Dry Bones

The creation and restoration of God’s chosen people—as a holy nation—is the underlying theme of the twenty-six biblical subjects depicted in the Dura-Europos Synagogue murals. Created around the year 250 CE, these images are the most extraordinary artefacts of Jewish art to have survived from antiquity. Painted on three surviving walls of the synagogue sanctuary they include stories of Abraham and Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, the Ark of the Law, the Temple, Elijah, the Triumph of Mordechai, and, most relevant to this discussion, Ezekiel’s Vision.

Just to the right of the Torah niche at eye level, on the north wall of the synagogue, is the largest scene of all the decorations, the sequential narrative of Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones (Ezekiel 37:1–14). It is played out in six discrete depictions of the prophet Ezekiel, explicating specific verses from chapter 37: i.e. 1, 4, 7, 9, and 10. The pivotal role of the prophet as the direct agent of the Divine is overwhelming. With the ‘Hand of God’ appearing five times, directing six depictions of Ezekiel, nowhere else in the fresco cycle is the main character pictured this frequently.

The first section (shown here) depicts verses 1, 4, and 7 against a light background; each Ezekiel gestures in a way that connotes a distinct Divine command: placed among the dead, commanded to speak to them, and then made witness to the bones coming alive. The inclusion of a mountain split by an earthquake recalls the Midrash Pirque Rabbi Eliezer 33 that describes how the bones were forced together by the power of an earthquake.

In the second section a red background unifies the resurrected Jewish people. Ezekiel is now approached by three winged ‘spirits’, representing animating wind angels. After he acknowledges the angels, ten men appear (perhaps representing the ten lost tribes). The final image of Ezekiel shows him extending his arm to them in greeting and recognition of the great miracle of national resurrection. A nation is reborn out of dry bones and the Lord says ‘I will bring you home into the land of Israel’ (v.12).

These simple images are created a mere 180 years after the complete destruction of the Jewish Temple and homeland, and yet, 1700 years later, a modern democratic Jewish nation thrives in its ancestral land. Dura’s Ezekiel represents the genesis of Jewish art as well as the fulfilment of biblical prophecy.

References

Friendlander, Gerald (trans.). 2004. Pirke De-Rabbi Eliezer (North Stratford: Ayer Company Publishers): 248–49

Leriche, Pierre, and Gabrielle Sed-Rajna. 1997. ‘Dura–Europos Synagogue’ in Jewish Art, ed. by Gabrielle Sed-Rajna (New York: Harry N. Abrams): 553–68

Weitzmann, Kurt, and Herbert L. Kessler. 1990. The Frescoes of the Dura Synagogue and Christian Art (Washington, D.C: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection)

War and strife set the tone for the subjects on the Knesset Menorah.

This is a 4.5-metre-high bronze by the British artist Benno Elkan (1877–1960) situated directly opposite the parliament building in Jerusalem, Israel. Utilizing biblical narratives, symbolic figures, and historical events (including some very recent ones) in twenty-nine relief panels, the dominant theme of this seven-branched menorah is the foundation of the modern State of Israel. Moses towers over the seven ascending panels of the central column with the vision of Ezekiel 37 firmly planted in the middle, just exactly above eye level.

Elkan’s vision of Ezekiel’s prophecy concentrates on the role of the heroic prophet himself, seen here as a prime mover in the resurrection of the Jewish people. The prophet is young and energetic, coolly caught up in the matrix of the unfolding prophecy as the animating wind sweeps down from the sky above. That there is a Divine voice commanding the prophet to address the bones is not easy to discern. It is barely reflected in the prophet’s calm gaze. Below him the skeletal bones are struggling in an agony of revivification, death literally still clinging to their substance. Their skulls grimace in the pain of re-awakening, as though reflecting the daily struggles of Israeli pioneers labouring to forge a new Jewish state in the face of economic hardship and hostile regional resistance.

This youthful, clean-shaven prophet looks much like the ideal Zionist kibbutznik, emerging heroically from the skeletal figures who seethe beneath him, and who seem still attached to the earth itself. Ezekiel advances through the field of stirring bones, his outstretched hands in reassuring gestures; collecting the reborn together while offering a peaceful blessing that extends to all the visitors who view the menorah.

References

McBee, Richard. 2009. ‘A Light Unto The Nation: Benno Elkan’s Knesset Menorah: Review, 14 January 2009’, www.JewishPress.com, [accessed 4 November 2018]

Ezekiel: Resurrection (1980) by Richard McBee presents a bleak monochromatic landscape, reminiscent of a post-war battlefield shorn of foliage and life.

Along the curved horizon suggesting an omniscient view, cragged, burnt trees are outlined along with silhouetted guard towers and the regular verticals of barbed wire fences. Ghostly skeletal shapes stir along the bottom edge; some just awakening, others slowly rising up as though a breeze of life is animating them. One blackened figure gestures while a surprisingly fleshy couple seem to have ascended to a standing position. While the female clasps her hands to her chest and looks imploringly at her mate, the male is reaching out to a third figure. His gesture simultaneously embraces her while lending life-giving support to the ascending figure whose skeletal bottom half is contrasted with a skinny pink-coloured torso and head.

In this depiction of Ezekiel’s Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones there is clearly a glimmer of hope in an otherwise harsh and sombre present; and yet the prophet himself is nowhere to be seen.

McBee is haunted by the victims of the Holocaust in this image, part of a series of biblical paintings that date from early in his career. That interest in the biblical narrative seen through contemporary eyes continues to the present day. The two subjects that preoccupied his work in the 1980s were the Binding of Isaac and the Vision of Ezekiel, both of which he saw as reflections of the Jewish Holocaust experience. For the believing Jew the notion that God had somehow abandoned his people to the Nazi fury feels all too similar to God’s horrific command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Equally, the creation of the State of Israel in the shadow of the Holocaust summons up Ezekiel’s vision of the resurrection of the Jewish people after the first Babylonian exile.