Monday 14 November 2011
Jesus Rises from the Dead
The resurrection of Christ may well be claimed a history’s most singular example of the uncanny. Although there were no witnesses to the actual moment of resurrection, belief in it was strong enough to galvanise Christ’s followers into evangelism, sometimes to the point of martyrdom. What facts are known of the event?
Jesus was crucified at about 9 am on a Friday and was dead by mid-afternoon, when a soldier thrust a spear into his body. He was laid in a rock tomb by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. The burial was watched by Mary Magdalene and other women, and a heavy stone was rolled across the tomb entrance before 6 pm, when the Sabbath began. Guards were sent to watch the tomb. By dawn on Sunday Jesus’ disciples had stolen the body while the soldiers dept.
Gospel accounts vary considerably about what happened next. Was the empty tomb found by Mary Magdalene alone (according to the gospels of John and Mark) or in the company of other women (according to Matthew and Luke) when she came to anoint the body on Sunday? A young man, possibly an angel, told Mary or the women, ‘He is not here; for he has risen, as he said.’ Matthew described a powerful earthquake, an angel tolling the stone away, and the tomb guards falling unconscious. Mary or the women reported the new to Peter, and an unnamed disciple, possibly John, ran to the tomb and found only the grave clothes in a heap, with the head band rolled up separately.
It is said that Jesus later appeared to Mary Magdalene and another Mary, then to two disciples on the road to Emmaus. These last two rushed to tell the other disciples and learnt that Jesus had also appeared to Peter. Amid their joy and Bewilderment Jesus materialized yet again, instructing them to remain together in Jerusalem until they received ‘power from on high’. Later he appeared to a crowd of 500 followers, then to his brother James. Unrecorded appearances might also have taken place before Jesus ascended into Heaven some days later.
Critics of the resurrection story have argued that Jesus was alive when buried, and claim that he left the tomb, appeared to his disciples and died years later, perhaps even in India. Others claim that the women mistook the location of Christ’s grave, or that the body was removed – by thieves, the Romans, the Jews or the disciples. Some simply argue that the accounts are too inconsistent to be relied upon at all. Whatever did happen at the tomb of Jesus, it changed the would for ever.
The Heavenly Host
The Heavenly Host
The angels were messengers who conveyed God’s will to his people
They are somewhere between humans and God, but what do angels do and are they truly ‘angelic’? Both the Hebrew and Greek words for angel mean ‘messenger’, and angels often have this role in the Bible, but the biblical writers also use the term in other ways. Good or evil angels are envoys of God or Satan, clashing in the final battle in John’s Book of Revelation. Angels can also be ordinary people, prophets who inspire others to action, supernatural informants or instructors, and even impersonal forces, including winds or the pillars of cloud and fire that guided the Israelites in their desert exodus. Pestilence and plague are called evil angels, and Saint Paul referred to his own ailment as a ‘messenger of Satan’. God and the angels are sometimes referred to interchangeably. In the book of Judges, for example, Samson’s father, who had been talking to an angel, says to his wife, ‘We shall surely die, for we have seen God.’ Many other phenomena, such as inspiration, sudden impulses and the workings of providence, are also ascribed to, or called, ‘angels’.
Invisible and immortal According to church teachings, the angels are sexless, invisible essences, immortal from their creation. Angels are also multitudinous, as implied by the Old Testament description of God as the ‘Lord of hosts’. They form a hierarchy of ‘angels and archangels and all the company of heaven’. The early church visualized nine orders, or ‘choirs’, of angels – seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominions, virtues, powers, principalities, archangels and angels.
Angels mediate between God and his people. The Old testament says that no one could look directly upon God and live, so direct contact between the Almighty and humans is often portrayed as a meeting with and angel. It was an angel that prevented Abraham from sacrificing Isaac; Moses saw an angel in the burning bush, although he heard God’s voice; and the Israelites were led out of Egypt by an angel. Occasionally biblical angels behave as mortals until their true nature is revealed, like the angels who visited Abraham and Lot before the terrifying destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Nameless spirits The scriptures describe many other angels, such as the spirit whose flaming sword barred Adam’s return to Eden; the cherubim and seraphim (portrayed as thunderclouds and lightning flashes, recalling an early Hebrew belief in a storm god); and the agent who miraculously freed Peter from prison. Then there are the beings seen in Isaiah’s heavenly court vision – ‘I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up and his train filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim; each had six wings; with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew’.
Angelic hosts appear in the Bible a number of times, like the choir of angels that heralded Christ’s birth. The Allrchangel Michael commanded God’s great legions of angels against Satan’s spirits. Michael and Gabriel, who revealed the birth of Jesus to Mary, are the only angels actually named in the Old and New Testaments. Most refused to identify themselves when asked, perhaps reflecting the contemporary belief that to know a spirit’s name diminished its power.
