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iblical narrative themes and images: representation, origin, and meaning 93
2nd century BCE to the 2nd century CE, do not
contain even a single illustration. (5) If illustrated
manuscripts had actually existed, and had been
a source for biblical themes, uniformity of iconography
style and design would be seen in later
Jewish art. This, however, is not the case as each
biblical scene portrayed is fundamentally different.
(6) The iconography of each of the episodes
reflects a local style, not the Hellenistic style it
would have reflected had the source been Alexandrine
or Antiochian illustrated manuscripts. (7)
The decoration in registers and panels is in contrast
to the style of illustrated manuscripts. All the
examples scholars give of the relationship between
known manuscripts and pictorial narrations are of
much later periods. (8) It would have been a very
complicated project to use an actual manuscript
as a source for wall paintings. Weitzmann himself
(1990: 9) doubts that ‘a whole set of richly illustrated
manuscripts was available in the small provincial
town’ and suggests that such a collection of
illustrated codices was available at a metropolitan
centre (Antioch ), where intermediary drawings
could have been made. This circumstance would
have made the process even more complicated
and would have required a large library. (9) The
painted scenes on illuminated manuscripts were
first and foremost illustrations of the written text
with the purpose of illuminating and embellishing
the biblical wording, whereas the Dura paintings
and mosaic pavements are illustrations of
a tale; the text, if it exists, is explanatory, giving
the names of the figures and a short biblical citation,
not always accurately. This is an essential
differnece.
Other scholars dispute the assumption of illuminated
manuscripts as a source for the scenes
of biblical episodes, and propose that they were
influenced by monumental compositions with
roots in late 2nd and early 3rd centuries in Rome
(Tronzo 1986: 30-31). Monumental pictorial
works, such as wall paintings on pagan temples
and domestic decorated buildings or mosaics, are
also claimed to be the origin for the biblical narratives.
Kraeling (1979: 240-250; 392) suggests
that other synagogues in Mesopotamia or Syria
may have provided the model for the paintings
at Dura. 11
11 Wharton (1995: 49) maintains that the Dura Europos
synagogue elders settled on the themes and instructed a
local workshop to produce the designs.
Similar influences and comparisons are found
in scenes on mosaic pavements in Near Eastern,
Hellenistic, and Roman art and in the Dura
paintings. The monumental pictorial annals of
the ancient Near East, especially in north Syria
and Assyria, portray scenes of kings and heroes
in stories of historical events on wall reliefs and
wall paintings; these could be the forerunners of
the biblical scenes on the mosaic pavements and
in the Dura synagogue wall paintings. The scenes
in these places are set in horizontal panels, comparable
to the renditions on Near Eastern reliefs.
Similar episodes and conventions are common in
pagan art with pictorial iconographic formulae,
such as figures differing in scale and size to signify
their relative importance. The ancient artistic
technique of frontality is prevalent in the mosaic
episodes and the Dura paintings. Conventional
postures are occasionally comparable to those in
pagan art. Objects are painted anachronistically,
in the style of the iconography of contemporary
cult vessels and items. Roman historical reliefs
from the 2nd and early 3rd century could have
inspired the narrative scenes in the Dura wall
paintings (Hill 1941: 1-3, 8, 11).
Pattern books, copybooks, and cartoons have
also been suggested as the source for the biblical
themes (Mesnil 1939: 149; Moon 1992: 599, 610,
612). The pictorial formulae, repetitive iconography,
and stylistic details that the artists used all
indicate that pattern book s are the most probable
source. The artists possibly had sets of iconographic
conventions which they used in the scenes
they portrayed, as well as extensive cycles of biblical
episodes which they could copy, abbreviate, or
even improvise according to their needs. Themes
and schemes, styles, and composition were probably
inherited from prototypes.
Kraeling (1979: 368-370, 379-380, 383) argues
that the art of the Dura artists could be called in
some respects ‘copy-book art’. In fact, he proposes
that three sources were responsible for the
biblical scenes: other monumental buildings provided
a source from which to copy; some kind
of divine book existed as a source for both Jews
and Christians; and the artists used some kind of
‘copy-book’.
Avi-Yonah (1973: 127-129) maintains that the
style featuring frontality , isocephaly, and hierarchic
perspective, which characterizes the mosaic
biblical scenes and the Dura paintings, is a 3rdcentury
style representative of Alexandria, and
that the basic elements of the Dura paintings are