German Pentateuch

There's a Star of David on the c. 1300 illumination for the Duke of Sussex Pentateuch and in it there's an elephant. The book is located nowadays in the British Library in London.

On page 61 in his book Dreams of Subversion in Medieval Jewish Art and Literature (1997) Marc Michael Epstein claims that in the beginning of the 14th century for medieval German Jews the Star of David represented the Torah.

The Duke of Sussex's German Pentateuch was written and illuminated by a scribe-artist known as Hayyim, working in southern Germany around 1300

Messianic Seal

In 1990 Tech Otecus, an old monk who lived as a hermit in the Old City of Jerusalem, showed Ludwig Schneider, editor of "Israel today" magazine, a collection of artifacts he found in a cave on Mount Zion. On some of these artifacts there was engraved a Star of David between a Menorah at the top and a fish at the bottom. Otecus said that in the 1960s he had personally excavated about 40 artifacts bearing the Messianic Seal from an ancient grotto located in Mount Zion. The Israeli Museum never published these findings. Maybe they suspected they are faked.
Faked or not the Messianic Jews use this symbol as their logo, and explain that the Star of David stands for Judaism while the fish stands for Jesus.

The Essence of a Symbol

In Temple Beth El on June 2001 the Rabbi gave a sermon about the Star of David. I liked his
Introduction about the essence of a symbol:
"A symbol," according to Mircea Eliade, "speaks to the whole human being and not only to the intelligence." Symbols are powerful, often eliciting strong emotional reactions, both positive and negative”.
Like most of the general reviews on this subject the Rabbi from Temple Beth El doesn't mention Uri Ofir's theory that the origin of the Star of David is from the Tabernacle about a year after the exodus. For any future sermon - I sent him the link...

Driving Blessing

I found a very nicely designed Star of David on a Driving Blessing wrote by Rabbi Janet Marder of Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos, California. The Hebrew words for "choose life" form two of the six triangles and the rest is made by the conventional lines of the emblem.
The Driving Blessing includes a presentation that Jewish parents may give to their child upon receiving his driver's license. Getting this license is a life cycle event, which signifies independence and taking responsibilities.
The same design of a Star of David is on Choose-Life Key Ring that is offered on the same website.
This is a modern and updated ritual and I guess the more people will hear about it the more they will use it.

Six and Seven

Numbers are international. We cannot be sure that Pythagoras invented the Tetraktys all by himself – he could have learned it from the Egyptians or from the Israelites. Symbols are international – we find the hexagram or the pentagram or the lily almost in every culture.
The Star of David has six triangles surrounding one hexagon. The interlocking tetraktyses have 13 points. 13 include the meanings of the numbers six and seven, twelve and one. Twelve and one is the basis for the theory about the encampment of the Tribes.

Khan el-Ahmar

There's a Christian Star of David from the 7th century AD in the mosaic floor of the Euthymius Monastery in the Judean Dessert. In order to get there you need to drive east of Jerusalem in the direction of Jericho until Mishor Adummim and near the gas station to turn right and drive for one mile into the industrial area. Khan el-Ahmar means red hostel.
Y. Hirschfeld wrote an extensive article about the Euthymius Monastery and in it I found the following description:
The easternmost unit contains a six-pointed star pattern with a red chalice at its center…The mosaic stone pavements of the northern aisle were almost completely destroyed, except for a small section at its eastern end. In this section a small portion has survived of a six-pointed star identical with the six-pointed star of the southern aisle.

Oldest Jewish Star of David

 Star of David at Mt. Karkom, Israel c. 1200 BCE

Photo by Flickr member Uri Zackhem 

(c)

 2010

Star of David at Mt. Karkom, Israel c. 1200 BCE

Photo by Flickr member Uri Zackhem 

(c)

 2010

A few days ago I sent E-mail to Yair Davidiy, the publisher of Brit-Am newsletter and yesterday I got his answer:

Question and Sources about the Shield of David Question:

Dear Yair,

I read on your website that Professor James R. Harris, mentions in his book THE NAME OF GOD p. 205 a Star of David with YAH written in Hebrew in it from the time of the Judges that was found at Gibeon.

I also read on his web page "The Shield of David represents Yah as the protector of the Twelve Tribes (represented by the twelve points of the star). In addition to the "Shield of David" inscription shown above, we have an enlarged photo of a geoglyph Shield of David on top of one of the Har Karkom platforms".

I understand that these Magen Davids are the oldest Jewish Magen Davids known today. I checked the Internet and almost nobody mentions these finding and their importance.

Why?

Do you have any more info about this?

Answer:

Shalom,

Your blog site http://star-of-david.blogspot.com/ contains some interesting information concerning the Magen David.

You quoted from our article concerning the Magen David

James Trimm is quoted in this article as referring to: "THE NAME OF GOD by James R. Harris p. 205. It dates to the time of the Judges and was found at Gibeon. It is a Mogen David with YAH written in Hebrew in it."

We have not seen this work.

Our support for the Magen David as a symbol is based more on other factors, i.e. it could be seen as a valid short-hand Ancient Hebrew ("Canaanite-Phoenician") letter of writing the name David.

It has become associated with the Jews almost against their will.

There also exists a principle that even something whose origins were pagan is acceptable if the pagans no longer attribute it pagan significance, e.g. if a tree which was once part of a pagan grove and the pagans who worshipped it no longer exist or have changed their religion the tree is no longer considered as attached to idol worship and does not have to be cut down.

You quote from a site describing the Names of God as found in ancient inscriptions. I could not find the author of this site nor discern what (if any) group may be behind it. ALL the information looks reliable though the Karkom Shield of David (near the bottom of the page) looks too explicit and a little too good to be true. Nevertheless chances are that it too is genuine.

As for not being able to find it on the web this does not say much. We sometimes find information that seems to be common knowledge and that we consider to be of great importance assumedly for all concerned to be very difficult to track down not only on the web but even in University libraries. I like academics and even fancy myself sometimes as "almost" one of them but sometimes their presentation to the public of very vital sources can be most disappointing.