The Bible and the Arts of Making

Abstract

The Bible and The Arts of Making opens a new conversation in Hebrew Bible studies, shifting the focus from objects, aniconism, and proscriptions, to explore processes of making. It asks how people make things, and how those acts are conceptualized. This literary project draws on interdisciplinary conversations in philosophy, anthropology, and the arts in order to show how making is a transformation that is material, ecological, and aesthetic. Through a series of case studies that foreground significant examples of making, it shows that these three elements are persistently interwoven. Making relates humans to the material world in ways that can be life affirming and aesthetic, and that simultaneously threaten to unmake the world itself.