The Minor, Trivial Stuff Thread

[Spirithound]

Would it have been true in the time before Christ that membership in Israel also had to do with whether your mother was Israelite?

 

[patrick457]

Would it have been true in the time before Christ that membership in Israel also had to do with whether your mother was Israelite?

You’re correct that modern Rabbinic Judaism (with some exceptions, such as Reform and Liberal Judaism) tends to follow a matrilineal principle for determination of the status of offspring of mixed marriages:

• If both parents are Jewish then their child will also be considered Jewish, and the child takes the status of the father: for example, if the father was a kohen, the child also becomes one.
• If either parent is subject to a genealogical disability (e.g., is a mamzer, an illegitimate child) then the child is also subject to that disability. If one of the parents is not Jewish, the rule is that the child takes the status of the mother (Kodashim 66b, Shulchan Aruch, EH 4:19). Accordingly, if the mother is Jewish, so is her child, and if she is not Jewish, neither is her child considered Jewish.
• The child can be considered Jewish only by a process of conversion to Judaism, and the child is also freed from any disabilities and special status to which the father may have been subject (e.g., being a mamzer or kohen) under Jewish law.

Pre-exilic Israelite society, however, was apparently patrilineal: there were Israelite men who married foreign women, and their children’s status was determined by the father’s religion. Kinship is determined by the ties one inherits through one’s father. It never occurred to anyone in pre-exilic times to argue that such marriages were null and void, that foreign women must leave their native gods in their father’s house (note that the connection between one’s ‘nationality’ and one’s religion was still strong then so the idea of “conversion” into one religion to another was a foreign one), or even that the offspring of the marriage were not Israelite if the women did not convert. The woman was joined to the house of Israel by being joined to her Israelite husband; the act of marriage was functionally equivalent to the later idea of conversion.

Although Deuteronomy 7:3 prohibits Israelite men from marrying Canaanite women, and Israelite women from being given in marriage to Canaanite men, the legislator is apparently concerned about the former, since “his daughters might play the harlot with their gods and cause your sons also to play the harlot with their gods.” (Exodus 34:16 NASB) This concern indicates not a matrilineal principle but a patriarchal society in which the cult, as well as everything else of importance, was the domain of men. If Israelite men married foreign women and followed other gods, the results could be catastrophic; but if Israelite women married foreign men, who would notice? Furthermore, when a woman was married she usually became part of her husband’s family and was no longer under the jurisdiction or authority of her native people. Hence, like the women themselves, the legal and narrative texts of the OT, like literature of other societies enacting similar rules, pay little attention to marriages between foreign males and Israelite females.

Now, some believe that this the law of matrilineal descent was adopted a bit later (it was still relatively unknown in the Second Temple period; being only first attested in the Mishnah) in response to intermarriage. Others say that the frequent cases of Jewish women being raped by non-Jews led to the enforcement of this law; how could a raped Jewish woman’s child be considered non-Jewish by the Jewish community in which he or she would be raised? Still others believe that the matrilineal principle was borrowed from Roman law.

 

[patrick457]

‘Mount Calvary’

(NOTA BENE: A good deal of this is borrowed from that article I linked to previously)

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/9739/3crossesatsunset.jpg

And they took Jesus and led Him away, and carrying the cross by Himself, He went out to the place called Place of a Skull (which is called in Hebrew ‘Golgotha’), where they crucified Him, and with Him two others: on this side and on that side, but in the middle Jesus.

• John 19:16b-18

Nowadays it is common to assume that Golgotha was a sort of hill (hence the appellation ‘Mount Calvary’). Many artists and filmmakers have followed suit: sometimes to the extent of showing it as a very high and steep ridge, as Mel Gibson does in his film The Passion of the Christ. There are even hymns entitled There is a Green Hill Far Away or On Golgotha’s Hill Christ the Son.

