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Document Details : Title: Double Eternity and Poetic Imagery of Jerusalem as the Centre of the World Author(s): KRAŠOVEC, Jože Journal: Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses Volume: 89 Issue: 4 Date: 2013 Pages: 383-396 DOI: 10.2143/ETL.89.4.3011225 Abstract : The unique status of Jerusalem comprises the motifs of election of Jerusalem and its Temple as a permanent divine presence and of Zion as God’s chosen mountain. This makes Jerusalem the physical and spiritual centre of the world. Interpreters of ancient Jewish and Christian sources are puzzled by this dilemma: how literally are Jerusalem’s claims and promises to be taken in view of descriptions of Jerusalem in metaphorical, hyperbolic poetic and eschatological terms? The rhetorical antithesis between the Jerusalem of God’s plan and the Jerusalem of Israel’s apostasy, between the vision and the reality, between Earthly or carnal and Heavenly or spiritual Jerusalem became inevitable. Consequently, Jerusalem has been interpreted in theology, liturgy and art in realistic, imaginary, idealistic, and symbolic ways. The aim of the article is to show how more than one conceptual point of view can be deduced from the context of some crucial texts of the Old and New Testaments and from non-Biblical Jewish and Christian sources. |
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