I've been waiting at the back of the chapel

[venta]

Hello. I'm not dead. If you're one of the very, very many people to whom I owe an email, a phonecall, a visit, or anything like that then my sincere apologies. Life has been getting in the way considerably of late.

However, in lieu of proper communication, why not read all about the extreme confusion induced by some carved prophets in Sheffield last weekend.

I spent quite a lot of time on Sunday lunchtime at a wedding rehearsal. I am being a bridesmaid (next Saturday, in fact) and apparently this needs extensive rehearsing. However, due to the layout of the church, the number of bridesmaids, etc the net result of this was that I spent around an hour staring at a carved wooden pulpit.

Which was fine, because it was a rather nice carved wooden pulpit.



Sadly, the church was rather dark and I had only a (flashless) phone with me to take photos so the pictures aren't really very good. You probably can't see from the above the finely carved birds and foliage round the edges. You can probably make out that there are four heads in high relief staring out at the congregation.

The heads are...

Jeremiah:



A rather piratical Daniel:



Ezekiel, complete with flashing eyes and floating hair (beware indeed):



All thoroughly respectable biblical chaps with very straight noses. They all have very faint halos appearing above their heads, and twiddly scrolly banners bearing their names. Which is just as well, or I wouldn't have had the faintest clue who they were.

Last, but not least, we have Moses. I'm afraid this is a pretty poor photo, but it's the best of a bad bunch.



What you probably can't see is that Moses has no halo. There may be sound biblical reasons for this, which I don't wot of. However what you possibly can see is that he has horns. Or, rather one horn and one snapped off stump. Why the blithering chuff does a carved image of Moses, in a South Yorkshire church, have little Mr Tumnus horns? This is an aspect of theology which has hitherto totally passed me by.

(I asked the vicar. He didn't know either. But it was a small church and he's the vicar of about 18 different small churches and clearly had no idea of Moses' fauny pretensions until I pointed them out.)

Comments

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

According to Dr Who and the Daemons, horns are a symbol of power, which is why the Devil has them and also, in some depictions, Moses. (Furthermore, humans use horns to denote power because of the presence throughout Earth's history of giant, horned aliens...)

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

[snork]

[venta.livejournal.com]

Wow. Dunno why I thought of asking a vicar, I clearly should have just tried watching Dr Who...

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

It's a mistranslation; Exodus describes him coming down from chatting to God on the mountain, with what was probably actually meant to say a shining face, but somewhere along the line it was transcribed as saying "horned" instead. So in mediaeval art, Moses is very often shown as having horns.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

I think it's "rays of light", the rays being literally horns.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

Of course, the standard English metaphor is "beams".

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

'shaft' similarly refers to both light & a length of wood...

[venta.livejournal.com]

For some reason, I feel inclined to stretch this beyond all plausibility and begin talking about "two-by-fours of radiance".

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

Why not go the whole hog & use cubits, a la Noah? :)

[phlebas.livejournal.com]

Who's the black private dick
That similarly refers to both light and a length of wood?

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Who's the black private detective
Whose translation of ancient Hebrew is somewhat defective?

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Yes. What she said.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Mm, this.

Interestingly (or perhaps not), over-excited folk picked up this idea and ran with it in all sorts of mystical directions: for example, that Moses was an incarnation of the god Amon-Ra, and that's why the Egyptians were so fond of him. Or that he was a Pan-like revitalizing figure. The myth of the basket, foster-mother etc clearly draws upon much older archetypes, so it's not quite as mad as it sounds.

(Although the theory identifying Moses with Akhenaten actually is exactly as mad as it sounds.)

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

Moses was an incarnation of the god Amon-Ra, and that's why the Egyptians were so fond of him.
I imagine they went off him a bit around the time of the third or fourth plague, no?

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

That sort of thing can cast a shadow over even the friendliest of relationships.

But a less well-disposed nation might have felt that even just one plague was enough reason to whop Moses's head off, I suppose.

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

One plague might be considered unfortunate, two looks like carelessness, and three is enemy action. Erm, I may be getting that a bit wrong.

Apparently (so Wikipedia informs me) the Ancient Egyptians sometimes executed people by throwing them into the Nile in a closed sack; that would seem quite appropriate for Moses (although possibly ineffective if he's already mastered the parting of the waters...)

