest of all is to know true joy – for we have not the patience and we get upset. My sense of self returns to me and the other is sent away, and I do not like to admit that it is I who am the simple and stupid person. The door is shut on liturgical space which is entirely a being-towards in a restless emptying of self unconstrained by any logic except the logic of pure absence when my being is found only as a trace in the silence of its negation, and there, without getting upset, I (we) are finally content to be. There are moments in literature, moments in the shadow’s light,2 that grasp, in word and look, a shade of the liturgical moment, and they are capable of reducing us to silence, a silence when again the possibility of the song which is the Sanctus might be heard: the very end of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, perhaps; the end (which is also the beginning) of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake; the end of King Lear as, with Cordelia in his arms, he utters the most moving line that Shakespeare ever wrote, capable of bringing a full theatre to a silent communion of tears – “Never, never, never, never, never.” It is a brief moment in time held above the abyss between life and death, neither and both, as the dying, courteous king, now beyond madness, sees into a future that we who are left behind cannot know but only wonder at. It was Sir Philip Sidney in his An Apology for Poetry (ca. 1579) who wrote that the poet “nothing affirms.” Therefore the poet never lies. For “[the goal of the poet is not] to tell you what is or what is not, but what should or should not be.”3 But, as Hölderlin knew, there can only be, for us, a false or a bad or an imperfect poet. The artist who comes to know truly (almost) what an artist is pays the ultimate price and is rarely heard or understood in his own time. Hölderlin comes close to utter madness; William Blake is almost entirely hidden and unknown; van Gogh sacrifices himself for his art, as later does Paul Celan. Saint Francis knows what it is (though it is beyond even him) to find pure joy in negation. And finally for we who are left (you and I) there is the space of the text, poor enough but which may yet become a liturgical text, a moment to dwell in, of necessity bound to the imperfections of this world, and yet a momentary pause in which to know, if only as a faintest whisper, in anticipation, the liturgical space of the sacred community, truly a community that alone knows the promise of the total presence at the vanishing point by which the world is kept in being.

2.  The English translation of the title of Yves Bonnefoy’s book of poems Ce qui fut sans lumière (1987). 3.  Quoted in Rosendale 2007, 142.

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Works Cited Armstrong, R. J., and I. C. Brady, trans. 1982. Francis and Clare: The Complete Works. New York: Paulist Press. Blanchot, M. 1988. The Unavowable Community. Translated by Pierre Joris. New York: Station Hill. ———. 1996. How Is Literature Possible? Pages 39–60 in The Blanchot Reader. Edited by Michael Holland. Oxford: Blackwell. Heidegger, M. 1975. Poetry, Language, Thought. Translated by Albert Hofstadter. New York: Harper & Row. Jasper, D. 2009. The Sacred Body: Asceticism in Religion, Literature, Art and Culture. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press. Lacoste, J.-Y. 2004. Experience and the Absolute: Disputed Questions on the Humanity of Man. Translated by Mark Raftery-Skeban. New York: Fordham University Press. McElvey, R. J. 1969. The New Temple: The Church in the New Testament. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rosendale, T. 2007. Liturgy and Literature in the Making of Protestant England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

I ndex Hebrew Bible/ Old Testament Genesis 17, 199 2 2:2 171 12:10–14 26 13:1 26 13:10 26 15:18 31 25:18 31 37:25 24 37:28 24 37:36 24 38 69 24 39:1–2 39:5 24 40:1 24 40:5 24 41 28 41:8 24 41:19 24 41:29 24 41:30 24 41:33–34 24 41:36 24 41:41 24 41:43–46 24 41:48 24 41:53–56 24 41:56–57 29 26, 28 41:57 42:1–3 26 43:1 26 43:2 26 43:15 26 45:2 26 45:4 26 45:8–9 26 45:13 26 45:18–20 26 45:23 26 45:25–26 26 46:1 26

of R eferences

46:3–4 26 26 46:6–8 46:20 26 26 46:26–27 46:34 26 47 28–30 47:6 26 47:11 26 47:12 28 47:13–15 26 47:13 28 47:14 29 47:16 29 47:19 28, 29 47:20–26 29 47:20–22 26 47:20 29 47:24 29 47:25 29 47:26–30 26 47:27 26, 28 48:5 26 50:3 26 50:7 26 50:10–11 60, 68 50:10 63 50:11 26 50:14 26 50:22 26 50:26 26 Exodus 1:1 24 1:5 24 1:6 26 1:8 24, 29 1:12 24 1:14 24 1:15 24 1:17–19 24 2:11 24 2:12 24 2:14 24

2:19 24 2:23 24 3:7 24 24 3:8–12 3:16–22 24 4:18 24 4:19–21 24 5:4 24 5:12 24 6:5 24 6:6–7 24 6:11 24 6:13 24 6:26–29 24 7:3 24 7:4–5 24 7:11 24 7:18 24 7:19 24 7:21–22 24 7:21 24 7:24 24 8:5 24 8:6–7 24 8:16–17 24 8:21 24 8:24 24 8:26 24 9:4 24 9:6 24 9:9 24 9:11 24 9:18 24 9:22–25 24 10:2 24 10:6–7 24 10:12–15 24 10:19 24 10:21–22 24 11:1 24 11:3–7 24 11:9 24 12:1 24

