Film: Saints and Soldiers

This past week I watched two films that I wanted to post about here. They are not exactly religious films, but they are both films that raise profound religious questions and I definitely felt like my appreciate of the films was enhanced by bringing some "religious literacy" to the experience. I'll do one now, and hopefully I'll find time later this weekend to post about the other (the very fine film Children of Men, just in case I don't have time to post about it!).

The first film, which I thought was truly stupendous, is something everyone (EVERYONE) should see is Saints and Soldiers. This is a recent film (2003) about the Battle of Bulge. Although the film is fiction, it is woven together of material from incidents that took place during that terrible battle towards the very end of World War II.

The film begins with the massacre of American prisoners of war at Malmedy, Belgium, and then follows four soldiers who escape from that massacre, running out into the snowy woods, finding themselves behind enemy lines. They then meet a downed British pilot, and risk everything in order to get him safely to an Allied command post because of the vital information he is carrying. Over the course of the film, you get to know each of those five men as unforgettable individuals, with a beautiful revelation of their characters through the dialogue, their actions, and the choices they must make. It is without a doubt one of the best movies about war that I have ever seen.

All five characters get a great deal of attention in the film, but the most highly charged moments come from the interaction between two characters in particular. There is Gould, a medic from New York, angry (he tried to dodge the draft but got caught), cynical, defiantly anti-religious, with no interest in wartime heroics (he despises having to use his medical training to work on bodies shattered by wartime violence). Then there is Nathan, known as "Deke" (Deacon). He got his nickname from being such a pious guy, and we learn that he had been a missionary in Berlin before the war (his ability to speak German plays a crucial role in the plot). He is a perfect sharp-shooter (he grew up going hunting in Snowflake, Arizona), and keeps to the straight and narrow (he doesn't even drink coffee - and he doesn't smoke; cigarettes also become an issue in the story).

There are a couple of dialogues between these two characters - about whether there is an afterlife, and about the humanity of enemy soldiers - which were, for me, the most memorable parts of the film.

Here's where the religious literacy comes in - at a certain point during the movie my husband said to me, "You know, he must be a Mormon," which is exactly what I had been thinking myself! It was as if there were all these clues for us - being a missionary (which is a fundamental part of Mormon religious life), being from Arizona (which has a large Mormon population, and Snowflake, Arizona was founded by Mormon pioneers), and not drinking coffee (Mormons do not drink cofee, following an admonition in the Word of Wisdom section of the Doctrines and Covenants).

The film does not ever make explicit that Deacon is a Mormon, but according to the wikipedia article, the director's commentary for the film confirms that this is the case.

I thought this was very interesting on their part. On the one hand, it is lying there "in plain sight" so to speak, for people who know what to look for. The fact that my husband and I both reached that conclusion with certainty and independently shows that it is not hard to pick up on... if you know something about the LDS church.

For folks who do not know how to "read the clues," however, I think they could miss that entirely, which is a shame. When, after all, did you last see a Mormon character in a movie?

So, while there was a certain frisson to figuring this out on my own, I wish for the sake of religious literacy that the film had been more explicit about this, pointing out his wonderful character as a Mormon, and enriching people's appreciate of Mormonism in the process.

Anyway, it is an EXCELLENT film. Be sure also to watch the "Making Of" featurette that comes on the DVD - the way they made this film on an incredibly low budget is a great story in and of itself!

Hinduism: Ravana

Over the past several weeks, I've posted about the major characters in the epic Ramayana: Vishnu's avatar, Rama, along with his wife, Sita, and his brother, Lakshmana. Today I want to say something about Rama's main antagonist in the story, the rakshasa-king Ravana.

The Sanskrit word "rakshasa" is usually translated as "demon" in English, but the word "demon" has a whole range of connotations that does not really suit the context in Hinduism. There are, for example, some good rakshasas in the story - Ravana's own brother, Vibhishana, for example, is a very positive character even though he, like Ravana, is a rakshasa.

As you can see in the image below, Ravana had a very striking appearance: he was a rakshasa with ten heads and twenty arms. This poses a great challenge for the artists who depict him, as you can imagine!

Ravana's ten heads are not simply a bizarre feature of his body. They are, in fact, linked to one of the most important stories about Ravana: the story of how Ravana gained incredible powers, allowing him to subdue even the gods! Here is how William Buck tells the story in his wonderful English adaptation of the Ramayana:

Not long after their birth, Ravana and Vibhishana saw the Treasure Lord come home on one of his visits. Ravana became sad that he had no such brilliance himself. Then Ravana made the colossal Kumbhakarna [his other brother] stay home and not wander over Earth eating saints, and in that wide mountain forest the three brothers sat contemplating the absolute immensity of Life. In contemplation they entered Eternity.

And at the end of every thousand years, Ravana cut off one of his heads and threw it into the fire as a sacrifice, until nine of his heads were gone and but one day remained before he would cut the last one. That day was passing. Ten thousand years and Ravana's life were about to end together.

Ravana held the knife to his throat, when Brahma appeared and said, "Stop! Ask me a boon at once!"

"I am glad that I please you," said Ravana.

"Please me!" said Brahma. "You will is dreadful, too strong to be neglected; like a bad disease I must treat it. Your pains make me hurt. Ask!"

"May I be unslayable and never defeated by the gods or any one from any heaven, by Hell's devils or Asuras or demon spirits, by underworld serpents or Yakshas or Rakshasas."

"Granted!" said Brahma quickly. He gave Ravana back his burnt heads better looking than before. They rose living from the ashes and settled on Ravana's necks. Ravana smiled and smoothed down his black moustaches.

Now, you might notice that Ravana gave a very long list of the kinds of creatures he wanted protection from... but human beings are not on that list. So, when Ravana wreaks havoc in the heavens and challenges the very gods themselves, they realize that only a human being has the power to defeat Ravana, whereupon the god Vishnu becomes incarnate as a human being, Rama, who will eventually kill Ravana in battle.

There are many wonderful images of Ravana in Indian art; here is an image that shows all ten heads - and the moustaches!

Joseph Smith: June 27

June 27 is the anniversary of the day in 1844 when Joseph Smith, Jr., the founder of the Latter Day Saints, was martyred. Given that I have not posted anything in this blog so far about the Latter Day Saints (Mormons), I thought this somber anniversary would be a good time to do that.

Like many Americans, I do not know very much about Mormonism. Several months ago, however, the PBS shows Frontline and American Experience did their first joint production, a four-hour history of the Mormons in America. I thought it was an absolutely excellent presentation, and I am glad to see that you can watch the show online at the PBS website: THE MORMONS, "A four-hour exploration into the richness, the complexities and the controversies of the Mormons' story as told through interviews with members of the church, leading writers and historians, and supporters and critics of the Mormon faith."

If you would like to learn more about Mormonism, I highly recommend watching this documentary!

There are also good materials about Joseph Smith available at wikipedia. There is a detailed biography, along with a separate article about Joseph Smith's death.

