Kidron Valley
The Kidron Valley is the valley on the eastern side of the Old City of Jerusalem, separating the Temple Mount from the Mount of Olives. It continues east through the Judean desert in the West Bank, towards the Dead Sea, descending 4,000 feet along its 20-mile course; the ancient Mar Saba monastery is located in the lower part of the valley. In its upper part, the neighborhood of Wadi al-Joz bears the valley's Arabic name; the settlement Kedar, located on a ridge above the valley, is named after the valley's Hebrew name. The Hebrew Bible calls the upper course Emek Yehoshafat, the "Valley of Josaphat", it appears in Jewish eschatologic prophecies, which include the return of Elijah, followed by the arrival of the Messiah, the War of Gog and Magog and Judgment Day. The upper Kidron Valley holds Jerusalem's most important cemetery from the First Temple period, the Silwan necropolis, assumed to have been used by the highest-ranking officials residing in the city, with rock-cut tombs dating between the 9th and 7th centuries BCE.
The upper Kidron Valley segment north of the Old City was one of the main burial grounds of Jerusalem in the Second Temple period, where hundreds of tombs have survived until today, while the segment east of, opposite the Temple Mount, boasts several excellently preserved monumental tombs from the same period. Several of the Second Temple period tombs were used in time, either as burial or as shelters for hermits and monks of the large monastic communities which inhabited the Kidron Valley during the Byzantine period; the ancient tombs in this area attracted the attention of ancient travelers, most notably Benjamin of Tudela. A source of confusion is the fact that the modern name "Kidron Valley" applies to the entire length of a long wadi, which starts north of the Old City of Jerusalem and ends at the Dead Sea, while the biblical names Nahal Kidron, Emek Yehoshafat, King’s Valley etc. might refer to certain parts of this valley located in the immediate vicinity of ancient Jerusalem, but not to the entire wadi, not to the long segment crossing the Judean desert.
In Arabic every more substantial wadi has many names, each applied to a certain distinct segment of its course. The Hebrew name Qidron is derived from the root qadar, "to be dark", may be meant in this context as "dusky". In Christian tradition the similarity between the Greek word for cedar, κέδρος, the Greek name of the valley as used in the Septuagint, has led to the Qidron Valley being wrongly called "Valley of the Cedars"; the Hebrew Bible talks of the "Valley of Jehoshaphat - Emek Yehoshafat", meaning "The valley where Yahweh shall judge." Not all scholars agree with the traditional view that the Kidron Valley, as the valley situated between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives to the east, is the location of the Valley of Jehoshaphat. The Kidron Valley was not associated with the Valley of Jehoshaphat until the 4th century AD, making this identification somewhat uncertain since no actual valley of this name is known to pre-Christian antiquity. Biblical commentator Adam Clarke claims. In the times of the Old Testament kings, the Kidron Valley was identified with, at least in part, the King's Garden.
That the upper Kidron Valley was known as the King's Valley, in which Absalom set up his monument or "pillar", is problematic. The Bible does not make this identification explicit, the association can only be inferred as associated with En-rogel, farther down the Kidron Valley towards the desert; the name'King’s Valley' may be derived from its location just east of the palace of David in the City of David on the western slopes of the Kidron Valley and south of where the platform was built. The three monumental tombs on the eastern side of the Kidron Valley are among the most well-known landmarks of ancient Jerusalem; these are, from north to south, the so-called "Tomb of Absalom", which rises in front of the so-called "Cave" or "Tomb of Jehoshaphat", the Tomb of Benei Hezir, the so-called "Tomb of Zechariah", which could quite be the nefesh of the Tomb of Benei Hezir. Absalom's Tomb consists of two parts. First, a lower cube hewn out of the bedrock, decorated with engaged Ionic columns bearing a Doric frieze and crowned by an Egyptian cornice.