228 Exodus (cont.) 24 12:12–13 12:17 24 12:23 24 12:27 24 12:29 24 12:30 24 12:33 24 24 12:35–36 12:39 24 12:40–42 24 12:51 24 13:3 24 13:8–9 24 13:14–18 24 14:4 24 14:5 24 14:7–13 24 24 14:17–18 14:20 24 14:21–31 25 14:23–27 24 14:30–31 24 15:26 24 16:1 24 16:3 24 16:6 24 16:32 24 171 17:1–7 17:3 24 18:1 24 18:8–10 24 19:1 24 19:4 24 19:10–11 126 19:16 6 19:18 6 20:2 24 22:21 24 23:9 24 23:15 24 25:14 72 26 201 29:46 24 30:12–16 65 32:1 24 32:4 24 32:7–8 24

Index of References 32:11–12 24 32:23 24 33:1 24 34:18 24 35:2 172 35:15 198 40:5 198 Leviticus 7:19–21 124 11–15 124 11:45 24 15:41 24 18:3 24 19:34 24 19:36 24 20:2–6 47 20:5 47 22:33 24 23:43 24 24:10 24 25:38 24 25:42 24 25:55 24 26:13 24 26:45 24 Numbers 1:1 25 3:13 25 5:2–3 126 8:17 25 9:1 25 10:34 172 10:35 172 11 16 11:5 26 11:17 16 11:18 26 11:20 26 11:25–26 16 11:25 16 11:29 17 13:22 26 14 171 14:2–4 26 14:19 24 14:22 24

131 19:13–16 19:16 131 19:20 126 171 20:1–13 20:5 26 20:15 24 20:16 24 21:15 26 22:5 24 22:11 24 23:22 24 24:8 24 26:4 25 26:59 25 32:11 25 33:1 25 33:3 25 33:38 25 34:2–12 61 34:5 31 Deuteronomy 1:4 47 1:27 24 1:30 24 4:20 24 4:34 24 4:37 24 4:45 24 4:46 24 5:6 24 5:15 24 6:12 24 6:21 24 6:22 24 7:8 24 7:15 24 7:18 24 8:14 24 9:7 24 9:12 24 9:26 24 10:19 24 10:22 24 11:3 24 11:4 24 11:10 24 12:9 171, 172

12:31 47 13:5 24 13:10 24 15:12–15 59 15:15 24 16:1 24 16:3 24 16:6 24 16:12 24 17:16 25 18:10–11 47 19:15 154 20:1 24 21:22–23 131 23:4 24 23:7 24 23:9 24 23:18 24 23:22 24 25:17 24 26:5 24 26:6 24 26:8 24 28:27 24 28:60 24 28:68 24 29:2 24 29:16 24 29:25 24 33:10–15 130 34 13 34:11 24 Joshua 2:10 24 5:4 24 5:5 24 5:6 24 5:9 24 9:9 24 9:10 47 12:4 47 13:3 31 13:12 47 13:31 47 15:4 31 15:8 46

229

Index of References 15:47 31 18:16 46 24:4 24 24:5 24 24:6 24 24:7 24 24:14 24 24:17 24 24:32 24 Judges 2:1 24 2:12 24 6 70 6:1–6 60 6:1–5 70 6:7–11 70 6:8 24 6:9 24 6:11–14 70 6:13 24 6:17–28 70 6:34–40 70 70 6:36–37 6:39–40 70 8:7 60 10:11 24 11:13 24 11:16 24 13 5 13:6 5 9 17–18 17 9 17:5 9 17:7 9 17:8 9 17:9 9 17:13 9 18:14 9 18:15 9 18:22 9 18:25 9 18:31 9 19:30 24 20:23 lxx A 172 20:43 lxx A 172

Ruth 1–4 68 60 2–3 3 68 4:13–22 69 4:18 69 4:21 69 1 Samuel 1:9 8 2:27 24 4:8 24 4:13 8 4:18 8 8:8 24 10:18 24 12:6 24 12:8 24 15:2 24 15:6 24 15:7 31 16:4 6 21:2 6 21:4–7 130 23:1 63 27:8 31 2 Samuel 6 71 6:6–7 60 6:7 72 7:6 24 7:23 24 24 64 24:1 64, 65 24:15 65 24:16 65 60 24:18–25 24:18 65 24:21 65 24:24–25 65 1 Kings 3:1 27 4:21 31 4:30 26 6:1 25

230 1 Kings (cont.) 25 6:8–9 6:16 25 6:18 45 6:21 25 6:23 45 6:29 45 6:35 45 45 7:23–26 7:27–39 45 7:39 45 7:43 45 7:44 45 8:5 25 8:9 202 8:11 25 8:53 25 8:56 lxx 172 8:65 31 9:16 25 9:90 25 10:28 26 10:29 26 11:7–8 52 11:17 26 11:18 26 11:21 26 11:40 26 12:2 26 12:28 24 14:25 25 17 5, 9, 14 17:17–24 14 17:18 5 17:20–22 14 17:20 5 18:12 5 19:9–18 14 19:16 15 19:19 15, 16 22:10 63 2 Kings 1 18 1:2–12 17 2 18 2:1 15 2:9–10 16