In Search of Atlantis
Since the time of the ancient Greeks, the fate of this lost civilization has intrigued scholars, romantics and occultists. Atlantis was said to be a vast island, bigger than Asia Minor and Libya combined, lying beyond the Pillars of Hercules (Straits of Gibraltar). Home to a great maritime nation, Atlantis was a place of fabulous wealth. It was well endowed with natural resources, including precious metals and stones, as well as abundant food. Nine thousand years before the time of the Greek law giver Solon, Atlantis had dominated the Mediterranean. But from an ideal state with an advanced civilization, it degenerated into a military aggressor and the gods, decided to punish it by sinking it under the sea.
So wrote the Greek philosopher Plato in his Timaeus and Critias around 350 BC. He said he had heard the story from his cousin, who heard it from his grandfather, who heard it from his father, who heard it from Solon, who heard it from the priests of Sais in Egypt in 590 BC. Plato was presenting a moral fable of what happens when the gods are displeased. But is the story true?
No known writer before Plato mentions a vast island that had sunk without trace under the Atlantic. But a similar tale was known in Egypt at the time of the Middle Kingdom (2040-1640 BC). The story might be a basic myth shared by several ancient peoples, or it could be a legend based of fact.
The factual basis may well be found in the ancient volcanic island of Thera (modern Santorini) – a prosperous commercial centre related to the powerful Minoan civilization on Crete to the south. In about 1500 BC, Thera’s volcano exploded in a violent eruption heard, it has been estimated, as far away as Scandinavia. Volcanic ash buried many parts of the island, in some places 30 meters deep, but luckily the people had already fled. About 40 years later, the volcano’s cone collapsed, plunging the island’s centre deep under the sea and creating tidal waves and a rain of ash that may have destroyed Cretan civilization virtually overnight. Crete’s trade and diplomatic contacts with Egypt were abruptly broken off, and perhaps the story Solon heard from the priests of sais was all their predecessors had learnt about the sudden disappearance of the Minoans as a world power. Could the priests’ vague information be the truth behind the Atlantis legend?
In the late nineteenth century Ignatius Donnelly, an American writer, asserted that Atlantis was in the Sargasso Sea, a part of the Atlantic between the Azores and the West Indies. Its mass of weed, he claimed, made the area identical to the unnavigable shoals said by Plato to mark the site. Russian born mystic Madame Blavatsky maintained that Atlantis lay in the North Atlantic and was peopled by the highly civilized descendants of the Lemurians, themselves inhabitants of another lost continent. In the early 1900s famed American psychic Edgar Cayce, who claimed that he had been an Atlantean in a previous incarnation, described the lost race as a sophisticated technological civilization whose power source was crystals. The abuse of this power, said Cayce, led to three nuclear disasters, the last in 10 000 BC.
Cayce predicted that Atlantis would reappear in 1968 or 1969. Curiously, in 1968 pilots photographed from the air structures that looked like buildings under the sea off Bimini in the Bahamas. Later, undersea explorers claimed they had seen ancient roads, walls, pyramids and stone circles on the seabed. Nothing has been confirmed by expert archaeologists, so possibly the Bimini Roads are natural features.
Colonel Fawcett’s quest Several people have devoted their careers and fortunes to the search for Atlantis, but few have paid the ultimate price for their passion. Trailblazing the vast Amazon River basin between 1906 and 1913, English surveyor and explorer Colonel Percy Fawcett became intrigued by a largely unexplored stretch of dense scrub known as the Mato Grosso. Fawcett subscribed whole heartedly to the legend of Atlantis and his hopes soared when he found a report in the Brazilian State Archives about an ancient hidden city, with quartz buildings and statues, but no inhabitants, which had been discovered in 1753. He became convinced that this deserted city was an Atlantean outpost. Unable to return to South America until after the First World War, he mounted his first expedition to find the lost city in 1920. It ended at a remote encampment on the Kuluene River, which he named Dead Horse Camp. Five years later he returned, this time supported by an American newspaper group. Fawcett resumed the search at the edge of the Mato Grosso, accompanied by his son Jack and Jack’s young friend Raleigh Rimell. For four days local Indians saw smoke rising from the group’s campfires, but after that nothing . When Commander G. M. Dyott searched for the party in 1928, he found the route they had taken, and discovered some of their possessions, but no trace of the men themselves. It was widely assumed that the mean had been murdered by Indians, but their remains were never found. The fates of Colonel Fawcett, his companions and the mysterious lost city they sought remain unknown to this day.
Wednesday 6 April 2011
Art & Literature Top 10 Gruesome Fairy Tale Origins
Fairy tales of the past were often full of macabre and gruesome twists and endings. These days, companies like Disney have sanitized them for a modern audience that is clearly deemed unable to cope, and so we see happy endings everywhere. This list looks at some of the common endings we are familiar with – and explains the original gruesome origins. If you know of any others, be sure to mention it in the comments – or if you know of a fairy tale that is just outright gruesome (in its original or modern form), speak up.