On June 25, 1844, Smith surrendered to the civil authorities of the state of Illinois following a riot (details here) that took place in Nauvoo, Illinois, where Smith and the Mormons had settled. The Governor of Illinois had guaranteed Smith's safety until he could be tried in court, but Smith saw things differently, saying at the time: "I am going like a lamb to the slaughter; but I am calm as a summer’s morning; I have a conscience void of offense towards God, and towards all men. I shall die innocent, and it shall yet be said of me: He was murdered in cold blood."

That is indeed what happened. Joseph and his brother Hyrum Smith were both put in prison in the jail in Carthage, Illinois. A mob of approximately 200 of Smith's opponents then stormed the jail on June 27. The men were armed, and burst into the jail with their guns firing. Hyrum Smith was shot in the face and died of his wounds. Joseph Smith attempted to jump from the window but was shot in the back as he did so; he was also hit in the chest from a gun fired from outside the jail. Although eyewitness accounts differ, it appears that Smith was dead when he hit the ground.

The death of Smith was a traumatic event for the Mormon community, especially because Smith had designated his brother Hyrum as his successor. Brigham Young, who would later lead the Mormons west, wrote in his diary at the time: "The first thing which I thought of was, whether Joseph had taken the keys of the kingdom with him from the earth." (wikipedia).

You can find a good selection of Mormon books at the Sacred Texts Archive online. I was intrigued to learn that in addition to translating the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith had also translated the Bible! The LDS.org website has some pages which compare and contrast the Joseph Smith version with the King James version, and you can find additional links to online editions of Smith's text in this wikipedia article.

Meanwhile, here is a lithograph from 1851 showing the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith on June 27 in 1844. Notice that the members of the mob are said to have blackened their faces with gunpowder, as you can see shown here:

Annunciation Scene: Angels by Her Side

For this week's Annunciation scene, the image is a painting by Hans Memling (an important Flemish painter), dating to around the year 1489. You can see many elements here which are typical of the Annunciation scene. There is the angel Gabriel who has come to bring Mary the announcement (notice the elaborate detail on the angel's cloak). Gabriel has found Mary in the act of reading, and you can see a book open on the lectern beside her (presumably open to the passage in Isaiah which was interpreted as a prophecy of the virgin birth). There is a flowering lily in a vase, typically associated with Mary. Above Mary, you can see a hovering dove, the presence of God in the act of "overshadowing" Mary.

What is remarkable about this painting, however, is the presence of two more angels, one to the left and one to the right of Mary, who are supporting her in this overwhelming moment. Does Mary see the angels? It is not clear. Perhaps we are to understand that she might feel their support, but invisibly, in the same way that we might feel comforted in an overwhelming moment by some unseen presence. One of the angels is looking directly out at us, the viewers of the painting. The other angel charmingly peeks around Mary, as if to catch a glimpse of just what it was she was reading in the book.

This then raises a profound question about how people might imagine the entire annunciation scene. This painting seems to suggest that Mary might feel the presence of those two angels without seeing them. What then of the angel Gabriel? We know that Mary hears the words of the angel, since they engage in a back-and-forth dialogue. But does Mary actually see Gabriel? In this painting, Mary gazes thoughtfully, attentively, but her eyes are not directed towards the angel. Is this simply modesty? Or might we imagine that the artist shows us, privileged viewers that we are, the angel Gabriel in his glorious raiment, while Mary herself hears, but does not see, this angelic presence?

What do you suppose: did Mary see the angel Gabriel, or not?

Bible Story: Susannah and the Elders

The Bible Story for this week is one of my favorites: Susannah and the Elders.

The story is one that is very popular in European painting (not least because it gave Renaissance artists an excuse to paint a woman in the nude, or nearly nude), but it is not a very well-known Bible story any more, since it has been consigned to the "apocrypha" in the Protestant Bible. Susannah's story is, however, included in the Catholic and Orthodox Bibles, where you will find it in the Book of Daniel. You can read more about the canonical and deuterocanonical portions of the Bible in this wikipedia article.

Susannah's story is a simple one, and provides a profound parallel to the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife. Recall that Potiphar's wife falsely accused Joseph of trying to commit adultery with her because he refused to sleep with her. Well, in Susannah's story, there are two elderly judges who have become infatuated with her, and who threaten to accuse her of adultery if she refuses to sleep with them. Like Joseph, Susannsh insists absolutely on preserving her chastity. The judges then accuse her of adultery, and based on their testimony she is about to be put to death... when a young prophet Daniel shows up on the scene to save the day! I will not give away the ending of the story, but it is very sly - worthy of Arthur Conan Doyle or Agatha Christie.

So, please read the story for yourself to find out what happens. Since I include this story in one of the units for my Mythology-Folklore class, you can read the story online, with accompanying images (just click on the small images to see a larger version).

In addition to being a parallel to the story of Joseph, you can also see the story of Susannah paired with the story of Mary in the painting of the Annunciation by Andrea del Sarto, discussed in a previous blog post.

For anyone out there who does Latin, I also included the story of Susannah in Latin at my AudioLatin blog! :-)

There are so many paintings of Susannah's story that I could include here as an illustration, making it hard to choose. In honor of the great female artist Artemisia Gentileschi, I finally decided to include her rendition of the scene, painted in 1610:

Religious Literacy (Prothero): 3, Eden - What We Once Knew

As I've mentioned previously, my motivation for starting this blog was a book I read called Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know--And Doesn't, by Stephen Prothero, published this year (2007). One of the tasks I've set for myself here in the blog is to record some notes from this book and my response to it. I'm in the process of moving into a new home in North Carolina and have had limited Internet access - so my posting has not been too frequent in the past couple of weeks, and will probably be sporadic for the next couple of weeks - but for now, here you'll find my notes for the first part of Chapter 3: Eden (What We Once Knew).

Chapter 3 marks the start of Prothero's historical investigation of religious literacy in America. One of the rallying cries of the Protestant Reformation was "Sola scriptura," "By Scripture alone," which was a defense of Bible-reading as a conduit for the grace of God: "So teaching reading became an act of nearly unparalleled piety, and acquiring basic literacy a religious duty." [60] Prothero provides quotations from both Catholic and Protestant decrees mandating the establishment of literacy education in the American colonies in the 16th and 17th centuries.

With the advent of the American Revolution in the 18th century, there was an added civic need for literacy: "Now children needed to read not only to be good Protestants but also to be good citizens - to free themselves from the tyranny of popes as well as kings." [60] He includes this fine quote by James Madison: "A people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives." [61] To a limited extent, the literacy drive was even promoted among African Americans and Native Americans.

One such example that Prothero cites is Cotton Mather's North Church in Boston which provided an evening school for Indians and blacks. That is definitely a scene that intrigues me greatly; it's one of those places and moments in history that I would love to be a "fly on the wall" just to see and hear what went on there.

