Menorah

The Menorah goes back to the Exodus, when God instructed Moses to make a golden lampstand with seven lamps for use in the Tabernacle - the portable tent sanctuary the Israelites carried in the wilderness. The Menorah was then used in the Temple once it was established in Jerusalem. This was the lamp that burned miraculously for eight nights when the Temple was rededicated. In modern usage the Menorah has nine candles. This is in part because the seven-lamp Menorah was reserved by the rabbis for Temple use (impossible since its destruction by the Romans), and also because there are eight candles for the eight nights of Hanukkah, plus one more, the 'servant candle' used to light the others. During the festival of Hanukkah, each night an additional candle is lit as the blessings are recited, so that by the end of the holiday the whole Menorah is lit.

There are just way too many LEGO Menorah's out there for me to do a comprehensive listing, so I'll just show a few. One of my favorites is by Eli and his mom. I really love how serious he looks in that picture as he's 'lighting' his Menorah.


Dave Kaleta built this one as a gift for a friend's son. More on the Hebrew script in my next post. That one also has a slide-out drawer to keep the candles, and the other side has 'Hannukah' spelled out in LEGO.
These don't have to be so elaborate. This one by DrMom is really fun. I like how the yellow bricks are for the lit candles.


This blog post highlights a number of Menorahs, ranging from very simple to elaborate sculptures.

Happy Hanukkah

This evening is the first night of the Festival of Lights. I'd like to wish all of my Jewish readers a very happy Hanukkah. For other readers, perhaps a brief description is in order. Solomon built the first Temple in Jerusalem, but this was destroyed by Babylonian invaders, who also took a great number of the Israelites into captivity. As described in the biblical book of Ezra, 70 years later Jews returned from exile and rebuilt it as the Second Temple. About three and a half centuries later, Jerusalem was once again under foreign domination, and the Seleucid Empire (a division of the larger Greek empire conquered by Alexander the Great) forbade Jewish religious practices. Judas Maccabee led an army of Jewish resistance. They regained control of Jerusalem and set out to reestablish worship in the Temple. When they went to light the menorah, the oil-burning lamp, they only had enough sacred oil for one day. But miraculously the lamp kept burning for eight days, until they could produce more oil for use in the temple. The holiday of Hanukkah (which is spelled in a variety of different ways in English, btw, due to the lack of a direct transliteration from the Hebrew) celebrates the rededication of the Temple, with the eight nights of candles remembering those eight nights of the burning lamp. For some LEGO celebration, let's see some versions of the Temple (though I believe these are all supposed to depict the original, but grant me some artistic license):

Thomas tbone tbl spent over a year on his version of the Temple.


This version is from Brendan Powell Smith's Brick Testament.


Here's a Temple by Kooberz.


This Temple was a collaborative build by kids at the Harvest Bible Chapel Vacation Bible School a couple of years ago.


Jstrouse made this microscale version of ancient Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount.

Sword of the Spirit

Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Ephesians 6:13-17

Matthew Oh built the Sword of the Spirit.

Bangsangsi Tal

Painted masks, or tal, have had a place in Korean culture going back to prehistoric times. These play roles both in dramas and in religious settings. Some were revered in Shamanistic (Muistic) shrines. These masks often have traditional identities and features. One such is Bangsangsi (here by Amida). This character is an exorcist, with four golden eyes to see evil. The dancer with this mask traditionally leads funeral processions and also the Narye, a New Year's Eve ritual, to drive away any evil spirits.

Search for the perfect dreidel

Joanna at Bible Belt Balabusta is looking for the perfect LEGO dreidel.



She's tried a lot of designs, but finds that this one works best.

Mosque

The blogger at Shocks and Shoes built this mosque with her son.

Pop-up Tōdai-ji

You may recall the amazing pop-up Kinkaku-ji I posted a couple of year. Well, the builder Talpaz has done it again, with a Pop-up Tōdai-ji. The temple complex has existed in Nara, Japan since the eighth century, housing the world's largest bronze Buddha, or Daibutsu. The current Great Buddha Hall was rebuilt in 1709 after the earlier structure was damaged by fire.

Colossal Castle Contest X

I know this doesn't specifically fit the topic of any of my various blogs, but I'm also one of the admins at Classic-Castle. I and the other admins at Classic-Castle would like to invite all members of the larger LEGO community to participate in our signature annual event, the Colossal Castle Contest. Our tenth CCC challenges builders with 14 categories ranging from the size of a custom minifig to a full castle covering multiple baseplates, so there's room for everyone to play. Please see the contest page and forum discussion for details.