This part of the monument contains a small chamber with an entrance and two arcosolia and constitutes the actual tomb. The second part, built of ashlars, is placed on top of the rock-hewn cube, it consists of a square pedestal carrying a round drum, itself topped by a conical roof. The cone is concave and is crowned by an Egyptian-style lotus flower; the upper part has the general shape of a tholos and is interpreted as a nefesh or monument for the tomb below, also for the adjacent "Cave of Jehoshaphat". The "Pillar of Absalom" is dated to the 1st century CE; the word nefesh means'soul', but in a funerary context it is the term applied to a form of funerary monument. In descriptions of the tombs of the Jewish nobility, the pyramid shape is emphasized as the mark of a tomb; this would imply that pyramid were synonymous. The Jewish tombs in the Kidron Valley are the best examples of this form of nefesh, they ap
Codex Vaticanus
The Codex Vaticanus is regarded as the oldest extant manuscript of the Greek Bible, one of the four great uncial codices. The Codex is named after its place of conservation in the Vatican Library, where it has been kept since at least the 15th century, it is written on 759 leaves of vellum in uncial letters and has been dated palaeographically to the 4th century. The manuscript became known to Western scholars as a result of correspondence between Erasmus and the prefects of the Vatican Library. Portions of the codex were collated by several scholars, but numerous errors were made during this process; the codex's relationship to the Latin Vulgate was unclear and scholars were unaware of its value. This changed in the 19th century, it was at that point that scholars realised the text differed from the Textus Receptus. Most current scholars consider the Codex Vaticanus to be one of the best Greek texts of the New Testament, with the Codex Sinaiticus as its only competitor; until the discovery by Tischendorf of Sinaiticus, Vaticanus was unrivaled.
It was extensively used by Westcott and Hort in their edition of The New Testament in the Original Greek in 1881. The most sold editions of the Greek New Testament are based on the text of the Codex Vaticanus. Codex Vaticanus is regarded as "the oldest extant copy of the Bible." Codex Vaticanus contained a complete copy of the Septuagint, lacking only 1-4 Maccabees and the Prayer of Manasseh. The original 20 leaves containing Genesis 1:1–46:28a and Psalm 105:27–137:6b have been lost and were replaced by pages transcribed by a hand in the 15th century.2 Kings 2:5–7, 10-13 are lost because of a tear to one of the pages. The order of the Old Testament books in the Codex is; this order differs from that followed in Codex Alexandrinus. The extant New Testament of the Vaticanus contains the Gospels, the General Epistles, the Pauline Epistles, the Epistle to the Hebrews; these missing leaves were supplemented by a 15th-century minuscule hand and are catalogued separately as the minuscule Codex 1957. Some apocryphal books from the New Testament were included at the end, as it is possible that Revelation was not included.
The text of the New Testament lacks several passages: Matthew 12:47. Luke 17:36, 22:43–44. 1 Peter 5:3. Phrases not in Vaticanus but in manuscripts includeMatthew 5:44 – εὐλογεῖτε τοὺς καταρωμένους ὑμᾶς, καλῶς ποιεῖτε τοῖς μισοῦσιν ὑμᾶς. Mark 10:7 – καὶ προσκολληθήσεται πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ, as in codices Sinaiticus, Codex Athous Lavrensis, 892, ℓ 48, Sinaitic Palimpsest, Gothic Codex Argenteus. Mark 10:19 – μη αποστερησης omitted but added by a corrector. Luke 9:55–56 – και ειπεν, Ουκ οιδατε ποιου πνευματος εστε υμεις. Omission is supported by the manuscripts: Sinaiticus, L, f1 700 vg syrs copsa, bo, arm geo. Luke 23:34 – "And Jesus said: Father forgive them, they know not what they do." This omission is supported by the manuscripts P 75, Sinaiticusa, D*, W, Θ, 0124, 1241, a, d, copsa, copbo. In Matt. 27:49 the Codex contains added text: ἄλλος δὲ λαβὼν λόγχην ἒνυξεν αὐτοῦ τὴν πλευράν, καὶ ἐξῆλθεν ὖδωρ καὶ αἳμα. This reading was derived from John 19:34 and occurs in other manuscripts of the Alexandrian text-type.
