Images of the Divine and Cultural Orientations: Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Voices

This innovative volume explores the "iconic problem" in the Abrahamic religions and how it can provide cultural orientation for religious and non-religious people. This "problem" is the presence of two opposed injunctions present in these religions: the prohibition of the making of images and yet the proliferation of images of God within these traditions. In an age shaped by a whirlwind of images - some peaceful; some violent - of peoples through the global media systems, the works collected in this book show how the religions can address the "iconic problem" in our age of global image making. Readers interested in the monotheistic religions, the reality of global media, and the formation of human consciousness by religion and media will find here rich and provocative resources for reflection. With contributions by Alfred Bodenheimer (Basel), Sarah Coakley (Cambridge), Susanne Enderwitz (Heidelberg), Michael Fishbane (Chicago), Paul Mendes-Flohr (Chicago), Johannes Heil (Heidelberg), Susannah Heschel (Dartmouth), Dwight Hopkins (Chicago), Baber Johansen (Harvard), Angelika Neuwirth (Berlin), Friederike Nussel (Heidelberg), William Schweiker (Chicago), Kathryn Tanner (Yale) and Michael Welker (Heidelberg).