Showing posts with label mythology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mythology. Show all posts

24 March 2016

Purim and Anti‐Semitism


🖼 The legend central to the holiday of Purim depicts a situation wherein allegations of anti‐Semitism are taken seriously and not categorically dismissed.

The illustration: “Esther confond Aman,” illustration by Gustave Doré from La sainte Bible, 1866, reprinted as “Queen Esther Accuses Haman Before the King” in “Haman Is Hanged on the Gallows Made for Mordecai,” The Bible Panorama or The Holy Scriptures in Picture and Story, Arranged for the Instruction and Entertainment of Children, as Well as Older Persons; Illustrating the Principal Events of the Old and New Testaments, with Descriptions of Them in Easy Words, [by William A. Foster,] Philadelphia: Charles Foster Publishing Co., 1891, 205. (In the public domain.) (Internet Archive) (Flickr) (Also Wikimedia Commons)

08 April 2014

Passover mythology

How does Eliyyahu (a.k.a Elijah/Elias) manage to get to absolutely every Passover seder? Why it must be with his chariot of fire drawn by horses of fire (rekeb ēsh wə‐sûsê ēsh רכב אש וסוסי אש)! The Greeks identified Elias with the sun god Helios due to a superficial similarity in their names and in their conveyances (although their names are etymologically unrelated, אליהו Ēliyyāhû being Afro‐Asiatic and Ήλιος Hēlios Indo‐European), and Eliyyahu is frequently portrayed in a fire chariot not unlike Helios’ sun chariot.

This is a detail of a fresco in Rila Monastery, Bulgaria, portraying Eliyyahu (Saint Elias) and his chariot of fire (from a larger picture on Wikimedia, in the public domain).

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[I]t is easily seen how, by a scarcely perceptible change of sound, the great god Helios could be transmuted into Elias. Helios drove round the world in his fiery chariot, drawn by horses. Elias went up to heaven in a similar conveyance. Helios produced rain and storm, and so did Elias by the fervor of his prayer on Mount Carmel. Elias brought down fire from heaven and so did the great sun‐god. Hence the parallel between the two was too tempting to be passed over.

—J. Theodore Bent, “Paganism in England,” The Gentleman’s Magazine 262, Jan. 1887, 36.