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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Visions of the End
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Tibi Omnes
Apprentice
# 18608
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Posted
There's a newly posted set of videos on Youtube, making the point that The Book of Revelation is a bridge between late Jewish Apocalypticism and Early Christianity, and that it should have begun the New Testament rather than ended it.
The series analyzes the sixteen woodcuts of Albrecht Dürer's (1471-1528) "Illustrated Apocalypse." Dürer made these to accompany a Latin and a (pre-Luther) German translation. He followed the text with proto-Protestant literalness, in a startling break with traditional illuminated manuscript renderings.
It's a 12 part video series, but you might decide whether it is making its points from this
https://youtu.be/vADpKfUOEwQ
which deals with the illustration of Revelation Chapter 10 & 11
http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/1611_Revelation-Chapter-10/
(you can click onto chapter 11 at the bottom of the page)
The point that Dürer's visual rendering of the text is word-for-word is reasonably secure, if we allow for a less advanced Biblical Archaeology in matters like clothing and architecture.
This section of text includes precise measurements of the altar in the temple of New Jerusalem. Is this evidence, as the video claims, that Revelation is concerned with the reinstatement of the Old Law, and regards its brand of Early Christianity as continuous with Judaism?
What say you? Is Dürer's reading a radical and Protestant visual reinterpretation?
Is Dürer's rendering of the text faithful enough warrant its use to illustrate new points about what the text means?
And, just how Christian, or how Jewish, or even how Hellenistic is the Book of Revelation?
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...mirate come'l tempo vole
E si come la vita
fugge et la Morte n'e sovra le spalle.
--- Petrarch
Posts: 23 | From: USA | Registered: Jun 2016
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
I watched the series last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. I am not very well-versed in The Revelation, but I found the explanation of how John's visions tied in with Old Testament apocalyptic literature and temple background very interesting. Since the essayist has a Jewish name, perhaps it is safe to assume he brings an authentically Jewish take on this Christian book and I appreciate hearing it.
Besides, Durer is one of my favorite artists and I loved immersing myself in his version of the vision.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Tibi Omnes
Apprentice
# 18608
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Posted
Durer is indeed wonderful, and it's interesting to note how commercial he was. He hated to paint because he made so much more from the prints, which he often used to pay restaurant tabs and bribe toll officials, as if they were printed currency.
He was a great fan of Luther, because, though a staunch Catholic, he thought the corrupt church needed a good hiding.
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...mirate come'l tempo vole
E si come la vita
fugge et la Morte n'e sovra le spalle.
--- Petrarch
Posts: 23 | From: USA | Registered: Jun 2016
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
I don’t know enough about Dürer to say anything about his context and take on the imagery from Revelation, but the OP questions sparked thoughts and other questions:
[1] Images of images. What happens when someone draws an image that comes from an image? Here Dürer has made a visual representation of groups of verbal metaphors and I was wondering if that somehow constrains the message by taking it out of the imagination and forcing it into a visual ‘fix’. Much the same thing happens when a story from a book is turned into a film; I’m probably not the only who has built a mental world out of the imagery represented by words in a book and is then disappointed when I see the film (I enjoyed Lord of Rings in the cinema, but it didn’t live up to my mental Lord of the Rings world. But then, how could it, really?)
Did Dürer’s effort have the same effect? His was a very literal rendition of the symbolic world laid out in Revelation. I like what he did from the effort point of view, and his was a difficult task, but I wondered what went on in the minds of those who saw his work. They may have come away thinking, “Well, I wouldn’t have done it that way”, or they may have bought into the literalistic rendering and risked misinterpreting the imagery that the author of Revelation wanted to set up.
[2] Near Eastern background. The speaker in the set of YouTube videos draws on an understanding of the book’s context that has gained much currency over the past decades – placing the NT authors more firmly in the context of Second Temple Judaism and much less on that of Greek philosophy and literary styles. It does make sense to see Revelation against the background of Jewish thought and in particular of the Jewish scriptures (Christian OT); that explains much of the material in the NT, and also provides much that is presupposed by the NT authors.
