On Thursday, October 19, Marc Epstein will present “The
St. Johns’ Bible: Jews, Christians, and Why Art Matters” at 7 pm in
DC 218.
“The St. John's Bible: Jews, Christians, and Why Art
Matters”
The idea that Jews were people of the word, prohibited by the
Second Commandment from involvement with the visual, whereas
Christians were fully engaged with art as a religious practice has
been repeated often enough to have been believed by even the some
of the greatest expositors of both Judaism and Christianity. But
true as it is that Christians routinely incorporated art into the
liturgy, Jews also did so as well, creating their own art that
existed in an interesting (and never entirely comfortable)
relationship with Christian art. Although this fact is not
well-known to most people, it is indisputably well-known
to Donald Jackson, the creator of the magnificent St.
John’s Bible—a new, postmodern illuminated Bible for the
twenty-first century, which will be discussed by art historian and
scholar of religious visual and material culture, Professor
Marc Michael Epstein of Vassar College. Epstein will reveal
how, throughout his great work, Jackson is adept at
adopting, adapting and repurposing themes and images from
the Hebrew bible and, in some cases, from Jewish visual
culture. Epstein will explore these themes and images along with
the political and theological issues involved in the creation of
the St. John’s Bible, and of the medieval Jewish and
Christian models that laid the groundwork for Jackson’s work.
Marc Michael
Epstein, Professor on the Mattie M. Paschall
(1899) & Norman Davis Chair in Religion and
Visual Culture at Vassar College was Vassar’s
first Director of Jewish Studies. He is a
graduate of Oberlin College, received the PhD at
Yale University, and did much of his graduate
research at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He
has written on various topics in visual and
material culture produced by, for, and about Jews. His
2011 book, "The Medieval Haggadah: Art, Narrative,
and Religious Imagination" (Yale University Press)
was selected by the London Times Literary Supplement
as one of the best books of the year. His “Skies of
Parchment, Seas of Ink: Jewish Manuscript Illumination,“
was the winner of the National Jewish Book Award in
2015—a magisterial large-format survey of the genre
with over 300 illustrations in brilliant digital
color. (Princeton, 2015). During the 80s, Epstein
was Director of the Hebrew Books and
Manuscripts division of Sotheby's Judaica department,
and continues to serve as consultant to various
libraries, auction houses, museums and private collectors
throughout the world.