Trip London 201711 C National Gallery

Continue: National Gallery.
After Gallery A or Room A, I went to Room 28 on Level 2.

"Belshazzar's Feast" ,  Rembrandt.  1635.  66 inches x 82.4 inches.

By Rembrandt the famous Dutch painter!
This painting is about the story written in the Holy Bible - Old Testament - Danial.

(Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar looted the Temple in Jerusalem
and has stolen the sacred artefacts such as golden cups.
His son Belshazzar used these cups for a feast .
Suddenly the hand of God appeared
and wrote the inscription on the wall
prophesying the downfall of Belshazzar's reign.
They didn't understand what it meant. ) 

Have you heard of the saying "The writing is on the wall" ?
 It means there is warning about the wrong thing people are doing.
It comes from that Bible story.

Then, Room 29...

 "The Annunciation" Nicolas Poussin, 1657.  104.3 x 103.1 cm
Angel Gabriel tells virgin Mary about what will happen to her. This story is in the Holy Bible, New Testament, Luke 1:26-35.
The pigeon means holy spirit. There are different paintings with the same theme.

When I was in kindergarten,
once there was a simple play performance
that I was made to try the role of the angel. 
(but I didn't know it was a male angel)

Add caption

The Adoration of the Shepherds, about 1640, The Le Nain Brothers

[ Antoine (about 1600 - 48), Louis (about 1603 - 48), Mathieu (about 1607 - 77)]

Room 24:

This painting is big. Much taller than me.

"Christ before the High Priest", 1617, Gerard van Honthorst, 272 x 183 cm.

The Dutch painter made it while living in Rome of Italy.

This is the close up.

The story is in all 4 gospels in the New Testament in the Holy Bible.
e.g. Matthew 26: 57-66.

Next: 

 I went to join a 1-hour guided tour with art curator.

To be continued...

National Gallery Guided Tour (Saturday afternoon)

http://sn-uk.blogspot.com/2017/11/trip-london-201711-d.html

If you would like what happened earlier:
  Part A

http://sn-uk.blogspot.com/2017/11/trip-london-201711a.html
  Part B

http://sn-uk.blogspot.com/2017/11/trip-london-201711-b.html
  Part C

http://sn-uk.blogspot.com/2017/11/trip-london-201711-c-national-gallery.html

Trip London 201711 B National Gallery

London - National Gallery.
(many photos below; might take a short while loading)
I browsed in the shop in Sainsbury Wing first.

Originally I thought maybe I can find a nice shopping bag or a 2018 diary.
The current-exhibition-artwork-based merchandises in shops
are not appealing at all !
Wouldn't it be better if the buyer(s) or merchandiser(s) 
or person-in-charge for the shops
have more art / design training or better still a degree.

After asking about the time for the afternoon guided tour, I went outside.

Drawn in Colour: Degas from the Burrell

Entering from the Getty Entrance to main building.

I briefly walked through the Degas Impressionist exhibition on ground floor/Level 0.

Edgar Degas drew lots of ballet dancers, woman bathing and horses.

Somehow the pastel drawing reminded me of the
terrible made-in-China PRC poor quality oil pastel
I once bought when I was about 6 years old.
Even though later I had a better made-in-Japan Sakura-brand pastels.
The nightmare affected me for decades:
I do not really like pastel.
Sorry. Not allowed to take photo in that exhibition.
His drawings can be easily found on www.


Then I went to a room which I had not entered before.

Gallery A or Room A

This painting shows
how people were visiting room 32 of National Gallery a hundred years or so ago.

Artist: Giuseppe Gabrielli. 1886.

"Saint Paul Writing", 1520s, Pier Francesco Sacchi.
(He was writing the Holy Bible   1 Corinthians 13: 4,  in Greek)
"The Madonna and Child with Saints" 1543, Bernardino Lanino.

"The Madonna and Child with Angels, Saints and a Donor"
 about 1529-31, Girolamo da Treviso.
(it was an altar piece in church  S. Domenico in Bologna )

Fewer people go to this gallery/room...
because it is the earlier works from about 13th century
where the "uglier" pictures (done before the Renaissance) are.
Quite a number of French and Italian artists.

Some paintings are not quite good-looking
because they didn't study perspective or anatomy then.
Still some relatively nice works.