I have to admit, however, that I am seriously confused about apocalypticism as a genre! It’s been thrown around so much that I prefer now to just leave that term on the shelf and call it out as part of prophecy, pure and simple. I can’t see much of an essential difference between ‘Prophecy’ and ‘Apocalypticism’ as separate genres. We find superlative imagery in prophecy and we find prophecy in the revelation, so it seems more of a continuum than a jump from one box into another. I think both ends of that continuum deal with the same themes, particularly the return of the King to rescue his loyal subjects – essential to justice.
Essentially, then, I’m not sure that the move Christians made in identifying a slain lamb as Jesus was a move away from Jewish prophecy and into something tangentially different. If it was, does that mean that much of the OT imagery was no longer relevant? Or was the author of Revelation actually doing something inherently ‘Jewish’, extrapolating an existing line along its logical course in a way that would make sense to Jewish hearers as much as Christian?
Anyway – random thoughts, not meant to deny Dürer's skill and impact. Near to where I live there is an Anglican church that has whitewashed walls (in the interior). During the course of some restoration a set of painted murals were discovered underneath, pre-dating the Reformation (when whitewashing was all the rage). Imagery, drawn from biblical images. Probably very useful in a preliterate age.
Posts: 2826 | From: London, UK | Registered: Apr 2006
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Tibi Omnes
Apprentice
# 18608
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Posted
You make an excellent point that Duerer's illos are a personal interpretation, and the comparison to a film adaptation of a novel is apt. On the one hand, Duerer put in some images from the text that had been set ignored in traditional manuscript illumination, the hyper-realism (those angels with faces like lumber jacks!), and the outspoken visual criticism of a Church hierarchy (though not a Church) he was unhappy with — all that makes for a very personal interpretation. The whole production, printing and all, probably struck folks then like CGI does us, and people were probably so dazzled they didn't realize how curious the content was — though the Reformers would have found a lot to like in it.
As I understand the Prophecy-to-Apocalypse continuum, the earlier prophets were closer to being what we would call poet-satirists, and used imagery from Middle Eastern (particularly Canaanite) myth, to make points about contemporary politics. Often the imagery is comparable to us representing Russia as a bear or America as an eagle. After the Babylonian Exile, a great deal of this earlier writing was taken literally and applied to the future (rather than figuratively and applied to the present).
just as a note, I particularly like the Harper Collins Study Bible for its footnotes that summarize the current state of scholarly thinking: contextualization you used to have to buy weighty volumes for (Anchor Bible series, for example) are there made very accessible.
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...mirate come'l tempo vole
E si come la vita
fugge et la Morte n'e sovra le spalle.
--- Petrarch
Posts: 23 | From: USA | Registered: Jun 2016
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Anselm
Shipmate
# 4499
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Tibi Omnes:
And, just how Christian, or how Jewish, or even how Hellenistic is the Book of Revelation?
I'm preaching on Revelation at church over the next few months - I think I would want to say that this is a false dichotomy.
ISTM that the symbolism of Revelation is a mixture of the Jewish OT, with the 'Greek' culture of the churches to explain the Christian gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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carpe diem domini
...seize the day to play dominoes?
Posts: 2544 | From: The Scriptorium | Registered: May 2003
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Tibi Omnes
Apprentice
# 18608
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Posted
That is certainly what we have in Paul, but here distinctive Christian doctrines seem to be missing (save what can be inferred from the delphic references to the Slain Lamb), while there is a concern with the details of the restored temple that seems at odds with the supercession of the cultus.
This line of criticism is found in Marcion, and the misgivings about its authorship kept it out of the eastern canon till the 10th century.
The authorship question underlineso the unJohannine focus, and general inconsistency with Gospel.
It may well be authentic early Christian, but I have doubts that are not original with me.
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...mirate come'l tempo vole
E si come la vita
fugge et la Morte n'e sovra le spalle.
--- Petrarch
Posts: 23 | From: USA | Registered: Jun 2016
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Tibi Omnes:
That is certainly what we have in Paul, but here distinctive Christian doctrines seem to be missing (save what can be inferred from the delphic references to the Slain Lamb), while there is a concern with the details of the restored temple that seems at odds with the supercession of the cultus.
I think the term 'supercession' is a misnomer and fairly misleading which takes on a pejorative air because of the distance between Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism in the current day.
The 'grafting in' idea in passages like Romans 11 take on quite a different meaning within their original context - where the church was largely Jewish (and where it seems that for the first few centuries converts were drawn heavily from the Jewish diaspora of the time especially if you look at population statistics).
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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