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
Le jeune héros
Recherches sur la formation et la diffusion d’un thème littéraire au Proche-Orient ancien
»Kultprostitution« im Alten Testament?
Die Qedeschen der Hebräischen Bibel und das Motiv der Hurerei
Die Selbstbehauptung Israels in der Welt des Alten Orients
Religionsgeschichtlicher Vergleich anhand von Gen 15/22/28, dem Aufenthalt Israels in Ägypten, 2. Sam 7, 1.Kön 19 und Psalm 104
Handel als Medium von Kulturkontakt
Akten des Interdisziplinären altertumswissenschaftlichen Kolloquiums (Basel, 30.–31. Oktober 2009)
Gottes Zorn in den Psalmen
Eine Studie zur Rede vom Zorn Gottes in den Psalmen im Kontext des Alten Testaments
Älteste Textgeschichte der Königsbücher
Die hebräische Vorlage der ursprünglichen Septuaginta als älteste Textform der Königsbücher
All the Wisdom of the East
Studies in Near Eastern Archaeology and History in Honor of Eliezer D. Oren
La double transmission du texte biblique
Etudes d’histoire du texte offertes en hommage à Adrian Schenker
Israeliten und Phönizier
Ihre Beziehungen im Spiegel der Archäologie und der Literatur des Alten Testaments und seiner Umwelt
Volume 235
Le peuple aux trois noms
Une histoire de l'ancien Israël à travers le prisme de ses ethnonymes
Volume 298
Les vivants et leurs morts
Actes du colloque organisé par le Collège de France, Paris, les 14-15 avril 2010
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
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