Recalling Hartenstein’s differentiation between scholarly investigations concerning “origins” versus those focused on “beginnings,” it seems that a good place to start exploring the art deemed religious respectively associated with the communities of worship centered around YHWH and Ahura Mazda is in the modern period. However they may have originated or developed across time, the images claimed by living adherents of Judaism and Zoroastrianism are given meaning in the 21^stcentury. In the modern world, the forms and associations of “traditional” visual culture belonging to each of these religions appears to be relatively stable and reliably linked in the minds of various non-adherent parties. Consider the images chosen for a series of introductory textbooks on these religions. Publisher I.B. Tauris describes their “Introductions to Religion” series: 

Avoiding oversimplification, jargon or unhelpful stereotypes, I.B.Tauris Introductions to Religion embraces the opportunity to explore religious tradition in a sensitive, objective and nuanced manner. A specially commissioned series for undergraduate students, it offers concise, clearly written overviews, by leading experts in the field, of the world’s major religious faiths, and of the challenges posed to all the religions by progress, globalization and diaspora. Covering the fundamentals of history, theology, ritual and worship, these books place an emphasis above all on the modern world, and on the lived faiths of contemporary believers. They explore, in a way that will engage followers and non-believers alike, the fascinating and sometimes difficult contradictions of reconciling ancient tradition with headlong cultural and technological change.¹

This description suggests that the series is part of a deliberate effort toward authentically representing and accurately disseminating information about these religions. It is thus reasonable to assume that the images chosen for the covers of Oliver Leaman’s Judaism: An Introduction and Rose’s Zoroastrianism: An Introduction should reflect the associations of art and religion in the minds of “followers and non-believers alike.”²

Similarly colored monochromatic symbols representing each religion appear on the top of each spine: a winged figure on Rose’s book, a seven-branched menorah on Leaman’s volume. These icons appear prominently centered beneath the title on the front covers of Zoroastrianism and Judaism respectively. Taking up the top half of the front cover of Rose’s volume (above the title) is a photograph of a figure in white (ostensibly, as identifiable from other photos within, a mowbed or priest) obscured by a fire-in-a-holder.³ Similarly, the top half of the front cover of Judaism, is filled by a photo of a child (dressed in a broad-collared white shirt, black jacket, black brimmed hat, and displaying curled sidelocks), seated at a table with silver candlesticks (each with a golden tapered candle), dishes of food, glasses with white and red napkins rolled and folded within, behind a long braided loaf of what appears to be bread. It is significant that these images are left uncaptioned and unidentified within the first few pages of each book: the uninformed reader must look to the text for understanding. It may be possible to guess from this situation that the publishers have chosen images so closely linked with each religion that the association of these images in the minds of potential readers, if not already established, will begin to form before one chooses to read the book. 

Consider the covers of these books, following Macaulay’s Motel of Mysteries, as isolated works of art (ripped from their volumes) as sole evidence of each of these religions.⁴ Each of the images appears to depict ritual: Zoroastrianism suggests fire, contained in a polished holder, as a possible ritual focus for the figure obscured; Judaism seems to associate food or a meal with the religion, the child’s dress and solemn facial expression suggest, perhaps a serious or perfunctory religious occasion. Taken together, the dominant features of each cover might be described humans, clothes, fire, and food. In consideration of the argument taken up in this dissertation, it must be noted that each of these components is particularly mobile: neither volume is adorned with buildings, immobile objects, or other indications of geographic permanence. Despite having survived in settled agriculturalist social contexts for at least two thousand years, the religions of YHWH and Ahura Mazda are each associated with art in the modern period that bears the marks of mobile social (and thus agriculturally marginal environmental) contexts. 

Another major source of evidence of the images associated with these religions can be found in the entries on “Zoroastrianism” and “Judaism” in English-language pages of Wikipedia. Whereas the I.B. Tauris series is the product of information curated and developed by individual scholars, aimed at education, Wikipedia, as described in the last chapter, is both the most democratically constructed and the most widely accessible source of information in the world. Like the I.B. Tauris series, symbols appear to be used to identify these and other pages into larger organizational systems: each page belongs to a different “Part of a series on…” collection that can be accessed through the linked “Judaism Portal” or “Zoroastrianism Portal” marked with various icons.⁵ The entry on Judaism is identified with the series and portal of the same name, the former marked with a blue Star of David, grey “Decalogue” tablets, and a golden menorah; the latter branded with a small blue Star of David.⁶ The counterparts to these icons on the Zoroastrianism entry are a grey silhouette of a fire-in-a-holder for the “Part of a series on Zoroastrianism” box and a small winged figure in black marking the “Zoroastrianism Portal.”⁷ The use of these symbols as markers for these religions on Wikipedia seems agree with the associations presented as cover art for Rose’s volume but not as well with Leaman’s: whereas Zoroastrianism is linked with fire-in-a-holder and a winged figure in both cases, the Star of David and Decalogue tablets do not appear on the cover of Judaism: An Introduction. 

