Old Testament Apocryphal Images In European Art

Apokryferna är en samling dramatiska och spännande berättelser som saknas i den hebreiska bibeln men som Martin Luther ansåg vara både bra och nyttiga att läsa. De fanns ofta med i äldre svenska biblar men försvann gradvis under 1800-talet. I den nya svenska bibelöversättningen ingår de som "Tillägg till Gamla testamentet". Elizabeth Philpot har studerat utvecklingen av apokryfiska motiv, både i katolska och protestantiska delar av Europa. Hennes forskning visar att konstnärer har fängslats av berättelserna genom århundradena, med början i Roms katakomber och fram till slutet av 1800-talet. I södra Sverige (Halland, Blekinge och Skåne) återfinns motiv från de apokryfiska böckerna på bonader och bonadsmålningar och i Dalarna på dalmålningar, vilket är unikt för hela Europa. Dalmåleri var ett folkligt måleri som utövades av självlärda småbönder i Dalarna under knappt hundra år från 1770-talet och framåt.

In viewing the great works of sacred Western art, many people find difficulty in understanding the stories and identifying the figures portrayed in them. This informative guide decodes these often-mysterious scenes and reveals a vibrant world of images from the Christian tradition for museum visitors, students, and art enthusiasts alike. Gospel Figures in Art examines depictions of stories and figures from both the New Testament's canonical gospels (the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) and the apocryphal gospels (early Christian writings excluded from the New Testament because of their unsubstantiated authorship), which served as rich sources of inspiration for medieval and Renaissance artists. Illustrated with masterpieces from many of the world's premier museums, the art works provided as visual references are carefully analyzed. Sections are devoted to the principal figures in the life of Jesus Christ-his family and the evangelists-and to the major biographical turning points: his birth and baptism, his public life, the miracles and good deeds he performed, his crucifixion, resurrection, and the events that followed. This indispensable resource makes the icons and narratives of sacred art come to life.

Judith tells the story of a beautiful Jewish woman who enters the tent of an invading general, gets him drunk, and then slices off his head, thus saving her village and Jerusalem. This short novella was somewhat surprisingly included in the early Christian versions of the Old Testament and has played an important role in the Western tradition ever since. This commentary provides a detailed analysis of the text's composition and its meaning in its original historical context, and thoroughly surveys the history of Judith scholarship. Lawrence M. Wills not only considers Judith's relation to earlier biblical texts--how the author played upon previous biblical motifs and interpreted important biblical passages--but also addresses the rise of Judith and other Jewish novellas in the context of ancient Near Eastern and Greek literature, as well as their relation to cross-cultural folk motifs. Because of the popularity of Judith in art and culture, this volume also addresses the book's history of interpretation in paintings, sculpture, music, drama, and literature. A number of images of artistic depictions of Judith are included and discussed in detail.

This book examines the role of angels in medieval and Renaissance art and religion from Dante to the Counter-Reformation.

The Christian canon of scripture, known as the New Testament, excluded many of the Church's traditional stories about its origins. Although not in the Bible, these popular stories have had a powerful influence on the Church's traditions and theology, and a particularly marked effect on visual representations of Christian belief. This book provides a lucid introduction to the relationship between the apocryphal texts and the paintings, mosaics, and sculpture in which they are frequently paralleled, and which have been so significant in transmitting these non-Biblical stories to generations of churchgoers.

This book examines the iconography of Judith, Esther, and the Shulamite in the last decades of the nineteenth and the first two decades of the twentieth century in the works of the Polish-Jewish artists.

Leading international contributors on biblical texts, including the New Testament and the Dead Sea Scrolls, intersect with the work of James H. Charlesworth and examine Charlesworth's vast contribution to the field of biblical studies, honoring the work of one of the most significant biblical scholars of his generation. Divided into five sections, this volume begins with a section on the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament texts, with particular focus on the Gospel of John and Jesus studies. The contexts of these texts are considered, with a focus on the Greco-Roman and Jewish worlds, and the varying intersections between texts and the worlds that created them. The contributors then focus on the most significant body of Charlesworth's work, the apocrypha/pseudepigrapha and the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the journey concludes with an assessment of the history of scholarship on the core areas addressed across the book.