The Bible and Global Tourism

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This volume examines the ways in which biblical tourism is enmeshed within the production and management of heritage, global contexts of marketing and publicity, accessibility of sacred sites and routes for multiple audiences, and the forging of connections between travel and social identity. By exploring issues such as devotional piety, religious pedagogy, and entertainment, an interdisciplinary collection of scholars traces how biblical tourism experiences are choreographed and consumed, and how these practices shape embodied and narrative performances of scripture. Contributors focus on four major questions: How have people used tourism to develop new, or renewed, relationships with the Bible Historically, what role has the Bible played in the development of modern tourism In the context of the tourist encounter, how have people mobilized the Bible as a social and expressive resource And what forms of social exchange shape acts of biblical tourism, such as among pilgrims, or between people and landscapes These questions are centered not only around authorized shrines and Holy Places, but also festivals, museums, theme parks, and heritage sites. This book aims to create a comparative and interdisciplinary dialogue around the dynamic relationship between biblical heritage claims and the practices and infrastructures of modern tourism.

Reviews

The Bible and Global Tourism takes a fresh look at the cross-fertilization of tourism and pilgrimage through tourists dynamic engagements with scripture and associated traditions. In a series of fascinating examples from the United States, western Europe, and the Mediterranean, its chapters build a case for rethinking secularization, in Europe in particular, by recognizing how tourism can create new and diverse faces for religious practice. * Hilary Kaell, Concordia University, Canada *
Innovative research now mainly takes place at the interface of closely related thematic clusters, and this book on biblically-framed travel or biblical tourism can therefore touch on religious studies, ritual studies, pilgrimage studies, leisure studies, heritage studies, and museum studies. Rather than top-heavy multi- or transdisciplinary theorizing, this book presents eleven fascinating case studies. Their approach is always broad, open and topical. Broad and open in terms of period, location, religious tradition; manifestation, and topical in looking through the lens of claims of authenticity and identity constructions. In essence, this book fully explores the dynamic triad of myth, rite and place. * Paul Post, Tilburg University, Netherlands *

Author Bio

James S. Bielo is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Miami University, Ohio, USA. Lieke Wijnia is curator at Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht, The Netherlands.