Lesser Ury's painting Moses Climbing Mount Sinai
(1905-07), in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in Israel, is one of the
many large illustrations that are a feature of a volume of nearly
400 pages, Journey Through the Old Testament: The five books of
Moses: A family storybook with masterpieces of art by Suzanne
E. Lier. Ury's haunting Moses Sees the Promised Land
(1928) is also included, as well as many Old Masters. The book is
aimed at children and their parents, with the intention of
rectifying Christian neglect of the Pentateuch, and respecting the
reality of God's revelation to the Jews in the "First Testament"
and being sensitive to Jewish understanding of those scriptures.
Lier breaks up the scriptural books into clear sections, and
provides commentary on the text for adults, while alongside, in a
larger typeface, are easier-to-understand explanations of the
illustrations, aimed at children. Besides discussing such matters
as how to read the Old Testament, Lier also digresses to consider
the question "Biblical art in spite of the ban on images?" It is
suggested that children of eight and upwards could enjoy looking at
the book on their own (Verlag Bible & Kunst, £22.17;
978-3-9815308-1-0)