The Artist as Reader of the Bible. Visual Exegesis and the Adoration of the Magi

2005 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 337-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin O'Kane
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Biblical Narrative ◽  
Biblical Story ◽  
Image Viewer ◽  
The Bible ◽  
History Of ◽  
Entire History ◽  
Visual Exegesis ◽  
Textual Meaning

AbstractThe article explores the processes at work in a painting's engagement of its viewer in biblical subject matter. It accentuates the role of the artist as an active reader of the Bible and not merely an illustrator of biblical scenes, the dynamic that occurs in the text-reader process as paradigmatic for the image-viewer relationship and the important role of the developing tradition that felt the need to change or rewrite the biblical story. The processes are explored in terms of hermeneutics and exegesis: hermeneutics defined as 'the interweaving of language and life within the horizon of the text and within the horizons of traditions and the modern reader' (Gadamer) and exegesis as 'the dialectic between textual meaning and the reader's existence' (Berdini). Applied to the visualization of biblical subject matter, the approaches of Gadamer and Berdini illumine the key role given to the viewer in the visual hermeneutical process. The biblical story of the adoration of the Magi (Matt. 2: 1-12), the first public and universal seeing of Christ and one of the most frequently depicted themes in the entire history of biblical art, is used to illustrate their approach. The emphasis in the biblical narrative on revealing the Christ child to the reader parallels a key concept in Gadamer's hermeneutical aesthetics, namely Darstellung, the way in which a painting facilitates its subject matter in coming forth, in becoming an existential event in the life of the viewer.

Global Thefts of Biblical Narrative

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald West
Keyword(s):  
Third World ◽  
Biblical Narrative ◽  
Biblical Story ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Narratives ◽  
African Experience ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Family Resemblances ◽  
African Perspective ◽  
The Subject

This chapter takes its starting point from the African experience, across a range of African contexts, of Africa as both the subject and object of biblical narrative. When the Bible came to Africa, it came with well-established colonial metanarratives, constructed in part from biblical narratives. These colonial metanarratives were in turn partly reconstructed by the engagement with African others, from both a European and an African perspective along two diverging trajectories, with biblical narrative making a contribution to both. This chapter focuses on the capacity of biblical narrative, biblical story, to be both incorporated into “local” metanarratives and to shape these metanarratives. The contexts that are the focus of this chapter are largely “third world” contexts, across which there are significant family resemblances and important contextual differences.

Voice in a narrative: A trialogue with Ruth Finnegan

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Sarali Gintsburg ◽  
Luis Galván Moreno ◽  
Ruth Finnegan
Keyword(s):  
Oral Poetry ◽  
Oral Literature ◽  
Childhood Memories ◽  
Childhood Experiences ◽  
African Languages ◽  
The Bible ◽  
History Of ◽  
The University ◽  
The 19Th Century

Abstract Ruth Finnegan FBA OBE (1933, Derry, Northern Ireland) took a DPhil in Anthropology at Oxford, then joined the Open University of which she is now an Emeritus Professor. Her publications include Oral Literature in Africa (1970), Oral Poetry (1977), The Hidden Musicians: Music-Making in an English Town (1989), and Why Do We Quote? The Culture and History of Quotation (2011). Ruth Finnegan was interviewed by Sarali Gintsburg (ICS, University of Navarra) and Luis Galván Moreno (University of Navarra) on the occasion of an online lecture delivered at the Institute for Culture and Society at the University of Navarra. In this trialogue-like interview, Ruth tells about the childhood experiences that were decisive for her interest in orality and storytelling, about her education and training as a Classicist in Oxford, the beginnings of her fieldwork in Africa among the Limba of Sierra Leone, and her recent activity as a novelist. She stresses the importance of voice, of its physical, bodily dimensions, its pitch and cadence; and then affirms the essential role of audience in communication. The discussion then touches upon several features of African languages, classical Arabic and Greek, and authoritative texts of Western culture, from Homer and the Bible to the 19th century novel. Through discussing her childhood memories, her assessment of the development and challenges of anthropology, and her views on the digital transformation of the world, Ruth concludes that the notion of narrative, communication, and multimodality are inseparably linked.