Prothero notes that although the motto was "sola scriptura," there were many catechisms in use, with hundreds of different catechisms circulating in the colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries. Harry Stout, a church historian, concluded that an "average weekly church-goer in New England [...] listened to something like seven thousand sermons in a lifetime, totaling somewhere around fifteen thousand hours of concentrated listening" - which Prothero notes is about ten times the amount of lecturing that a college student hears during their career. [63] Outside of church, people were reading religious books at home: "as late as the early nineteenth century roughly two-fifths of the books in family libraries in rural New England were devoted to sacred subjects." [63]

Some of the titles which Prothero lists are Philip Doddridge's The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul, Richard Baxter's The Saints' Everlasting Rest, Lewis Bayly's The Practice of Piety and John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Bunyan is an author with many works that you can find online, as listed here at the Penn Online Books page. One of the great things about these historical titles is that they are in the public domain, and thus increasingly likely to be found online so that we can explore them for ourselves! Of the three books that Prothero listed, I only recognized one - Pilgrim's Progress - and I will confess that I have never read it, although I probably should (I use the phrase "slough of despond" all the time, which I believe derives from that book...?)

The religious learning that was promoted in this time was strictly Protestant, as Prothero explains: "The religious literacy that early Americans possessed was Protestant literacy of a sectarian sort. What they knew were the basic teachings, core practices, key values and Bible stories of Protestant Christianity as their particular denominations understood it." [64]

In the 17th century, families were actually required by law to teach their children at home, and Prothero cites the laws of various colonies to the effect that both children and servants in a household should be taught to read and instructed in religion. Writing was a skill taught to boys only, as it would serve them in their future careers, but reading was taught for religious purposes, to both girls and boys. There were adaptations of the Bible for youngsters, such as Spiritual Milk for Babes: Drawn out of the Breasts of Both Testaments, Chiefly for the spiritual nourishment of Boston Babes in either England: But may be of like use for any Children, by John Cotton, publishing in 1646. I was also able to find this online at the University of Nebraska! It's heavy-duty stuff, with scriptural citations for each question-and-answer, such as: "What is your corrupt Nature? My corrupt Nature is empty of Grace, bent unto sinne, and onely unto sinne, and that continually."

Prothero puts special emphasis on the scriptural focus of sermons in these early New England churches: "preachers rarely colored their sermons with tales from their own lives or the lives of their parishioners. They did biblical exegesis in the plain style, often for as long as two hours at a stretch, typically from notes or a complete manuscript." [67]

The passage of the First Amendment to the Constitution in 1791 did outlaw federal religious establishments, but the advent of religious freedom only strengthened church attendance: "the vast spiritual marketplace brought on by the First Amendment would provide virtually all Americans with a religious option they could call their own. So church attendance boomed, and religious congregation sbecame even more effective transmitters of religious knowledge." [68]

During the 17th century, the home education effort became a school-based effort. Throughout the 18th century, "children learned their ABCs from scripture-saturated schoolbooks or from the Good Book itself." Then, in the early 19th century, immigration, particularly of Roman Catholics, made the schools a focal point for "Americanizing" the population. This was a specific concern of Protestants, who were alarmed by the increasing numbers of Roman Catholics: "From their early-nineteenth-century beginnings, common schools were very much a part of an unofficial yet powerful Protestant establishment. [...] They were religious in their leadership, faculty, curricula, and aims. Their textbooks called the Bible the Word of God, and their teachers endeavored to turn out not just good citizens but good Protestants." [71]

Prothero provides a detailed description of the first textbook in the colonies: the "hornbook," a one-page lesson on a board covered with a laminate of animal horn. Here is a page on the Internet where you can see some examples of hornbooks for yourself! Prothero then moves on to a discussion of the New England Primer, the most important American schoolbook throughout the 18th century. The religious bent of the book is entirely clearly, as from the alphabet rhyme, which begins:

A In Adam's Fall / We sinned all.
B Heaven to find; / The Bible Mind.
C Christ crucify'd / For sinners dy'd.

It also contains this famous prayer for children: Now I lay me down to sleep / I pray the Lord my soul to keep / If I should die before I wake / I pray the Lord my soul to take.

Thanks to the wonderful Sacred Texts website, you can read the New England Primer (1777 edition) online. You should really take a look - the whole thing is fabulous. It also includes "Spiritual Milk for American Babes, Drawn out of the Breasts of both Testaments," etc. etc.

In the 19th century, Noah Webster's The American Spelling Book dominated: "Aggregate sales estimates converge in the range of 70 million, making Webster's speller one of the best-selling books of all time, behind only the Bible and perhaps Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung." [74] Although it is a secular book, the speller is full of Bible quotations and religious material. The first reading lesson goes like this:

No man may put off the law of God.
My joy is in his law all the day.
O may I not go in the way of sin!
Let me not go in the way of ill men.

Do you see the trick? Each word has only one syllable and no more than three letters. Supposedly easy for beginning readers, but there's definitely nothing childish about the sentiments expressed here! I found a copy of Webster's spelling book online also, and it is also full of wonderful things. Given that I am a proverb-fanatic (see my Latin audio proverbs blog), I was delighted by the proverbs:

Soon hot soon cold.
A good cow may have a bad calf.
He is a fool that will not give an egg for an ox.
You cannot have more of the cat than her skin.
He that lies down with dogs, must rise up with fleas.

There are even Aesop's fables, too (another of my personal passions, for which see Aesopica.net). So I guess I was born in the wrong century. Noah Webster's speller is definitely the book for me: Bible passages, fables and proverbs. That is the kind of literacy that resonates with me, even though I was not taught any of that in the schools I went to in the early 70s. I really owe Prothero a debt for having alerted me to the existence of these books. I promise an essay on the Aesop's fables in Noah Webster very soon!

Those are just my notes for the first half of this chapter; I'll have to come back and do the second half of the chapter next time. This was, I'll admit, my favorite part of Prothero's book since it introduced me to a world of texts that I knew must have existed, but which I had not known much about. What a delight to find that they are available online for our perusal, to supplement Prothero's basic survey of each one. So, next time I will proceed on to McGuffey's Readers - assuming I can get some Internet access in the coming days. I'll be tagging future posts on this topic with the label prothero, so if you want to see any other posts I've added on this topic, just click on the prothero label link.

Hiatus brevis

Just a quick note to apologize for the less-than-daily posting here at ReligiousReading.com. My husband and I are in the process of moving to North Carolina, and it's been very hectic indeed. We have now reached North Carolina (yeah!), but the process of moving into our house is going to be a bit more slow-going than I had hoped. The movers have brought everything, but getting it all organized and put into place is going to take some time. Meanwhile, I have very limited Internet access, but I hope to be back online and blogging again per usual by the weekend. Wish me luck! :-)

Hinduism: Lakshmana

Earlier, I wrote a post two weeks ago about the incarnation of the god Vishnu in the form of Rama, the hero of the epic Ramayana. This week, I wanted to say something about Lakshmana, brother to Rama, and considered to be an incarnation of Shesha, the thousand-headed naga or snake-divinity. Shesha is a companion of Vishnu in his incarnations so when Vishnu was incarnated as Rama, Shesha became incarnated as Rama's brother, Lakshmana. Similarly, when Vishnu became incarnated as Krishna, Shesha was incarnated as Krishna's brother, Balarama.

