Musician, artist, and seminarian CJ Dates is known for layering art over obsolete media (VHS cassette tapes, old maps, comic books, magazines). He explores the tension between a narrative that “devalues or flattens the human form” and a theology that “raises it to the media of the divine.” Focused on individuals as imago Dei, he reflects on that which is framed in time but shaped by what is timeless.
The sixth-century Codex Rossanensis is one of several “purple codices” written on expensive, purple-dyed vellum. It is possibly the oldest extant illuminated manuscript of the New Testament, containing Matthew and most of Mark. The Rossano Gospels include a cycle of miniatures that are sequentially arranged according to lectionary readings. The scene depicting the parable of the Good Samaritan in the upper register (with the four evangelists below) is read from left to right, beginning with the city of Jerusalem.