It is commonly known that Moses, in older art, is usually depicted with horns on his head. The supposed reason for this is also commonly known; every art history teacher informs his students that the Vulgate Bible contains a mistranslation, which resulted in an absurd artistic convention. I myself am disinclined to think that Saint Jerome and fifteen centuries of iconographers were all idiots.
Upon further investigation, I learned that the Hebrew word - keren - that Saint Jerome translated into the Latin as "grew horns" means, literally, "grew horns". His supposed mistake was not knowing that the word also has an idiomatic meaning of "emitted rays of light". Modern scholars, looking at two possible translations for the word, think: Of course! His face began to radiate! How silly that nobody realized this sooner!
This provokes from me the question: How exactly are rays of light shooting out of a man's head any more or less plausible than horns growing? I have never seen either happen. They would be equally miraculous phenomena, and I really cannot say which one a multitude of ancient Hebrews would have found more impressive. I suspect that several centuries of looking at Baroque and Romantic art have accustomed our minds to imagining rays of light shooting out of things. And cinematic special effects have lately influenced our expectations even more. But projecting those expectations back onto the book of Exodus is snobbery.
