Holy Land, Holy City: Sacred Geography and the Interpretation of the Bible. By Robert P. Gordon. Pp. xii + 162. Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2004. isbn 1 84227 277 2. Paper n.p

2005 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 512-514
Author(s):  
Peter Walker
2019 ◽  
pp. 210-226
Author(s):  
Simon Mills

This chapter explains the remarkable popularity of Henry Maundrell’s A Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem at Easter AD 1697 (1703). It argues that Maundrell’s eye-witness reportage of his travels in the Holy Land provided the book’s readers with a storehouse of geographical observations and descriptions of eastern customs with which they could recreate imaginatively the world of the Scriptures. Tracing the book’s use by editors, commentators, translators, and paraphrasts, it argues that Maundrell was most often put to work in defence of the Bible against attacks on its claims to truth. Yet in the hands of Maundrell’s late eighteenth-century German translator, the naturalist and historicist tendencies inherent in his account were brought into sharper focus; ‘sacred geography’ was transformed into a history of biblical culture.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 220-238
Author(s):  
Irina V. Fedorova ◽  

The repertoire of guidebooks to the Holy Land in the Old Russian literary culture of Muscovite Rus’ is significant and diverse. Its basis is texts translated from Greek and Polish. Using the example of the Old Russian translation of a monument preserved in handwritten lists of the 17th–18th centuries entitled “A Tale for the Benefit of Hearing and Reading About the Holy City of Jerusalem and its Surrounding Places”, the article discusses the content and narrative features of guidebooks to the Holy Land. The analysis showed that the studied Tale in terms of composition, principles of material selection and organization is close to similar monuments of the Byzantine tradition, which to one degree or another are associated with the 15th century proskynetarian Anonymous Allyatsiya. Comparison of the text of the Tale with this proskynetarian suggested that the original of its Old Russian translation was one of the alterations of this guide, dating no earlier than the 16th century, when the Turks mentioned in the text ruled Palestine. The relevance of guidebooks to Palestine for the Old Russian book culture is also demonstrated by the original monuments of this genre, the creation of which began in the 15th century. The article names and briefly describes several such texts of the 15th–18th centuries, found in manuscripts under the titles “The Wanderer of Jerusalem”, “The Legend of the Jerusalem Way”.


AJS Review ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 395-398
Author(s):  
Rehav Rubin

Many of the pioneers and settlers who came to America held the Bible in their right hands and were strongly inspired by this “Good Book.” They believed they had come to the “New Promised Land,” and consequently gave Biblical names to the new towns and villages, as well as to their children. It was, therefore, almost natural that the remote land in the east, known as the Holy Land, Palestine, the Promised Land, or The Land of Israel, had, and probably still has, a very special place in American culture and society.


2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 447-497
Author(s):  
John D. Thomas

In the early nineteenth century, the study of “sacred” geography gained traction in American Sunday schools, buoyed by the popular belief that students needed to familiarize themselves with the Holy Land in order to understand the Bible. As religious educators designed geographic curricula, they turned to cartography for assistance and developed map-based lesson plans that would, they hoped, enliven the study of scripture by making visible the spatial layout of ancient Palestine. This article tracks the emergence and widespread use of a particular type of thematic map that featured the life of Jesus superimposed onto the Holy Land, a form of biographical mapmaking that I call “biocartography.” To help students visualize scripture, mapmakers translated the gospel narratives into vectors that crisscrossed Palestine, which meant that they had to overlook the New Testament’s textual discontinuities in order to create a seemingly authentic mosaic of biblical history. Paying close attention to the semiotics of cartography, I explain how biographical circuits that were largely (if not entirely) speculative were regarded as historical fact and how educators who used such maps invented a wide range of cartographic activities to help students comprehend and internalize the Bible’s most salient passages.


1994 ◽  
Vol 4 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 135-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamar Liebes

Abstract This article analyzes the famous Biblical account of a group sent by Moses to scout the Holy Land in anticipation of its conquest (Num. 13-14) and focuses on the unhappy ending of the story. It examines three explanations for why the scouts were punished: (a) for adding their opinions to the facts they were supposed to report (editorializing), (b) for insinuating their opinions into the report itself (bias), and (c) for releasing the report to the public rather than funneling it through the leader. The article analyzes not only the story itself but also the story of the story to reveal the narrator's ideological position. (Mass Communication)


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 45-65

This study examines the pilgrimage of Christian women ascetics in the early Christian period from the fourth to sixth centuries AD, focusing on wealthy Roman women who were influenced by the Church Fathers, such as Jerome and left their world, freedom, family and social class. They sold their properties in order to come to the Holy Land (the Land of the Bible) to visit the holy places and the desert hermits and to build monasteries, hospitals, hospices, orphanages and accomodations for old people through the Holy Land. The pilgrimage of women ascetics was a characteristic feature of the period. In spite of the difficult journey, these ascetic women came to fulfill their religious and spiritual needs. These women have been remembered throughout the ages for their faith, piety, tenderness, purity and devotion and have served as role models for women after them. This study examines the concept of pilgrimage in Christianity and the pilgrimage of the women ascetics and their religious and social accomplishments in the Holy Land.


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