Lakshmana is the constant companion of Rama in his adventures throughout the Ramayana. When the guru Vishvamitra takes the young Rama away to train him, Lakshmana goes along. When Rama is sent into exile, Lakshmana again goes with Rama, together with Rama's wife Sita (previous post about Sita).

A central event in the Ramayana is the kidnapping of Sita by the demon Ravana. Lakshmana's role in this event was critical. In order to get Sita alone, Ravana had to devise a way to get both Rama and Lakshmana away from their encampment in the forest. Ravana therefore compelled the demon Maricha, his uncle, to disguise himself as a beautiful jewel-encrusted deer. The deer then ran by the camp, where Sita could see him. Sita longed to have the deer for her own, and begged Rama to go capture it for her. Lakshmana was suspicious and urged Rama not to go, but at Sita's urging, Rama went to chase after the deer, leaving Sita under Lakshmana's protection.

Rama pursued the deer, and managed to shoot it, but with his dying breath the demon called out, counterfeiting Rama's voice, screaming for help. Sita was terrified at what she heard, and begged Lakshmana to go rescue Rama from danger. Again, Lakshmana was suspicious and did not want to leave Sita alone. Sita, however, absolutely insisted, so Lakshmana drew a circle around their hut, the so-called "Lakshmana Rekha" or "Lakshmana's Limit," that would grant Sita protection. As long as Sita did not cross the line, she would be safe, because no intruder would be able to penetrate the barrier Lakshmana had summoned. Sita, however, voluntarily crossed the line when she went outside to give alms to a poor brahmin - who was none other than Ravana in disguise! So, Ravana thus succeeded in his plan, and was able to kidnap Sita, despite Lakshmana's best efforts to protect her.

The "Lakshmana Rekha" is a phrase still in use in India today, meaning an absolute moral limit that should not be crossed. I even found a reference to a "Lakshmana Rekha" pesticide stick which is for sale - "If a line is drawn with that stick, no ants or insects can cross over" (source). The "Lakshmana Rekha" can also be interpreted negatively, as the limits that men put around women's freedom of movement, as you can read in this article about justice for women in contemporary India. You can find many more instances of modern uses of this term just by Googling "Lakshaman Rekha" and looking at the results you find there.

Many popular depictions of Rama show him together with Lakshmana and Sita, as you can see in this image which depicts them in their forest exile, wearing clothes made of leaves and bark. Rama is shown with blue skin, marking him as a holy incarnation of Vishnu, while you can see Lakshmana in the foreground, skinning an animal in preparation for their evening meal (from a painting done circa 1790):

Bible Story: The Writing on the Wall

The Bible story this week is the "writing on the wall." In one of my online courses, I teach a unit on the Biblical Book of Daniel, and every semester students explain in their "starting assumptions" for that unit that they have definitely heard the phrase "writing on the wall," but in general they have no idea where the saying comes from. After they read this unit on the Book of Daniel, they know!

The story comes from Daniel, Chapter 5. In the midst of a drunken feast, the king of Babylon, Belshazzar, orders that the sacred vessels looted from the Temple in Jerusalem be brought in so that the king and his court could drink from them, using the holy things of the Jewish god in order to toast their own idols:

So they brought in the gold goblets that had been taken from the temple of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines drank from them. As they drank the wine, they praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone.

An eerie, disembodied hand then appears and writes four words in Aramaic on the wall of the banquet room: MENE MENE TEKEL PARSIN. The four words are Aramaic standards of currency: mena, "numbered," which is 30 shekels (compare Greek mina, equivalent to 100 drachmas), tekel (compare the related word, shekel), which also means "weighed," and peres, "divided," which is half a mena.

To see how the name of a coin can also have a meaning of its own, think about the English "quarter," which refers both to a coin worth 25 cents, but which also refers to the "quartering" of anything, so you can have quarters in your pocket, but you can also be assigned to living quarters, where you spend a quarter of your day, etc. Likewise, the word "dime" actually means "tenth" (from Latin decimum).

King Belshazzar is baffled and terrified by this message, and none of his wise men are able to interpret the meaning for him. Finally, Belshazzar summons Daniel who is able to interpret the message:

You did not honor the God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways. Therefore he sent the hand that wrote the inscription. This is the inscription that was written: Mene , Mene , Tekel , Parsi. This is what these words mean: Mene: God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end. Tekel: You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting. Peres: Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians."

In Daniel's interpretation, parsin is not only a unit of currency known as the "division," but it is also a pun on the Persians.

It does not take long for events to confirm Daniel's interpretaton. That same night, King Belshazzar is assassinated and Darius the Medes becomes king. Accordingly, the "writing on the wall" has become a proverbial phrase in English, referring to some kind of impending disaster or doom.

The image I chose for this story is a painting by Rembrandt's Belshazzar's Feast (1635). The Hebrew letters appear in columns, reading top to bottom and then right to left, instead of simply right to left, line by line, as would be normal with Hebrew. Rembrandt apparently transcribed the Hebrew letters from a book by Menasseh ben Israel, a Jewish rabbi and printer with whom Rembrandt was friends. Ben Israel founded the first Hebrew printing press in Amsterdam in 1626 and was an altogether fascinating character! You can read more about Menasseh ben Israel at wikipedia.

Annunciation Scene: Ave Maria

The annunciation scene that shows up this week is from a 14th-century manuscript, and one of its most distinctive features is the banner displaying the words "Ave Maria," "Hail Mary."

The word "Ave" is the first word spoken by the angel Gabriel when he visits Mary, yet he does not actually say to her "Hail Mary." In the gospel of Luke in the Latin Vulgate version, he says: ave gratia plena Dominus tecum benedicta tu in mulieribus, "Hail, full of grace! Blessed are you among women."

During the Middle Ages, a Latin prayer became increasingly popular which is based on this passage from Luke: Ave Maria, gratia plena, dominus tecum, "Hail Mary, full of grace, the lord is with you." You can read more about the Ave Maria prayer at wikipedia, along with information about the use of rosary beads in conjunction with this prayer.

Another lovely feature of this particular annunciation scene is the way that a dove has descended from heaven, and can be seen next to Mary, right by her ear. This is very creative response to the severely constrained space available to this artist. There simply is not room to show the celestial actions of God on high at the same time that the angel, on earth, is announcing the news to Mary, but the presence of the dove is able to convey that celestial dimension, hovering right beside Mary.

