Volume 3, Number 178
 
'There's a Jewish story everywhere'
 



Tuesday-Wednesday,September 1-2, 2009

THE BIBLE IN POP CULTURE

You will bite his heel, Genesis 3:15

 




I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He w ill pound your head, and you will bite his heel.

The painting at left by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, circa 1605, takes this verse from Hebrew Scriptures and places it in a Christian context, in which Jesus is construed as the new Adam. The uncircumcized boy is Jesus. Crushing the snake with him is his mother, Mary, and the wizened lady watching this is Mary's mother Anne. The painting now at the Galleria Borghese in Rome was controversial in several ways: Mary's low-cut dress, Jesus's uncircumcised penis; the withered face of Anne, to whom this was supposed to be a tribute. But the point of the enmity between the snake and the woman and her offspring is dramatically illustrated.

 

To view our index of photos for the Bible in Pop Culture, please click here. You may submit an illustration for a biblical verse of our "Bible in Pop Culture" series by sending a jpg image (400 picas wide and 72dpi) to editor@sandiegojewishworld.com Please include the location of your company and a brief statement about why you chose that name.


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