Daily Visible: Towards an Epistemology of the Divine Mediated Through (the) Pictures

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Thomas Wagner
• Subject Area: Protestant Theology
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 554535105

The aim of the project is to analyze the epistemology of the divine in Palestine/Israel (Cisjordan) in the 1st millennium BC by examining the mass media communication of knowledge constructions about the divine on the basis of stamp and cylinder seals. Seals are understood as externalizations of religious thoughts and as a medium for conveying a model of reality. As such, they serve to manifest ideas and social structures, and their increasing dissemination establishes spheres of influence and knowledge. Using digitally assisted methods (AI-supported image analysis to recognize repeating patterns, geospatial and social epistemic network analysis), we will visualize the communicative value of the images via the knowledge constructs of the divine they convey, their underlying patterns/thought structures and their spheres of influence. The description of each sigil will be in terms of space and time as basic epistemic categories. Our aim is to map the epistemic centers and the networks emanating from them in terms of local social and economic conditions, land use, settlement patterns, trade and communication routes. In this way, the relationship between the communication of knowledge construction through sign/symbol/subject, the resulting standards, the relationship of the individual artefact to the local and regional pictorial program and thus their local interpretations become visible. This approach requires a combination of different analytical perspectives and their methods (iconography, archaeology, epistemology, and digital approaches). Based on the analysis of images as information carriers and means of communication, we will describe the construction, contextualization, and encoding of epistemes as well as their decoding, recontextualization, and reconstruction in different epistemic environments. Within the research group network, another project takes up the approach of a local perspective of sanctuaries as epistemic centers and their connections. The representation of visual images also has an effect on the linguistic images used to describe the divine, as discussed in other projects. With its analysis, the project makes a contribution to the description of the interaction of iconography and linguistic metaphor for the trans-medial formation of thought structures of the divine which has been effective from antiquity to modern constructions of images of God.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 5949: Epistemology of the Divine: In Search of the Religious Thought Structures/Patterns of Ancient Palestine/Israel
• International Connection: Brazil
• Cooperation Partner: Professor Dr. Silas Klein Cardoso