1.
Peter Paul Rubens
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Sir Peter Paul Rubens was a Flemish/Netherlandish draughtsman and painter. He is widely considered as the most notable artist of Flemish Baroque art school, the catalogue of his works by Michael Jaffé lists 1,403 pieces, excluding numerous copies made in his workshop. His commissioned works were mostly history paintings, which included religious and mythological subjects and he painted portraits, especially of friends, and self-portraits, and in later life painted several landscapes. Rubens designed tapestries and prints, as well as his own house and he also oversaw the ephemeral decorations of the royal entry into Antwerp by the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand in 1635. His drawings are mostly extremely forceful but not overly detailed and he also made great use of oil sketches as preparatory studies. For altarpieces he painted on slate to reduce reflection problems. Rubens was born in the city of Siegen to Jan Rubens and he was named in honour of Saint-Peter and Paul, because he was born on their solemnety. His father, a Calvinist, and mother fled Antwerp for Cologne in 1568, after increased religious turmoil and persecution of Protestants during the rule of the Spanish Netherlands by the Duke of Alba. Jan Rubens became the adviser of Anna of Saxony, the second wife of William I of Orange. Following Jan Rubens imprisonment for the affair, Peter Paul Rubens was born in 1577, the family returned to Cologne the next year. In 1589, two years after his fathers death, Rubens moved with his mother Maria Pypelincks to Antwerp, religion figured prominently in much of his work and Rubens later became one of the leading voices of the Catholic Counter-Reformation style of painting. In Antwerp, Rubens received a Renaissance humanist education, studying Latin, by fourteen he began his artistic apprenticeship with Tobias Verhaeght. Subsequently, he studied under two of the leading painters of the time, the late Mannerist artists Adam van Noort. Much of his earliest training involved copying earlier works, such as woodcuts by Hans Holbein the Younger. Rubens completed his education in 1598, at time he entered the Guild of St. Luke as an independent master. In 1600 Rubens travelled to Italy and he stopped first in Venice, where he saw paintings by Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto, before settling in Mantua at the court of Duke Vincenzo I Gonzaga. The colouring and compositions of Veronese and Tintoretto had an effect on Rubenss painting. With financial support from the Duke, Rubens travelled to Rome by way of Florence in 1601, there, he studied classical Greek and Roman art and copied works of the Italian masters
2.
Creation myth
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A creation myth is a symbolic narrative of how the world began and how people first came to inhabit it. While in popular usage the term often refers to false or fanciful stories, formally. Cultures generally regard their creation myths as true, in the society in which it is told, a creation myth is usually regarded as conveying profound truths, metaphorically, symbolically and sometimes in a historical or literal sense. They are commonly, although not always, considered cosmogonical myths – that is, Creation myths often share a number of features. They often are considered sacred accounts and can be found in all known religious traditions. They are all stories with a plot and characters who are either deities, human-like figures, or animals and they are often set in a dim and nonspecific past that historian of religion Mircea Eliade termed in illo tempore. Creation myths develop in oral traditions and therefore typically have multiple versions, found throughout human culture, Creation myth definitions from modern references, A symbolic narrative of the beginning of the world as understood in a particular tradition and community. Creation myths are of importance for the valuation of the world, for the orientation of humans in the universe. Creation myths tell us how things began, all cultures have creation myths, they are our primary myths, the first stage in what might be called the psychic life of the species. As cultures, we identify ourselves through the collective dreams we call creation myths, … Creation myths explain in metaphorical terms our sense of who we are in the context of the world, and in so doing they reveal our real priorities, as well as our real prejudices. Our images of creation say a deal about who we are. A philosophical and theological elaboration of the myth of creation within a religious community. Religion professor Mircea Eliade defined the word myth in terms of creation, Myth narrates a history, it relates an event that took place in primordial Time. All creation myths are in one sense etiological because they attempt to explain how the world was formed, in the past historians of religion and other students of myth thought of them as forms of primitive or early-stage science or religion and analyzed them in a literal or logical sense. However they are seen as symbolic narratives which must be understood in terms of their own cultural context. Charles Long writes, The beings referred to in the myth – gods, animals, the myths should not be understood as attempts to work out a rational explanation of deity. While creation myths are not literal explications they do serve to define an orientation of humanity in the world in terms of a birth story. They are the basis of a worldview that reaffirms and guides how people relate to the world, to any assumed spiritual world
3.
Abrahamic religions
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Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are the largest Abrahamic religions in terms of numbers of adherents. As of 2005, estimates classified 54% of the population as adherents of an Abrahamic religion, about 32% as adherents of other religions. Christianity claims 33% of the population, Islam has 21%, Judaism has 0. 2%. It has been suggested that the phrase, Abrahamic religion, may mean that all these religions come from one spiritual source. Christians refer to Abraham as a father in faith, there is an Islamic religious term, Millat Ibrahim, indicating that Islam sees itself as having practices tied to the traditions of Abraham. Jewish tradition claims descent from Abraham, and adherents follow his practices and it is the Islamic tradition that Muhammad, as an Arab, is descended from Abrahams son Ishmael. Jewish tradition also equates the descendants of Ishmael, Ishmaelites, with Arabs, as the descendants of Isaac by Jacob, who was also later known as Israel, are the Israelites. The Báb, regarded by Baháís as a predecessor to Baháulláh, was a Sayyid, or a descendant of Muhammad. Tradition also holds that Baháulláh is a descendant of Abraham through his third wife, while there is commonality among the religions, in large measure their shared ancestry is peripheral to their respective foundational beliefs and thus conceals crucial differences. For example, the common Christian beliefs of Incarnation, Trinity, there are key beliefs in both Islam and Judaism that are not shared by most of Christianity, and key beliefs of Islam, Christianity, and the Baháí Faith not shared by Judaism. Judaism regards itself as the religion of the descendants of Jacob and it has a strictly unitary view of God, and the central holy book for almost all branches is the Masoretic Text as elucidated in the Oral Torah. In the 19th century and 20th centuries Judaism developed a number of branches, of which the most significant are Orthodox, Conservative. Christianity began as a sect of Judaism in the Mediterranean Basin of the first century CE and evolved into a separate religion—Christianity—with distinctive beliefs, Jesus is the central figure of Christianity, considered by almost all denominations to be God the Son, one person of the Trinity. The Christian biblical canons are usually held to be the ultimate authority, over many centuries, Christianity divided into three main branches, dozens of significant denominations, and hundreds of smaller ones. Islam arose in the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century CE with a unitary view of God. Muslims hold the Quran to be the authority, as revealed and elucidated through the teachings and practices of a central. The Islamic faith consider all prophets and messengers from Adam through the messenger to carry the same Islamic monotheistic principles. Soon after its founding Islam split into two branches, each of which now have a number of denominations
4.
Fall of man
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The fall of man, or the fall, is a term used in Christianity to describe the transition of the first man and woman from a state of innocent obedience to God to a state of guilty disobedience. Although not named in the Bible, the doctrine of the fall comes from an interpretation of Genesis chapter 3. At first, Adam and Eve lived with God in the Garden of Eden, but the serpent tempted them into eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which God had forbidden. After doing so, they became ashamed of their nakedness and God expelled them from the Garden to prevent them from eating from the tree of life, for many Christian denominations, the doctrine of the fall is closely related to that of original sin. Calvinist Protestants believe that Jesus gave his life as a sacrifice for the elect, judaism does not have a concept of the fall or original sin and has varying other interpretations of the Eden narrative. Lapsarianism, the order of Gods decrees in relation to the Fall, is the distinction, by some Calvinists. The story of the Garden of Eden and the Fall of Man represents a tradition among the Abrahamic peoples, with a more or less symbolical of certain moral. The doctrine of the fall of man is extrapolated from Christian exegesis of Genesis 3, according to the narrative, God creates Adam and Eve, the first man and woman. God places them in the Garden of Eden and forbids them to eat fruit from the tree of knowledge of good, the serpent tempts Eve to eat fruit from the forbidden tree, which she shares with Adam and they immediately become ashamed of their nakedness. Subsequently, God banishes Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden and it also states that they were removed from the Garden on the new moon of the 4th month of that year. Christian exegetes of Genesis 2,17 have applied the principle to explain how Adam died within a day. Psalms 90,4,2 Peter 3,8 and Jubilees 4, 29–31 explained that, to God, one day is equivalent to a thousand years, the Greek Septuagint, on the other hand, has day translated into the Greek word for a twenty-four-hour period. According to the Genesis narrative, during the age, human longevity approached a millennium. Thus, to die has been interpreted as to become mortal, however, the grammar does not support this reading, nor does the narrative, Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden lest they eat of the second tree, the tree of life, and gain immortality. Catholic exegesis of Genesis 3 claims that the fall of man was a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. This first sin was transmitted by Adam and Eve to all of their descendants as original sin, causing humans to be subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin. Baptism is considered to erase original sin, though the effects on human nature remain, even children partake in the guilt or sin of Adam, but not in the responsibility of original sin, as sin is always a personal act. Traditionally, the fall of Adam and Eve is said to have brought “four wounds” to human nature and these are enumerated by St Bede and others, especially St Thomas Aquinas They are Original sin, Concupiscence, Physical frailty and death, and a darkened intellect and ignorance
5.
Original sin
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The concept of original sin was first alluded to in the 2nd century by Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon in his controversy with certain dualist Gnostics. Other church fathers such as Augustine also developed the doctrine, seeing it as based on the New Testament teaching of Paul the Apostle, tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose and Ambrosiaster considered that humanity shares in Adams sin, transmitted by human generation. The Jansenist movement, which the Catholic Church declared to be heretical, the story of the Garden of Eden and the Fall of Man represents a tradition among the Abrahamic peoples, with a presentation more or less symbolical of certain moral and religious truths. The idea of divine justice taking the form of punishment is also ubiquitous in the Hebrew Bible. St Pauls idea of redemption hinged on the contrast between the sin of Adam and the death and resurrection of Jesus. Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, for as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. Up till then the transgression in the Garden of Eden had not been given great significance, as the Jesus scholar, Geza Vermes has said, Paul believed that Adams transgression in a mysterious way affected the nature of the human race. The primeval sin, a Pauline creation with no biblical or post-biblical Jewish precedent, was irreparable by ordinary human effort, the formalized Christian doctrine of original sin was first developed in the 2nd century by Irenaeus, the Bishop of Lyon, in his struggle against Gnosticism. Irenaeus contrasted their doctrine with the view that the Fall was a step in the direction by Adam, with whom, Irenaeus believed. The Greek Fathers emphasized the cosmic dimension of the Fall, namely that since Adam human beings are born into a fallen world and they thus did not teach that human beings are deprived of free will and involved in total depravity, which is one understanding of original sin. During this period the doctrines of human depravity and the sinful nature of human flesh were taught by Gnostics. Christian Apologists insisted that Gods future judgment of humanity implied humanity must have the ability to live righteously, when Adam sinned, human nature was thenceforth transformed. Adam and Eve, via sexual reproduction, recreated human nature and their descendants now live in sin, in the form of concupiscence, a term Augustine used in a metaphysical, not a psychological sense. Augustine insisted that concupiscence was not a being but a bad quality, in Augustines view, all of humanity was really present in Adam when he sinned, and therefore all have sinned. Original sin, according to Augustine, consists of the guilt of Adam which all humans inherit, as sinners, humans are utterly depraved in nature, lack the freedom to do good, and cannot respond to the will of God without divine grace. Justo Gonzalez interprets Augustines teaching that grace is irresistible, results in conversion, Pelagius claimed that the influence of Adam on other humans was merely that of bad example. Augustine held that the effects of Adams sin are transmitted to his descendants not by example, a wounded nature comes to the soul and body of the new person from his/her parents, who experience libido. Augustines view was that human procreation was the way the transmission was being effected and he did not blame, however, the sexual passion itself, but the spiritual concupiscence present in human nature, soul and body, even after baptismal regeneration
6.
