Sacred Time in a Holy Place
Jerusalem is an ancient place that for millennia has been a location of great importance for a number of religions. From the Prophet Muhammad’s ascent to heaven, to the crucifixion of Jesus, to the establishment of the Temple of Solomon, and even Abraham offering to sacrifice Isaac, the city has hosted some of the most significant moments in the history of Abrahamic religions. Yet while the city is most known as a sacred place, it is also the central place for many different examples of Sacred Time.
Scared Time is when time “is indefinitely recoverable, indefinitely repeatable. From one point of view it could be said that it does not "pass," that it does not constitute an irreversible duration,” (Eliade 69). As humans, we most often view Sacred Time during annual religious festivals, but by no means do they have to be religious. Events such as the celebration of the new year, a country’s Independence Day, or even artificial creations such as Thanksgiving can create points of Sacred Time in a non religious sense. However, when it comes to the joining of Sacred Time and religion, it is hard to find a more common intersection than Jerusalem.
So many religious holidays whose celebration today represents the existence of Sacred Time would not be possible without a direct connection to Jerusalem. Perhaps the most famous and widely celebrated is the final journey, death, and resurrection of Jesus that is celebrated in the Easter Triduum by Christians all over the world. This massive annual event celebrates a time two thousand years ago in Jerusalem, but the sacred time is shared all over the world. Other examples include almost all Jewish high holidays such as Rosh Hashanah of which a key component involves Abraham sacrificing the ram instead of his son in Jerusalem (Rosh Hashanah), and the celebration of Isra and Mi’Raj, where Muhammad’s journey to the city and ascent into heaven is remembered (Isra and Mi’Raj). All three of these religions have major events that bring about Sacred Time that would not be possible without Jerusalem.
If you ask anyone, they can tell you that Jerusalem is an important place. If you ask an adherent of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, they will say that Jerusalem is a holy city, filled with many Sacred Places. Yet with an understanding of what makes a place or time Sacred, it is clear that Jerusalem is a place that is essential to so many celebrations that are Sacred Time.
The Sacred and the Profane: Mircea Eliade
Nice blog post dealing with Eliade's concept of sacred time and how Jerusalem is often the focus of sacred time in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
ReplyDeleteSuggestions: 1) you have a nice high resolution image, but it appears small on the post; making the image larger so it is the same width as the text helps create more symmetry to the page. 2) You do a nice job of including the links, but it's always best to include the entire bibliographic information if you have it. 3) Your source for Rosh Hashanah is from a university magazine, which is a good reliable source, but there it would have been better to find a more explicitly academic source for the information you provided about Isra and Mi’Raj.