I’ve had the TV show Supernatural on my radar as something I should watch at least since 2009, when a student pointed out to me that a Mandaean amulet got a mention on the show. Today I was nearby when someone was watching an episode, and I did a double take when I saw Syriac writing on the screen! The episode, I learned, is called “Are you there God? It’s me, Dean Winchester.” And I soon found a clip of the relevant scene:
It didn’t take too much investigation to figure out that the prototype for the page of a manuscript displayed on the screen was something available in the public domain online – MS 577 from the Schøyen Collection, a picture of which is available on Wikipedia:
They used the text from these pages, although not all the precise marginal drawings, by the look of it. The text is liturgical hymns, which is not what the episode was about.
But it does sound like Supernatural is a show I would be interested in. Are there any blog readers who watch or have watched Supernatural? Do you recommend it?
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