Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Part 1 Lines of approach
- 1 Historical-critical approaches
- 2 Literary readings of the Bible
- 3 The social world of the Bible
- 4 Poststructuralist approaches New Historicism and postmodernism
- 5 Political readings of Scripture
- 6 Feminist interpretation
- 7 Biblical studies and theoretical hermeneutics
- 8 The Bible and Christian theology
- 9 Biblical study and linguistics
- 10 Aspects of the Jewish contribution to biblical interpretation
- 11 The Bible in literature and art
- Part 2 Biblical books in modern interpretation
- General Index
- Index of Biblical References
11 - The Bible in literature and art
from Part 1 - Lines of approach
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2006
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Part 1 Lines of approach
- 1 Historical-critical approaches
- 2 Literary readings of the Bible
- 3 The social world of the Bible
- 4 Poststructuralist approaches New Historicism and postmodernism
- 5 Political readings of Scripture
- 6 Feminist interpretation
- 7 Biblical studies and theoretical hermeneutics
- 8 The Bible and Christian theology
- 9 Biblical study and linguistics
- 10 Aspects of the Jewish contribution to biblical interpretation
- 11 The Bible in literature and art
- Part 2 Biblical books in modern interpretation
- General Index
- Index of Biblical References
Summary
Any discussion of the Bible in relation to the arts carries its own not-so-hidden agenda. As the extensive range of biblical stories in Islamic painting reminds us, not all biblical art is Christian, or even Judaeo-Christian. Just as it is impossible to speak of the Bible as a 'neutral' piece of writing free from a particular hermeneutic context, so it is impossible even to begin to speak of its artistic interpretations without realizing that these have always constituted a two-way exchange. What may look at first sight like the Bible casting a wide cultural penumbra was, in fact, a dynamic interpretative relationship through which the perception of the text was itself transformed. If the Bible helped to create a particular aesthetic, what was understood by the Bible was, equally, a creation of that aesthetic - indeed, it is my thesis here that biblical interpretation has historically followed, rather than created, aesthetic interpretation.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation , pp. 160 - 178Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1998