Index of References 2:15 16 3 2:16–18 2:16 5 2:18–21 15 3 2:19–22 2:23–25 3, 4, 15, 17, 18 2:23 18 3:11–19 3 4–6 10 4 5, 10, 14 4:1–7 3, 15 4:4–5 10 10, 19 4:4 4:5 10 4:6 10 4:8–37 3, 13, 14 4:8 4, 15 3, 18 4:9 4:10 9, 10 4:13–16 7 4:15 10 4:16 5, 7 10, 11 4:21 4:25 15 4:27 4, 19 4:28 5, 7 4:33 10, 11, 14, 19 4:37 4 4:38–44 3 4:38 15 3, 4, 10, 14 5 5:3 15 5:8 14, 15 5:9 10, 15 5:10 15 6 4, 15 6:1–6 3 15 6:2–7 6:5–7 14 6:8–23 3 6:12 4 6:13 15 6:18–22 14 6:19 15 6:32 10, 15 7:6 25

4, 10 8 8:4 4 8:7–15 3 8:7 4 8:8 3 9 10 9:1 15 13 13 13:7 60 13:14 15 13:21 12 16:17 45 17:4 27 17:7 24 17:17 47 17:31 47 17:36 24 18:21 27 18:24 27 21:6 47 21:15 24 23:10 47, 48 23:13 52 23:29 25 23:34 25 24:7 25 27 25–26 25:13 45 25:16 45 1 Chronicles 6:16 172 6:32 201 12:2 92 13 71 13:5 31 13:9–10 72 13:9 63, 72 15:16–16:42 194 17:5 24 17:21 24 21 64 21:1 64, 65 21:7 65 21:14 65 21:15–16 60 21:15 65 21:16 64

1 Chronicles (cont.) 21:18 65 21:20 66 21:22 65 65 21:24–26 21:26 64 22:1 64 23:5 194 24:4 192 25 194 25:9–13 192 28:5 142 2 Chronicles 1:16–17 26 4:6 45 4:14 45 5:10 24 5:14 118 6:5 24 6:41 172 7:8 31 7:22 24 9:26 31 9:28 26 10:2 26 12:2 25 12:3 25 12:9 25 12:10 25 13:8 142 26:8 31 33:6 47 35:20 25 36:3 25 36:4 25 Nehemiah 9:9 24 9:10 24 9:18 24 12 194 Job 5:26 60 29:7 8 40:10 118

231

Index of References Psalms 2

159, 160, 162–64, 166 158 2:1–2 2:8–12 163 21:5 118 46:4 45 65:9–10 45 68:31 31 78:12 24 78:43 24 78:51 24 80:8 24 81:5 25 81:10 24 171, 173 94 lxx 94:7 lxx 171 94:7–11 lxx 171 94:9 lxx 171 94:10 lxx 171 171, 172 94:11 lxx 95 171–74, 176, 177 95:7–11 171, 173 95:11 171 95:12 173 105:23 24 105:38 24 106:7 24 106:21 24 114:1 24 131:1 4 131:14 lxx 172 132:14 172 133 96 135:8 24 135:9 24 135:10 24 Proverbs 7:16 26 Song of Songs 1:4 93 1:6 93 1:14 93

2:4 94 3:1 93 3:2 93 3:6 93 3:9 93 3:57 93 4:12 93 5:1 93 5:2 93 6:2 93 7:12 93 Isaiah 4:2 94 6 194 6:1–3 194 7:18 25 10:24 24 10:26 24 11:11 25, 31 11:15–16 25 19:1 25 19:2–4 25 19:6 25 19:12–25 25 20 31 20:1 25 20:3–5 25 25:8 72 25:10 60 26:19 71 27:12 25 27:13 25 30:2 27 30:3 27 30:7 27 30:33 48, 52 31:1 27 31:3 27 36:6 27 36:9 27 37:9 25 37:25 25 41:15 60 42:4 26 43:3 31 45:14 31

232 Isaiah (cont.) 159 47:7–8 57:9 47 66:1 172 66:24 48 Jeremiah 2:6 24 2:18 27 2:23 48 2:36 27 7:22 24 7:25 25 7:30–31 48 7:32 48 11:4 25 11:7 25 16:14 25 19:5 48 19:6 48 19:11 48 23:7 25 24:8 31 25:19 25 26:21–23 27 27:19 45 31:32 25 31:38–40 48 32:21 25 32:30 25 48 32:34–35 32:35 47 33:3 4 34:13 25 37:5 25 37:7 25 41:16–17 27 42:14–19 27 43:2 27 43:7 27 43:11–13 27 44:1 27 44:8 27 44:12–15 27 44:24 27 44:26 27 44:27 27 44:28 27

Index of References 44:30 27 46:2 25 46:8 25 46:11 25 46:13–14 25 46:17 25 25 46:19–20 46:22 25 46:24–26 25 51:33 60 52:17–18 45 52:20 45 Lamentations 5:6 26 Ezekiel 1 190 1:5–2:10 205 9–11 50 16:20–21 48 16:26 25 17:15 25 19:4 25 20:5 25 20:6 25 20:7 25 20:8 25 20:9 25 20:10 25 20:31 48 20:36 25 23:3 25 23:8 25 23:19 25 23:21 25 23:27 25 23:37–39 48 27:7 26 28 159 29:1 25 29:2 25 29:3 25 29:6 25 29:9 25 25, 31 29:10 29:12 25 29:13 25

