Home
Proposal
Annual Meetings
People & Interests
Gallery Links
Bibliography
Syllabi
Of Related Interest
Credits
contact:
malbon@vt.edu
Proposal for a Consultation on the Bible and Visual Art
For the 2002 Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature
Toronto, Canada
Synopsis
The purpose of the Consultation is to provide a forum at the national
SBL to explore historical, hermeneutical, theological, iconographic, and/or
theoretical aspects related to the interpretation of the Jewish and Christian
Scriptures in visual art through the centuries.
Rationale and Statement of Aims
A number of seminaries, divinity schools, and universities have started
programs on art and religion (under various nomenclature), e.g., the Center
for Jewish Art (Director, Aliza Cohen-Mushlin) at Hebrew University, Jerusalem,
the Institute for Theology and the Arts (directed by Robin Jensen)
at Andover Newton Theological Seminary, the Center for the Arts and Religion
(directed by Catherine Kapikian) at Wesley Theological Seminary, and the
Program in Religion and the Arts (directed by Jaime Lara) at Yale Divinity
School. Other schools have incorporated study of the visual arts into
their curriculum. At the Graduate Theological Union, for example,
the History of Art and Religion Area has recently emerged as a distinct
area of Doctoral Study (convener, Reindert Falkenburg). Secular
universities, such as Syracuse University and the University of Virginia,
offer courses in the area of Religion and the Arts.
The American Academy of Religion has long sponsored a program unit, Art,
Literature, and Religion, to explore the intersection between religion
and the literary and visual arts. No comparable unit, however,
has ever been sponsored by the Society of Biblical Literature program,
despite the fact that historically most religious art, at least in the
Christian tradition, is intimately associated with the Bible, or with
legends and traditions inspired by the Bible. A Consultation on the Bible
and Visual Art would allow scholars to focus on the Jewish and Christian
Bibles and their visual representations by Jewish, Christian, Islamic,
and secular artists from a number of interesting vantage points—hermeneutical
reflections on the similarities/differences between textual interpretation
and visual exegesis, analyses of paintings or artists as particular examples
from the history of interpretation, feminist interpretations of the portrayal
of women in Christian or Jewish art, to name a few.
Given the inherently interdisciplinary nature of the Consultation, an
indispensable ingredient of its success will be the involvement of people
from a variety of disciplines. Thus, the proposed Steering Committee
is comprised not only of two biblical specialists (both of whom have worked
in some way or other with visual art), but also two art historians, as
well as a church historian who has specialized in the visual aspects of
the Christian tradition and a rabbinical scholar who has worked withvisual
materials. Using the pre-existing professional contacts of our varied
Steering Committee, we plan to involve both art historians and biblical
scholars as presenters and respondents in the program.
Abbreviated Curriculum Vitae of Steering Committee Members
Co-Chair: Elizabeth Struthers Malbon received her Ph.D. in Humanities
(with specialization in New Testament) from Florida State University in
1980. She is currently Professor of Religious Studies and Director
of the Religious Studies Program within the Center for Interdisciplinary
Studies at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
She has authored three books: Narrative Space and Mythic Meaning in Mark
(Harper&Row, 1986; Sheffield, 1991), The Iconography of the Sarcophagus
of Junius Bassus (Princeton, 1990), and In the Company of Jesus: Characters
in Mark’s Gospel (Westminster John Knox, 2000). She has also
co-edited three books: with Adele Berlin, Characterization in Biblical
Literature (Semeia 63, 1993), with Edgar V. McKnight, The New Literary
Criticism and the New Testament (Sheffield/Trinity, 1994), and with Linda
Bennett-Elder and David Barr, Biblical and Humane: A Festschrift for John
F. Priest (Scholars Press, 1996). Eighteen articles have appeared
in JBL, Semeia, CBQ, JAAR, Linguistica Biblica, Novum Testamentum, Journal
of Religion, New Testament Studies, Biblical Theology Bulletin, Perspectives
in Religious Studies, as well as six chapters in books and a number of
entries in The HarperCollins Dictionary of Religion (1995) and Women in
Scripture: A Dictionary of Named and Unnamed Women in the Hebrew Bible,
Apocrypha, and New Testament (2000). National fellowships/grants
include an ACLS Research Fellowship for Recent Recipients of the Ph.D.
