Here is a question for art historians.
A colleague showed me an interesting miniature from a French
manuscript, depicting the creation of Adam (Gen. 2). Of special
interest here was the fact that there were two identical divinities
creating Adam. As far as I could see, on, or possibly both had a
cross within their nimbus.
My colleague asked for an explanation. My own guess was, that we have
here God the Father and the Son (i.e., the Word, Logos) depicted as
creator of the world, but I also seemed to remember this type of
depiction was more common for Genesis 1, and usually God the Father
is not in the picture at all. And if there are two persons, why not
add the third? My second guess was that the plurality of persons was
to depict the fact that "Elohim" is plural. But then, didn't medieval
people have almost no knowledge of Hebrew? Or could they have picked
it up from Jerome?
I thought I'd ask for a more sophisticated answer via this list...
Frans van Liere
Calvin College
3201 Burton Street SE
Grand Rapids MI 49546
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/history/fvliere.htm
tel. (616) 957-6535
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