Alexei M. Sivertsev. The Image of Jacob on the Throne of God and the Construction of Liturgical Space in Late Antiquity

The Image of Jacob on the Throne of God and the Construction of Liturgical Space in Late Antiquity

By Alexei M. Sivertsev

(DePaul University)

Source: Judaica Ukrainica 4 (2015): 18-35

Publication date: December 1, 2015

Publication type: article

Language: English

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Abstract

The motif of Jacob’s face engraved on the Throne of Glory has been an object of continued scholarly attention for the past several decades and studied in a variety of literary contexts, from the Second Temple and early Christian to medieval periods. More recently, two excellent contributions by Rachel Neis and Ra’anan Boustan have done a lot to situate this motif specifically within its eastern Roman context by mapping out the motif’s place within the broader Byzantine discourse on images and relics. Sivertsev expands on Neis’s and Boustan’s work by analyzing the place of Jacob’s image within the semiotics of late Roman and early Byzantine liturgical performance. He explores the motif of Jacob’s image within a broad field of referential connections and approaches this motif as another configuration of themes and forms otherwise ubiquitous within the language of late antique culture. The author’s goal is to reconstruct a culture-specific range of meanings within which Jacob’s image could become recognizable and legible for a late Roman audience.

Keywords: Biblical studies, Jacob’s image, Late ancient Christianity, liturgical performance

 

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DOI 10.14653/ju.2015.02