For some reason I felt like professor Cargil didn't spend as much time on each slide today, almost like he was rushing, and yet he still did a fantastic job explaining everything!
We started the lecture by talking about why people choose to build a temple when building sacred spaces for worship. People did not use pyramids because they were used for burying the dead, where as a place like a temple was used for worship. Information about the plans for the temple were lowered down and given by divine beings. An example of this was given from "Sacred Space" (Eliade) in Revelations 21:1-5. It was said to be the divine decree sent from above. This example concluded the section of building a place to make it sacred. Once a construction is made, the next step is to consecrate it. This is the creation or re-creation of the sacred space. The consecration normally takes place with a ceremony or the act of prayer. After it is consecrated, people can continue to build on to it, but really it is the reputation of the sacred place that gets the attention of visitors. The reputations are created by stories and their connection to that sacred place. This is what happened to Jerusalem: for example, the Garden of Eden. The story goes that man is formed last after the earth, plants and animals. Since Adam was the first man created and was in the Garden of Eden he becomes an important part of the story. It is told that Adam is buried under the Dome of the Rock, explaining how Jerusalem is tied to the story and making it a sacred place. We next talked about how Jerusalem became affiliated with the Hebrew God. Professor Cargil made it very clear that it is extremely disrespectful to say the LORDs name. However, he felt it was important that as scholars we need to know it. It is written as YHWH. However, over time people would replace Gods name with the word LORD (it is important that it is in all caps because it means that it has been substituted for the actual name). As time went on, people also started replacing it with four dots .... because it was no longer acceptable to write it. In Genesis 14:17-20, the LORD comes out and blesses Abram, which is how they are connected. The next connection we talked about was Mr. Moriah. It is brought up in multiple passages making the connection between it and Jerusalem very strong. The passages we talked about were Genesis 22:1-14 and 2 Chronicles 3:1.
Although it is important to have Sacred Space, it is also important to have Sacred Time. The first example is the creation of the Sabbath (every sunday in which you are supposed to spend relaxing and worshiping God). In Exodus, one can see time and space together. The reason being is that if a sacred space was destroyed, how do you know if your Jewish. With sacred time, they don't have to go to the temple, but you could keep the Sabbath and pray and do things outside the sacred space. When talking about sacred time, the Ten Commandments are brought up three times. Each of which explain the importance of keeping the Sabbath, but for different reasons. In Exodus 20, one must keep the Sabbath because God rested on the 7th day of creation. However, in Deuteronomy 5 the reason for keeping the Sabbath is to remember that they were once slaves and are now free, they must give thanks on the Sabbath for their freedom.
After the sacred space has been consecrated, it becomes the center of the world or Axis Mundi. The places that make it so special are the Temple, Dome of the Rock and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Axis Mundi is the connection between heaven and earth, and earth and the underworld. Some places in which we can find signs of how these places are connected are the Garden of Eden, the Cosmic Mountain, Place of Prayer, and Place of the Underworld. These contains stories like the burning bush, which is where the name of God is presented, Come up the Mountain, which is where the Ten Commandments are given, THreshing Floor of Araunah, which is were God answered to the building of the alter with the fire of heaven and Gehenna, when is a valley like is a good representation of hell.
Lastly we went over the Sacred Spaces related to the three religions in Jerusalem. Judaism has the Temple of the Mount and the Western Wall, Christianity has the Holy Sepulcher, and Islam has the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque. Professor finished class with pictures of these places from google earth. My favorite was the picture of the Western Wall with all the papers shoved in the stone. I think it is a very interesting and unique concept! that was about it for this lecture.
I love the fact that Professor uses pictures. It makes it so much better! ill be posting my next blog soon!!!
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