Space, Land, Territory, and the Study of the Bible

Abstract

This essay, written for professional biblical scholars and graduate students being trained in biblical studies, introduces the reader to the interdisciplinary study of space and its related concepts, including land, place, and territory. It offers a synopsis of eight important approaches to the study of space: sacred, legal, political, economic, ecological, visual, social, and urban. It highlights some of the work being done by biblical scholars in conversation with spatial studies. And it reads the biblical story of Naboth’s vineyard, 1 Kgs 21:1–16, in light of the legal approach to space.

Metaphor Research and the Hebrew Bible

“…Spatial metaphors, as one of the primary metaphors across languages and cultures, have been a recent focus of research (aptly summarized in de Joode 2018: 46-67), including in a variety of ancient contexts (e.g., Horn and Breytenbach 2016; cf. Russell 2016). Van Loon (2018) similarly examines the development of Job’s own conceptualization of his suffering through metaphors.…”