Sacred Words and Worlds

Download or read book Sacred Words and Worlds written by Zur Shalev and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2011-10-14 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In early modern Europe, fundamental geographical as well as religious certainties became unstable. At the intersection of the two stood sacred geography. This book examines the scope and content of this early modern scholarly genre, which engaged many of Europe’s leading scholars. On the one hand, 'geographia sacra' is analyzed in the context of antiquarian scholarship. Equipped with newly-developed sophisticated tools, scholars compiled, measured, and meticulously documented biblical and ecclesiastical space. On the other hand, this study argues, 'geographia sacra' was never detached from present concerns, and took part in confessional debates over scriptural authority, papal legitimacy, and the authenticity of liturgy. Hence today’s interest in the notions of ‘sacred space’ and spatiality had a lively, controversial, and crucial precedent in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Scientific and Learned Cultures and Their Institutions, 2