"Religion is beyond doubt inseparably connected with questions about holy locations and places. These places gain their meaning not by their physical determination, but by human construction. The contributions of this volume try to shape this phenomenon for selected texts of the Old and New Testament and of Philo of Alexandria. In doing so, they inevitably shed light on central theological issues of these texts. Geographically speaking the Arabaic Peninsula and the Greek Isles, but also Mesopotamia are brought in as outmost areas, which contain Jerusalem in the middle, but could also contain places such as mountain, temple, or even a bed of a praying man"--