Many paintings are on Christian theme.
They  just call it religious paintings nowadays
(for fear of annoying non-Christian visitors?)
(isn't Britain a Christian country?
I do not like the extreme political correctness)

Naturally in old days,
there are a large numbers of paintings on similar theme of 
Virgin Mary / Madonna with baby Christ. 
And other stories found in the Bible.
Paintings about and for Christianity is a high ranking genre.
Many were placed inside churches and cathedrals.

"Saint George and the Dragon" Gustave Moreau, 1889-90.

"The Raising of Lazarus" 1625-76, Possibly by Simon de Vos.
Different artists/painters have different versions
of this story written in the Holy Bible (John 11:1-44)

National Gallery room A

If interested, you can find more info on the paintings
from National Gallery official website.
www.nationalgallery.org.uk/visiting/floorplans/level-0/gallery-a-paintings-1250-1600

Next,
I went up and see other paintings....
and then,
 joined a guided tour...

Next 2 blog entries.
  Part C
http://sn-uk.blogspot.com/2017/11/trip-london-201711-c-national-gallery.html
  Part D
http://sn-uk.blogspot.com/2017/11/trip-london-201711-d.html

click click click and found more

www is wonderful
 where I saw people sharing
antique versions of translated bibles
page by page HD images and searchable!
 where I also saw people sharing
some of the books of bible
which were either lost or edited out
by Constantine, other monachs in Europe & the Vatican...

The Nag Hammadi Library

Hope more truth come out.

Hope the more complete teaching of Jesus come out.


Gospel/Book of Thomas,
Gospel/Book of Philip,
Gospel/Book of Mary Magdelene,
Gospel/Book of Egyptian,
Book of Truth,
Apocryphon secret book of John,
Apocryphon revelation of James,
Apocryphon revelation of Paul,
Apocryphon of Adam,
The Acts of Peter & the Twelve Apostles,
Prayer of Paul,
and many more.


Also on www,
I saw resource saying that
Jesus had lived and learned in Egypt, India and Tibet.

Nazareth Jesus & Essenes.

He could be
vegetarian#,
fasting,
wearing white robes,
meditating,
doing yoga,
knowing about the chakras & other esoteric stuff,
which were all edited out by the medieval kings ...

Some even said he continued to live in India
and died there many years afterwards.

Believes, Faith, Teachings,
Esoteric...
East & West....
Hope that truth will be out and
see all religions were actually same teachings.


# many ancient religions teach about vegetarianism.

comparision & learning

Through comparison, we can learn better.  #

Recently I had tried to compare various English translations of Luke 24:42-44.
Is Honeycomb in your bible? It is missing in many versions.
Try online interactive resources like:
BibleGateway,  BibleHub,  BibleStudyTools

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke+24%3A42-43&version=WYC

http://biblehub.com/luke/24-42.htm

http://www.biblestudytools.com/luke/24-42-compare.html

Then, what about the books?
GEEES.

Then, someone has a visitor named Tobias.
Hey, that is a name of one of the books in Catholic Bible.
Searching & comparing....
numbers of books are different in the versions of bible by
Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox church!!!!!!!

English & Chinese bilingual data
(Traditional Chinese text for HongKong & Taiwan friends)

Old Testaments.
books    version:
________________
24    Jewish Tanakh
39    Protestant
46    Catholic
51    Eastern Orthodox

Originally I just wanted to find out the bilingual names and acronyms...

https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E8%81%96%E7%B6%93

Then I noticed the information...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_of_the_Bible

Even just talking about the names of the books,
there are different translations/versions between them.

#
 the variations of actual text
in the many English versions alone are amazing if not shocking.

There are so many versons.
If I were to choose one or two versions,
 which is/are the best?
And.....
The Catholic bibles have more books than Protestant bibles. 
 
(Wikipedia do states that Protestant version and Jewish Tanakh
 are similar in the quantity of content in the Old Testament,
 just the arrangement & dividing of books vary.)

misled ?!?

Which versions of translated documents have you been given?
How close they are to the real original / meaning /truth?
I shall investigate.

Let us check...

Example:  Bible,,,, LUKE:24:41-42

variations 1:

Did Jesus ask for  ~
 any meat or any food  to eat?

variation 2:

Was Jesus given ~
just fish, or, fish & honeycomb?

(and Jesus only took one of them
as in many versions of  Luke 24:43)

http://www.biblestudytools.com/luke/24-41-compare.html

Versions which use "food" or anything to eat / something to eat /

early versions which use "meat"

Common English Bible, Douay-Rhiems Catholic Bible, English Standard Version, GOD'S WORD Translation, Good News Translation, Hebrew Names Version, Holman Christian Standard Bible, Jubilee Bible 2000, Lexham English Bible, New American Standard Bible, New International Reader's Version, New King James Version, New Living Translation, New Revised Standard w/ Apocrypha, The Bible in Basic English, The Complete Jewish Bible, The Darby Translation, The Webster Bible, Today's New International Version,, World English Bible, Wycliffe, Young's Literal Translation, etc.