Just as with the words "Ave Maria," the dove is not mentioned in the Biblical text for the annunciation scene. The Gospel of John, however, does tell us that at the time of Jesus's baptism, a dove appeared: "Then John [the Baptist] gave this testimony: I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him."

This makes for a perfect creative connection between the baptism scene and the annunciation. In the Gospel of Luke, the angel of the annunciation tells Mary that she will be visited by the Spirit: "The angel answered: The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you."

As you can see in this image, the artist has imagined the Spirit coming upon Mary in the form of a dove, just as in John's version of the scene of Jesus's baptism:

Crucifixion Scene: St. Francis and the Stigmata

The crucifixion image for this week is not exactly a crucifixion scene; instead, it is a famous scene in which a winged seraph, risen aloft on the cross, appeared to Saint Francis of Assisi, causing him to bear the stigmata, the marks of the wounds of the crucified Jesus (the Greek word stigma is singular, and stigmata is the Greek plural form of the word). To find out more about stigmata in general, you can read this article at wikipedia.

There are many paintings of Francis receiving the stigmata, and the image I selected here is by Giotto, and can be seen in the Chapel of Santa Croce in Florence (a truly amazing church, a bit off the beaten path - but definitely worth visiting!).

I studied in Italy when I was in graduate school, and I spent a lot of time in churches and museums, gazing at religious art, and also vicariously observing the art through the experiences of the tourists around me - a great way to learn about religious literacy, or the lack of it. In general, American tourists are not able to recognize the saints by their attributes, and they are often baffled to find depictions of stories outside the Bible that they know (such as paintings inspired by the story of Susannah and the Elders or the Book of Tobit, which are not included in Protestant Bibles).

So too with Saint Francis. A friend of mine in Italy told me that when he was looking at this same painting by Giotto of Francis receiving the stigmata, the American tourist standing next to him said loudly, "Oh look, the man is flying a Jesus kite!"



Well, you can see why someone would think that - but that is not what is being depicted in the painting. What the tourist thought were the strings of the kite are instead the visible signs of the "connection" between the cross and the stigmata that marked St. Francis. Giotto, in fact, has taken great care to pose Francis in such a way that we are able to see all five places where Francis was "pricked" (the literal meaning of the word "stigma"), in a symbolic re-creation of the wounds of Jesus, the "Five Holy Wounds," in his hands, feet and side (more about the Holy Wounds at wikipedia).

St. Francis is the first person officially recognized by the Catholic Church to have received the stigmata. After Francis, many other saints and holy people were reported to have received stigmata, including such contemporary figures as "Padre Pio," who is widely revered in Italy today (more about Padre Pio at wikipedia).

One thing that is very intriguing about the vision of Francis is that what he saw was one of the seraphim, the six-winged celestial creatures which became known as the highest order of angels in the Christian hierarchy. Here is another painting by Giotto of this scene which beautifully shows the six-winged seraph (you can read more about the seraphim at wikipedia and at the Jewish Encyclopedia online). You can see that, just as described in the prophet Isaiah's vision of the seraphim, they have two wings to cover their faces, two wings to cover their feet, and two wings with which to fly:



It's worth comparing the vision of Isaiah to the experience of Saint Francis in his visionary encounter with the seraph, since Isaiah, too, was marked by his encounter: "Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged."

Looking at the beautiful seraph here in Giotto's fresco might give us an idea, too, of how to visualize something of the extraordinary vision experienced by Isaiah.

Bible Woman: Huldah

This week the Bible woman is a much more obscure character. She is Huldah, and she makes her only appearance in the Bible in the story of the high priest Hilkiah, who discovered the lost book of God while restoring the Temple. The story is told in Kings and in Chronicles.

The events take place under the reign of Josiah, who was king of the land of Judah. He reigned sometime in the seventh century B.C.E. Josiah was attempting to restore the worship of God in Jerusalem, and also to restore the Temple. During work on the Temple, the high priest Hilkiah discovered "the Book of the Law" and had it delivered to King Josiah.

When the king's secretary read aloud from the book, the king "tore his robes," because, as the king declared, "Great is the Lord's anger that burns against us because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written there concerning us."

The king wanted to find out everything he could about the book, so Hilkiah, together with members of the king's court, went to speak with Huldah: "the prophetess, who was the wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe. She lived in Jerusalem, in the Second District."

It's a quite remarkable moment. Besides Deborah, Huldah is the only other woman who is called a "prophetess" in the Bible. At this momentous discovery, she is the one that the high priest consults for guidance.

In answer to Hilkiah's query, Huldah begins by explaining that God is angry at the people of Israel because they have worshipped other gods: "This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Tell the man who sent you to me, 'This is what the Lord says: I am going to bring disaster on this place and its people, according to everything written in the book the king of Judah has read. Because they have forsaken me and burned incense to other gods and provoked me to anger by all the idols their hands have made, my anger will burn against this place and will not be quenched.'"

Then, Huldah conveys a special message meant for the king, explaining that there is hope for the people of Israel because the king reacted with contrition when he heard the words of the book read to him: "Tell the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, 'This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says concerning the words you heard: Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I have spoken against this place and its people, that they would become accursed and laid waste, and because you tore your robes and wept in my presence, I have heard you, declares the Lord. Therefore I will gather you to your fathers, and you will be buried in peace. Your eyes will not see all the disaster I am going to bring on this place.'" That is the end of the incident; nothing more is said about Huldah.

As often with Hebrew names, "Huldah" has a meaning: "weasel." In fact, I first became acquainted with Huldah when doing research for a project on weasels in folklore. Although northern Europeans often regard the weasel as a masculine creature, in many cultures the weasel is a quintessentially feminine creature, sometimes revered as a midwife (as in the birth of Heracles), but also feared as a witch (as, for example, in Apuleius). So, it is by no means surprising to find that this Hebrew prophetess has the name "Weasel."

The targum to this portion of Kings adds that Huldah had a school where she taught publicly. Legend then linked Huldah's school to the "Huldah Gates" in Jerusalem, so I thought I would include this image of the Huldah Gates to accompany this post. Meanwhile, if you want to read more about the lost book discovered by Hilkiah - the Book of Deuteronomy? - you can read more about that in the wikipedia article.

Hinduism: Sita

Previously, I posted about Rama, the incarnation of the Hindu god, Vishnu. Sita, Rama's wife, is an incarnation of the goddess, Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity and good fortune.

Although Sita was an incarnation of the goddess of good fortune, she faced many trials and difficulties in her life. She was kidnapped by the demon Ravana, and held captive by him until Rama was able to raise an army and rescue her. You can read a detailed synopsis of the plot at this British Library site.

Yet even after she was rescued, Sita faced a great trial. When she was restored to her husband, Rama, things were not as they had been before. Given that Sita had lived in another house, she had become suspect. Sita, however, insisted fervently on her innocence, and offered to undergo a test by fire, declaring that the fire would burn her if she has done anything wrong, leaving her unharmed if she were innocent of any wrongdoing. They kindled a fire, and Sita walked into the flames. As she entered the flames, she prayed to Agni, the god of fire, asking the god to burn her to cinders if she were guilty, but that he should protect her if she had told the truth about her innocence. Sita emerged, unharmed. As a sign of divine favor, the flames themselves turned into flower petals.