10: The Pied Piper
In the tale of the Pied Piper, we have a village overrun with rats. A man arrives dressed in clothes of pied (a patchwork of colors) and offers to rid the town of the vermin. The villagers agree to pay a vast sum of money if the piper can do it – and he does. He plays music on his pipe which draws all the rats out of the town. When he returns for payment – the villagers won’t cough up so the Pied Piper decides to rid the town of children too! In most modern variants, the piper draws the children to a cave out of the town and when the townsfolk finally agree to pay up, he sends them back. In the darker original, the piper leads the children to a river where they all drown (except a lame boy who couldn’t keep up). Some modern scholars say that there are connotations of pedophilia in this fairy tale.
9: Little Red Riding Hood
The version of this tale that most of us are familiar with ends with Riding Hood being saved by the woodsman who kills the wicked wolf. But in fact, the original French version (by Charles Perrault) of the tale was not quite so nice. In this version, the little girl is a well bred young lady who is given false instructions by the wolf when she asks the way to her grandmothers. Foolishly riding hood takes the advice of the wolf and ends up being eaten. And here the story ends. There is no woodsman – no grandmother – just a fat wolf and a dead Red Riding Hood. The moral to this story is to not take advice from strangers.
8: The Little Mermaid
The 1989 version of the Little Mermaid might be better known as “The big whopper!” In the Disney version, the film ends with Ariel the mermaid being changed into a human so she can marry Eric. They marry in a wonderful wedding attended by humans and merpeople. But, in the very first version by Hans Christian Andersen, the mermaid sees the Prince marry a princess and she despairs. She is offered a knife with which to stab the prince to death, but rather than do that she jumps into the sea and dies by turning to froth. Hans Christian Andersen modified the ending slightly to make it more pleasant. In his new ending, instead of dying when turned to froth, she becomes a “daughter of the air” waiting to go to heaven – so, frankly, she is still dead for all intents and purposes.
7: Snow White
In the tale of snow white that we are all familiar with, the Queen asks a huntsman to kill her and bring her heart back as proof. Instead, the huntsman can’t bring himself to do it and returns with the heart of a boar. Now, fortunately disney hasn’t done too much damage to this tale, but they did leave out one important original element: in the original tale, the Queen actually asks for Snow White’s liver and lungs – which are to be served for dinner that night! Also in the original, Snow White wakes up when she is jostled by the prince’s horse as he carries her back to his castle – not from a magical kiss. What the prince wanted to do with a dead girl’s body I will leave to your imagination. Oh – in the Grimm version, the tale ends with the Queen being forced to dance to death in red hot iron shoes!
6: Sleeping Beauty
In the original sleeping beauty, the lovely princess is put to sleep when she pricks her finger on a spindle. She sleeps for one hundred years when a prince finally arrives, kisses her, and awakens her. They fall in love, marry, and (surprise surprise) live happily ever after. But alas, the original tale is not so sweet (in fact, you have to read this to believe it.) In the original, the young woman is put to sleep because of a prophesy, rather than a curse. And it isn’t the kiss of a prince which wakes her up: the king seeing her asleep, and rather fancying having a bit, rapes her. After nine months she gives birth to two children (while she is still asleep). One of the children sucks her finger which removes the piece of flax which was keeping her asleep. She wakes up to find herself raped and the mother of two kids.
5: Rumpelstiltskin
This fair tale is a little different from the others because rather than sanitizing the original, it was modified by the original author to make it more gruesome. In the original tale, Rumpelstiltskin spins straw into gold for a young girl who faces death unless she is able to perform the feat. In return, he asks for her first born child. She agrees – but when the day comes to hand over the kid, she can’t do it. Rumpelstiltskin tells her that he will let her off the bargain if she can guess his name. She overhears him singing his name by a fire and so she guesses it correctly. Rumpelstiltskin, furious, runs away, never to be seen again. But in the updated version, things are a little messier. Rumpelstiltskin is so angry that he drives his right foot deep into the ground. He then grabs his left leg and rips himself in half. Needless to say this kills him.
4: Goldilocks and the Three Bears
In this heart warming tale, we hear of pretty little Goldilocks who finds the house of the three bears. She sneaks inside and eats their food, sits in their chairs, and finally falls asleep on the bed of the littlest bear. When the bears return home they find her asleep – she awakens and escapes out the window in terror. The original tale (which actually only dates to 1837) has two possible variations. In the first, the bears find Goldilocks and rip her apart and eat her. In the second, Goldilocks is actually an old hag who (like the sanitized version) jumps out of a window when the bears wake her up. The story ends by telling us that she either broke her neck in the fall, or was arrested for vagrancy and sent to the “House of Correction”.