(1984) and a NEH Summer Seminar (Rome, to study early Christian sepulchral
art, 1987). Malbon's SBL administrative experience includes service
as the chair of the NT section of the SBL/SE (1981-87), vice president
(1987-88) and president (1988-89) of the SBL/SE, steering committee
member (1985-89) and chair (1990-95) of the Biblical Criticism and Literary
Criticism Section, steering committee member of the Literary Aspects of
the Gospels and Acts Group (1991-96), member of the SBL Ad Hoc Committee
on the Regions (1987-90), and member of the SBL Program Committee (1995-2000).
General administrative experience includes serving as director of the
Religious Studies Program (1994-present).
Office phone: 540-231-6112
Fax: 540-231-7013
Home phone: 540-953-1979
E-mail: malbon@vt.edu
Co-Chair: Heidi J. Hornik received the B.A. in Art History from Cornell
University (1984) and the M.A. (1987) and Ph.D. (1990) in Art History
from The Pennsylvania State University. She is currently Associate
Professor of Art History and Director of the Martin Museum of Art at Baylor
University, where she has served since 1990. She is co-author, with
Mikeal Parsons, of Illuminating Luke: The Infancy Narrative in Italian
Renaissance Painting, currently under review for publication, and editor
of Interpreting Christian Art (Mercer University Press, forthcoming in
2002). In addition to these works, she has written several articles exploring
the intersection of art history and biblical studies, including “Job
as Intercessor or Prophet? The Venetian Images by Bellini and Carpaccio,”
Review and Expositor (forthcoming, spring, 2002), and (with Mikeal Parsons)
“Caravaggio's London Supper at Emmaus: A Counter-Reformation Reading
of Luke 24,” Christian Scholars Review 28 (1999): 561-585, “Ambrogio
Lorenzetti’s Presentation at the Temple: A Visual Exegesis of Luke
2:22-38” in Perspectives in Religious Studies (forthcoming, Fall,
2001). Art-historical essays have appeared or are scheduled to appear
in Continuity, Innovation and Connoisseurship: Old Master Paintings at
the Palmer Museum of Art, Mitteilungen, and Paragone. Her responsibilities
as Art Editor for the projected thirty-volume Smyth-Helwys Commentary
Series (General Editors, Alan Culpepper and Samuel Balentine) include
assisting authors in choosing art for their commentaries and writing about
its historical and interpretive significance. Since 1998, she has
served on the Steering Committee for the Catalogue Raisonné Scholars
Association, an affiliated organization of the College Art Association.
She has co-chaired sessions of the Renaissance Society of America/Sixteenth
Century Studies Conference and the Catalogue Raisonné Scholars
Association. She also served as the Director of the Pruit Memorial Symposium
on “Interpreting Christian Art,” held at Baylor University,
October 26-28, 2000. General administrative experience includes
serving as Director of the Martin Museum at Baylor University (1990-present).