I was impressed by the coincidence that this was the week I had chosen to write about the three boys in the fiery furnace from the Book of Daniel, another example of a test by fire.

What is striking about the difference between the two stories is that in the Hebrew story, the king is trying to punish the boys by casting them into the fire, although through the power of God, they emerge unharmed. In the story of Sita, it is Sita herself who demands the test by fire, invoking the fire god in order to prove her innocence of the charges against her.

A couple years ago I saw a remarkable, and controversial, Indian film, Fire. As you can guess from the title, it involves Sita's test by fire, adapted to contemporary Indian life. The film is controversial because it is about a love affair between two sisters-in-law who are named, provocatively, Sita and Radha (just as Sita was the consort of Vishnu's incarnation as Rama, Radha is the consort of his incarnation as Krishna). You can read a detailed review of the film here, and it's definitely a film worth seeing, especially if you are familiar with the story of the Ramayana, which is alluded to, directly and indirectly, throughout the film.

There is also a suggestive similarity between the story of Sita's test by fire and the Indian practice of sati, when a widowed woman would immolate herself on her husband's funeral pyre. You can read more about this topic at Kamat's Potpourri website, which is also the source for this image of Sita in the fire:

Bible Story: The Fiery Furnace, bis

I got a note from someone asking about the text on that banner above the three boys in the furnace as seen in the illustration I included with my previous post about the fiery furnace:



Well, I had tried to puzzle this out when I did the first post, but I was stumped! I tried again today, looking at the largest scan available for this image from the City of God manuscript but I was not able to puzzle out the Latin banner above the boys in the furnace. Maybe someone with more discerning eyes will be able to figure that out! Here is the largest view available - can anybody read what it says on the banner?

Meanwhile, in order to scrounge up the largest view I could find of that image, I visited the other images at the Dutch National Library that show the boys in the furnace. Here they are!

Here is an illustration from a beautiful Bible historiale, circa 1372.



In a much more simple style, here is an illustration from a Speculum humanae salvationis manuscript dated to the 15th century:



And here is a very dramatic illustration from another Speculum humanae salvationis, circa 1450:

Religious Literacy (Prothero): 2 - Religion Matters

As I've mentioned previously, my motivation for starting this blog was a book I read called Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know--And Doesn't, by Stephen Prothero, published this year (2007). One of the tasks I've set for myself here in the blog is to record some notes from this book and my response to it. Last time I posted some notes about Chapter 1, A Nation of Religious Illiterates. In this post you'll find my notes for Chapter 2: Religion Matters.

Prothero opens this chapter with some reflections on secularism and how, not that long ago, the secularism of late 1960s and 1970s prompted American academics to propose something called "secularization theory." Prothero suggests that the whole notion may have been groundless to begin with: "Theorists who postulated the death of religion under modernity's crush (or, at a minimum, its retreat into the closet of the private) often based their predictions on nothing more substantial than the vague air of skepticism they detected at the dean's sherry hour." [40]

What is especially interesting is that various forces within the religious world, rather than fighting modernism, have actually embraced it and turned it for their own purposes, showing that there is no inherent entailment of secularism in modernity: "Religion and modernity have become fast friends, with evangelicals borrowing (and sanctifying) virtually every accoutrement of modern life: theater, radio, rock music, marketing, advertising, television and the Internet, to say nothing of individualism and consumer capitalism." [40]

It's very interesting reading Prothero's brief overview of the entanglement of religion and politics as we are about to embark on the latest presidential campaign, with the Democratic candidates professing their faith in a public forum sponsored by Sojourners. This forum marks a self-conscious attempt by the Democrats to move away from the situation that Prothero describes in this book when "in the 1990s a double-digit 'God gap' opened up among frequent worshippers between the Democrats (now understood as the secular party) and the Republicans (the 'faith-based' alternative)." [42] No wonder the Democrats are trying this new strategy, given the statistics that Prothero reports here: "During the 1960s and 1970s there had been no discernible party preference among religious practitioners; religious affiliation was politically irrelevant. In 1992, however, frequent worshippers (those who attend religious congregations at least once a week) preferred Bush the Elder over Bill Clinton by 14 percentage points. that gap widened to 20 percent in the 2000 Bush-Gore and 2004 Bush-Kerry elections, dwarfing the proverbial gender gap." [42]

In short, the "secularization theorists" have given up the concept as irrelevant to understanding American society today. Prothero quotes Peter Berger, a prominent sociologist who had promoted secularization theory, as saying "the whole body of literature by historians and social scientists loosely labeled 'secularization theory' is essentially mistaken." [43]

This is not to say that there is no such thing as secularism, but Prothero argues that instead of being viewed as an inevitable trend, it is secularism that needs to be explainined as a bit of an unexpected oddity: "What needs explaining is not the persistence of religion in modern socieities, but the emergency of unbelief in Europe and among American leaders in media, law and higher education." [43]

Whatever the cause, the consequences of the disconnect between religion and education have clearly had seriously negative consequences. In an assessment of high school textbooks, Prothero observes: "After President Lincoln is buried, religion typically goes underground too, leaving students with the distinct impression that, insofar as religion has had any historical effects, those effects are now safely behind us. In fact, according to one study of US history textbooks, there is typically more discussion of railroads than religion in the postbellum period." [44] Prothero then provides a brief overview of American history pointing to example after example of crucial historical developments in which religion was a key factor.

One interesting item from this list was in Prothero's inventory of social movements (abolitionism, temperance movement, etc.) was his reference to the origin of the "what would Jesus do?" phrase. Apparently it comes from a novel, In His Steps, published in 1897 by a Congregationalist minister, Charles M. Sheldon. As Prothero notes: "Charles M. Sheldon is remember today for bequeathing to us the query "What would Jesus do?" but its original purpose was to drive home the point that if Jesus were out and about in Victorian America, he would be caring for slum dwellers, not selling steel." [48]

I was also intrigued by this comment regarding the Japanese interment camps of WWII: "Religion mattered during World War II, when the federal government packed virtually every Japanese American Buddhist in the country off to an internment camp, in part because government officials confused Buddhism with Shinto (in which the Japanese emperor was worshipped as a god)." This is a recurring theme in Prothero's book. He is concerned that when religion is a factor in public policy, public ignorance about religion will lead to badly misinformed policies.

