Holy City and Holy Land As Viewed by Jews and Christians in the Byzantine Period: a Conceptual Approach to Sacred Space

HOLY CITY AND HOLY LAND AS VIEWED BY JEWS AND CHRISTIANS IN THE BYZANTINE PERIOD: A CONCEPTUAL APPROACH TO SACRED SPACE Aaron Demsky n the Byzantine period, both Judaism and Christianity had well I developed ideologies of sacred space, whether it be in terms of the Holy City or of the Holy Land, which was perceived as a dis tinct area in the former religion or as the totality of many holy sites in the latter religion. 1 We are fortunate in having two ex traordinary archaeological finds that illustrate how these com peting faiths viewed the Land as the medium for experiencing the holy. The first artifact is the famous Madaba Map,2 generally 1See R.J.Z. Werblowsky, 'The Meaning of Jerusalem to Jews, Christians and Muslims', Jaarbericht Ex Orient Lux 23 (1973-4) 1-15; W.D. Davies, The Gospel and the Land: Early Christianity and Jewish Territorial Doc tri'ne, Berkeley 1974; idem, The Territorial Dimension of Judaism, Ber keley, 1982; E.D. Hunt, Holy Land Pilgrimage in the Later Roman Empire AD 312-460, Oxford 1982; L. Hoffman (ed.), The Land of Israel: Jewish Per spectives, Notre Dame 1986, especially his Introduction, 1-23 and Pt. II 'The Land in the Tannaitic Period', 95-136; see now the collection of essays in M. Poorthuis & Ch. Safrai (eds), The Centrality of Jerusalem - Historical Per .1pectives, Kampen 1996. Early Christianity developed the idea of pilgrimage to specific holy sites where miracles were to have occurred or where biblical and Christian saints were supposedly buried. The reliance on the Bible and the ongoing contact with the Jewish community shaped Christianity's idea of the 'Holy Land', which is a biblical term (Zech 2:16). While in the Madaba Map the notations emphasize the sacred localities, the overall work is that of the entire Land within maximalist borders, at least to the south. 2M. A vi-Yonah, The Madaba Map - Translation and Commentary (Hebr.), Jerusalem 1954 (reprinted from Eretz-lsrael 2 [1953) 129-156); H. Donner, The Mosaic Map of Madaba - An Introductory Guide, Kampen 1992; G. Barkai & E. Schiller (eds), Eretz-lsrael in the Madaba Map (Hebr.), Jerusalem 1996. 286 AARON DEMSKY dated to the late 6th century CE. 1 It was discovered in 1884 during local church renovations where it was found to be part of the an cient floor. It was brought to the attention of the scholarly world a hundred years ago in 1897. The second find is the 6th or 7th cen tury Rebob mosaic discovered in 1973 in the ruins of a synagogue now in the fields of kibbutz Ein Hanaziv in the Beth Shean val ley.4 It was placed at the main entrance at the northern side of the building. [ see illustration 1] A comparison of the two mosaics is in order and long overdue for they have much in common. They are roughly contemporary from the end of the Byzantine period; their sites are about 100 kms distant from each other, though on opposite sides of the Jor dan river; and of course, both were fashioned similarly as mosa ics.5 In each case, the artifact before us is the end product of a combination of different sources composed over hundreds of years. On the basis of their location in a house of worship and of their subject matter, they must be considered as having primarily a religious message. Moreover, since they were so prominently 1The date is certainly after the Nea church was constructed by Justinian in 543, see M. Avi-Yonah, Madaba Map, 5. However, recently D. Bahat has suggested that since the Byzantine 'Gate of Mercy' is depicted and according to him it was constructed probably for the visit of Heraclius in 629 on the eve of the Muslim conquest, the Madaba Map now should be redated to the sec ond half of the 7th century, see D. Bahat, 'A New Suggestion for the Date of the Madaba Map' (Hebr.), in: G. Barkai & E. Schiller, Eretz-lsrael, 74-75. On the unabated local tradition of church mosaics in the Madaba area that continued to be produced into the 8th century, see M. Piccirillo, 'The Mosa ics at Umm-er-Rasas in Jordan', Biblical Archaeologist (1988) 208-213; idem, 'Umm er-Rasas', The Oxford Encyclopedia ofArchaeology in the Near East, Vol. 5 (1997) 279-281. 4J. Sussmann, 'An Halakhic Inscription from the Beisan Valley' (Hebr.), Tarhiz 43 (1974) 88-158; 44 (1975) 193-195, cf. esp. 94 n.38 where Suss mann compared en passant the paragraph describing the halakhic 'Borders of Eretz Israel' and the Madaba Map; idem, 'The Inscription in the Synagogue at Rehob', in: L.I. Levine (ed.), Ancient Synagogues Revealed, Jerusalem 1981, 146-151; S. Lieberman, 'Regarding the Halakhic Inscription from the Beisan Valley' (Hebr.), Tarbiz 45 (1976) 54-63, 331. 5J. Naveh, On Stone and Mosaic - the Aramaic and Hebrew Inscriptions from Ancient Synagogues (Hebr.), Jerusalem 1978. .

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