Visualizing Literacy: Images, Media, and Method
While biblical scholars have long been interested in questions about textual literacy in the ancient world, relatively little attention has been given to the concept of visual literacy – that is, the extent to which images were produced and read as a type of language. The following article introduce...
| Published in: | Biblical interpretation |
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| Subtitles: | Visual Rhetoric and Biblical Interpretation |
| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Brill
2017
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| In: |
Biblical interpretation
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| RelBib Classification: | AG Religious life; material religion HB Old Testament TC Pre-Christian history ; Ancient Near East |
| Further subjects: | B
iconography
literacy
media
minor arts
ancient Near East
biblical methods
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| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
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| Summary: | While biblical scholars have long been interested in questions about textual literacy in the ancient world, relatively little attention has been given to the concept of visual literacy – that is, the extent to which images were produced and read as a type of language. The following article introduces this concept as it has been developed in recent work in visual culture studies and then offers a series of probes that attempt to assess the prominence of visual literacy in the ancient Near Eastern world. Though it is not possible to arrive at a precise rate of visual literacy, there is ample evidence to suggest that those who produced/commissioned art were highly concerned about questions regarding the readability of their materials and often privileged artistic motifs over epigraphic content in the design and implementation of certain mixed-media artifacts. These lines of evidence suggest that images functioned as a prominent vehicle of communication in the ancient world alongside, and sometimes in place of, text-based media. Research on visual literacy not only sheds new light on the ancient media contexts of the biblical world but also offers a more explicit rationale for how and why ancient images should be used in biblical interpretation today.
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| ISSN: | 1568-5152 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Biblical interpretation
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/15685152-00253p02 |