Popular (Mis)depictions of Biblical Stories thread

[patrick457]

A lot of times in art, Moses is shown with two horns of light coming out of his head. This is because Jerome accidentally translated the Hebrew word for “rays” as “horns” in the Vulgate, in reference to the light shining from Moses’ face when he came down from Sinai.

Yep, for example these medieval Danish frescoes of Moses:

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Moses riding a boat with wheels (the Ark of the Covenant), carrying the tablets of the law and his staff.

http://www.the-orb.net/encyclop/culture/artarch/danish/tomoses/04-019.jpg
Moses is…you guessed it, the horned guy.*

I’ve actually heard about people complaining about depictions of Moses with horns, claiming it is demonic.

 

[Matariel]

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Moses riding a boat with wheels (the Ark of the Covenant), carrying the tablets of the law and his staff.



I have to say, that’s the most humourous depiction of Moses I’ve ever seen! That giants smile… little horns, riding in a boat on wheels? LOL…

 

[patrick457]

I have to say, that’s the most humourous depiction of Moses I’ve ever seen! That giants smile… little horns, riding in a boat on wheels? LOL…

I guess the wheeled boat made it more funny (perhaps the poor painter confused Noah’s Ark with the Ark of the Covenant)…

 

[Matariel]

I guess the wheeled boat made it more funny (perhaps the poor painter confused Noah’s Ark with the Ark of the Covenant)…

Yeah… he’s really proud of that book he’s holding… or are those the holy Tablets, LOL.

 

[patrick457]

Yeah… he’s really proud of that book he’s holding… or are those the holy Tablets, LOL.

Those are the tablets. Now at least we know the true reason why Moses broke the two tablets of stone when he went down the mountain of Sinai.

 

[Matariel]

Those are the tablets. Now at least we know the true reason why Moses broke the two tablets of stone when he went down the mountain of Sinai.

Why? He was too busy piloting his wheeled boat down the mountainside and dropped them?

And I wonder what that little purse is next to him for. :hmm:

 

[patrick457]

Why? He was too busy piloting his wheeled boat down the mountainside and dropped them?

And I wonder what that little purse is next to him for. :hmm:

And lo, Moses was testing his newly built vessel which he calleth an ‘arc.’ And saith he unto the LORD God, “Oh LORD, by thy leave, I shall test this mine vehicle, to see whether I hath made it properly.” But the LORD saith unto him, “Moses, if thou ridest, thou shalt be in grave danger. Verily I, the LORD, say, ridest thou not upon that.” But Moses was already speeding off down the mountain and heeded Him not. So the anger of the LORD was flared, and He caused one of the ark’s wheels to stop, and Moses did stumble down, and brake the tables, the tables unto which the Law was graven by the finger of God, beneath the mount. And God saw all this and saith, “Verily I say unto thee, all generations of men shalt call thine vehicle a ‘car’ and shalt say that thou hath suffered a ‘car accident’, even unto the ending of the world.” And Moses was exceedingly shamed, for the LORD hath turned his ‘arc’ unto a ‘car’ by His own words, and asked forgiveness. And the LORD bade him to go unto a man known as a ‘mecanic’, and the mecanic did fix the car of Moses, but for an high fee. Therefore Moses cried out unto the LORD…

By the way, since we’re talking about the Tablets of the Law, has anyone noticed some differences with how the artists commonly portray the Tablets with the Biblical account?