The manuscript is in quarto volume, arranged in quires of five sheets or ten leaves each, similar to the Codex Marchalianus or Codex Rossanensis. The number of the quires is found in the margin, it must have been composed of 830 parchment leaves, but it appears that 71 leaves have been lost. The Old Testament consists of 617 sheets and the New Testament of 142 sheets; the parchment is fine and thin
Theodore Beza
Theodore Beza was a French Reformed Protestant theologian and scholar who played an important role in the Reformation. He lived most of his life in Geneva. Beza succeeded Calvin as a spiritual leader of the Republic of Geneva, founded by John Calvin himself. Theodore Beza was born in Burgundy, France, his father, Pierre de Beze, royal governor of Vézelay, descended from a Burgundian family of distinction. Beza's father had two brothers. Nicholas, unmarried, during a visit to Vézelay was so pleased with Theodore that, with the permission of his parents, he took him to Paris to educate him there. From Paris, Theodore was sent to Orléans in December 1528 to receive instruction from the famous German teacher Melchior Wolmar, he was received into Wolmar's house, the day on which this took place was afterward celebrated as a second birthday. Young Beza soon followed his teacher to Bourges, where the latter was called by the duchess Margaret of Angoulême, sister of Francis I. At the time, Bourges was the focus of the Reformation movement in France.
In 1534, after Francis I issued his edict against ecclesiastical innovations, Wolmar returned to Germany. Beza, in accordance with the wish of his father, went back to Orléans to study law, spent four years there; the pursuit of law had little attraction for him. He received the degree of licentiate in law August 11, 1539, and, as his father desired, went to Paris, where he began to practice. To support him, his relatives had obtained for him two benefices, the proceeds of which amounted to 700 golden crowns a year. Beza gained a prominent position in literary circles. To escape the many temptations to which he was exposed, with the knowledge of two friends, he became engaged in the year 1544 to a young girl of humble descent, Claudine Denoese, promising to publicly marry her as soon as his circumstances would allow it. In 1548 he published a collection of Latin poetry, which made him famous, he was considered one of the best writers of Latin poetry of his time; some cautioned against reading biographical details in his writings.
Philip Schaff argued that it was a mistake to "read between his lines what he never intended to put there" or to imagine "offences of which he was not guilty in thought."Shortly after the publication of his book, he fell ill and his illness, it is reported, revealed to him his spiritual needs. He came to accept salvation in Christ, which lifted his spirits, he resolved to sever his connections of the time, went to Geneva, the French city of refuge for Evangelicals, where he arrived with Claudine on October 23, 1548. He was received by John Calvin, who had met him in Wolmar's house, was married in the church. Beza was at a loss for immediate occupation. On his way home, he visited Pierre Viret at Lausanne, who brought about his appointment as professor of Greek at the academy there in November 1549. Beza found time to write a Biblical drama, Abraham Sacrifiant, in which he contrasted Catholicism with Protestantism, the work was well received; the text of some verses includes directions for musical performance.
After Clément Marot's death in 1544, John Calvin asked Beza to complete his French metrical translations of the Psalms. Thirty-four of his translations were published in the 1551 edition of the Genevan Psalter, six more were added to editions. About the same time he published Passavantius, a satire directed against Pierre Lizet, the former president of the Parliament of Paris, principal originator of the "fiery chamber", who, at the time, was abbot of St. Victor near Paris and publishing a number of polemical writings. Of a more serious character were two controversies in which Beza was involved at this time; the first concerned the doctrine of predestination and the controversy of Calvin with Jerome Hermes Bolsec. The second referred to the burning of Michael Servetus at Geneva on October 27, 1553. In defense of Calvin and the Genevan magistrates, Beza published, in 1554, the work De haereticis a civili magistratu puniendis. In 1557, Beza took a special interest in the Waldensians of Piedmont, who were being harassed by the French government.
