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Hand of God and Hand of Humans in Art
(952 words)
[German Version] I. Ancient to Pre-Roman Times – II. From Roman Times
I. Ancient to Pre-Roman Times From its earliest beginnings, ancient art reflected the central role of the hand in sign language. Hands were raised in prayer, incantation, greeting, blessing, and in delivering a blow. Hands were raised in entreaty and in mourning, or were thrown in the air in triumph. Hostility was averted with an extended hand and fingers or the fist. Parties to a contract shook the right hand as a sign of binding c…
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Religion Past and Present
Good Shepherd
(835 words)
[German Version] I. Ancient Near East and Ancient Art – II. Christian Art I. Ancient Near East and Ancient Art Shepherds and their flocks were variously depicted in ancient cultures from the 3rd millennium bce, but there was no real “good shepherd” typos. Pre-imperial images of men with a sheep or ram around their shoulders or an animal on their arms are usually to be interpreted as carrying a sacrificial animal (exception, see below). In the Egyptian tombs of the Old Kingdom, besides depictions of other, purely realistic scenes, there are often those of herdsmen working with their animals, which included putting young animals on their shoulders. In the ancient Near East, the role of the shepherd early became a symbol of certain aspects of rulership. According to iconographic and textual evidence, the prototype of the good shepherd was, for centuries, not the shepherd or ruler searching for one particular sheep and carrying it back home, but the shepherd who cared for his animals and heroically defended them against dangers. In Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine several iconographic variants of the shepherd theme are attested from the first half of the 3rd millennium onward: a shepherd directing sheep with his rod, feeding or milking them, or protecting one of them against wild animals. The sacred office of shepherd was occupied by the priestly prince by order of the deity. Thus, tending the flocks was considered the epitome of the foundation and preservation of culture and of worship (see illustration). On the other hand, the motif of the “lord of the animals” (Lord/Lady of the Animals) portrayed also as a shepherd (feeding, protecting from wild animals), which is iconographically attested in the ANE from the Early Bronze Age and at least until the Persian period, emphasizes dominance over wild animals. The numinous “lord of the animals,” a role also fulfilled by kings, is the shepherd of an unapproachable and menacing animal kingdom and thus the conqueror of chaos. Particularly popular in Neo-Assyrian art is the motif of the heroic warrior who stands with one foot on the animal from his herd while defending it against a lion. The shepherd-god Hermes was depicted in Roman art, for example, as Criophorus (ram-bearer). In Roman imperial times and in Late Antiquity, besides the shepherd imagery with a mythological background, s…
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Religion Past and Present
Tree of Life
(2,095 words)
[German Version]
I. Old Testament The motif of the tree of life (םייִּחַהַ ץעֵ/
ʿeṣ haḥayyîm), a variation of the idea of the “sacred tree” that appears in Canaanite, Mesopotamian and Egyptian texts, and also in the Indo-European area, is found in Gen 2:9; 3:22,24; Prov 3:18; 11:30; 13:12; 15:4 and Isa 65:22 LXX. The tree, on the basis of its cyclical sef-renewal, functions as a symbol of the regeneration of the cosmos, as an image of fertility, and thus also of immortality (Gen 3:22). The related concept of a …
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Religion Past and Present
Human Form in Art
(3,499 words)
[German Version] I. Ancient Near Eastern Art – II. Greco-Roman Art – III. Christian Art
I. Ancient Near Eastern Art The earliest datable representations of animals in ancient Near Eastern art stem from the Mesolithic Period, and the oldest representations of the human form from the Neolithic Period (reworked male skulls or imitations of the same, cf. Kenyon; stylized or three-dimensional figurines of sitting, corpulent women). Anthropomorphic ¶ (Anthropomorphism) deities are usually distinguished from humans through attributes (for the exception of the “naked…
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Religion Past and Present
Sun
(2,816 words)
[German Version]
I. Religious Studies The sun is omnipresent; in the phenomenal world, it marks and accentuates the course of our chronological and spatial lifeworld. The range of associated structures, interpretations, and ambivalences (light and dark, life-giving and life-consuming) makes it only natural that the sun should acquire religious symbolisms and orientations in many ways and in many areas: (1) orientation in time (annual calendrical cycle, identification of sacral seasons and hours of th…
Source:
Religion Past and Present