Bouguereau: The First Mourning - 1888

Public Domain Photo: The First Mourning (Premier Deuil), an oil on canvas painting of dimensions 203 cm x 252 cm (appx 80 x 99 inches) by French painter William Bouguereau, National Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires.

The oil painting ‘The First Mourning’ (1888) is acclaimed to be one of the best paintings by the traditionalist French artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905), whose realist genre of creations and a host of other paintings depicting mythological and Biblical characters and scenes became very popular with the aristocracy and the rich art patrons of his times.

His interpretations of classical themes in a photo-realistic style were heavily influenced by the beauty of feminine human body. In later years, Bouguereau seemed to have been given much less appreciation compared to the Impressionists.

The theme of the painting features the moment when Adam and Eve found their son Abel, who was murdered by his elder brother Cain, whom some writers interpret literally as the son of the serpent (evil) in the Garden of Eden.

According to the Bible, it was the first death of a human being, and hence it is considered the first murder and ‘The First Mourning’ (the work is titled ‘Premier Deuil’ in French). Abel is also considered the first innocent victim and the first martyr while Cain is considered the first murderer by many writers.

The First Mourning is currently displayed at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (National Museum of Fine Arts) in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Adam and Eve: paintings by Titian and Rubens

Public Domain Image: Sündenfall (The Fall of Man, often referred to as ‘Adam and Eve’), oil on canvas painting (1570) by the Italian painter Titian, dimensions 240 cm x 186 cm, located at Museo del Prado located in Madrid, the capital of Spain.

Public Domain Image: Adam und Eva (Adam and Eve, alternatively referred to as The Fall of Man)oil on canvas painting (1628-29) by Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens, dimensions 237 cm x 184 cm (93.31 in x 72.44 in), located at Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain.

Paul Cézanne: Bathsheba 2

Public Domain Image: Bathsheba 2, oil painting on canvas painting by French artist and Post-Impressionist painter Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)

Rembrandt: Simson, an der Hochzeitstafel das Rätsel aufgebend

Public Domain Image: Simson, an der Hochzeitstafel das Rätsel aufgebend (a 1638 painting depicting Samson's marriage feast in which he delivers the puzzle), oil on canvas painting by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606-1669), dimensions 126.5 cm x 175.5 cm, located at the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden, Germany.

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When Samson (also spelled as Shimshon, Simson, Shamshoun or Sampson) grows up to adulthood, he leaves his hills people to see the cities of the Philistines, where he falls in love with a Philistine woman and he decides to marry her. On the way to her house to ask for the woman's hand in marriage, Samson is attacked by a lion but he easily grabs it and rips it apart as he is blessed with divine powers, and reaches the Philistine's house and wins her hand in marriage. On his way to the wedding, Samson notices that bees have nested in the carcass of the lion and have made honey. He drinks some honey and gives some to his parents. At the wedding feast, Samson offers the puzzle, "Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet", to his thirty Philistine groomsmen, and promises them thirty pieces of fine linen and garments, if they can solve it. The puzzle relates to his eating honey, on his second encounter with the lion (carcass). Failed and infuriated, the 30 Philistines tell Samson's wife to discover the answer and tell them, and threatens to burn her and her father's household if she does not do so. On the tearful imploring of his bride, Samson tells her the solution, which she reveals to the thirty groomsmen.

Hendrick Goltzius: The Fall of Man

Public Domain Photo: The Fall of Man (1616), alternatively titled Adam and Eve: the Fall (Genesis 3:1-7), oil on canvas painting by the Dutch printmaker, draftsman and painter of the early Baroque period Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617), dimensions 104.5 cm x 138.4 cm (41.14 in x 54.49 in) located at The National Gallery of Art located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., U.S.A.

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The Appearance of Christ before the People by Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov

PD Photo: The Appearance of Christ before the People (Deutsch: Christus erscheint dem Volke / Русский: Явление Христа народу) oil on canvas painting (1837-57) by Russian Neoclassicist painter Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov (Алекса́ндр Андре́евич Ива́нов; 1806-1858), dimensions 540 cm x 750 cm, currently located at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.

Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov, who adhered to the waning tradition of Neoclassicism, was a native of St. Petersburg, Russia, but spent most of his life in Rome. His magnum opus ‘The Appearance of Christ before the People’ took 20 years to complete (1837-57) because of which he has often been called the master of one work. Critical appraisal about Ivanov improved in the later generations, because numerous sketches he had prepared for his magnum opus have been recognized as masterpieces in their own right. Most of his works are on public display at the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Peter Paul Rubens: Susanna and the Elders

PD Images: Susanna and the Elders (1607-08), oil on canvas painting by seventeenth-century Flemish Baroque painter Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), dimensions 94 cm x 66 cm, located at Galleria Borghese, Rome. Rubens is well-known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and his paintings on historical, biblical, mythological and allegorical subjects.

Giovanni Lanfranco: Mary Magdalene Raised by Angels

PD Photo: Mary Magdalene Raised by Angels (1616), oil on canvas painting by Italian Baroque period painter Giovanni Lanfranco (1582-1647), dimensions 109 cm x 78 cm, located at Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy.

Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre: The Temptation of Eve

PD Photo: The Temptation of Eve, 18th century oil on canvas painting by French painter Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre (1714-1789), dimensions 48.8 cm x 57.8 cm (19.21 in x 22.76 in) held in private collection.

The Gutenberg Bible

PD Photo: Binding of the copy of the Gutenberg Bible located at the University of Texas at Austin

PD Photo: First page of the first volume of the Gutenberg Bible: The Epistle of St. Jerome from the University of Texas, Austin. The page has 40 lines.

PD Photo: Another Gutenberg Bible with open pages

PD Photo: Another page of the Gutenberg Bible, showing page decoration/ illustration

The Gutenberg Bible, also known as the 42-line Bible, the Mazarin Bible or the B42, was the first major book printed with a movable type printing press. It is an edition of the Vulgate, printed by Johannes Gutenberg, in Mainz, Germany, in 1455. Gutenberg invented the printing press and he was the first European to print with the movable type.

Unlike many people believe, the Bible was not Gutenberg's first printing work, as his printing press was in operation by 1450, and a German poem had been printed, possibly the first item to be printed, followed by other texts. For the Bible project, Gutenberg borrowed 800 guilders from a moneylender, and work for printing the Bible commenced in 1452. In 1455 Gutenberg published 180 copies of the 42-line Bible, 135 on paper and 45 on vellum. Only 47 or 48 copies of the 42-line Bibles are known to exist now, and of these only 21 are complete.

Many Gutenberg Bibles have been rebound over the years, and now only 9 copies retain the fifteenth-century bindings. A complete copy of the Gutenberg Bible has 1,272 pages, with a folio size of 307 mm x 445 mm. The handmade paper used by Gutenberg was of fine quality and was imported from Italy.

Gutenberg had to develop a new oil-based ink so that it would stick better to the metal types. His ink was based on carbon with high metallic contents, including copper, lead and titanium.

The Gutenberg Bible seems to have been sold out immediately on printing, to buyers as far as England. It is assumed that most Gutenberg Bibles were sold to monasteries, universities and wealthy individuals, as people of ordinary incomes were unable to afford them, though Gutenberg Bibles were significantly cheaper than manuscript Bibles.

The institutions which display Gutenberg Bibles to the public include the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, the British Library and the Library of Congress, USA. Only a few copies are owned by religious institutions, with most copies owned by universities and other scholarly institutions. The first Gutenberg Bible reached North America in 1847, and it is now in the New York Public Library.

In the 1920s a New York book dealer, Gabriel Wells, bought a damaged copy of the Gutenberg Bible, dismantled it and sold sections and leaves to collectors and libraries. These leaves, according to reports, now sell for $20,000 to $100,000, depending upon their condition.

The only copy held in a non-western country is the first volume of a Gutenberg Bible (Hubay 45) at Keio University, located in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The copy was originally purchased on 22 October 1987 by Eiichi Kobayashi, a director at the Maruzen Company, for $5.4 million. Currently, the price of a complete copy of the Gutenberg Bible is estimated at $25-35 million.