Book review: The Brick Bible: The New Testament

Note - I'm posting this book review across all of my blogs. I will add some blog-specific material at the end of the review where appropriate.

I was very happy to get my copy of Brendan Powell Smith's latest work The Brick Bible: The New Testament, published by Skyhorse Publishing. Those in the online LEGO community are probably already aware of Brendan's 11 year old ongoing project, the Brick Testament, in both its online and print incarnations. To you, all I really need to say is that this is a beautifully produced paperback version including many of his New Testament stories, presented in a graphic novel style. Several of the stories have been re-built and re-photographed to update the stories reflecting newer LEGO figures, elements and colors, as well as Brendan's evolving building skills over a decade of work. There is also a Kindle version, but IMO if you're going to look at this on a screen, you're just going to go straight to his website. The huge benefit of this is that you can actually hold it in your hands and flip through the pages.



For others, I suppose some further explanation is warranted. Back in the fall of 2001 Brendan showed off his initial work to the LEGO community:

Hello, all.
I have embarked on a mammoth new project: interpreting the Bible in LEGO. I have plans for both Old and New Testament stories, but decided to start from the very beginning. I present to you the first fruits of my labor, six stories from the book of Genesis.
Enjoy, -The Rev. Brendan Powell Smith

As he described it in that post, his Brick Testament is a LEGO illustration of the Bible. He immediately got a lot of feedback from the community, and as he added content to his site, he also got noticed by the mainstream press with newspaper and magazine stories, appearances on radio and television, and countless blog posts, tweets, forum discussions and the like (and one notable two part interview ;) ). Over the years, his work has led to at least seven print versions.

Brendan's work has not gone free of controversy. He is not personally a religious man, and one of his stated goals is to get people to reexamine the Bible, not just their vaguely-remembered Sunday School story version. He just takes the raw text and illustrates it in a pretty literal way. I won't do this here, but elsewhere (on Lugnet and on my GodBricks blog) I've taken issues with some of his interpretive choices. Brendan has always been gracious to discuss these differences, and I've enjoyed conversations with him over the years. Also, as he noted even in his first posting back in 2001, the Bible is full of violence and sex, and he has never shied away from illustrating this in LEGO form in the online version of his work. A year ago there was a little tempest in a tea pot when Sam's Club removed his books from their shelves due to complaints over that. I have elsewhere mocked that decision, but I do want to note here for anyone considering purchasing the Brick Bible for their kids, there are no plastic toy figures placed near each other in such a way as to suggest sexual situations in the print version (plastic toy violence is another thing altogether). So, if you are highly offended by plastic toy figures placed near each other in such a way as to suggest sexual situations (PTFPNEOISAWATSSS for short), have no fear. You can buy this book in peace. Now, if you are more concerned that his interpretation of certain Bible passages doesn't match yours, well, I may share your view, but that would also mean that you have to also keep a close eye on every other Biblical interpretation in popular media from Charlton Heston parting the Red Sea on to animated vegetables singing silly songs. The key is just to be an intelligent reader, and, if you are buying this for your kids, read along with them and discuss the stories.



Now, I should spend a few minutes on this book, specifically. In large part it covers the same ground that you can find on his website, though with a different format (i.e. the website has single photos with text underneath, while this book version is laid out like a graphic novel, as you can see above). Several of the stories have been re-built and re-photographed (though not all - for example at one point the Magi are riding brick-built camels and at another Jesus tells how it is easier for a molded camel to go through the eye of the needle, so presumably the Magi photo is from before LEGO first produced the camel element in 2010). One striking difference is the lack of speech bubbles.

In the web version, Brendan uses black text in speech bubbles to indicate direct quotes from the Bible, but he sometimes has the characters make humorous asides, indicated by gray text. I kind of miss the speech bubbles and the side jokes, but I think I understand why Brendan did not include those in this. The other discrepancy between the print and web versions is simply in the choice of which material to include. Over half of the book is devoted to stories from the life of Jesus, which seems appropriate, but it seems that a third of the pages devoted to the book of Revelations seems out of scale. What's left on the cutting room floor is Brendan's treatment of the epistles of Paul, which are some of my favorite of his work.

