The Quest To Visualize The Bible

The Bible is by no means a picture book. But, for its lack of illustrations, it still presents many powerful images. A burning bush. A giant fish. An angel army. A pillar of fire. A snake. A harp. A wall. A fruit tree. A lamb. A tomb. A fishing net.

The Bible seizes the visceral realities of what it means to be human—in all that gore, grief and glory—by connecting its ideas and its characters to natural elements we interact with daily (even if, in some cases, those elements are acting very differently than how we typically experience them).

So, to bridge this gap between the descriptions of the world found in scripture and our physical experience of it, we have artwork. Christian artwork has spanned every generation of believers, with Christ himself being depicted through a multitude of ethnicities, time periods and artistic mediums.

But is “Christian” artwork the only art through which Christians can see reflections of scripture? Ben Quash, Director of The Visual Commentary on Scripture doesn’t think so. The Visual Commentary on Scripture is an online resource from King’s College London which combines theology, art history, and Biblical scholarship to pair artwork from all across the stylistic and historical map with different sections of scripture. These pairings are called exhibits and feature high-quality scans of art pieces tied together with Biblical commentary.

After over a decade working on the project, Quash is taking a step back. He was interviewed on this show 6 years ago when the project was still relatively young. So we wanted to have him back on the show as his time ends to talk through what he accomplished, why the internet needs the VCS site, and what’s next.

You can find the Visual Commentary on Scripture at thevcs.org. You can also sign up for their new newsletter called Bible and Art Daily, which will send artwork and an audio scripture commentary straight to your inbox every day. You can also find them on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and X.