Mapping and Unmapping Jewish History in Early Modern Bibles
What role did maps that depict the Holy Land and other biblical locations play in constructing spaces construed as “Jewish”? This is the question that drove our second BUJS forum of spring semester on February 13. Our speaker, Professor Jeffrey Shoulson (University of Connecticut), described his exploration of early maps as he tried to find an answer, examining the development of maps and the understandings of Jewishness, in “Mapping and Unmapping Jewish History in Early Modern Bibles.”
At the heart of Shoulson’s lecture was the history of maps—and how maps affect and reflect the conflicts of the culture and societies that surround and create them. By looking at ancient maps, such as the Madaba mosaic map (circa 550 CE) and the progression of maps included as supplements in editions of the Bible, Shoulson proposed that there was a quiet “desacralization” of the Holy Land. This process “rendered Israel as past” and allowed Christian readers to visualize and supercede that past with their own cultural understanding.
In order to examine this process and the cultural anxiety associated with spaces identified as Jewish, Shoulson pairs a literary and historical approach. He looked to the recurring notion of Zion as a land that continues to retain importance and be contested and searched for representations of that space. He found that physical depictions are overwhelmingly found in early vernacular Protestant bibles. Jewish religious writings of the same time period did not show the same interest in representing the Holy Land. Additionally, the emergence of maps notably intersects with a major shift of ideologies triggered by the Reformation, and also with technical developments for the mass reproduction of maps and books.
Shoulson argued that maps of the Holy Land have much to say about the intersection of cultural and ideology of this period. We can unlock this complex relationship by looking at how each map chooses to depict the geographic space and its religious context, where the maps appear, and where they are notably absent.