Conceptualizing biblical cities: a stylistic study

This book offers a comprehensive treatment of the city image in the Hebrew Bible, with specific attention to stylistics. By engaging with spatial theory (Lefebvre 1974, Soja 1996), the author develops a new framework to analyse the concept of 'city, arguing that a set of conceptual images defines the Biblical Hebrew city, each of them constructed using the same linguistic toolkit. Contrary to previous studies, the book shows that biblical cities are not necessarily evil or female. In addition, there is no substantial difference between the metaphorical images used for Jerusalem and those used for other cities. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of stylistics, urban studies, critical-spatial theory and biblical studies (especially Biblical Hebrew). Karolien Vermeulen is FWO Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Institute of Jewish Studies at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. Her research interests include (cognitive) stylistics, Biblical Hebrew, critical spatiality, metaphor theory, and urban studies.

Intro -- Acknowledgments -- Contents -- Abbreviations -- 1: The City for Starters -- Biblical Cities Before (Briefly) -- Bad Cities -- (Bad) City-Women -- Jerusalem, the One -- People-City-Empire -- The City Concept Untangled -- 2: Shaping the City Textually -- The Issue of 'City' in Biblical Hebrew -- Critical-Spatial Theory and Biblical Cities -- A Stylistic Makeover -- Firstspace, Secondspace and Thirdspace Redefined -- The Hebrew Bible as a Spatial Odyssey -- 3: The Personified City -- Personification of the City -- The City: A Human in Body and Mind9

The City as Opponent: Metaphor or Metonymy -- Feminization of the City -- A Woman with Many Faces -- Wives and No-Wives -- Mothers and No-Mothers -- Daughters and Children -- Siblings -- Whore and Worshipper Revisited -- Conquering Cities, Conquering Women -- 4: The Urban Animal -- The Animal City -- City Animals -- Spaces of Desolation -- Spaces of Destruction -- Spaces of Sacrifice -- Categorizing Animal Cities and City Animals -- Negativity -- Color and Evaluation -- Linguistic Negatives -- Negative of the Conceptual Ideal -- 5: Bodyscapes -- Human Bodies, Animal Bodies or Just Bodies

Human Bodies -- Animal Bodies -- Shiftin…