 

[LilyM]

And lo, Moses was testing his newly built vessel which he calleth an ‘arc.’ And saith he unto the LORD God, “Oh LORD, by thy leave, I shall test this mine vehicle, to see whether I hath made it properly.” But the LORD saith unto him, “Moses, if thou ridest, thou shalt be in grave danger. Verily I, the LORD, say, ridest thou not upon that.” But Moses was already speeding off down the mountain and heeded Him not. So the anger of the LORD was flared, and He caused one of the ark’s wheels to stop, and Moses did stumble down, and brake the tables, the tables unto which the Law was graven by the finger of God, beneath the mount. And God saw all this and saith, “Verily I say unto thee, all generations of men shalt call thine vehicle a ‘car’ and shalt say that thou hath suffered a ‘car accident’, even unto the ending of the world.” And Moses was exceedingly shamed, for the LORD hath turned his ‘arc’ unto a ‘car’ by His own words, and asked forgiveness. And the LORD bade him to go unto a man known as a ‘mecanic’, and the mecanic did fix the car of Moses, but for an high fee. Therefore Moses cried out unto the LORD…

By the way, since we’re talking about the Tablets of the Law, has anyone noticed some differences with how the artists commonly portray the Tablets with the Biblical account?

Let’s see if I can remember this without looking up my Bible - most portrayals would have five commandments on each of the tablets, IIRC teh Bible says it was 3 on one tablet and 7 on the other.

Which kinda argues for the Catholic numbering as well - separating commandments about man’s relationship with God as opposed to those dealing with man’s relationship with fellow man).

 

[Matariel]

And lo, Moses was testing his newly built vessel which he calleth an ‘arc.’ And saith he unto the LORD God, “Oh LORD, by thy leave, I shall test this mine vehicle, to see whether I hath made it properly.” But the LORD saith unto him, “Moses, if thou ridest, thou shalt be in grave danger. Verily I, the LORD, say, ridest thou not upon that.” But Moses was already speeding off down the mountain and heeded Him not. So the anger of the LORD was flared, and He caused one of the ark’s wheels to stop, and Moses did stumble down, and brake the tables, the tables unto which the Law was graven by the finger of God, beneath the mount. And God saw all this and saith, “Verily I say unto thee, all generations of men shalt call thine vehicle a ‘car’ and shalt say that thou hath suffered a ‘car accident’, even unto the ending of the world.” And Moses was exceedingly shamed, for the LORD hath turned his ‘arc’ unto a ‘car’ by His own words, and asked forgiveness. And the LORD bade him to go unto a man known as a ‘mecanic’, and the mecanic did fix the car of Moses, but for an high fee. Therefore Moses cried out unto the LORD…

Man, that was hilarious, LOL.
Good stuff.

By the way, since we’re talking about the Tablets of the Law, has anyone noticed some differences with how the artists commonly portray the Tablets with the Biblical account?

Someone told me one place in the Bible it states there was only one tablet; but I don’t know…

 

[patrick457]

Someone told me one place in the Bible it states there was only one tablet; but I don’t know…

Not really. There were two.

And Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hands. The tablets were written on both sides – they were written on one side and the other. And the the tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.

(Exodus 32:15-16)

LilyM:

Let’s see if I can remember this without looking up my Bible - most portrayals would have five commandments on each of the tablets, IIRC teh Bible says it was 3 on one tablet and 7 on the other.

Which kinda argues for the Catholic numbering as well - separating commandments about man’s relationship with God as opposed to those dealing with man’s relationship with fellow man).

The Bible does not really say anything about how many commandments were written on a tablet (I think the 5-5 arrangement is more for reasons of symmetry, while the 3-7 arrangement is more a theological one). Exodus 32:15 says that the tablets are written on both sides* – and indeed some have thought that each tablet contained all ten commandments in imitation of ancient treaties, in which each party receives a copy of the treaty (usually written in stone), while the subordinate party places his copy of the pact inside the main temple of his god, which would be quite a parallel to the keeping of the Tablets inside the Tabernacle, within the Ark.

*There was in fact a Jewish tradition which states that the letters were not merely engraved on the surface of the tablets (which were made out of a huge block of sapphire that Moses owned and were either rectangular or cube-shaped and measured six tefachim, i.e. around 54 cm); they were fully bored through. In fact, while one would expect the reverse side to bear a mirror image since the letters were bored fully, both sides appeared normally; i.e. the back appeared identical to the front. Another is that the inner part of some Hebrew letters (either Samekh, which in paleo-Hebrew looked like an ‘O’, or the final Mem or Ayin in present-day Hebrew script) ‘hovered’ in place, despite the letters being graven fully.

