I believe pictures steal your soul. Tbh this might be my most core belief. My family is mix of Mennonite and Lutheran, both hold steadfast to the scriptures. The second commandment is “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing-and in the heavens or the earth (Exodus 20:4); which in my own interpretation included pictures and videos.
And don’t forget Dorian Grey. Oscar Wilde spoke truths
Oscar Wilde told a story.
Do you also believe that paintings and/or drawings steal souls?
Neither one believes that cameras steal souls, as far as I can find out. Lutherans certainly don’t, and some sects of Mennonites don’t believe they should pose for a picture but are willing to have pictures taken of them doing everyday chores and the like.
One thing that always bothered me about the basic premise is that a great many cultures don’t include the idea of a soul at all. Certainly not in the manner nominally Christian societies understand them. And you can’t steal the soul as Christians define it. Not clear you can actually sell it either. Crossroads at midnight not withstanding.
There is a long tortured path that describes the developing idea of a soul, with lots of curious influences over time. We had some Christians who asserted that women could not have souls. Mostly to annoy people I suspect.
Dorain Gray’s picture didn’t contain his soul or represent it. Indeed it rather did the opposite. It provided a good vehicle for Oscar Wilde to explore issues that were perhaps closer to home for him.
I rather though that the commandant about graven images etc was all about idolatry. Something which was pertinent at the time as the push towards monotheism was taking hold.
Not clear if Zombies have souls.
Technically they are undead, but I think they need to die first. So in my limited zombie/religious knowledge my opinion is no. Zombies do not have souls.
Or maybe they do, but they are no longer attached to the bodies.
My mother’s grandfather, from Puerto Rico, allowed no one to take his photograph because he believed each photograph stole a portion of his soul, like to capture his image was just that: a capturing. I have a painted portrait of him, inherited from my mother. He was born in the 19th century, and was, among many things, a painter.
One of my grandmothers had a similar superstition about mirrors on doors, although that one has a more nuts-and-bolts appeal – you don’t want to be in front of a mirror when someone slams a door open in your direction.
An aversion to being photographed is still fairly common among pretty much all indigenous people in Latin America. The root of the belief is a lot more more complicated that “it will steal my soul”, as I understand it that is a distortion based on what western people have been told (via translation to English).
I always thought the “steal your soul” idea fell under the general heading of sympathetic magic (e.g. if you do something bad to a representation of a person, like sticking pins in a doll, that can have negative effects on the actual person).
Not sure how the Australian aboriginals take it, but I recall a book discussing issues with Cree/Ojibway culture in northern Canada. Basically, in a subsistence hand-to-mouth lifestyle, there was no time to sit and mourn persons who died, to the exclusion of the work of feeding the tribe. As a result, even today some have the view that when someone dies, destroy that which reminds you of them - photos, mementos. Do not discuss them. Do not bring up unfortunate events… etc. This in the context of “white man’s justice” with its inordinate delays, meaning them people will be dragged in to trials to testify about people and events that would have been long put out of mind.
I know when I was in Africa I recall specifically taking a picture of a rural house (quaint, almost fairy-tale-cottage look.) There was a man, not in the picture since I was observing the rule, who as soon as he saw the camera pointed in his general direction ran and hid.
OTOH, I never saw any suggestion to avoid pictures in Egypt, where presumably photo-happy tourists are commonplace, nobody said anything other than the usual no pictures in some museums, and the obvious no pictures of people at prayer.
Please do some research. The Bible wasn’t written in English. The original Hebrew “graven image” means “idol”. People omit the second sentence in the commandment; here’s the full text: You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them". So unless you are worshiping photos, you are in the clear.
But it’s important to point out that Jerry Falwell, in his notable Penthouse interview in the 1970’s, mentioned that the first book ever printed was the Bible - in English. /s
And even that doesn’t appear to be true. Caxton printed the History of Troy (the first book printed in English) and then The Canterbury Tales. This was a couple of decades later than Gutenberg, Caxton being credited with bringing the Gutenberg printing press to England. Caxton did publish a set of Bible stories (much of it non-canon) but I couldn’t find an actual Bible in English from him. Given he was working 150 years before the King James Version this is hardly a surprise.
Gutenberg printed the Latin Vulgate Bible, which is most certainly not in English. That was the first book printed in moveable type in Europe. Moveable type and printed books go back much further, but as usual, we just get the western version of history.
I highly doubt that Gutenberg printed the Bible in English.
I took it at the time as an indication of the quality of Mr. Falwell’s education (as did most others who actually read the articles). He went on to found a university… higher learning and all that.
(Yes, duh, Latin)
I find:
The first complete Bible in English was published abroad, most likely in Antwerp, in 1535 . Myles Coverdale (1488-1569), an Augustinian friar from Yorkshire educated at Cambridge, ‘faithfully and truly translated [it] out of Douche [German] and Latin into English’.
It was published abroad in a Protestant country since the church hierarchy was still hostile to the idea of letting the masses have a Bible.
Interesting spelling of German.