Office phone: 254-710-4548
Fax: 254-710-1566
Home phone: 254-836-9500
E-mail:
Heidi_Hornik@Baylor.edu
Reindert Falkenburg received his Ph.D. in Art History from the University
of Amsterdam in 1985. Formerly the Deputy director of the Netherlands
Institute for Art History (RKD) at The Hague (1991-1999), since 1999 he
has served as the Luce Professor of Western Art History and Religion at
the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley. He has also held visiting
teaching positions in the Art History departments of Harvard and Princeton
Universities. He is the author of The Fruit of Devotion. Mysticism
and the Imagery of Love in Flemish Paintings of the Virgin and Child,
1450-1550 (Amsterdam, 1994) and Joachim Patinir: Landscape as an Image
of the Pilgrimage of Life (Amsterdam/ Philadelphia, 1988). Since
1997 he has served as the co-editor of the book series Netherlandish Studies
in Art and Cultural History (Waanders Publishers) and since 1995 he has
been co-leader of the research program, Pictorial traditions and meaning
in Netherlandish art of the 16th and 17th centuries (financed by the Netherlands
Organisation for Scientific Research, NWO). From 1994—1999, he was
the leader of the infrared-reflectography research program Underdrawing
and artistic concept: studio practices in the group Aertsen/Beuckelaer
(1550-1575). Numerous articles have appeared in such journals as
Oud Holland, Theoretische geschiedenis SpiegelHistoriae, Doopsgezinde
Bijdragen, and The Low Countries. He has contributed chapters to
nineteen books and exhibition catalogues, including "The Decorum
of Grief: Notes on the Representation of Mary at the Cross in Late Medieval
Netherlandish Literature and Painting," in: M.T. Knapas and A. Ringbom
(eds.), Icon to Cartoon. A Tribute to Sixten Ringbom (Helsinki/Helsingfors,
1995), pp. 65-89; “Toys for the Soul: Prayer-nuts and Pomanders in
Late Medieval Devotion,” in A Sense of Heaven. 16th-Century Boxwood
Carvings for Private Devotion, Exhibition Catalogue (Leeds, 1999); “Calvinism
and the Emergence of Dutch Seventeenth-Century Landscape Art—A Critical
Evaluation,” in P. Corby Finney (ed.), Seeing beyond the Word: Visual
Arts and the Calvinist Tradition (Eerdmans, 1999). He is currently
working on a book on painting and lay religiosity in The Netherlands during
the Late Middle Ages, tentatively entitled: Thin Places. Images for the
Inner Eye in Early Netherlandish Painting.
Robin Jensen received her Ph.D. in the History of Christianity (with specialization
in the Early Church and in Christian Art and Architecture) from Columbia
University in 1991. She currently serves as Associate Professor of the
History of Christianity at Andover Newton Theological School in Newton
Centre, MA. She is the author of Understanding Early Christian Art (Routledge,
2000), is a contributor of chapters or articles to several other multi-authored
works including (most recently) “Art” for The Early Christian
World, ed. P. Esler (Routledge, 2000); “The Binding or Sacrifice
of Isaac: How Jews and Christians See Differently,” in Abraham and
Family, ed. H. Shanks (BAS, 2000); and “Giving Texts Vision and Images
Voice: The Promise and Problems of Interdisciplinary Scholarship,”
in Common Life in the Early Church: Essays Honoring Graydon Snyder, ed.
J. Hills (Trinity, 1998). A forthcoming work, “The Fall and Rise
of Adam and Eve in Early Christian Art,” will be published by Mercer
University Press as part of a volume on interpreting Christian art that
will include the lectures delivered at the 2000 Pruitt Memorial Lectures
at Baylor University. Less recent works include a number of articles on
the interpretation of early Christian art for the Journal of Early Christian
Studies, ARTS Magazine, Bible Review Magazine, Biblical Archaeology, Biblical
Interpretation, The Critical Review of Books in Religion (a review essay),
SBL Seminar Papers, and entries in the Encyclopedia of Early Christianity
and Augustine through the Ages: an Encyclopedia. Jensen was the writer
and director of a collaborative granted funded by the National Endowment
for the Humanities for research on the practice of Christianity in Roman
Africa and is currently co-editing the volume of papers on the five years
of work on that project. Additionally she has received grants from the
Lilly Foundation, the Association of Theological Schools, and the American
Academy of Religion. Many of these grants provided support for travel
and research in Italy, France, Tunisia, Turkey, and Syria. She serves
as the Vice President of the International Catacomb Society and is a past
president of the New England and Maritimes Region of the American Academy
of Religion. Presently she is co-chair of the Seminar on North African
Christianity for the AAR (which may be completed by 2002) and a member
of the Steering Committee for the Social Construction of Formative Christianity
and Judaism section of the SBL. She is the Faculty Director of the
Program in Theology and the Arts at Andover Newton Theological School
and Director of the Summer Institute for Theology and the Arts.
Rivka B. Kern Ulmer received her Dr. phil. in Judaic Studies from Johann
Wolfgang Goethe Universität in Frankfurt am Main in 1985. She also
holds an M.A. in Linguistics, Judaic Studies, and American Studies from
Goethe University. Presently she is a Visiting Scholar in Jewish
Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Some of her appointments
have included: University of Copenhagen, Brown University, Hebrew Union
College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Harvard University, and Jüdische
Hochschule, Heidelberg. She has authored or edited nine books, mainly
in rabbinics with an emphasis on midrash, e.g., A Synoptic Edition of
Pesiqta Rabbati based upon all available manuscripts and the editio princeps
(Atlanta: Scholars Press, v. 1, 1997, v. 2, 1999); Turmoil, Trauma and
Triumph: The Fettmilch Uprising in Frankfurt am Main Based Upon Megillas
Vintz (New York and Frankfurt: Peter Lang, forthcoming in 2001).
