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I was asked to speak at the Getty Museum, in the Harold M. Williams Auditorium in Los Angeles, California on Thursday, September 22, 2011 during the exhibition “In the Beginning Was the Word: Medieval Gospel Illumination.”
Illuminated manuscripts from the Middle Ages are significant for the literary texts they preserve. But they are also important, historically and culturally, for their illustrations of the life of Jesus and other figures associated with him. These artistic representations tell tales of their own, and the visual stories are not always found in the corresponding texts. A careful examination of these images shows clearly and convincingly that medieval artists were familiar not only with the stories of the canonical Gospels but also with many noncanonical apocryphal tales of Jesus. The apocryphal stories, in some instances, were understood to be “Gospel truth” on par with accounts found in Scripture.
In any event, here is the lecture that I gave:
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Details on the “In the Beginning Was the Word: Medieval Gospel Illumination” 2011 exhibition can be found here: http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/gospel_illuminations/
Really nteresting presentation. When I was a fundamentalist I thought our church went “by the book” but the more I studied the more I realized that we were following tradition as much as anything else. But then I guess you could argue that even following the New Testament is just following tradition. It’s just a question of whether you’re following early or late traditions, or traditions recorded in the New Testament or those recorded outside the NT, or a combination of both.
Delightful – I loved that closing!
I’d never realized the “seven last words of Jesus” concept went back to the Middle Ages.
Something I’ve wondered about – that “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” line. As I understand it, it comes from a Psalm. And some (Catholics?) claim that since the Psalm ends with God’s actually saving the person who’d spoken that line, it doesn’t indicate that Jesus thought God had really forsaken him. (If he could have, he would have recited the whole Psalm, showing his faith that God would aid him.) Your opinion?
About punishments for various offenses (suggested by the question of who might be crucified) – is it known whether there really were dungeon-like prisons in Roman Palestine, as seen in “Ben-Hur”? I know many other things in that film are non-historical; wondering about the dungeons.
I’m sure I read years ago that ancient Rome (possibly just the city, at an earlier date than this) didn’t have long-term prisons. They just wanted to remove supposed wrongdoers from the populace; so depending on the crime, the penalty was either exile or death.
I think if the author wanted to invoke the end of the Psalm, that’s the part he would have quoted. To assume that’s the part he wants the reader to think of really robs the story of its pathos.
Yes, there were prisons in the Roman empire, as we know even from Christian texts. Christians in the second century and later were kept in prison, sometimes for long periods, prior to being executed (for example).
All of this causes me to be so utterly weary. So many inconsistencies. So many contradictions. So many discrepancies. How are we to ever know what the truth really is?
Of this I am certain. There is a God. A Master Creator who set all of this in motion, though I don’t know exactly how He did it, or when. Thousands of years ago? Billions of years ago? I found some understanding of this in the writings of physicist Gerald Schroeder, such as in The Science of God, and in his explanation of the time continuum. But what of all of the rest?
Why would a God who deemed human sacrifice an abomination cause to be born an innocent, human, child for the sole purpose of being sacrificed to atone for the sins of the world?
Why would God declare that no man can die for the sins of another and yet provide no less than a single man to bear the sins of multitudes of men, and for Pete’s sake won’t someone explain to me why Jesus is a “lamb” and not a “goat” when the understanding is that the Pascal Lamb atoned for nothing! The blood of the Pascal Lamb served as but a “sign” that the Angel of the Lord was to pass over the house so marked by its blood. This passing over protected only the first born male children, within the house, and not the entire house, further indicating that it was no atonement for sin.
To further the point, consider Leviticus 16:5-10, 21-22 (Law of Atonement) no lamb is mentioned, but here again, goats. It might also be noted that the goat that affected atonement for the collective sins of the people was NOT killed but sent out into the wilderness. Moreover, according to Numbers 15:27, the sacrifice of a goat only atoned for unintentional sin. The intentional sinner was cast out of camp. So tell me, just where did we get “lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world?” John 1:29. The only animal that could atone for the sins of a collective of people was the goat, and that was set free, not slaughtered, albeit to wander about in the desert, but then it would have had the company of all other scapegoats banished before.
As such is one of the more major dependencies I’ve found within the Bible that’s seldom addressed. Lamb, or goat? Sacrificed, or set free? The sacrifice of Jesus does not mesh, in my opinion, with Old Testament Law regarding atonement, leaving me to wonder who was Jesus, and what really was his purpose, if not that which he said, to turn the hearts of the people back to God, in the prelude to the coming New Age.
Other notations of concern to me: Exodus 29:38-42, in which sacrificial lambs are mentioned, but which serve as FOOD offerings and pleasant aromas. The same holds true in Numbers 28 verse 15, verse 22, and verse 30, which specifically mention goats as sin offerings, not food/meat/pleasing aroma offerings.
If I’m missing something, do tell.
Loved your true story about mother of your student who got 56, a failing grade, calling you up.
I’m so glad I watched this to the end, as I usually do, because from the beginning I kept thinking, “but he’s not mentioning 1 Peter 3:18 . . . ” Once again, thank you for the extra education.