Maybe Moses really had horns

cloudyday2 · Aug 27, 2015

In ancient Near Eastern religions, the bull was important. The earliest cities had bull-head idols. Baal was often depicted as a calf. In artwork the gods and demigods were depicted with horns.

Now we come to Moses:

The Douay-Rheims Bible translates the Vulgate as, "And when Moses came down from the mount Sinai, he held the two tables of the testimony, and he knew not that his face was horned from the conversation of the Lord."[11] This was Jerome's effort to faithfully translate the difficult, original Hebrew Masoretic text, which uses the term, karan (based on the root, keren, which often means "horn"); the term is now interpreted to mean "shining" or "emitting rays" (somewhat like a horn).[12][13] Although some historians believe that Jerome made an outright error,[14] Jerome himself appears to have seen keren as a metaphor for "glorified", based on other commentaries he wrote, including one on Ezekiel, where he wrote that Moses' face had "become 'glorified', or as it says in the Hebrew, 'horned'."[6]:77

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_(Michelangelo)

IMO, Moses was meant to have horns - just like a Near Eastern demigod. The Hebrew word "keren" literally means "horn", and we know that horns were a symbol of divinity in that region. Receiving the Law is equivalent to eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. Learning the Law was a step towards becoming Godlike, so it would make sense that Moses acquired horns after receiving the Law.

Any thoughts?

LoAmmi · Aug 27, 2015

The word has three meanings. Much like in English where a word will have multiple meanings. One of them is horn, one of them is radiant, and another is used for funds such as a fund for orphans.The context sets which one it is and Jewish tradition states it is radiant and not horn.

cloudyday2 · Aug 27, 2015

LoAmmi said:
The word has three meanings. Much like in English where a word will have multiple meanings. One of them is horn, one of them is radiant, and another is used for funds such as a fund for orphans.The context sets which one it is and Jewish tradition states it is radiant and not horn.

Which meaning makes more sense in the context of Near Eastern religion that spawned the Torah? I suspect that as the memory of horns as a symbol of godliness vanished, the Rabbis were faced with the concept of a horned Moses that no longer made sense. Therefore the Rabbis developed this idea that it really meant horn-shaped (conical) rays of light. The original meaning was just plain old horns IMO.

LoAmmi · Aug 27, 2015

cloudyday2 said:
Which meaning makes more sense in the context of Near Eastern religion that spawned the Torah? I suspect that as the memory of horns as a symbol of godliness vanished, the Rabbis were faced with the concept of a horned Moses that no longer made sense. Therefore the Rabbis developed this idea that it really meant horn-shaped (conical) rays of light. The original meaning was just plain old horns IMO.

It wouldn't really matter either way really, but I would put more faith in those people who learned the language as children, who spoke the words of the Torah every week, and who spent extensive time studying just the Torah. I've never heard it was horn-shaped light, just that his face itself was radiant.

Niblo · Aug 27, 2015

LoAmmi said:
It wouldn't really matter either way really, but I would put more faith in those people who learned the language as children, who spoke the words of the Torah every week, and who spent extensive time studying just the Torah. I've never heard it was horn-shaped light, just that his face itself was radiant.

The translators got it wrong. The correct translation - as you say - is radiant.

cloudyday2 · Aug 27, 2015

Here is a link that mentions some scholars who think Moses was intended to have horns.

Scholars are divided on the issue. Recent defenders of the horned Moses hypothesis include:
Jack Sasson (“Bovine Symbolism in the Exodus Narrative,” VT 18 [1968] 380-387) and Nicolas Wyatt (There’s Such a Divinity Doth Hedge a King: Selected Essays of Nicolas Wyatt [London: Ashgate, 2005] 209-210).

http://ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com/ancient_hebrew_poetry/2008/03/did-moses-have.html

Here is a link to Sasson's paper:
https://discoverarchive.vanderbilt.edu/handle/1803/3743

MehGuy · Aug 27, 2015

If Moses had horns my children church services as a kid would have been a lot more interesting.

cloudyday2 · Aug 27, 2015

MehGuy said:
If Moses had horns my children church services as a kid would have been a lot more interesting.