King James Version King James Version w/ Apocrypha Third Millennium Bible w/ Apocrypha Tyndale

 

Luke 24:42

versions which listed both:     fish + honey comb

versions which listed only fish: cooked fish / broiled fish/ baked fish / leftover fish

The Darby Translation, Douay-Rhiems Catholic Bible, Hebrew Names Version, Jubilee Bible 2000, King James Version, King James Version w/ Apocrypha, Third Millennium Bible, Third Millennium Bible w/ Apocrypha, The Webster Bible, World English Bible, Wycliffe, Young's Literal Translation,

American Standard Version, The Bible in Basic English, Common English Bible, Common English Bible w/ Apocrypha, The Complete Jewish Bible, Holman Christian Standard Bible, English Standard Version, Good News Translation, Good News Translation w/ Apocrypha, GOD'S WORD Translation, Lexham English Bible, The Message Bible, New American Standard Bible, New Century Version, New International Reader's Version, New International Version, New Living Translation, New Revised Standard, New Revised Standard w/ Apocrypha, Orthodox Jewish Bible, Revised Standard Version, Revised Standard Version w/ Apocrypha, Today's New International Version, Weymouth New Testament,

  http://www.biblestudytools.com/luke/24-42-compare.html

NOTE:
Old Testament - most were written in Hebrew. 
But a few chapters were written in Aramaic:
(in the prophecies of Ezra and Daniel and one verse in Jeremiah) 

New Testament - was writen in Greek. 
Aramaic was the common language spoken in Israel in Jesus' time, 
and it was likely the language He spoke. 
Some Aramaic words were even used by the Gospel writers in the New Testament.

 :::::  What else???

===Exodus 33:3
The promised land for people to go is
"unto a land flowing with milk and honey"
( they are enough to be attractive and luring to people ;
 not roasted meat or wine !)

===Isaiah 7:15

"By the time he knows enough to refuse evil and choose good, 

he will  eat curdled milk and honey."

http://www.biblestudytools.com/isaiah/7-15-compare.html

(go there and see the variations of translation:

1--  curd/ cheese/ sour milk/ curdled milk

2-- sentence structures/ words  / changes of meanings in translations)

===Genesis 1:29
"God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food."

=== Genesis 1:30
“And to every beast of the earth, 
and to every bird of the air, 
and to everything that creeps on the earth, 
everything that has the breath of life,
I have given every green plant for food.” —

=== Genesis 9:4-5
(shall not eat meat/flesh with blood/life )
http://www.biblestudytools.com/genesis/9-4-compare.html
http://www.biblestudytools.com/genesis/9-5-compare.html

 === Daniel 1:12
".... ‘Let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink.’ …” 

=== Leviticus 3:17
"'It shall be a perpetual statute
throughout your generations in all your dwellings,
that you shall eat neither fat nor blood. '"
http://www.biblestudytools.com/leviticus/3-17-compare.html


My conclusion???????
Some authorities or translations seems to
 have made the fact of 
vegetarian diet 
hidden/lost / obscured in bible ...

Was it to suit the ruling class's preference of meat?

Nowadays only few Christians practice 
fasting and cutting out meat/food.

I read materials saying that 
Jesus was likely to be one of the
Nazarene Essenes, 
who lived simple rural life, wore white robes,
ate vegetarian diet, fasted, and meditated.......

He and John the Baptist survived well in rural wilderness/caves 
with vegetarian food in nature, 
like milk/curd/cheese, honey, fish weed, locust fruit...and 
He seems well-experienced in fasting for long period of time!

    source:
http://www.essene.com/Bible/BiblicalBasisOfVeganism.html

http://www.thenazareneway.com/biblical_%20vegetarianism_denis_giron.htm

Faith and religion/churches seems two things now.

Got to be careful what to believe and what to follow.

p.s.
I have been wondering ...
 the translation works,
done over a vast span of centuries,
by different persons of different abilities in different countries,...
with cultural differences,
misunderstanding
of similar words but different meanings in languages,
plus,
different levels of control / influences from those in power--
-- hidden agenda to use religion /bible
to help rule countries/people in medieval times....