29:14 25 29:16 25 29:19 25 29:20 25 30:1 25 30:4 25, 31 25, 31 30:5 30:6 25 30:8 25 30:9 25, 31 30:10 25 30:11 25 30:13 25 30:14 25 30:15 25 30:16 25 30:18 25 30:19 25 30:21 25 30:22 25 30:23 25 30:25 25 30:26 25 31:2 25 32:12 25 32:15 25 32:16 25 32:18 25 32:21 25 38–39 50 39:11–15 48 40–48 50 47:1–12 45, 50 48:28 31 Daniel 2:35 60 9:15 25 11:8 25 11:42 25 11:43 25, 31 Hosea 2:15 25 7:11 27 7:16 27 8:13 27 9:3 27

9:6 27 11:1 25 11:5 27 11:11 27 12:1 27 12:9 25 12:13 25 13:3 60 13:4 25 Joel 3:1–3 48, 50 3:9–17 48, 50 3:12 52 3:18–21 50 3:18 45 3:19 25 Amos 2:10 25 3:1 25 3:9 31 4:10 25 8:8 25 9:7 31 Micah 45 4:11–13 4:13 60 6:4 25 7:12 25 7:15 25 Nahum 3:9

233

Index of References

27, 31

Habakkuk 3:12 60 Zephaniah 3 45 Haggai 2:5 25 Zechariah 10:10 25 10:11 25

14 45, 51 14:8 45 14:19 25 New Testament Matthew 2:13–15 27 2:19 27 5:22 49 5:29–30 49 10:28 49 11:28 172 11:29 172 12:43 172 18:9 49 23:15 49 23:33 49 26:45 172 28:9 4 Mark 1:14–15 139 4:11 147 4:26 141 6:31 172 9:1 147 9:43 49 9:45 49 147 9:47–48 9:47 49 10:15 141 147 12:32–34 14:25 143 14:41 172 Luke 163 1:1–4 1:1 152 1:4 163 163 1:51–55 1:51 164 1:55 164 2:9 164 2:14 164 2:25 155 2:32 164 2:34 163, 165 2:38 155

4:5–6 165 4:6 164 4:7–8 165 9:26 164 9:31 159, 162, 164 9:32 164 10:29–37 157 11:24 172 12:5 49 12:19 172 12:36 155 13:31–34 158 14:12–14 157 15:2 155 17:15–18 164 17:21 141 19:12 165 19:17 165 19:38 164 21:27 164 22:30 161 23:11–12 158 23:50 155 23:51 155 24:15 155 24:26 164 John 14 179 14:2 179 Acts 1:1–11:18 151 1:1 157 1:2 159 1:8 151 1:13 161 1:15–26 161 1:21–22 154, 161 1:22 159 2:10 31 2:12 163 2:33 160 2:35 163 2:42 163 2:44–45 157 3:11 163

234 Acts (cont.) 3:21 154 4 159 4:23–31 163 4:23 163 4:24–30 158 4:24 160 4:27–30 162 158, 159, 4:27 162 4:34–37 157 4:36–37 154, 157 4:36 154, 155 5:11 156 5:19–26 161 5:22–25 163 5:36–37 165 6:5 155 6:8 155 7:2 164 7:9 25 7:10–12 25 7:10 161 7:15 25 7:17 25 7:18 25 7:22 25 7:24 25 7:28 25 7:34 25, 161 25, 159 7:36 7:39 25 7:40 25 7:49 172 7:55 153, 155, 164 7:56 153 7:58–60 162 7:58 166 7:59 160, 162 7:60 160, 162 8:1 153, 155, 161, 166 8:4–25 153 8:4–5 153 9:3–16 160 9:3–8 162 9:4–5 160

Index of References 9:21 9:25 9:26 9:27

161, 163 162, 166 161, 163 154, 157, 161, 163 9:30 166 155, 159 9:31 9:34 165 9:36 157 10:1–11:18 161, 163 10:38 165 11–12 166 11:1–3 154 11:4 163 11:18 153, 154, 165 11:19–12:24 151, 152, 165, 166 11:19–30 153, 158, 165 11:19 153, 166 11:20 153–56 11:21 154 155 11:22–23 11:23 155 11:24 154, 155 11:25–26 155 11:26–30 155 155, 156 11:26 11:27–30 157, 164 11:28 157 11:29 157 158–62, 12 164–66 12:1–25 158 12:1–2 161 12:1 159, 161– 63 12:4 161 159–61 12:5 12:6–11 161 12:7 159 12:9 161 12:10 162 12:11–17 163 161–63 12:11 12:12–17 162

159, 161, 162 12:14–17 164 12:15 162 12:17 161, 163, 166 12:18–23 161 12:18–19 162, 163 12:18 163 12:19–20 163 12:20–23 159 12:20 164 12:21–23 164 12:21 164 12:23 159, 160, 164, 165 12:24 152, 153, 160, 163– 65 12:25 166 13:1 153 13:27 159 14 159 14:5 159 14:6 166 14:16:25 162 14:18 172 14:19–20 162 14:20 166 14:22 162 14:23 156 15:7–12 163 15:13–21 166 16:13 162 162 16:16–18 18:12–17 164 19:12 12 19:25 162 21:18–25 166 21:19 163 22:11 164 22:20 153 23 159 25–26 158 25:6 164 25:10 164 26:17 161 12:12

