The Power of Images
The Poetics of Violence in Lamentations 2 and Ancient Near Eastern Art
By (author) J. Walker
In recent years, iconographic exegesis of the Hebrew Bible has witnessed significant methodological and theoretical developments, many of which can be broadly characterized by an increasing concern with issues of histor(icit)y and contiguity in the image-text comparison. The present work represents a (re)turn to a phenomenological approach to iconographic exegesis that is especially concerned with how images and texts might mutually inform one another at the level of their respective poetics. As a test case for such a comparison, this volume examines how the phenomenon of violence figures in Lamentations 2 and in Ashurbanipal’s palace reliefs – specifically, one of the Battle of Til-Tuba programs (Southwest Palace, Room 33) and the lion hunt reliefs (North Palace, Room C).
The publication of Keel’s Symbolism of the Biblical World (German 1972, English 1978) demonstrated the val-ue of ancient Near Eastern iconography for interpreting biblical texts. In the intervening decades since (and of) Keel’s work, iconographic exegesis of the Hebrew Bible has witnessed significant methodological and theoretical developments, many of which can be broadly characterized by an increasing concern with issues of histor(icit)y and contiguity in the image-text comparison. The present work represents a (re)turn to a phenomenological approach to iconographic exegesis that is especially concerned with how images and texts might mutually inform one another at the level of their respective poetics. As a test case for such a comparison, this volume examines how the phenomenon of violence figures in Lamentations 2 and in Ashurbanipal’s palace reliefs – specifically, one of the Battle of Til-Tuba programs (Southwest Palace, Room 33) and the lion hunt reliefs (North Palace, Room C). The project begins with a discussion of the neurological and cognitive relationship between seeing images with the eye and imagining them with the “mind’s eye” as a means of justifying such a phenomenological approach that compares how ancient artists and the biblical author construct the violent images that are seen and imagined in their works, respectively (ch. 1). It then conducts detailed analyses of the poetics of violent imagery in Lamentations 2 (chs. 2-3), the Battle of Til-Tuba reliefs (ch. 4), and Ashurbanipal’s lion hunt reliefs (ch. 5) before providing an extended comparison of the similar and divergent ways that violence figures in the literary and textual images of each piece (ch. 6). Overall, the volume profers new interpretive insights concerning the phenomenon of violence in the ancient Near Eastern artwork and Lamentations 2 specifically – particularly as it pertains to the poem’s construction of Yahweh’s and Zion’s bodies, its perspectival play, its manipulation of time, and the “power” of its imagery in eliciting the divine gaze. The project also demonstrates the utility of ancient Near Eastern art for illuminating not only what but also how a given phenomenon figures in biblical poetry and vice versa.
- By (author) J. Walker
Other Titles in this Series
Représenter dieux et hommes dans le Proche-Orient ancien et dans la Bible
Actes du colloque organisé par le Collège de France, Paris, les 5 et 6 mai 2015
Volume 287
Wortschöpfung
Die Memphitische Theologie und die Siegesstele des Pije - zwei Zeugen kultureller Repräsentation in der 25. Dynastie
Volume 243
Architecture, Iconography, and Text
New Studies on the Northwest Palace Reliefs of Ashurnasirpal II
Volume 301
When Gods Speak to Men
Divine Speech according to Textual Sources in the Ancient Mediterranean Basin
Volume 289
Israeliten und Phönizier
Ihre Beziehungen im Spiegel der Archäologie und der Literatur des Alten Testaments und seiner Umwelt
Volume 235
Divine Names on the Spot II
Exploring the Potentials of Names through Images and Narratives
Volume 299
Les fluides corporels en Égypte et au Proche-Orient anciens
Actes du colloque organisé à l'Université Paul-Valéry, Montpellier, 5-7 septembre 2019
Volume 309
‘Trinkt von dem Wein, den ich mischte!’ ‘Drink of the Wine which I have Mingled!’
Festschrift für Silvia Schroer zum 65. Geburtstag
Volume 303
Images of Anonymous Women
A Semiotic Approach to Image-Text Relations in Interpretation of Ancient Near Eastern Art and the Hebrew Bible
Volume 310
The Text of Leviticus
Proceedings of the Third International Colloquium of the Dominique Barthelemy Institute, held in Fribourg (October 2015)
Volume 292
The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and Scribal Scholarship in Antiquity
Studies in Honor of Arie van der Kooij on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday
Volume 306
Divine Names on the Spot
Towards a Dynamic Approach of Divine Denominations in Greek andSemitic Contexts
Volume 293
Oral et écrit dans l’Antiquité orientale: les processus de rédaction et d’édition
Actes du colloque organisé par le Collège de France, Paris, les 26 et 27 mai 2016
Volume 291
Le peuple aux trois noms
Une histoire de l'ancien Israël à travers le prisme de ses ethnonymes
Volume 298
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