Santa y Andrés: A dossier

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 377-382
Author(s):  
Dunja Fehimović ◽  
Ruth Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Cuban Revolution ◽  
Original Essays ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Online Archive ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Cuban Cinema

Carlos Lechuga’s film Santa y Andrés (2016) has enjoyed worldwide acclaim as an intimate, dramatic portrayal of the unlikely friendship that develops in rural Cuba between Andrés, a gay dissident writer, and Santa, the militant citizen who has been sent to surveil him. Declared to be extreme and/or inaccurate in its historical depictions, the film was censored in Cuba and was the subject of intense controversy and public polemics surrounding its release in 2016. Debates about the film’s subject matter and its censorship extend ongoing disagreement over the role of art within the Cuban Revolution, and the changing nature of the Cuban film industry itself. This dossier brings together new scholarship on Santa y Andrés and is linked to an online archive of some of the original essays that have been written about the film by Cuban critics and filmmakers since 2016. The aim of this project is to create a starting point for researchers who wish to investigate Santa y Andrés, evaluating the film both for its contentious initial reception, and in terms of its enduring contribution to the history of Cuban cinema.

Biblical Israel in the Ninth Century?

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
PHILIP R. DAVIES
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Biblical Narrative ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Critical History ◽  
Ancient Israel ◽  
United Monarchy ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Crucial Part

Most archaeologists of ancient Israel still operate with a pro-biblical ideology, while the role that archaeology has played in Zionist nation building is extensively documented. Terms such as ‘ninth century’ and ‘Iron Age’ represent an improvement on ‘United Monarchy’ and ‘Divided Monarchy’, but these latter terms remain implanted mentally as part of a larger portrait that may be called ‘biblical Israel’. This chapter argues that the question of ‘biblical Israel’ must be regarded as distinct from the kingdoms of Israel and Judah as a major historical problem rather than a given datum. ‘Biblical Israel’ can never be the subject of a modern critical history, but is rather a crucial part of that history, a ‘memory’, no doubt historically conditioned, that became crucial in creating Judaism. This realization will enable us not only to write a decent critical history of Iron Age central Palestine but also to bring that history and the biblical narrative into the kind of critical engagement that will lead to a better understanding of the Bible itself.

The Bible and Evangelicalism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John G. Stackhouse
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Love Affair ◽  
Evangelical Protestantism ◽  
The Bible ◽  
History Of ◽  
Religious Resources

No tradition of Christianity loves and venerates the Bible more than does evangelical Protestantism. The history of this love affair dates back to Evangelicalism’s extended roots in the sixteenth century. In fact, precisely because evangelicals tend to set aside other religious resources such as liturgies, creedal statements, sacramental rituals, and clerical hierarchies in favor of the Bible, the identity, activity, and vitality of evangelicals has depended crucially upon the Bible in their midst. This chapter surveys how the Bible has figured in evangelical life and suggests how the role of the Bible is under stress amid sweeping changes in contemporary evangelicalism’s theology, piety, and mission.

scholarly journals Soul and psyche: The Bible in psychological perspective

2004 ◽  
Vol 60 (1/2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Willem J. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Psychological Perspective ◽  
New Approaches ◽  
The Bible ◽  
History Of ◽  
Human Psyche

During the last third of the twentieth century a discipline that applies psychological and psychoanalytic insight to the study of the Bible, has resurfaced within biblical studies. In his book, Soul and Psyche, Wayne Rollins offers a psychological biblical approach as one of the new approaches to Scripture since the 1960’s. This approach tends to bring a renewed appreciation for the role of the human psyche or soul in the history of the Bible and its interpretation.

Interpretation and the History of Political Theory: Apology and Epistemology

1982 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
John G. Gunnell
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Careful Consideration ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Historical Investigation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Traditional Approaches ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Textual Meaning ◽  
The Relationship

Recent challenges to traditional approaches and purposes for studying the history of political theory have raised questions about its constitution as both a subject matter and subfield of political science. Methodological arguments advocating what is characterized as a more truly historical mode of inquiry for understanding political ideas and recovering textual meaning have become increasingly popular. The relationship of these hermeneutical claims about historicity, such as that advanced by Quentin Skinner, to the actual practice of interpretation is problematical. Such claims are more a defense of a certain norm of historical investigation than a method of interpretation, and the implications of this norm for the reconstitution of the history of political theory require careful consideration.