In a later chapter, Prothero will provide a detailed analysis of the historical evolution of religious education in America, and in this chapter he starts to set out the general lines of that evolution. I'm going to include a rather long quote here, since it is essential to the main historical argument of Prothero's book [52]:

The current booms in homeschooling and evangelical private schooling can be credited in part to a widespread perception among conservative Christian parents that public schools have gone over to the secular side. Recently some conservative Christians have called for what might be termed a 'second disestablishment' of the public schools. Whereas the first disestablishment, effected over the course of the nineteenth century, got rid of a sectarian bias toward Protestantism in public schools, this second disestablishment takes aim at sectarian bias toward 'secular humanism.' Turning the tables on liberal critics of fundamentalists' efforts to censor such books as Catch-22 and Heather Has Two Mommies, conservative Christian critics contend that secular humanists are now effectively censoring schoolbooks and, though them, the public schools themselves.

Prothero will have a great deal more to say in a later chapter about that "first disestablishment" of religion in American education and it is a truly fascinating story, so stay tuned for that one!

In my own teaching, I've had students who are shocked that we read so many religious texts in my classes. They seem to think that the "separation of church and state" means that there is no place for religious texts in humanities courses at a state university. Yet, while they are shocked that they are 'allowed' (as they often put it) to read religious texts in these classes, by and large they are fascinated by the texts and ask for recommendations on more to read. The flexible format of my classes has allowed me to include a wide variety of religious texts and I love introducing my students to the incredible storytelling traditions of Hinduism (I teach a course on the Ramayana and the Mahabharata), Buddhism (jataka tales!), Judaism (Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews is available online - a priceless resource), Christianity (especially texts unknown to Protestant students, like Susannah and the Elders, Daniel and the Dragon, etc.), and Islam (the glorious treasure-trove of Sufi tales).

Prothero, thankfully, helps sort through the legal background, showing that teaching ABOUT religion in schools is not illegal! In fact, just the opposite, as he explains: "This muzzling of religion is not only unfair, it is likely unconstitutional. As a series of recent Supreme Court rulings has made plain, the First Amendment requires that the public schools be neutral with respect to religion. That means not taking sides among the religions, not favoring Christianity over Buddhism, for example, or the Baptists over the Lutherans. But it also means not taking sides between religion and irreligion." [53]

Finally, there was also a comment that Prothero made about the larger historical context of this problem which really resonated with me personally. I am not a "religious person" in the sense that I do not go to church, but at the same time my cultural interests are firmly tied to those cultures which put religion at the center of things, where art (music, literature, poetry) is inspired by the profound force of religious mystery. Romanticism has always marked a kind of tragic shift for me in terms of European culture, when the mysteries of religion seemed to morph into a tedious self-obsession with individual ego, numbingly solipsistic. Anyway, Prothero made what seems to me a very astute comment about how it is not simply the Enlightenment but also Romanticism which is at work in the divorce from religion we see today in so much of education and the mass media: "Schoolbooks tend to trivialize religion because of the secular biases of those who write and publish them. Eurosecularity is rampant in both higher education and the media, textbook publishing's two homes. The former answers to the Englightenment and the latter to Romanticism, but neither takes religion as seriously as the American public does. Many authors and publishers are as a result convinced that religion just doesn't matter, except perhaps to the ancient past." [54]

I'm not a historian by training, and I don't tend to think "historically" about things, but I am really intrigued by the historical observations which Prothero shares with us in this book. In the next chapter, he embarks on a wonderful historical exploration of American schooling starting in the colonial period. It's one of my favorite chapters in the book, so I hope I will be able to find the time to blog my notes for that chapter very soon. Stay tuned!

For now, those are my notes for Chapter 2. I'll be tagging future posts on this topic with the label prothero, so if you want to see any other posts I've added on this topic, just click on the prothero label link.

Bible Story: The Fiery Furnace

The story slated as this week's "Bible Story of the Week" is a story from the Book of Daniel about three Jewish boys, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who refused to worship the gods of Babylon. Because of their refusal, King Nebuchadnezzar had them tossed into a furnace of fire but they were protected by an angel and survived the ordeal.

Here is the story as told in the Book of Daniel:

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up."

Then Nebuchadnezzar was furious with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and his attitude toward them changed. He ordered the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual and commanded some of the strongest soldiers in his army to tie up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and throw them into the blazing furnace. So these men, wearing their robes, trousers, turbans and other clothes, were bound and thrown into the blazing furnace. The king's command was so urgent and the furnace so hot that the flames of the fire killed the soldiers who took up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and these three men, firmly tied, fell into the blazing furnace.

Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers, "Weren't there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?" They replied, "Certainly, O king." He said, "Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods."

Nebuchadnezzar then approached the opening of the blazing furnace and shouted, "Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out! Come here!" So Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego came out of the fire, and the satraps, prefects, governors and royal advisers crowded around them. They saw that the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair of their heads singed; their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them.

Then Nebuchadnezzar said, "Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who has sent his angel and rescued his servants! They trusted in him and defied the king's command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own God. Therefore I decree that the people of any nation or language who say anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego be cut into pieces and their houses be turned into piles of rubble, for no other god can save in this way."

In addition to the account in the canonical Book of Daniel, there are some additional materials, The Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children, found in the Catholic and Orthodox Bibles which provide more information about this story.

The story of the three men in the fiery furnace provides the inspiration for this Johnny Cash song, The Fourth Man In The Fire:

They wouldn't bend
They held on to the will of God so we are told
They wouldn't bow
They would not bow their knees to Idols made of gold
They wouldn't burn
They were protected by the Fourth Man in the fire
They wouldn't bend
They wouldn't bow, they wouldn't burn.

Now the prophet Daniel tells about
Three men who walked with God
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego
Before the wicked king they stood
And the king commanded them bound and thrown
Into the fiery furnace that day
But the fire was so hot that the men were slain
That forced them on their way.

Now when the three were cast in and the king rose up
To witness this awful fate
He began to tremble at what he saw
In astonished tones he spake
Did we not cast three men bound
Into the midst of the fire
Well, Lo, I see four men unhurt
Unbound and walkin' down there;

There's Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego
And the fiery coals they trod
But the form of the Fourth Man that I see
Is like the Son of God.

Now, let's slide back in time from Johnny Cash to the Middle Ages! Here is an illustration showing the story of the boys in the fiery furnace taken from a late fifteenth-century manuscript of Augustine's City of God.

Note for Feedburner email subscribers

Hi everybody, I'm still having some trouble trying to convince Feedburner to ignore edited posts, so that only truly new posts show up in the daily email. In yesterday's email there was one new post at the top of the email, along with a whole long list of posts beneath it which I had cleaned up - as a result of editing those old posts, they showed up again in the email. My apologies - I have yet to find a way to persuade Feedburner to ignore those edited posts when concocting the daily email.

At the blog, though, all is well! If you go to the blog itself at ReligiousReading.com, you will not see the old updated blog posts on the main page; you will only see the blog posts for that day.

So if you just want to see only the latest posts, you can use the email as a reminder to visit the blog and check out what's new. The ReligiousReading.com blog homepage will display only the current day's posts, with the other recent posts listed in the right-hand column.

