Arthur Fitzmaurice
21A.213
Professor Steinberg
Term Paper
15 May 2002
The Role of Sacred Space in Judeo-Christian Religions
Certain physical locations take on important meanings in the world’s
religions.
Religions consider various geographic elements such as different
cities, regions, mountains, and rivers to be sacred. For example, Hindus travel to
the Ganges River to cleanse themselves from their sins (Momen 157). One of
the requirements of all Muslims is that they make a pilgrimage to the holy city of
Mecca (Eastman 398). Judeo-Christian religions also have certain places that
are held sacred to their followers. The concept of sacred space is important to
Judeo-Christian religions, because it helps to explain the questions of existence.
Sacred space provides something tangible to represent religions while reducing
the obstacles that prevent religious people from having religious experiences.
Judeo-Christian religions have extensive histories in which the concept of sacred
space has been instrumental to their developments.
Today, sacred space
remains important in separating these religions from the rest of the world. As
seen in historical stories and reflected through the symbolism of religious
architecture as well as in nature, sacred space is an important aspect of JudeoChristian religions.
One reason that believers of Judeo-Christian religions find certain
locations to be important is that God has declared that certain places should be
considered sacred. In the Book of Exodus, the Lord speaks to Moses on the
mountain of Horeb, saying “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place
where you stand is holy ground” (Exo. 3.5 NAB). In the Book of Genesis, God
sends Abraham to the land of Moriah. “When they came to the place of which
God had told him, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it”
(Gen. 22.9 NAB). It is there where the Lord makes a covenant with Abraham,
promising him that his descendants will be numerous. Later, the Lord tells David
where to build the Lord’s Temple: “Then Solomon began to build the house of the
Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, which had been pointed out to his father
David” (2 Chr. 3.1 NAB). In these stories, the Lord sanctions Moriah to be an
important place in the history of Judeo-Christian religions. It is evident that some
places on Earth are important to Judeo-Christian religions, since God declares
that certain parts of creation are particularly sacred.
Other earthly places are important to Judeo-Christian religions, because
they have been built by direct orders of God. In the Book of Genesis, the Lord
orders Noah to build an ark and clearly outlines its design specifications, saying,
“This is how you shall build it: the length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits,
its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits” (Gen. 6.15 NAB). In this story,
the Lord gives Noah explicit instructions to build a physical building to save
himself from earthly devastation. Places like Noah’s Ark are sacred, because
they are replicas of divine plans. Furthermore, places that are built by means like
this can be considered sacred, because they allow humans to participate in
creation. The Book of Genesis describes the Lord’s creation of everything in
existence from the galaxies to the oceans to human beings. Sacred space is
important to Judeo-Christian religions, because it helps to pacify the human
desire to live in a world like when it was first created by God. Humans can have
a deep religious experience when they imitate God by creating a sacred space.
In the First Book of Kings, Solomon has the opportunity to imitate God through
creating an intricately-detailed temple. He dedicates this temple to the Lord and
thereby makes the space sacred (1 Kin. 6 NAB). Still today when believers in
Judeo-Christian religions build certain temples and altars for God, they create
sacred spaces that remain important to their religion.
Religion is a difficult concept to understand fully. It can be described as
the human expression of a group’s common system of beliefs. These beliefs
typically concern such concepts as the existence of supernatural beings, the
afterlife, and the origin of life. With the current knowledge of humans, these
matters cannot be adequately explained. Furthermore, these ideas cannot be
expressed with current human language (Barbour 90). To compensate for the
inability to explain the unexplainable and the lack of sufficient answers to life’s
questions, Judeo-Christian religions tend to employ tangible phenomena as
much as possible.
The concept of sacred space is important to religions,
because it offers a tangible representation of the religion for its believers. This
can help to humanize the supernatural and the concept of spirituality. Sacred
space helps to provide a structure for religions, as it closes the gaps of
understanding of concepts that are difficult to grasp with human understanding.
Judeo-Christian religions employ the concept of location as a storytelling
tool. Stories help to explain intangible concepts, and the use of specific places in
biblical stories helps to concretize these concepts. In the story of Adam and Eve,
the Garden of Eden is described as a beautiful place. In the center of the garden
are the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (Gen. 2.8-3.24
NAB). This story utilizes tangible elements to represent deeper meanings. The
Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil symbolizes the Lord’s omnipotence. When
Eve eats from this tree, it represents humanity’s sinful desire to be like God. In
the New Testament, the story of Jesus’ birth is set in Bethlehem. There, Jesus is
born in a manger (Luke 2.4-20 NAB). Since Jesus is not born in a regal location,
the deeper meaning in this story is that the greatness of God is not measured by
Earthly riches.