However, we must say this: the Gospels themselves do not say that it was a hill – or for that matter, that the ‘Skull Place’ was an elevated area at all; they all just say something to the effect that it was a “place (topos) called ‘Skull’.” This may be one of the cases where popular conception can color our reading of the Scriptures.

There is no explicit mention of Golgotha as a raised place until the 4th century, when it is spoken of as a monticulus (‘little hill’) by the anonymous pilgrim of Burdigala (Bordeaux). The expression does not occur again until once in the 6th century, after which we do not come across it until Bernard the Pilgrim visited Palestine in the 9th century and spoke of a Mons Calvariae. From thence the expression was adopted by Western writers and became popular. The early Greek writers, with the exception of Sts. Gregory of Nazianzus (c. 329 – 389/390) and Cyril of Jerusalem (ca. 313 – 386), also never speak of it as being connected with a hill or a height, and it must be remembered that both lived a bit after the traditional area was officially discovered by Constantine.

Christian iconography itself may have also played a part in making this idea widespread. As time passed, it became quite common to depict Jesus’ cross as standing on a little mound (in later artworks, a skull – usually identified as Adam’s – may be seen beneath it). Artists then have almost invariably depicted the crucifixion as occurring on a high hill or on an elevated ground, probably to carry out the idea that it could be seen from afar (cf. Matthew 27:55-56; Mark 15:40-41; Luke 23:49).

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/1736/23breliqlatercrucifixs.jpg

http://fatherstephen.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/crucifixion.jpg

http://www.wouwerman.org/A-View-of-Mount-Calvary-with-the-Crucifixion,-1652.jpg

The identification of it as a hill may probably lie on the fact that the traditional area (now encased inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, on the right of the present entrance of the church) was an isolated knoll presently about 5-6 meters high, located on the tilled saddle of part of the slope of a hill, possibly known once as Mount Gareb, but this would not have looked in any way like a hill: rather, it would have looked like an elongated crater. The entire area had once been a quarry for building stones during the Iron Age (ca. 10th-7th centuries BC), and was characterized by irregular rock cuttings, scarps and caves. The slope had been substantially cut away by the quarrying, and good-quality stone eventually ran out, leading to its abandonment. Archeologists believe that the area was then filled with arable soil, presumably to turn the ugly quarry remains into a beautiful garden.

This hump may have been especially cut back in either the 2nd century (for the pagan temple built on the site) or the 4th century (for the Martyrium complex of the basilica), or simply a remnant of the area’s days as a quarry. Whenever it reached its present form as a kind of rock finger, some believe it would have been quite impossible for three people to have been crucified on top of it due to lack of adequate space.

Now, early Christians seem to have tended also to think that Golgotha was the name of the region rather than that specific outcrop of rock, which we now know as the Rock of Calvary. Even when it was determined as the actual location of the crucifixion, it still did not become ‘the’ Golgotha until about the 6th century AD. Before that, it was just called “the rock of the Cross”; (Egeria, Itin. 24.7; 25.9, 11; 27.3, 6; 30.1, 2; 31.4; 35.2; 36.4.5; 37.1.4, 5, 8; 39.2; Jerome, Ep. 58.3.) the basilica itself was understood to be “on Golgotha,” which was understood to be a large area.

 

[Langdell]

Something I’ve wondered for a long time (seriously): Will new wine really burst old wineskins?

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[patrick457]

Something I’ve wondered for a long time (seriously): Will new wine really burst old wineskins?

Yep. Wineskins were usually made of whole tanned goatskins where the legs and tail were cut off and had been sealed. These were soft and pliable when new. They would stretch and bulge with ‘new’, that is, unfermented, wine being put in as it continues to ferment due to the emission of carbon dioxide (in the warm climate of Palestine, grape juice began to ferment very quickly and there was no easy way back then to prevent it), and then they would harden and set.