26:23 157 26:26–29 163 26:26 152 26:28 156 27 159 Romans 14:17 139 1 Corinthians 4:20 139 6:9–10 139 11:10 195 15 114 15:24 139 15:50 139 16:18 172 2 Corinthians 7:13 172 Galatians 5:21 139 1 Thessalonians 2:12 139 Philemon 1:7 172 1:20 172 Hebrews 1:2 175 1:5 175 2:11 179 2:13 179 2:16 170 3 173 3:1–6 175 3:2 178 3:3 178 3:4 178 3:5 178 3:6 173, 175, 178, 180 3:7–4:11 169–72, 178, 180, 181

235

Index of References 3:7–11 3:7 3:8

171 173, 175 173, 174, 176 3:9–11 174 3:9–10 171, 176 171, 174, 3:9 176 3:10 171, 174, 176 3:11 171, 172, 176 3:12–19 171 173, 174 3:12 3:13 174, 176 3:14 175, 176, 178 3:15 175 175 3:16–17 3:16 25, 176 3:18–19 175 3:18 171, 172, 176 3:19 172 4:1–11 171 4:1 172, 175, 176 4:2–3 176 176 4:3–4 4:3 171, 172, 176 172, 176 4:4 4:5 171, 172, 176 4:6 172, 176 4:7–8 176 4:7 176 4:8 172, 176 4:10–11 176 172, 176 4:10 4:11 172, 176, 177, 181 4:12–13 171 4:13 171 7:19 178 8:8 178 8:10 178

8:19 25 8:21 178 10:1 178 11 180 11:7 178 11:10 180 180 11:13–16 11:22 25 11:26 26 11:27 25 11:29 25 12:18 178 12:22 180 12:28–29 180 13:14 169, 180 13:24 170 1 Peter 4:14 172 4:16 156 Jude 1:5 25 Revelation 1:6 188 1:15 197 3:7–12 198 3:7–8 189 3:8 189 3:12 199 4–5 196, 201 189, 190, 4 192–94, 197, 205, 206 4:1–3 192 4:1 189 4:3 189, 205, 206 4:5 190 4:6 190 190 4:8–9 4:8 172, 188 4:10 190 4:11 190, 203 5 195, 197

236 Revelation (cont.) 5:8 195–97 197 5:9–10 5:9 195 5:10 188 5:11–14 195 5:11 195 6:1 197 6:9 197 6:11 172 7:9–10 197 192, 197 7:9 7:14–15 200 8:3 196, 197 8:6 197 9:3 196 9:9 197 9:13 198 11 200, 202 11:8 25 11:19 201 12 187 14:11 172 14:13 172 14:18 198 15 197, 202, 205 15:2–3 197 15:5 196, 201 15:8 200 16:1 200 16:7 198 16:17 200 19:4 205 20:6 188 203 20:11–15 21 188 21:1 186 21:3 196, 201, 202 21:5 205 21:10 201 21:22 201 22 188 22:11 188

Index of References Apocrypha Judith 9:8 172 Ecclesiasticus 5:6 172 194 50:15–19 2 Maccabees 15:1 172 Pseudepigrapha 1 Enoch 27:2–4 48 90:26 49 2 Baruch 1–91 119 4 118 115 4:1–6 116 6:7–9 10:3 120 10:5–11:7 119 10:10–11 120 10:18–19 116 21 113, 115 21:6 113, 116 26:1–33:3 119 119 29:1–30:5 29:1–8 120 119 34:1–46:7 47–52 107, 109 109 47–51 47:1–52:7 119 47:1 109 48 113, 115 48:2–24 109 113, 116 48:10 48:31–51:16 109 48:31–36 109 48:37–51:6 110 48:48–51:16 117 48:48–50 117 49:1–3 107 49:2 117 107, 111 49:3

50 107 50:1–51:6 110 50:4 111 51 107, 112, 114, 115 51:1–13 107–14, 116–20 51:1–6 110–12 51:1–3 107 51:1 119 51:2–3 116 111, 112, 51:3 114, 117, 118, 120 112, 118 51:5 51:6 110–12 110–12, 51:7–13 115, 117–20 113, 118, 51:7 119 51:8 118 112, 113 51:9 113 51:10–12 113 51:10–11 51:10 113 113, 114, 51:11 116, 118 51:12–13 115, 116 51:12 113 51:13 110 119 53:1–77:10 77:14 120 Joseph and Aseneth 8:9 172 15:7 172 Life of Adam and Eve 6–7 126 Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah 8–9 114 Sibylline Oracles 4:165–68 126



237

Index of References

Testament of Levi 2:3 126 Dead Sea Scrolls 11QTa III–XIII 128 130 XIV, 2–3 XX, 10 124 124 XX, 18 XXX–XLVI 128 XLV, 11–12 128 XLV, 12–14 130 XLV, 17 126 XLVI, 15 130 XLVI, 16–18 126 XLVII 129 XLVIII, 10–13 129 XLVIII, 10–11 131 XLVIII, 13–17 129 XLVIII, 16 129 XLVIII, 4–9 130 XLVIII, 9–10 131 XLVIII, 10–11 123 L, 10–19 131 LXIV, 11–13 131

