Posted: Oct 28, 2017 4:46 am
proudfootz wrote:Leucius Charinus wrote:proudfootz wrote:It seems like an early form of a cartoon - separate images implying or illustrating action over time.
Here's a drawing made upon the discovery c.1930's, by one of the archaeologists.
The original mural was found at Dura Europos and is generally dated to the early to mid 3rd century.
Again Jesus at the top commands. The up-and-walking paralytic on the LHS is presented a second time as bedridden on the RHS.
That's an interesting comment about it being similar to a cartoon - or at least an abbreviated rendition of two separate scenes. But if that were the case I'd expect the bedridden paralytic to be on the LHS (at the start, reading left to right) and the walking dude to be on the RHS, coinciding with the direction and hand signals of the figure above (assumed by many modern biblical scholars to be Jesus).
I'm just taking a wild guess. based on the description. I suppose it could be something else based on another version of the story of the paralytic - one guy is already cured and carrying his bed away while the other fellow waits his turn.
I think your "wild guess" reflects the consensus. The depiction is being interpreted from another version of the healing the multitudes, and possibly related to the Diatesseron versions. The complete mural sequence looks like this:
The "Jesus is Healing" frame is to the LHS and next to it is the "Jesus and Peter walling on the water" mural.
Underneath these is found what they have variously called:
(1) Women at the Tomb of Jesus
(2) The Wise and Foolish Virgins.
Apparently the Jesus figure in the above "JEsus and Peter walk on the water" is the figure on the LHS while the figure on the RHS (who is headless) is supposed to be Peter.
One of the bases for these interpetations is that the healing of the multitude and the walking on water scenes are adjacent to each other in some versions of the Jesus story.
I am not completely convinced however.