On their behalf, he went with William Farel to Bern, Zürich and Schaffhausen to Strasburg, Mömpelgard, Göppingen. In Baden and Göppingen and Farel made a declaration concerning the Waldensians' views on the sacrament on May 14, 1557; the written declaration stated their position and was well received by the Lutheran theologians, but was disapproved of in Bern and Zurich. In the autumn of 1558, Beza undertook a second journey with Farel to Worms by way of Strasburg in the hopes of bringing about an intercession by the Evangelical princes of the empire in favor of the persecuted brethren at Paris. With Melanchthon and other theologians assembled at the Colloquy of Worms, Beza proposed a union of all Protestant Christians, but the proposal was decidedly denied by Zurich and Bern. False reports reached the German princes that the hostilities against the Huguenots in France had ceased and no embassy was sent to the
Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit, is a term found in English translations of the Bible, understood differently among the Abrahamic religions. The term is used to describe aspects of other religions and belief structures; the word spirit appears either alone or with other words, in the New Testament. Combinations include expressions such as the "Holy Spirit", "Spirit of God", in Christianity, "Spirit of Christ"; the word spirit is rendered as רוּחַ in Hebrew-language parts of the Old Testament. In its Aramaic parts, the term is rûacḥ; the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, translates the word as πνεῦμα. This is the same word, used throughout the New Testament, written in Greek; the English term spirit comes from its Latin origin, how the Vulgate translates both the Old and New Testament concept. The alternative term, "Holy Ghost", comes from Old English translations of spiritus; the Hebrew Bible contains the term "spirit of God" in the sense of the might of a unitary God. This meaning is different from the Christian concept of "Holy Spirit" as one personality of God in the Trinity.
The Christian concept tends to emphasize the moral aspect of the Holy Spirit more than Judaism, evident in the epithet Holy Spirit that appeared in Jewish religious writings only late but was a common expression in the Christian New Testament. According to theologian Rudolf Bultmann, there are two ways to think about the Holy Spirit: "animistic" and "dynamistic". In animistic thinking, it is "an independent agent, a personal power which like a demon can fall upon a man and take possession of him, enabling him or compelling him to perform manifestations of power" while in dynamistic thought it "appears as an impersonal force which fills a man like a fluid". Both kinds of thought appear in Jewish and Christian scripture, but animistic is more typical of the Old Testament whereas dynamistic is more common in the New Testament; the distinction coincides with the Holy Spirit as either a permanent gift. In the Old Testament and Jewish thought, it is temporary with a specific situation or task in mind, whereas in the Christian concept the gift resides in man permanently.
On the surface, the Holy Spirit appears to have an equivalent in non-Abrahamic Hellenistic mystery religions. These religions included a distinction between the spirit and psyche, seen in the Pauline epistles. According to proponents of the History of religions school, the Christian concept of the Holy Spirit cannot be explained from Jewish ideas alone without reference to the Hellenistic religions. However, according to theologian Erik Konsmo, the views "are so dissimilar that the only legitimate connection one can make is with the Greek term πνεῦμα itself". Another link with ancient Greek thought is the Stoic idea of the spirit as anima mundi—or world soul—that unites all people; some believe that this can be seen in Paul's formulation of the concept of the Holy Spirit that unites Christians in Jesus Christ and love for one another, but Konsmo again thinks that this position is difficult to maintain. In his Introduction to the 1964 book Meditations, the Anglican priest Maxwell Staniforth wrote: Another Stoic concept which offered inspiration to the Church was that of'divine Spirit'.
Cleanthes, wishing to give more explicit meaning to Zeno's'creative fire', had been the first to hit upon the term pneuma, or'spirit', to describe it. Like fire, this intelligent'spirit' was imagined as a tenuous substance akin to a current of air or breath, but possessing the quality of warmth, it is not a long step from this to the'Holy Spirit' of Christian theology, the'Lord and Giver of life', visibly manifested as tongues of fire at Pentecost and since associated – in the Christian as in the Stoic mind – with the ideas of vital fire and beneficient warmth. The Hebrew language phrase ruach ha-kodesh is a term used in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish writings to refer to the spirit of YHWH, it means "spirit of the holiness" or "spirit of the holy place". The Hebrew terms ruacḥ qodshəka, "thy holy spirit", ruacḥ qodshō, "his holy spirit" occur; the "Holy Spirit" in Judaism refers to the divine aspect of prophecy and wisdom. It refers to the divine force and influence of the Most High God, over the universe or over his creatures, in given contexts.