Printing of the Gutenberg Bible played an important role in the development of the Renaissance and Reformation movements and the Scientific Revolution and laid the foundation for the modern knowledge-based economy and the spread of learning to the common masses.

Handwritten Latin Bible displayed in Malmesbury Abbey

PD Photo: a handwritten Latin Bible on display in Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, England

The Latin handwritten Bible (seen above) was transcribed in Belgium in 1407 for reading aloud in a monastery. The original texts of the Tanakh were mostly in Hebrew and some portions were in Aramaic. There are several different ancient versions of the Tanakh in Hebrew, and the traditional Jewish version is based on the version known as Aleppo Codex.

The primary biblical text for early Christians was the Septuagint (LXX), and subsequently translations of the Hebrew Bible were made into several other languages, including Latin. The Latin translations were the most important for the Church in the West, while the Greek-speaking East continued to use the Septuagint translations of the Old Testament and had no need to translate the New Testament.

In AD 382, Pope Damasus I assembled the first list of books of the Bible at the Council of Rome, and commissioned Saint Jerome to produce a reliable text by translating the original Greek and Hebrew texts into Latin, which became known as the Latin Vulgate Bible, which was declared by the Church, in 1546 at the Council of Trent, as the only authentic and official Bible in the Latin Rite.

Since the Protestant Reformation, the Bible has been translated in to many more languages, and the Bible has a large number of English language translations.

The Draft of Fishes on stained glass, Canterbury Cathedral

PD Photo: The Miraculous Draft of Fishes (first miracle), stained glass (detail), Ministry of Jesus window, Canterbury Cathedral, one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England and forms part of a World Heritage Site in Kent.

There are several categories of miracles performed by Jesus Christ, such as healing people, controlling nature, exorcisms, resurrection of the dead, and the transfiguration of Jesus himself.

The canonical Gospels report cases of Jesus healing the blind. Jesus curing a leper appears in Matthew (8:1-4), Mark (1:40-45) and Luke (5:12-16). Healing the paralytic at Capernaum appears in Matthew (9:1-8), Mark (2:1-12) and Luke (5:17-26). Curing a bleeding woman appears in Mark (5:21-43), Matthew (9:18-26) and Luke (8:40-56). Jesus healing an infirm woman appears in Luke (13:10-17).

Healing a man with dropsy is described in Luke (14:1-6) and healing the deaf mute of Decapolis miracle appears in the Gospel of Mark (7:31-37). Healing the Centurion's servant is in Matthew (8:5-13) and Luke (7:1-10). Jesus healing in the land of Gennesaret appears in Matthew (14:34-36) and Mark (6:53-56).

According to the three Synoptic Gospels, Jesus performed many exorcisms (not mentioned in the Gospel of John). The major exorcism accounts detailed include exorcising at the Synagogue in Capernaum, exorcising the Gerasenes demonic, exorcising the Canaanite woman's daughter, exorcising a blind and mute man, exorcising a boy possessed by a demon, etc.

All four canonical Gospels report Jesus' own resurrection from the dead but the Gospels also relate three other occasions on which Jesus calls a dead person back to life: daughter of Jairus (Mark 5:21-43), the young man from Nain (Luke 7:11-17), and the raising of Lazarus (John 11:1-44).

The Gospels include accounts concerning Jesus' power over nature such as turning water into wine, the miracle of draught of fishes, walking on water, calming the storm, finding a coin in the fish's mouth, cursing a fig tree (it withered on Jesus’ curse). There are two miracles on feeding multitudes of people: The Feeding of the 5000 (also known as ‘the miracle of the five loaves and two fish’), and The Feeding of the 4000 (also known as ‘the miracle of the seven loaves and fishes’).

These are just a short account of some of the miracles, and if all the miracles of Jesus are detailed, there wont be space anywhere on earth to store them, some writers claim. There are also many debates about the genuineness of these miracles, and these were going on for centuries, and will go on as long as religion and faith exist on earth.

