# Judeo-Christian Sources I: Scripture and Typology

Art History I · Iconography · https://tryals.app/learn/art-history-i/judeo-christian-sources-i-scripture-and-typology

## More Than the Bible

Most European images before 1700 are Christian. Their sources go well beyond scripture alone:

- **The canonical Bible**: the Latin Vulgate.
- **The Apocrypha and infancy gospels**: details like the ox and ass at the Nativity, or the childhood of the Virgin.
- **The Golden Legend**: saintly lives compiled around 1260 by Jacobus de Voragine.
- **Liturgy and hymns**: patterns that shaped visual emphasis.
- **Devotional literature**: texts like the *Meditationes vitae Christi* that prompted vivid imagery.

You will not find the ox and ass in Luke; they come from the Apocrypha. A painting reflects what a **culture** believed rather than pure scripture alone.

> **Common pitfall:** looking only in the Bible for the source of an image.

## Typology

**Typology** reads Old Testament events (*types*) as prefigurations of New Testament events (*antitypes*). This theological link unites both Testaments into a single narrative.

| Type (Old Testament) | Antitype (New Testament) | The link |
|---|---|---|
| The sacrifice of Isaac | The Crucifixion | A father offering his son |
| Eve from Adam's side | The Church from Christ's side | Born from the side of the man |

Illustrated books like the **Biblia pauperum** paired these scenes. They were copied across Europe for church programmes.

### The saints

The **Golden Legend** is the core text for saintly lore. Artists used **it** as their direct reference. Identifying an attribute usually means tracing the story in Voragine.

## Practice questions

9 of this lesson's 14 practice questions, with answers. The full set is in the app.

### 1. A stained-glass window shows the Crucifixion flanked by the sacrifice of Isaac and the brazen serpent. Why is that arrangement an argument rather than three stories?

A. The three events are arranged chronologically to demonstrate a continuous historical narrative running through both scripture books
B. The flanking panels illustrate literal source texts drawn directly from the Golden Legend to validate canonical Gospel scenes
C. The side panels represent moral allegories warning viewers against idolatry rather than foreshadowing the sacrifice of Christ
D. The two flanking scenes are types prefiguring the central antitype, so the layout asserts that the Testaments are one book

**Answer:** D. The two flanking scenes are types prefiguring the central antitype, so the layout asserts that the Testaments are one book

**Why:** Because the flanking scenes are **types** of the central antitype: a father offering his only son, and a figure raised up so that those who look are saved. The layout asserts that the earlier Testament contains the later in figure, which is a thesis about scripture, made in glass.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/art-history-i/judeo-christian-sources-i-scripture-and-typology/a-stained-glass-window-shows-the-crucifixion-flanked-by-the-sacrifice

### 2. Sort each element of Christian imagery by whether its source is CANONICAL scripture or something else.

**Answer:**

- Canonical scripture: The Crucifixion narrative, The Last Supper, The raising of Lazarus
- Another source: The ox and the ass at the Nativity, The names of the Virgin's parents, Most of the lives of the martyrs as painted

**Why:** The second column is larger than most people expect, and the ox and ass are the standard demonstration: universally present in Nativity painting and absent from Luke. A painting is evidence about what a **culture** believed, not about what its canonical texts said.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/art-history-i/judeo-christian-sources-i-scripture-and-typology/sort-each-element-of-christian-imagery-by-whether-its-source-is

### 3. The Golden Legend was compiled without much critical scepticism about the legends it collected.

**Answer:** True

**Why:** **True**, and that is exactly why it matters for art history. Painters used **Voragine**, not modern critical scholarship, so a painting follows his version even where a historian would not, which makes the book the right place to look when an attribute refers to a story the Bible does not contain.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/art-history-i/judeo-christian-sources-i-scripture-and-typology/the-golden-legend-was-compiled-without-much-critical-scepticism-about

### 4. Which are sources for European Christian imagery beyond the canonical Bible?

A. Modern critical biblical scholarship
B. Devotional literature such as the Meditationes vitae Christi
C. The Golden Legend
D. The Apocrypha and infancy gospels

**Answer:** B. Devotional literature such as the Meditationes vitae Christi; C. The Golden Legend; D. The Apocrypha and infancy gospels

**Why:** The fourth is anachronistic by centuries, and naming it is worth the trouble because the temptation runs the other way: it is easy to check a painting against what we now believe the text says, rather than against what its painter had available to read.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/art-history-i/judeo-christian-sources-i-scripture-and-typology/which-are-sources-for-european-christian-imagery-beyond-the-canonical

### 5. Around what year was the Golden Legend compiled?

**Answer:** 1260 (within ±20)

**Why:** About **1260**, by Jacobus de Voragine. It became one of the most copied books of the later Middle Ages, which is why hagiographic painting is so consistent across Europe: painters in different countries were working from versions of the same collection.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/art-history-i/judeo-christian-sources-i-scripture-and-typology/around-what-year-was-the-golden-legend-compiled

### 6. Complete the account of typology.

**Answer:** Typology reads an Old Testament event as a **type** of a New Testament event, which is its **antitype**. Jonah in the fish prefigures the **Resurrection**. The illustrated books that codified these pairings include the Biblia **pauperum**.

**Why:** The fourth blank names one of the practical design sources behind European church decoration. The Biblia pauperum pairs each New Testament scene with its types on the same page, which is why the same pairings recur so consistently in glass and fresco across the continent.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/art-history-i/judeo-christian-sources-i-scripture-and-typology/complete-the-account-of-typology

### 7. Typology is an interpretive framework rather than historical chronology. What follows from this distinction when an art historian analyses an image designed around typological pairings?

A. The Old Testament episode is depicted strictly to foreshadow the New
B. The Old Testament figure is represented as a direct historical portrait
C. The New Testament narrative is treated as a metaphorical myth alone
D. The pairing is meant to demonstrate that the two events were contemporary

**Answer:** A. The Old Testament episode is depicted strictly to foreshadow the New

**Why:** Typological pairing is theological rather than historical or allegorical; it does not turn the New Testament into mere metaphor, nor does it collapse real historical chronology. Instead, it reinterprets earlier scripture specifically as a deliberate visual foreshadowing of Christ.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/art-history-i/judeo-christian-sources-i-scripture-and-typology/typology-is-an-interpretive-framework-rather-than-historical

### 8. Arrange the steps of identifying a Christian subject, in order.

**Answer:**

1. Describe the figures, objects and setting
2. Identify any attributes present
3. Search the canonical text for the episode
4. If it is absent, search the Apocrypha, the Golden Legend and devotional writing
5. Ask whether the arrangement makes a typological argument

**Why:** The fourth step is the one beginners omit, and it is where a large proportion of European imagery actually lives. Finding no biblical warrant for a detail is the beginning of the enquiry, not the end, and the Golden Legend answers most of what remains.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/art-history-i/judeo-christian-sources-i-scripture-and-typology/arrange-the-steps-of-identifying-a-christian-subject-in-order

### 9. The ox and the ass at the Nativity appear in the Gospel of Luke.

**Answer:** False

**Why:** **False**, and it is the standard demonstration of the lesson. They are universally present in Nativity painting and absent from Luke, arriving through the apocryphal tradition and a reading of Isaiah, which shows that painting records what a culture believed rather than what its canonical texts contained.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/art-history-i/judeo-christian-sources-i-scripture-and-typology/the-ox-and-the-ass-at-the-nativity-appear-in-the-gospel-of-luke