So we can add those pointy Moses-horns to the list of other church dangers (such as tripping on your shepherd robes that are too long )

Arthra · Aug 27, 2015

I think Cloudy.. I go along with Lo Ammi and Nibio.. "horns" is mistranslated or misplaced analogy .. In the Renaissance it was fashionable to revive pagan art forms hence the use of the horns by Michelangelo from depictions of Pan.

Owing to the representations of the old painters and sculptors, it has become a wide-spread belief that Moses, when he came down from Mount Sinai with the tables of the Law, had two horns on his forehead. This strange idea, however, is based upon a wrong interpretation of Ex. xxxiv. 29, 35, ("And behold the skin of his face shone"), in which means "to shine" (comp. Hab. iii. 4, = "brightness was on his side").

- Jewish Encyclopaedia

"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. 30 When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant, and they were afraid to come near him."

- Exodus 34:29-30

cloudyday2 · Aug 27, 2015

The problem with dismissing the idea that Moses really had horns is that we must take the word of the Rabbis. This is like asking Al Capone what the coded entries in his ledgers mean.

LoAmmi · Aug 27, 2015

cloudyday2 said:
The problem with dismissing the idea that Moses really had horns is that we must take the word of the Rabbis. This is like asking Al Capone what the coded entries in his ledgers mean.

Are we comparing Jewish rabbis to criminals?

cloudyday2 · Aug 27, 2015

LoAmmi said:
Are we comparing Jewish rabbis to criminals?

<--- in case you didn't see my winky

Seriously, the horns probably made sense at the time the Torah was first composed, because all the surrounding religions used horns to symbolize the holiness of gods and demigods. As the centuries passed and those ancient near eastern religions became extinct, the Jews reading the Torah probably found the "horns" of Moses increasingly confusing. Eventually somebody decided "karan" ("horns") might have actually meant "horn-shaped rays of light", because light made more sense at that later time to symbolize holiness. As this explanation gained popularity, "karan" gained an alternative meaning - "radiance" in addition to the original "horns".

In other words, it doesn't matter how a modern Hebrew dictionary defines the meaning; we need to learn what "karan" meant at the time the Torah was composed. We could test to see if "karan" really meant "radiant" by looking for other instances in the Torah narratives where something is radiant to see if "karan" or some other word is used. I suspect we would find that "karan" means "radiant" only in that particular instance with Moses. Meanwhile we would probably find that every other occurrence of "karan" means "horns". This would suggest that Moses had plain old horns IMO.

LoAmmi · Aug 27, 2015

Only occurs four times. Three here and one in Psalms talking about an ox. That's pretty inconclusive. I would also say that the focus on his face rather than his head, two different words, says something about the meaning.

cloudyday2 · Aug 27, 2015

LoAmmi said:
Only occurs four times. Three here and one in Psalms talking about an ox. That's pretty inconclusive. I would also say that the focus on his face rather than his head, two different words, says something about the meaning.

What about the Hebrew word used for "face"? Maybe that word is used elsewhere in the Torah to mean "head"?

cloudyday2 · Aug 27, 2015

I used an online concordance to search for "radiant". If there are instances where a word other than "karan" is used to mean "radiant", then it might indicate that "karan" did not originally have this meaning. As you said, "karan" only means "radiant" when applied to Moses. There are several instances where "karan" was not used, but Ezekiel 43:2 looks almost exactly like Moses: "Behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east: and his voice was like the sound of many waters; and the earth shined with his glory." Ezekiel 43:2 is a prime candidate where "karan" might have been used but was not used.

Exodus 34:29 It happened, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from the mountain, that Moses didn't know that the skin of his face shone by reason of his speaking with him.
(See NIV)
Exodus 34:30 When Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come near him.
(See NIV)
Exodus 34:35 The children of Israel saw Moses' face, that the skin of Moses' face shone: and Moses put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with him.
(See NIV)
Psalms 19:8 Yahweh's precepts are right, rejoicing the heart. Yahweh's commandment is pure, enlightening the eyes.
(See NIV)
Psalms 34:5 They looked to him, and were radiant. Their faces shall never be covered with shame.
(WEB JPS ASV NAS RSV NIV)
Song of Songs 5:10 My loved one is white and red, the chief among ten thousand.
(See RSV NIV)
Isaiah 60:5 Then you shall see and be radiant, and your heart shall thrill and be enlarged; because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you.
(WEB JPS ASV NAS RSV NIV)
Ezekiel 43:2 Behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east: and his voice was like the sound of many waters; and the earth shined with his glory.
(See NIV)
Daniel 10:8 So I was left alone, and saw this great vision, and there remained no strength in me; for my comeliness was turned in me into corruption, and I retained no strength.