3: Hansel and Gretel
In the widely known version of Hansel and Gretel, we hear of two little children who become lost in the forest, eventually finding their way to a gingerbread house which belongs to a wicked witch. The children end up enslaved for a time as the witch prepares them for eating. They figure their way out and throw the witch in a fire and escape. In an earlier French version of this tale (called The Lost Children), instead of a witch we have a devil. Now the wicked old devil is tricked by the children (in much the same way as Hansel and Gretel) but he works it out and puts together a sawhorse to put one of the children on to bleed (that isn’t an error – he really does). The children pretend not to know how to get on the sawhorse so the devil’s wife demonstrates. While she is lying down the kids slash her throat and escape.
2: The Girl Without Hands
Frankly, the revised version of this fairy tale is not a great deal better than the original, but there are sufficient differences to include it here. In the new version, a poor man is offered wealth by the devil if he gives him whatever is standing behind his mill. The poor man thinks it is an apple tree and agrees – but it is actually his daughter. The devil tries to take the daughter but can’t – because she is pure, so he threatens to take the father unless the daughter allows her father to chop off her hands. She agrees and the father does the deed. Now – that is not particularly nice, but it is slightly worse in some of the earlier variants in which the young girl chops off her own arms in order to make herself ugly to her brother who is trying to rape her. In another variant, the father chops off the daughter’s hands because she refuses to let him have sex with her.
1: Cinderella
In the modern Cinderella fairy tale we have the beautiful Cinderella swept off her feet by the prince and her wicked step sisters marrying two lords – with everyone living happily ever after. The fairy tale has its origins way back in the 1st century BC where Strabo’s heroine was actually called Rhodopis, not Cinderella. The story was very similar to the modern one with the exception of the glass slippers and pumpkin coach. But, lurking behind the pretty tale is a more sinister variation by the Grimm brothers: in this version, the nasty step-sisters cut off parts of their own feet in order to fit them into the glass slipper – hoping to fool the prince. The prince is alerted to the trickery by two pigeons who peck out the step sister’s eyes. They end up spending the rest of their lives as blind beggars while Cinderella gets to lounge about in luxury at the prince’s castle.
10: The Pied Piper
In the tale of the Pied Piper, we have a village overrun with rats. A man arrives dressed in clothes of pied (a patchwork of colors) and offers to rid the town of the vermin. The villagers agree to pay a vast sum of money if the piper can do it – and he does. He plays music on his pipe which draws all the rats out of the town. When he returns for payment – the villagers won’t cough up so the Pied Piper decides to rid the town of children too! In most modern variants, the piper draws the children to a cave out of the town and when the townsfolk finally agree to pay up, he sends them back. In the darker original, the piper leads the children to a river where they all drown (except a lame boy who couldn’t keep up). Some modern scholars say that there are connotations of pedophilia in this fairy tale.
9: Little Red Riding Hood
The version of this tale that most of us are familiar with ends with Riding Hood being saved by the woodsman who kills the wicked wolf. But in fact, the original French version (by Charles Perrault) of the tale was not quite so nice. In this version, the little girl is a well bred young lady who is given false instructions by the wolf when she asks the way to her grandmothers. Foolishly riding hood takes the advice of the wolf and ends up being eaten. And here the story ends. There is no woodsman – no grandmother – just a fat wolf and a dead Red Riding Hood. The moral to this story is to not take advice from strangers.
8: The Little Mermaid
The 1989 version of the Little Mermaid might be better known as “The big whopper!” In the Disney version, the film ends with Ariel the mermaid being changed into a human so she can marry Eric. They marry in a wonderful wedding attended by humans and merpeople. But, in the very first version by Hans Christian Andersen, the mermaid sees the Prince marry a princess and she despairs. She is offered a knife with which to stab the prince to death, but rather than do that she jumps into the sea and dies by turning to froth. Hans Christian Andersen modified the ending slightly to make it more pleasant. In his new ending, instead of dying when turned to froth, she becomes a “daughter of the air” waiting to go to heaven – so, frankly, she is still dead for all intents and purposes.
7: Snow White
In the tale of snow white that we are all familiar with, the Queen asks a huntsman to kill her and bring her heart back as proof. Instead, the huntsman can’t bring himself to do it and returns with the heart of a boar. Now, fortunately disney hasn’t done too much damage to this tale, but they did leave out one important original element: in the original tale, the Queen actually asks for Snow White’s liver and lungs – which are to be served for dinner that night! Also in the original, Snow White wakes up when she is jostled by the prince’s horse as he carries her back to his castle – not from a magical kiss. What the prince wanted to do with a dead girl’s body I will leave to your imagination. Oh – in the Grimm version, the tale ends with the Queen being forced to dance to death in red hot iron shoes!
