Abstract
Crosses and trophies are twin images in the Roman visual world of the first century CE, omnipresent as signposts of imperial power over the bodies and minds of the conquered. While crosses expose armor-less human bodies to torturous dying, the cruciform trophies are the body-less armor of an already dead enemy. Both are images of triumph and merciless retaliation against the non-compliant. Seen through the lens of the trophy, Paul’s theology of cross and justification by faith emerges as resistant messianic counter-visualization, as the body of the crucified empowers a rebellious re-embodiment of the dis-embodied.
Programme
10.15-11.00 Lecture by Brigitte Kahl
13.00-15.00 Seminar
Introduction by Brigitte Kahl.
Responses by Postdoctor Karin B. Neutel, Ole Jakob Løland
Chaired by Professor Anders Runesson and Professor Marianne B. Kartzow.
Text for the seminar:
Brigitte Kahl, "The Galatian Suicide and the Transbinary Semiotics of Christ Crucified (Gal 3:1): Exercises in Visual Exegesis and Critical Re-imagination", 195-240 in Vernon K. Robbins, Walter S. Melion, and Roy R. Jeal (Eds.), The Art of Visual Exegesis: Rhetoric, Texts, Images. Emory Studies in Early Christianity, Atlanta: SBL Press, 2017