Just got home from Boskone tonight

[xiphias]

Got to see lots of great people, as per usual. Met Brother Guy Consolmagno, who is, in fact, every bit as cool, nice, smart, witty, funny, and just generally mensch-like as I'd been led to believe.

felis_sidus -- you'd really like him. I mean, if you were looking, and he wasn't a Jesuit monk, I'd totally try to set the two of you up. He's an astronomer for the Vatican, and is the curator of the Vatican's meteorite collection -- so, Mom, Dad, when we go to Italy and want to see Castel Gandalfo, he's the guy we want to contact. We asked him about it, and he said that Castel Gandalfo (where he lives and works six months of the year) isn't open to the public and that you have to be friends with someone to get in. Then he pointed out that he happens to be someone, and he's a pretty friendly fellow. So we'll email him later on and see what we can do.

He had a bunch of funny stories about being a religious scientist, and both the conflicts, but, more importantly, the utter lack of conflicts that he's encountered. He talked about how, just after he took up religious orders, he was talking to a fellow scientist who he'd known for a while, and mentioned that he was now a Jesuit, and the temperature in the room dropped about ten degrees. Okay, he'd be expecting this might happen, because of the anti-religious strain in science. After a while, the other scientist asked him if he'd always been Roman Catholic, and he said that, yes, his father was an Italian Catholic, hence "Consolmagno", and his mother was an Irish Catholic, and he'd, yes, ALWAYS been Catholic.

And the temperature in the room went right back to normal. See, the other scientist had always thought that Guy was Jewish, like him, so thought that "becoming a Jesuit" meant "rejecting Judaism". The whole "being a monk" thing, though -- THAT was totally cool.

In totally unrelated thoughts, except that they tangentially refer to religion and Italy, I was working more on my Purim Schpeil that I posted yesterday, and Lis mentioned the part of the Sistine Chapel which shows the Book of Esther has Haman being crucified, not hanged.

And I thought about this for a bit.

Now, I've always assumed that Haman and his wife and ten sons were hanged to death by the neck with a noose.

But does the language support crucifixion, as well?

I mean, it says that Haman had a fifty-cubit high (about 25 yards or 25 meters if you prefer -- those aren't the same, but "cubit" is a pretty approximate measurement anyway) "eitz" built on which Mordecai would be hung as an execution.

"Eitz" means, literally, "tree", but, in this case, means, "large wooden structure on which you hang someone in order to publicly execute him, or her." "Gallows" is a perfectly reasonable translation for this.

But would "crucifix" also be a reasonable translation for it? I don't have a Hebrew megillah, and my Hebrew's not good enough to tell, either. But what verb for "hang" do they use, and is it consistent with both being hanged from the neck until dead, AND with being hung off of a crucifix? What other usages of "eitz" do we have, and is it generally used, in this context, to mean "gallows"? Or could other execution styles be reasonable?

And, finally, what kind of execution styles were in vogue in the Persian Empire during that time?

My Hebrew is nowhere near good enough to tell, but I have a suspicion that Michaelangelo's interpretation may be a perfectly reasonable one.

If both interpretations of what "eitz" could be are plausible, it raises the question of why only the "gallows" interpretation has lasted in Jewish thought. Of course, a moment's thought provides a reasonable answer -- because if every year, Jews tended to portray an image of them having some guy crucified, it'd probably not end well for ANYBODY.

Comments

[geekosaur]

"the King said, 'Hang him on that'" => "va-yomer haMelech t'luhu alav" (תְּלֻהוּ)
"and they hanged" => "va-yitlu" (וַיִּתְלוּ)

Given that "tayil" means "wire" which suggests actual hanging, and "talyan" ("hangman"), I don't think crucifixion quite fits the language, fwiw.

(And I thought crucifixion was a specifically Roman perversion, anyway.)

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Crucifixion of various sorts was a pretty widespread practice. I mean, the Japanese used it. It wasn't unique to the Romans.

Urelated words

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

Tahyil (Taf-Yud-Lamed) meaning wire, is a relatively modern word, taken from the Turkish, meaning "string made of metal". Thus, it is entirely unrelated to the [Biblical] Hebrew root Tahlah (Taf-Lamed-Heh) meaning "suspend". TTBOMK, there is no way you could get the needed reversal in root elements to transform between the two. All the above, based on my understanding of the Even-Shoshan dictionary.


In any case it is doubtful the Persians had wire strong enough by which to hang someone.

[mattblum.livejournal.com]

According to the sources for the Wikipedia article on crucifixion, the practice was invented in ancient Persia, so could well have been in use there in the fifth century BCE, which is when Ahasuerus reigned, assuming (as most people think) he was the emperor now known by most as Xerxes I.

I can't speak to the Hebrew at all. But it's at least theoretically possible from an historical standpoint.