And yep, we should also note that the Bible also doesn’t say that the tablets are semi-flat rounded off rectangles.

 

[patrick457]

http://img392.imageshack.us/img392/870/819theifsri7.jpg

Now, if y’all don’t mind, let’s talk about Golgotha for a bit.

1.) While the name does mean “the place of the skull,” the place’s appearance needn’t necessarily have looked like a skull; indeed this belief that Golgotha is named so because of its appearance is only recent, dating only from the 19th century.

The general belief from early Christian times onwards is that the reason why it is called such is either because of its function as a place of execution, i.e. there would have been bones strewn about all over the place, or the belief that Adam was buried there. In fact, St. Epiphanius of Salamis expressly said that “There is nothing to be seen on the place resembling this name; for it is not situated upon a height that it should be called (the place) of a skull, answering to the place of the head in the human body.”

Gordon’s Calvary (named after Major-General Charles George Gordon, who had popularized the site in 1882-83, after Otto Thenius of Dresden proposed this hill as the true Golgotha in 1842) resembles a skull and is popular among some Christians as the location of Jesus’ crucifixion; however, the features of the hill that make it look like a skull were not present in the first century. Archaeologists believe it to be a quarry or mine developed only in the past two or three centuries. In other words, its skull-like appearance is perhaps the result of modern quarrying operations (erosion may have also played a part).

2.) Many depictions and films show only three crosses on Golgotha (sometimes they are shown as very tall ones). However, it is possible that historically, Golgotha was filled with crosses (not just three), and that the crosses were not that high, so as to facilitate wild animals consuming the dead corpses of the victims hanging thereon. Personally (note that this is only a personal opinion), I also think that Jesus and the two criminals were not the only ones who hung on crosses on Golgotha that day, i.e. there were dead corpses who hung on other crosses or (less likely) some other victims who had already been crucified for quite some time and were near the location where the trio’s crosses are placed that didn’t do anything much to gain any specific mention in the Passion narrative while they were still alive.

 

[Matariel]

Another misconception, promulgated by Joseph Smith (a.k.a., the Prophet) was that the Urim and the Thummim (Lights and Perfections) were holy glasses.

And as for Galgotha, the traditional Catholic-Orthodox-Anglican site is clearly correct.

The Protestant “Galgotha” is, like you said, just a quarry.

I have another one:

I’ve seen Noah shown riding in a square boat, but why is the Ark always depicted squarely?

 

[patrick457]

Another misconception, promulgated by Joseph Smith (a.k.a., the Prophet) was that the Urim and the Thummim (Lights and Perfections) were holy glasses. :shrug

And as for Galgotha, the traditional Catholic-Orthodox-Anglican site is clearly correct.

The Protestant “Galgotha” is, like you said, just a quarry.

Actually, at the time of Jesus, the site where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre now stands was also an (abandoned) quarry converted to an execution site-cum-garden. As for the Garden Tomb, it is too old (dating from the Iron Age) to have been a “new tomb” at Jesus’ era.

Jeffrey R. Chadwick (an LDS), while still believing in Gordon’s Calvary, makes interesting arguments against the authenticity of the Garden Tomb.

I have another one:

I’ve seen Noah shown riding in a square boat, but why is the Ark always depicted squarely?

Squarely? In my personal experience, many depictions show the Ark in the shape of a regular boat. Can you give any examples of this?

 

[Matariel]

Actually, at the time of Jesus, the site where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre now stands was also an (abandoned) quarry converted to an execution site-cum-garden. As for the Garden Tomb, it is too old (dating from the Iron Age) to have been a “new tomb” at Jesus’ era.

