Comments on: Horny Jew: What’s the deal with Michelangelo’s Moses?

By: Simon Holloway

Simon Holloway — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 23:24:34 +0000

No straw men, I assure you. The three examples that you produced were all puns on words spelt exactly the same. If you start producing puns on words spelt differently, just because the letters sound similar to you, then you’re on shakier ground. Besides, Moses either grew horns or he shone light. How could the author have been punning on both? In order to imply ambiguity between the two? I don’t think so. Just because there is humour in the Bible, doesn’t mean you can spot it everywhere. This is not a passage that appeals to a humorous interpretation.

(By the way, the interpretation that you offered for ‘Azazel is one of the most widespread theories on the word’s etymology. I wouldn’t call it a pun, but only because puns operate on a duality of meaning. So too with נחש הנחשת, which is alliterative but not humorous. The shrewd serpent, however, is an excellent example and there are dozens of others as well – including many that are no doubt invisible to our eyes, so unfamiliar with the Ancient Near East.)

By: David

David — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:18:34 +0000

Simon – Don’t make a straw man out of the light/skin thing. I know there’s no connection between the words. That’s why I called it a pun. I do think you’re overstating how far away the ayin and the aleph were. It’s all speculative, I know, but I doubt they were too far away as to make the puns impossible.
But maybe there are lots of puns in the Bible. There’s that whole bit about the copper snake (hanachash hanechoshet) which sounds like she sells seashells. There’s the clever snake and the naked lady in the Garden of Eden, both of whom are “arum” or “erom” or something like that. The words are way too close together to not be deliberate.
How about that scary place where the goat went, called Azazel. Has it ever occurred to anyone that if you change the vocalization but leave the letters as is, you get “Ez Azal,” meaning that they sent the damned goat to a place called Goatwent? Okay, so a little Aramaic crept in, so what?
Anyway, these are not exactly the case of the ayin/aleph pun, but I think it’s much more fun reading the text under the assumption that the authors had a sense of humor.

By: Henry Herzog

Henry Herzog — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 07:03:24 +0000

I always thought that the “horns” were supposed to be beams of light.

By: Michael Grijak

Michael Grijak — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 21:10:30 +0000

Title is misleading. Moses was NOT a Jew! He was a Hebrew and an Israelite, not a Jew. Big difference!

By: Simon Holloway

Simon Holloway — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 04:49:32 +0000

David, You make an excellent point. The only other instance in which this word appears as a verb, it appears (predictably!) in the Hiph'il. In that instance, it means "to grow horns", but its usage in the Qal; is odd - and is part of the reason why this clause is so difficult to understand! Also, you are quite correct when you suggest that there would have been easier ways of saying the same thing, and I think I made that point as well. Truth is, whatever they were trying to say, there would have been an easier way of saying it, so it's not surprising that so many people suggest that the text is corrupt. I must disagree, however, with your final point. There is no lexical relationship between the words for "flesh" and for "light" and, even though subsequent generations of exegetes drew midrashically on their seeming relationship, I think it would be presumptious to assume that this relationship was noted by those who still preserved markedly different pronounciations for the two. In other words, there is no greater connection between the aleph; and the ayin; than there is between either of them and the gimmel; or the quf.

By: David

David — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 04:21:36 +0000

Simon,
Obviously it has to be a verb. Not just because of the vocalization, which you can say comes later, but because it’s much harder to read the phrase if there are no verbs in it: It just comes out as a string of nouns meant to explain why they couldn’t look at him. Now, here’s my question: Of all the times the root q-r-n appears in the Bible meaning horns, how many of them are verbs in the qal form meaning “to grow or have horns”? Just a hunch that it’s really rare in that direction as well.
I know it’s sometimes a mistake to take modern Hebrew and use it to read back into the Bible, when so much of modern Hebrew is derived from traditional Jewish understandings of what the Bible meant. But in this case, it just makes so much more sense than anything else. You’d think that if the Bible wanted to say something as wacky as having horns grow on his face, it would have been a little clearer.
There’s also the cool pun of “or” with and ayin (meaning skin, as appears) and “or” with an aleph (meaning light) that you’d lose if you go with the horny translation.

By: Algernon Misanthrope

Algernon Misanthrope — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 02:31:32 +0000

Isn’t that funny? I always thought the horns was a reference to Moses’ divine authority over the people. Sort of like how horns were used in the ancient world to symbolize Kingship etc. e.g. how Alexander the Great was depicted with Rams Horns on his coins. Who knew it was such a complex issue? Thanks Simon!

By: Simon Holloway

Simon Holloway — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 22:42:22 +0000

You could say keren ohr panav. It would mean, “his face was a horn of flesh”.

You’re right about Onkelos, who certainly predates the mediaevals. Nobody is entirely sure when Targum Onkelos was written, but it’s also safe to say that the Septuagint predates it, so the interpretation of the Septuagint is still the earliest indication that we have that Jews understood this clause to be referring to illumination.

By: David Werdiger

David Werdiger — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 22:18:11 +0000

By "conjugal form" I mean as a verb, noun or whatever. Yes, with just the three letters, it's either karan/verb, or keren/noun. But the noun form doesn't fit in with the verse. If the usage was as a noun, it should have said k'keren ("like a horn") or similar. True - as a verb, "shine" is not documented until the time of the rishonim. Although Onkelos, who predates the commentators by quite a bit, clearly translates it as "shine".

By: Simon Holloway

Simon Holloway — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 05:49:51 +0000

You are correct. I am sorry that I didn't make that more clear: the way that the word is vocalised (ie: the nature of the nikkud) leads one to suppose that it has to be a verb. I'm not sure what you mean by "conjugal form"? To make it a noun, however, you don't need any more letters. You just need to vocalise it as qeren instead of qaran. That noun idea was just a suggestion (and not my suggestion: I think that William Propp was the first fellow to have come up with it). Honestly, I have no idea what the clause means. If you keep it as a verb, what does the verb mean? "Shine" is completely unattested until well into the Middle Ages, and "grow horns" should be in a different verbal form (ie: a hiphil, rather than a qal).