Thursday, March 24, 2011

One for the Kohanim.

I used to think that detailed illustrated books about the clothing of the kohanim were an Orthodox Jewish cultural institution, but evidently not. Johannes Braun's 1701 book בגדי כהנים, subtitled Vestitus Sacerdotum Hebraeorum, based on a series of lectures, contains many detailed images of the kohanim and their vestments, as well as over 750 pages of text. For example, here is the kohen gadol (High Priest):


and another view:


the book includes some suggestions about how the choshen breast plate was laid out:




depictions of "lower" kohanim:



in case you wanted to know what kohanim wore underneath:


finally, where it all comes together:


In case anyone is wondering, his index includes everyone from the Keseph Mishnah to Julius Caesar.

16 comments:

  1. what did you think of the cohen gadol's depiction in PASSION OF THE CHRIST?

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  2. Just looked at a clip on youtube.

    He looks like a Catholic bishop, with a scarf made out of a Chabad tallis.

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  3. The sefas emes holds that the paamonim were not on the hem of the מעיל but above it

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  4. what's up with the long-haired Kohanim?

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  5. Is there any source for the מגבעת looking different from מצנפת?

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  6. I've wondered why we assume the choshen was 3 columns of 4, and not 4 columns of 3. I think the Minchan Chinuch actually suggests 4 columns of 3.

    Melech

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  7. תורה בגוים אל תאמין

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  8. anon 3:34
    Rambam klei hamikdash 8:2 and the Raavad

    Midwest

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  9. Say, I've often idly wondered if there exist any radically diffrent conceptions of what the kelim looked like. The Shulchan, for example. We are accustomed to seeing the whole cumbsersone looking apparatus as it was laid out in the old gold-covered TABERNACLE book. Is there any depictions of it that have a totally diffrent imagination of it? (One based on a diffrent understanding of the sources, I mean to say, not a fictitious representation.)

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  10. I have a mental block that renders me helpless to correctly spell "different." Weird.

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  11. how do i get a six pack stomach like that that kohen in the second to last picture?

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  12. That penultimate picture, by the way, is the source of the custom for old men to wear their pants high on the waist.

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  13. Anon 3:34: The tzitz squashes the kohen gadol's down. (Or the hedyot's is pre-wound.)

    DF: Surely. The Horev Tanach shows a much simpler shulchan- basically a table, nothing more. The various other parts are often defined as cooking implements. Philo suggests that they are similar to eating utensils. Almost certainly, the Second Bayit had the apparatus we see, but it's not clear before then. Ditto the outside mizbeach, which likely had no ramp in Mishkan (because it wasn't that high; again, see Horev), or the First Bayit's; which may have had steps.

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  14. The priests in Gibson's movie look a lot like John Cleese in The Life of Brian. :-)

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