In Genesis, God prevented Abraham from carrying out the act. However, the papyrus text tells the story differently, suggesting that Isaac was indeed killed. This echoes the way the story is told in a number of other ancient texts, Zellmann-Rohrer said.
â Read on www.newsweek.com/1500-year-old-ancient-egyptian-papyrus-contains-stories-biblical-human-891667
Well now I think this blog needs a visual overhaul (we Harrelson’s do come from the Vikings after all):
Archaeologists and chemists have now studied colour use in the Viking Age based on the chemical analyses of pigments from a number of objects and a review of existing information on the topic.
These colours are now available to all in the form of a colour palette: A Viking paint chart.
â Read on sciencenordic.com/how-decorate-viking
The existing national defense network relied on telephone lines and wires that were susceptible to damage. In 1962, J.C.R. Licklider, a scientist from ARPA and MIT, suggested connecting computers to keep a communications network active in the US in the event of a nuclear attack.
â Read on sciencenode.org/feature/a-brief-history-of-the-internet-2018.php
I got asked that question during a Sunday School class on Old Testament conceptions of the divine a few years back. I struggled to gather my thoughts quickly and do that Middle School Teacher “Well, actually… it’s very interesting you see…” thing.
But it is a long and interesting history to process how we went from the regional deity of Yahweh to having monotheism to having the middle tier of gods deleted and the lower tier of gods transformed into individual angels with specific names and identities etc.
It’s hard for modern Christians to hear, but we shouldn’t always take the easy route of reading our own modern conceptions of the divine spheres back into texts like Genesis…
Good post here with more of the history behind the concept:
Since they no longer posed a threat to Yahweh, angels began to gain individuality, leading to the explosion of interest in the angelic and demonic worlds in late Second Temple times. The shift to a single-god system led to another late Second Temple split with seeds in Genesis 6 and a full flowering in the Christian New Testament: the lowest divine tier further divided into good angels and bad angels or demons (see, for example, Matt 25:41; Rev 12:7-9). These beings fight not over supremacy in heaven, but rather over the souls of humanity. This final movement established the basic framework shared by Christian and Islamic monotheismâa single, universal god whose rule is contested by demonic figures.
â Read on www.asor.org/anetoday/2018/06/Making-of-Monotheism
The long-standing popularity of relics can also be understood in terms of todayâs two big cultural obsessions â professional sports and celebrities â where fans often seek out a connection with their favorite teams or stars (including their discarded jerseys and other possessions). The relic system, says Farley, also âacted as an instrument of tribalismâ since saints and their relics were often associated with particular places in the same way that sports teams are today.
â Read on www.ozy.com/flashback/what-the-foreskin-of-jesus-can-teach-us-all/87022
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This is beautiful. Why didn’t I know this already?
Fingerprints are formed by friction from touching the walls of our motherâs womb. Sometimes they are called âchanced impressions.â By Week 19, about four months before we are issued into the world, they are set. Gorillas, chimpanzees, and koalas also possess exclusive prints.
â Read on www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/05/15/the-surprising-history-and-future-of-fingerprints/
It’s more the fetus touching the amniotic sac combined with genetics, but it’s still a striking thought. Here’s a helpful video I found on the topic.
Poor guy…
A man managed to escape the first eruptive fury of Vesuvius in 79 A.D., only to be crushed beneath a block of stone hurled by an explosive volcanic cloud, new excavations at the site suggest.
â Read on www.cnn.com/2018/05/29/health/pompeii-victim-crushed-rock-eruption-intl-trnd/index.html
These agricultural feats managed to extend the life of the Egyptian empire about half a century longer than it might otherwise have lasted, according to the archaeologists. The lesson for our own civilization â which is likely to face increasingly severe droughts as humans change the climate far faster than nature has ever done â is to plan ahead, Dr. Finkelstein said.
â Read on www.nytimes.com/2018/03/30/climate/egypt-climate-drought.html
Like all artificial intelligence, the software will improve over time, as it digests more text. Even more exciting, the general strategy of In Codice Ratioâjigsaw segmentation, plus crowdsourced training of the softwareâcould easily be adapted to read texts in other languages. This could potentially do for handwritten documents what Google Books did for printed matter: open up letters, journals, diaries, and other papers to researchers around the world, making it far easier to both read these documents and search for relevant material.
â Read on www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/04/vatican-secret-archives-artificial-intelligence/559205/
I’ve taught a series on depictions of Jesus numerous times at churches and for Sunday Schools of all flavors. This is one of the best pieces I’ve ever read on the subject. Thorough, but approachable.
Plus, there’s a connection to my beloved Dura Europos…
However, there is one other place to look: to the synagogue Dura Europos, dating from the early 3rd century. The depiction of Moses on the walls of the synagogue of Dura-Europos is probably the closest fit, I think, since it shows how a Jewish sage was imagined in the Graeco-Roman world. Moses is shown in undyed clothing, appropriate to tastes of ascetic masculinity (eschewing color), and his one mantle is a tallith, since one can see tassels (tzitzith). This image is a far more correct as a basis for imagining the historical Jesus than the adaptations of the Byzantine Jesus that have become standard.
Source: â ANE TODAY â 201803 â What did Jesus look like?