Christianity
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Christianity is a Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, who serves as the focal point for the religion. It is the worlds largest religion, with over 2.4 billion followers, or 33% of the global population, Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of humanity whose coming as the Messiah was prophesied in the Old Testament. Christian theology is summarized in creeds such as the Apostles Creed and his incarnation, earthly ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection are often referred to as the gospel, meaning good news. The term gospel also refers to accounts of Jesuss life and teaching, four of which—Matthew, Mark, Luke. Christianity is an Abrahamic religion that began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the mid-1st century, following the Age of Discovery, Christianity spread to the Americas, Australasia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the rest of the world through missionary work and colonization. Christianity has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilization, throughout its history, Christianity has weathered schisms and theological disputes that have resulted in many distinct churches and denominations. Worldwide, the three largest branches of Christianity are the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the denominations of Protestantism. There are many important differences of interpretation and opinion of the Bible, concise doctrinal statements or confessions of religious beliefs are known as creeds. They began as baptismal formulae and were expanded during the Christological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries to become statements of faith. Many evangelical Protestants reject creeds as definitive statements of faith, even agreeing with some or all of the substance of the creeds. The Baptists have been non-creedal in that they have not sought to establish binding authoritative confessions of faith on one another. Also rejecting creeds are groups with roots in the Restoration Movement, such as the Christian Church, the Evangelical Christian Church in Canada, the Apostles Creed is the most widely accepted statement of the articles of Christian faith. It is also used by Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists and this particular creed was developed between the 2nd and 9th centuries. Its central doctrines are those of the Trinity and God the Creator, each of the doctrines found in this creed can be traced to statements current in the apostolic period. The creed was used as a summary of Christian doctrine for baptismal candidates in the churches of Rome. Most Christians accept the use of creeds, and subscribe to at least one of the mentioned above. The central tenet of Christianity is the belief in Jesus as the Son of God, Christians believe that Jesus, as the Messiah, was anointed by God as savior of humanity, and hold that Jesus coming was the fulfillment of messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. The Christian concept of the Messiah differs significantly from the contemporary Jewish concept, Jesus, having become fully human, suffered the pains and temptations of a mortal man, but did not sin
7.
Judaism
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Judaism encompasses the religion, philosophy, culture and way of life of the Jewish people. Judaism is an ancient monotheistic Abrahamic religion, with the Torah as its text, and supplemental oral tradition represented by later texts such as the Midrash. Judaism is considered by religious Jews to be the expression of the relationship that God established with the Children of Israel. With between 14.5 and 17.4 million adherents worldwide, Judaism is the tenth-largest religion in the world, Judaism includes a wide corpus of texts, practices, theological positions, and forms of organization. Modern branches of Judaism such as Humanistic Judaism may be nontheistic, today, the largest Jewish religious movements are Orthodox Judaism, Conservative Judaism and Reform Judaism. Major sources of difference between groups are their approaches to Jewish law, the authority of the Rabbinic tradition. Orthodox Judaism maintains that the Torah and Jewish law are divine in origin, eternal and unalterable, Conservative and Reform Judaism are more liberal, with Conservative Judaism generally promoting a more traditional interpretation of Judaisms requirements than Reform Judaism. A typical Reform position is that Jewish law should be viewed as a set of guidelines rather than as a set of restrictions and obligations whose observance is required of all Jews. Historically, special courts enforced Jewish law, today, these still exist. Authority on theological and legal matters is not vested in any one person or organization, the history of Judaism spans more than 3,000 years. Judaism has its roots as a religion in the Middle East during the Bronze Age. Judaism is considered one of the oldest monotheistic religions, the Hebrews and Israelites were already referred to as Jews in later books of the Tanakh such as the Book of Esther, with the term Jews replacing the title Children of Israel. Judaisms texts, traditions and values strongly influenced later Abrahamic religions, including Christianity, Islam, many aspects of Judaism have also directly or indirectly influenced secular Western ethics and civil law. Jews are a group and include those born Jewish and converts to Judaism. In 2015, the world Jewish population was estimated at about 14.3 million, Judaism thus begins with ethical monotheism, the belief that God is one and is concerned with the actions of humankind. According to the Tanakh, God promised Abraham to make of his offspring a great nation, many generations later, he commanded the nation of Israel to love and worship only one God, that is, the Jewish nation is to reciprocate Gods concern for the world. He also commanded the Jewish people to one another, that is. These commandments are but two of a corpus of commandments and laws that constitute this covenant, which is the substance of Judaism
8.
Islam
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Islam is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion which professes that there is only one and incomparable God and that Muhammad is the last messenger of God. It is the worlds second-largest religion and the major religion in the world, with over 1.7 billion followers or 23% of the global population. Islam teaches that God is merciful, all-powerful, and unique, and He has guided mankind through revealed scriptures, natural signs, and a line of prophets sealed by Muhammad. The primary scriptures of Islam are the Quran, viewed by Muslims as the word of God. Muslims believe that Islam is the original, complete and universal version of a faith that was revealed many times before through prophets including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses. As for the Quran, Muslims consider it to be the unaltered, certain religious rites and customs are observed by the Muslims in their family and social life, while social responsibilities to parents, relatives, and neighbors have also been defined. Besides, the Quran and the sunnah of Muhammad prescribe a comprehensive body of moral guidelines for Muslims to be followed in their personal, social, political, Islam began in the early 7th century. Originating in Mecca, it spread in the Arabian Peninsula. The expansion of the Muslim world involved various caliphates and empires, traders, most Muslims are of one of two denominations, Sunni or Shia. Islam is the dominant religion in the Middle East, North Africa, sizable Muslim communities are also found in Horn of Africa, Europe, China, Russia, Mainland Southeast Asia, Philippines, Northern Borneo, Caucasus and the Americas. Converts and immigrant communities are found in almost every part of the world, Islam is a verbal noun originating from the triliteral root s-l-m which forms a large class of words mostly relating to concepts of wholeness, submission, safeness and peace. In a religious context it means voluntary submission to God, Islām is the verbal noun of Form IV of the root, and means submission or surrender. Muslim, the word for an adherent of Islam, is the active participle of the verb form. The word sometimes has connotations in its various occurrences in the Quran. In some verses, there is stress on the quality of Islam as a state, Whomsoever God desires to guide. Other verses connect Islām and dīn, Today, I have perfected your religion for you, I have completed My blessing upon you, still others describe Islam as an action of returning to God—more than just a verbal affirmation of faith. In the Hadith of Gabriel, islām is presented as one part of a triad that also includes imān, Islam was historically called Muhammadanism in Anglophone societies. This term has fallen out of use and is said to be offensive because it suggests that a human being rather than God is central to Muslims religion
9.
Book of Genesis
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The Book of Genesis is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. The basic narrative expresses the theme, God creates the world and appoints man as his regent. The new post-Flood world is also corrupt, God does not destroy it, instead calling one man, Abraham, to be the seed of its salvation. At Gods command Abraham descends from his home into the land of Canaan, given to him by God, Genesis ends with Israel in Egypt, ready for the coming of Moses and the Exodus. The narrative is punctuated by a series of covenants with God, the books author or authors appear to have structured it around ten toledot sections, but modern commentators see it in terms of a primeval history followed by the cycle of Patriarchal stories. In Judaism, the importance of Genesis centers on the covenants linking God to his chosen people. It is not clear, however, what this meant to the original authors, while the first is far shorter than the second, it sets out the basic themes and provides an interpretive key for understanding the entire book. The primeval history has a symmetrical structure hinging on chapters 6–9, God creates the world in six days and consecrates the seventh as a day of rest. God creates the first humans Adam and Eve and all the animals in the Garden of Eden but instructs them not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. A talking serpent portrayed as a creature or trickster, entices Eve into eating it anyway. Eve bears two sons, Cain and Abel, Cain kills Abel after God accepts Abels offering but not Cains. Eve bears another son, Seth, to take Abels place, after many generations of Adam have passed from the lines of Cain and Seth, the world becomes corrupted by the sin of man and Nephilim, and God determines to wipe out mankind. First, he instructs the righteous Noah and his family to build a huge boat, then God sends a great flood to wipe out the rest of the world. When the waters recede, God promises that he not destroy the world a second time with water with the rainbow as the symbol of his promise. But upon seeing mankind cooperating to build a great tower city, God instructs Abram to travel from his home in Mesopotamia to the land of Canaan. Abrams name is changed to Abraham and that of his wife Sarai to Sarah, because Sarah is old, she tells Abraham to take her Egyptian handmaiden, Hagar, as a second wife. God resolves to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for the sins of their people, Abraham protests and gets God to agree not to destroy the cities if 10 righteous men can be found. Angels save Abrahams nephew Lot and his family, but his wife back on the destruction against their command and is turned into a pillar of salt
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Hebrew Bible
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They are composed mainly in Biblical Hebrew, with some passages in Biblical Aramaic. The term does not comment upon the naming, numbering or ordering of books, the term Hebrew Bible is an attempt to provide specificity with respect to contents but avoid allusion to any particular interpretative tradition or theological school of thought. Hebrew Bible refers to the Jewish biblical canon, in its Latin form, Biblia Hebraica, it traditionally serves as a title for printed editions of the Masoretic Text. Many biblical studies scholars advocate use of the term Hebrew Bible as a substitute to terms with religious connotations. Hebrew Bible Old Testament without prescribing the use of either, however, he accepts that there is no reason why non-Christians should feel obliged to refer to these books as the Old Testament, apart from custom of use. Modern Christian formulations of this tension include Supersessionism, Covenant Theology, New Covenant Theology, Dispensationalism, in terms of canon, Christian usage of Old Testament does not refer to a universally agreed upon set of books but, rather, varies depending on denomination. The Hebrew Bible includes small portions in Aramaic, written and printed in Aramaic square-script, the books that constitute the Hebrew Bible developed over roughly a millennium. The oldest texts seem to come from the 11th or 10th centuries BCE and they are edited works, being collections of various sources intricately and carefully woven together. Since the 19th century, most biblical scholars have agreed that the Pentateuch consists of four sources which have been woven together and these four sources are J, D, E and P sources. They were combined to form the Pentateuch sometime in the 6th century BCE and this theory is now known as the documentary hypothesis, and has been the dominant theory for the past two hundred years. The Deuteronomist credited with the Pentateuchs book of Deuteronomy is also said to be the source of the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, several editions, all titled Biblia Hebraica, have been produced by various German publishers since 1906. Between 1906 and 1955, Rudolf Kittel published nine editions of it,1966, the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft published the renamed Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia in six editions until 1997. Since 2004 the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft has published the Biblia Hebraica Quinta, other projects include, Hebrew University Bible Project Hebrew Bible, A Critical Edition Biblical canon Books of the Bible Non-canonical books referenced in the Bible Torah Brueggemann, Walter. An introduction to the Old Testament, the canon and Christian imagination, the People of Ancient Israel, an introduction to Old Testament Literature, History, and Thought, Harper and Row,1974. Sinai and Zion, An Entry into the Jewish Bible, archived from the original on 14 March 2012. The Ancient Near East, Volume I, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press. An abridgement of Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament Noth, how the Bible Became a Book. The Old Testament, A Literary History, hebrew-English Tanakh, the Jewish Bible Complete, fully vocalized, contilated, Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible, together with the classic English translation by the Jewish Publication Society
11.