For the large majority of Christians, the Holy Spirit is a member of the Trinity: The "Triune God" manifested as Father and Holy Spirit. Two symbols from the New Testament canon are associated with the Holy Spirit in Christian iconography: a winged dove, tongues of fire; each depiction of the Holy Spirit arose from different historical accounts in the Gospel narratives. Called "the unveiled epiphany of God", the Holy Spirit is the One who empowers the followers of Jesus with spiritual gifts and power that enables the proclamation of Jesus Christ, a
Hugo Grotius
Hugo Grotius known as Huig de Groot or Hugo de Groot, was a Dutch jurist. Along with the earlier works of Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili, he laid the foundations for international law, based on natural law. A teenage intellectual prodigy, he was studied at Leiden University, he was imprisoned for his involvement in the intra-Calvinist disputes of the Dutch Republic, but escaped hidden in a chest of books. Grotius wrote most of his major works in exile in France, it is thought that Hugo Grotius was not the first to formulate the international society doctrine, but he was one of the first to define expressly the idea of one society of states, governed not by force or warfare but by actual laws and mutual agreement to enforce those laws. As Hedley Bull declared in 1990: "The idea of international society which Grotius propounded was given concrete expression in the Peace of Westphalia, Grotius may be considered the intellectual father of this first general peace settlement of modern times."
Additionally, his contributions to Arminian theology helped provide the seeds for Arminian-based movements, such as Methodism and Pentecostalism. Because of his theological underpinning of free trade, he is considered an "economic theologist". Born in Delft during the Dutch Revolt, Hugo was the first child of Jan de Groot and Alida van Overschie, his father was a man of learning, once having studied with the eminent Justus Lipsius at Leiden, as well as of political distinction, he groomed his son from an early age in a traditional humanist and Aristotelian education. A prodigious learner, Hugo entered the University of Leiden. There he studied with some of the most acclaimed intellectuals in northern Europe, including Franciscus Junius, Joseph Justus Scaliger, Rudolph Snellius. At age sixteen he published his first book: a scholarly edition of the late antique author Martianus Capella's work on the seven liberal arts, Martiani Minei Felicis Capellæ Carthaginiensis viri proconsularis Satyricon, in quo De nuptiis Philologiæ & Mercurij libri duo, & De septem artibus liberalibus libri singulares.
Omnes, & emendati, & Notis, siue Februis Hug. Grotii illustrati. In Holland, Grotius earned an appointment as advocate to The Hague in 1599 and as official historiographer for the States of Holland in 1601, his first occasion to write systematically on issues of international justice came in 1604, when he became involved in the legal proceedings following the seizure by Dutch merchants of a Portuguese carrack and its cargo in the Singapore Strait. The Dutch were at war with Spain; the war began when Grotius's cousin captain Jacob van Heemskerk captured a loaded Portuguese carrack merchant ship, Santa Catarina, off present-day Singapore in 1603. Heemskerk was employed with the United Amsterdam Company, though he did not have authorization from the company or the government to initiate the use of force, many shareholders were eager to accept the riches that he brought back to them. Not only was the legality of keeping the prize questionable under Dutch statute, but a faction of shareholders in the Company objected to the forceful seizure on moral grounds, of course, the Portuguese demanded the return of their cargo.
The scandal led to a wider campaign to sway public opinion. It was in this wider context that representatives of the Company called upon Grotius to draft a polemical defence of the seizure; the result of Grotius' efforts in 1604/05 was a long, theory-laden treatise that he provisionally entitled De Indis. Grotius sought to ground his defense of the seizure in terms of the natural principles of justice. In this, he had cast a net much wider than the case at hand; the treatise was never published in full during Grotius' lifetime because the court ruling in favor of the Company preempted the need to garner public support. In The Free Sea Grotius formulated the new principle that the sea was international territory and all nations were free to use it for seafaring trade. Grotius, by claiming'free seas', provided suitable ideological justification for the Dutch breaking up of various trade monopolies through its formidable naval power. England, competing fiercely with the Dutch for domination of world trade, opposed this idea and claimed in John Selden's Mare clausum, " That the Dominion of the British Sea, or That Which Incompasseth the Isle of Great Britain, is, Ever Hath Been, a Part or Appendant of the Empire of that Island."
