Art and the Bible by Francis Schaeffer, Part II
August 8th, 2007 by Menachem Wecker
The Aesthetic Elevator posted an interesting response to part one of my review of Art and the Bible, and I would like to clarify my position.
Schaeffer is quite right to point out that there was a lot of art in the temple, which God commanded. I am not sure he is right that there is secular work (he cites flowers, oxen, etc.), because those are all religious symbols as well, but his point that the Bible cannot be anti-art seems correct. What remains to be proven, in my mind, is that the art of the temple is important theologically. Schaeffer says of the stones of the temple:
The temple was covered with precious stones for beauty. There was no pragmatic reason for the precious stones. They had no utilitarian purpose. God simply wanted beauty in the temple. God is interested in beauty. (26)
That being said, I imagine most of the people who went to the temple did not admire the beauty of the architecture, just as most tourists today do not care for art. One can only guess that the Jews living in the time of the temple were no artsier as a people than we are today; certainly, they were ill-educated former slaves–and probably even illiterate. So whereas I am convinced that art is important in its own right, and specifically in the context of religion, I am not yet convinced that it necessarily played an important religious role to the people who were not Bezalel and Moses.
I will address this a bit more in part three.