Genesis creation narrative
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The Genesis creation narrative is the creation myth of both Judaism and Christianity. Two creation stories are found in the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis. In the second story, God, now referred to by the personal name Yahweh, creates Adam, the first man, from dust and places him in the Garden of Eden, eve, the first woman, is created from Adam and as his companion. The two sources can be identified in the narrative, Genesis 1, 1–2,3 is Priestly and Genesis 2. The combined narrative is a critique of the Mesopotamian theology of creation, Genesis affirms monotheism, robert Alter described the combined narrative as compelling in its archetypal character, its adaptation of myth to monotheistic ends. Misunderstanding the genre of the Genesis creation narrative, meaning the intention of the author/s, reformed evangelical scholar Bruce Waltke cautions against one such misreading, the approach which reads it as history rather than theology and so leads to Creationism and the denial of evolution. As noted scholar of Jewish studies, Jon D. Levenson, puts it, although tradition attributes Genesis to Moses, biblical scholars hold that it, together with the following four books, is a composite work, the product of many hands and periods. The two sources appear in chronological order, Genesis 1, 1–2,3 is Priestly. As for the background which led to the creation of the narrative itself. The creation narrative is made up of two stories, roughly equivalent to the two first chapters of the Book of Genesis. The first account employs a structure of divine fiat and fulfillment, then the statement And there was evening and there was morning. In each of the first three days there is an act of division, day one divides the darkness from light, day two the waters above from the waters below, and day three the sea from the land. Together, this combination of character and contrasting profile point to the different origin of materials in Genesis 1,1 and Genesis 2,4. The primary accounts in each chapter are joined by a bridge at Genesis 2,4, These are the generations of the heavens. This echoes the first line of Genesis 1, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and is reversed in the next phrase. in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens. This verse is one of ten generations phrases used throughout Genesis and they normally function as headings to what comes after, but the position of this, the first of the series, has been the subject of much debate. Comparative mythology provides historical and cross-cultural perspectives for Jewish mythology, Genesis 1–11 as a whole is imbued with Mesopotamian myths. Genesis 1 bears both striking differences from and striking similarities to Babylons national creation myth, the Enuma Elish, still, Genesis 1 bears similarities to the Baal Cycle of Israels neighbor, Ugarit
12.
Image of God
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The Image of God is a concept and theological doctrine in Judaism, Christianity, and Sufi Islam, which asserts that human beings are created in the image and likeness of God. Philosophers and theologians have debated the meaning of the phrase for millennia. Likewise Maimonides argues that the faculty of reason enables one to become most God-like when that person develops the capacity to grasp the nature of God’s ultimate reality. In Christian thought, the Image of God is intimately linked to the idea of Original Sin. The Image that was present in Adam at creation was partially lost with the Fall of Man, Christian writers have stated that despite the Image of God being partially lost, each person fundamentally has value regardless of class, race, gender or disability. Regardless of the meaning of being made in the Image of God. And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him, Gen 5, 1–3 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made He him, male and female created He them, and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, Gen 9,6 One who spills the blood of man, through/by man, his blood will be spilled, for in Gods image/tselem He made man. Although the Pseudepigrapha texts are numerous, the book noted to make reference to the imago dei is 2 Enoch—namely,2 Enoch 44. And, quite fascinatingly, the text makes reference to the concept twice. 2 Enoch 44, 1-3, The Lord with his own two hands created mankind, and in a facsimile of his own face, small and great the Lord created. Whoever insults a persons face insults the face of the Lord, whoever treats with contempt the face of any person treats the face of the Lord with contempt. Anger and judgement whoever spits on a persons face, according to the translator and/or editor of The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, this verse has similarities in structure and meaning to Genesis 1,27 and Wisdom of Solomon 6,7, respectively. It is estimated the reference to small and great concerned ranking, certainly this passage exceeds Genesis 1,27 in its descriptive nature,2 Enoch 44, 1a details how humans are made in Gods image—namely, as duplicates of Gods own face. 2 Enoch 65,2,2 And however much time there was went by, understand how, on account of this, he constituted man in his own form, in accordance with a similarity. And he gave him eyes to see, ears to hear, and heart to think and this chapter of 2 Enoch almost functions as its own retelling of the creation account, albeit in a very truncated manner. When considering extra-biblical texts, the Apocrypha, a collection of texts with a widespread debate about canonicity
13.
Stewardship (theology)
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Stewardship is a theological belief that humans are responsible for the world, and should take care of it. Stewardship is people who believe in one God who created the universe and all that is within it, also believing that they must take care of creation, creation includes animals and the environment. Many religions and denominations have various degrees of support for environmental stewardship and it can have political implications, such as in Christian Democracy. Many moderate and progressive Catholics, Protestants and evangelicals see environmentalism as a consequence of stewardship, in Jewish and Christian traditions, stewardship refers to the way time, talents, material possessions, or wealth are used or given for the service of God. Some pagan or secular views include a Gaia philosophy which accepts the Earth as a holy being or goddess, the Jewish holiday of Tu Bishvat, or “the Birthday of the Trees, ” is also known as Jewish Arbor Day. Some want to expand it to a global environmental focus. A biblical world view of stewardship can be defined as, Utilizing and managing all resources God provides for the glory of God. The central essence of biblical world view stewardship is managing everything God brings into the life in a manner that honors God. Stewardship begins and ends with the understanding of Gods ownership of all, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning, the earth is the Lords, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants. Who has a claim against me that I must pay, everything under heaven belongs to me. The link between stewardship and environmentalism is a contentious one, what does it mean for humans to take care of the world. Environmental stewardship is typically thought of as entailing reducing human impacts into the natural world, however, Neil Paul Cummins claims that humans have a special stewardship role on the planet because through their technology humans are able to save life from otherwise certain elimination. This is an interpretation of Noah’s Ark, the cornerstone of human stewardship being technological protection and regulation. Christian Stewardship refers to the responsibility that Christians have in maintaining and using wisely the gifts that God has bestowed, God wishes human beings to be his collaborators in the work of creation, redemption and sanctification. Increasingly this has referred to environmental protectionism and this also includes traditional Christian Ministries that share the resources of treasure, time and talent. An example of stewardship is in Genesis 2,15, and the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. The drive to serve the garden in which we have been placed sees Christian influence in political and practical affairs,3 For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops
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Adam
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Adam is a figure from the Book of Genesis who is also mentioned in the New Testament, the deuterocanonical books, the Quran, the Book of Mormon, and the Book of Iqan. According to the myth of the Abrahamic religions, he was the first human. In the Genesis creation narratives, he was created by God, Christian churches differ on how they view Adams subsequent behavior of disobeying God, and to the consequences that those actions had on the rest of humanity. Christian and Jewish teachings sometimes hold Adam and Eve to a different level of responsibility for the Fall, in addition, Islam holds that Adam was eventually forgiven, while Christianity holds that redemption occurred only later through the sacrifice of Jesus. The Baháí Faith, Islam and some Christian denominations consider Adam to be the first prophet, Adam as a proper name, predates its generic use in Semitic languages. Its earliest known use as a name in historicity is Adamu. Its use as a word in the Hebrew language is ׳āḏām. Coupled with the article, it becomes the human. Its root is not attributed to the Semitic root for man --sh, rather, ׳āḏām is linked to its triliteral root אָדָם, meaning red, fair, handsome. As a masculine noun, adam means man, mankind usually in a context as in humankind. The noun adam is also the form of the word adamah which means ground or earth. It is related to the words, adom, admoni, according to a number of observers, the word Adam derives from Sanskrit word Adima, meaning progenitor, first, primitive in Sanskrit. In the Book of Genesis, the Hebrew word ׳āḏām is often rendered mankind in the most generic sense, the use of mankind in Genesis, gives the reflection that Adam was the ancestor of all men. Kabbalistic works indicate that Adam also comes from the Hebrew word Adame, in the first five chapters of Genesis the word אָדָם is used in all of its senses, collectively, individually, gender nonspecific, and male. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, its use in Genesis 1 is generic, while in Genesis 2 and Genesis 3 the generic and personal usages are mixed. In Genesis 1,27 adam is used in the sense, whereby not only the individual Adam. Genesis 2,7 is the first verse where Adam takes on the sense of an individual man, the gender distinction of adam is then reiterated in Genesis 5, 1–2 by defining male and female. A recurring literary motif that occurs, is the bond between Adam and the earth, Gods cursing of Adam also results in the ground being cursed, causing him to have to labour for food, and Adam returns to the earth from which he was taken
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Garden of Eden
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The Garden of Eden or often Paradise is the biblical garden of God, described most notably in the Book of Genesis chapters 2 and 3, and also in the Book of Ezekiel. The garden of God, not called Eden, is mentioned in Genesis 13, the Book of Zechariah and the Book of Psalms also refer to trees and water in relation to the temple without explicitly mentioning Eden. Traditionally, the derivation of the name Eden was from the Akkadian edinnu. Eden is now believed to be closely related to an Aramaic root word meaning fruitful. The Hebrew term is translated pleasure in Sarahs secret saying in Genesis 18,12, in the Hebrew Bible, Adam and Eve are depicted as walking around the Garden of Eden naked due to their innocence. Eden and its rivers may signify the real Jerusalem, the Temple of Solomon and it may also represent the divine garden on Zion, and the mountain of God, which was also Jerusalem. The imagery of the Garden, with its serpent and cherubs, has compared to the images of the Solomonic Temple with its copper serpent. The second part of the Genesis creation narrative, Genesis, opens with Adonai Elohim creating the first man, the man was free to eat from any tree in the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Last of all, the God made a woman from a rib of the man to be a companion the man, cherubim were placed east of the garden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep him away from the tree of life. Genesis lists four rivers in association with the garden of Eden, Pishon, Gihon, the Tigris, and it also refers to the land of Cush - translated/interpreted as Ethiopia, but thought by some to equate to Cossaea, a Greek name for the land of the Kassites. These lands lie north of Elam, immediately to the east of ancient Babylon, in Antiquities of the Jews, the first-century Jewish historian Josephus identifies the Pishon as what the Greeks called Ganges and the Geon as the Nile. According to Terje Stordalen, the Eden in Ezekiel appears to be located in Lebanon. According to the Bible, the location of Eden is described in the Book of Genesis, chapter 2, verse 10-14, A river flowed from Eden to water the garden, and from there it divided to make four streams. The first is named the Pishon, and this winds all through the land of Havilah where there is gold, the gold of this country is pure, bdellium and cornelian stone are found there. The second river is named the Gihon, and this winds all through the land of Cush, the third river is named the Tigris, and this flows to the east of Ashur. The fourth river is the Euphrates, the city of Dilmun in the Sumerian mythological story of Enki and Ninhursag is a paradisaical abode of the immortals, where sickness and death were unknown. In this painting, only the action takes place there identifies the setting as distinct from the Garden of the Hesperides. The Persian term paradise, meaning a garden or hunting-park
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Tree of the knowledge of good and evil
