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Divine Inspiration in Byzantium

Divine Inspiration in Byzantium

Divine Inspiration in Byzantium

Notions of Authenticity in Art and Theology
Karin Krause, University of Chicago
October 2022
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9781108830997
$127.00
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eBook

    In this volume, Karin Krause examines conceptions of divine inspiration and authenticity in the religious literature and visual arts of Byzantium. During antiquity and the medieval era, “inspiration” encompassed a range of ideas regarding the divine contribution to the creation of holy texts, icons, and other material objects by human beings. Krause traces the origins of the notion of divine inspiration in the Jewish and polytheistic cultures of the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds and their reception in Byzantine religious culture. Exploring how conceptions of authenticity are employed in Eastern Orthodox Christianity to claim religious authority, she analyzes texts in a range of genres, as well as images in different media, including manuscript illumination, icons, and mosaics. Her interdisciplinary study demonstrates the pivotal role that claims to the divine inspiration of religious literature and art played in the construction of Byzantine cultural identity.

    • Examines in depth the notion of divine inspiration in Byzantine art and theology
    • Provides an interdisciplinary analysis of texts, images, and objects
    • Reconstructs Byzantine conceptions of authenticity through careful analysis of texts of different genres and images in different media

    Product details

    July 2022
    Adobe eBook Reader
    9781108918367
    0 pages
    This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.

    Table of Contents

    • 1. The early Christian iconography of divine inspiration: Novel approaches to an old pictorial theme
    • 2. Inspiration and the Bible in the post-iconoclastic era
    • 3. Inspiration continued: The writings of the church fathers
    • 4. Divine inspiration beyond the fathers
    • 5. Inspired icons
    • 6. Acheiropoietos: The Mandylion as “the radiance of God's glory and exact imprint of God's very being”
    •  7. Allegories of divine artistry: The Mandylion and its multiples.
      Author
    • Karin Krause , University of Chicago

      Karin Krause is an assistant professor of Byzantine Theology and Visual Culture at the University of Chicago. Her research has been supported by the German Research Foundation, the Max Planck Society, Dumbarton Oaks, the Gerda Henkel Foundation, and the German Academic Exchange Service. Her book The Illustrated Homilies of John Chrysostom in Byzantium won an award from the Southeast Europe Association.