“A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve starts. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pangs, in the agony of giving birth. Then another potent appeared in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads.”
You know, when I said the Bible can be “oddly practical” yesterday, that’s because it also serves up stuff like this. However much effort you want to put into scrutinizing these texts and deciphering them (personally, I’d advise against it), there’s no denying what a spur to the imagination they have been. Where would Blake or Thomas Harris be, or Jan van Eyck (not this passage, but other parts of the book of Revelation)? These portentous, evocative, and elaborate images are part of the Western imaginative DNA. They are alluring, frightening, and beyond comprehension. They point to the possibility of seeing things not yet seen, and of undiscovered meaning, and that makes the world of things we make a richer place.
A 12th century manuscript from
Dürer woodcut from 1497-98
Blake watercolor from 1805
1981
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