Jonathan Z. Smith's To Take Place

It has been 21 years since Jonathan Z. Smith's To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual was first published. During that period of time, it became one of the most important books within religious studies. It is regularly assigned as part of religion course readings, and is often cited in the scholarly literature. A rich and insightful book, To Take Place has both challenged and shaped ideas about space, place, the social processes whereby places become sacred, theories of ritual, and how rituals come to make and take place. Despite its importance in religious studies, To Take Place is less well known by biblical scholars. This situation is somewhat ironic, given Smith's discussions in To Take Place of issues and topics of importance to biblical studies, including the Pan-Babylonian School, Ezekiel's vision of the new temple, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The fact that To Take Place addresses matters of concern to biblical studies, along with Smith's ability to combine material practices, textual evidence, and theoretical insights in his work, made it an ideal book around which to organize a panel in the Society of Biblical Literature's Space, Place, and Lived Experience in Antiquity Consultation. This new program unit seeks to encourage scholarly work that examines the social nature of space and place in the ancient world, from the material creation and organization of space “on the ground,” to textual, iconographic, and other symbolic and metaphorical representations of it. Four scholars—Richard Hecht, Burton Mack, Christine Thomas, and Steven Weitzman—were asked to discuss the book's impact on their respective disciplines. The goal of this panel discussion was to assess both how To Take Place has shaped scholarly work on space and place, as well as the directions in which such work is headed. Smith was invited to respond to the panelists' comments and to add his own reflections on the book, its impact, and where he sees the issues headed today. The session ended with the presentation of a volume in honor of Smith, Introducing Religion: Essays in Honor of Jonathan Z. Smith, edited by Willi Braun and Russell T. McCutcheon.

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