Holy Places, Holy People

Although holiness belongs to God, it may be imparted to objects, or even to people, which become the bearers of the holy. The Holy Place The men and women who first received the biblical revelation were acutely conscious of the ways ordinary things could take on an extraordinary, numinous quality as bearers of the sacred. The concept of the sanctuary, or holy place, comes readily to mind. The Old Testament records many occasions when the fathers of Israel worshiped at holy places. Some of these places were already sacred sites for the Canaanites, but they became Israelite sanctuaries as the result of a theophany of Yahweh God. When he appeared to one of the fathers to give or reaffirm the promise of the land, the patriarch would mark the site by erecting some holy object such as an altar or a memorial stone. Altars. At Shechem Abraham "built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him" (Gen. 12:7). This location continued to be a holy place where Joshua later led the people…