Cities of God
Cities of God
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The history of archaeology is generally told as the making of a secular discipline. In nineteenth-century Britain, however, archaeology was enmeshed with questions of biblical authority and so with religious as well as narrowly scholarly concerns. In unearthing the cities of the Eastern Mediterranean, travellers, archaeologists and their popularisers transformed thinking on the truth of Christianity and its place in modern cities. This happened at a time when anxieties over the unprecedented rate of urbanisation in Britain coincided with critical challenges to biblical truth. In this context, cities from Jerusalem to Rome became contested models for the adaptation of Christianity to modern urban life. Using sites from across the biblical world, this book evokes the appeal of the ancient city to diverse groups of British Protestants in their arguments with one another and with their secular and Catholic rivals about the vitality of their faith in urban Britain.
- Proposes a new vision of the role of archaeology in nineteenth-century British culture
- Reveals the importance of archaeological discoveries to the nineteenth-century reception of biblical antiquity
- Demonstrates that mass urbanisation is an essential context for nineteenth-century scholarship and thought about the ancient city
Reviews & endorsements
'Present day travellers to the Holy Land … will certainly be able to broaden their knowledge.' Church Times
Product details
October 2013Hardback
9781107004245
372 pages
253 × 180 × 22 mm
0.9kg
42 b/w illus.
Available
Table of Contents
- Introduction Michael Ledger-Lomas and David Gange
- 1. Troy David Gange and Rachel Bryant Davies
- 2. Jerusalem Simon Goldhill
- 3. Nineveh Tim Larsen
- 4. Pithom David Gange
- 5. Babylon Michael Seymour
- 6. Sodom Astrid Swenson
- 7. Bethlehem Eitan Bar-Yosef
- 8. Ephesus Michael Ledger-Lomas
- 9. Rome Jane Garnett and Anne Bush.