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The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is one of two specific trees in the story of the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2–3, along with the tree of life. Genesis 2 narrates that God places the first man and woman in a garden with trees of fruits they may eat. When, in Genesis 3, a serpent seduces the woman to eat from its fruit and she also lets the man taste it, God expels them from the garden. The phrase in Hebrew, טוֹב וָרָע, tov wa-raʿ, literally translates as good and this is seen in the Egyptian expression evil-good, which is normally employed to mean everything. In Greek literature, Homer also uses the device when he lets Telemachus say, I know all things, the good and the evil. If tree of the knowledge of good and evil is to be understood to mean a tree whose fruit imparts knowledge of everything and this view is held by several scholars. However, given the context of disobedience to God, other interpretations of the implications of this phrase also demand consideration. Robert Alter emphasizes the point that when God forbids the man to eat from that tree, he says that if he does so. The Hebrew behind this is in a regularly used in the Hebrew Bible for issuing death sentences. In Jewish tradition, the Tree of Knowledge and the eating of its fruit represents the beginning of the mixture of good, before that time, the two were separate, and evil had only a nebulous existence in potential. While free choice did exist before eating the fruit, evil existed as an entity separate from the human psyche, eating and internalizing the forbidden fruit changed this and thus was born the yeitzer hara, the Evil Inclination. In Rashis notes on Genesis 3,3, the first sin came about because Eve added a clause to the Divine command. By saying this, Eve added to YHWHs command and thereby came to detract from it, as it is written, since evil has no independent existence, it depends on holiness to draw down the Divine life-force, on whose leftovers it then feeds and derives existence. Once evil is separated from holiness through beirurim, its source of life is cut off and this is accomplished through observance of the 613 commandments in the Torah, which deal primarily with physical objects wherein good and evil are mixed together. Thus, the task of beirurim rectifies the sin of the Tree and draws the Shechinah back down to earth, where the sin of the Tree had caused Her to depart. In Christian theology, consuming the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was the sin committed by Adam. In Catholicism, Augustine of Hippo taught that the tree should be understood both symbolically and as a real tree - similarly to Jerusalem being both a city and a figure of Heavenly Jerusalem. Augustine underlined that the fruits of that tree were not evil by themselves, in Western Christian art, the fruit of the tree is commonly depicted as the apple, which originated in central Asia
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Eve
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Eve is a figure in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. According to the myth of the Abrahamic religions, she was the first woman. In Islamic tradition, Eve is known as Adams wife and the first woman although she is not specifically named in the Quran, according to the second chapter of Genesis, Eve was created by God by taking her from the rib of Adam, to be Adams companion. She succumbs to the temptation to eat the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good. She shares the fruit with Adam, and as a result the first humans are expelled from the Garden of Eden, Christian churches differ on how they view both Adam and Eves disobedience to God, and to the consequences that those actions had on the rest of humanity. Christian and Jewish teachings sometimes hold Adam and Eve to a different level of responsibility for the fall, Eve in Hebrew is Ḥawwāh, meaning living one or source of life, and is related to ḥāyâ, to live. The name derives from the Semitic root ḥyw, Hawwah has been compared to the Hurrian goddess Kheba, who was shown in the Amarna letters to be worshipped in Jerusalem during the Late Bronze Age. It has been suggested that the name Kheba may derive from Kubau, the goddess Asherah, wife of El, mother of the elohim from the first millennium BCE was given the title Chawat, from which the name Hawwah in Aramaic was derived, Eve in English. It has been suggested that the Hebrew name Eve also bears resemblance to an Aramaic word for snake, in the Book of Genesis of the Hebrew Bible, the first human female is called אישה, isha by the first human man, Adam. She is created by Elohim from the mans rib and this enraged Ninhursag, and she caused Enki to fall ill. Enki felt pain in his rib, which is a pun in Sumerian, the other deities persuaded Ninhursag to relent. In Genesis 2, 18–22, the woman is created to be ezer kenegdo, kenegdo means alongside, opposite, a counterpart to him, and ezer means active intervention on behalf of the other person. Gods naming of the elements of the cosmos in Genesis 1 illustrated his authority over creation, the woman is called ishah, woman, with an explanation that this is because she was taken from ish, meaning man, the two words are not in fact connected. Later, after the story of the Garden is complete, she will be given a name and this means living in Hebrew, from a root that can also mean snake. In fact, the word traditionally translated rib in English can also mean side, chamber, in the King James Version, אַחַת מִצַּלְעֹתָיו is translated as one of his ribs. The contrary position is that the term צלע or ṣelaʿ, occurring forty-one times in the Tanakh, is most often translated as side in general. Rib is, however, the primary meaning of the term, which is from a root ṣ-l-ʿ meaning bend. Also God took one of Adams ṣelaʿ, suggesting an individual rib, the Septuagint has μίαν τῶν πλευρῶν αὐτοῦ, with ἡ πλευρά choosing a Greek term that, like the Hebrew ṣelaʿ, may mean either rib, or, in the plural, side in general
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Serpents in the Bible
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Serpents are referred to in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. The symbol of a serpent or snake played important roles in religious and cultural life of ancient Egypt, Canaan, Mesopotamia, the serpent was a symbol of evil power and chaos from the underworld as well as a symbol of fertility, life and healing. Nachash, Hebrew for snake, is associated with divination. In the Hebrew Bible, Nachash occurs in the Torah to identify the serpent in Eden, throughout the Hebrew Bible, it is also used in conjunction with saraph to describe vicious serpents in the wilderness. Tanniyn, a form of dragon-monster, also occurs throughout the Hebrew Bible, in the Book of Exodus, the staffs of Moses and Aaron are turned into serpents, a nachash for Moses, a tanniyn for Aaron. In the New Testament, the Book of Revelation makes use of ancient serpent, the serpent is most often identified with the hubristic Satan, and sometimes with Lilith. The story of the Garden of Eden and the Fall of Man represents a tradition among the Abrahamic peoples, with a more or less symbolical of certain moral. In one of the oldest stories ever written, the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh loses the power of immortality, the serpent was a widespread figure in the mythology of the Ancient Near East. In the surrounding region, a late Bronze Age Hittite shrine in northern Syria contained a statue of a god holding a serpent in one hand. In sixth-century Babylon, a pair of bronze serpents flanked each of the four doorways of the temple of Esagila, at the tell of Tepe Gawra, at least seventeen Early Bronze Age Assyrian bronze serpents were recovered. The Sumerian fertility god Ningizzida was sometimes depicted as a serpent with a head, eventually becoming a god of healing. In the Jewish Bible, the Book of Genesis refers to a serpent who triggered the expulsion of Adam, Serpent is also used to describe sea monsters. Examples of these identifications are in the Book of Isaiah where a reference is made to a serpent-like Leviathan, Serpent figuratively describes biblical places such as Egypt, and the city of Dan. The prophet Jeremiah also compares the King of Babylon to a serpent, the Hebrew word nahash is used to identify the serpent that appears in Genesis 3,1, in the Garden of Eden. In Genesis, the serpent is portrayed as a creature or trickster, who promotes as good what God had forbidden. The serpent has the ability to speak and to reason, Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. There is no indication in the Book of Genesis that the serpent was a deity in its own right, although it is one of only two cases of animals that talk in the Pentateuch. God placed Adam in the Garden to tend it and warned Adam not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, the serpent tempts Eve to eat of the Tree, but Eve tells the serpent what God had said
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Shame
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Shame is a painful, social emotion that can be seen as resulting. from comparison of the selfs action with the selfs standards. But which may stem from comparison of the selfs state of being with the ideal social contexts standard. Thus, shame may stem from volitional action or simply self-regard, no action by the shamed being is required, both the comparison and standards are enabled by socialization. Though usually considered an emotion, shame may also variously be considered an affect, cognition, state, or condition. The roots of the word shame are thought to derive from a word meaning to cover, as such, covering oneself. He also noted the sense of warmth or heat occurring in intense shame, a sense of shame is the feeling known as guilt but consciousness or awareness of shame as a state or condition defines core/toxic shame. The key emotion in all forms of shame is contempt, two distinct domains that shame is expressed are the consciousness of self as bad and the other is self as inadequate. People employ negative coping responses to counter deep rooted, associated sense of shameworthiness, to shame generally means to actively assign or communicate a state of shame to another. Behaviors designed to uncover or expose others are used for this purpose. Finally, to have means to maintain a sense of restraint against offending others while to have no shame is to behave without such restraint. The location of the line between the concepts of shame, guilt, and embarrassment is not fully standardized. According to cultural anthropologist Ruth Benedict, shame is a violation of cultural or social values while guilt feelings arise from violations of ones internal values, psychoanalyst Helen B. Lewis argued that, The experience of shame is directly about the self, which is the focus of evaluation. In guilt, the self is not the object of negative evaluation. Similarly, Fossum and Mason say in their book Facing Shame that While guilt is a feeling of regret and responsibility for ones actions. Clinical psychologist Gershen Kaufmans view of shame is derived from that of theory, namely that shame is one of a set of instinctual. Here, self-blame and self-contempt mean the application, towards ones self, of exactly the same dynamic that blaming of and this, however, can lead to an internalized, self-reinforcing sequence of shame events for which Kaufman coined the term shame spiral. Shame can also be used as a strategy when feeling guilt, another view of the dividing line between shame and embarrassment holds that the difference is one of intensity. In this view embarrassment is simply a less intense experience of shame, extreme or toxic shame is a much more intense experience and one that is not functional
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Evil
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In religion, ethics, philosophy and psychology good and evil is a very common dichotomy. In cultures with Manichaean and Abrahamic religious influence, evil is usually perceived as the dualistic antagonistic opposite of good, Evil, in a general context, is the absence or opposite of that which is described as being good. Often, evil is used to denote profound immorality, in certain religious contexts, evil has been described as a supernatural force. Definitions of evil vary, as does the analysis of its motives, however, elements that are commonly associated with evil involve unbalanced behavior involving expediency, selfishness, ignorance, or neglect. How to achieve good is also discussed in the social sciences, every language has a word expressing good in the sense of having the right or desirable quality and bad in the sense undesirable. A sense of judgment and a distinction right and wrong, good. This idea developed into a religion which spawned many sects, some of which embraced an extreme dualistic belief that the world should be shunned. Morality in this absolute sense solidifies in the dialogues of Plato, the idea is further developed in Late Antiquity by Neoplatonists, Gnostics, and Church Fathers. Medieval theology was shaped by St. Augustine of Hippo. According to the definition of St. Augustine of Hippo sin is a word, deed. Other later Germanic forms include Middle English evel, ifel, ufel, Old Frisian evel, Old Saxon ubil, Old High German ubil, differing views also exist as to why evil might arise. Many religious and philosophical traditions claim that evil behavior is an aberration that results from the human condition. Sometimes, evil is attributed to the existence of free will, Some argue that evil itself is ultimately based in an ignorance of truth. A variety of Enlightenment thinkers have alleged the opposite, by suggesting that evil is learned as a consequence of social structures. In physics and statistical thermodynamics, the property of goodness or order is referred to as a state of low entropy. Confucianisms primary concern is with correct social relationships and the behavior appropriate to the learned or superior man, thus evil would correspond to wrong behavior. By good, I understand that which we know is useful to us. By evil, on the contrary I understand that which we certainly know hinders us from possessing anything that is good
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Hubris
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Hubris describes a personality quality of extreme or foolish pride or dangerous overconfidence. The adjectival form of the noun hubris is hubristic, Hubris is usually perceived as a characteristic of an individual rather than a group, although the group the offender belongs to may unintentionally suffer consequences from the wrongful act. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of ones own competence, Hubris is generally considered a sin in world religions. In ancient Greek, hubris referred to actions that shamed and humiliated the victim for the pleasure or gratification of the abuser, the term had a strong sexual connotation, and the shame reflected on the perpetrator as well. Violations of the law against hubris included what might today be termed assault and battery, sexual crimes, two well-known cases are found in the speeches of Demosthenes, a prominent statesman and orator in ancient Greece. These two examples occurred when first Midias punched Demosthenes in the face in the theatre, and second when a defendant allegedly assaulted a man, aeschines brought this suit against Timarchus to bar him from the rights of political office and his case succeeded. In Ancient Athens, hubris was defined as the use of violence to shame the victim, Hubris is not the requital of past injuries, this is revenge. As for the pleasure in hubris, its cause is this, crucial to this definition are the ancient Greek concepts of honour and shame. The concept of honour included not only the exaltation of the one receiving honour and this concept of honour is akin to a zero-sum game. Rush Rehm simplifies this definition of hubris to the concept of insolence, contempt. In its modern usage, hubris denotes overconfident pride combined with arrogance, Hubris is often associated with a lack of humility. The proverb pride goeth before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall is thought to sum up the use of hubris. Hubris is also referred to as pride that blinds, as it causes a committer of hubris to act in foolish ways that belie common sense. In other words, the definition may be thought of as. Victor in Mary Shelleys Frankenstein manifests hubris in his attempt to become a great scientist by creating life through technological means, but eventually regrets this previous desire. Chinua Achebes novel Things Fall Apart has been called a modern Greek tragedy, the characters Pride and Father in the popular manga Fullmetal Alchemist were inspired by the sin of hubris. One notable example is the Battle of Little Big Horn, as General George Armstrong Custer was apocryphally reputed to have there, Where did all those damned Indians come from. In business word many cases of social scandals were explained by managerial hubris, more recently, in his two-volume biography of Adolf Hitler, historian Ian Kershaw uses both hubris and nemesis as titles