There was a documentary a while ago featuring a couple of historians and their various mates who had decided to assume the 10 plagues did happen, in the order Exodus says, and who set out to explain them as a sequence of events. So the plague of blood was a red algal boom which killed the fish and forced the frogs out of the water and on to land, where they died creating a breeding ground for flies (I forget how they explained the lice; it surely can't be that frogs carry lice?), which carrie bloodborne diseases affecting cattle and which then bit the humans causing boils, and so on. It all starts falling apart around plague 7 (thunderstorms; probably not caused by boils, or flies, or frogs...) but it was a brave attempt, I thought.
Although I'm told there's no evidence that any Jewish tribe was ever enslaved by the Egyptians, which rather undermines the whole story anyway.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I have heard a theory that there were actually¹ fewer plagues, but they merged accounts from two sources with some duplication errors. So the lice were actually the same as the flies, etc.

there's no evidence that any Jewish tribe was ever enslaved by the Egyptians

Mm, I'd heard that too. Seems an interesting thing to make up. I wonder where they got the ideas from, and why.

---

1 For some value of 'actually' :-)

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

I have heard a theory that there were actually1 fewer plagues, but they merged accounts from two sources with some duplication errors. So the lice were actually the same as the flies, etc.
Ah, that does kind of make sense. I suppose by that logic, the darkness and the thunder and lightning might actually be the same thing. The documentary I mentioned tried to explain the darkness as being a sandstorm, but I felt that was a bit weak; they'd surely have known what a sandstorm was, and described it more accurately!

I wonder where they got the ideas from, and why.
Perhaps it's the BC equivalent of The Burning Times? A good persecution story does wonders for in-group solidarity.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Thanks - you win. Or, at least, beat the vicar I tried asking.

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

Growing up with a church historian for a father meant I spent quite a lot of my childhood in old churches, where obviously the only thing to do is look at the pictures and statues, and find out who they are and why. It only occurred to me as an adult that "identifying martyrs by the tools of their martyrdom" is actually a slightly odd hobby for a 6-year-old.

[venta.livejournal.com]

"identifying martyrs by the tools of their martyrdom"

Sounds like fine preparation for a life of pub quizzes :) I can only do the more normal saints by tools of marytrdom.

Though I do recall, when small, getting slightly confused about the symbols of saints - which often are said tools - which resulted in a vague impression that Francis of Assisi was pecked to death.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

I get Francis of Assisi confused with Elijah, for the same reason.

[ringbark.livejournal.com]

which resulted in a vague impression that Francis of Assisi was pecked to death.

Brilliant. No further comment required.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

It is slightly odd, but I shared it - and without the benefit of a church historian in the family. Just a strange fascination sparked by my mother's thyroid surgery when I was 7. (Her scar looks like her head was cut off and put back on ... and her middle name is Winifred.)

[shui-long.livejournal.com]

I see you've already got the answer on Moses' horns. But I'm curious as to the origin of the pulpit; from the style of carving, I'd have said it was not English, and would have guessed German, perhaps C17. Does the church have much other carving?

[venta.livejournal.com]

It had a rather twiddly carved lectern - the standard issue eagle, but with some interesting gurning faces and birds and such round the upright and base.

Other than that, not so much. I imagine that it must, surely, have some sort of shifty folder of information at the back, though, so I'll look out for it next week.

Or indeed, I'll look on t'web (http://www.heritageinspired.org.uk/partner.php?partner_ID=37), which thinks the carving's Italian. I didn't notice the green man bosses that site mentions, though, so will have to have a better look around next week.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

green man bosses

They must make for fun works outings. Lots of picnics, I'm guessing.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Nah, they're the things you meet at the end of eco-levels.

[shui-long.livejournal.com]

That link helpfully includes a further link to the church guide leaflet, which says the pulpit, lectern and screen to the south chapel were carved in Florence by Carlo Scarlessi in 1877. So I didn't do very well on that...

[lnr]

Next time we meet make it somewhere warm, and maybe be on time.

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

I hope that the actual occasion that necessitated your bridesmaid practice went really well this weekend!