Does the “Jews have horns” myth originate from the mistranslation of the bible that caused many artists over the years to depict Moses with ram horns coming out of head?
http://paracleteforum.org/archive/PicturesofMoseswithhorns.html
I had heard the racist horn myth before, and I had heard of this mistranslation before, but I never put the two together until recently.
The way I heard it is that the word for horn is similar to the word for rays of light. When Moses came down from Sanai with the tablets, the Bible says he had rays of light shining from his head which some dipshit translated as horns.
Haj
That is the explanation I got in Rome, viewing Michaelangelo’s statue of Moses several years ago.
Here’s some Straight Dope for you:
http://www.cptryon.org/hoagland/travels/stpeterchains/moses.html
Scroll on down to the closeup.
I understand the Moses mistranslation; I was just wondering if this was the origin of the modern belief that some ignorant people hold that Jews have horns.
Another possible origin of the myth is that people are simply giving Jews satanic features.
We did this one a couple of years ago, I think-- someone with good Hebrew stepped in with some info. . .
here it is–
<http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=54195>
That’s was certainly the party line I was taught in art history – that the mistranslation led to the horns in art, and that this formalized the “Jews have horns” myth.
However, at the time, my thesis advisor was working on a scholarly article that made the claim that the “mistranslation” was a deliberate mistake and an intentional effort to fuel anti-semitism. In essence, that depictions of Jews with devil-like features came first, before the mistranslation of “beams of light” to “horns” widespread. The change in the treatment of Jews from respectful to demonized in Christian art coincides with the growth of resentment towards Jewish communities, usually fueled by the perception that Jews had unfair economic advantages over the Christian population. She asserts that the mistranslation was a mechanism to justify this ill feeling.
RevTim writes:
<<I understand the Moses mistranslation; I was just wondering if this was the origin of the modern belief that some ignorant people hold that Jews have horns.
Another possible origin of the myth is that people are simply giving Jews satanic features.>>
We could solve this empirically. I know a LOT of Jewish people. None of them have horns. I know a lot of ignorant people. A lot of them have stupid ideas, prejudices, customs, hobbies. Cite: WWF.
Sir Thomas Browne, 17th century English physician and writer, dealt with a similar slur in his Vulgar Errors (a predecessor of The Straight Dope), namely, That Jews Stink (Book IV, Chapter 10). He quotes a contemporary who writes that the Jews
" … emit a loathsome savour, as Mr Fulham experimented in Italy at a Jewish meeting, with the hazard of life, till he removed into the fresh air."
After much learned disquisition, Sir Thomas concludes,
" … in assenting hereto many difficulties must arise; it being a dangerous point to annex a constant property unto any nation, and much more this unto the Jew; since their quality is not verified by observation; since the grounds are feeble that should establish it; and lastly, since if all were true [ie, the anecdotal evidence], yet are the reasons alleged for it of no sufficiency to maintain it."
