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Introduction
I follow academic convention by opening with two disclaimers. The first is the usual assertion that the paper represents work in progress and cannot be judged as a finished product or stable contribution to biblical or Near Eastern studies. The second goes further. It insists that what is presented for judging and refining is an agenda and only an agenda. Although I welcome comments on the subject matter of the paper, I am most anxious for responses and criticisms regarding the kind of research (i.e., constructs) and topic outlined here. Does it work? Does it lead anywhere? Is it worth pursuing more or less along the contours suggested here?
The problem is the nature of ancient space, here limited to geographical space such as emerges in boundaries and on maps. The focus is further restricted by centering on the so-called tribal and chiefly eras in ancient Israel. Our problem resides in two places simultaneously or, perhaps more correctly stated, it is twofold and relational. On the one hand, I ask what perception of geographical space prevailed in the heads of biblical writers and characters? On the other hand, I am suspicious that as modern, literate, academics living in and influenced by hybrid Asian Euroamerican Western thought and praxis, we hold a set of presuppositions about space that control our views of the past. In this I sympathize with Stephen Toulmin's conviction that concepts of space and time are cultural subtexts. That means two things. First, they are presuppositions, largely unexamined, which we unconsciously bring into our interpretations of history and culture whether present, past, or future. Second, instead of being innate or natural, they are learned constructs that change in unison with metamorphoses in knowledge, belief, and practice. |
