The horns of Moses in Jerome’s Vulgate did not initially represent derision or dishonor; rather they reflected the presence of God. And for centuries after Jerome’s translation, Moses was depicted along with Jesus, performing miracles, also reflecting proximity to the divine. But the horns took a literal turn once they became visible in art. They came to be understood as indicators of devilry and rejection of Christianity. However, this understanding was not entirely uniform.The tradition of Moses having horns has come up in PaleoJudaica periodically, going back to a lot of discussion in 2004. It's been a while, and I haven't noted this essay before, so this is a good time to bring it up again. The essay has a good overview of the history of the tradition.Michelangelo’s Moses, perhaps the most famous statue of Moses with horns, was created in the 16th century for the tomb of Pope Julius II, who likely did not see Moses’s status as ignoble. And more modern artists, such as Marc Chagall, depicted Moses with two ray-like beams on the top of his head rather than physical horns. Artistic representations such as these remind contemporary readers that Moses’s horns are not monolithic in interpretation, and they may not even be horns at all.
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If I may quote myself from a very early post, this still sums up what I can find about the range of interpretations of the originating biblical passage in Exodus 34. The post is actually about a critical essay on Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion of the Christ, but it generated a lot of discussion and debate about Moses' horns.
Those horns on Moses' head come from a literal translation of Exod 34:30, 35, which describes the skin of Moses' face being changed somehow as a result of seeing God on Sinai, using a verbal form (qaran)of the Hebrew root for "horn" (qeren). One intepretation, going back to the Jewish Greek translation of Aquila, is that Moses grew horns. Jerome's Vulgate also takes it this way. It originated as an artistic motif in 11th century Britain. Some critical scholars today still think this is the correct interpretation (perhaps going back to a ritual mask with horns or the like). Others go with another ancient interpretation that goes back to Pseudo-Philo and Paul (cf. 2 Cor 3:7-18), that "rays" of splendor shown from Moses' face. This is based on a rather unlikely reading of a difficult passage in Habbakuk 3:4. And back in the 1980s, Professor William H. Propp of UCSD argued that Moses' skin was "made horny" or scorched by the divine radiance. For more on this whole subject, see his fascinating article: "The Skin of Moses' Face—Transfigured or Disfigured?" Catholic Biblical Quarterly 49 (1987): 375-86. Bottom line: the portrayal of Moses with horns came about through a particular, not entirely impossible, reading of the biblical text, not as an attempt to demonize him.
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