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Book Review: Theology, Mortality, and the Human Life: Ephraim Radner, A Time to Keep: Theology, Mortality and the Shape of Human Life

primary gain here seems to be in the capacity of art to portray more than one scene simultaneously. For instance, some visual depictions bring coherence to the two Armageddon battles of Revelation (p. 188). Likewise, the authors suggest that Dürer’s depiction of the six trumpet judgments in one single image may take us behind the text to the jumbled kind of visionary experiences which may have inspired John’s writing in the first place (p. 106). Readers may be resistant to the suggestion here that these artistic depictions facilitate ‘deeper’ exegesis, rather than simply a different forum for exegesis. In this reviewer’s opinion, the greater interest and contribution of the book is in demonstrating how the arts illuminate the artists who produced them and the times in which they lived. For instance, in one medieval depiction, the Beast is identified with Islam, whereas a late twentieth century portrayal imagines him as leader of a European economic community; or one nineteenth century romantic depiction of heaven is vast and rural, whereas twentieth century depictions feature relationships, or dialogue with modern technology. Corresponding to this point that art reflects its time, the O’Hears concede to various limitations of art: Although the synchronicity of depiction may at times reflect exegesis, it may in other instances reflect the constraints of the medium, such as space limitations (pp. 95, 102). Conversely some images, which are simultaneous in Revelation, cannot be rendered thus visually (e.g., the New Jerusalem as both city and garden). Moreover, artistic depictions can often go against the text (pp. 63–9); and in the twentieth century, the language and images of the Apocalypse have often become decontextualized entirely, deployed instead to indicate worldwide devastation. Thus the book is at its best when used as a window, not into Revelation itself, but into its artists and their contexts over the past two millennia.