Here’s a PDF with a picture and description of the Supreme Court Frieze
Here’s a list of all historical figures displayed in the frieze
Menes (c. 3200 B.C.)
Hammurabi (c. 1700s B.C.)
Moses (c. 1300s B.C.)
Solomon (c. 900s B.C.)
Lycurgus (c. 800 B.C.)
Solon (c. 638–558 B.C.)
Draco (c. 600s B.C.)
Confucius (551–478 B.C.)
Octavian (63 B.C.–14 A.D.) or Augustus.
Justinian (c. 483–565)
Muhammad (c. 570–632)
Charlemagne (c. 742–814) or Charles I (the Great).
King John (1166–1216) born John Lackland.
Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) or Huig de Groot.
Sir William Blackstone (1723–1780)
John Marshall (1755–1835)
Napoleon (1769–1821)
Anybody who suggests Moses’ presence in that frieze is religious, as opposed to historical, is, in my humble opinion, smoking weed. One could equally claim that the frieze suggests we are an Islamic nation. (Muhammad is portrayed) or perhaps a French one, since Napoleon is the youngest member, and thus it must be emphasizing him.
The artist was Adolph Weinman, who was born in Germany in 1870, and immigrated to the US at age 10.
So, who photographed Moses? (Or, what bust was copied?)
My point, here, would be that Moses is not assuredly an historical personage — not in the way that every one of the otehrs happens to be. We do nt have independent historical records — apart from a single religious one — unverifiable from any other contemporaneous historical sources.
The proper conclusion, to an historian, is that Moses is a mythical being — like a Zeus or a unicorn a Paul Bunyan. Oh, sure, people make up stories about such beings — but there is no truth to them. Hence, Moses does not belong in an history of law frieze because he never seems to have existed.
But, if you want to put law givers in their from fiction, well, then let’s go for total Kafka-esquery.
I forgot to mention there are a few allegorical figures in the frieze as well: Fame, History, Authority, Light of Wisdom, Liberty and Peace, Right of Man, Equity, Philosophy. If Moses is allegorical, he fits in with those.
But more importantly…the frieze uses individuals because they are a better visual interpretation, but its focus isn’t really the people — it’s the history of law.
Moses may or may not be a historical figure — but there is no denying the place of the Mosaic Code in the history of world law.
The Mosaic code — yes — that became a legal basis for one society, for a time, for sometime, in history — but you have to add a few tons (shekels) of Talmud, at a minimum, to make any sense of the code… and maybe seven years of study to get a first idea of the enterprise of the Law…
and this study can’t be something selfish, like the isolation in “distance ed” or “Greek ed” — you’ve got to have someone who understands the Law personally teaching you the Law personally…
the Law is not an impersonal academic construct…
You must be distinguishing constantly between the Law and all other ideas about the Law, especially one’s own… it being almost always better to cite some line of reasoning from some previous (majority) opinion, when it comes to the present case — never being distracted by any minority view, except to honor the sincerity of its mistaken views, by noting why it would be wrong, here, as well…
The Code — though — is reviled by Christians — for they claim the way of the Law is death. For that reason alone I puke every time I hear them refer to the Law of Moses as if they had any interest in it — or any right to refer to it, as something of interest to them.
Christianity renounced forever the Law — they should never put their unclean hands on Torah, they should never put their unclean lips on its words, they should never let their unclean hearts be warmed by the light the Torah gives to the understanding.
Thus I find it enormously insulting that Christians seize upon any part of Torah, and turn it into an idol of their religion — and in plain contradiction to what the leaders and the founders of Christianity itself had to say about the Law!
Why do I claim Moses is a fictional personage?
Look at the raw facts of the supposed record.
First, a number of physical impossibilities (miracles performed) are attached to him — unlike any of the other actually historical personages.
Oh, sure, I know you could point to the recent Pope whatever who is being rushed to canonization on the thesis that so many of his followers are rushing forward claiming that he caused this or that miracle. But, apart from such rank nonsense, do you really believe in any claimed violation of the (apparent) laws of nature — or, not quite alternatively, in any supernatural intervention by a Supreme G_d of the whole frigging universe, who somehow finds your personal life on this tiny piece of a planet worthy of notice, worthy of upsetting the entire already planned scheme of existence (if it were to be causally determined) — and all because you whined to this G_d (the right one out of all the infinitely possible G_ds that could have been the right one in fact)?
The merest thought of such a G_d who takes personal requests about who the world must be defies the entire order of science.
Well, my G_d, I am proud to confess, does not screw around with dice games pr personal petitions. My G_d says: “Hey, bozos! I gave you a physical universe built to run for a long time, on sheer mechanical principles. But, it’s what you yourselves do in there that matters. And, what you do is based on the only non-mechanism I know. You experience it as a sense of “volition” (free will, per your philosophers, who always like to dress the concepts up, real nice like). Oh, someday, you may figure out how volition, a macro-effect, is related to something like relativity, quantum mechanics, space-time, or the price of peanuts in Georgia, after a good harvest. I speak figuratively, of course, because (let’s face it) you’ll never know as much as I do about these things.
Oh, and by the way, I even gave you a great big hint about how to become one with G_d (or with me, if you don’t mind my saying so). Ie, I gave you a bunch of ideas about how to live with one another — and yet — you guys and gals still seem to have a whole lot of trouble understanding how simple morality really is — starting off with the idea of hating liars and murders (both of whom are well represented in the current Bush administration).”
Now, I claim my transcription here, of what G_d says to me, is far more faithful than what was attributed to Moses — in part because Moses was never any living personage — but a literary simulacrum. That’s why there is no other historical record (other than the allegedly historical ones from the once secret and always sacred writings of the people of Israel.) I, on the other hand, most assuredly am not some construct of a committee’s imagination — and I claim to have done nothing miraculous (even if I happen to claim that I have such thoughts as could only have come from G_d, in my humble view!). Indeed, everytime I have a thought I like to think “Another miracle!” But, still, I am real, and not a Moses-mosaic.
Well…I believe there are some miracles ascribed to a certain historical figure in a different set of books….a set of books I particularly don’t read, but have read in a college course many years ago.
There are certain references outside these books where he is mentioned that suggest he likely did exist. Though his miracles are questionable, the exact dates of his existence, and the facts surrounding his death are questionable. Though some people do get rather passionate over these details.
It doesn’t really matter to me whether or not Moses was historical or allegorical. I accept large portions of the TANAKH are allegory, as opposed to fact. I recently read a suggestion that the Book of Jonah is one of the earliest examples of satire. And I think that is a perfect explanation of that book.
I’m glad you said the book of Jonah could be considered a satire, and not the book of Job.
As for the Moses figure, I have collected a large number of texts (books and papers) on him and the problems of knowledge concerning pre-historical Israel, and read these documents all a few times, continuing to collect new documents now and then.
In short, if you ever read Asimov’s Foundation stories, you’ll say of me “Oh, you’re just like the scholars of the old empire — you no longer do original research — you just paw through old texts, as if history were a literary enterprise, to be decided on the basis of the best past writings…” Well, perhaps, indeed, that is my problem: you never can find anything new from reading a piece of paper with some printing on it. All you do is eat the meal that someone else has killed and cleaned, cooked and placed on the table — like a certain mess of pottage, perhaps.
So, while it is useful to have a since of reality about the personages and history, it is nonetheless quite remarkable that the Torah is what it is, as a text. Mostly, I like Genesis best, but there is so much there, in the rest, that it takes a more refined and educated person years — nay, a lifetime — to read it half as well as it is written.
Shabat Shalom!