She also briefly discusses the old 'horned Jew' stereotype. When Moses descended from the mountain, his face was shining with the reflected glory of God, such that he had to wear a veil so as not to frighten the Israelites. The word translated as radiant in Exodus 34:29 (When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands, he was not aware that his face was 'radiant' because he had spoken with the Lord.) was mistranslated as 'horned' in the Vulgate and then again in the original King James. It's basically a confusion of the Hebrew words 'keren' and 'karan'. So many Christians in the middle ages and even some more recently thought that Jews had horns. Joanna pokes some fun at this image with a Viking helmet for Moses:
Hey, thanks!
ReplyDelete