Map is Not Territory: Studies in the History of Religions

by Jonathan Z. Smith

In Map Is Not Territory , Jonathan Z. Smith engages previous interpretations of religious texts from late antiquity, critically evaluates the notion of sacred space and time as it is represented in the works of Mircea Eliade, and tackles important problems of methodology.

Genres: Religion, History, Nonfiction, Essays, Philosophy

352 pages, Paperback

Published March 1, 1993

About the author

Jonathan Z. Smith is the Robert O. Anderson Distinguished Service Professor of the Humanities at the University of Chicago where he is also a member of the Committee on the History of Culture.

Reviews

[Samuel Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book by the best theorist of history of religions currently alive. Because it's a collection of essays and speeches given at a specific period in his career, the material is often duplicative, and at this late date we have lost some of the sense of the cultural power of his opponents in these theoretical matters, but overall historians of religion and culture, as well as anthropologists, need to read JZ Smith. Mostly he lays out his notion of the distinction between a "locative" and a "utopian" (ou topos, not eu topos) religious culture, suggests that the locative is a scribal/urban artifact that has received too much press in scholarship, and--sometimes gently, sometimes ardently--resists the dominance of Mircea Eliade, who preceded JZ Smith at Chicago. My only real complaint was the repetition within the essays in the book.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Map is not Territory by Jonathan Z. Smith – finished 10.26.22
Warning: There are spoilers in this review! You have been warned, proceed with caution.

What we study when we study religion is one mode of constructing worlds of meaning, worlds within which men find themselves and in which they choose to dwell. What we study is the passion and drama of man [sic] discovering the truth of what it is to be human. History is the framework within whose perimeter those human expressions, activities and intentionalities that we call ‘religious’ occur. Religion is the quest, within the bounds of the human, historical condition, for the power to manipulate and negotiate one’s ‘situation’ so as to have ‘space’ in which to meaningfully dwell. It is the power to relate one’s domain to the plurality of environmental and social spheres in such a way as to guarantee the conviction that one’s existence ‘matters.’ Religion is a distinctive mode of human creativity, a creativity which both discovers limits and creates limits for humane existence. (Smith, p. 190-91)

(1) The background of logion 37 of The Gospel of Thomas was probably in early Christian baptismal rites; it reflects their initiatory and libertine character. Smith spends considerable time examining the practice of early Christians being baptized in the nude and how this represents “the nakedness of slavery,” (p.11), “the nakedness of shame” (p.12 – think Adam and Eve in the garden after their consumption of the ‘forbidden’ fruit), and “the things cast away,” in that the Christian taking off their clothing prior to baptism represents the “imagery of Col. 3.9” in that they are “putting off the old man and his deeds” (p. 11). Smith argues that logion 37 of The Gospel of Thomas (or “saying 37 of the Gospel of Thomas”) is in a Christian baptismal context and is directly related to Genesis 1-3, with the principal motifs being: 1) the undressing of the disciples, 2) the followers of Jesus “being naked and without shame,” 3) their treading upon their garments, and 4) their “being like little children” (p. 22-23).

(2) The Prayer of Joseph (Προσεθχη Ιωσηφ) may come from Jewish mysticism. There was some interesting information in this chapter, such as the idea that “angels can become incarnate in human bodies, live on earth in the likeness of men, and be unconscious of their original state. Israel does so apparently in order that he may become the father of the chosen people. It is, I believe, a doctrine which is unique in Jewish teaching” (p. 54). Smith argues that the Prayer of Joseph “may be termed a myth of the mystery of Israel. As such it is a narrative of the descent of the chief angel Israel and his incarnation within the body of Jacob and of his recollection and ascent to his former heavenly state. This myth bears resemblance to a variety of traditions within the Hellenistic Mediterranean world. The descent of a celestial being to earth, his forgetfulness of his previous state, his recollection upon meeting an angelic figure and his return (at times with combat) above fits well into what might be termed the common Gnostic pattern” (p. 60).

The Προσεθχη Ιωσηφ is the narrative of the “objective” mythology of the heavenly figure; the Προσεθχη Ιακωβ is the expression of the “subjective” experience of this salvation within the individual believer (p. 64).

