Moses, a Scroll, and the Ark of the Covenant

Above the Torah shrine in the Dura-Europos synagogue, there are four paintings depicting four solo male figures, known as Panels I – IV . This paper revisits Panels II and IV . Relying on early photographs of Panel II , it argues that this painting depicts Moses at Mount Sinai with a scroll in his right hand. Moses receiving a scroll, rather than stone tablets, at Sinai is a well-attested motif in Christian art. The painting from Dura’s synagogue not only provides the earliest instance of this motif, but also points to its Jewish origins. As to Panel III depicting a man reading a scroll, early photographs leave no doubt that the object painted in its bottom left corner is the Ark of the Covenant. This, in turn, leads to a possibility that the reader is Moses and that the scroll is the same scroll he holds in his right hand while at Sinai on Panel II . The paper concludes by affirming an earlier proposal that all four figures portrayed on Panels I – IV are Moses

Covenant · Jewish studies · Judaism · Motif (music) · Old Testament · Painting · Scroll · Torah · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · Medieval and Classical Philosophy