Tallit (Petra and Red Sea)

This large painting was done shortly after I returned from my first trip to the Holy Land with many members of my church. It is a conflation of two landscapes: the rocky hills of Petra above and an undersea view of a coral reef in the Red Sea below. We witnessed these two contrasting landscapes on the same day and they seemed emblematic of the contrasting cultures which co-exist in the ancient world.  I hung zitzits along the seam which runs across the middle of the canvas (it was a painters’ drop-cloth) turning the upper half into a tallit, a jewish prayer shawl. Written on the traditional blue bands of the tallit is the prophecy from Amos 9:11-12 about the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem which James quotes in Acts 15:15-17 to reassure the Council at Jerusalem that God’s program for Israel had not been abandoned. Indeed, the tabernacle of David will be rebuilt after the Second Coming of Christ during the Millennial Kingdom and both Jews and Gentiles together will know their Lord.