http://biblehub.com/concordance/r/radiant.htm

cloudyday2 · Aug 27, 2015

I found this very brief but fascinating article about the Moses horns. To be honest, I don't fully understand the concept, but apparently it meant "horns" AND "radiance" SIMULTANEOUSLY(?).

The difficulty is well expressed by W. Propp: “...it is hard to see any connection between ‘horn’ and ‘light’, though we should note that Sumerian si can, in fact, denote either a horn or radiance. However, no Semitic language makes such an association”.
...
While ambivalence about seeing God is distinctive of the Bible, the conceptual connection between horns and light was in fact a common feature of the international Near Eastern cuneiform high culture of the early first millennium BCE. Indeed, Babylonian lexicographic and astronomical tradition register precisely this connection. The connection is made by means of the Sumerian word si, but the sources make clear that this word is, literally, a sign for a larger conceptual connection.
...
si means ‘horn’,
si means ‘to daze,’
si means ‘to mask,’
si means ‘shining,’
si means ‘radiance,’
si means ‘light.’
...
Second, recently published Midrashic sources have emphasized that Jerome’s understanding of Moses as actually bearing horns, font of a famous anti-Semitic image, was actually shared by a stream within Jewish tradition.
...
Moses’ face could, quite literally, radiate horns, and the need to translate the term as either divine radiance or physical protuberance is merely a side-effect of our conceptual categories, irrelevant to ancient Israelite ideas.

http://www.academia.edu/251126/Old_Light_on_Moses_Shining_Face

SepiaAndDust · Aug 28, 2015

cloudyday2 said:
The Hebrew word "keren" literally means "horn"

Interestingly, it means the same thing in the Indo-European languages. The Proto-Indo-European word for "horn", ker, survives in English as unicorn, cornucopia, and (yes) horn.

It's one of those supposedly Nostratic words that shows an ancient link between the I-E and Semitic language families. Most likely, though, it's just a false cognate.

Either way, Moses never had horns....

Jane_the_Bane · Aug 28, 2015

The horns are a classical translation error.

This interpretation/tradition did not exist prior to the Latin Vulgate, which translated the relevant term as "horns".

timewerx · Aug 28, 2015

I actually have an itty bitty horn in my upper forehead, doesn't show in my avatar because of the lighting (which is why I don't take my pictures with the light over my head). It's under the skin but its proportions are similar to that of a calf or a cow and also found in the same place as you would in a calf.

None in our family has similar feature. So I won't discount the possibility yet that Moses had a horn and look! I turned out to be a Christian!

cloudyday2 · Aug 28, 2015

Jane_the_Bane said:
The horns are a classical translation error.

This interpretation/tradition did not exist prior to the Latin Vulgate, which translated the relevant term as "horns".

Check-out this short article (I forgot to link it in post #16).
http://www.academia.edu/251126/Old_Light_on_Moses_Shining_Face

If I understand correctly, the linguistic link between "horn" and "radiant" only existed in the Sumerian word "si", and it was not passed-down to later Near Eastern languages. However, the concept that "horn" and "radiant" were equivalent persisted long after the words became different.

Another thought: maybe the story of Moses meeting God on a mountain was originally a Sumerian myth about a Sumerian hero that was translated into Hebrew?

Maybe Moses really had horns

Generic Theist

Dispassionate

Generic Theist

Dispassionate

Muslim

Generic Theist

A member of the less neotenous sex..

Generic Theist

Baha'i

Generic Theist

Dispassionate

Generic Theist

Dispassionate

Generic Theist

Generic Theist

Generic Theist

There's a FISH in the percolator

Gaia's godchild

the village i--o--t--

Generic Theist

Similar threads

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency