Urban Imagination in Biblical Prophecy. By MARY E. MILLS.

Abstract

This book is an attempt to demonstrate the applicability of modern literary-critical spatial theories to the interpretation of the depiction of urban life in biblical prophetic literature. Mills draws on a range of modern theories of space and place, particularly making use of psycho-geography and flâneurie. Psycho-geography is the study of how cities affect the human mind, and how the human imagination in turn affects cities. A flâneur is an urban observer who walks about a city, and who has sufficient critical distance from urban life to analyse it in a penetrating way. Mills suggests that biblical prophets function as flâneurs, observing city life, and that their presentations of the ‘city’ (usually Jerusalem) within their texts form textual cities that can be analysed via psycho-geography. Part I of the book introduces psycho-geography and flâneurie, while Parts II and III present case studies from Ezekiel, Joel, Jonah, Zechariah 1–8, and a few other prophetic texts. Part IV returns to theory by presenting several other perspectives on biblical prophetic urban imagination.