Mene Mene Tekel Parsin

An interesting feature of the venerable Chinese Union Version of the Holy Scriptures—the one with black cover and red siding—is the illustrations that are placed at the end of a number of books. I found the drawing at the end of the Book of Daniel to be very funny. It illustrates the “handwriting on the wall,” with God’s finger writing the words

מנא מנא תקל ופרסין

But the drawing has these words in English letters! I guess that’s for the benefit of the Chinese readers, very few of whom would be expected to be familiar with the Aramaic/Hebrew alphabet. Still, transliterating within an illustration strikes me as comical.