{"id":11219,"date":"2011-08-29T20:42:25","date_gmt":"2011-08-30T01:42:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=11219"},"modified":"2011-08-30T14:41:23","modified_gmt":"2011-08-30T19:41:23","slug":"porcupines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2011\/08\/29\/porcupines\/","title":{"rendered":"Porcupines"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"OK, here’s the test. What is the significance of this image of a porcupine, found on the western facade of the Cathedral of Notre Dame at Amiens? (I took this picture a little more than a week ago.)<\/p>\n

I have to admit, I was charmed by the\u00a0image but I couldn’t place it at all. And usually I’m pretty good at religious iconography!\u00a0My guidebooks did not come to my aid. It took — get this — a visit to “Hedgehog Central”<\/a> to find the following explanation:<\/p>\n

The significance of this unusual bas-relief on the walls of the Cathedral<\/strong> at Amiens<\/strong> in North France is most interesting as it is a graphical interpretation of a passage taken from the Bible at Zephaniah 2:14 where the destruction of the great city of Nineveh is prophesized with startling accuracy.<\/p>\n

While the King James version renders this verse as:
\n“And flocks shall lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of the nations: both the cormorant and the bittern shall lodge in the upper lintels of it; their voice shall sing in the windows; desolation shall be in the thresholds; for he shall uncover the cedar work”<\/p>\n

…the Septuagint, Vulgate, New American Standard Bible translations render it as:
\nFlocks will lie down in her midst, All beasts which range in herds; Both the pelican and the hedgehog Will lodge in the tops of her pillars; Birds will sing in the window, Desolation {will be} on the threshold; For He has laid bare the cedar work.<\/p>\n

…and the New World Translations renders it as:
\nAnd in the midst of her, droves will certainly lie stretched out, all the wild animals of a nation. Both pelican and porcupine<\/strong> will spend the night right among her pillar capitals. A voice will keep singing in the window. There will be devastation at the threshold; for he will certainly lay bare the very wainscoting.<\/p>\n

Bible scholars render the two words, “the cormorant and the bittern ” as “the pelican and the porcupine<\/strong>.” The [taq], “pelican,” comes from [haq], to vomit, because it casts up fish or water from its membranaceous bag; and, “porcupine<\/strong>,” is from the verb, which means to cut off as by a bite, or rather, from its Syriac meaning, to dread, for it is a solitary animal.\u00a0 Some scholars, however, contends that it is the hedgehog, and both the Septuagint and Vulgate render it as such. This is generally accepted in most modern Bible translations and fits given that the original Hebrew word, “qip\u00b7podh'” is very similar in etymology to the modern Hebrew word “Kipod” for hedgehog.<\/p>\n

In this bas-relief, there is a hedgehog below and a bird above (a pelican, [or, possibly, a cormorant] although poorly rendered as though by someone who has not seen one but is merely interpreting a description given) while in the window there is a singing bird in what appears to be a cage.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Is this accurate? Calling all scripture scholars and\u00a0art historians\u00a0to either confirm or deny the accuracy of this report!<\/p>\n

In my\u00a0admittedly rather unsystematic search, I also\u00a0discovered that the NRSV\u00a0refers to a hedgehog in Isaiah 34:11, although the designation of the animal is uncertain. But the architectural motifs in the image above argue for Zephaniah rather than Isaiah as the inspiration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Test your biblical knowledge against a medieval cathedral.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8,93,14],"tags":[1518,1519],"class_list":["post-11219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art-and-architecture","category-humor","category-inculturation","tag-amiens","tag-zephaniah-2"],"yoast_head":"\nPorcupines - Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2011\/08\/29\/porcupines\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Porcupines - 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