Let there be images
The biblical story of Creation is embodied in words: “God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, a first day” (Genesis 1:3-5). The continuation of this story was transmitted to us through written (handwritten or printed) words, as was its beginning. These words were imbued with authority by Tradition, and only through them does Judaism allow one to imagine the picture of Creation (as well as other pictures, since images must first be imagined). Later texts as well, including scientific texts, were extremely cautious with pictures, making sure to distance the pictures from the written words, and maintain each as separate categories: words with other words; pictures with other pictures.
Philosopher Vilém Flusser predicted that the invention of photography would disrupt such distinctions. Photography, appearing after modern science, is not only an efficient technology for creating pictures but also (mainly) a means of translating scientific texts into visual language, a universe of technological images. In this universe, science that battles visual ideologies will absorb those ideologies and become visual.