Fermentation in the wineskin might continue for another two to four months until the process slows down and stops. By that time the skin has been stretched to its limit. The collagen protein that gives the leather its stretching ability has been stretched out, and probably denatured by the alcohol, destroying its natural resiliency. So if ‘new’ wine was put into a hardened, brittle wineskin, fermentation risked bursting the skin.

 

[Langdell]

Yep. Wineskins were usually made of whole tanned goatskins where the legs and tail were cut off and had been sealed. These were soft and pliable when new. They would stretch and bulge with ‘new’, that is, unfermented, wine being put in as it continues to ferment due to the emission of carbon dioxide (in the warm climate of Palestine, grape juice began to ferment very quickly and there was no easy way back then to prevent it), and then they would harden and set.

Fermentation in the wineskin might continue for another two to four months until the process slows down and stops. By that time the skin has been stretched to its limit. The collagen protein that gives the leather its stretching ability has been stretched out, and probably denatured by the alcohol, destroying its natural resiliency. So if ‘new’ wine was put into a hardened, brittle wineskin, fermentation risked bursting the skin.

Thank you! Very informative!

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[patrick457]

’A vessel was lying, full of vinegar’
http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/6826/jesusmoviepart90001.jpg
From Jesus (1979)

And immediately, one of them having run and having taken a sponge, having filled it with vinegar and having put it on a reed, was giving Him to drink. Now the rest said, “Let Him be! Let us see if Elias comes to save Him.” And Jesus, having again cried with a great voice, yielded up the spirit.

-Matthew 27:48-50

Mocking Him also were the soldiers, coming near, offering vinegar to Him, and saying, “If you are the King of the Judeans, save yourself!”

-Luke 23:36-37

After this Jesus, knowing that all things now have been consummated, that the Scripture may be fulfilled, says, “I thirst!” A vessel was lying, full of vinegar; so they, having put around a sponge full of vinegar upon hyssop, brought to His mouth. When, therefore, He had received the vinegar, Jesus said, “Consummated;” and He bowed His head and handed over the spirit.

-John 19:28-30

What is described as a ‘vinegar’ (oxos) in the Gospels in the context of Jesus’ death is probably the Roman beverage known as posca, made by mixing sour wine/wine vinegar (i.e. wine that was spoiled by faulty storage) with water, in some cases, flavoring herbs or eggs were also mixed. It originated in Greece as a medicinal mixture of vinegar mixed with water (oxykraton) with no general name, sometimes drunk or sometimes used externally. Eventually it became a favorite everyday drink for the Roman army and the lower classes from around the 2nd century BC, continuing to be used throughout Roman history and into the Byzantine period.

The word is derived from either the Latin potor, ‘to drink’ or from the Greek epoxos ‘very sharp’. It was initially an unfamiliar beverage in the largely Greek-speaking eastern Mediterranean region, where more sweet-tasting wines were preferred. As the Greeks lacked a word for posca, sources written in Greek, such as Plutarch and the Gospels, use the word oxos in its place (translated as acetum in the Vulgate). The word eventually migrated into Greek from about the 6th century AD onwards as the Byzantine army continued the Roman tradition of drinking what they now termed phouska.

Wine vinegar didn’t have any alcohol left, but was wine that had turned, well, sour. It is made by the action of acetic acid bacteria on alcohol to produce acetic acid. Since the bacteria that cause this reaction are aerobic, they require that the wine be exposed to oxygen in order to form vinegar. We must note that our English word vinegar actually comes from the Old French vin aigre, ‘sour wine’!

Posca was increasingly heavily used by the Roman army during the Republican period when it became a standard beverage for soldiers. The drinking of quality wine was considered a sign of indiscipline, to the point that some generals banned imported vintage wine altogether. Appian records both posca and wine as being among the provisions of the army of Lucullus in his Spanish campaign of 153 BC.The Historia Augusta records that by Hadrian’s time it was a standard part of the normal “camp fare” (cibus castrensis). A decree of 360 AD instructed the lower ranks of the army to drink posca and wine on alternate days.