6: Sleeping Beauty
In the original sleeping beauty, the lovely princess is put to sleep when she pricks her finger on a spindle. She sleeps for one hundred years when a prince finally arrives, kisses her, and awakens her. They fall in love, marry, and (surprise surprise) live happily ever after. But alas, the original tale is not so sweet (in fact, you have to read this to believe it.) In the original, the young woman is put to sleep because of a prophesy, rather than a curse. And it isn’t the kiss of a prince which wakes her up: the king seeing her asleep, and rather fancying having a bit, rapes her. After nine months she gives birth to two children (while she is still asleep). One of the children sucks her finger which removes the piece of flax which was keeping her asleep. She wakes up to find herself raped and the mother of two kids.
5: Rumpelstiltskin
This fair tale is a little different from the others because rather than sanitizing the original, it was modified by the original author to make it more gruesome. In the original tale, Rumpelstiltskin spins straw into gold for a young girl who faces death unless she is able to perform the feat. In return, he asks for her first born child. She agrees – but when the day comes to hand over the kid, she can’t do it. Rumpelstiltskin tells her that he will let her off the bargain if she can guess his name. She overhears him singing his name by a fire and so she guesses it correctly. Rumpelstiltskin, furious, runs away, never to be seen again. But in the updated version, things are a little messier. Rumpelstiltskin is so angry that he drives his right foot deep into the ground. He then grabs his left leg and rips himself in half. Needless to say this kills him.
4: Goldilocks and the Three Bears
In this heart warming tale, we hear of pretty little Goldilocks who finds the house of the three bears. She sneaks inside and eats their food, sits in their chairs, and finally falls asleep on the bed of the littlest bear. When the bears return home they find her asleep – she awakens and escapes out the window in terror. The original tale (which actually only dates to 1837) has two possible variations. In the first, the bears find Goldilocks and rip her apart and eat her. In the second, Goldilocks is actually an old hag who (like the sanitized version) jumps out of a window when the bears wake her up. The story ends by telling us that she either broke her neck in the fall, or was arrested for vagrancy and sent to the “House of Correction”.
3: Hansel and Gretel
In the widely known version of Hansel and Gretel, we hear of two little children who become lost in the forest, eventually finding their way to a gingerbread house which belongs to a wicked witch. The children end up enslaved for a time as the witch prepares them for eating. They figure their way out and throw the witch in a fire and escape. In an earlier French version of this tale (called The Lost Children), instead of a witch we have a devil. Now the wicked old devil is tricked by the children (in much the same way as Hansel and Gretel) but he works it out and puts together a sawhorse to put one of the children on to bleed (that isn’t an error – he really does). The children pretend not to know how to get on the sawhorse so the devil’s wife demonstrates. While she is lying down the kids slash her throat and escape.
2: The Girl Without Hands
Frankly, the revised version of this fairy tale is not a great deal better than the original, but there are sufficient differences to include it here. In the new version, a poor man is offered wealth by the devil if he gives him whatever is standing behind his mill. The poor man thinks it is an apple tree and agrees – but it is actually his daughter. The devil tries to take the daughter but can’t – because she is pure, so he threatens to take the father unless the daughter allows her father to chop off her hands. She agrees and the father does the deed. Now – that is not particularly nice, but it is slightly worse in some of the earlier variants in which the young girl chops off her own arms in order to make herself ugly to her brother who is trying to rape her. In another variant, the father chops off the daughter’s hands because she refuses to let him have sex with her.
1: Cinderella
In the modern Cinderella fairy tale we have the beautiful Cinderella swept off her feet by the prince and her wicked step sisters marrying two lords – with everyone living happily ever after. The fairy tale has its origins way back in the 1st century BC where Strabo’s heroine was actually called Rhodopis, not Cinderella. The story was very similar to the modern one with the exception of the glass slippers and pumpkin coach. But, lurking behind the pretty tale is a more sinister variation by the Grimm brothers: in this version, the nasty step-sisters cut off parts of their own feet in order to fit them into the glass slipper – hoping to fool the prince. The prince is alerted to the trickery by two pigeons who peck out the step sister’s eyes. They end up spending the rest of their lives as blind beggars while Cinderella gets to lounge about in luxury at the prince’s castle.
10 Biblical Facts That Everyone Gets Wrong
10: Adam and Eve
Contrary to popular belief, Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden not because they ate the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but in order to prevent them from eating from the tree of life (both forbidden trees are in Genesis 2:9) which would have made them eternal. God doesn’t like competition! Here is the verse (Genesis 3:22-23): “And he said: Behold Adam is become as one of us, knowing good and evil: now, therefore, lest perhaps he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.And the Lord God sent him out of the paradise of pleasure, to till the earth from which he was taken.”