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Human evolutionary genetics
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Human evolutionary genetics studies how one human genome differs from another human genome, the evolutionary past that gave rise to it, and its current effects. Differences between genomes have anthropological, medical and forensic implications and applications, Genetic data can provide important insight into human evolution. Biologists classify humans, along only a few other species. The living Hominidae include two species of chimpanzee, two species of gorilla, and two species of orangutan. The great apes with the family Hylobatidae of gibbons form the superfamily Hominoidea of apes, apes, in turn, belong to the primate order, along with the Old World monkeys, the New World monkeys, and others. Data from both mitochondrial DNA and nuclear DNA indicate that primates belong to the group of Euarchontoglires, together with Rodentia, Lagomorpha, Dermoptera and this is further supported by Alu-like short interspersed nuclear elements which have been found only in members of the Euarchontoglires. A phylogenetic tree is derived from DNA or protein sequences from populations. Often, mitochondrial DNA or Y chromosome sequences are used to study ancient human demographics and these single-locus sources of DNA do not recombine and are almost always inherited from a single parent, with only one known exception in mtDNA. Individuals from closer geographic regions generally tend to be more similar than individuals from farther away. Distance on a tree can be used approximately to indicate. The genetic difference between humans and chimps is less than 2%, or twenty times larger than the variation among modern humans, temporal remoteness of the most recent common ancestor. The mitochondrial most recent common ancestor of humans lived roughly 200,000 years ago, latest common ancestors of humans. The separation of humans from their closest relatives, the apes, has been studied extensively for more than a century. Five major questions have been addressed, Which apes are our closest ancestors, what was the effective population size of the common ancestor before the split. Are there traces of population structure preceding the speciation or partial admixture succeeding it, what were the specific events prior to and subsequent to the separation. As discussed before, different parts of the show different sequence divergence between different hominoids. It has also shown that the sequence divergence between DNA from humans and chimpanzees varies greatly. For example, the sequence divergence varies between 0% to 2. 66% between non-coding, non-repetitive genomic regions of humans and chimpanzees, additionally gene trees, generated by comparative analysis of DNA segments, do not always fit the species tree
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William Blake
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William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a figure in the history of the poetry. His so-called prophetic works were said by 20th century critic Northrop Frye to form what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language. His visual artistry led 21st-century critic Jonathan Jones to proclaim him far, in 2002, Blake was placed at number 38 in the BBCs poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. Although he lived in London his entire life, he produced a diverse and symbolically rich œuvre and his paintings and poetry have been characterised as part of the Romantic movement and as Pre-Romantic. Reverent of the Bible but hostile to the Church of England, Blake was influenced by the ideals and ambitions of the French, despite these known influences, the singularity of Blakes work makes him difficult to classify. William Blake was born on 28 November 1757 at 28 Broad Street in Soho and he was the third of seven children, two of whom died in infancy. Blakes father, James, was a hosier and he attended school only long enough to learn reading and writing, leaving at the age of ten, and was otherwise educated at home by his mother Catherine Blake. Even though the Blakes were English Dissenters, William was baptised on 11 December at St Jamess Church, Piccadilly, the Bible was an early and profound influence on Blake, and remained a source of inspiration throughout his life. Blake started engraving copies of drawings of Greek antiquities purchased for him by his father, within these drawings Blake found his first exposure to classical forms through the work of Raphael, Michelangelo, Maarten van Heemskerck and Albrecht Dürer. The number of prints and bound books that James and Catherine were able to purchase for young William suggests that the Blakes enjoyed, at least for a time, a comfortable wealth. When William was ten years old, his parents knew enough of his headstrong temperament that he was not sent to school and he read avidly on subjects of his own choosing. During this period, Blake made explorations into poetry, his work displays knowledge of Ben Jonson, Edmund Spenser. On 4 August 1772, Blake was apprenticed to engraver James Basire of Great Queen Street, at the sum of £52.10, at the end of the term, aged 21, he became a professional engraver. This aside, Basires style of line-engraving was of a kind held at the time to be old-fashioned compared to the flashier stipple or mezzotint styles. It has been speculated that Blakes instruction in this form may have been detrimental to his acquiring of work or recognition in later life. After two years, Basire sent his apprentice to copy images from the Gothic churches in London and his experiences in Westminster Abbey helped form his artistic style and ideas. The Abbey of his day was decorated with suits of armour, painted funeral effigies, ackroyd notes that. the most immediate would have been of faded brightness and colour
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Tate
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Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdoms national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is a network of four art museums, Tate Britain, London, Tate Liverpool, Tate St Ives, Cornwall and Tate Modern, London, Tate is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The name Tate is used also as the name for the corporate body. The gallery was founded in 1897, as the National Gallery of British Art, the Tate Gallery was housed in the current building occupied by Tate Britain, which is situated in Millbank, London. Tate Liverpool has the purpose as Tate Modern but on a smaller scale. All four museums share the Tate Collection, one of the Tates most publicised art events is the awarding of the annual Turner Prize, which takes place at Tate Britain. The original Tate was called the National Gallery of British Art, situated on Millbank, Pimlico, the idea of a National Gallery of British Art was first proposed in the 1820s by Sir John Leicester, Baron de Tabley. It took a step nearer when Robert Vernon gave his collection to the National Gallery in 1847, a decade later John Sheepshanks gave his collection to the South Kensington Museum, known for years as the National Gallery of Art. Henry Tate also donated his own collection to the gallery and it was initially a collection solely of modern British art, concentrating on the works of modern—that is Victorian era—painters. It was controlled by the National Gallery until 1954, in 1926 and 1937, the art dealer and patron Joseph Duveen paid for two major expansions of the gallery building. His father had paid for an extension to house the major part of the Turner Bequest. Henry Courtauld also endowed Tate with a purchase fund, by the mid 20th century, it was fulfilling a dual function of showing the history of British art as well as international modern art. In 1954, the Tate Gallery was finally separated from the National Gallery, later, the Tate began organising its own temporary exhibition programme. In 1979 with funding from a Japanese bank a large extension was opened that would also house larger income generating exhibitions. In 1987, the Clore Wing opened to house the major part of the Turner bequest, in 1988, an outpost in north west England opened as Tate Liverpool. This shows various works of art from the Tate collection as well as mounting its own temporary exhibitions. In 2007, Tate Liverpool hosted the Turner Prize, the first time this has been held outside London and this was an overture to Liverpools being the European Capital of Culture 2008. In 1993, another offshoot opened, Tate St Ives and it exhibits work by modern British artists, particularly those of the St Ives School
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The Creation of Adam
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The Creation of Adam is a fresco painting by Michelangelo, which forms part of the Sistine Chapels ceiling, painted c. It illustrates the Biblical creation narrative from the Book of Genesis in which God breathes life into Adam, the fresco is part of a complex iconographic scheme and is chronologically the fourth in the series of panels depicting episodes from Genesis. The image of the hands of God and Adam has become iconic of humanity. The painting has been reproduced in countless imitations and parodies, leonardo da Vincis The Last Supper and Michelangelos Creation of Adam are the most replicated religious paintings of all time. In 1505, Michelangelo was invited back to Rome by the newly elected Pope Julius II and he was commissioned to build the Popes tomb, which was to include forty statues and be finished in five years. Under the patronage of the Pope, Michelangelo experienced constant interruptions to his work on the tomb in order to accomplish other tasks. Although Michelangelo worked on the tomb for 40 years, it was never finished to his satisfaction and it is located in the Church of S. Pietro in Vincoli in Rome and is most famous for the central figure of Moses, completed in 1516. Of the other statues intended for the tomb, two known as the Heroic Captive and the Dying Captive, are now in the Louvre, during the same period, Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which took approximately four years to complete. Michelangelo was originally commissioned to paint the Twelve Apostles on the pendentives that supported the ceiling. The work is part of a scheme of decoration within the chapel which represents much of the doctrine of the Catholic Church. The composition stretches over 500 square metres of ceiling, and contains over 300 figures, on the pendentives supporting the ceiling are painted twelve men and women who prophesied the coming of Jesus, seven prophets of Israel and five Sibyls, prophetic women of the Classical world. Among the most famous paintings on the ceiling are The Creation of Adam, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the Deluge, the Prophet Jeremiah and the Cumaean Sibyl. God is depicted as an elderly white-bearded man wrapped in a swirling cloak while Adam, another point is that Adams finger and Gods finger are not touching. It gives the impression that God, the giver of life, is reaching out to Adam who has yet to receive it, many hypotheses have been formulated regarding the identity and meaning of the figures around God. The Creation of Adam is generally thought to depict the excerpt God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him. The inspiration for Michelangelos treatment of the subject may come from a hymn, Veni Creator Spiritus. Michelangelos main source of inspiration for his Adam in his Creation of Adam may have been a showing a nude Augustus Caesar riding sidesaddle on a Capricorn. This cameo is now at Alnwick Castle, Northumberland, the cameo used to belong to cardinal Domenico Grimani who lived in Rome while Michelangelo painted the ceiling
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Sistine Chapel
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The Sistine Chapel is a chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the Pope, in Vatican City. Originally known as the Cappella Magna, the chapel takes its name from Pope Sixtus IV, since that time, the chapel has served as a place of both religious and functionary papal activity. Today it is the site of the Papal conclave, the process by which a new pope is selected, the fame of the Sistine Chapel lies mainly in the frescos that decorate the interior, and most particularly the Sistine Chapel ceiling and The Last Judgment by Michelangelo. In a different climate after the Sack of Rome, he returned, the fame of Michelangelos paintings has drawn multitudes of visitors to the chapel ever since they were revealed five hundred years ago. At the time of Pope Sixtus IV in the late 15th century, there were 50 occasions during the year on which it was prescribed by the Papal Calendar that the whole Papal Chapel should meet. Of these 50 occasions,35 were masses, of which 8 were held in Basilicas, in general St. Peters and these included the Christmas Day and Easter masses, at which the Pope himself was the celebrant. The other 27 masses could be held in a smaller, less public space, the Cappella Maggiore derived its name, the Greater Chapel, from the fact that there was another chapel also in use by the Pope and his retinue for daily worship. At the time of Pope Sixtus IV, this was the Chapel of Pope Nicholas V, the Cappella Maggiore is recorded as existing in 1368. The proportions of the present chapel appear to follow those of the original. The first mass in the Sistine Chapel was celebrated on 15 August 1483, the Sistine Chapel has maintained its function to the present day, and continues to host the important services of the Papal Calendar, unless the Pope is travelling. There is a permanent choir, the Sistine Chapel Choir, for whom much original music has been written, one of the functions of the Sistine Chapel is as a venue for the election of each successive pope in a conclave of the College of Cardinals. On the occasion of a conclave, a chimney is installed in the roof of the chapel, if white smoke appears, created by burning the ballots of the election, a new Pope has been elected. The conclave also provided for the cardinals a space in which they can hear mass, and in which they can eat, sleep, and pass time attended by servants. From 1455, conclaves have been held in the Vatican, until the Great Schism, canopies for each cardinal-elector were once used during conclaves—a sign of equal dignity. After the new Pope accepts his election, he would give his new name, at this time, until reforms instituted by Saint Pius X, the canopies were of different colours to designate which Cardinals had been appointed by which Pope. Its exterior is unadorned by architectural or decorative details, as is common in many Italian churches of the Medieval, subsidence and cracking of masonry such as must also have affected the Cappella Maggiore has necessitated the building of very large buttresses to brace the exterior walls. The accretion of other buildings has further altered the appearance of the Chapel. The building is divided into three stories of which the lowest is a tall basement level with several utilitarian windows
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Michelangelo
