How do Religious Icons Read-and-Write?

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7833/124-1-2234
Keywords: Icons, Bible, Interpretation

Abstract

This contribution starts off with a broad understanding of icons and their communication, and the implications this has for religious discourse today. The focus then moves to icons within the Christian Orthodox traditions to indicate aspects of the interaction of text, image and presence. The final part returns to the implication of “seeing” icons for reading texts and hence for the possibility of again in our age encountering God in texts. Analysing the communicative dynamics of icons from the Reformed strand of Protestant Christianity, a tradition which exhibits a stronger inclination to biblical hermeneutics than to icons as operative faith impulses, combines these two interpretative traditions as a service to the unfolding post-secular intellectual and societal climate unfolding internationally.

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Author Biographies

Christo Lombaard, University of Pretoria
Head of Department, Practical Theology and Mission Studies, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
Lisel Joubert, Stellenbosch University
Department Systematic Theology and Ecclesiology, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Published
2025-05-14
Issue
Vol. 124 No. 1 (2025)
Section
Articles

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