TANAKH AND TESTAMENT
A Reprobate Tinkers with Holy Writ

by Barry Moser

This talk has to do with how an ordinary man—an outsider to the faith that reveres the Bible as sacred—dealt with designing and illustrating the King James Bible. Its primary focus is on the making of reverent and respectful images without stooping to the pious and obsequious. Images that are provocative and intend to cause the reader to ask questions and see old familiar characters and stories in a new light. It deals with how Moser grappled with images that befitted such sanctity and monumentality and how he struggled with his own shortcomings and arrogance in engaging a text that the likes of Jerome, Aquinas, & Luther, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, and Chagall already engaged and elucidated. It also speaks to the physical and intellectual rigors that he had to be willing to risk and endure, as well as the inevitable misunderstandings, failures, and criticisms that wouldbefall him.