Image Details

“Arise, Take Up Thy Bed and Walk,” a painting on wood by the 16th century Flemish artist, Jan van Hemessen, illustrates the story of Jesus healing the paralytic (Mark 2). The man in the foreground, now well and robust, walks away from the scene of his healing carrying a huge mass of bedding. In the distance is a flashback of the Biblical scene. The four men who had carried the paralytic are still on the roof of an Italian-style villa; one crouches over the hole he and his friends have just made in the tiled roof. (In contrast to this depiction, the authors of “Has The House Where Jesus Stayed in Capernaum Been Found?” suggest that the actual house probably had a roof of earth and straw through which the paralytic could easily have been lowered.)