Although it was primarily associated with soldiers and the lower classes, some higher-ranked Romans also drank posca to express solidarity with their troops. According to Plutarch, Cato the Elder was particularly noted for liking it.

In Ancient Rome - or in most of the ancient world in general, it was dangerous to drink pure water since it contained so much bacteria it could lead to diseases. This was one of the reasons why posca was so popular: it was affordable enough and is one of the better alternatives to tap water. The wine’s acidity took longer to spoil, it killed all the harmful bacteria and the flavoring helped to overcome the bad smell and taste of local water supplies. As well as being a source of liquid, it provided calories and was an antiscorbutic, helping to prevent scurvy by providing vitamin C. It was apparently also refreshing and made a decent thirst-quencher. The soldiers at Golgotha had brought posca to sustain them during their crucifixion duty: they weren’t getting drunk on it, but just using it to quench their own thirst.

And they gave for my food gall, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink (oxos).

Psalm 69 [68]:21 [22] (LXX)

 

[patrick457]

Bump bumpitty bump, for the moment.

 

[Langdell]

What does it mean in Genesis when someone puts his hand under a person’s thigh when swearing an oath? (E.g., Genesis 24:2-3) Someone (not a Catholic) once told me that it really meant to hold the person’s testicles. I found that hard to believe, and the person who said that couldn’t remember where he read it. Is there any basis for that?

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[Spirithound]

What does it mean in Genesis when someone puts his hand under a person’s thigh when swearing an oath? (E.g., Genesis 24:2-3) Someone (not a Catholic) once told me that it really meant to hold the person’s testicles. I found that hard to believe, and the person who said that couldn’t remember where he read it. Is there any basis for that?

From the Haydock Commentary:
Under my thigh: either to shew their subjection, (Sa.) or their faith in Christ, who should be born of Abraham, (St. Jerome, ep. 140) or to testify that their oath shall be no less binding than the covenant of circumcision. For this last reason, the Jews still observe the custom of sitting upon the hand of the person who takes an oath. (Menochius) See chap. xlvii. 29, where Jacob imitates the action of his grand-father. These two patriarchs, progenitors of Christ are the only ones in Scripture whom we find practising it; whence St. Augustine and St. Ambrose conclude, that it had a reference to the mysterious birth or our Redeemer. (Bonfrere.)

 

[patrick457]

What does it mean in Genesis when someone puts his hand under a person’s thigh when swearing an oath? (E.g., Genesis 24:2-3) Someone (not a Catholic) once told me that it really meant to hold the person’s testicles. I found that hard to believe, and the person who said that couldn’t remember where he read it. Is there any basis for that?

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Yes, I’ve heard of that. I know it may sound rather dodgy, but here it is: yərēḵ, ‘thigh’ in this context, may indeed be a euphemism for the testicles - in Hebrew, the lower parts of the body, say the thighs/loins or the feet or the legs, could sometimes be employed as euphemisms for genitalia. According to Biblical idiom for example, children issue from the ‘thigh’ of the father, and ‘covering one’s feet’ (1 Samuel 24:3) could be one way of saying ‘going to the toilet’: people often squatted when relieving themselves, and the long tunics ‘covered’ the actual feet as well as you-know-what when one is in a squatting position: see post number 21-22 of this thread.

In fact, some interpret the scene in Genesis 32 where Jacob meets a man who wrestles with him and touches the ḵaf-yərēḵô “hollow of his thigh” as the man grabbing hold of Jacob’s scrotum! Jacob had his ‘thigh’ struck/touched, and it was from that ‘thigh’ that the sons of Israel came forth (cf. Exodus 1:5). Genesis Rabbah 72:3 in fact interpreted the striking of the thigh of Jacob as a foreshadowing of the persecution of the Jews by the emperor Hadrian.

