The Two Maps of Israel's Land By Rachel Havrelock

https://www.academia.edu/5305559/The_Two_Maps_of_Israels_Land?nav_from=082a80dc-59d7-4bb3-92c7-72c972a16de6 The general space of the world becomes more familiar as specific places through demarcation and domesticating practices that include identifying and naming natural features, building memorial structures, and telling stories of pilgrim ancestors. 1 Such acts also play central roles in colonization and settlement and can, for example, be easily located in the book of Joshua. 2 Here I investigate the making of Israel's place on the national level or, said differently, how the map of a nation comes into being. The examples are taken from throughout the Hebrew Bible and therefore the context is antiquity, yet similar processes also determine the nature of maps from subsequent eras. Biblical maps display how spatial representation of the nation relies on intersecting mythic and political standards. My analysis of this dynamic is driven by the question of why there are two different maps of Israel's land. One set of maps spans from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Jordan River in the east and a second set reaches from the Sea to the River Euphrates. A conceptual stability results from the parallel of land spanning from river to sea, while conflicting notions of the state arise from their discrepancies. I argue that the seemingly paradoxical existence of two topographies illustrates how maps reconcile the idea of the nation with regnant mythic conceptions as well as how the nation borrows the means of self-presentation from empire. ...