Resurrecting Easter by John Dominic Crossan

Author:John Dominic Crossan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-12-06T05:00:00+00:00

Figure 8.8

Figure 8.9

Finally, there is that single image of the universal resurrection tradition on Pantokrator 83r (Fig. 8.10) illustrating the verse: “God gives the desolate a home to live in; he leads out the prisoners to prosperity, but the rebellious live in a parched land” (Ps. 68:6). We already saw that same verse used in Khludov Psalter, folio 63v (Fig. 7.7). Both images have the monstrously enlarged Hades, but compare who gets to stand on his stomach in each case!

Think now, in summary, about the resurrection tradition in all three of these mid-ninth-century illustrated Byzantine Psalters: all together, there are twelve examples of the individual and only five of the universal vision. With regard to images, you could read that as a movement away from Easter as the East’s universal resurrection (five cases) toward accepting the West’s individual resurrection (twelve cases). But in both Khludov and Pantokrator the verses illustrated by this novel imagery are often corporate, communal, and universal—at least for the dispossessed and oppressed.

Look back, for example, at the verses just illustrated by Pantokrator 24v and 26v. The images are quite individual for Christ, but the texts are universal for the oppressed, the despoiled poor, and the groaning needy. Put together, images and texts do not point to Christ’s Resurrection as just about Christ alone.

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