From spots to themed sites – the evolution of the Protestant Holy Land

Abstract

Christian theme sites are the latest stage in a process of sanctification of space in which historically embodied Protestant ways of seeing inscribe Protestant understandings on the Holy Land to produce a textualized sacred landscape. After sketching the evolution of Protestant sacred spaces in the Holy Land, attention is focused on two recent Christian theme sites, Nazareth Village and the Biblical Resources Museum. The sites reflect the interaction of contemporary processes, such as the salience of mediatized images, and the increased importance of sensory experiences with Protestant values and habitus. By demonstrating how global flows of tourism are subject to the constraints of religious ways of seeing, the article seeks to broaden understandings of tourism hereto dominated by the image of the hedonist pleasure-seeker.