Museum puts Jesus on display

"Jesus is far too important a figure to be left only to theologians and the church."

CW Staff
From releases
- Edmonton -

Jesus is the headline attraction at the most ambitious exhibition ever staged by the Provincial Museum of Alberta. "Anno Domini: Jesus Through the Centuries invites us to glimpse some of the ways Jesus has been understood and how this understanding has shaped and reshaped culture," says curator David J. Goa.

The exhibition, which opens October 7, comprises 325 artistic treasures, including paintings, statues, icons, stained glass, illuminated manuscripts, books and ecclesiastical objects dating from the third to the 20th century. Many are on loan from prestigious museums and galleries as well as from private collections, churches and monasteries around the world.

"Jesus is far too important a figure to be left only to theologians and the church," Jaroslav Pelikan, a renowned scholar of Christianity and culture, has famously said. He is the exhibition's honorary curator.

The exhibition's 18 themes are based on Pelikan's classic work, Jesus Through the Centuries: His Place in the History of Culture. In the book he discusses how each age produces a different image of Jesus, each discovering answers to the

fundamental questions of human existence and destiny in his life. From the Rabbi (teacher) in the first century to the Liberator in the 19th and 20th, the way a particular age depicted Jesus is an essential key to understanding the era.

"Each object of art or of material culture has its own story to tell. But what is so remarkable about it is that it turns out to be part of the story of Jesus too," observes Pelikan.

The museum is careful to explain that the exhibition does not explore what Jesus means (that's a task for Christians), but that it displays how his person and teaching have been interpreted and understood. Promotional literature insists that this is a cultural exhibition. "Our obligation as a museum is to offer the public a window onto this part of the cultural fabric of our world."

The exhibition will provide a venue for a series of concerts, speakers and film showings. And it will feature a 15-minute documentary film structured around the Beatitudes. Who Do You Say That I Am? was produced especially for the exhibition.

Anno Domini opens October 7 and runs to January 7. A complete schedule, a virtual tour and information about admission hours and prices is available on the Internet: www.pma.edmonton.ab.ca/