Man vents anger on 8-foot tall Moses statue

[Ian David]

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
April 03, 2009

WORCESTER - A Tyngsborough man allegedly upset about a 20-year-old unpaid speeding ticket that was preventing him from renewing his license is charged with pushing over a nearly 150-year-old statue of Moses in a Worcester courthouse.

Police say 42-year-old Brendan Pemberton heavily damaged the 8-foot, 4-inch hollow plaster statue on Thursday after storming out of the clerk's office following a dispute over a $165 ticket.

Pemberton allegedly took his frustration out on the biblical lawmaker with a uniformed state trooper standing about 15 feet away.

Trooper James Ellis told the Telegram & Gazette that Pemberton appeared "very agitated, very upset."

More:
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090403/NEWS11/90403005/-1/rss04


"Let my people renew their licenses!"

[Whoa_Nelly]

1. pic of statue

A copy of Michelangelo’s Moses can be found on the second floor of the soon-to-be-old Worcester Superior Court.
It was given to the courthouse by the American Antiquarian Society in 1910.

[Ian David]

2. They made a sculpture of Moses using the toilet? n/t

[Meshuga]

3. I didn't want to go there but

What is he doing with his left hand? :rofl:

[Ian David]

4. He's turning his serpent back into a staff. n/t

[Nihil]

7. Ummm, you two ...?

:spank:

:spray:
(Thanks though!)

[TechBear_Seattle]

10. He is a horny guy, after all

See?



I never could understand why Michelangelo sculpted him like that. And what's with the garter?

[Whoa_Nelly]

6. Close up of hand

hmmm...intriguing. :eyes:

[Ian David]

8. Looks like Moses likes to read on the toilet.

Keeps a pile of tablets in the bathroom.

[cosmik debris]

5. It look just like Zeus to me.

You don't suppose they were kin?

[laconicsax]

9. The funny part is the statue itself.

Exodus 20:4

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

Deuteronomy 4:16

Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female,

Deuteronomy 4:23

Take heed unto yourselves, lest ye forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you, and make you a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, which the LORD thy God hath forbidden thee.

Deuteronomy 27:15

Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image, an abomination unto the LORD, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and putteth it in a secret place. And all the people shall answer and say, Amen.

And here we have statues of the person to whom these commandments were supposed to be directly given.

[ZombieHorde]

11. The third commandment is fun. nt

[laconicsax]

12. Only if you like eating matzah.

Exodus 34:11-28

(11)Observe thou that which I command thee this day: behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite. (12) Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee: (13) But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves:

(14) For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God: (15) Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice; (16) And thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods.
(17) Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.
(18) The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, in the time of the month Abib: for in the month Abib thou camest out from Egypt.
(19)All that openeth the matrix is mine; and every firstling among thy cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male. (20) But the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb: and if thou redeem him not, then shalt thou break his neck. All the firstborn of thy sons thou shalt redeem. And none shall appear before me empty.
(21) Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest.
(22) And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.
(23) Thrice in the year shall all your menchildren appear before the LORD God, the God of Israel. (24) For I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before the LORD thy God thrice in the year.
(25) Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning.
(26)The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the LORD thy God.
Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.

(27) And the LORD said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. (28)And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.

[and-justice-for-all]

13. Why is there religious images at the clerk's office??nt