Review of English-Language Research on Iconography of Late Antique Judaism (20th – 21st centuries)

Abstract

The iconography of late antique Judaism became a research area in the second quarter of the 20th century. Before this time there was no such a large number of murals, mosaic pavements and other artworks available for examination. When scholars started considering monuments from late antique synagogues, they seek to find a relevant approach to studying the phenomenon of Jewish art in this period, its emergence and development. In the course of different periods in historiography of the subject various topics came to the forefront of research and became more important than the others. In the West this scientific area went through several stages in its development, while issues of iconography of late antique Judaism have not been on the agenda of the Russian-speaking scientific community till the present moment. This review of English-language major research seeks to compensate for the lack of a systematic view of the problem in Russian-language science, which is also touched upon in the present work. The subject of the present survey is historiography of Judaism iconography in the late antique period. The most cited English-language works on this subject are systematized in accordance with the periods of historiography and of the dominant direction of research. The review demonstrates three periods of historiography: early period with the stress on description; the second period with the question about existence and affiliation of Jewish art in late antiquity; and the latest period, observed in the present moment, that concentrates on systematic examination of art in general and some objects in particular. There are two main vectors of the study of the subject, which were formed by the end of the 20th century. The first is aimed at exploring symbols within the Jewish cultural paradigm without affecting the surrounding cultures. The second considers the symbols of Jewish iconography as included in the general cultural context of the regions of the Roman Empire, where worldviews were in constant interaction, and sometimes in opposition. Scientists have been developing both of these areas of research until present days. In the 21st century Jewish late antique iconography is an important area of research for Western science, which not only continues the development of problems indicated in the 20th century, but also formulates new ones, corresponding to modern trends in religious studies. The work shall attract the attention of readers to a significant number of little-known and highly specialized texts on the problem of the iconography of late antique Judaism.