The Opening of the Seals in Biblical Studies

The “discovery” of, or rather awakening for local figurative art, particularly for locally made and/or used seals in Late Bronze and Iron Age Palestine/Israel, since the 1970s represented a turning point within Biblical Studies. Besides contributing to new critical incursions to age-old issues of the field, such as the representability of deities, among whom Yahweh, and material-religious practices, it allowed a more focused visual “third of comparison.” In the wake of broader cultural turns, this resulted in chronological and regional differentiation of symbolic systems and visual regimes and nuanced historical incursions to both biblical and religious history. The paper evaluates the uses of ancient seals in biblical exegesis from the second half of the twentieth century to the present day, focusing on “Iconographic Exegesis,” a perspective that uses ancient Near Eastern visual artifacts for illuminating biblical concepts, texts, and history.