The Devil is in the Details

Maybe it is true that we ‘learn something new everyday’. But, if that is the case, most of those new bits of information pass seemingly unnoticed into our subconscious. Sometimes though, that new knowledge resonates and we feel a need to pass it along… Isn’t it awesome that I have this blog as a forum for such things?


Like all religions and ethnicities, the Jewish people have faced stereotypes, myths and misnomers for centuries. I won’t propagate any of these, but there is one that has always seemed more outrageous than the rest, ‘Jews have horns’.
I have always believed this ‘myth’ was created to ‘demonize’ the Jews and make them easier scapegoats for things such as the crucifixion of Christ and the fall of the German empire prior to the Holocaust, among other ridiculous accusations. Only yesterday did I learn the truth, and it turns out, this ‘myth’/misnomer, while inconvenient has legitimate roots.

“When Moses comes down from Mount Sinai, Exodus says, his face glows with rays of light. But the Hebrew word for ‘rays’ can also be translated as ‘horns’ – karan vs. keren. When Saint Jerome translated the Old Testament into Latin, he thought no one but Christ should glow with rays of light – so he advanced the secondary translation. And that’s how Michaelangelo carved his Moses. With horns.” – The Rule of Four (written by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason)

And there it is…