Keel organizes the vast iconographic data into thematic categories that directly correlate with the Book of Psalms: How to Spot a Leviathan, the Many-Headed Marine Spirit
: Literary imagery in the Old Testament often mirrors themes found in ANE art, such as the king as a "shepherd" or the sea as a "chaos monster". Key Symbolic Domains The Symbolism of the Biblical World: Ancient Ne...
: Keel uses monumental reliefs, freestanding statues, amulets, scarabs, and cylinder seals to illuminate biblical concepts. Keel organizes the vast iconographic data into thematic
Othmar Keel’s seminal work, , serves as a bridge between the visual art of antiquity and the poetic landscape of the Hebrew Bible. First published in 1972, Keel’s methodology—often called iconographic exegesis —challenges the idea that the Bible exists in a literary vacuum, proving instead that its metaphors are deeply embedded in the "conceptual world" of the Ancient Near East (ANE). The Lens of Iconography First published in 1972