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting thought. Early Christian writers (including some who probably spoke Aramaic and read Hebrew, and were of Jewish background) do sometimes talk about Jesus being subject to a curse because he had been "hanged on a tree", so whatever language Deuteronomy uses, they obviously thought it was applicable. Obviously one can't take too much from that, though, because they also indulged in quite a lot of creative interpretation of Torah that would not have been accepted by their non-Christian Jewish contemporaries. It can also be very hard to tell whether they were reading Torah in Hebrew or Greek.

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

I'm not really religious, don't speak or read or write Hebrew or Aramaic, but I will say that a 25 meter cross is pretty damn HUGE. 25' I could see. But 25 *meters*? Whoa.

N.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

The Book of Esther is almost certainly not literally true in all details. It may or may not have some historical basis.

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's *true*. But even so, isn't 25 meters kinda pushing it? That's like the size of an 7 or 8 story building!

N.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Well, it's supposed to be totally over-the-top impressive. It's supposed to be something that everybody in the city could see from anywhere.

And, anyway, that's what it says -- "fifty cubits." A cubit is about a foot and a half, maybe a little more, maybe a little less, so that's about 75 feet, or 25 yards. As it could also be a little longer than that, it could be 25 meters, too. Could be as short as 20 meters, I suppose, but I don't think it really matters. It's just supposed to be really freakin' tall.

[sethg]

According to midrash (which never misses a chance to make this kind of connection), one of the beams from Noah's Ark was used to build Haman's gallows, because nowhere else would you be able to get such a long piece of wood.

I once heard a Purim Torah describing how Haman reached into the Book of Genesis to pull the beam out ... and Noah, trying to prevent this wicked man from misusing his creation, called on his three sons to pull the beam back into Genesis ... but then Haman got his ten sons to pull on the other end....

Esther 9:17

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

Which is why the exact wording in Esther 9:17 regarding resting on the 14th, after the battle, seems so contrived: v'Noah b'arbah-ahsar boh when v'Nachu would have been more typical usage (just as it says v'Nikhalu). But by then Noah now had a personal "stake" in the issue (if you'll pardon the pun). Of course this Purim Torah conveniently ignores the fact that, by the traditional Esther time-line, Haman had been hung eleven months earlier...

Re: Esther 9:17

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Yes, but you're ignoring how long the actually was. The fifty cubits was only PART of the beam, after all. It was actually longer than that. Specifically, it was nearly a year longer.

[sethg]

The New Jewish Publication Society version translates "talui ba'etz" as "impaled on a spike", for whatever that's worth.

[wildcard9.livejournal.com]

(reposting comment with typos corrected)
Why do I suddenly have a vision of Vlad the Impaler being a decendant of the roman soldier who put Jesus on the cross. Suddenly, the movie "Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter" takes on a whole new meaning...

nitpickily...

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

... and unrelated to the current post, the usual spelling is "s((c)h)piel", with "ie" not "ei". In German spelling, which most informal English spelling of Yiddish words is based on,¹ ie is pronounced like Eng. ee in "see", and ei is pronounced like Eng. long i in "like" (= the y in "sky"). When I see "schpeil" I try to rhyme it with "pile".

Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoëpist, and Philological Busybody

¹ If it isn't straight English-style (which would be "shpeel", which I've never seen and wouldn't like).

[ookpik.livejournal.com]

It's unlikely that Michelangelo knew Hebrew, or had access to Hebrew Bibles. I'd think the relevant question is the language of the Vulgate, and I'm not having much luck finding the text (and also my Latin's pretty bad). But it's also true that the cross on which Jesus was crucified is frequently referred to as a tree in medieval lit--presumably because of the Deuteronomy language, but also allowing the theologians lots of cute wordplay about the tree that brought death via Eve, vs. the tree that brought life through death via Mary, and so on.

And, while I'm wearing my theologian hat, I feel a need to point out that, Jesuits aren't monks. They might be friars, or there might be a special term just for Jesuits--vague memory says the latter, but provides no further clues, and cursory googling isn't helping, and my days as a Catholic are too far in the past.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

He's a Jesuit brother, in any case.

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

(Here from riba_rambles)

Jesuits are priests, actually...

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Brother Guy isn't. Quite deliberately. As he puts it, "Priests have to deal with other people's problems. I get to deal with stars and meteorites."

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

I stand corrected! I didn't know Jesuits had non-priestly orders, never mind that they run my university. Clearly, I do not pay enough attention. ;)

[ookpik.livejournal.com]

Priests and brothers, sure. But I was trying to remember whether there was a term especially for Jesuits (as Franciscans and Dominicans are "friars"). FWIW, I was probably thinking of "scholastic" and I know that that's not relevant here.

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

Oh, also, the relevant passage in the Vulgate:

cui illa respondit si regi placet detur potestas Iudaeis ut sicut hodie fecerunt in Susis sic et cras faciant et decem filii Aman in patibulis suspendantur 14 praecepitque rex ut ita fieret statimque in Susis pependit edictum et decem Aman filii suspensi sunt

The word for "hanged" here, then, is suspendere, which I don't think generally gets used in biblical Latin to talk about crucifixion, but I am not an expert in the Vulgate. OTOH, Lewis and Short do include gallows among the definitions for crux (cross). So, who knows.