Konrad Witz: Miraculous catch of fish, the second miracle of Jesus

PD Image: Miraculous catch of fish - Draft of Petrur (Peter's altar table), a 1444 tempera on wood painting by the medieval German painter Konrad Witz (or Conrad Witz, 1400-1445/ 47), dimensions 132 cm x 154 cm, located at Musée d'Art et d'Histoire (Art and History Museum) in the historical city of Saint-Denis, in the northern suburbs of Paris, France.

According to the Gospel of John, after the Resurrection of Jesus, seven of the disciples of Jesus (Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, James, John, and two others) went for fishing one evening, but caught no fish that night. Early the next morning, Jesus, whom they had not recognized, called out to them from the shore, "Friends, haven't you any fish?"

When said, "No", Jesus said, "Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some." When they did so, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.

Realizing the true identity of their advisor, the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, "It is the Lord!," at which Peter jumped into the water to meet him, while the remaining disciples followed in the boat, towing the net, which had 153 large fish, which Jesus then cooked and ate some of the fish with the disciples.

The precise number of fish as 153 has long been debated by scholars, some of them arguing that the number 153 has some deeper, hidden significance or symbolism, and many conflicting theories having been put forward. Theologian D. A. Carson suggests, "If the Evangelist has some symbolism in mind connected with the number 153, he has hidden it well," while other scholars note, "No symbolic significance for the number of 153 fish in John 21:11 has received widespread support."

Raphael: The Miraculous Draught of Fishes

PD Image: The Miraculous Draught of Fishes (1515), painting by Raphael shows Jesus in the boat with fishes (first miracle).

The Miraculous Draught of Fishes refers to two miracles attributed to Jesus in the Christian canonical Gospels, in which the apostles were fishing unsuccessfully in the Sea of Galilee when Jesus told them to cast the net again and when they did so, they were rewarded with great catches.

According to Luke, on the day of this FIRST miracle, Jesus was preaching near the Lake of Genesareth (Sea of Galilee), when he saw two boats. Boarding the boat of Simon (Peter), and moving out a little from shore Jesus preached to the people from the boat, and said to Peter, "Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch."

To this, Peter answered, "Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets."

But to everyone’s surprise, "they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break," and they had to seek help from another boat. Seeing the huge haul of fish which filled both boats almost to the sinking point, Peter fell at Jesus' feet and said, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!"

Jesus advised Peter and his partners James and John, "Don't be afraid; from now on you will catch men," after which the men left everything and followed Jesus.

Apocalypse

PD Image: Apocalypse (1831), attributed to Ludwig Ferdinand Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1788-1853), location - private collection, other details unknown.

Giotto: The Kiss of Judas, Fresco at Arena Chapel

PD Image: The Kiss of Judas (1304-06), Fresco painting, 200 cm x 185 cm, by Italian painter and architect Giotto di Bondone (better known as just Giotto, 1267-1337) at Cappella Scrovegni (Arena Chapel), Padova (Scenes from the Life of Christ: 15, The Arrest of Christ).

Carl Heinrich Bloch: The Last Supper

PD Image: The Last Supper, late 19th century painting by the Danish painter Carl Heinrich Bloch (1834-1890), showing Judas Iscariot (right), one of the twelve original apostles of Jesus, retiring from the supper.

The Gospel of Judas

PD Image: The first page of the Gospel of Judas (Page 33 of Codex Tchacos)

PD Image: The first page of the ‘The Gospel of Judas’ at page 33 of Codex Tchacos, an ancient Egyptian Coptic papyrus containing early Christian Gnostic texts from approximately 300 AD.

The Gospel of Judas is purported to document conversations between Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot. It is not written by Judas himself, but by the followers of Jesus in an early fourth-century Coptic text.

According to the New Testament (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), Judas identified Jesus to Jerusalem's Temple authorities, who handed Jesus over to Pontius Pilate, representative of the occupying Roman Empire, for crucifixion. But the Gospel of Judas interprets Judas's act not as betrayal, but rather as an act of obedience to the instructions of Jesus, as Jesus required a second agent to set in motion a course of events which he had planned, and that would end in his crucifixion.

