09 May 2009

Judeo-Christian Gestures

Happy 50th birthday to my mom yesterday, and happy Mother's Day today.

Petula and I saw a lot of Byzantine art while we on our trip, like this:















And we started wondering about this:











We saw some other hand signs too. Any ideas what they mean or where I can find out more?

9 comments:

  1. I have vague memories of something about that from a humanities class, but I don't remember now. Come on, you took art history!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I remember wondering the same thing and asking my (protestant) minister about it, and he had no idea, lol.
    But I think it's just a sign of blessing, you know kinda how they make the cross with two fingers held up. But this is all speculation, it's a terrible embarrassment to my art history degree, but seriously, there's a lot of symbols to remember!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Amy, I took one art history class (okay, and a modern art history class too, but that doesn't count), and Andromeda studied art history! I think I'm off the hook here.

    ReplyDelete
  4. No idea...but if you figure it out, write a post about it...I'm totally curious.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm curious too! That seems crazy to me.. I wonder what it really means. Or if it was just some sort of gesture that was considered Holy back then? Like, maybe he just finished doing crossing himself.. and that's how his hands ended up. But then, Jesus shouldn't really be crossing himself. Right? Or since he led by example.

    LOL. My short answer > not a clue. But tell us if you find out!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Weird ~ our mom's have the same Birthday (that they also share with Hilary Reed)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Sorry - I'm just going to fill your blog up with comments. But I found an answer, my awesome, former boss, that happens to be Turkish AND a Art History Teacher answered the question for me. She sent me to this website This Website , that explains that its a common sign of benediction. This website: Benediction explains how the benediction is formed. :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. It's called a mudra, and they are very common in the far eastern tradition. Christiany is a near eastern religion, so they include some of these as well.


    http://theyogaphile.blogspot.com/2007/03/mudras-in-christian-imagery.html

    ReplyDelete