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CHRISTL M. MAIER, Daughter Zion, Mother Zion: Gender, Space, and the Sacred in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008). Pp. ? + 285. Paper $20.
Maier's book is an addition to the list of recent works on gender personification of Jerusalem/Zion in the prophets. New to the discussion is the use of spatial theory and spatial concepts in antiquity. Of particular interest are two questions: (1) How could Jerusalem become a powerful religious symbol of divine presence while inhabitants experienced disruption and destruction? (2) Why did ancient authors use spatial metaphors to describe the city and tie their personal fate to that of the city?
Henri Lefebvre's The Production of Space (trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith [Maiden, MA: Blackwell, 1991]) is used by M. to explore these questions. The geographical dimension of space (perceived space), cultural or ideological evaluations of space (conceived space), and the human experience of space (experienced space) are inextricably intertwined. M. reasons that radical changes in the geography of Jerusalem can account for changing metaphors of Jerusalem as female. She places texts on an "assumed chronological line" moving from preexilic through postexilic periods showing how the "ups and downs of Jerusalem's history are mirrored in the descriptions of Jerusalem" (p. 4).
Zion as...