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Peter Hawkins Photo by Kalman Zabarsky
Luce Program events add visual art, music to dialogue about sacred texts
Since 2000, Boston University's Luce Program in Scripture and the Literary Arts has brought together theologians, literary scholars, and historians to study the influence of the Hebrew and Christian Bibles on secular literature. The program is sponsoring several upcoming events that continue its search for new and unexpected meanings in scripture.
On Thursday, March 25, the Luce Program will sponsor a free public lecture by V. A. Kolve, a UCLA English professor and a noted Chaucer scholar, entitled Christ the Gardener in Medieval Art and Drama. The lecture, at 6 p.m. in Room 426 at the School of Management, will examine how artists in the Middle Ages frequently showed Jesus as a gardener, wearing a hat and holding a spade, when depicting the story from the Gospel of John where Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection.
“Professor Kolve will discuss how medieval visual art and drama linked Jesus to Adam, who is seen as the initial gardener, with Christ seen as the new Adam and the Resurrection as a new beginning for humankind,” says Peter Hawkins, a CAS professor and director of the Luce Program. “I'm excited about this because one of my dreams for our program has been for it to include discussion about the visual arts and scripture. The Christian tradition, especially, has such a rich tradition of visualizing sacred texts, which brings the stories in many new directions.”
On Wednesday, March 31, the program will host a concert of music inspired by the psalms, featuring the Marsh Chapel Choir and Jubal's Lyre, a sacred music ensemble led by Rabbi Norman Janis, who directs Harvard Hillel's Worship and Study Congregation. The concert, at 7 p.m. at Marsh Chapel, will consist of compositions by Bach, Billings, Marcello, Purcell, and Schutz, as well as traditional chants from England, Italy, and Yemen, with texts in Hebrew, English, Latin, German, and Venetian Italian.
“There is going to be a mixture of Jewish singers and Christian singers,” says Hawkins, “which will dramatize the psalms as sung in both traditions.” Janis also will lecture on the place of psalms — or tehillim — in Jewish musical tradition. — David J. Craig
For more information about these events and the Luce Program, contact Christine Hutchinson-Jones at 617-358-1754 or crissy@bu.edu
19 March 2004
Boston University
Office of University Relations