Page - 28 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 02/01

28 | Johanna Stiebert www.jrfm.eu 2016, 2/1, 23–33 “hand” in most cases, God’s “arm” routinely becomes “strength” and God’s “mouth” routinely becomes “word”.20 Dwelling briefly on the hand of God – which, as just noted, tends to remain “hand” in the Targumim, whereas “arm”, “mouth”, and other divine body parts tend to be “translated” into non-corporeal entities – it is interesting that while pictorial depic- tions of God in Jewish art are still unorthodox,21 visual depictions of the hand of God are found repeatedly. The most notable are the five examples from the mid-third cen- tury Dura Europos synagogue of Syria, the only ancient synagogue with a compre- hensive extant decorative scheme.22 In these lively paintings, the hand of God motif is used repeatedly to represent divine intervention or divine approval, including in representations of Moses and the burning bush and the divine intervention at the at- tempted sacrifice of Isaac (fig. 1a and 1b). That such depiction may have been a more 20 For examples, see Schochet 1966, 17–21. 21 Even in Christian art pictorial images of God become commonplace only in the Renaissance. The depic- tion of God as an old bearded man is particularly familiar from the paintings of Michelangelo and Paolo Veronese, for instance. In Jewish and Israeli art God tends to be depicted in abstract terms, as is seen clearly in a 2006 exhibition held at The Israel Museum, Jerusalem (see http://www.imj.org.il/exhibi- tions/2006/divine_image/panoramaE.html) and also in Weisner-Ferguson/Sorek 2006. 22 Images of the synagogue’s art are widely available online. For a comprehensive and illustrated account of the historical significance of Dura Europos, see Chi/Heath 2011. Fig. 1a (left): The Tora niche of the Dura Europos Synagogue. Fig. 1b (above): Detail – the hand of God prevents Abraham from sacrificing Isaac. Stähli 1988, 73.