Later, Jesus is crucified in Golgotha, or Place of the Skull
(Matthew 27.33 NAB).
Places like the Garden of Eden, the manger in
Bethlehem, and the Place of the Skull are often used in Judeo-Christian stories
as symbols for deeper meanings. These provide a greater level of understanding
in the stories. Furthermore, the description of these locations helps to create
associations between religious concepts and tangible elements. Places used in
storytelling help to instill in believers an understanding of the beliefs of the JudeoChristian religions.
They provide something tangible for today’s believers to
relate to the history of their religions.
In addition to serving as storytelling elements, certain places are held
sacred to the Judeo-Christian religions because of their historical backgrounds.
Many religious people make pilgrimages to the Holy Land in order to be in the
regions where many of the prophets lived. Other people travel to places like
Vatican City to visit sites of historic events in their religion’s past. Particularly for
people with strong religious beliefs, the opportunity to be in the places where
biblical stories actually occurred adds a real dimension to one’s religious
experience.
Traveling to historical locations enables believers to immerse
themselves in the history of their religion.
This allows believers to better
understand the background behind the development of their religion.
While historical backgrounds can make places important to religions, the
traditions and rituals practiced by the religion can also make certain locations
more sacred. In the Holy Bible, Jews and eventually Christians are baptized in
the waters of the Jordan River. The river is not necessarily an inherently sacred
place. However, today it is still revered as a sacred river due to the baptismal
rituals that occur there. Believers in the Judeo-Christian religions gather together
in various types of worship spaces including synagogues, basilicas, and
churches. These places of worship will be collectively referred to as temples.
Temples become sacred places because of the prayer services and celebrations
that take place in them. Particularly when an event is repeated, the ritual leads
to feelings of ownership of the place.
The location of the religious practice
becomes sacred to the religion (Eliade 30).
In addition to the rituals that are practiced there, temples are generally
sacred places for other reasons. For instance, there is a great deal of symbolism
in their architectural designs. The structure of temples makes them analogous to
a gate between worlds. The great height forms a symbolic bridge between this
world and heaven, while the foundation extending into the depths of the Earth is
symbolic of a bridge between this world and the underworld. The symbolism of
the architecture of temples contributes to the deeper meaning of temples in
Judeo-Christian religions.
These places help to reduce the lack of human
understanding of the afterlife by offering a symbolic bridge between the physical
and spiritual worlds. Sacred space provides a level of continuity that improves
the religious experience for believers of Judeo-Christian religions (Eliade 20-24).
Notably, many temples are models of mountains. For this reason, it is not
surprising that mountains are also considered sacred to Judeo-Christian
religions. Temples are typically designed to rise high into the sky like mountains.
The great height of mountains causes some religions to revere them for bringing
believers closer to heaven (Eliade 39). In the Book of Genesis, the story of the
Tower of Babel reveals the human desire to be as close to God as possible.
“They said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the
sky’” (Gen. 11.4 NAB). The prophet Isaiah writes, “Come, let us climb the Lord’s
mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob” (Isa. 2.3 NAB). As people in biblical
times yearned to be seemingly closer to heaven at a high elevation, religious
people today find mountains to bring them closer to God. This is evident by the
fact that many temples have been built in mountains. The idea that believers can
be closer to God when they are in temples or on mountaintops contributes to the
sacredness of these locations in Judeo-Christian religions.
Places like mountains and rivers are also sacred to Judeo-Christian
religions, because they are among the most sacred parts of creation.
It is
evident that religious people like to surround themselves with nature. When it is
left undefiled by humans, nature provides the means for humans to retreat from
everyday life and immerse themselves in God’s creation.
Both the Old
Testament and the New Testament of the Bible include various stories of
humans interacting with the sacredness of nature. In the Book of Exodus, Moses
hears the voice of God emanating from a burning bush (Exo. 3.4 NAB). In the
New Testament, Jesus often retreats to deserts and mountains in order to clear
his mind and surround himself in the Lord’s midst by fully immersing himself in
creation. In a similar fashion, many Judeo-Christian hermits spend their lives in
the wilderness of mountains, surrounding themselves with God’s creation.
