Here’s the latest video (thanks to Shaun’s work!). It does a good job summarizing how to parse the cherubim and seraphim (and how not to over-read that material).
New Cherubim and Seraphim Video
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This was a great video. Thank you. A couple of questions
1) God tells Moses to put Cherubim on top of the ark while they are in the sinai desert. Since they had no contact with Mesopotamia yet, what do you think God meant by Cherubim? What would they have looked like being constructed in the wilderness?
2) If the point is not an “anatomy lesson”, what is even the point giving so much detail as to how they look like? If the audience is already familiar with Cherbum, why not skip that part and get to the main theological lesson? So for example, the book of Exodus doesn’t spend any ink on the anatomy of how the Cherubim looked like.
1) I think the term is the issue — I believe this is a good example where Torah editors swapped in the Babylonian term during their editorial activity in Babylon during the exile (an editorial updating) vs. the Egyptian imagery of palanquins and winged goddess figures. The people were a couple centuries removed from Egyptian imagery.
2) conformity with the familiar iconographic form.
1) Thank you. Do you mind elaborating a bit more? To moderns, there is a certain idea of what these things looked like on top of the ark. Sort of kneeling winged angels. What do you think the original ark would have had on top of it? What do you think the large cherubs that Solomon built in the Temple may have looked like?