PICKED UP IN PASSING: THE HORNS OF MOSES

One of the most famous pieces of Western art, Michelangelo’s sculpture of Moses, is marred by one of the clumsiest errors in history of Western civilization. It all traces back to the mistranslation of a single word in the Bible. Do you know what it is?

Michelangelo’s 1515 statue, “Moses,” is certainly one of the world's most admired sculptures but there was a little-known blunder in its creation...Moses has two horns on the top of his head! 

How did this happen? 

Well, it is actually a mistake caused by mistranslation of the Hebrew word קרן. In Hebrew, this word can be read in two different ways: karan (קָרַן), which means "shone" (was radiant) and keren (קֶרֶן) meaning ”a horn.” Moses is described descending from Mount Sinai as, “...he was not aware that his face was radiant (karan) because he had spoken with the Lord” (Exodus 34:29). Because Michelangelo had been depending on a Bible with a mix-up between karan and keren, it may well have caused him to put horns on his now famous statue. 

Unfortunately, this otherwise wonderful piece of art is just one example of the consequences of mistranslating Biblical wording.

Any wonder we have trouble knowing what to believe?

No question that this is a "horny" issue, but at the same time it can be rather a "thorny" one for some of us who pursue such things.

NOTE FROM DICK: Interestingly, though, by the time Michelangelo was working on Julius II’s tomb, it was pretty widely known that the idea of a horned Moses stemmed from an overly literal translation. Which, of course, raises the question of why Michelangelo chose to portray his Moses with horns anyway. It’s possible he did so entirely out of a sense of tradition, but certain historians have also theorized he did so as a final “screw you” to Pope Julius, with whom he feuded endlessly, despite the fact that Julius had been by far his biggest patron. (Actually, no one really got along with Julius—the guy was a heel who, like many medieval and Renaissance popes, was far more interested in military conquest than theology or church leadership.) If so, it wouldn’t be the first time Michelangelo had encoded disdain for the pope into his art. The Sistine Chapel ceiling, the first Michelangelo project Julius commissioned, includes a cherub making an obscene gesture, and Michelangelo’s mural of The Last Judgment depicts the mouth of hell opening directly behind the altar. Subtlety was not one of Michelangelo’s strong suits.

And so, Moses, who in life shared in so much of the glory of God that his face shone with majesty, got his most enduring likeness carved with a pair of sad, stubby horns, partly because St. Jerome was a tad careless with his Bible translation and partly because Michelangelo had it in for the guy whose tomb he was carving.