Bonfire of the Vanities

Bonfire of the Vanities (here by SkyWalter) - On February 7, 1497, Florentine friar Girolamo Savonarola led his followers in burning thousands of books and artworks in a public ceremony. They saw this as an act of piety, believing that these works were temptations to sin.

Squire Voland

Jojo presents Squire Voland, a guise of the devil Mephistopheles in Goethe's version of the Faust legend. Faust is an extended parable of temptation, damnation and redemption, and Goethe's version of the tale is one of the most important works of German literature.

What do you see?

4estFeller designed this artistic cross. It kind of reminds me of the 'what do you see' type optical illusions like the famous old woman/young woman optical illusion or this Jesus bumper sticker.

Durga Puja

Durga Puja is an annual fall six day festival by Hindus, particularly in eastern India and Bangladesh, celebrating the visit of the goddess Durga and her children, before returning again to the Himalayas to be with her husband Shiva. One of the traditions is the building of Pandals, temporary structures housing an idol of the goddess, essentially temporary temples. People visit these in a very festive atmosphere, also a time for food, music and dancing. The Pandals are often fancifully decorated, and sometimes are based around themes, and can be a year in the planning, only to be torn down after the festival is over. It sort of reminds me of some of the elaborate floats in the Rose Parade in the US. A couple of years ago, West Bengal was home to a LEGO themed Pandal. Sadly, it's actually built of wood, not LEGO.

Buddha's birthday

Yesterday many Buddhists around the world celebrated the birth of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha. Andybear, a LEGO builder from Hong Kong, made this mosaic (via the Brothers-Brick).

Kali

R.Goff1 made this rendition of Kali.

Rosary

In Roman Catholicism, the rosary is a set of prayer beads, a tool to aid in prayer and meditation. As the practitioner counts their way around the necklace, they recite a number of prayers in a prescribed order, including the Lord's Prayer, the Hail Mary, and the Doxology. Praying the rosary is particularly important as an aspect of Marian devotion. Cmaddison made this LEGO rosary.

Scrolls

Scrolls are necessarily religious, but that's how we generally see them. Scrolls were long strips of papyrus or parchment (or shorter pieces glued together) rolled around two dowels. They were first invented in the Mediterranean region, maybe Egypt, some time between 2000 and 1000 BC. They stayed in general use until some time into the Roman era, eventually supplanted by the codex, or bound book, invented in the first century AD. In ancient times scrolls were used for really any longer work, certainly including religious works. Today scrolls are still used in ceremonial reading from the Sefer Torah, a hand written scroll of the Torah used for ritual reading during services in a synagogue. BTW, here's a fun scroll fact - the work for scroll in Latin is VOLVME, which is the source in English both for the word 'volume' and the word 'revolve'. Here are a couple of wonderful renditions of scrolls in LEGO form by Bruce Lowell and Filip Soukup.

Hagia Sophia

Fraslund made this great model of the cathedral-turned-mosque-turned-museum, the Hagia Sophia.

Bob and Larry

Veggie Tales is a series of Christian children's videos where vegetables (yes, if you don't believe me, you'll just have to watch them) act out Bible stories and other tales with moral messages. The main characters are Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber, and they've also inspired several LEGO representations.

BriXwerX made this Bob and Larry as a gift. They were a scaled-down version of an earlier MOC.



I've previously noted Joshua Christenson's MOC.


Chris Howard made a great mosaic.


Goldcreek made several characters.