Yeah, but Christians had been worshipping at the Holy Sepulchre site since Apostolic times, then the pagan emperor intentionally buit a temple ontop of it to cover it up. Fortunately, St. Helena fixed all that.

And she’s in my signature.

Squarely? In my personal experience, many depictions show the Ark in the shape of a regular boat. Can you give any examples of this?

Oops… I mean rectangular, sorry.

But now that you mention it, I did see one that looked like and old man standing in a tiny box, LOL.

 

[LeroyCRHP]

Mary Magdalene is not called a prostitute.

 

[sarah_anne_628]

Mary Magdalene is not called a prostitute.

That has always annoyed me. I believe she was a demonic that Jesus cured.

 

[patrick457]

Yeah, but Christians had been worshipping at the Holy Sepulchre site since Apostolic times, then the pagan emperor intentionally buit a temple ontop of it to cover it up. Fortunately, St. Helena fixed all that.

And she’s in my signature.

Correct. And these Christians (a majority of whom were most likely gentile) would have passed the tradition through word-of-mouth. Though Hadrian banned all Jews from Jerusalem in A.D. 135, Christians not of Jewish ancestry could and did live in Jerusalem from Hadrian’s time on. If the Christians were not so sure that the site existed atop the temple that Hadrian built, they would not have paid Constantine et al. to dismantle the temple. Had they not been certain that a tomb and an ex-execution site lay beneath it that happened to be sacred to them, they would been less likely to suggest the costly work of excavating the site. Eusebius, who was present when Hadrian’s earthen fill was excavated, revealing the Holy Sepulchre, stated that,

“…as soon as the original surface of the ground, beneath the covering of earth, appeared, immediately and contrary to all expectation, the venerable and hallowed monument of our Savior’s resurrection was discovered. Then indeed did this most holy cave present a faithful similitude of his return to life, in that, after lying buried in darkness, it again emerged to light, and afforded to all who came to witness the sight, a clear and visible proof of the wonders of which that spot had once been the scene, a testimony to the resurrection of the Savior clearer than any voice could give.”

These proofs which had convinced Constantine and everyone else present may have been either the fragments of the True Cross, or Christian graffiti on the site (a la the graffiti found in the catacombs and other sacred early Christian sites) which provided clear proof to everyone that this was a site frequented by Christians and is in all probability the actual place of death and tomb of Jesus, or a combination of both.

Oops… I mean rectangular, sorry.

But now that you mention it, I did see one that looked like and old man standing in a tiny box, LOL.

We don’t exactly know how the Ark of Noah appeared, since the Bible itself is quite vague on the instructions given – it only gives the basics (Genesis 6:14-16).

“Make yourself an ark of gofer wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it with pitch inside and out. And this is how you are to make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. Make a roof for the ark and finish it, to a cubit you shall finish it from above. Put a door in the side of the ark, and make lower, second, and third decks…”

Some actually favor the box-like rectangular shape as being more “authentic” looking than the popular one which looks like a boat – with rounded hulls and all – with a house inside, since it is the more simple design. Plus, in some parallels of the deluge story in other cultures (such as the one in the Gilgamesh Epic and the story of Deucalion), the “ark” used are usually cube-shaped or a chest. However, still another theory proposes that the ark may not have been box-shaped, but was rather in the shape of a barge. Because of this vagueness, people have actually attempted to depict Noah’s Ark in a number of ways.

http://img360.imageshack.us/img360/6277/15noahsarktc3.jpg
Here is a “submarine” version.

http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/7255/800pxsaintsavinarchenoaqs4.jpg
This one shows the three decks more literally.

http://img360.imageshack.us/img360/475/800px07manasseschroniclla2.jpg
This one shows the ark as being more of a literal ship, complete with masts.

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/4451/noedb2.jpg
This is the more box-like version.