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Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art. Considered to be the greatest living artist during his lifetime, he has since described as one of the greatest artists of all time. A number of Michelangelos works of painting, sculpture, and architecture rank among the most famous in existence and he sculpted two of his best-known works, the Pietà and David, before the age of thirty. As an architect, Michelangelo pioneered the Mannerist style at the Laurentian Library, at the age of 74, he succeeded Antonio da Sangallo the Younger as the architect of St. Peters Basilica. Michelangelo transformed the plan so that the end was finished to his design, as was the dome, with some modification. Michelangelo was unique as the first Western artist whose biography was published while he was alive, in his lifetime he was often called Il Divino. One of the qualities most admired by his contemporaries was his terribilità, the attempts by subsequent artists to imitate Michelangelos impassioned and highly personal style resulted in Mannerism, the next major movement in Western art after the High Renaissance. Michelangelo was born on 6 March 1475 in Caprese near Arezzo, at the time of Michelangelos birth, his father was the Judicial administrator of the small town of Caprese and local administrator of Chiusi. Michelangelos mother was Francesca di Neri del Miniato di Siena, the Buonarrotis claimed to descend from the Countess Mathilde of Canossa, this claim remains unproven, but Michelangelo himself believed it. Several months after Michelangelos birth, the returned to Florence. There Michelangelo gained his love for marble, as Giorgio Vasari quotes him, If there is good in me. Along with the milk of my nurse I received the knack of handling chisel and hammer, as a young boy, Michelangelo was sent to Florence to study grammar under the Humanist Francesco da Urbino. The young artist, however, showed no interest in his schooling, preferring to copy paintings from churches, the city of Florence was at that time the greatest centre of the arts and learning in Italy. Art was sponsored by the Signoria, by the merchant guilds and by patrons such as the Medici. The Renaissance, a renewal of Classical scholarship and the arts, had its first flowering in Florence, the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti had laboured for fifty years to create the bronze doors of the Baptistry, which Michelangelo was to describe as The Gates of Paradise. The exterior niches of the Church of Orsanmichele contained a gallery of works by the most acclaimed sculptors of Florence – Donatello, Ghiberti, Andrea del Verrocchio, and Nanni di Banco. The interiors of the churches were covered with frescos, begun by Giotto. During Michelangelos childhood, a team of painters had been called from Florence to the Vatican, among them was Domenico Ghirlandaio, a master in fresco painting, perspective, figure drawing, and portraiture who had the largest workshop in Florence at that period
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Myth
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A myth is any traditional story consisting of events that are ostensibly historical, though often supernatural, explaining the origins of a cultural practice or natural phenomenon. The word myth is derived from the Greek word mythos, which means story. Mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths, myth can mean sacred story, traditional narrative or tale of the gods. A myth can also be a story to explain why something exists, human cultures usually include a cosmogonical or creation myth, concerning the origins of the world, or how the world came to exist. The active beings in myths are generally gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines, or animals, most myths are set in a timeless past before recorded time or beginning of the critical history. A myth can be a story involving symbols that are capable of multiple meanings, a myth is a sacred narrative because it holds religious or spiritual significance for those who tell it. Myths also contribute to and express a cultures systems of thought and values, myths are often therefore stories that are currently understood as being exaggerated or fictitious. According to Albert A. Anderson, a professor of philosophy, in these works, the term had several meanings, conversation, narrative, speech, story, tale, and word. Like the related term logos, mythos expresses whatever can be delivered in the form of words, Anderson contrasts the two terms with ergon, a Greek term for action, deed, and work. The term mythos lacks an explicit distinction between true or false narratives, in the context of the Theatre of ancient Greece, the term mythos referred to the myth, the narrative, the plot, and the story of a theatrical play. According to David Wiles, the Greek term mythos in this era covered an entire spectrum of different meanings, from undeniable falsehoods to stories with religious, according to philosopher Aristotle, the spirit of a theatrical play was its mythos. The term mythos was also used for the material of Greek tragedy. The tragedians of the era could draw inspiration from Greek mythology, David Wiles observes that modern conceptions about Greek tragedy can be misleading. It is commonly thought that the ancient audience members were familiar with the mythos behind a play. However, the Greek dramatists were not expected to faithfully reproduce traditional myths when adapting them for the stage and they were instead recreating the myths and producing new versions. Storytellers like Euripides relied on suspense to excite their audiences, in one of his works, Merope attempts to kill her sons murderer with an axe, unaware that the man in question is actually her son. According to an ancient description of reactions to this work. They rose to their feet in terror and caused an uproar, David Wiles points that the traditional mythos of Ancient Greece, was primarily a part of its oral tradition
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Chronology of the Bible
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It was theological in intent, not historical in the modern sense, and functions as an implied prophecy whose key lies in the identification of the final event. The count begins with creation and Year 1, as recently as the 18th century, scholars of the stature of Isaac Newton believed that the date of Creation was knowable from the Bible. These chronologies include, A Progenitor chronology that placed Abrahams birth at AM1600, alfred Jepsen proposed this chronology on the basis of melding time periods in the Samaritan and Masoretic recensions. The Nehemiah chronology, devised to show 3,500 years from creation to Nehemiahs mission, northcote says that this chronology was probably composed by Levites in Jerusalem not long after Nehemiahs mission, perhaps sometime late in the fifth century BCE. Bousset apparently sees this schematization, too, but calls it Proto-MT, a proto-Masoretic chronology, shaped by jubilees, with an overall literary showing of 3,480 years from creation to the completion of the Second Temple, per B. W. Bousset, and which had the first Temple at 3,000 years, the Saros chronology that reflected 3,600 years leading up to the first Temple and 4080 years from creation to the completion of the Second Temple. This scheme served as the basis for the later LXX chronology, the Masoretic text is the basis of modern Jewish and Christian bibles. The Hebrew Bible and Old Testament with which we are familiar is called the Masoretic text, there are, however, two other major texts, the Septuagint and the Samaritan Pentateuch. The Septuagint is a Greek translation of the Jewish holy books made in Egypt in the last few centuries before Christ, it agrees with the Masoretic text. The Samaritan text is the text preserved by the Samaritan Jewish community and this community dates from some time in the last few centuries before Christ - just when is disputed - and, like the Septuagint, differs markedly from the Masoretic text in its chronology. More relevantly, all three texts have a purpose, which is not to record history so much as to bring the narrative to a point which represents the culmination of history. In the Samaritan Pentateuch, the genealogies and narratives were shaped to ensure a chronology of 3000 years from creation to the Israelite settlement of Canaan. In the Septuagint version of the Pentateuch the Israelite chronology extends 4,777 years from creation to the finishing of the Second Temple and this calculation only emerges by supplementing LXX with the MTs chronology of kings. There were at least 3 variations of LXX chronology, Eusebius used one variation, now favored by Hughes, northcote asserts that the LXX calendrical pattern was meant to demonstrate that there were 5,000 years from creation to a contemporaneous Ptolemaic Egypt, circa 300 BCE. More significant, and still in use among Jews, was the Seder Olam Rabbah, a work tracing the history of the world. The early Church Father Eusebius, attempting to place Christ in the chronology, put his birth in AM5199, the chronology of the monarchy, unlike that of earlier periods, can be checked against non-Biblical sources and seems to be correct in general terms. In short, he data concerning the synchronisms appeared in hopeless contradiction with the data as to the lengths of reigns, possibly the most widely followed attempt to reconcile the contradictions has been that proposed by Edwin R. to a doctrine of scriptures absolute harmony
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Israelites
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The Israelites were a Semitic-speaking people of the ancient Near East, who inhabited a part of Canaan during the tribal and monarchic periods. The ancient Israelites are considered to be an outgrowth of the indigenous Canaanite populations that inhabited the Southern Levant, Syria, ancient Israel. In the period of the monarchy it was only used to refer to the inhabitants of the northern kingdom. The Israelites were also known as the Hebrews and the Twelve Tribes of Israel, the Jews are named after and also descended from the southern Israelite Kingdom of Judah, particularly the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and partially Levi. The word Jews is found in 2 Kings, Chronicles, and in passages in the Book of Jeremiah, the Book of Zechariah. The Kingdom of Israel, often called the Northern Kingdom of Israel, contained all the tribes except for the tribes of Judah, following its conquest by Assyria, these ten tribes were allegedly dispersed and lost to history, and they are henceforth known as the Ten Lost Tribes. Jewish tradition holds that Samaria was so named because the mountainous terrain was used to keep Guard for incoming enemy attacks. According to Samaritan tradition, however, the Samaritan ethnonym is not derived from the region of Samaria, thus, according to Samaritan tradition, the region was named Samaria after them, not vice versa. In Modern Hebrew, the Samaritans are called Shomronim, while in Samaritan Hebrew they call themselves Shamerim, in Judaism, an Israelite is, broadly speaking, a lay member of the Jewish ethnoreligious group, as opposed to the priestly orders of Kohanim and Levites. In texts of Jewish law such as the Mishnah and Gemara, the term יהודי, meaning Jew, is rarely used, Samaritans commonly refer to themselves and to Jews collectively as Israelites, and they describe themselves as the Israelite Samaritans. The name Israel first appears in the Hebrew Bible in Genesis 32,29, the Hebrew Bible etymologizes the name as from yisra to prevail over or to struggle/wrestle with, and el, God, the divine. The name Israel first appears in non-biblical sources c.1209 BCE, the inscription is very brief and says simply, Israel is laid waste and his seed is not. The inscription refers to a people, not to an individual or a nation-state, in modern Hebrew, bnei yisrael can denote the Jewish people at any time in history, it is typically used to emphasize Jewish religious identity. From the period of the Mishna the term Yisrael acquired a narrower meaning of Jews of legitimate birth other than Levites. In modern Hebrew this contrasts with the term Yisraeli, a citizen of the modern State of Israel, the term Hebrew has Eber as an eponymous ancestor. It is used synonymously with Israelites, or as a term for historical speakers of the Hebrew language in general. Today, Jews and Samaritans both recognize each other as communities with an authentic Israelite origin, the terms Jews and Samaritans largely replaced the title Children of Israel as the commonly used ethnonym for each respective community. The name Yahweh, the god of the later Israelites, may indicate connections with the region of Mount Seir in Edom, the Canaanites were also the first people, as far as is known, to have used an alphabet
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Tree of life
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The concept of a tree of life is a widespread mytheme or archetype in the worlds mythologies, related to the concept of sacred tree more generally, and hence in religious and philosophical tradition. The expression Tree of Life was used as a metaphor for the tree of common descent in the evolutionary sense in a famous passage by Charles Darwin. Various trees of life are recounted in folklore, culture and fiction and they had their origin in religious symbolism. The Eternal Banyan Tree is located on the bank of the Yamuna inside the courtyard of Allahabad Fort near the confluence of the Yamuna, the eternal and divine nature of this tree has been documented at length in the scriptures. During the cyclic destruction of creation when the earth was enveloped by waters. It is on the leaves of tree that Lord Krishna rested in the form of a baby when land was no longer visible. And it is here that the sage, Markandeya, received the cosmic vision of the Lord. It is under this tree that Buddha meditates eternally, legend also has it that the Bodi tree at Gaya is a manifestation of this tree. In pre-Islamic Persian mythology, the Gaokerena world tree is a large, ahriman created a frog to invade the tree and destroy it, aiming to prevent all trees from growing on the earth. As a reaction, God created two kar fish staring at the frog to guard the tree, the two fishes are always staring at the frog and stay ready to react to it. The sacred plant haoma and the drink made from it, the preparation of the drink from the plant by pounding and the drinking of it are central features of Zoroastrian ritual. Haoma is also personified as a divinity and it bestows essential vital qualities—health, fertility, husbands for maidens, even immortality. The source of the haoma plant is a shining white tree that grows on a paradisiacal mountain. Sprigs of this white haoma were brought to earth by divine birds, Haoma is the Avestan form of the Sanskrit soma. The near identity of the two in ritual significance is considered by scholars to point to a salient feature of an Indo-Iranian religion antedating Zoroastrianism. Another related issue in ancient mythology of Iran is the myth of Mashyа and Mashyane and this myth can be considered as a prototype for the creation myth where living beings are created by Gods. To the Ancient Egyptians, the Tree of Life represented the hierarchical chain of events that brought everything into existence, the spheres of the Tree of Life demonstrate the order, process, and method of creation. In Egyptian mythology, in the Ennead system of Heliopolis, the first couple, apart from Shu and Tefnut and Geb and Nut, are Isis and Osiris
32.
