Hezekiah during the Golden Age

Hezekiah, King of Jerusalem, was doing preparations to overthrow Assyria. He fortified Jerusalem by creating the “broad” wall and making the water supply more accessible. During the Golden Age of Hezekiah’s reign, the actual process of writing became more prevalent. Since archaic times, a lot of religions, such as Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, had been based on text and literature. There were two lines of people that were considered “anointed,” the high priest and the king; however, the written rule had gain more authority than the king himself, because even the king had to subject himself to the law.

Assyria tried to conquer Jerusalem but failed, thus people believed that Jerusalem was delivered from Assyria through Yahweh. It was this event, besides Solomon’s Temple and the Ark of the Covenant, that started the myth that Jerusalem was inviolable. It led people to strengthen their faith and believe in Yahweh because Yahweh had fulfilled his promise to King David. As a result, the Zion theology became popular in Jerusalem and throughout Canaan.

Hezekiah's Jerusalem

King David reigned from 1010-970 BCE. His son, Solomon, continued from 970-930 BCE. Under Solomon's son, Rehoboam (930-913 BCE), the Kingdom was divided into North (Israel/Samaria) and South (Judah) during 925 BCE. Rehoboam became the king of Judah, while Jeroboam became the king of Israel. Because the south was the main place for religious people to come and worship, Jeroboam built alternative shrines in Bethel and Dan of the north to prevent people from traveling to the south to worship. The South also built alternative shrines, like the Beer-Sheva and the Arad Temple. These places of worship in the North and the South helped flourish their economies. Jerusalem was the capital of Judah. Jerusalem expands to Western Hill in 8th Century.

The rise of the Assyrian Empire began in Jerusalem during the 8th Century. Tiglath-Pileser the Third conquered Damascus, Phoenicia, and Galilee. Shalmaneser the Fourth conquered and exiled Samaria. The fall of Assyria happened during 609 BCE to the Babylonians.

Solomon's Temple

Under Solomon, who began his reign in about 970 BCE, Jerusalem acquired a regional status and doubled in size. Solomon achieved legendary status; his wealth and wisdom were said to be prodigious, and he embarked on a massive building project. Jerusalem became a cosmopolitan city and was the scene of Solomon's most ambitious construction program. The Solomon's Temple was dedicated to Yahweh and designed to house the Ark of the Covenant. The Temple, though full of "pagan" imagery, became the most cherished institution in Israel.

Once the Ark was installed in the Temple, the site became for the Israelites a "center" that linked heaven and earth. Like the Sacred Mountain, the Temple was a symbol of the reality that sustains the life of the cosmos. It represented a bridge to the source of being, without which the fragile mundane world could not subsist. Because the Temple was built in a place where the sacred had revealed itself in the past, worshippers could hope to make contact with that divine power. The existence of the Temple let the sacred enter the world of men and women.

The Temple was also the source of the world's fertility and order. When a nation adopted the local ideal of sacral kingship, it was up to the king to uphold justice, or else, there would not be peace, harmony, and fertility in the kingdom.

City of David

David conquered the city, Jerusalem, in 1000 BCE. Because Jerusalem was a neutral territory embedded in the north by Israel and in the south by Judah, the land became David's personal property and he renamed it the City of David. David treated the existing inhabitants of the city with respect, and he even incorporated them into his own administration, which fostered the creative interaction of Jebusite and Israelite traditions.

David attempted to move the Ark of the Covenant but it ended in tragedy. Through this incident, people figured that it was not up to human beings to establish a holy place on their own initiative: the sanctity of a site had to be revealed. Yahweh had often been envisioned as a mobile god, but he could not be moved by the mere whim of a king. If Yahweh came to live in Zion it would be because he--and he along--had chosen to do so. The second time, however, Yahweh did allow David to move the Ark into Jerusalem.

Jacob's Ladder

Discussion Class with Daniel

Why would the archaic people set a place to be sacred/holy?
-to develop a feeling of closeness to God
-setting place and time apart from the mundane
-reserved for a specific purpose
for example: holy and prostitution share the same Hebrew root. How did it come to be? Prostitutions in ancient times are reserved for "specific purpose."

The place where Jacob, descendent of Abraham, received the dream of God's promise of fertility to Jacob became the cornerstone of Jerusalem.

The sacred consecration of the place where Jerusalem will be founded upon.
How does the place, and not just any other place, get chosen to be sacred? The passage (Jacob's Ladder) implies that God has preordained that Jacob will be at the place where he will receive the dream. The passage describes a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of the it reached up to heaven--signifies that the role of the sacred place is to connect heaven and earth. It is a medium through which man could understand another realm of reality. Jacob was afraid because he felt the need to treat the sacred place with reverence. Then, he took the stone that he lied upon and created a monument of the sacred experience in the sacred place. He also renamed the sacred place as Beth-el. Consecration, in this sense, represents the making of a covenant with God.

Sacred is the Opposite of Profane

ELIADE CH1-2

Hierophany is the manifestations of sacred realities. Through hierophany trees and stones are not just trees and stones but the sacred. It provides the passage from the profane to the sacred world. For example, mountains and temples become the important symbol of the connection between heaven and earth, man and God.

The "Center of the World" must be founded on a sacred foundation. The Center is a fixed point in which it is equivalent to the creation of the world. The "Center of the World" symbolizes the "religious experience of the nonhomogeneity of space" and the "revelation of an absolute reality." When establishing in a new territory or house, man transforms the place into a cosmos through the ritual repetition of the cosmogony, which is the gods' continuous victory over the absolute evil: the dragon/snake. Man constructs and consecrates their universe to be the "replica of the paradigmatic universe created and inhabited by the gods." The sacredness "fixes the limit and establishes the order of the world." The conclusion is that religious man sought to live as near as possible to the center of the world, and through the continuous repetition of the primordial act does the man's world becomes apprehensive as the world.

Jerusalem as a Sacred Space

Jerusalem as a Sacred Space

How did it come to be sacred? Ways to make a place sacred: 1) someone was born there 2)something significant happened there. 3)there were witnesses.

Why was Jerusalem built on mountains and valleys?

To enforce strategic protection, for it was unlikely for soldiers to attack a city after being exhausted from running up the mountains. Jerusalem’s north wall is the least safest.

Jerusalem is divided into four quarters

Northwest-Christians

Northeast-Islam

Southwest-Armenians

Southeast-Jude

The higher a city was placed geography, the more holy the city was, because people considered it to be closer to heaven and God.

Resources that were important for developing big cities

1.       Water

2.       Near the sea

3.       On trade routes

4.       Natural defenses

Water is the most important one.

The biggest problem in Jerusalem was the lack of water. The only water source was the Gihon Spring.

Water had always been seen as sacred because water could make a city prosper. People used literature, such as the Genesis, to classify water as sacred.