“Why is the Bible more Entertaining & Instructive than any other book?” William Blake asked in a letter. His answer is that this text, along with some others, is not a work of history or record, theological analysis or moral teaching, but inspiration. He continues: “Is it not because they [he has all inspired texts in mind] are addressed to the Imagination, which is Spiritual Sensation, & but mediately to the Understanding or Reason? “
As he puts it in another place: “The Hebrew Bible & the Gospel of Jesus are not Allegory, but Eternal Vision or Imagination of All that Exists .”
In this talk, delivered to a seminar at Virginia Theological Seminary, Mark Vernon explores Blake’s attitude towards the bible and unpacks how he depicted a series of gospel scenes including the woman caught in adultery, the entry into Jerusalem, the crucifixion and the resurrection. Each in their own way present Blake’s central conviction about Christianity and the significance of Jesus – a mystical reading: namely that God becomes as we are, that we may be as he is, and that in Jesus, human beings can see that they, too, share in the human form divine.