Swearing on one’s or someone’s testicles reflected the view that the fountain of reproductivity was sacred to the deity, being a symbol of perpetuity and union in marriage. The usual meaning of genital contact in oath-making is to render the oath as inviolable as possible, even calling upon the holiness of the object touched. We often put our hands over our chests or on Bibles or missals today when making oaths; back then they held (some)one’s private parts, sacred because they are the ‘source of life’.

Similar customs are attested in a Babylonian document and in modern Saudi Arabia when a sheikh or judge places his right hand on or near the genitals of the man being questioned, or so I’ve read. There were even stories how in recent times certain Arab tribes still swore by the “phallus of Allah.” Romans also had a custom of swearing the truth by pointing to their testicles. Touching or pointing to the testicles when making an oath, in one way of looking at it, kind of invokes it as a witness against the oath-taker should be prove untrue to his word: that he should become childless or that his progeny would die. In other words, if the oath is broken may the same happen to the object touched.

But there are some interpreters which think that having the idea of self-imprecation here is unlikely, and instead suggest that:

(1) Taking the now-circumcised (as a sign of the covenant) membrum is a way of invoking the presence of God at this moment between master and servant.
(2) This was a way in which the servant reassures Abraham that he will carry out his task honestly and truthfully, tying his oath of obedience to the perpetuation of Abraham’s seed.

One may discover some clue as to the significance of this act by comparing the only two episodes in the OT that connect oath taking with this custom (24:2; 47:29): in both cases the one who asks another to impose his hand under his thigh is elderly, and neither can thus guarantee that their wishes will be faithfully carried out. The other individual is well known to the person requesting the oath. In both cases the real concern of Abraham and Jacob is with family matters: Abraham wants the right woman for his son, and Jacob wishes to be buried with his ancestors. Finally, both involve a ‘not-here-but there’ geography (a wife not from Canaan but from Aram-Naharaim; buried not in Egypt but in Canaan). In touching the genitalia of Abraham and Jacob, the servant and Joseph are placing themselves under oath to faithfully expedite the last wishes of the two patriarchs on family matters: any attempt to void these would arouse the wrath of the spirits of the fathers.

 

[Langdell]

Fascinating! Thanks for the replies!



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[patrick457]

Since I might as well do something useful when bumping the thread:

I wrote at least two posts in my blog which were basically extended versions of what was originally written here. These’re not much, but comments and criticisms are absolutely welcome.

• Of Tallitot in Jesus’ Time
• The Ark and the Kapporet, part 1 (I really need to get to writing part 2 )
  Y’know, that also reminded me: we should also talk about Ezekiel’s cherubim a bit one of these days. We’ve often talked about how when the Bible mentions ‘cherubim’ in many instances, it has in mind creatures resembling the winged animal-human guardian spirits of ANE art and mythology (see the Ark post for example), and I think there’s some people going like, “Hey wait! Doesn’t the Bible talk about cherubim having four faces and four wings and wheels and stuff like that?” Short answer for that, which I’ll expand on later: the ‘living creatures’ Ezekiel saw is not his grandpa’s cherubim.

 

[patrick457]

As promised, here’s the extension.

In most Scriptural mentions of the beings known in Hebrew as kəruḇîm/cherubim, the Bible nowhere gives a specific description of their actual appearance: on the contrary, the writers expected their audience to know what a cherub looks like. Hence, this makes us believe that they were among the most common figures of contemporary art, and the closest material we have that may correspond to how they were imaged are the winged hybrid creatures with bodies of lions or bulls, and with the heads of men, birds, oxen, lions, or some other animal of ANE iconography, though there is no single persuasive identification.

http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/4369/livingcreaturee.jpg

Now, this brings us to the account in the book of Ezekiel. It is rather unique in that it gives a detailed description of what he first calls as ḥayyōṯ, ‘living creatures’, and later, cherubim. Before we move on to discuss the appearance of the cherubim as seen by Ezekiel, we need to understand that the book is highly symbolic:

