Sacred space in ancient Jewish and early medieval Christian architecture.

The dissertation reexamines the metaphysical concept of "the sacred" as it manifests itself in palpable, physical terms. Scholars have addressed the notion of the holy as it makes its mundane appearance under various architectonic guises--such as the Tabernacle in the Wilderness, the Temple structures in Jerusalem, and the monumental worship spaces in Christian history. Nevertheless, few academic treatments have entertained rigorous, theoretical approaches in defining the ambiguous and elusive rubric "sacred space" in the Jewish context of the Roman Empire. The study develops nuanced definitions of sacred space and relates them to the Jerusalem Temple, the early church, and the synagogue in late antiquity. Prior analyses of sacred space misinterpret this multi-dimensional phenomenon as a monolithic, unchanging, and self-evident notion and thus lead to simplistic pronouncements that the synagogue "is" or "is not" a sacred topos. In contrast, the thesis seeks out the ambiguities as well as the spatial, liturgical, and artistic shifts between these two irreconcilable oppositions.The work also determines ways in which sacrality was conceived in early medieval churches and synagogues by placing these institutions in relation to their influential forerunner, the Jerusalem Temple. One distinct architectural feature, the chancel screen, was employed by all three building traditions. It staged spatial sacrality within each of their ceremonial settings by visibly tracing out and separating a space from surrounding spatial compositions, thereby marking it as qualitatively different. The chancel screen played a decisive role, therefore, in rendering material the insensible quality of sacrality.The thesis also considers sacred and profane formulations in conjunction with substances and persons who are allowed or denied access to sacred spaces. In the context of purity laws governing admission to and exclusion from holy areas, the work focuses on the role of women and reproductive blood. As a charged, gendered, and uncontrollable element with sacred, creative powers, reproductive blood acts as a force that contends with sacrificial blood and such tension precludes their coexistence in ritualized space.Thesis (Ph.D.)--Emory University, 1993.School code: 0665