This latter work is based on a Hebrew/ Yiddish poem/song. In addition,
fifty articles have appeared in Judaism, Frankfurter Judaistische Beiträge,
Journal for the Study of Judaism, Journal of Jewish Studies, Approaches
to Ancient Judaism, Annual of Rabbinic Judaism, Kairos, Bulletin of the
of the Israeli Academic Centre in Cairo, Zeitschrift für Religions-
und Geistesgeschichte, Judaica, Linguistica Biblica and others, as well
as in encyclopedia. "The Semiotics of the Dream Sequence in
Yerushalmi Ma'aser Sheni" is forthcoming in Henoch . She has
had grants from the Memorial Foundation of Jewish Culture, SBL, AAR, and
other institutions. Some of her papers and invited lectures have
been entitled: "The Color of a Woman's Garment-- beged tzeva`
ha-ishah," "The Use of the Hebrew Bible in a 17th Century Ashkenazic
Song," "Visual Communication in Religion: The Eye in Ancient
Egypt in Formative Judaism," "The Tannaitic Stratum in Pesiqta
Rabbati. " Ulmer works with Hebrew manuscripts in her editions
of the rabbinic text.
Gale A. Yee received her Ph.D. in Old Testament/Hebrew Bible from the
University of St. Michael’s College, Toronto, Ontario in 1985.
She is currently Professor of Hebrew Bible and Director of Studies in
Feminist Liberation Theologies at Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge,
MA. She is the author of Composition and Tradition in the Book of
Hosea: A Redaction Critical Investigation (Scholars Press, 1987) and Jewish
Feasts and the Gospel of John (Michael Glazier, 1989). She has edited
Judges and Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies (Fortress, 1995).
She has also authored the commentary on the Book of Hosea in the New Interpreter’s
Bible (Abingdon, 1996). Ten articles have appeared in ZAW, CBQ,
Int, JSOT, TBT, Semeia, JAAAT, BibInt. Yee has also contributed
six book chapters and a number of entries in the Anchor Bible Dictionary
and Women in Scripture: A Dictionary of Named and Unnamed Women in the
Hebrew Bible, Apocrypha, and New Testament. She presented “Depicting
Eve: Cultural Representations of Hebrew Bible Women” and “The
Sexual Representation of Hebrew Bible Women in Art” for the Edward
L. Beavin Lectures, Kentucky Wesleyan College, Owenboro, KY, Oct. 10-12,
2000. She also presented “Images of Hebrew Bible Women in Art
and Film” and “Depicting Eve: Cultural Representations of Old
Testament Women” for the J. Balmer Showers Lecture Series, United
Theological Seminary, Dayton, Ohio, Nov. 1-2, 1999. She spent her
1998-99 sabbatical studying the representation of Hebrew Bible women in
art in various museums around the world. In terms of administrative
experience in the SBL, Yee was on the Committee on Underrepresented Racial
and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession from 1991-1995 and was its Chair
for 1996-1997. She has been on Council and on the Editorial Board
of Semeia from 1998 to the present. She was a founding member of
the Asian and Asian-American Biblical Hermeneutics Consultation, now a
Group. She was chair of the Women in the Biblical World Section from 1988-1995
and is currently a member of its steering committee. General administrative
experience includes serving as director of Studies in Feminist Liberation
Theologies (1998 to the present).
All members of the proposed Steering Committee are SBL members--or, in
the case of two AAR members, soon will be. Neither co-chair is currently
chair of another SBL program unit steering committee. No Steering
Committee member will be a member of more than two steering committees
at the time the proposed Consultation would begin.
Projected Two-Year Program Topics and Participants
We hope to have a “prequel” of the Consultation by sponsoring
a Special Session on Religious Art at the 2001 Denver meeting, with Dr.
