Monday, 31st October 2005
Professor Simon Goldhill (University of Cambridge)
WHOSE TEMPLE? WHOSE PRAYERS? INVESTIGATING THE TEMPLE OF JERSUSALEM
(Jointly with the Institute of Jewish Studies, University College London)
In this lecture Professor Simon Goldhill looks at how the Temple of Jerusalem becomes a building of the imagination, and how we need a special type of archaeology - an archaeology of the hopes and fantasies of humans rather than of soil and rock - in order to appreciate its unique history. It looks firstly at how images of the Temple are formed from biblical texts and interpreted through a set of ideological filters. Secondly, it looks at the changing use of the site and how this too is deeply influenced by the projections and religious aspirations of the three world religions. Finally it looks at how the evidence for the building is marshalled into material images and how these scholarly reconstructions are deeply influenced by their own time, despite their claims for objectivity and accuracy. It touches on some of the heroes of biblical archaeology, like Charles Warren, and it looks at how archaeologists as much as crusaders have fought over this site.
Simon Goldhill is Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge. He has published widely on all aspects of Greek culture, including most recently Love, Sex and Tragedy: How the Ancient World Shapes our Lives. He is well known as a lecturer and broadcaster throughout Europe and America. His book, The Temple of Jerusalem will be appearing in paperback later this year.
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