Nature enables believers of Judeo-Christian religions to remove themselves from
the distractions of the everyday human world. Deep religious experiences can
occur through the human interaction with the sacred spaces of nature (Momen
110).
While the elements of nature are sacred because they are removed from
human defilement, other places are sacred because they exist among parts of
creation that have been profaned. In the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses journeys
to the summit of Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments from the Lord
(Deu. 5 NAB). When he returns from the mountain, he learns that the Lord has
chosen Mount Sinai to be a sacred place, while the people in the village at its
base have resorted to idol worship (Deu. 9.8-12 NAB). Some regions today
remain subject to religious persecution. In some of these areas, Judeo-Christian
religions thrive through the existence of underground catacombs. These sacred
meeting places are vital to the survival of religions, as they allow believers to
congregate among the persecuting world around them.
Sometimes, sacred
space provides protection from the rest of the world. In nations like the United
States where there is little religious persecution but a general separation of
church and state, the existence of temples is noticeable. Particularly in run-down
and crime-ridden neighborhoods, temples stand out as being sacred among the
pestilence of the rest of the secular world (Johnson 167).
Even among the
warfare that is currently ensuing in the Middle East, bombs have not been
dropped on the sacred lands where Jesus once walked. While parts of the world
have been defiled by sinful actions, there remains a human respect for sacred
spaces. This reflects that certain locations are sacred in a profane world and that
these sacred places can help to purify parts of this world.
While some sacred spaces separate the religious from the rest of the
world, they can also contribute to the separation of religions from each other. In
the Book of Exodus, the Lord works through Moses to part the waters of the Red
Sea and thereby save the Israelites from the persecution of the Egyptians (Exo.
14 NAB). In the Book of Isaiah, the prophet refers to the Holy Land of the JudeoChristian religions, saying, “The mountain of the Lord’s house shall be
established as the highest mountain and raised above the hills” (Isa. 2.2 NAB).
These verses suggest that Judeo-Christian religions are superior to the other
religions of the world. They employ usage of location imagery to make this point.
In modern times, certain locations can contribute to this separation of JudeoChristian religions from the world’s other religions.
For example, Mormon
temples are not accessible by people who are not members of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Even temples of other Judeo-Christian
religions that lack such stringent restrictions generate a similar feeling of
separation. The same aspects of a location that make it sacred to believers
make it more foreign to non-believers, since someone who does not practice the
religion can never fully understand the religion. While the existence of certain
locations make a religion more tangible for believers, it makes the differences
between that religion and that of the non-believer’s more noticeable. Sacred
locations separate Judeo-Christian religions from the rest of the human world.
Since biblical times, sacred space has manifested itself in many forms
ranging from temples to mountains to geographic regions. These physical places
provide a tangible representation of Judeo-Christian religions for believers.
Religion is an inherently difficult concept to understand, since it reflects the
human attempt to answer questions that are currently unexplainable by human
knowledge. For this reason, the concept of sacred space helps to bridge the
gaps of human understanding of the supernatural.
It contributes deeper
meanings to biblical stories that attempt to explain spiritual concepts. Sacred
space provides a level of continuity between physical and spiritual existence.
Furthermore, sacred space provides the opportunity for believers to put aside
human distractions and engage in a deep religious experience. The symbolism
of some sacred space reflects human desires such as the yearning to be close to
God that is evident in temple architecture. This contributes to the importance of
sacred space to Judeo-Christian religions.
This symbolism combined with
historical and ritual influences make certain places sacred. In doing so, certain
places can work to purify parts of the world by serving as sacred spaces among
the profane. At the same time, the sacralization of places can distance religions
from each other by fostering a feeling of superiority among some religions and
inferiority among others. Judeo-Christian religions rely on sacred space to do
these things for believers.
Works Cited
Barbour, Ian G. Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues. San
Francisco: HarperCollins, 1997.
Eastman, Roger. The Ways of Religion: An Introduction to the Major Traditions.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Eliade, Mircea. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. San
Diego: Harcourt, Inc., 1987.
Holy Bible, New American Bible (Iowa Falls, Iowa, 1986)
Johnson, Kevin Orlin. Why Do Catholics Do That?: A Guide to the Teachings
and Practices of the Catholic Church. New York: Random House, Inc.,
1994.
Momen, Moojan. The Phenomenon of Religion. Oxford: Oneworld Publications,
1999.
The Role of Sacred Space in Judeo-Christian Religions
Arthur Fitzmaurice
21A.213
Professor Steinberg
Term Paper
15 May 2002