The Spatial Context of the Bible
By Ed Raine
If one believes that the examination of the Bible limits itself only to its text, one couldn’t be more wrong. Cultural anthropology is another branch of research that gets involved in the exegesis process. This scientific field attempts to explain in a nonjudgmental and objective way what is the role that religion or history plays within a certain culture through the prism of social, psychological and intellectual aspects.
For instance, understanding the principles, sayings and teachings of Jesus, one needs to know the cultural and historical contexts of the time. His story is put in a special light when getting acquainted with his background, namely being a Jew who lived in Palestine under Roman occupation.
A great contribution to unraveling some of the mysteries of the Bible was brought through archeology. The scope of this discipline is related to the study of the remains of the human past (ancient artifacts, texts and bones) in order to obtain insight of passed historical periods. Archeology has been considered a “tool” of testing the truth of the things emitted in the Bible. Biblical archeology settles its interest in defining and delimiting “the territory” of the biblical events. Due to the fact that the contents of the Holy Book revolve around the life and history of Jewish people in the area of current Israel, the term “biblical archeology” is sometimes replaced by the archeology of the land of Israel. Still, some scientists consider both terms too restrictive seeing that many biblical events were placed in Egypt, Mesopotamia and other regions. As a consequence, they call themselves archeologists of the lands of the Bible or of the Near East.
Nevertheless, Palestine encompasses more or less the geographical area within which the majority of the biblical events took place. Derived form the word Philistine, which denominated the people who lived along the coast, Palestine refers to the region located at the crossroads between Egypt and other large ancient civilizations to the North and East (Phoenicians and Mesopotamians). The name was used until the formation of the modern state of Israel in 1948. This region was a source of dispute because of its qualities, which justified the paraphrase “the Promised Land”.
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