That said, I highly recommend you get this book. Both religious and non-religious readers will enjoy the presentation. LEGO builders will particularly enjoy and appreciate seeing how Brendan translated different scenes into brick form.

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GodBricks-specific content - The whole thing. I won't go into further discussion in this post, but I have often discussed Brendan's work on this blog.

Wedding gift

Nannan made this wedding gift based on the Cathedral shrine of the virgin Guadalupe in Dallas.

Piazza del Duomo

Pisa's Cathedral Square (here by Parda Technic) is best known for the famous 'Leaning Tower', but some may not realize that the tower itself is the Campanile, or bell tower, accompanying the Duomo of Santa Maria Assunta.

Oh Lord, open the King of England's eyes

From Wunztwice:

This year, instead of a Luther build, I decided it might be nice to feature another 'hero of the reformation.' William Tyndale was an English scholar who became a leader in the Protestant Reformation. He dedicated his life to translating the Bible into English from Hebrew and Greek. This was a heretical offence and after many years at his work he was deceived and captured. After over a year and a half of imprisonment he was unwilling to recant. On the morning of October 6th, 1536 he was tied to a stake, strangled, and burned.
His last words were, "Oh Lord, open the King of England's eyes."
Semper Reformanda!

Night falls on Narnia

Lego Builders made this wonderful rendition of Night falls on Narnia, from the end of C.S. Lewis' allegorical take on the book of Revelations, The Last Battle.

David

Nick Barret gave his LEGO take on Michaelangelo's David.

Sack of Camulodunum

James Pegrum's awesome Temple of Claudius was included as part of a group build with Malravion. The local Iceni and Trinovantes under Boudica rose up against the Romans and sacked Camulodunum, destroying the temple, among other things. Incidentally, this event helped lead to the significance of London, because the Romans established their new main administrative center there (Londinium).

At the Cross

Lego Builders illustrates a scene from Pilgrim's Progress. At the key point in his journey, Christian arrives At the Cross:

Then was Christian glad and lightsome, and said, with a merry heart, "He hath given me rest by his sorrow, and life by his death." Then he stood still awhile to look and wonder; for it was very surprising to him, that the sight of the cross should thus ease him of his burden.

Wat Arun

Wat Arun Ratchawararam Ratchawaramahawihan (found in LEGO form in the new Legoland Malaysia) is one of the most recognized landmarks in Thailand. The name means Temple of the Dawn, so named because of the way that sunlight reflects off the porcelain surfaces. A Buddhist temple has stood in this spot since at least the mid-seventeenth century, but the current structure was established in the first half of the nineteenth century. The central prang, or tower, is meant to symbolize Mount Meru, which sits at the center of the universe in Buddhist, Hindu and Jain cosmology and is the home of Brahma and other gods.

Sacré-Cœur

My recent posts of models from the new Legoland Malaysia (and I still have more to post from there) reminded me that I've never posted many of the great models from other Legoland parks, such as this version of Sacré-Cœur found in Legoland Windsor. The real Sacré-Cœur is a Catholic minor basilica overlooking Paris from atop Montmartre.

Chapterhouse Window

The Convent of Christ in Tomar, Portugal, was originally a stronghold of the Knights Templar. After they were dissolved in the 14th century, the Portuguese branch became the Order of Christ, based in Tomar. The nave of the church was rebuilt in the 1500's, and one of the most famous additions was the Chapterhouse Window designed by Diogo de Arruda. The stone decorations include symbols of Christ and King Manuel 1, as well as maritime motifs. Projecto Construir is a Portuguese group that involves kids in large LEGO constructions, and they made a full size LEGO version of the famous window.

Happy Sukkot*

This week is the Feast of Tabernacles, or Sukkot. This is a Jewish holiday at harvest time, described in Exodus 23 and Leviticus 23. This is a more celebratory occasion after the somber and reflective Yom Kippur. Each family builds a Sukkah,** or booth, where they will eat meals and often sleep. These booths are reminiscent of the temporary shelters built by the Israelites during the forty years of wandering in the wilderness during the Exodus.***



*Could someone let me know the proper salutation for this festival?

**Yes, I know, this is MegaBlox and not LEGO. That's a little sacrilegious for a LEGO blog, but those giant MegaBlox are much easier to accumulate than the analogous Quatro bricks that LEGO used to make.

***Thanks to commenter Yewtree for the link!