Aided by his continued association with Van Oldenbarnevelt, Grotius made considerable advances in his political career, being retained as Oldenbarnevelt's resident advisor in 1605, Advocate General of the Fisc of Holland and Friesland in 1607, as Pensionary of Rotterdam in 1613. In 1608 he married Maria van Reigersberch, with whom he would have eight children and who would be invaluable in helping him and the family to weather the
Codex Alexandrinus
The Codex Alexandrinus is a fifth-century manuscript of the Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Septuagint and the New Testament. It is one of the four Great uncial codices. Along with the Codex Sinaiticus and the Vaticanus, it is one of the earliest and most complete manuscripts of the Bible. Brian Walton assigned Alexandrinus the capital Latin letter A in the Polyglot Bible of 1657; this designation was maintained when the system was standardized by Wettstein in 1751. Thus, Alexandrinus held the first position in the manuscript list, it derives its name from Alexandria where it resided for a number of years before it was brought by the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch Cyril Lucaris from Alexandria to Constantinople. It was given to Charles I of England in the 17th century; until the purchase of Codex Sinaiticus, it was the best manuscript of the Greek Bible deposited in Britain. Today, it rests along with Codex Sinaiticus in one of the showcases in the Ritblat Gallery of the British Library.
A full photographic reproduction of the New Testament volume is available on the British Library's website. As the text came from several different traditions, different parts of the codex are not of equal textual value; the text has been edited several times since the 18th century. The codex is in quarto, now consists of 773 vellum folios, bound in four volumes. Three volumes contain the Septuagint, Greek version of the Old Testament, with the complete loss of only ten leaves; the fourth volume contains the New Testament with 31 NT leaves lost. In the fourth volume 1 and 2 Clement are missing leaves 3; the codex contains a nearly complete copy of the LXX, including the deuterocanonical books 3 and 4 Maccabees, Psalm 151 and the 14 Odes. The "Epistle to Marcellinus" attributed to Saint Athanasius and the Eusebian summary of the Psalms are inserted before the Book of Psalms, it contains all of the books of the New Testament. In addition, the codex contains the homily known as 2 Clement; the books of the Old Testament are thus distributed: Genesis — 2 Chronicles, Hosea — 4 Maccabees, Psalms — Sirach.
The New Testament books follow in order: Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, General epistles, Pauline epistles, Book of Revelation. There is an appendix marked in the index, which lists the Psalms of Solomon and contained more apocryphal/pseudepigraphical books, but it has been torn off and the pages containing these books have been lost. Due to damage and lost folios, various passages are missing or have defects: Lacking: 1 Sam 12:17-14:9; the ornamented colophon of the Epistle to Philemon has been cut out. The manuscript measures 12.6 × 10.4 inches and most of the folios were gathered into quires of eight leaves each. In modern times it was rebound into sets of six leaves each; the material is thin and beautiful vellum discoloured at the edges, which have been damaged by age and more so through the ignorance or carelessness of the modern binder, who has not always spared the text at the upper inner margin. Scrivener noted that "The vellum has fallen into holes in many places, since the ink peels off for age whensoever a leaf is touched a little no one is allowed to handle the manuscript except for good reasons."
The text in the codex is written in two columns in uncial script, with between 49 and 51 lines per column and 20 to 25 letters per line. The beginning lines of each book are written in red ink and sections within the book are marked by a larger letter set into the margin. Words are written continuously in a large and well-formed uncial hand. There are no accents and breathing marks, except a few added by a hand; the punctuation was written by the first hand. The letters are larger than those of the Codex Vaticanus. There is no division of words, but some pauses are observed in places in which should be a dot between two words; the poetical books of the Old Testament are written stichometrically. The Old Testament quotations in the text of New Testament are marked on the margin by the sign 〉; the only decorations in the manuscript are decorative tail-pieces at the end of each book and it shows a tendency to increase the size of the first letter of each sentence. The capitals at the beginning of the sections stand out in the margin as in codices Ephraemi and Basilensis.