(3) In the third chapter, Smith discusses the nature of apocalyptic literature. He argues that “apocalypticism cannot be reduced to a mere catalog of elements such as secret or heavenly books, journeys to heaven by a sage, etc,” because these motifs are found in other older religions and religious texts (p. 67). He suggests that “Wisdom and Apocalyptic are interrelated because both are essentially scribal phenomena. They both depend on a quest for paradigms” and the applying them to new situations (p. 85). Smith notes that apocalyptic texts have “a history of the cosmos and a people from creation to final catastrophe which is dominated by astrological determinism” (p.68). While I disagree that these texts are fixed and/or dominated by “astrological determinism,” many of these texts to present the idea that the final catastrophes are unavoidable. His discussion of the ritual humiliation of the king in the Akitu festival had a great point when he got into the part about the “negative confessions” (p. 73):
What native Babylonian king ever did? (He is referring to the things the Babylonian king was not to do: destroy the city, be neglectful of his duties, destroy the local sacred shrines, etc.) They were all acts committed by foreign rulers! “If you act as the evil foreign kings have acted, you will be stripped of your kingship by the gods; if you act in the opposite manner, ‘the scepter, and crown and the sword shall be restored to the king’” (p. 73).

The point Smith makes is relevant: the implication of the negative confessions is that the enemy king who does these things will be destroyed by the gods of the Babylonians. Smith concludes his brief venture into Babylonian apocalyptic with the confession (p. 74) “but no Babylonian apocalypse has survived.”

After Babylon, Smith explores Egyptian apocalyptic (p. 76), informing readers that there is more to work with here. He then provides the model:
1. The prophet comes before the king and proclaimed his words.
2. Disorder is in the land! The people are in confusion, the cycle of nature is overthrown, the whole world is upside down and the land of life is now the land of death!
3. Because the world is topsy-turvy, even the gods are affected. A great king from the gods has now been sent, and all relations will be restored. All that is good will return!
4. The prophet concludes his speech before the king and is renowned for his wisdom.

He also lays out (p. 76) the following pattern regarding Egyptian apocalyptic, stating that it “shifts between a present and future set of woes and a future promise… The woes are perceived as a set of reverses affecting the people, the cosmos, and the gods, the cause being an intrusion of foreigners… parallel to the Old Testament’s ‘enemies from the north.’”

He says “I am tempted to describe apocalypticism as wisdom lacking a royal patron” (p. 81).

(4) In the fourth chapter “The Wobbling Pivot,” Smith gets into the idea of “finding the center.” He argues that “the function of religion is to awaken and sustain the consciousness of another world, of a ‘beyond’… This other world represents a superhuman ‘transcendent’ plane, that of absolute realities. It is this experience of the sacred, that is, the meeting with a transhuman reality, that generates the idea of something which really exists and, in consequence, the notion that there are absolute, intangible values which confer a meaning upon human existence. It is thus through the experience of the sacred that the ideas of reality, truth, and meaning come to light, ideas which will later be elaborated and articulated in metaphysical speculations and which ultimately become the basis of scientific knowledge” (p. 94).

He discusses Eliade’s view that religions are in a quest “to find the center” (p. 95). “Every dwelling, by the paradox of the consecration of time and space and by rite of construction, is transformed into a ‘centre.’” (p. 95)

He discusses sacred time and space in the mind of Sigmund Mowinckel, elaborating on the idea that through the practice of ritual and repetition, the primordial act of ordering takes place and the world is renewed (p. 96). Eliade’s notions of sacred centre, source of order, and duty of return to these, do fit the roles of Palestine, Jerusalem, and the Temple in Israelite and Jewish thought from Solomon’s time on.

(5) In chapter 5, “Earth and Gods,” Smith discusses sacred space and the center. He also addresses the wilderness, “For the ancient Israelite, the wilderness or desert was not seen as neutral ground, but rather as sacred land, sacred in “the wrong way.” It is the demonic land, the wasteland, the dangerous land… It is a place of utter desolation, of cosmic and human emptiness… a place of strange, demonic, secret powers. It is a sacred land, a holy land in that it is a demonic realm… not a place which is homeland, a world where men may dwell” (p. 109).

The preservation of sacred land/space is important to the ancient Israelite. He explains: “The Old Testament presents one great initiatory saga of death and rebirth of a people, their journey into a sacred land, their instruction there by the deity and the ancestors. No matter how Israel’s possession of the land is narrated, no matter what myth expresses the creation of the land, the possession of such a land is a responsibility, for the blessing of the land is a fragile thing. Whether the cosmography is expressed through the model of the sacred land as a mound in the midst of the raging desert or the world as a bubble of air in the midst of the dangerous cosmic waters which surround it, with the sacred land the highest point- the security of the blessing and the possession of the land is not guaranteed” (p. 111).