scholarly journals Nationalism in the USSR: a historical and comparative perspective

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (6) ◽  
pp. 866-885 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrey Shcherbak
Keyword(s):  
Structural Equation ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Cultural Autonomy ◽  
Sudden Rise ◽  
Multiethnic States ◽  
History Of ◽  
Entire History ◽  
History Approach ◽  
Almost All

The late 1980s and early 1990s were characterized by the sudden rise of nationalist movements in almost all Soviet ethnic regions. It is argued that the rise ofpoliticalnationalism since the late 1980s can be explained by the development ofculturalnationalism in the previous decades, as an unintended outcome of Communist nationalities policy. All ethnic regions are examined throughout the entire history of the USSR (49 regions, 1917–1991), using the structural equation modeling (SEM) approach. This paper aims to make at least three contributions to the field. First, it is a methodological contribution for studying nationalism: a “quantification of history” approach. Having constructed variables from historical data, I use conventional statistical methods such as SEM. Second, this paper contributes to the theoretical debate about the role of cultural autonomy in multiethnic states. Finally, the paper statistically proves that the break between early Soviet and Stalinist nationalities policy explains the entire Soviet nationalities policy.

scholarly journals On the Role of Gesinnung in Kant’s Ethics and Philosophy of Religion. Part I

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 32-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexei N. Krouglov
Keyword(s):  
Critical Period ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Strong Impact ◽  
Critical Mode ◽  
The Bible ◽  
History Of ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Kant's Ethics

Kant’s concept of Gesinnung reveals the whole range of its problematic potential when it has to be translated into other languages: there are no ready-made equivalents. The problem stems from the evolution of this concept in Kant himself from the pre-Critical (“mode of thinking”, “convictions”, “virtuousness”, “virtues”, “sentiments”, “inclinations”, “aspirations”) to the critical works and then in the Critical period in Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason. Further problems arise from the complex pre-Kant­ian history of the concept of Gesinnung which influenced Kant’s philosophy. Among the sources that had a particularly strong impact both on the meaning of Kant’s concept of Gesinnung and on its perception the most important are various translations of the Bible — both into German and into Russian — as well as Latin works by A. G. Baumgarten and German works by C. A. Crusius and M. Mendelssohn. I have also included an overview of English versions of translations of Kant’s term Gesinnung (disposition, attitude, conviction, sentiment, comportment of mind, intention, Gesinnung) and their more important differences and have shown the unhistorical character of the translation arguments in modern English-speaking Kant scholarship which totally ignores pre-Kantian history and the context of Kant’s contemporaries. Proceeding from this study the next part of the article will offer my own interpretation of Kant’s concept of Gesinnung in the Critical period and suggest a uniform translation of the term into Russian with a corresponding grounding of my choice.

scholarly journals National and international components in contemporary architecture and design

2021 ◽  
Vol 274 ◽  
pp. 01003
Author(s):  
Aleksandrina Mikhailova ◽  
Sergey Mikhailov ◽  
Lilia Khousnutdinova ◽  
Anastasia Ibragimova ◽  
Maksim Belov
Keyword(s):  
Urban Environment ◽  
Subject Design ◽  
Object Based ◽  
History Of ◽  
Entire History ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Architecture And Design ◽  
Post Industrial ◽  
Contemporary Architecture

The article examines one of the unique aspects of design – the national component. The history of design demonstrates to us the importance of the national component in the formation of object-based shaping, its development in the industrial and post-industrial eras. In the conditions of post-industrial design, the role of the national component is growing and is increasingly revealed in its various directions, from object design to design of the urban environment. Through the prism of the interaction between national and international components in design, we can scrutinise design’s entire history. Using specific examples, applying phenomenal-geographical and synergetic approaches, the authors formulate the main models of the evolution of the national component in the design of different countries. As a result, 6 models of interaction of the national and international components in the subject design of the twentieth century were identified. They are «the constant of the national component», «transformation (expansion) of the national component into the international», «synchronization of the national and international components», «replacement of the national component with the international», «conglomeration of international and national components», «autonomy of national and international components». Graphic visualizations of models of countries – design nations are presented on the example of Japan, USA, Germany, Italy and Scandinavia.

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