9: Jonah and the Whale
We all know the tale of Jonah and the whale… but how well do we know it? Well enough to know that he wasn’t eaten by a whale? It was no mammal that ate Jonah – it was a huge fish – though its type is not mentioned. Of course, I am presuming that everyone reading this list knows that a whale is not a fish.
8:Samson and Delilah
Samson and Delilah is a famous story from the Old Testament which ends rather badly, as Samson’s long hair is cut short to destroy his strength. The common misconception is that Delilah was the one to give him the chop – a kind of ancient hobbit if you will. But in fact, it was Delilah’s servant who did it.
7:Rapture
The “Rapture” is not in the Bible! Despite being believed by a large number of protestants (many of whom also believe that only that which is in the Bible can be true) it was actually invented in the 1600s by one Cotton Mather – otherwise famous for murdering women by strangling them to death (by hanging) in the Salem witch trials. The term in the Bible commonly mistranslated to the word “rapture” actually comes from the Greek ἁρπάζω (harpazo) which actually means “caught up” or “taken away” and it refers to one person only (Philip).
6:Three Wise Men
There weren’t three and they didn’t visit Jesus in a manger. The Bible gives neither the number of men (but does the number of gifts as three, which is probably where this misconception stems from). Additionally, Herod demanded the death of all boys under two, making it probable that Christ had been born up to two years prior. Also, the wise men visited Jesus when he lived in a house according to the Biblical account in Matthew 2:11.
5: Get Rich Quick
The Bible does not condemn drinking alcohol (remember that Jesus’ first public miracle was turning water into wine at a wedding party), or gambling and betting. The closest it comes to the latter is to recommend against get rich quick schemes (Ecclesiastes 5:10) and loving money excessively. Be sure to remember that next time you are sipping your wine at the local casino. Addendum: “The Bible does NOT condemn the drinking of alcohol – that misconception is a holdover from Calvinistic and Puritanical Protestantism – which worked its way into Methodism etc; What the Bible DOES say is “Be not DRUNK of the fruit of the vine” – at the same time many gainsayers will claim that the water was turned into grape juice – but the original Gospels clearly use a word which translates from the original Greek as WINE a “fermented grape beverage”. [addendum courtesy of carra 23]. Traditionally drunk means “falling down drunk” – in other words, the loss of the will to control oneself.
4: Help
“God helps those who help themselves” – a wise and good quote that everyone knows is from the Bible. But, in fact, it isn’t. It was a man, not a god who coined the well known (and overused) proverb. It was Benjamin Franklin in his Poor Richard’s almanac.
3: Brother’s Keeper
Another quote we all know from the Bible is “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Now ask yourself – do you know what God’s answer was to this question? You don’t – no one does because the Bible doesn’t tell us what He replied. If God were to have answered, we can presume it would have been in the affirmative if all of the other commands to look after our brothers in the New Testament are taken into consideration.
2: Christmas Travel
The Virgin Mary is not described in the Bible as having traveled to Bethlehem on a donkey. No mention is made at all in the gospels of the mode of transport used in the journey. The first mention of her riding a donkey comes from the non-Biblical Protoevangelium of James which you can read here. It was written around 150AD and is also one of the oldest works to describe Mary as a virgin both before and after the birth of Christ. The exact quote from the Protoevangelium is “And he [Joseph] saddled the ass, and set her upon it;”
1: Horned Moses
This has been mentioned in passing in comments on previous lists but it definitely warrants a mention here. Unlike most of the misconceptions here which deal specifically with what the Bible says or doesn’t say, this one is a misconception about the translation of part of it. The Old Testament refers to Moses as having horns on his head after he went up the mountain to see God. This prompted Michelangelo to sculpt him with the horns. Many people believe that this was due to a mistranslation of the description of Moses but, in fact, it isn’t. Moses really is described as being horned. And the reason for this? In Old Testament times, a person who was believed to have seen or been touched by God was described as having horns (or rays of light) coming from their head. It was an ancient symbol much like today’s glorious.
Contrary to popular belief, Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden not because they ate the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but in order to prevent them from eating from the tree of life (both forbidden trees are in Genesis 2:9) which would have made them eternal. God doesn’t like competition! Here is the verse (Genesis 3:22-23): “And he said: Behold Adam is become as one of us, knowing good and evil: now, therefore, lest perhaps he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.And the Lord God sent him out of the paradise of pleasure, to till the earth from which he was taken.”
9: Jonah and the Whale
8:Samson and Delilah
Samson and Delilah is a famous story from the Old Testament which ends rather badly, as Samson’s long hair is cut short to destroy his strength. The common misconception is that Delilah was the one to give him the chop – a kind of ancient hobbit if you will. But in fact, it was Delilah’s servant who did it.