So how does one protect the land?

He does this by 1) the recitation of myth, by the performance of ritual repeating the new year myth of the creation of the land, the crossing of the Sea of Reeds or the River Jordan, 2) by remembering the solemn cultic recitation of the mighty deeds of old, 3) by the proper care of the land (resting on Shabbat), 4) By the way one lives upon the land. “The History of Religions is familiar with the widespread pattern of a close correspondence between conduct and blessing” (p. 111)

The stuff in this chapter was excellent regarding the temple as cultic center, the Tehom and the waters of the deep under the Foundation Stone (p. 113-114), the center of time, the meaning of the temple and the idea of exile in religious thought (p. 119-121).

(6) “The Influence of Symbols upon Social Change” asserts that societies go through difficult periods of change, when they experience a “descent into chaos of ritual reversal… of collective anomie… Change – in the strongest sense of the word, a society’s conversion- is required when such moments meld into history. When the world is perceived to be chaotic, reversed, liminal, filled with anomie… then man finds himself in a world which he does not recognize” (p. 145-146). It is at this moment when mankind must adapt and “create a new world, to express his sense of a new place.” This is the construction of a new meaning, with either new symbols or the use of the old symbols but repackaged into new meanings for the changed landscape.

(7) “Birth Upside Down or Right Side Up?” is a chapter which examines the symbol of Peter’s crucifixion and his insistence that he be crucified upside-down. Contained within this symbol is the legend that as Peter asked his tormentors that he be crucified upside down, Peter made this request because the world itself is upside-down, and therefore this typifies the intellectual position of many Greek and Roman thinkers in his day.

(8) “The Temple and the Magician” discusses poor Thessalos in his attempt to find a cure for the things that afflict humanity. Thessalos eventually is able to enter into communication with a divinity – and in so doing is somehow seen in the eyes of Jonathan Smith as the rejection of the old order and centralized authority: “Thessalos provides a direct witness to this shift. The ancient books of wisdom, the authority, indeed the divinity, of the priest-king, the faith of the clergy in the efficacy of their rituals, the temple as the locus of revelation, all of these have been relativized in favor of direct experience of a mobile magician with his equally mobilized divinity” (p. 189). I would argue that Smith’s argument that Thessalos’ legend as an example of the rejection of the old order fails. The legend says Thessalos got his powers from the original priesthood of the old, holy center Thebes, and in so doing negates much of Smith’s claims here.

(9) “Good news is no News: Aretalogy and the Gospel” discusses the relevance to the way in which we read the Gospels and aretalogies (p.193). An aretalogy (Greek: Αρεταλογία), from ἀρετή (aretḗ, “virtue”) + -logy, or aretology is a narrative about a divine figure's miraculous deeds in a form of sacred biography of a poem or text, in the first person. The figures in aretalogies and in the Gospels usually speak in code, or double-entendre. In so doing they use multivalent expressions to deflect their detractors. “The function of the narrative is to play between various levels of understanding and misunderstanding, inviting the reader to assume that both he and the author truly do understand and then cutting the ground out from under this confidence” (p. 194).

The idea that somehow religion is foreign to our world order helps to explain why the holy men of the religious traditions Smith discusses represent ideas that are otherworldly. In this way religion itself is a method of conveying ideas and power that are literally out of this world, therefore it is assured that these messages will be misunderstood by worldly men not exposed to their ideas. Smith gave examples such as Pythagoras, Jesus, and Apollonius of Tyana.

10) “When the Bough Breaks” is Smith’s deconstruction of Frazer’s The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion. Smith asserts that Frazer’s work is mistitled, for “it has nothing to do with the golden bough of the Aenid” (p. 217).

(11) Chapter 11 explores the process of comparisons, stating that “comparison is (a) fundamental characteristic of human intelligence” (p. 240).

(12) “I am a Parrot” is an account of the history of the Bororo Indians, analyzing their claim to be parrots. Smith discusses the efforts of scholars (did these individuals speak the native language?) to explain this phenomenon. The explanations of scholars conclude that after death, the Bororo claim that they “become a red parrot” (p. 266). Smith asks, “How should the historian of religion interpret a religious statement which is apparently contrary to fact? The Bororo is not a parrot…” (p. 267). He brings in Eliade to the discussion and Eliade’s “paradox of sacrality:”
“By manifesting the sacred, any object becomes something else, yet it continues to remain itself” (p. 283). In reading this whole chapter, I could not help but think of the classic Christian approach to the Eucharist. For some reason, we have a hard time translating the Bororo faith claims, but this chapter invited me to analyze my own faith-based assumptions.