• Firstly, the images that Ezekiel saw were apparently not meant to be real physical figures (Ezekiel 1:1-3). The majority of commentators agree that the visions here are more in the realm of the symbolic;
• Second, most of his visions have figurative and symbolic meanings in them (e.g. the vision of the dry bones recorded in Ezekiel 37:1-14), and as such should not be interpreted literall(isticall)y.
  Ezekiel describes the living creatures thus (1:4-21):

As I looked, behold, a stormy wind came out of the north, and a great cloud, with brightness around it, and fire flashing forth continually, and in the midst of the fire, as it were gleaming metal. And from the midst of it came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance: they had a human likeness, but each had four faces, and each of them had four wings. Their legs were straight, and the soles of their feet were like the sole of a calf’s foot. And they sparkled like burnished bronze. Under their wings on their four sides they had human hands. And the four had their faces and their wings thus: their wings touched one another. Each one of them went straight forward, without turning as they went. As for the likeness of their faces, each had a human face. The four had the face of a lion on the right side, the four had the face of an ox on the left side, and the four had the face of an eagle. Such were their faces. And their wings were spread out above. Each creature had two wings, each of which touched the wing of another, while two covered their bodies. And each went straight forward. Wherever the spirit would go, they went, without turning as they went. As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, like the appearance of torches moving to and fro among the living creatures. And the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning. And the living creatures darted to and fro, like the appearance of a flash of lightning.
Now as I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the earth beside the living creatures, one for each of the four of them. As for the appearance of the wheels and their construction: their appearance was like the gleaming of beryl. And the four had the same likeness, their appearance and construction being as it were a wheel within a wheel. When they went, they went in any of their four directions without turning as they went. And their rims were tall and awesome, and the rims of all four were full of eyes all around. And when the living creatures went, the wheels went beside them; and when the living creatures rose from the earth, the wheels rose. Wherever the spirit wanted to go, they went, and the wheels rose along with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels. When those went, these went; and when those stood, these stood; and when those rose from the earth, the wheels rose along with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.

We must first note that at the time when Ezekiel first saw this vision, it was around 593 BC. The Temple was still standing at that time, since it was only burnt in 586 BC. Ezekiel was a priest or a son of a priest himself (Ezekiel 1:3), therefore it is likely that he had seen the images of the cherubim (which were carved on the walls, the doors and on the carts) in the Temple.

If the other writers in the Bible did not think it necessary to describe the physical characteristics of cherubim, why did he go into such details in describing them in his vision? He could have just easily said, ‘I saw four cherubim’ and it would have been enough for his readers. This is one thing that I need to point out: Ezekiel only gets around to calling them cherubim after a period of time (cf. Ezekiel 10); when he sees them for the first time, he only calls them ḥayyōṯ “living [creatures]”. Why make the audience wait before properly introducing them?

One answer is that because the cherubim he saw in his vision were very different from the ones he saw in the Temple of Solomon. Ezekiel was telling us his vision rather than telling us how the cherubim in the Tabernacle or the Temple should look like.

 

[patrick457]

For the moment, a link to recommended reading: Was Jesus Crucified in the Manner Shown in Paintings and Movies?
The guy does a very good job at explaining the whole thing. There’s a bit of a mix-up (he misidentifies Dr. Frederick Zugibe as the physician who experimented with cadavers by nailing them onto a cross; that was Dr. Pierre Barbet, author of the work A Doctor at Calvary), but all in all, it’s a totally interesting reading.