Josephus Jewish Antiquities 3.261–62 126 164 19.344–50 Jewish War 2.129–31 123 5.108 49 5.507 49

Ḥullin 72a 131

Targumic Texts Targum Ezekiel 7:7 142 7:10 142

Sotah 48a 194

Targum Isaiah 24:23 142 31:4 142 40:9 142 52:7 142 Targum Micah 4:7 142 4:8 142 Targum Obadiah 21 142

1QM VII, 5–6

130

1QS V, 14

Targum Zechariah 14:9 142

125

4Q272 I, 1–16

126

Mishnah Ḥullin IV:3 131 Seqalim 5:1 194

4Q512 29–32 VII, 8–21

125

Philo Special Laws 1.66 1.71–72

193, 196 196

Yoma 3:11 194 Babylonian Talmud Berakot 10b 7 ‘Erubin 19a 52

Gittin 7a 194

Pesahim 14b 123 17a 123

Sukkah 32b 52 50b 194 Other Rabbinic and Ancient Jewish Works Jerusalem Breviery (version B) Ch. 7 52 Maimonides Code: Laws Concerning Entrance into the Sanctuary 126 iii, 4 Laws Concerning Corpse Uncleanness V.12 131 Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer 33 5 Nag Hammadi Codices Gospel of Thomas 3 141 New Testament Apocrypha Questions of Bartholomew 4:7–71 51

238

Index of References

Classical and Ancient Christian Writings Bernard of Clairvaux Sermons super Cantica Canticorum 8:8 92 23:3 93 23:4 94 23:5 94 23:6 94, 97 23:12 94, 96 23:14 94 23:15 94 25:5 97 Cicero De finibus V 2

41

De oratore II 86,354

41

Clement of Alexandria Protrepticus 1.4.5 200 4.59.2 199 Dionysius of Halicarnassus Roman Antiquities I:64 4–5 13 Egeria Itinerarium 31.1 42 Eusebius Onomasticon lines 8–10 lines 11–12 lines 18–19

52 52 52

Philostratus Life of Apollonius 13 VIII, 31

Plato The Republic ix:592 a,b

219

Sophocles Oedipus coloneus 1760–64 Vitruvius On Style 1.1.5 198 Ugaritic Texts KTU 1:100 47 Quran 57:13 54 79:14 53

I ndex

of A uthors

Aalen, S. 136, 149 Abel, F.-H. 44, 56 Abñ ‘Umar AÊmad ibn MuÊammad 54, 55 Alexander, L. C. A. 151, 156, 160, 166, 167 Algra, K. A. 176, 181 Allen, O. W., Jr. 159, 167 Alobaidi, S.-J. 52, 55 Alon, G. 125, 132 Amit, Y. 6, 9, 12, 19-21 Armstrong, K. 62, 73, 224 Armstrong, R. J. 226 Assmann, J. 26, 35, 42, 55 Auld, G. 8, 21 Aune, D. 192, 210, 212 Austin, J. L. 188, 212 Avery-Peck, A. J. 171, 182 Avner, U. 59, 73 Backhaus, K. 180, 181 Baker, C. R. 152, 167 Barnett, C. 79, 101 Barrett, C. K. 151, 154, 156, 164, 167 Basta, P. 177, 181 Bauckham, R. 211, 212 Baudy, G. 170, 181 Bauer, W. 188, 212 Bäumer, B. 170, 175, 181 Baumgarten, J. M. 126, 132 Beal, T. xviii, xxi Beavis, M. A. 136, 148, 149 Becker, A. 44, 55 Becking, B. 11, 21 Bénétreau, S. 172, 177, 181 Benjamin, W. 40, 55 Bergen, W. J. 6, 7, 10, 13-15, 20, 21 Berquist, J. L. xiii, xiv, xxi, 59, 73, 75, 86, 101, 102 Bieberstein, K. 40, 46, 54, 55 Black, C. C. 140, 149 Black, M. 49, 55 Blanchot, M. 219, 221, 226 Bloch, A. 93, 102 Bloch, C. 93, 102 Blundell, S. 68, 73 Boer, R. 30, 32, 35, 59, 73, 84, 87, 102

Bogaert, P.-M. 114, 120 Boyer, R. 32, 35 Brady, I. C. 224, 226 Branham, J. R. 191, 202, 212 Braslavi, J. 52, 55 Broshi, M. 131, 132 Brown, G. S. 58, 73 Brown, R. 135, 149 Brueggemann, W. 160, 167 Buell, D. K. 199, 200, 206, 212 Burkert, W. 67, 73 Camp, C. V. xiii, xiv, xxi, 59, 73, 75, 77, 78, 80, 82, 87, 101, 102, 186, 212 Cancik, H. 43, 55, 181 Casey, M. 142, 149 Cassirer, E. 37-40, 55 Charles, R. H. 111, 120 Chrupala, L. D. 135, 149 Chyutin, M. 191, 202, 212 Cogan, M. 10, 21 Cohn, R. L. 12, 21 Conrad, E. W. 59, 73 Crossley, J. 147, 149 Cunliffe, B. 212 Dalman, G. 135, 149 Darr, J. A. 152, 167 Davis, M. 126, 132 Day, J. 47, 55, 148 Day, M. 149 De Troyer, K. 127, 132 DeSilva, D. A. 171, 181 Deines, R. 141, 149 Dewsbury, J.-D. 143, 147-50 Duby, G. 95, 102 Duling, D. C. 143, 149 Eagleton, T. xiv, xxi Eißfeldt, O. 47, 55 Eliade, M. 63, 67, 73, 127, 133 Engels, F. 212 Enns, P. 171, 181 Esler, P. F. 137, 150 Eslinger, L. 8, 21