7:Rapture
The “Rapture” is not in the Bible! Despite being believed by a large number of protestants (many of whom also believe that only that which is in the Bible can be true) it was actually invented in the 1600s by one Cotton Mather – otherwise famous for murdering women by strangling them to death (by hanging) in the Salem witch trials. The term in the Bible commonly mistranslated to the word “rapture” actually comes from the Greek ἁρπάζω (harpazo) which actually means “caught up” or “taken away” and it refers to one person only (Philip).
6:Three Wise Men
There weren’t three and they didn’t visit Jesus in a manger. The Bible gives neither the number of men (but does the number of gifts as three, which is probably where this misconception stems from). Additionally, Herod demanded the death of all boys under two, making it probable that Christ had been born up to two years prior. Also, the wise men visited Jesus when he lived in a house according to the Biblical account in Matthew 2:11.
5: Get Rich Quick
The Bible does not condemn drinking alcohol (remember that Jesus’ first public miracle was turning water into wine at a wedding party), or gambling and betting. The closest it comes to the latter is to recommend against get rich quick schemes (Ecclesiastes 5:10) and loving money excessively. Be sure to remember that next time you are sipping your wine at the local casino. Addendum: “The Bible does NOT condemn the drinking of alcohol – that misconception is a holdover from Calvinistic and Puritanical Protestantism – which worked its way into Methodism etc; What the Bible DOES say is “Be not DRUNK of the fruit of the vine” – at the same time many gainsayers will claim that the water was turned into grape juice – but the original Gospels clearly use a word which translates from the original Greek as WINE a “fermented grape beverage”. [addendum courtesy of carra 23]. Traditionally drunk means “falling down drunk” – in other words, the loss of the will to control oneself.
4: Help
“God helps those who help themselves” – a wise and good quote that everyone knows is from the Bible. But, in fact, it isn’t. It was a man, not a god who coined the well known (and overused) proverb. It was Benjamin Franklin in his Poor Richard’s almanac.
3: Brother’s Keeper
Another quote we all know from the Bible is “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Now ask yourself – do you know what God’s answer was to this question? You don’t – no one does because the Bible doesn’t tell us what He replied. If God were to have answered, we can presume it would have been in the affirmative if all of the other commands to look after our brothers in the New Testament are taken into consideration.
2: Christmas Travel
The Virgin Mary is not described in the Bible as having traveled to Bethlehem on a donkey. No mention is made at all in the gospels of the mode of transport used in the journey. The first mention of her riding a donkey comes from the non-Biblical Protoevangelium of James which you can read here. It was written around 150AD and is also one of the oldest works to describe Mary as a virgin both before and after the birth of Christ. The exact quote from the Protoevangelium is “And he [Joseph] saddled the ass, and set her upon it;”
1: Horned Moses
This has been mentioned in passing in comments on previous lists but it definitely warrants a mention here. Unlike most of the misconceptions here which deal specifically with what the Bible says or doesn’t say, this one is a misconception about the translation of part of it. The Old Testament refers to Moses as having horns on his head after he went up the mountain to see God. This prompted Michelangelo to sculpt him with the horns. Many people believe that this was due to a mistranslation of the description of Moses but, in fact, it isn’t. Moses really is described as being horned. And the reason for this? In Old Testament times, a person who was believed to have seen or been touched by God was described as having horns (or rays of light) coming from their head. It was an ancient symbol much like today’s glorious.
Tuesday 5 April 2011
Fairy: True or False?
A dead fairy discovered at Derbyshire Countryside.
The 8 inch remains complete with wings , skin, teeth and flowing red hair have been examined by anthropologists and forensic experts who can confirm that the body is genuine.
Please see below pictures, true or false?
The 8 inch remains complete with wings , skin, teeth and flowing red hair have been examined by anthropologists and forensic experts who can confirm that the body is genuine.
Please see below pictures, true or false?
How To Make Your Fairies Happy
Fairies will stick around your home tending to your gardens; the fruits, flowers and even the vegetables. They love to go about fixing things and they even like to clean. But, there are things that you must do if you would like to keep the fairies around. They do what they do because it is in their nature, but if they become unhappy they will move on to a new home where they feel more appreciated. So, in order to make sure that your fairies are feeling very appreciated there are a few steps that you can take that will keep them happy and flitting around your property!
First of all you will want to make your fairy friends a home that will help them to stay happy and content. Use things that you find in nature to make it with. Build it in a nice secluded area where they will feel safe and hidden and where no one might accidentally step on it or disturb them. Start out by collecting some bigger sized rocks that you can stack into an igloo like shape, making sure to leave a doorway. Build a table out of sticks for inside and use smaller stones for seats. Small shells make great dishes. Use leaves to make a comfy bed for the fairies and flower buds for pillows.
Leave the fairies some edible treats, like berries and sweets that they can eat. Berries are one of their favorite foods and any kind of them will do. But they also like human snacks because it gives them a treat that they don’t get often. Make them a special batch of rock candy, using real oils like lemon and peppermint. When you make muffins and cupcakes leave them any crumbs that may be left, or even a whole one they can snack on for the whole week!