According to the Gospel of Judas, Jesus told Judas, "You shall be cursed for generations", and then added, "You will come to rule over them" and "You will exceed all of them, for you will sacrifice the man that clothes me." Judas thus served Jesus Christ by helping to release Christ's soul from its mortal, physical constraints.

The Gospel of Judas does not claim that the other disciples knew Gnostic teachings, but it asserts that they had not learned the true Gospel, which Jesus taught only to Judas Iscariot, the sole follower belonging to the "holy generation" among the disciples.

According to Elaine Pagels, Bible translators have mistranslated the Greek word for "handing over" to "betrayal".

For centuries, many philosophers have contemplated that Judas was required to have carried out his actions in order for Jesus to have died on the cross and hence fulfill theological obligations. The Gospel of Judas, however, asserts clearly that Judas' action was in obedience to a direct command of Jesus himself.

In Martin Scorsese's 1988 American film ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’, adapted from the controversial 1960 novel of the same name by Nikos Kazantzakis, Judas Iscariot's only motivation in betraying Jesus to the Romans was to help him, as Jesus' closest friend, through doing what no other disciple could bring himself to do. It shows Judas obeying Jesus' covert request to help him fulfill his destiny to die on the cross, making Judas the catalyst for the event later interpreted as bringing about humanity's salvation. This view of Judas Iscariot is reflected in the recently discovered Gospel of Judas.

The Codex Tchacos, a leather-bound Coptic papyrus was discovered during the 1970s, near Beni Masah in Egypt. It was translated and appears to be a text from the late 2nd century AD describing the story of Jesus's death from the viewpoint of Judas. The conclusion of the text refers to the text as "the Gospel of Judas".

The manuscript was radiocarbon dated "between the third and fourth century", according to Timothy Jull, a carbon-dating expert at the University of Arizona's physics centre.

The manuscript is now in over a thousand pieces, due to poor handling and storage, with many sections missing. According to Rodolphe Kasser, the codex originally contained 31 pages, with writing on front and back. When it came to the market in 1999, only 13 pages, with writing on front and back, remained. It is speculated that individual pages had been removed and sold.

Byam Shaw: The Woman the Man the Serpent

PD Photo: ‘The Woman The Man The Serpent’, oil painting by Indian-born British painter, illustrator, designer and teacher Byam Shaw (1872-1919), depicting Adam, Eve and the serpent.

John Byam Liston Shaw (1872-1919), known popularly as Byam Shaw, was an Indian-born British painter, illustrator, designer and teacher.

Byam Shaw was born in Madras (now Chennai, India), where his father John Shaw was the Registrar of the High Court of Madras. His family returned to England in 1878 and settled in Kensington. At the age of 15, Byam Shaw entered the St John's Wood Art Schools. From 1890 Shaw studied at the Royal Academy Schools, where he won the Armitage Prize in 1892 for his work “The Judgement of Solomon”.

Byam Shaw worked with equal ease and mastery in a variety of mediums including oils, watercolors, pastels, pen-and-ink and also specialized in techniques such as dyeing and gilding. Because of his waning popularity as an artist, Byam Shaw took up teaching for a living, and taught at the Women's Department of King's College London from 1904. He founded the Byam Shaw and Vicat Cole School of Art in 1910 with his Rex Vicat Cole. The institution was later renamed as Byam Shaw School of Art.

Shaw was influenced by Pre-Raphaelites, Rossetti, Millais, and Leighton. He was also inspired by Indian themes and Indian/ Hindu mythology, on which he created a number of paintings.

Cornelis van Haarlem: De eerste familie (The first family)

PD Photo: De eerste familie (The first family), 1589 oil on canvas painting by the Dutch Golden Age painter and draughtsman Cornelis van Haarlem (Cornelis Corneliszoon van Haarlem, 1562-1638); dimensions 125 cm x 143 cm (49.21 x 56.30 inches), location at Musée des Beaux-Arts de Quimper, depicting Adam and Eve taking care of Cain and Abel. The painting was in the private collection of Jean-Marie-François-Xavier Comte de Silguy, France until 1864 since when it came to the collection of Musée des Beaux-Arts de Quimper.