The Stone Witness

by cameo-d 12 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  cameo-d

  Joshua said to all the people, "This stone has heard everything the LORD said to us. It will be a witness to testify against you if you go back on your word to God." (Joshua 24:27 NLT)

  ( Rocks have ears? Sounds like a very lame superstitious ploy....but I guess it worked on these gullable people.)

  ----------------

  Here is another sacred stone:

  The most famous of all of the stone fetishes of Arabia was, of course, the black stone in the sanctuary of Mecca. The Ka'ba was, and still is, a rectangular stone structure. Built into its Eastern corner is the black stone which had been an object of worship for many centuries before Mohammed appropriated the Ka'ba for his new religion, and made the pilgrimage to this holy place one of the pillars of Islam. ( Mohammed: The man and his faith, Tor Andrae, 1936, Translated by Theophil Menzel, 1960, p13-30)

  another view can be seen here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Blackstone.JPG
• 

  cameo-d

  Martha and Mary (Magdalene)

  artist: Caravaggio

  1598

  http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/Arts/painting/paintings/bigphotos/C/16martha.jpg

  This is very curious.
• 

  cameo-d

  Does anyone know the lowdown on this rock?
• 

  minimus

  I knew of a Stoned Witness.
• 

  journey-on

  cameo, in the painting above, the object is not a stone, but rather a mirror. I have no idea why it is convex.

  The painting shows the sisters Martha and Mary from the New Testament. In fact Martha's sister "Mary" in the Gospels is Mary of Bethany, but she was often confused with Mary Magdalene, hence the old title, which is not from the artist, but later. Martha is in the act of converting Mary from her life of pleasure to the life of virtue in Christ. Martha, her face shadowed, leans forward, passionately arguing with Mary, who twirls an orange blossom between her fingers as she holds a mirror, symbolising the vanity she is about to give up. The power of the image lies in Mary's face, caught at the moment when conversion begins. (Wikipedia)
• 

  cameo-d

  Journey: "cameo, in the painting above, the object is not a stone, but rather a mirror."

  You are quoting an opinion as fact.

  There is no reflection to indicate it is a mirror. It is a rounded black stone.

  And although the above critic says "the power of the image lies in Mary's face" the actual message conveyed in this painting concerns the stone.
• 

  journey-on

  From Encyclopedia Britanica: (A Brief History of Mirrors)

  The typical mirror is a sheet of glass that is coated on its back with aluminum or silver that produces images by reflection. The mirrors used in Greco-Roman antiquity and throughout the European Middle Ages were simply slightly convex disks of metal, either bronze, tin, or silver, that reflected light off their highly polished surfaces.
• 

  journey-on

  However, other biblical stones that fascinate me are:

  • Urim and Thummim
  • Stones on the breastplate of Israelite High Priest
  • Stones mentioned in Revelation
  • Stones mentioned in Lk 19:40 and Lk 3:8
• 

  cameo-d

  Journey-On: "convex disks of metal, either bronze, tin, or silver, that reflected light off their highly polished surfaces."

  An artist depicting bronze would have used a palette of ochre, red, yellow, and orange. In depicting tin or silver, an artist would most likely use shades of grey with flecks of colors of surrounding objects being reflected.

  The above object shows no reflection of any images or colors surrounding it. The shape is depicted by the placement of the subject's hand. It think the convex shape would be too distorting to be used as a mirror.

  Here is a mirror from late 1st century BC and first half of 1st century AD, which would have been the exact time in question of the era this depiction represents.

  

  http://z.about.com/d/arthistory/1/0/8/j/rafl_afa_08_09.jpg

  full description can be found here: http://arthistory.about.com/od/from_exhibitions/ig/roman_art_louvre/rafl_afa_08_09.htm

  -------------

  I do not believe the object in the painting represents any metal substance. I think this is more likely:

  from wiki:

  The earliest manufactured mirrors were pieces of polished stone such as obsidian, a naturally occurring volcanic glass. Examples of obsidian mirrors found in Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) have been dated to around 6000 BC. Polished stone mirrors from central and south America date from around 2000 BC onwards.

  -----------

  And while this object may be pretensiously explained as a "mirror" I believe there is a deeper meaning and hidden message here because meterorite worship was part of a known and existing culture even before BCE.

  I also believe this object, even if portrayed as a mirror is not what it seems. From what I have read of Caravaggio and the chilling people in his inner circle (places high and low), and from what I have found concerning unusual events that take place in Malta and allegiances, I suspect this painting means much more than simply "a woman putting away her vanity." That is absolutely trite.

  Just curious, but how would you describe the expression on Mary's face? What does it say to you?
• 

  cameo-d

  The Black Stone of Mecca

  Some Muslims are more willing to believe that the Stone itself has some supernatural powers. They believe that this stone fell from the sky during the time of Adam and Eve, and that it has the power to cleanse worshippers of their sins by absorbing them into itself. They say that the Black Stone was once a pure and dazzling white and it has turned black because of the sins it has absorbed over the years.