Another way to get to know an individual is through the art depicting them - especially icons where set scenes, gestures and objects make the individual recognizable. This is also true in the less constrained visual arts but historical periods and cultural values have a greater influence than in icons.
1. Logos / Verbum lacks an icon library so one must search for images on the internet. This is this first results from a search on Abraham icon in Google:
these icons depict:
- hospitality of Abraham
- Abraham and Isaac
- Prophet Abraham / Abraham the Religious Patriarch / Righteous Forefather Abraham
- Akedah - the binding of Isaac
- Children of Abraham (numerous as the stars)
- Three Patriarchs
- Abraham's bosom
2. In Logos / Verbum we have several tools for identifying art associated with a biblical person e.g. Abraham.
From Factbook we get a sampling of results together with a link to run a media search. Note that mouse-over simply provides the title of the media.
I prefer to limit the media to visual arts types when I do my search so that family trees and charts are not selected. Remember that media in this context referred to what is in my library. Note that there is a much broader range of topics e.g. Abraham watches Sodom burn, than in the icons. Notice that mouse over here provides the title and a preview of the related text.
Using the Media tool and filtering by Biblical People Abraham provides me with images to which I have access on Logos servers / Logos Cloud. Here mouse over again just gives a title but a click will open an enlarged image with very brief descriptive information - so brief I suspect a bug.
3. As with icons, I find the artwork within Logos/Verbum to be quite limited so I usually go to the text this week site for indexes to further material. Unfortunately a number of their links are currently broken but they usually provide enough identifying information to find the image at its new URL.
4. For literary art use of a character, I rely on Jeffrey, David L. A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1992.
So given that our starting point was vocabulary - recognizing personal names - where does this leave us? We have found sources for the followings bits of data:
- Name - meaning of name; alternative names - critical to identifying the individual; in some cases the specified meaning of the name has importance within the text.
- Time - important for historical studies and general narrative sequence
- Genealogy - cultural significance for story; in some cases necessary for tracing the fulfillment of promises
- Events of a person's life - necessary for understanding the Biblical narrative as it unfolds; key events essential to understanding references back to the event including typology and symbols.
- Events with location - necessary for understanding the Biblical narrative as it unfolds; required to understand connotative meaning of locations (think "Gettysburg" or "Waterloo")
- Non-biblical textual sources of information about a character - important for understanding later references to an individual especially cultural connotations associated with the character
- Typological use of the character - essential to understanding some NT references and Patristic sources as well as some later theology
- Visual and literary art sources of information about a character - important for understanding later references to an individual especially cultural connotations associated with the character.
So in practice:
- if the reference is to an individual is in a genealogy or list of refugees returning home etc. you probably need to know nothing more than that it is a name of a person
- if the reference is within the narrative of the individual's life you probably should simply continue reading and let the narrative play out
- however, if you are teaching the narrative you need to be aware of how the character is depicted in the arts to which the student will likely be exposed as well as what needs to be emphasized for its importance in understanding later references
- if the reference to the person is subsequent to the narrative of their life you must determine if the reference is:
- simply historical - requires historical knowledge of life
- dependent on connotations - requires cultural background
- symbolic - requires cultural background
- typologic - find type/anti-type attributes
