02: Gods construct and use models

 

see also in German: Wie die Götter Modelle schaffen und verwenden

 

 

God uses models, works like a modeler, shows models and serves as model

 

1) The image of God as architect or builder was coined by the Old Egyptians and Indians. In the creation epos of the Babylonians Marduk „measured“ the dwelling of Apsu and constructed the „great dwelling“ as well as a marvelous house for himself.

In Platon’s dialogue „Timaios“ (28ff) the worldmaker („demiurgos“) produces cosmic order from disorder by following the model („paradeigma“) provided by an immortal world of forms outside space and time.

In the Gesesis (1,25; 2,19) God „made“ the different kinds of game and cattle apparently after a model he had in mind.

Also Augustinus („De fide contra Manichaeos“) saw God as builder of the world, who invested archetypes and eternal truth in the world created by him.

 

2) The Egyptian ram god Chnum formed men on a potter’s wheel. The same idea we find in the book Job (10,8ff): God formed man „as clay“.

In Platon’s "Timaios" (74C) we find that God creates the human body like a modeller in wax ("keroplastes").

 

3) In the book Exodus (25,9) God instructs Moses to build a house according to the model of the sanctuary he shows him.

In Platon’s „Republic“ we read that the painters have to draw a plan for the republic according a divine ideal (550E) and that for every good citizen there ist a „heavenly archetype“ (529B).

 

4) God himself is model for human beings. He created man after his image (Gen. 1,27).

The Greek oympic gods in their clear typical shapes served as models for men to perceive themselves (Bruno Snell, 1975, 189).

In Platon’s „Law“ (716C; also Republic 497C) God himself is the right measure of all things.

 

 

Prometheus as „first sculptor“

 

In a mythological context Prometheus is known as „first sculptor“ and sometimes depicted as doing sculptural work. In some gemstones he models or sculpts a skeleton (M. Shedd 1991).

 

 

Bibliography

 

Bruno Snell: Die Entdeckung des Geistes. Studien zur Entstehung des europäischen Denkens bei den Griechen. Hamburg: Claassen & Goverts 1946; 2. Aufl. 1948; 4. neubearb. Aufl. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1975; 9. Aufl. 2008;
engl.: The Discovery of the Mind. The Greek Origins of the European Thought. Oxford: Blackwell/ Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1953; New York: Harper 1960;
reprint with new undertitle: In Greek Philosophy and Literature. New York: Dover 1982;
frz.: La découverte de l’ésprit. Combas: Editions de l’Eclat 1994.

M. Shedd: Prometheus the Primeval Sculptor: Archaeology and Anatomy in Emeric-David’s „recherches sur l’art“ statuaire“ (1805). Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 54, 1991, 88-106.