Codex Alexandrinus is the oldest manuscript. The interchange of vowels of similar sounds is frequent in this manuscript; the letters Ν and Μ are confused, the cluster ΓΓ is substituted with ΝΓ. This may be an argument which points to Egypt. A lot of iotacistic errors occur in the text, it has not more iotacisms than other manuscripts of the same date. The handwriting of the text from the beginning of Luke to 1 Corinthians 10:8, differs from that of the rest parts of the manuscript; some letter
Death
Death is the permanent cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which bring about death include aging, malnutrition, suicide, starvation and accidents or major trauma resulting in terminal injury. In most cases, bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death. Death – the death of humans – has been considered a sad or unpleasant occasion, due to the affection for the being that has died and the termination of social and familial bonds with the deceased. Other concerns include fear of death, anxiety, grief, emotional pain, sympathy, solitude, or saudade. Many cultures and religions have the idea of an afterlife, hold the idea of reward or judgement and punishment for past sin; the word death comes from Old English dēaþ. This comes from the Proto-Indo-European stem *dheu- meaning the "process, condition of dying"; the concept and symptoms of death, varying degrees of delicacy used in discussion in public forums, have generated numerous scientific and acceptable terms or euphemisms for death.
When a person has died, it is said they have passed away, passed on, expired, or are gone, among numerous other accepted, religiously specific and irreverent terms. Bereft of life, the dead person is a corpse, cadaver, a body, a set of remains, when all flesh has rotted away, a skeleton; the terms carrion and carcass can be used, though these more connote the remains of non-human animals. As a polite reference to a dead person, it has become common practice to use the participle form of "decease", as in the deceased; the ashes left after a cremation are sometimes referred to by the neologism cremains, a portmanteau of "cremation" and "remains". Senescence refers to a scenario when a living being is able to survive all calamities, but dies due to causes relating to old age. Animal and plant cells reproduce and function during the whole period of natural existence, but the aging process derives from deterioration of cellular activity and ruination of regular functioning. Aptitude of cells for gradual deterioration and mortality means that cells are sentenced to stable and long-term loss of living capacities despite continuing metabolic reactions and viability.
In the United Kingdom, for example, nine out of ten of all the deaths that occur on a daily basis relates to senescence, while around the world it accounts for two-thirds of 150,000 deaths that take place daily. All animals who survive external hazards to their biological functioning die from biological aging, known in life sciences as "senescence"; some organisms experience negligible senescence exhibiting biological immortality. These include the jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii, the hydra, the planarian. Unnatural causes of death include homicide. From all causes 150,000 people die around the world each day. Of these, two thirds die directly or indirectly due to senescence, but in industrialized countries – such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany – the rate approaches 90%. Physiological death is now seen as a process, more than an event: conditions once considered indicative of death are now reversible. Where in the process a dividing line is drawn between life and death depends on factors beyond the presence or absence of vital signs.
In general, clinical death is neither sufficient for a determination of legal death. A patient with working heart and lungs determined to be brain dead can be pronounced dead without clinical death occurring; as scientific knowledge and medicine advance, formulating a precise medical definition of death becomes more difficult. Signs of death or strong indications that a warm-blooded animal is no longer alive are: Respiratory arrest Cardiac arrest Brain death Pallor mortis, paleness which happens in the 15–120 minutes after death Algor mortis, the reduction in body temperature following death; this is a steady decline until matching ambient temperature Rigor mortis, the limbs of the corpse become stiff and difficult to move or manipulate Livor mortis, a settling of the blood in the lower portion of the body Decomposition, the reduction into simpler forms of matter, accompanied by a strong, unpleasant odor. The concept of death is a key to human understanding of the phenomenon. There are many scientific approaches to the concept.
For example, brain death, as practiced in medical science, defines death as a point in time at which brain activity ceases. One of the challenges in defining death is in distinguishing it from life; as a point in time, death would seem to refer to the moment. Determining when death has occurred is difficult, as cessation of life functions is not simultaneous across organ systems; such determination therefore requires drawing precise conceptual boundaries between death. This is due to there being little consensus on how to define life; this general problem applies to the particular challenge of defining death in the context of medicine. It is possible to define life in terms of consciousness; when consciousness ceases, a living organism can be said to have died. One of the flaws in this approach is that there are many organisms which are alive but not conscious. Another problem is in defining consciousness, which has many different d
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