Anyone have a picture of Jesus giving the finger?

Might be one somewhere, but I heard he had a hard time getting it up.

Funny! I haven't seen that on-line game and I couldn't find it with a brief search. Can you recall the website, Matt? I'd like to check that out.

When education was restricted to the wealthy few, yet the churches wanted to have large congregations to fill the offering, they had graphical symbolism to help the congregation recognise characters in illustrations. Some people often had a lamb with them; Mary is often depicted in blue though she would almost certainly have worn brown; apostles or saints usually had halos behind their heads. As Joseph was a carpenter and Jesus only began his ministry at 30 he likely would have had a similar trade and so one way to set him apart (other figures of disciples, etc, had been fishermen or tax collectors, etc) was to consistently show his right hand with Dupuytren's contracture as it can be caused by sustained irritation and trauma to the tendons of the hand, specifically the right hand when using planes, saws, and other carpentry tools.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dupuytren%27s_contracture#Risk_factors_and_possible_causes

i've always heard it was just a traditional gesture of blessing.  it's probably one of those things whose origin is untraceable, but people have hundreds of theories about it.

as regards it being a symbol of the trinity, it is interesting to note that in central europe to this day counting on the hands starts with the thumb and not the index finger like in america.  so this would definitely signify three to a central european, but whether or not that was the original intention is another question.  it's important to recall that religious art was heavily regulated by the church from the earliest byzantine icons down to modern cheap jesus air fresheners, so it's probably impossible to say for sure why this gesture began to be painted.

 I knew this symbol was meaning HISPANIA in Latin, which is the ancient name for Spain. It meant "land of rabbits". You know Spain has a very strong catholic tradition and if you check closely those fingers, they look like a skipping rabbit. It's possible most of Jesus pictures were designed in Spain. Also I think this is the reason why in America there's the legend of the Easter Rabbit.

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }

I think that it is an archaic version of heavy metal horns.

The phenomenon of institutionalised Christianity adopting trinitarianism from myriad long-established pagan traditions only came about in the third century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinitarianism#History

Monotheism was a central tenet of the Torah (and the entire Old Testament).

For an itinerant prophet preacher with no qualms about offending the religious leaders (Jews) or political / military authorities (Romans) of his day you'd think he'd make a big deal about introducing this new concept of identity multiplicity. But you don't find that in any of His teachings. If anything, the opposite is the case: the centurion witnessing His execution was a Roman (a society in which polytheism was fine) and yet he says Jesus was the son of God (singular) promoting monotheism:

http://bible.cc/matthew/27-54.htm

Sure I know some people will insist that you can believe in three-in-one monotheism but that "mystery" is not found in the teachings of Jesus. The Dupuytren's contracture explanation makes the most sense. One saint is depicted with weights and scales; another with a lamb; etc. etc. ways of distinguishing them from each other by trade. They are all depicted with the sun behind their heads (or moon for Mary, Queen of Heaven) to be familiar to followers of the Nimrodian traditions. Every character with their particular signature trait, and Jesus illustrated with injuries from carpentry and from execution with a crown of thorns -- the suffering servant.