Interestingly enough, in the Hebrew version, the word used for Noah’s ark is the same as that used for Moses’ basket, tebah, while the word used for the Ark of the Covenant is different ('aron, “chest”). yet in the Septuagint, the word used for the Ark of the Covenant and the ark of Noah (kibōtos, “chest” or “box”) are the same while Moses’ basket is rendered by a different word, thibin “wicker basket” (or in some variants kalathos, “reed basket”).

 

[patrick457]

Now let’s do something a little more trivial.

In most Jesus films, Roman soldiers are commonly shown as legionaries, dressed in lorica segmentata, a red tunic, and a galea (usually of the Imperial Gallic type).

However, the Roman soldiers in the Holy Land and mentioned in the Bible were probably all auxiliaries, not legionaries. Judea at the time of Jesus’ birth was a client kingdom, ruled by Herod the Great under Rome’s authority. He probably had his own troops for security and general military needs, though Rome may have sent him temporary reinforcements when necessary. Some thirty years later, by Jesus’ time, Judea had become an equestrian province with Pontius Pilate as the current prefect/procurator.

Pilate was of equestrian rank, not a senator, and therefore was not of high enough status to command a legion, so his garrison was composed of auxiliary troops, with the nearest legions being stationed in Syria (where the governor of Syria is). There may have been a few small details of legionaries or lone centurions on detatched duty here and there, but their tasks would not have had anything to do with the day to day operations in Judea.

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/Homework/romans/images/soldiers/auxil.jpg

 

[Pons]

I’ve heard that victims of crucifixion may have been pierced through the wrists instead of the palms as this was more secure. Also, they would not have carried whole crosses but just the crossbeams.

 

[patrick457]

I’ve heard that victims of crucifixion may have been pierced through the wrists instead of the palms as this was more secure. Also, they would not have carried whole crosses but just the crossbeams.

1.) While Dr. Pierre Barbet had suggested that the victims were nailed through the wrists and that the cause of death in crucifixion was asphyxiation, Dr. Frederick Zugibe recently questioned this and proved that the victim could be safely hung on the cross through the palms and that the cause of death is more due to shock. (WARNING: Graphic photographs present in the link; discretion advised)

2.) Yes, we need to remember that crosses were not made of thoroughly-polished plywood; they were beams roughly cut to shape. Adding two beams of such make together would produce a cross too heavy for anyone to carry, somewhere over 300 pounds (135 kg). By contrast, the crossbeam (patibulum) would weigh only 75-125 pounds (35-60 kg).

Since we’re talking about the crucifixion:

========================

The treatment of the Crucifixion in art during the earlier Middle Ages strongly supports the tradition of four nails, and the language of certain historical writers (none, however, earlier than Gregory of Tours, “De Gloria Martyrum”, vi), favors the same view. A majority of the earliest artworks depicting the crucifixion depict the feet as being separate from each other (at times with notable absence of any indication of nails), which may indicate that victims were usually either nailed or tied with the feet separate from each other. Originally, this was the universal and standard way of depicting the Crucifixion of Jesus (and mainly continues to be so today in Eastern iconography).

http://www.beith-morounoye.org/gallery/rabbula-crucifixion.jpg
The Crucifixion, from the Rabbula Gospels (ca. 586)

However, in the thirteenth century, most of Western art began to represent the feet of Jesus as placed one over the other and pierced with a single nail (some suggest that the change was due to the symbolic meaning of the number three which could represent the Persons of the Trinity, though other hypotheses exist). This depiction of three nails had actually caused some controversy when it was first introduced. For example, in the latter part of the 13th century the bishop of Tuy in Iberia complained about the “heretics” who carve “ill-shapen” images of the crucified Jesus “with one foot laid over the other, so that both are pierced by a single nail, thus striving to annul or render doubtful men’s faith in the Holy Cross and the traditions of the sainted Fathers.” Even so, the three nails began to supplant the four nails depiction in the West and became the standard, with a few exceptions cropping up every now and then.