Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

At 18.42 02/01/00 -0500, Moshe Shulman wrote:
>At 12:03 AM 01/03/2000 -0500, you wrote:
>>The point of the statues is that they are good evidence only if (like 
>>the ones of Augustus you mention) they are in a datable context.
>
>I hope you are not arguing that a statue implies that we are dealing with a
>real person. Homer talks about many gods who have statues, and then about
>some of their actions. I think we have to distinguish here.

Perhaps some contemplation on the notion of context will help.

Statues in themselves are evidence to be analysed before being used.

If you know anything about statues, especially Roman statues of the early
imperial period, artists reached an extremely high level of realism
(considering they didn't have any theory to back up their perceptions). One
can see in the way they tried to represent their subjects for one can trace
the changes caused by the aging process on those subjects. Deities
represented by statues were always idealised representations and admitted
no defects or signs of aging. It might help to come to Rome and see the
range and variety of statuary in the various museums here (or at least
check out the range in a good archaeological library), to see that there is
such distinction.


Cheers,


Ian