Popular (Mis)depictions of Biblical Stories thread

[patrick457]

Moses parted the Red Sea.

False. He parted Lake Timsah, the “Reed Sea,” and even then, it can hardly be called a miracle because this lake can dry up, but can drown a group of people if the waters were stirred up enough.

Alternatively, Moses parted one of the bodies of water connected with the Red Sea proper, such as the Gulfs of Suez or Aqaba.

1 Kings 9:26 seems to indicate that the Red Sea port of Aqaba is located on the “Red” Sea. The Hebrews seem to have understood the Red Sea to have been contiguous from the Gulf of Suez to the Gulf of Aqaba. There may have been marshy areas filled with reeds in the vicinity millenia ago. Plus, these bodies of water are filled with coral and thus would have also called in the Greek erythra thalassa (“Red” Sea), which is the phrase used in the Septuagint for Yam Suph, which could be translated as “Reed Sea,” or if you’ll connect the word suph with suphah or soph, meaning “storm” and “end,” respectively, “Storm Sea” or “Sea of the End/Sea of Destruction”.

 

[Sir_Anthony]

Alternatively, Moses parted one of the bodies of water connected with the Red Sea proper, such as the Gulfs of Suez or Aqaba.

1 Kings 9:26 seems to indicate that the Red Sea port of Aqaba is located on the “Red” Sea. The Hebrews seem to have understood the Red Sea to have been contiguous from the Gulf of Suez to the Gulf of Aqaba. There may have been marshy areas filled with reeds in the vicinity millenia ago. Plus, these bodies of water are filled with coral and thus would have also called in the Greek erythra thalassa (“Red” Sea), which is the phrase used in the Septuagint for Yam Suph, which could be translated as “Reed Sea,” or if you’ll connect the word suph with suphah or soph, meaning “storm” and “end,” respectively, “Storm Sea” or “Sea of the End/Sea of Destruction”.

I think ultimately the way to find where the crossing was, is not to look for the water ways, but probably determining the location of Mt. Sinai/Horeb, I personally see it on the Sinai Peninsula, which would tell you that the red sea crossing is either in the gulf of suez or the marsh lakes north of the gulf of suez. However, there are some people who argue that the Mountain is located in modern Saudi Arabia

 

[patrick457]

It is interesting though the Protestant Charismatic Church I used to attend before I came home, used to really put Mary Magadalene on a pedastal (like she was Mary, Theotokos), and used all the traditional interpretation of her, which made me always wonder if they knew where those traditions came from? I thought they were supposedly Sola Scriptura, but whatever, sorry I just had to vent that.

That also boggled me. If the more fundamentalist branches of Protestantism views the Church as the Whore of Babylon and want to totally disassociate themselves from the Church, why do they still carry off some iconographic elements that Catholics use? Why didn’t they choose to depict Jesus as a clean-shaven man with short hair, for instance (Jack Chick, at least, shows God as a faceless, hairless man )?

 

[JB_Brother_4446]

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

Wasn’t there an Italian cohort so wouldn’t one or two guys have lorica segmentata?