An aside: the author makes the case for the idea that the sponge that was used to deliver the ‘vinegar’ to Jesus was actually the ancient equivalent of toilet paper! (another idea I’ve heard is that the sponge was the padding of the helmet of one of the soldiers, or a mere drinking vessel) So the effect is a rather ‘gross’ one when you think about it: the soldier uses his toilet sponge to deliver posca to the dying Jesus. :bigyikes:

 

[Langdell]

For the moment, a link to recommended reading: Was Jesus Crucified in the Manner Shown in Paintings and Movies?
The guy does a very good job at explaining the whole thing. There’s a bit of a mix-up (he misidentifies Dr. Frederick Zugibe as the physician who experimented with cadavers by nailing them onto a cross; that was Dr. Pierre Barbet, author of the work A Doctor at Calvary), but all in all, it’s a totally interesting reading.

An aside: the author makes the case for the idea that the sponge that was used to deliver the ‘vinegar’ to Jesus was actually the ancient equivalent of toilet paper! (another idea I’ve heard is that the sponge was the padding of the helmet of one of the soldiers, or a mere drinking vessel) So the effect is a rather ‘gross’ one when you think about it: the soldier uses his toilet sponge to deliver posca to the dying Jesus. :bigyikes:

Patrick – Have you ever seen the American artist Thomas Eakins’s Crucifixion (1880)? Eakins always tried to be as true-to-reality as possible – he is mainly known today for his careful studies of the human body in motion. I wonder what a modern scholar would make of Eakins’s presentation.

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[patrick457]

Patrick – Have you ever seen the American artist Thomas Eakins’s Crucifixion (1880)? Eakins always tried to be as true-to-reality as possible – he is mainly known today for his careful studies of the human body in motion. I wonder what a modern scholar would make of Eakins’s presentation.

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I’m totally not a scholar, but that’s actually one of my favorite renditions of the Crucifixion.
(If you’ve noticed, Eakins was just one of those handful of artists in the West who portrayed a Jesus crucified with four nails since the Middle Ages)

If I can point out another image: Nikolai Ge’s (1831-1894) Crucifixion - unfinished (here are some others: The Last Supper, Christ Praying in Gethsemane, Conscience: Judas, The Judgment of the Sanhedrin: He is Guilty!, What is Truth? Christ and Pilate and Golgotha). Ge’s New Testament paintings were actually controversial among conservative circles in Russia at the time, to the point that exhibition of some of them (such as Christ and Pilate) were actually forbidden by the authorities because they were purportedly blasphemous!

http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/9716/tmpb6552d3cf39e531f19e9.gif

I just noticed something: if you look at the figures, they kinda resemble Joe Zias’ reconstruction of how the 1st-century man named Jehohanan, the bones of whom were found in Givat-ha Mivtar, was crucified (which we have mentioned back a while ago):

http://davidritsema.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/cross.gif

 

[Langdell]

I’m totally not a scholar, but that’s actually one of my favorite renditions of the Crucifixion.

(If you’ve noticed, Eakins was just one of those handful of artists in the West who portrayed a Jesus crucified with four nails since the Middle Ages)

If I can point out another image: Nikolai Ge’s (1831-1894) Crucifixion - unfinished (here are some others: The Last Supper, Christ Praying in Gethsemane, Conscience: Judas, The Judgment of the Sanhedrin: He is Guilty!, What is Truth? Christ and Pilate and Golgotha). Ge’s New Testament paintings were actually controversial among conservative circles in Russia at the time, to the point that exhibition of some of them (such as Christ and Pilate) were actually forbidden by the authorities because they were purportedly blasphemous!

I just noticed something: if you look at the figures, they kinda resemble Joe Zias’ reconstruction of how the 1st-century man named Jehohanan, the bones of whom were found in Givat-ha Mivtar, was crucified (which we have mentioned back a while ago):

Wow – thanks for the info and links! I wasn’t familiar with Ge. Those are very intriguing interpretations.

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[patrick457]

Wow – thanks for the info and links! I wasn’t familiar with Ge. Those are very intriguing interpretations.

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The more intriguing thing is, Ge painted that work years before Jehohanan’s bones were even discovered (his bones were found in 1968)!

All I can say is, nice coincidence.

 

[patrick457]

Okay uh, anything else?