ABSTRACT
Illumination became an art unto itself, with rich traditions and a thriving grammar and vocabulary of representation and critique. The Vienna Genesis and its cousin manuscripts are magnificent books, and incredibly important because they stand at the head of the tradition that would reach full flower nearly a millennium later in the lavish manuscripts produced by Christian monasteries. In a short essay, Michael D. Levin collates some of this evidence; as early as 1957, scholars were calling attention to divergences between the Vienna Genesis' text and its illustrations. Where scholars had once assumed the Christian invention of the book, or at least of the illustrated book and that Christian books came out of the same wash of interpretation as all the rest. If Christianity and Judaism were truly two ways that had parted, then the readers would expect to find two traditions of book illustration, two traditions of biblical interpretation, and two iconographies of the texts of ancient Israel.