Thanks for your patience! Cobbling together a blog out of 100% free tools is sometimes a bit of a puzzle! :-)

Annunciation Scene: Christogram

This week's Annunciation scene is an Orthodox icon. It shows many of the traditional elements of the Annunciation scene, with the angel greeting Mary, who has been spinning (see the spindle in her left hand), while a ray of light descends from God the Father in heaven.

The particular detail that I wanted to focus on in this depiction, however, is the gesture made by the angel as he greets Mary. Here is a detail that shows you the hand gesture he is making:



The thumb is touching the ring finger, leaving three fingers extended. This sign is called a "Christogram" because the fingers are actually spelling out four letters in Greek, I-C (I-S in the Roman alphabet), the first and last letters of the name "Jesus," and X-C (CH-S in the Roman alphabet), the first and last letters of the name "Christos" (Christ).

A finger extended straight shows the letter I, a finger extended but bent shows the letter C, the thumb crossed over the index finger is X, and a finger extended but bent shows the other C.

Here is an image that can help you see the pattern of the fingers more clearly:



Although the gesture is more closely associated with the Orthodox Church, you can also find the gesture depicted in Catholic art as well. The gesture is one that Orthodox priests still use today to extend a blessing. You can read more about that in this article about How to Greet an Orthodox Priest.

In addition to the I-C X-C Christogram, there is also a famous Christogram based on the first three letters of Jesus's name in Greek, I-H-C, which is sometimes partially Romanized as I-H-S or J-H-S, as you can see here (for more examples, see the Wikipedia article).



There is even some speculation that the oath "Jesus H. Christ" comes from a misreading of this Christogram, where the capital form of the Greek eta, H, is misread as a Roman letter H!

Finally, there is also a X-P Christogram, called the "Chi-Rho" Christogram, based on the first two letters of "Christ" (CH-R in the Roman alphabet). You can read more about the Chi-Rho Christograph in this Wikipedia article.



Although this is a very small detail in this depiction of the Annunciation, the details all contribute to the message which the icon conveys to its viewers. In this case, it is not the devil that is in the details - but the savior! You can find out more about this particular icon and its symbolism in this Annunciation article at the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America website.

Bible Woman: Leah

I was glad to see that Leah showed up as the Bible Woman of the Week, since our Greek reading group is just starting in on the story of Joseph and his brothers. Being able to follow the adventures of Joseph and his brothers we need to know about their mothers - meaning Rachel, Leah, and their handmaids, Bilhah and Zilpah.

Leah and Rachel were the daughters of Laban, the brother of Rebecca, the mother of Jacob. This makes Leah, Rachel and Jacob cousins. When Jacob came to the land where Laban lived, he fell in love with Rachel. Jacob worked for Laban for seven years in order to win Rachel as his wife, but on their wedding night, Laban substituted Leah for Rachel. Laban explains his action by saying that Leah was the elder daughter, and that the younger daughter could not be married before the elder. Laban agreed to also give Rachel to Jacob, and they were married a week later, although Jacob had to work another seven years in exchange for having received Rachel as his wife.

The rivalry between Leah and Rachel is intense. Leah quickly gives birth to four sons in a row: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. Rachel, however, is not able to have children. Rachel then gives her handmaid, Bilhah, to her husband in order that she might have his children (remember Hagar and Ishmael?). Bilhah gives birth to two sons, Dan and Naphtali. Leah then gives her handmaid Zilpah to Jacob, and she gives birth to two sons, Gad and Asher.

Leah, at this point, seems to be having trouble conceiving more children, so she has sent her son, Reuben, to gather mandrakes for her. Mandrakes were thought to be good for fertility; if you read the Physiologus's mystical story of the elephants, you will discover that they too use mandrakes to conceive!

Rachel, however, persuades Reuben to give her the mandrakes, and in exchange Leah got an extra night with Jacob. Leah conceived her next son, Issachar, on that night. She also gave birth to a sixth son, Zebulun, and a daughter, Dinah.

Rachel, for her part, finally gave birth to two sons: Joseph, and the youngest of all of Jacob's sons, Benjamin.

Leah is primarily defined in the Biblical text by the fact that she gave birth to six of Jacob's sons, including his four eldest sons. There is, however, one tantalizing detail in the Biblical text about Leah herself. It says: "Leah had weak eyes, but Rachel was lovely in form, and beautiful."

What about those weak eyes? Some commentators (including commentators in the ancient "targums") explain that Leah's eyes were weak from crying all the time, in her prayers to God. Why was she praying to God? Apparently she was praying to him to save her from being married to Esau. That seems to make sense: Jacob had an older brother, Esau, so it is easy to imagine a scenario where Jacob married Rachel while the elder Esau married Leah, the elder sister. Yet Esau was not favored by God and he had a falling out with Jacob. Thus Leah, as the commentators tell us, wanted to enjoy God's favor, and did not want to marry someone like Esau. Fascinating! Here is Louis Ginzberg's summary of this tradition:

Leah, like her younger sister, was beautiful of countenance, form, and stature. She had but one defect, her eyes were weak, and this malady she had brought down upon herself, through her own action. Laban, who had two daughters, and Rebekah, his sister, who had two sons, had agreed by letter, while their children were still young, that the older son of the one was to marry the older daughter of the other, and the younger son the younger daughter. When Leah grew to maidenhood, and inquired about her future husband, all her tidings spoke of his villainous character, and she wept over her fate until her eyelashes dropped from their lids.

For thousands of years, people have been telling new stories in order to expand on the Biblical texts or in order to fill in the gaps that people find in the text. Leah and her "weak eyes" are a prompt for just such a story.

Ginzberg also reports another fascinating story about Leah's mercy upon her sister, Rachel. Leah had foreknowledge that Jacob would have twelve sons, so she kept careful track of the number of Jacob's wives, since she was anxious to have more sons than any of the other wives. At the same time, she did not want Rachel to come up totally short. So, when eleven sons had been born, and Rachel had only one son, compared to the six sons of Leah, and the two sons each for the handmaids, Leah was worried when she got pregnant. If the child was a boy, her seventh, that would mean that Rachel would have only the one son. Leah did not want that to happen! So here is what she did:

Leah bore once more, and this last time it was a daughter, a man child turned into a woman by her prayer. When she conceived for the seventh time, she spake as follows: "God promised Jacob twelve sons. I bore him six, and each of the two handmaids has borne him two. If, now, I were to bring forth another son, my sister Rachel would not be equal even unto the handmaids." Therefore she prayed to God to change the male embryo in her womb into a female, and God hearkened unto her prayer.

Amazing: this is a legend I had never heard before. Dinah's own story is full of tragedy, of course. I did not know that, at least according to some storytellers, the very beginning of her story was so extremely unexpected.

Curious? You can read more about Leah in the wikipedia article. Here is an early 17th-century painting by Hendrick ter Brugghen which shows Jacob protesting to Laban on the day after his marriage to Leah: