Jots & Tittles

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Mural Makeover

A religious masterpiece by the great American expatriate painter John Singer Sargent has been restored to its former glory.

The Triumph of Religion is a set of 16 murals adorning a hall on the third floor of the Boston Public Library’s McKim Building. The series includes depictions of pagan gods like Moloch and Astarte (on the ceiling); the Israelites in bondage to the Egyptians and Assyrians and a frieze of the prophets (on the north wall); and an unusual “Madonna of Sorrows” (in the southwest corner) whose heart is pierced by seven swords.

The murals’ once-bright colors had faded over the years, prompting the library to embark on a $2 million, multi-year restoration project. The results were unveiled in October.

Singer began painting The Triumph of Religion series in 1890, when he was 34 years old; he made his last addition to it in 1919, at the age of 63. Hindered by World War I as well as a cooling public view toward religion (especially in public buildings like libraries), he never painted the planned final scene in the series, a depiction of the Sermon on the Mount that was to fill the central panel on the east wall.

Sargent’s murals aroused much controversy at the time. By the 1920s, the subject matter, religion, seemed backward and academic, even if his take on it was daringly modern: Following the ideas of social scientists, Sargent depicted religion as an evolution from primitive paganism, passing through various forms of organized religion, and ending with a spirituality that was personal and secular. Sketches for his never-finished Sermon on the Mount show Jesus as a very human teacher, not a divine being.

To Sargent’s surprise and dismay, some critics also accused him of religious insensitivity or even anti-Semitism, since (following a long tradition in art) his series depicts Judaism as a failed religion that Christianity had surpassed: His painting of Synagogue shows a blindfolded old woman losing her crown and holding a broken staff.

Time, however, has softened the reaction to Sargent’s work, and The Triumph of Religion is now widely regarded as one of the painter’s most significant achievements. For more on the murals and their restoration, visit www.sargentmurals.bpl.org.

Exodus Whodunnit

Frogs, flies, floods, hail, locusts … of the ten calamitous plagues that devastated Egypt in Exodus, most can be accounted for by weather phenomena or periodic flooding of the Nile.^a But the last one—the death of the Egyptian firstborn—appears to defy natural explanation. It is a fate that, the Bible says, befell even the eldest son of the pharaoh who held the Israelites imprisoned.

A December Discovery Channel documentary, Rameses: Wrath of God or Man?, 009presented a new hypothesis about the tenth plague based on recent discoveries in the tomb of Ramesses II, the pharaoh many scholars think was the ruler of Egypt during the time of the Exodus.

As reported in the special, archaeologist Kent Weeks thinks the pharaoh’s eldest son, Amun-her-khepeshef, met a violent end. The excavator has found the remains of at least four of the pharaoh’s reputed 150 children in the vast grave complex in the Valley of the Kings known as KV5. One skull, found in a prominent tomb chamber below a relief depicting the crown prince being led through the underworld by his father, has a severe depressed fracture—possibly from a sword or mace.

Is it possible that the biblical tenth plague was some kind of metaphor for a violent assassination—or death on the field of battle? In the documentary, journalist Charles Sennott speculated that the crown prince Amun-her-khepeshef, who is depicted in tomb reliefs as a military general, may have died in a palace coup, or perhaps while suppressing the Hebrew slave revolt.

But Old Testament scholar and archaeologist James Hoffmeier, author of Israel in Egypt (Oxford, 1999), says these speculations are based on “an ill-founded assumption”: that the crown prince Amun-her-khepeshef is necessarily the firstborn.

“There’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the eldest son who was meant to rule,” Hoffmeier told BR. “Because of the high mortality rate, many firstborns died, royalty or otherwise.” Once the firstborn son dies, the next in line becomes the crown prince. Ramesses II, who lived to around 90, outlived many of his children, including his first twelve sons. “We know that Merneptah [who ultimately did succeed Ramesses II] was the thirteenth son,” Hoffmeier points out.

So theoretically, the crown prince Amun-her-khepeshef could have been the ill-fated firstborn mentioned in the Exodus narrative, but it is more probable that he fell somewhere farther down the line of royal siblings, with older brothers that had perished, for whatever reasons, in infancy or adulthood.

There is also no conclusive proof that the bashed-in skull is that of Amun-her-khepeshef, Hoffmeier adds.—E.W.

009

The Bible in the News

One of the most enduring (if not necessarily endearing) literary legacies of the King James Version is the negative command in the form of “Thou shalt not.” As is evident from a recent perusal of the popular press, this imperial-sounding imperative continues to carry weight in a vast array of activities.

From the world of business come the following (recorded in the Wisconsin State Journal): “Thou shalt not download any craven images. Thou shalt not take the name of the boss in vain. Thou shalt not kill time. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s cubicle, nor his stapler, nor his three-hole punch, nor his computer nor Internet access.” A list of negative commands focusing on the misuse of e-mail (as reported in the Edmonton Journal) is less obviously dependent on biblical phraseology: “Thou shall not curse nor USE ALL CAPS. Thou shalt not forward any chain letter. Thou shalt not rely on the privacy of e-mail, especially from work.” Nonetheless, its final admonition has a clear biblical ring to it: “That which thou findest hateful to receive, sendest not unto others.”

Among lessons of immediate applicability to student and teacher alike are “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s prose,” “Thou shalt not bore” (the latter is relevant for columnists as well), and “Thou shalt not take essay tests in pain” (such puns are frequent, as in the title of a mystery novel by Tamar Myers, Thou Shalt Not Grill). And Bible proofreaders are not the only ones who need to recall: “Thou shalt not miss any typos”—even if the rest of us are not likely to suffer their embarrassment from a repeat of the 1631 mistake that resulted in the so-called Wicked Bible’s “Thou shalt commit adultery.”

The world of sports weighs in with “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s quarterback,” “Thou shalt not attempt to play two quarterbacks at the same time,” and “boxing’s first commandment: Thou shalt not break the rules because there aren’t any.” And individual insights abound from very varied sources: “Thou shalt not crash; the Vatican says it’s every Christian’s duty to drive safely and courteously”; Prime Minister Tony Blair: “Thou shalt not blame thyself for everything”; the Interfaith Campaign Against Tobacco: “Thou shalt not smoke.”

But it is the world of travel, broadly conceived, that provides the most numerous Thou Shalt Nots: For a hassle-free holiday (so the Australian Magazine): “Thou shalt not expect things to run to plan,” “Thou shalt not be stupid,” “Thou shalt never buy anything on the first day,” “Thou shalt never come back saying, ‘I wish I had …’” Houseguests would be wise to observe (from the Edmonton Journal): “Thou shalt not overstay thy welcome” (also relevant to columnists), “Thou shall not be a slob in another’s home,” “Thou shalt not expect thine host to entertain you day and night.” And thou canst insure thy popularity on beaches worldwide if thou remembrest: “Thou shalt not crowd other beachgoers” and “Thou shalt not steal another surfer’s wave” (So Australia’s City News).

In order to reach British youth, the Methodist Church sought out an 11th commandment. All of the five winners make use of Thou Shalt Not, as in: “Thou shalt not be negative,” “Thou shalt not worship false pop idols,” “Thou shalt not kill in the name of any God,” “Thou shalt not confuse text with love,” and “Thou shalt not consume thine own bodyweight in fudge.”

All of which serves to remind this columnist of a Thou Shalt Not of his own: “Thou shalt not become wedded to only one format, even a good one.” Beginning with the next issue of BR, I will introduce a new look and style to this column. To those who wish to know what it will be like, I must admonish, “Thou shalt not seek a sneak preview, especially since I haven’t planned it out yet!”

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New Editor of Bible Review

With this issue, I have become Editor-at-Large. No one is quite sure what that means. The closest we have been able to come is that, like a hummingbird, I just hover without really going anywhere.

What is clear, however, is that Molly Dewsnap Meinhardt is the new editor of Bible Review. The ultimate responsibility is hers.

Molly has grown up with the Biblical Archaeology Society. She came to us in 1993 to work as an assistant editor on Bible Review and BAR. She became managing editor of Bible Review in 1998.

Along the way, a colleague (then associate editor Jack Meinhardt, now editor of Bible Review’s sister magazine Archaeology Odyssey) transformed from Molly’s tennis partner into her husband. Since then, Molly (and her husband) have acquired (by the usual means) Maggie, 4, and Freddy, 7 months.

And now she has acquired a magazine.

Molly has our warmest good wishes and lofty expectations as she embarks on this newest adventure.

Hershel Shanks

Mural Makeover

A religious masterpiece by the great American expatriate painter John Singer Sargent has been restored to its former glory.