240

Index of Authors

Essen, C. C. van 62, 74 Evans, G. 96, 102 Exum, J. C. 92, 93, 102 Fine, S. 191, 202, 213 Finley, M. I. 29, 35 Fisch, H. 93, 102 Fitzmyer, J. A. 195, 213 Flanagan, J. W. 73 Foucault, M. 59, 69, 73, 147, 150 Fox, M. 93, 102 Frennesson, B. 213 Fretheim, T. E. 10, 21 Friesen, S. J. 185, 191, 195, 204, 213 Frilingos, C. 184, 185, 191, 213

Hepner, G. 7, 19, 21 Herr, B. 45, 56 Hersey, G. 198, 213 Heuner, U. 176, 182 Himmelfarb, M. 113, 121 Hobbs, T. R. 10, 11, 15, 21 Hofius, O. 171, 172, 182 Horovitz, S. 131, 133 Horrell, D. G. 137, 149, 150 Hossfeld, F.-L. 171, 182 Huie-Jolly, M. R. 87, 102 Inge, J. 152, 167 Innis, H. A. xxi Isar, N. 59, 73

Gammie, J. G. 7, 17, 21 Gane, M. 73 García Martínez, F. 124, 125, 133 Gaventa, B. R. 152, 167 Gehlen, R. 169, 181 Gempf, C. 167 Gennep, A. van 69, 73 George, M. xiii, xxi, 75, 83, 85, 87, 102, 152, 158, 167 Gill, D. W. J. 167 Ginzberg, L. 5, 21, 128, 133 Gleason, R. C. 172, 181 de Goeje, M. J. 53, 56 Goldman, Y. 52, 55 Goodman, N. 40, 56 Graham, S. 77, 102 Grässer, E. 171, 177, 181 Gray, J. 6, 7, 10, 11, 15, 16, 21 Gregg, S. 184, 213 Gressmann, H. 11, 21 Gruber, M. I. 133 Gunn, D. M. xiii, xxi, 59, 73, 75, 102, 108, 120 Gurtner, D. M. 109, 120

Jameson, F. 30, 36 Jamme, C. 40, 56 Jasper, D. 224, 226 Jauss, H. R. 201, 213 Jenson, P. P. 6, 21 Jones, G. H. 6, 10, 11, 15, 21 Jones, H. S. 188, 213 Just, F. 185, 213

Halbwachs, M. 44, 56 Harding, K. 93, 102 Harnisch, W. 111, 121 Harrington, H. K. 125, 133 Harvey, D. 30, 31, 36, 88, 108, 121 Heidegger, M. 219, 226 Heider, G. C. 47, 56 Heim, F. 209, 213 Helderman, J. 172, 182 Hellholm, D. 184, 213

Laansma, J. 172, 182 Lacoste, J.-Y. 217, 218, 220, 223, 224, 226 Lasine, S. 4-6, 10-18, 20, 21 Latham, A. 80, 102 Latour, B. 138-41, 143, 147, 149, 150 Law, J. 140, 150 Leclerq, J. 89, 102 Lefebvre, H. 30, 36, 59, 61, 73, 76, 80, 83, 84, 86, 88, 90, 91, 99, 101, 102, 108, 121, 145, 150, 156, 165-67

Kant, I. 40, 56 Käsemann, E. 175, 182 Kazen, T. 133 Keel, O. 45, 56 Keller, C. 185, 213 Klauck, H.-J. 12, 21 Klawans, J. 125, 133 Kodell, J. 165, 167 Konkel, M. 50, 78 Kort, W. 80, 102 Kramer, S. N. 68, 73 Kraus, W. 171, 182 Krummacher, F. W. 7, 21 Küchler, M. 52, 55 Kyrtatas, D. 201, 213



