Posted on May 11, 2008 by Steve Pollak
Rabbi Benjamin Blech, whose previous published work includes "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Judaism," has apparently set off a firestorm with his new book about the Sistine Chapel called "The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican."
Blech, a professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University who wrote the book along with Roy Doliner, a docent and guide at the Vatican, says Michaelangelo's masterpiece contains secret insults to the pope and Jewish mystical symbols. One of the insults? A bent finger behind a figure Blech says represents Pope Julius II.
Blech told the New York Jewish Week that the critics are wrong to call the book insulting to the Pope or to Christianity:
It is more accurate to say that Michelangelo had a “personal animosity towards” Pope Julius II, who commissioned the work in the 15th century, Rabbi Blech said. Michelangelo was primarily a sculptor who was upset at having to stop his sculpting career to paint frescoes, he pointed out. “It ruined his life and his health and he thought the pope was corrupted ... and he snuck in two times [figures] giving the finger to the pope,” the rabbi said. The figures are seen with a bent forefinger, which Rabbi Blech says was an obscene gesture.
Nothing like a little controversy to stir up some book sales.
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