The narratives in which these images appear is not merely visual, it is important to note the presentation (and thus construction) of associations between these icons and the texts to which they are adjoined. The headers “Part of a series on…” and “…Portal” describe collections of entries on a related theme, the meaning of which is emphasized by and emphasizes the visual “version” of these themes in the symbols mentioned above. This is similar to the appearance of the homogenously monochromatic icons of the menorah and winged figure respectively displayed on the top inch of the spines displayed next to the large-print titles of the I.B. Tauris introductions to Judaism and Zoroastrianism. The visual narratives presented by the captioned photos distributed throughout the entries seem to serve a purpose similar to the photos chosen for the covers of the I.B. Tauris volumes. Considering the images and their captions without the text of the article, reveals a stronger agreement between the visual narrative of the Wikipedia entry and Introductions to Religion volume on Judaism than the one on Zoroastrianism. The 19 images presented in this article depict a variety of people, places, and things described by captions including: “Judaica…,” “A 19th-century silver Macedonian Hanukkah menorah,” “A Yemenite Jew at morning prayers, wearing a kippah skullcap, prayer shawl and tefillin,” and “Interior of Belz Great Synagogue in Jerusalem.”⁸ The subjects of these images and captions are primarily people (dressed in a variety of clothing from different cultures and periods) and objects (many decorated with Hebrew text and indicated for use in ritual). Setting aside the variety of people and objects, it is notable that the overarching narrative of Judaism described by these photos appears to be the same as the image displayed on cover of Leaman’s Judaism. The connection between this narrative and the history of Judaism over the millennia is significant to this dissertation: people and objects are each geographically (physically) and socially (symbolically) mobile. The parallel survival of potentially mobile images depicting mobile people, objects, and activities suggests the influence of these environmental contexts on the eventual capacity for art deemed religious in the formations of building blocks that make up these religions.

In Jewish Art, Cecil Roth explains the relative absence of Jewish artifacts dating from pre-Renaissance Europe: 

The primary reason for this was presumably the vicissitudes of Jewish life. Synagogues everywhere were sacked, burned, and pillaged; communities were driven into exile, expressly forbidden to take with them anything made of precious material: synagogues could sell their sacred treasures in order to ransom prisoners or succor refugees…Hardly more than a handful of specimens anterior to the sixteenth century are now traceable.⁹

Roth’s comments emphasize the point that whatever the origins, the cultural evolutionary fitness of modern art deemed religious associated with Judaism is proven by its survival. It is important to observe that if art deemed religious functioned in the worship of YHWH as it appears to have in Mesopotamian religion, then the destruction of images and artifacts might have resulted in a major shift in, if not the end of, the religion. In An Introduction to Ancient Mesopotamian Religion, Schneider writes “the statue served as the god in the context of the temple’s rituals. The connection between the deity and its cult statue explains why, when temples were destroyed and the image was carried off, usually in times of war, the people viewed it as the deity abandoning them and the city.”¹⁰ Although this discussion has thusfar been concerned with the presence and function of art deemed religious in a historically recent version of Judaism, it suggests that in order for the worship of YHWH to have survived into the 21^stcentury CE, it must not have been so closely linked (as in the case of Mesopotamia) to artifacts that might belong to a category of “visual culture.”

This also appears to be the case with the visual narrative laid out in the Wikipedia entry on Zoroastrianism as well. Like Judaism, Zoroastrianism appears to be presented as a religion centered on people and their practices. Of the subjects depicted in the 15 images in the entry, nearly a third are people, almost as many again are buildings (identified as fire temples and decorated with the winged figure), and a number are either maps or art.¹¹ Although a photo of a relief sculpture of the winged figure, from Persepolis, is identified as “Farvahar,” apart from the text of the article, this symbol is given no further explanation in the photo captions. Although the particular images from the cover of Rose’s Zoroastrianism: An Introduction are reflected throughout the photos in the entry, the variety of subjects appears to confuse, rather than clarify, the depiction of the religion as a whole. Whereas the icons associated with things Zoroastrian on Wikipedia are few and consistent with its counterpart in the Introductions to Religion series, the images in the entry offer a rather disjointed picture of the religion that seems to stand out in stark contrast to the simplicity of the image on Rose’s book. The situation appears to be reversed with the Wikipedia entry and I.B. Tauris volume on Judaism: the seems to be disagreement on the particular symbols to stand in for the religion in each source, but the general depiction of the religion in photographs is consistent between the cover and encyclopedia.