The Old Testament
The Old Testament
The entire Old Testament in on ink drawing.
One night while I was watching the boring movie, the English Patient, I started drawing parts of the movie and as I drew I overlapped the sketches to form a collage. Months later when I had no work I decided to take this technique further and draw the entire Old Testament. I had no real plan, I used only ink and 9 days later I was complete.
The Hebrew inscriptions on the Old Testament illustration are:
1. Left side: the name of God, "Yahweh." The vowels are removed because some Jewish people believe you should not write the name of God since it is so holy, so it actually says, "YHWH."
2. Right side top: "Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is One." Deuteronomy 6:4. This is the Shema, considered the most important prayer in Judaism, and its twice-daily recitation is a mitzvah (religious commandment).
3. Right side bottom: The disembodied fingers of a human hand appear and write on the wall of the royal palace the words Mene, Mene, Tekel u-Pharsin for King Belshazzar. Daniel translates: "And this is the writing that was inscribed: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, and PARSIN. This is the interpretation of the matter: MENE, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; TEKEL, you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting; PERES, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians." Daniel 5: 24-28.
Hand written on the bottom is the scripture, "Your Faithfulness continues through all generations." Psalm 100:5.
A limited edition of 700 have been printed on cream vellum stock.
Size is 17.375 x 23". Only $30 (US). Signed by the artist. Prints will be carefully rolled and shipped in a sturdy tube. For unknown reasons the USPS takes a long time to deliver tubes so please allow for at least 3 weeks, longer for international orders.