Form criticism
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Form criticism is a method of biblical criticism that classifies units of scripture by literary pattern and then attempts to trace each type to its period of oral transmission. Form criticism seeks to determine a units original form and the context of the literary tradition. It later came to be applied to the Gospels by Karl Ludwig Schmidt, Martin Dibelius, Rudolf Bultmann, over the past few decades, form criticisms emphasis on oral tradition has waned in Old Testament studies. This is largely because scholars are skeptical about our ability to distinguish the original oral traditions from the literary sources that preserve them. As a result, the method as applied to the Old Testament now focuses on the Bibles literary genres, Form criticism begins by identifying a texts genre or conventional literary form, such as parables, proverbs, epistles, or love poems. It goes on to seek the sociological setting for each texts genre, for example, the sociological setting of a law is a court, or the sociological setting of a psalm of praise is a worship context, or that of a proverb might be a father-to-son admonition. Having identified and analyzed the texts genre-pericopes, form criticism goes on to ask how these smaller genre-pericopes contribute to the purpose of the text as a whole, as developed by Rudolf Bultmann and others, form criticism attempts to rediscover the original kernel of meaning of a text. This process has been described as demythologising, although the word must be used with caution, myth is not intended to convey a sense of untrue, but the significance of an event in the narrators agenda. What, ultimately, does the mean by it. Form criticism thus attempts to reconstruct the theological opinions of the primitive church, studies based on form criticism state that the Evangelists drew upon oral traditions when composing the canonical gospels. This oral tradition consisted of distinct components. Parables and aphorisms are the bedrock of the tradition, pronouncement stories, scenes that culminate with a saying of Jesus, are more plausible historically than other kinds of stories about Jesus. However, Today it is no exaggeration to claim that a spectrum of main assumptions underlying Bultmanns Synoptic Tradition must be considered suspect. Walter Brueggemann Rudolf Bultmann Hermann Gunkel Klaus Koch Martin Noth Gerhard von Rad Claus Westermann Armerding, grand Rapids, Eerdmans,1983, pp. 43–66. An Introduction to Old Testament Study, guide to Biblical Scholarship, New Testament, Philadelphia,1967. Tucker, Gene M. Form Criticism of the Old Testament, tucker, Gene M. Form Criticism, OT, pp. 342–345 in Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, Supplementary Volume. Keith Crim, gen. ed. Nashville, Abingdon,1976, the Growth of the Biblical Tradition, The Form-Critical Method. Tucker, Gene M. Form Criticism of the Old Testament, Form criticism, Dictionary. com Form criticism, Encyclopædia Britannica Online Biblical criticism, at Religious Tolerance web site
33.
Parable
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A parable is a succinct, didactic story, in prose or verse, which illustrates one or more instructive lessons or principles. It differs from a fable in that fables employ animals, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature as characters, a parable is a type of analogy. Some scholars of the gospels and the New Testament apply the term parable only to the parables of Jesus. Parables such as The Prodigal Son are central to Jesus teaching method in the canonical narratives, the word parable comes from the Greek παραβολή, meaning comparison, illustration, analogy. It was the name given by Greek rhetoricians to an illustration in the form of a fictional narrative. Parables are often used to explore concepts in spiritual texts. The Bible contains numerous parables in the Gospels section of the New Testament and these are believed by some scholars to have been inspired by mashalim, a form of Hebrew comparison. Examples of Jesus parables include the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son, mashalim from the Old Testament include the parable of the ewe-lamb and the parable of the woman of Tekoah. In Sufi tradition, parables are used for imparting lessons and values, recent authors such as Idries Shah and Anthony de Mello have helped popularize these stories beyond Sufi circles. A mid-19th-century example, the Parable of the window, criticises a part of economic thinking. A parable is a tale that illustrates a universal truth. It sketches a setting, describes an action, and shows the results and it may sometimes be distinguished from similar narrative types, such as the allegory and the apologue. A parable often involves a character who faces a dilemma or one who makes a bad decision. Although the meaning of a parable is not explicitly stated, it is not intended to be hidden or secret but to be quite straightforward. The defining characteristic of the parable is the presence of a subtext suggesting how a person should behave or what he should believe. Aside from providing guidance and suggestions for proper conduct in ones life, parables express an abstract argument by means of using a concrete narrative which is easily understood. The allegory is a general narrative type, it also employs metaphor. Like the parable, the allegory makes a single, unambiguous point, an allegory may have multiple noncontradictory interpretations and may also have implications that are ambiguous or hard to interpret
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Paradox
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A paradox is a statement that, despite apparently sound reasoning from true premises, leads to a self-contradictory or a logically unacceptable conclusion. A paradox involves contradictory yet interrelated elements that exist simultaneously and persist over time, some logical paradoxes are known to be invalid arguments but are still valuable in promoting critical thinking. Some paradoxes have revealed errors in definitions assumed to be rigorous, others, such as Currys paradox, are not yet resolved. Examples outside logic include the Ship of Theseus from philosophy, paradoxes can also take the form of images or other media. Escher featured perspective-based paradoxes in many of his drawings, with walls that are regarded as floors from other points of view, and staircases that appear to climb endlessly. In common usage, the word often refers to statements that may be both true and false i. e. ironic or unexpected, such as the paradox that standing is more tiring than walking. Common themes in paradoxes include self-reference, infinite regress, circular definitions, patrick Hughes outlines three laws of the paradox, Self-reference An example is This statement is false, a form of the liar paradox. The statement is referring to itself, another example of self-reference is the question of whether the barber shaves himself in the barber paradox. One more example would be Is the answer to this question No, contradiction This statement is false, the statement cannot be false and true at the same time. Another example of contradiction is if a man talking to a genie wishes that wishes couldnt come true, vicious circularity, or infinite regress This statement is false, if the statement is true, then the statement is false, thereby making the statement true. Another example of vicious circularity is the group of statements. Other paradoxes involve false statements or half-truths and the biased assumptions. This form is common in howlers, for example, consider a situation in which a father and his son are driving down the road. The car crashes into a tree and the father is killed, the boy is rushed to the nearest hospital where he is prepared for emergency surgery. On entering the suite, the surgeon says, I cant operate on this boy. The apparent paradox is caused by a hasty generalization, for if the surgeon is the boys father, the paradox is resolved if it is revealed that the surgeon is a woman — the boys mother. Paradoxes which are not based on a hidden error generally occur at the fringes of context or language, paradoxes that arise from apparently intelligible uses of language are often of interest to logicians and philosophers. Russells paradox, which shows that the notion of the set of all sets that do not contain themselves leads to a contradiction, was instrumental in the development of modern logic
35.
Plot (narrative)
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Plot refers to the sequence of events inside a story which affect other events through the principle of cause and effect. The causal events of a plot can be thought of as a series of sentences linked by, Plots can vary from simple structures such as in a traditional ballad to complex interwoven structures sometimes referred to as an imbroglio. The term plot can serve as a verb and refer to a planning future actions in the story. In the narrative sense, the highlights the important points which have important consequences within the story. The term is similar in meaning to the term storyline, english novelist E. M. Forster described plot as the cause-and-effect relationship between events in a story. According to Forster, The king died, and then the queen died, is a story, while The king died, as a result, according to Dibell, the plot can be described numerically as 1→3 while the story can be described as 1→2→3. A story orders events from beginning to end in a time sequence, teri Shaffer Yamada agrees that a plot does not include memorable scenes within a story which do not relate directly to other events but only major events that move the action in a narrative. Another example of a scene which is not part of the plot occurs in the 1980 film The Empire Strikes Back. A fabula is the events in the world, whereas a syuzhet is a perspective of those events. Formalist followers eventually translated the fabula/syuzhet to the concept of story/plot and this definition is usually used in narratology, in parallel with Forsters definition. The fabula is what happened in chronological order, in contrast, the syuzhet means a unique sequence of discourse that was sorted out by the author. That is, the syuzhet can consist of picking up the events in non-chronological order, for example, fabula is <a1, a2, a3, a4, a5, …, an>, syuzhet is <a5, a1. He also believed that the events of the plot must causally relate to one another as being necessary or probable. Of the utmost importance is the ability to arouse emotion in the psyche of the audience. Acts are connected by two points or turning points, with the first turning point connecting Act I to Act II. The conception of the structure has been attributed to American screenwriter Syd Field who described plot structure in this tripartite way for film analysis. In his Poetics, Aristotle considered plot the most important element of drama—more important than character, for example. A plot must have, Aristotle says, a beginning, a middle, and an end, of the utmost importance to Aristotle is the plots ability to arouse emotion in the psyche of the audience
36.
Pun
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The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the use of homophonic, homographic, metonymic. A pun differs from a malapropism in that a malapropism is a variation on a correct expression. Puns may be regarded as in-jokes or idiomatic constructions, as their usage and meaning are specific to a particular language, Puns have a long history in human writing. Sumerian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs were originally based on punning systems, punning has been credited as the fundamental concept behind alphabets, writing, and even human civilization. Puns can be classified in various ways, including, The homophonic pun, walter Redfern exemplified this type with his statement, To pun is to treat homonyms as synonyms. For example, in George Carlins phrase Atheism is a non-prophet institution, similarly, the joke Question, Why do we still have troops in Germany. A homographic pun exploits words which are spelled the same but possess different meanings, because of their nature, they rely on sight more than hearing, contrary to homophonic puns. They are also known as heteronymic puns, an example that combines homophonic and homographic punning is Douglas Adamss line You can tune a guitar, but you cant tuna fish. Unless of course, you play bass, the phrase uses the homophonic qualities of tune a and tuna, as well as the homographic pun on bass, in which ambiguity is reached through the identical spellings of /ˈbeɪs/, and /ˈbæs/. Homonymic puns, another type, arise from the exploitation of words which are both homographs and homophones. An adaptation of a joke repeated by Isaac Asimov gives us Did you hear about the little moron who strained himself while running into the screen door, playing on strained as to give much effort and to filter. A homonymic pun may also be polysemic, in which the words must be homonymic and also possess related meanings, however, lexicographers define polysemes as listed under a single dictionary lemma while homonyms are treated in separate lemmata. A compound pun is a statement that two or more puns. For example, a statement by Richard Whately includes four puns. Because he can eat the sand which is there, but what brought the sandwiches there. Why, Noah sent Ham, and his descendants mustered and bred and this pun uses sand which is there/sandwiches there, Ham/ham, mustered/mustard, and bred/bread. Similarly, the piano is not my forte links two meanings of the words forte and piano, one for the dynamic markings in music
37.
Double entendre
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A double entendre is a figure of speech or a particular way of wording that is devised to be understood in two ways, having a double meaning. Typically one of the meanings is obvious, given the context whereas the other may require more thought, the innuendo may convey a message that would be socially awkward, sexually suggestive, or offensive to state directly. A double entendre may exploit puns to convey the second meaning, double entendres generally rely on multiple meanings of words, or different interpretations of the same primary meaning. They often exploit ambiguity and may be used to introduce it deliberately in a text, sometimes a homophone can be used as a pun. When three or more meanings have been constructed, this is known as a triple entendre, etc. A person who is unfamiliar with the hidden or alternative meaning of a sentence may fail to detect its innuendos, the expression comes from French double = double and entendre = to listen. However, the English formulation is a corruption of the authentic French expression à double entente, modern French uses double sens instead, the phrase double entendre has no real meaning in the modern French language. In Homers The Odyssey, when Odysseus is captured by the Cyclops Polyphemus, when Odysseus attacks the Cyclops later that night and stabs him in the eye, the Cyclops runs out of his cave, yelling to the other cyclopes that No-one has hurt me. Which leads the other cyclopes to take no action under the assumption that Polyphemus blinded himself by accident, allowing Odysseus, some of the earliest double entendres are found in the Exeter Book, or Codex exoniensis, at Exeter Cathedral in England. The book was copied around 975 AD, in addition to the various poems and stories found in the book, there are also numerous riddles. The Anglo-Saxons did not reveal the answers to the riddles, some riddles were double-entendres, such as Riddle 25 which suggests the answer a penis but has the correct answer an onion. Examples of sexual innuendo and double-entendre occur in Geoffrey Chaucers The Canterbury Tales, the most famous of these may be her use of the word queynte to describe both domestic duties and genitalia. Sometimes, it is whether a double entendre was intended. For example, the character Charley Bates from Charles Dickens Oliver Twist is frequently referred to as Master Bates, the word masturbate was in use when the book was written, and Dickens often used colourful names related to the natures of the characters. The title of Damon Knights story To Serve Man is a double entendre which could mean to perform a service to humanity or to serve a human as food. An alien cookbook with the title To Serve Man is featured in the story which could imply that the aliens eat humans, the story was the basis for an episode of The Twilight Zone. At the end of the episode the line Its a cookbook, shakespeare frequently used double entendres in his plays. The title of Shakespeares play Much Ado About Nothing is a pun on the Elizabethan use of no-thing as slang for vagina
38.
