Mountain And Wilderness:an Interpretation Of Biblical Texts From Spatial Perspective

The Bible [1], the most important cultural heritage of Hebrew civilization, is also the spiritual and psychological backbone of modern western society. Biblical literature study has always played a significant role in western academic world, and a great deal of achievements has been made in this field over the past few centuries. This thesis is accomplished on the basis of previous biblical literature study, and its theoretical inspiration comes from the newly rising spatial criticism in the late20th century.With its long history, wide range, rich contents, and grand structure, the Bible has been interpreted for centuries from various critical approaches. Yet it is still a matter of time for critical spatiality to be adequately applied to biblical study. Most spaces in the Bible are not empty containers which passively hold the happening of events; instead, they are dynamic and dialectic subjects which determine the generation and development of religious ideas, identity cognition and social shaping of human activities. As the physical representation of human ideas, space incorporates social relations, exercise of power, as well as other aspects of human society. The major concern of this study is biblical spatiality, through a close reading of space-oriented biblical texts in combination with the spatial theories advocated by Michel Foucault, Henri Lefebvre and Edward Soja, the long neglected spatial significance of biblical writing is rediscovered.Textual materials for this study are mainly taken from Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, and Leviticus. Accordingly, the spatial forms concerned are garden, mountain, wilderness and wilderness tabernacle. The main body of this thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter2gives a general view on the literary significance of biblical spatiality. With a case study of "garden" in Genesis and Song of Songs, this chapter suggests a possible way of practicing spatial criticism on biblical scripture. Chapter3deals with Mount Sinai in Exodus:how the "sacred mountain" is textually organized and how power relation works in and through space under Foucauldian viewpoint. Particular attention is paid to the golden calf story, which suggests an imaginative transgression of spatial order and visual hierarchy. The possession of space means at the same time the monopoly of knowledge and power. In Sinai narrative, God and Moses on the mountain obviously have a different cognitive mapping to people waiting in the wilderness. Chapter4focuses on biblical wilderness tradition which plays a vital role in both the Bible and many subsequent literary works. The main argument of this chapter is that the wilderness is a space in tripartite dialectics, a space perceived, conceived, and really lived by the Israelites. The material scarcity of desert wilderness lived by the Israelites continuously interweaves with the prospect of the Promised Land. The classic biblical image "Hagar in wilderness" is analyzed to show how space functions in the shaping of character and how she transforms from a silent passive victim into a subject of agency. The central topic of chapter5is Israel’s wilderness tabernacle. I put forward the idea in this chapter that the tabernacle is a physical expression of priestly leadership during and after the exilic period. Moreover, the wilderness tabernacle also exerts a great influence on the everyday life of Israelites, and the degree of religious purity is measured through the spatial distance from a given place to the tabernacle. The conclusion part briefly summarizes the meaning and core arguments of this study, and limitations of this research are pointed out with a further suggestion of possible improvement in future research.It is a quite new effort to interpret the Bible from spatial perspective. Most arguments in this study on mountain and wilderness are original, and the originality of this study is further guaranteed by sound textual analysis and theoretical foundation. Comparisons and contrasts between traditional reading and spatial reading of the texts are made throughout this thesis, through which I hope the readers can grasp the essence of biblical spatiality and understand the differences it has made.