Index of Authors

Leibowitz, N. 9, 22 Leick, G. 66, 67, 74 Leroux-Dhuys, J.-F. 89, 95, 96, 98, 102 Lévinas, E. 179, 182 Levine, A. J. 68, 74 Levine, B. A. 132, 133 Lewis, M. J. T. 62, 74 Ley, D. 166, 167 Liddell, H. G. R. 188, 213 Lied, L. I. 107, 108, 110, 111, 113, 116, 117, 121 Lohfink, G. 13, 22 Löhr, H. 173, 182 Löwith, K. 40, 56 Long, B. O. 4, 6, 10, 11, 16, 22 Lopez, K. 78, 102 Lundquist, J. M. 63, 74 Lyons, W. J. 213 Magda, K. 152, 167 Maier, C. 75, 84, 87, 88, 102 Marcus, D. 18, 22 Martin-Achard, R. 11, 12, 22 Massey, D. 81, 102, 108, 121, 144, 150, 203, 213 Matthews, V. 59, 60, 74 McCarter, P. K. Jr. 63, 64, 66, 74 McCullough, W. S. 8, 22 McElvey, R. J. 219, 226 McNutt, P. M. xiii, 59, 73, 75, 77, 102, 108, 120 Meredith, C. 75, 93, 102 Merrifield, A. 83, 84, 88, 103 Milgrom, J. 126, 128, 129, 133 Milik, J. T. 49, 56 Millar, F. 192, 213 Millar, W. R. 86, 103 Molinier, A. 53, 56 Montigny, G. 44, 56 Moore, S. 92, 103, 185, 190, 192, 198, 204206, 213 Mounce, R. H. 192, 213 Moxnes, H. xiii, 108, 121, 135, 143, 150 Münchow, C. 119, 121 Munro, J. M. 93, 103 Murphy, F. J. 109, 116, 121 Myśliwiec, K. 66, 74 Nagy, G. 13, 22 Nāîir-i-Khusrau 53, 54, 56

241

Nasrallah, S. 151, 153, 167, 199, 206, 209, 213 Nelson, R. D. 7, 8, 10, 11, 22 Neufeld, D. 192, 214 Neusner, J. 171, 182 Nickelsburg, G. W. E. 49, 56 Niditch, S. 9, 20, 22 Nir, R. 116, 121 O’Donovan, O. 157, 167 O’Neill, J. C. 135, 136, 150 Økland, J. xiii, xxi, 108, 121, 127, 128, 130, 133, 184, 186, 195, 196, 202, 212-14 Osborne, T. P. 191, 214 Otto, R. 6, 20, 22 Ounsworth, R. 176, 182 Overholt, T. 11, 22 Palmer, C. 63, 74 Parker, R. 4, 22 Parsons, M. C. 151, 167 Pezzoli-Olgiati, D. 170, 182 Pippin, T. 75, 103, 184, 185, 188, 214 Pleins, J. D. 11, 22 Polzin, R. 8, 22 Pongratz-Leisten, B. 43, 56 Puech, É. 123, 133 Rad, G. von 171, 182 Rappaport, R. 188, 203, 204, 214 Roncace, M. 10, 22 Rose, C. 182 Rose, H. J. 74, 175 Rosendale, T. 225, 226 Rowe, C. K. 155, 160, 167 Rowland, C. 190, 214 Saillard, Y. 32, 35 Salles-Reese, V. xvii, xxi Schiffman, L. H. 124, 128-31, 133 Schmitt, A. 18, 22 Schultz, B. 123, 134 Schwartz, H. 71, 74 Schweitzer, A. 141, 150 Scott, J. M. 151, 167 Scott, R. 188, 213 Seim, T. K. 111, 121 Shemesh, Y. 18, 22 Shields, M. E. 20, 22 Shiell, W. D. 162, 167

242

Index of Authors

Siegert, B. 19, 22 Simon, E. 74 Simon, U. 4, 11, 22, 67 Sleeman, M. xiii, xxi, 151, 152, 154-56, 160, 164, 167 Sloterdijk, P. xvii, xviii, xxii Smith, J. P. 112, 121, 137 Smith, J. Z. 150, 202, 214 Smith, R. P. 118, 121 Snyder, B. W. 186, 214 Soja, E. W. 59, 74, 76, 77, 81, 86, 103, 108, 121, 151, 152, 156, 165, 167 Sommer, B. D. 16, 22 Sprinkle, P. 113, 121 Spronk, K. 48, 56 Steck, O. H. 45, 56 Stemberger, G. 111, 121, 177, 182 Stewart, E. C. xiii, 136, 148, 150 Stipp, H.-J. 7, 8, 11, 14, 19, 22 Strauss, M. L. 160, 168 Sweeney, M. A. 6, 22 Tadmor, H. 10, 21 Theissen, G. 164, 168 Thompson, M. B. 157, 168 Thrift, N. 143, 148, 150 Tobler, T. 53, 56 Tuan, Y.-F. 145, 150 Turner, V. 69, 74 Uehlinger, C. 45, 56 Vanderpool, E. 67, 74 Vanhoye, A. 171, 182 Vermaseren, M. J. 62, 74

Vincent, H. 44, 56 Viollet-le-Duc, E. 95, 97, 103 Volz, P. 117, 122 de Vos, J. C. xiii, xxi, 176, 179, 182 Wacker, M.-T. 49, 56 Wall, R. W. 159, 168 Ward, G. 186, 214 Weaver, J. B. 159-65, 168 Webb, M. 62, 74 Weber, R. 56 Weiss, J. 141, 150 Wenell, K. xiii, xxii, 135, 146, 150 Whitfield, B. J. 176, 184 Whitters, M. 109, 122 Wilkinson, J. 52, 53, 56 Williamson, M. 68, 73 Willis, W. 135, 150 Winkle, R. 189, 214 Winter, B. W. 168 Wise, M. O. 124, 134 Wray, J. H. 172, 181, 184 Wright, D. P. 125, 130, 134 Würthwein, E. 8, 22 Wyatt, N. 63, 74 Xeres, S. 151, 168 Yadin, Y. 124-26, 128, 131, 134 Yaneva, A. 145, 146, 150 Zekl, H. G. 176, 184 Zenger, E. 171, 182