Can any speakers of modern languages ever hope to fully understand Genesis or any other ancient literature?
Figure left: Michelangelo’s image of the face of God creating stars on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Image left: in ancient art Socrates was presented as aged, short, pudgy, balding, with a pug nose, a cheerful expression and other features at odds with traditional Greek ideals of beauty. Figure left: the damned led away in Charon’s boat, image from The Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel. The god Charon in classical mythology was the gentle and helpful ferryman of the departed dead on the journey to the afterlife. But he becomes one of the unfriendly devils of monotheism in Michelangelo’s painting. Compare Dante’s Inferno 3.105: “Charon the demon, with eyes of burning coal, beckoning, gathers them all: and strikes with his oar whoever lingers.” Image left: Christian artist Caravaggio depicts inspiration coming to St. Matthew for his gospel story of Jesus. The spirit must have told Matthew to configure Jesus’ story so that it would convert Jews. Matthew’s Jesus fulfills Jewish pro
