Dear James Herisson:
Jonathan Z. Smith lists 15 reasons in Jewish tradition for venerating "the
Temple site and its 'Stone of Foundation'..."
1. It is the place where the waters of the "Deep" were blocked off on
the first day of creation;
2. it is the source of the first light of creation;
3. the Temple site ws the first place in the world; hence, it is the
'center' of the world;
4. it is the place from which the dust was gathered to create Adam;
5. it is the location of Adam's first sacrifice;
6. it is the site of Adam's grave;
7. it is the place where Cain and Abel offered sacrifice and, hence,
the location of Abel's murder;
8. the Flood was caused by lifting the Temple's Foundation Stone and
releasing the waters of the Deep;
9. the Temple site was where Noah first sacrificed after the Flood.
10. Abraham was circumcised at the Temple place;
11. the Temple site was the location of Melchizedek's altar;
12. the Temple was the site of the altar prepared for Isaac's sacrifice
in the narrative of the Akedah;
13. Jacob's Bethel vision occurred at the site of the future Temple'
14. the Foundation Stone was the rock from which Moses drew water;
15. JHWH stood on the Temple site to recall the plagues"
[J.Z.Smith, TO TAKE PLACE: TOWARD THEORY IN RITUAL (Chicago Studies in the
History of Judaism, 1987): 84]
Here Smith, a major student of comparative religion, is exploring how two
of the three religions that share this highly charged space "use" it,
figuratively, ritually, etc.
As for the history of the space itself, its rock foundation and the
buildings upon it, the great student of its physical condition in historical
time is the Islamic art historian, Oleg Grabar, whose reconstructions are
most accessible in the recent volume: THE SHAPE OF THE HOLY: EARLY ISLAMIC
JERUSALEM, Oleg Grabar et. al, Princeton University Press, 1996. Anything he
writes is useful in understanding the Islamic architectural tradition, of
which he is a master.
One reason information about the Temple mount and the Rock can be so
difficult to untangle is that over centuries and across religious
traditions, names for parts got exchanged. The Crusaders, for example,
misidentified Islamic elements as Christian. Also--naturally--conquerors
appropriated one another's buildings, so that the Dome of the Rock is
treated as a church during the Latin occupation of the city. To untangle
these knots, one needs to be acquainted with--among other things--primary
accounts. Many of those accounts come from pilgrims to Jerusalem. For the
faithful of all three religions, Jerusalem was a highly privileged goal of
pilgrimage. An excellent starting place for these materials is the work of
John Wilkinson, who has gathered, edited, and translated two collections:
JERUSALEM PILGRIMS BEFORE THE CRUSADES (Warminster, Eng, 1977), and
JERUSALEM PILGRIMAGE, 1099-1185 (London, 1988).
You might also appreciate visiting the Temple Mount and Dome of the Rock as
presented online from Jewish, Crusader, and Muslim perspectives. I've
gathered starter-sites on a WEB page; one can explore from there:
http://www.cyberpsalter.org/1095ce.htm.
Your wonderful question about the octagonal sanctuary has occupied
historians of western/Latin medieval architecture for decades. A fine way
into its implications is offered by several essays collected in Richard
Krautheimer's STUDIES IN EARLY CHRISTIAN, MEDIEVAL, AND RENAISSANCE ART, New
York, 1969. Krautheimer will help you with the history of octagonal
buildings and their commemorative functions, which have roots in Roman
antiquity, and link early Christian monuments of Byzantium and Rome as well
as Jerusalem. This form has such powerful associations that one finds it
repeated in conscious imitation of holy sites throughout the Middle Ages.
After Krautheimer, surveys of art history databases should help point you to
later bibliography, if your library owns or links to them.
All of these sources offer useful bibliographies and leads for further
study, many in languages you may enjoy more than a steady diet of English.
Best,
Nell Gifford Martin
James Herisson wrote:
> Dear fellows listmembers,
>
> I didn't have many answers to my asking about western portal of Chartres
> and 12th century heresies. :-(
>
> Some of the present discussion developing on medieval intellectuals and
> scholars, could i mention the School of Chartres, which, for almost all
> the first half of the 12th century was certainly one of the best
> intellectual centre in Europe (perhaps the best, better than Paris).
>
> By the way the worshipping of Catherine d'Alexandrie is somewhat a
> mystery for me. But i don't ask anybody to share that view.
>
> I'm now treating a question apart from the list with a french scholar
> about, in french, le "Dôme du Rocher" et l'Esplanade des mosquées à
> Jérusalem. I'd like to know :
>
> 1) the story of the building of this sanctuary in the 7th century, i
> read that the octogonal form of this building was coming from a byzantin
> church in Jerusalem. Which ? Does it still exist ?
>
> 2) some bibliographical sources about those monuments (please not
> tourist stuff, but explanation about iconography, analysis of the
> architecture of the different buildings, their symbolism, …)
>
> 3) i read there were 3 reasons to worship the rock,
> a) it was the rock upon which Abraham began to sacrify his son Isaac,
> b) it was the place where Jacob had his dream
> c) it was the place where prophet Muhammad went up to the sky
>
> Which is to believe ? Perhaps the three.
>
> 4) and a gallup : when thinking about an octogonal sanctuary, which
> comes to your mind first ? And which symbolism does it mean for you ?
>
> Sorry for this long post, and sure that you consider that there was a
> middle age outside of british isles ;-))
>
> Yours
> --
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> James Herisson
> Paris - France
> "Fiducia est quoddam robur spei"
> e-mail : [log in to unmask]
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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