Reading Midrash as graphic artistic activity : the compilation of Midrash Rabbah as possible influences on early Jewish and Christian art

Midrash is a genre of rabbinic Bible exegesis, composed by various authors and compiled in anthologies during the first seven centuries of the Common Era. This thesis explores the reading of Midrash and its possible influence on early artistic activity. Examples of early Jewish and Christian biblical representations that display some degree of midrashic impact, are presented in order to establish the existence of a relationship between Midrash and art. Finally, by a systematic reading of the corpus of midrashic literature found in Midrash Rabbah, Midrashim that suggest graphic representation, but which have not yet to been found among early art forms, are categorized and analyzed