(13) “Map is not Territory” wraps up these papers by Smith, stating that religion works to give us meaning in this uncertain and chaotic world. “What we study when we study religion is one mode of constructing worlds of meaning, worlds within which men find themselves and in which they choose to dwell… Religion is the quest within the bounds of human, historical condition, for the power to manipulate and negotiate ones ‘situation’ so as to have ‘space’ in which to meaningfully dwell. It is the power to relate ones domain to the plurality of environmental and social spheres in such a way as to guarantee the conviction that ones existence ‘matters.’ Religion is a distinctive mode of human creativity, a creativity which discovers both limits and creates limits for humane existence. What we study when we study religion is the variety of attempts to map, construct and inhabit such positions of power through the use of myths, rituals, and experiences of transformation” (p. 291).

I appreciated much of this book, if for any other reason that Smith has exposed me to new ways of thinking about texts, and new religious ideas that I had not before heard of. This is on my list of books that I have to know prior to my exams. I hope this review is worth something to those considering studying it.

[Zachary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think the real proof of the seminal and prolific mind of JZ Smith is that some of his work, his actual religionsgeschichte, is not that interesting anymore. Of the 13 chapters in this work, well over 10 of them were traditional textual or methodological arguments which were novel for JZ, but they've been so thoroughly adopted by the field as to obscure the truly masterful mind which firth birthed them. Thus, arguments for the Christian nature of the Gospel of Thomas or the Jewish nature of the Apocalypse of Adam are now old news; similarly with the notion of Gospels as sui generis or reverse aretologies which Smith dismisses. Vis-a-vis many of these facets, JZ "won" the scholarly debate so dramatically that the remnants of the debate are really no longer extant.

Still, a number of his insights are helpful, particularly in his essays with a more overt methodological focus. You can see already in this work the growth of his interesting in the comparative method which blooms fully in Drudgery Divine. I give it 4 stars because the collected essays lack an overall unity (which is given later in the 13th chapter), and I think he would have done better to have a few central essays exploring the CENTRAL assertion (that the Hellenistic period sees a move away from territory and localization to utopian associations centered on savior-figures)--that is, this issue is more explored in the periphery in a number of interesting essays. If you have to read this one, read the final chapter first, then read the chapter on comparative methodologies, browse the first three (unless you're doing in-depth textual work on the texts he uses), and read the conclusions to his other chapters.

[Mel]

"We have not been attendant to the ordinary, recognizable features of religion as negotiation and application but have rather perceived it to be an extraordinary, exotic category of experience which escapes everyday modes of thought. But human life--or, perhaps more pointedly, humane life--is not a series of burning bushes. The categories of holism, of congruity, suggest a static perfection to primitive life which I, for one, find inhuman...The materials described in this paper suggest that we may have to relax some of our cherished notions of significance and seriousness. We may have to become initiated by the other whom we study and undergo the ordeal of incongruity. For we have often missed what is humane in the other by the very seriousness of our quest. We need to reflect on and play with the necessary incongruity of our maps before we set out on a voyage of discovery to chart the worlds of other men. For the dictum of Alfred Korzybski is inescapable: 'Map is not territory'--but maps are all we possess."

[Dan Gorman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gave it 4 stars the first time, bumping it to 5 stars the second time. This is a DENSE book, but it's a work of genius. Because it's a work of genius and an academic book to boot, a bunch of the nuanced discussions of, say, Norse and Hebrew grammar went over my head. Still, the implications are digestible. The book is relevant to anthropologists, journalists, sociologists, religion scholars, historians — hell, anybody who really wants to think about religion. The big idea is that religion, as Western scholars think of it, is a constructed definition. If "religion" is the map for viewing how humans interact with myths and gods, then scholars must make a good map, or else they will not interpret the world in an accurate manner. But there are other gems in here, as when Smith demolishes the argument of James Frazer's classic "The Golden Bough," defends the careful understanding of particular religions before making big sweeping comparisons of religions, and recommends the use of evolutionary models as a way to understand how religions form.