Margaret Miles, Dean and Vice-President for Academic Affairs at the Graduate
Theological Union, Berkeley, past President of the American Academy of
Religion, and author of Image as Insight and Carnal Knowing, as the keynote
speaker. Professor Miles has already agreed to participate if the
special session is approved.
Year One: “Word and Image: Methodological Issues.”
Heidi J. Hornik, presiding. The first year’s program (2002)
would consist of methodological papers on “visual exegesis”
by Paolo Berdini, Assistant Professor of Art History at Stanford University
and author of The Religious Art of Jacopo Bassano (Cambridge, 1998) and
the problems facing textual scholars in reading visual images by Reindert
Falkenburg, with responses by Robert Fowler, Professor at Baldwin-Wallace
College and Chair of the SBL Bible in Ancient and Modern Media Section,
and Elizabeth Struthers Malbon.
Year Two: “Jews and Judaism in Christian and Jewish Art."
Robin Jensen, presiding. In the second year (2003), we will focus on the
topic of the depiction of Jews and Judaism in Christian art with presentations
by Professor Jaime Lara, Assistant Professor and Director of the Religion
and the Arts Program at Yale Divinity School, on depictions of the Jewish
Temple in medieval Christian art and by an as yet undetermined scholar
on depictions of Jews and/or Judaism in Jewish art, with responses by
Professor Louis Waldman, Professor of Art History, University of Texas,
and Gale Yee.
All proposed personnel have, in principle, agreed to participate. Steering
Committee members would keep in touch with each other by e-mail and would
meet together for evaluation and planning at each annual meeting.
Indications of Cross-Disciplinary Interests and Diverse Perspectives
The make-up of the Steering Committee (two biblical specialists--one from
Hebrew Bible, one from New Testament, two art historians, and one rabbinical
scholar and one church historian) will insure a diversity of perspectives.
Furthermore, the steering Committee represents a cross-section of historical
expertise (Ancient Israel, Yee; Rabbinic Judaism, Ulmer; Early Christianity,
Jensen and Malbon; Italian Renaissance and Baroque, Hornik; and Netherlandish,
Falkenburg) and methodological interests (reception aesthetics and iconology,
Falkenburg; archival art history, Hornik; iconography, textual studies,
epigraphy, archaeology, Jensen; literary analysis, iconography, Malbon;
semiotics, Ulmer; feminist theory, Yee). Furthermore, as the proposed
schedule indicates, we hope to enlist participants from across the SBL
and AAR as well as outside those traditional boundaries.
Collaboration with Other Units
If the consultation is approved, the Chairs of the Bible in Ancient and
Modern Media Section and Early Christian/Jewish Relations Section, have
already expressed interest in collaboration. We intend also to enlist
participation from those units that already from time to time turn to
the visual image (e.g., Semiotics and Exegesis, Bible in Ancient and Modern
Media, and Bible and Cultural Studies), as well as from those who have
natural, but as-of-yet perhaps unexplored, affinities with the visual
tradition, (e.g., Archaeologial Excavations and Discoveries: Illuminating
the Biblical World Section, History of Interpretation Section, inter alia).
Use of Technology
The nature of the Consultation will necessitate the use of visuals, either
with traditional slide projectors or with computer-generated PowerPoint
presentations. Dr. Hornik, in particular, has considerable experience
with both these media, and no doubt an important element of the Consultation
will be sharing with and learning from SBL colleagues about the most efficient,
effective, and responsible ways of incorporating visual images into our
research and teaching. E-mail correspondence has been essential
to the work of planning this proposal and would continue to be essential
to the work of the Steering Committee.
Possibilities for External Funding
Since most art historians are busy also with their own professional societies
(most notably the annual January meeting of the College Art Association),
our ability to provide some financial incentive is crucial for their participation.
At the Pruit Memorial Symposium held at Baylor University in the Fall,
2000, keynote speaker, Dr. John Cook, President of the Henry Luce Foundation,
Inc., expressed interest in seeing genuinely interdisciplinary and collaborative
efforts take place between religion scholars and art historians on a national
level. If the consultation is approved, and with the Society’s
help and approval, we would like to explore funding possibilities from
Luce and other sources to assist in covering expenses for art historians
to participate in the Consultation.