Space Thomas Tweed Summary

Religion contributes to the organization of society, the history of ideas and is also a reflection of an aspect of human society. The study of religious spaces and their characteristics can help reconstruct and form the understanding of societies and their evolution with time. “Space” by Thomas Tweed serves to define space in a unique way. With a particular emphasis on religious places, Tweed uses the adjectives “differentiated”, “kinetic”, “interrelated”, “generated’ and “generative” to describe “space”. He delves into each of these defining features using the example of a photograph of a Latina woman praying in a chapel that was taken in 2007. The Bible, the sacred text of Judaism and Christianity, can also illustrate these adjectives of space and how they apply to the city of Jerusalem. The earliest literature describing the city of Jerusalem was written by scribes who lived in Jerusalem around 1000-500BCE. This literature was written to promote the kings of Jerusalem, the temple of Israel's god
Spaces become important to people because of the changes that have occurred in them and when they think of a space, the associated changes come to mind as well. They are “kinetic” since they change with time and are affected by the changes in different aspects of the surroundings. As Tweed writes, “Spaces are processes, not things. Propelled by natural-cultural flows, they change over time” (120). This is illustrated in Lamentations 1:1-22 which mourns the destruction of the First Temple in 586BCE, and describes Jerusalem as a “Deserted City.” The Biblical writers have dedicated this entire chapter to mourning the destruction of the temple. The verses recall the greatness of Jerusalem and compare it to how people may look at it after its destruction emphasizing how this event in history has changed the nature of this space, bringing out its “kinetic”