Art in the Church

[Grolsch]

Often we hear from iconoclasts about the evils of having artistic depictions in places of worship because they lead to idolatry. They insist that the Jews and early Christians observed strict biblical prohibitions against it. However this was not the case. The prohibition was only against “graven” images and early Christians and Jews were intelligent enough to know the difference between worshipping an image and using it to explain a story.

I found the following article by Dr. Edward Kessler from the centre for Jewish-Christian relations at Cambridge. He shows the inter-relationship between Christian and Jewish art in late antiquity and earlier and how both used art in the churches and synagogues.

In the words of the church father, Gregory of Nyssa, and valid for Jewish as well as Christian art, there are occasions when “art clearly led the story”. For this, students of biblical interpretation should be truly grateful.

bu.edu/mzank/STR/tr-archive/tr10/aar2001/Kessler.html

From the synagogue at Sepphoris:

Abraham showing a distinctly Christian type of gesture of benediction

http://www.bu.edu/mzank/STR/tr-archive/tr10/aar2001/plate8.jpg

 

[Minerva]

very true. The Temple of Jerusalem was magnificently decorated. In Rome, where I studied for a semester in college, as soon as Christianity was legalized, Christians built large, elaborate, beautiful churches - some of which still survive.