In this volume, Karin Krause examines conceptions of divine inspiration and authenticity in the religious literature and visual arts of Byzantium. During antiquity and the medieval era, “inspiration” encompassed a range of ideas regarding the divine contribution to the creation of holy texts, icons, and other material objects by human beings. Krause traces the origins of the notion of divine inspiration in the Jewish and polytheistic cultures of the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds and their reception in Byzantine religious culture. Exploring how conceptions of authenticity are employed in Eastern Orthodox Christianity to claim religious authority, she analyzes texts in a range of genres, as well as images in different media, including manuscript illumination, icons, and mosaics. Her interdisciplinary study demonstrates the pivotal role that claims to the divine inspiration of religious literature and art played in the construction of Byzantine cultural identity.

‘A comprehensive exploration of the concept of Byzantine divine inspiration, opening the door to critical reevaluation of ongoing discussions about originality in Byzantine visuality and the role of the human person in the salvific equation of Eastern Orthodoxy. The reader may also find this book intriguing, especially the author’s argumentation on legitimacy and claims of inheritance of the true tradition, in light of contemporary developments in the Orthodox world.’

Olga Yunak Source: Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies