At 00:43 14/10/98 +0000, you wrote:
The way that people envisioned the Bible is an issue, however
>inconvenient to textual scholars, that centrally affected its
>reception and interpretation. Pope Gregory the Great's formulation
>of images as the "Bible of the illiterate" has undoubtedly been
>overplayed, but nevertheless, the way that the text of the Bible has
>been visually represented cannot simply be written off in any
>consideration of the way that the Bible has been edited or
>interpreted.
>Cheers,
>Jim Bugslag
>
>Thank you for a very interesting contribution. If I may be allowed a
post-medieval instance: the little "Shorter Morning and Evening Prayer"
which my church uses for the offices is in rather small print, and there are
occasional misreadings. One of this morning's psalms contains the line
"Over Edom will I plant my shoe." One lady was heard to read: "Over Edom
will I paint my shoe". One can only wonder if she envisioned God sitting on
a cloud over Edom, painting his shoes. For that matter, I wonder how those
who read the line correctly envisioned God planting his shoe? With a spade,
perhaps, and then waiting for a shoe-tree to sprout? What exegesis would
the image of God painting his shoe attract? "Now wherewithal does he paint
his shoe, if not with the blood that flowed from his feet, pierced with the
nails . . . ?"
Oriens.
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