Judaism and Image: Iconography and Purpose of Carpet Pages in Early Medieval Manuscripts

It is widely believed that, in accordance with the Torah's command, Judaism forbids the creation of any images of "what is in the heavens, on the earth, and in the waters beneath the earth," and that visual art associated with Jewish tradition simply does not exist. This notion persists today, despite the vast number of discoveries and studies in Jewish art that convincingly refute this thesis. The relevance of this article is due to the insufficient scholarly attention paid to the study of the purpose of images within Jewish religious practice and the need to develop such research. The purpose of this work is to understand the specificity of miniatures in early medieval Jewish codices (manuscripts of the Torah and Tanakh). To achieve this goal, the following tasks were undertaken. 1) The status of the sacred book in Judaism was analyzed. 2) The iconography of miniatures in early medieval codices from the National Library of Russia and their correlation with the texts were studied. 3) The purpose of carpet pages in these manuscripts was clarified. The material for this study consisted of miniatures in Torah and Tanakh manuscripts from the collection of 10th-13th century manuscripts from the Middle East, housed in the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg. The methodological basis of the study includes a phenomenological description of the artifacts, an examination of the manuscripts in the context of Jewish understandings of the Torah and Tanakh, and conceptual analysis with the use of contemporary works devoted to the digital decipherment of masora figurata (commentaries written in the form of micrographic ornaments) in medieval codices. Solving these tasks led to the following results: 1. The systematization of data on the status of sacred books demonstrates that codices are perceived by Jews as sacred objects. 2. The only form of imagery in these books consists of fully ornamented carpet pages, which include geometric and floral motifs, temple symbolism, and patterns made using micrographic techniques. Data analysis led to the conclusion that the carpet pages, together with the cover, form a unique "garment" for the book, visually marking it as a sacred object with a special status. 3. The images of the carpet pages reinforce the book's status as a receptacle of the divine presence replacing the presence of God in the lost Temple. It is concluded that the key feature of artistic images in early medieval Jewish manuscripts is their inclusion in the religious practice of using books of Holy Scripture as sacred objects. The novelty of the study lies in the interpretation of micrographic ornaments and images of the temple, not merely as decoration of purely aesthetic value, but as a key instrument of the sacralization of the manuscript, actualizing the iconic function of the Holy Scripture and reinforcing the perception of the book of revelation as a place of the real presence of the divine in the material world.

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