Friday, August 24, 2007

Eli Benakot, Space


Photo of Star of David in a work titled SPACE, mixed media on paper glued on canvas, 120x100 cm,is courtesy of my good old friend, musician and painter, Eli Benakot who told me that he used for this work paintings of children collected while he was wandering in the streets of Jerusalem.
Copyrights: Eli Benakot 2007
renatal@hatzor.org.il

Tombs of Marissa

Peters and Thiersch wrote in their book Tombs of Marissa, 1905, p. 60
On the opposite jamb are various pentagrams and hexagrams such as were used as signs of greetings in secret friendly intercourses, as among the Pythagorians.
Marissa is today in the national garden at Beit Guvrin. Regrettably Peters and Thiersch didn’t publish a photo of this important finding which is one of very few that were found in Israel in the 2-3 century B.C.E.
This is the first time I hear about hexagrams used as signs of greetings by Pythagorians and I don’t know were did Peters and Thiersch take this info from.

Megiddo

Megiddo history hexagram six-pointed star I took this photo from William Graham’s book, Culture and Conscience, Chicago University press, 1936, p. 245 and colored it a bit in Photoshop.
Graham wrote that it is incised on the side of a building of Megiddo. He thinks that this  symbol originated in astrology and referred to S.A. Cook, The religion of Ancient Palestine in the light of Archaeology, pp. 213.
S.A. Cook wrote there:
Distinctively Jewish are…the pentagram or seal of Solomon, and the hexagram, or Shield of David…they may be of astral origin (Hilprecht, Explorations in Bible Lands, p. 529).
I already mentioned that professor Michael Costa wrote in his Hebrew book about the Golden Section that this Magen David, same as we recognize it today, drawn in lines, is from the period of King Ahab(853 - 874 B.C).

Thursday, August 23, 2007

church door at Almeria, Spain

Photo of hexagram on a church door at Almeria, andalucia Spain, dated 1741 is courtesy of "evissa"

Carmelite Order

Photo of three hexagrams around a Carmelite Cross on a crest at Albox parish church, Almeria province, Spain, is courtesy of evissa who published it on Flickr. 
On a web page about THE CARMEL EMBLEM I saw a pentagram not a hexagram and the caption tells us that this is the star of Mary, but
Some think that the central star was originally thought of as an opening, not a star, which represented the cave in which Elijah sheltered when the Lord appeared to him as the still small wind.

Glass Mosaic

Photo of Glass Mosaic Star of David is courtesy of Felicia Poes from WeBeTilin' Studios Elmira, New York, who published it on Flickr and wrote to me:

I am a Mosaic Artist and this was an early piece of mine. It has hebrew text cut from an old hebrew childrens book decoupaged on the surface. It is then covered with hand cut stained glass tiles and grouted. The grout was sealed with a gold leaf finish.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Propaganda

Photo of a Star of David over the head of a poisonous snake representing the Jews is courtesy of "ji the pee" who published it on Flickr with the caption:
the da vinci code is fiction but i know of several people who are confused now about the status of Jesus Christ because of it. in the same way, the protocols
was a fictional account of a jewish conspiracy but a lot of people did (and perhaps still do) consider it kind of true.