Satan
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Satan is a figure appearing in the texts of the Abrahamic religions who brings evil and temptation, and is known as the deceiver who leads humanity astray. In the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, Satan is primarily an accuser and adversary, a malevolent entity, also called the devil. Although Satan is generally viewed as having negative characteristics, some groups have different beliefs. In Theistic Satanism, Satan is considered a deity who is either worshipped or revered, in LaVeyan Satanism, Satan is a symbol of virtuous characteristics and liberty. The original Hebrew term satan is a noun from a verb meaning primarily to obstruct, oppose, as it is found in Numbers 22,22,1 Samuel 29,4, ha-Satan is traditionally translated as the accuser or the adversary. The definite article ha- is used to show that this is a title bestowed on a being, thus, this being would be referred to as the satan. Ha-Satan with the definite article occurs 13 times in the Masoretic Text, in two books of the Hebrew Bible, Job ch. 1–2 and Zechariah 3, 1–2. 32 behold, I went out to thee,1 Samuel 29,4 The Philistines say, lest he be an adversary against us 2 Samuel 19,22 David says. 1 Kings 5,4 Solomon writes to Hiram, there is neither adversary nor evil occurrent, when the angels present themselves to God, Satan comes as well. God informs Satan about Jobs blameless, morally upright character, God therefore gives Satan permission to test Job. In the end, Job remains faithful and righteous, and there is the implication that Satan is shamed in his defeat, some scholars see contact with religious dualism in Babylon, and early Zoroastrianism in particular, as influencing Second Temple Judaism, and consequently early Christianity. Subsequent development of Satan as a deceiver has parallels with the spirit in Zoroastrianism, known as the Lie. In the Septuagint, the Hebrew ha-Satan in Job and Zechariah is translated by the Greek word diabolos, the Book of Enoch contains references to Satariel, thought also to be Sataniel and Satanel. The similar spellings mirror that of his angelic brethren Michael, Raphael, Uriel, the Second Book of Enoch, also called the Slavonic Book of Enoch, contains references to a Watcher called Satanael. It is a text of an uncertain date and unknown authorship. The text describes Satanael as being the prince of the Grigori who was cast out of heaven, a similar story is found in the book of 1 Enoch, however, in that book, the leader of the Grigori is called Semjâzâ. In the Book of Wisdom, the devil is represented as the being who brought death into the world, in the Book of Jubilees, Mastema induces God to test Abraham through the sacrifice of Isaac. He is identical to Satan in both name and nature, in Judaism, the term satan used since its earliest biblical contexts to refer to a human opponent
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Curse
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A curse is any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to some other entity, one or more persons, a place, or an object. In many belief systems, the curse itself is considered to have some force in the result. To reverse or eliminate a curse is sometimes called removal or breaking, the study of the forms of curses comprise a significant proportion of the study of both folk religion and folklore. The deliberate attempt to levy curses is often part of the practice of magic, in Hindu culture the Sage or Rishi is believed to have the power to bless and curse. Examples include the curse placed by Rishi Bhrigu on king Nahusha, middle Eastern and Mediterranean culture is the source of the belief in the evil eye, which may be the result of envy but, more rarely, is said to be the result of a deliberate curse. In order to be protected from the eye, a protection item is made from dark blue circular glass, with a circle of white around the black dot in the middle. The size of the protective eye item may vary, german people, including the Pennsylvania Dutch speak in terms of hexing, and a common hex in days past was that laid by a stable-witch who caused milk cows to go dry and horses to go lame. Tecumsehs curse was reputed to cause the deaths in office of Presidents of the United States elected in years divisible by 20 and this alleged curse appears to have fallen dormant, since Ronald Reagan, survived an assassination attempt and George W. Bush survived his eight-year presidency. Curses have also used as a plot device in literature. When used as a device they involve one character placing a curse or hex over another character. This is distinguished from adverse spells and premonitions and other such plot devices, examples of the curse as a plot device are the following, Rigoletto -- Count Monterone places a curse on Rigoletto. Rigoletto blames the death of his daughter on the curse. Romeo & Juliet -- A dying Mercutio curses the Montagues and Capulets with A plague o both your houses, Sleeping Beauty -- Maleficent places a curse on Princess Aurora to die on her 16th birthday. Beauty and the Beast -- Enchantress transforms prince to beast, arguably, Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast represent spells, rather than curses. By contrast an adverse spell involves a character with some magical ability or power causing a harm to another character. A number of curses are used to explain the failures or misfortunes of specific teams, players. For example, No first-time winner of the World Snooker Championship has successfully defended his title since the event was first held at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield in 1977 and this has been widely attributed to a Crucible Curse. There was a curse called the Curse of the Bambino on the Boston Red Sox Major League Baseball team
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Chiasmus
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Chiasmus was particularly popular in the literature of the ancient world, including Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, where it was used to articulate the balance of order within the text. As a popular example, many long and complex chiasmi have been found in Shakespeare and it is also found throughout the Quran. Today, chiasmus is applied broadly to any criss-cross structure, although in classical rhetoric it was distinguished from other similar devices. In its classical application, chiasmus would have used for structures that do not repeat the same words and phrases. The concept of chiasmus on a level, applied to motifs, turns of phrase. The elements of simple chiasmus are often labelled in the form A B B A, for example John F. Kennedy said, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. But O, what damned minutes tells he oerWho dotes, yet doubts, suspects, —Shakespeare, Othello 3.3 Dotes and strongly loves share the same meaning and bracket doubts and suspects. Fair is foul, and foul is fair —Shakespeare, Macbeth 1.1 Chiasmus can be used in the structure of entire passages to parallel concepts or ideas and this process, termed conceptual chiasmus, uses a criss-crossing rhetorical structure to cause an overlapping of intellectual space. Conceptual chiasmus utilizes specific linguistic choices, often metaphors, to create a connection between two differing disciplines, by employing a chiastic structure to a single presented concept, rhetors encourage one area of thought to consider an opposing areas perspective. Chiasmus derives its effectiveness from its symmetrical structure, the structural symmetry of the chiasmus imposes the impression upon the reader or listener that the entire argument has been accounted for. In other words, chiasmus creates only two sides of an argument or idea for the listener to consider, and then leads the listener to favor one side of the argument, the statement also proposes that the latter statement is more favorable. Thus, chiasmus gains its rhetorical efficacy through symmetrical structure causing the belief that all tenets of an argument have been evaluated, until they converge in the eighth verse, the heart of the song. Written in the 16th century, the Wilhelmus originated in the struggle to achieve independence. It tells of the Father of the Nation William of Orange who was stadholder in the Netherlands under the king of Spain and this is made apparent in the central 8th stanza, Oh David, thou soughtest shelter from King Sauls tyranny. Even so I fled this welter, here the comparison is made between the biblical David and William of Orange as merciful and just leaders who both serve under tyrannic kings. Chiasmus in the New Testament, a study in formgeschichte, chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press. Chiasmus, An Important Structural Device Commonly Found in Biblical Literature, albuquerque, New Mexico, Chafer Theological Seminary. Parry, Donald W. Poetic Parallelisms in the Book of Mormon, provo, Utah, Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship
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Tree of life (biblical)
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See also Tree of life for other cultural interpretations, and Tree of life for other meanings. The tree of life is a used in the Hebrew Bible that is a component of the world tree motif. In the Book of Genesis, the tree of life is first described in chapter 2, verse 9 as being planted with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the midst of the Garden of Eden by Yahweh Elohim. In Genesis 3,24 cherubim guard the way to the tree of life at the east end of the Garden, the tree of life has become the subject of some debate as to whether or not the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the same tree. In the Bible outside of Genesis, the tree of life appears in Proverbs. Claus Westermann gave recognition to Buddes theory in 1976, the tree of life is represented in several examples of sacred geometry and is central in particular to the Kabbalah, where it is represented as a diagram of ten points. One of the hymns chanted during the forefeast of the nativity of Christ says, Make ready, O Bethlehem, Christ shall be born, raising the image that fell of old. This theme is found in Western Christianity. By way of an example consider Bonaventures biography of the second person of the Trinity. Until the Enlightenment, the Christian church generally gave biblical narratives of early Genesis the weight of historical narratives. In the City of God, Augustine of Hippo offers great allowance for spiritual interpretations of the events in the garden, however, the allegorical meanings of the early and medieval church were of a different kind than those posed by Kant and the Enlightenment. Precritical theologians allegorized the events in the service of pastoral devotion. Enlightenment theologians sought for figurative interpretations because they had dismissed the historical possibility of the story. Others sought very pragmatic understandings of the tree, in the Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas argued that the tree served to maintain Adams biological processes for an extended earthly animal life. It did not provide immortality as such, for the tree, being finite, hence after a period of time, the man and woman would need to eat again from the tree or else be transported to the spiritual life. The common fruit trees of the garden were given to offset the effects of loss of moisture, while the tree of life was intended to offset the inefficiencies of the body. Following Augustine in the City of God, “man was furnished with food against hunger, with drink against thirst, and with the tree of life against the ravages of old age. ”John Calvin, following a different thread in Augustine, understood the tree in sacramental language. God often uses symbols - He doesn’t transfer his power into these outward signs, thus he intends man, as often as he eats the fruit, to remember the source of his life, and acknowledge that he lives not by his own power, but by God’s kindness
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Cain and Abel
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Cain and Abel were sons of Adam and Eve. Cain, the firstborn, tilled the soil, and his brother Abel was a shepherd, the brothers made sacrifices to God, each of his own produce, but God favored Abels sacrifice instead of that of Cain. God punished Cain to a life of wandering, but set a mark on him so that no man would kill him, Cain then wandered in the land of Nod, where he built a city and fathered the line of Cain. The story of Cains murder of Abel and its consequences is told in Genesis 4, 1-18, And the human knew Eve his woman and she conceived and bore Cain, and she said, I have got me a man with the Lord. And she bore as well his brother Abel, and Abel became a herder of sheep while Cain was a tiller of the soil, and it happened in the course of time that Cain brought from the fruit of the soil an offering to the Lord. And Abel too had brought from the choice firstlings of his flock, and Cain was very incensed, and his face fell. And the Lord said to Cain, Why are you incensed, for whether you offer well, or whether you do not, at the tent flap sin crouches and for you is its longing, but you will rule over it. And Cain said to Abel his brother, Let us go out to the field, and the Lord said to Cain, Where is Abel your brother. And he said, I do not know, am I my brothers keeper, the story continues with Gods punishment of Cain, the soil which received his brothers blood will reject him, and he will be a wanderer on the earth. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain so that whoever found him would not slay him, and Cain went out from the Lords presence and dwelled in the land of Nod east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife and she conceived and bore Enoch, then he became the builder of a city and he called the name of the city like his sons name, Enoch. Some scholars believe that Cain and Abel are symbolic rather than real, the following family tree of the line of Cain is compiled from a variety of biblical and extra-biblical texts. The story appears in the Quran, in Surah 5, verses 27 to 31, tell them the truth about the story of Adams two sons, each of them offered a sacrifice, and it was accepted from one and not the other. One said, I will kill you, but the other said, if you raise your hand to kill me, I will not raise mine to kill you. I fear God, the Lord of all worlds, and I would rather you were burdened with my sins as well as yours and became an inhabitant of the Fire, but his soul prompted him to kill his brother, he killed him and became one of the losers. God sent a raven to scratch up the ground and show him how to cover his brothers corpse and he said, could I not have been like this raven and covered up my brothers body. The story of Cain and Abel has always used as a deterrent from murder in Islamic tradition. Muslim scholars were divided on the motives behind Cains murder of Abel, some scholars believed that Cains motives were plain jealousy and lust
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