The Pointy Finger of God

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This is the Bible that my parents (or someone) gave me when I was a kid. I was raised Catholic, and we’d trudge to mass every Sunday, and it just bored me to tears. I was a big reader, though, so my mom let me bring a stack of books into church with me, provided they were Christian (preferably Catholic) in nature.

I devoured a whole lot of illustrated parables and stuff over the years, mostly garbage in the end, but this Bible was the standard. Honestly, I don’t remember if I actually read any of the stories or if I just looked at the pictures. They were amazing – full-color paintings of a lurid pulp-cover variety, depicting the Devil and Christ’s visions and other stuff as realist kitsch, without a shred of stylization or irony. The images actually went a long way towards shaping how I envision of Bible stories and Christian history – even a quarter-century later, I can’t get the damn things out of my head.

Unfortunately, I haven’t managed to keep my hands on my copy of it – it might still be in my parents’ basement, but it’s only been since I started working on this show that I’ve been wishing I’d retrieved it. In particular, the illustration for story of Daniel and Belshazzar and the writing on the wall is something that has stuck with me. Of course, I’ve also always loved the picture of the same scene created by some dauber named Rembrandt, which I actually had a reproduction of in a children’s book of Questions and Answers I read at the same time:

The lady and the old man on the left just crack me up – the woman’s totally disgusted, like somebody just exposed himself at the dinner table, and the old guy looks like he’s already on the verge of being bored: “Now I’ve seen everything – guess I’ll just die.”  And I love that Belshazzar looks like a total lunkhead – you can see from his face and position that he’s afraid he’s about to get smacked across the face.  Check out that tiny little crown poised ever so carefully on the back of his turban.

But I’m sorry, the hand of Jehovah is a little bit dainty for a wrathful Old Testament God – I could see delicate little Jesus with girlish fingers like that, but not his Father in his prime. The hand was much bigger and more sensational in the Golden Children’s Bible version. I can’t find any illustrations from that edition online, but apparently it was the result of an editorial team of a Catholic scholar, a Protestant scholar, and a Rabbi. Interesting…

Anybody else have any particular Bible memories from being a kid – especially as applies to stories of Daniel?

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