The Horns of Moses

Imagine yourself gathered around the water cooler after Sunday school class where for several hundred years we would debate and conjecture about Moses and his horns. How long were they? Why would god go such a thing? What color might they have been? Were they transmitters to god? Thanks to Jerome, a heralded father and translator of scripture into the Latin Vulgate bible which was the template to translate the Bible into dozens of other languages, said Moses had horns. This is good evidence to have someone check your work. But Christian will believe anything if it’s in the Bible. That is obvious. But, while they continued to learn about the horns of Moses, no one seemed to mind they may very well be debating about another fictitious character altogether, which is par for the course. If the Bible commenter said Moses was a charcuterie, instead of character, a simple typo would have Moses working in a meat store, and they would believe it for centuries. It’s inherent.

Unicorns, Noah and the ark, creation story and the 6000 year old earth, all unfortunately didn’t exist , except in a time where few could read, and even fewer had even a slight opportunity to question. “All along the mistranslation of the verb karan by Jerome had tragic consequences. For centuries, millions of people around the world have wrongly believed that Moses – and in some cases, all Jews – have horns on their head”.

Even the great Michelangelo was fooled by this, as well as multiple popes, leaders of countries, and other artists depicting the Moses charcuterie with horns. I can however, imagine how this contributed to his temporal lobes…If any of it were true at all. I wonder what else is in the Bible that is purely false?

I stumbled across a fairly new blog from Neil. He provides some very nice, concise context to the contradiction of Christian faith and I think it’s worth a look.