Fairies enjoy music very much and they even like it when you help them out with some of the chores that they do for you. When you do work in your garden bring some music along, or sing yourself! Pull your weeds to some classical music. Water the flowers to some Celtic tunes. The fairies will be dancing around joyously on their mini vacation while you get some work done. This time off will make them extra happy to, as they spend most of their time being busy. They are sure to make your flowers bloom extra big and bright and make sure that your fruits are extra sweet.
If you need some help in the house from the fairy folk there is an easy way that you can let them know they are invited in. Leave one of your windows open and place a shiny object on the sill for them to keep. This shiny little gift can be a coin, a piece of tinsel, a jewel or even a piece of cellophane wrapped candy. This shiny treat will lure them to the house and once they enter they will know exactly what it is you wanted of them. Fairies are very intelligent creatures so they can always tell what your intentions are!
First of all you will want to make your fairy friends a home that will help them to stay happy and content. Use things that you find in nature to make it with. Build it in a nice secluded area where they will feel safe and hidden and where no one might accidentally step on it or disturb them. Start out by collecting some bigger sized rocks that you can stack into an igloo like shape, making sure to leave a doorway. Build a table out of sticks for inside and use smaller stones for seats. Small shells make great dishes. Use leaves to make a comfy bed for the fairies and flower buds for pillows.
Leave the fairies some edible treats, like berries and sweets that they can eat. Berries are one of their favorite foods and any kind of them will do. But they also like human snacks because it gives them a treat that they don’t get often. Make them a special batch of rock candy, using real oils like lemon and peppermint. When you make muffins and cupcakes leave them any crumbs that may be left, or even a whole one they can snack on for the whole week!
Fairies enjoy music very much and they even like it when you help them out with some of the chores that they do for you. When you do work in your garden bring some music along, or sing yourself! Pull your weeds to some classical music. Water the flowers to some Celtic tunes. The fairies will be dancing around joyously on their mini vacation while you get some work done. This time off will make them extra happy to, as they spend most of their time being busy. They are sure to make your flowers bloom extra big and bright and make sure that your fruits are extra sweet.
If you need some help in the house from the fairy folk there is an easy way that you can let them know they are invited in. Leave one of your windows open and place a shiny object on the sill for them to keep. This shiny little gift can be a coin, a piece of tinsel, a jewel or even a piece of cellophane wrapped candy. This shiny treat will lure them to the house and once they enter they will know exactly what it is you wanted of them. Fairies are very intelligent creatures so they can always tell what your intentions are!
A Short History on Fairies
A brief history of Fairies.
Stories of Fairies have been with us for thousands of years. They have been prevalent in nearly every culture, on nearly every continent. Like Dragons, Vampires and other legendary creatures, they seem to have the ability to cross boundaries and be present in the folklore of most countries. They range from stories of cute little pixie like creatures that fly around magically and cause mischief to mysterious and powerful ethereally beautiful High Elves. Even before Tolkien came into the picture, there were stories of Fairies and the Daoine Sidhe or other versions of tall humanoids with pointy ears. They all seem to have a tendency to kidnap hapless victims who crossed their paths and have magic that was both powerful and frightening. They had the ability to beguile and bemuse, to hinder or help on a whim.
Fairies have not always been strictly about the cute and delicate looking pixies and the proud Elves that we associate them with today. They have a dark and varied past. From Evil Djinn to Celtic Water Horses, Red-Caps, pookas, Bane-sidhe, trolls, ogres and giants. Each creature has it’s dangers and cautionary tales. The Djinn (or Genies) would grant wishes that would go horribly wrong. Water Horses would entice you to hop on for a ride and carry their helpless victims into deep water and drown them. Red-Caps would devour badly behaved children and dip their caps in their blood. Pookas were shape changing dry land versions of Water Horses would could appear in many forms from a Raven to a black horse. Then there was the Wild Hunt, which would slay anyone unfortunate enough to be in their path as they rode across the country side.
There are also the more innocent versions of Fairies. The little mischievous pixies who play tricks upon the mean and unwary. The brownies who keep house and help the thrifty and kind. Gnomes who tend gardens and help things grow. From simple bedtime fairy tales to cautionary tales of bloodshed and misery Fairies have been a favorite topic of conversation for those who love both the fanciful and the dangerous. Fascination with the magical world of Fairies, Elves, Gnomes and other magical creatures has always been a prevalent theme in our imaginations and hearts.
The Brothers Grimm made Fairies more commonly known. Magic and mysterious creatures that could hinder or help the Questing hero became a common feature in our fiction. Tolkien took all of this and created a work of fiction that has fired the imagination of millions of people all over the world. Now we have not only books and movies of Fairies and magic, but also Role Playing Games. From table top Dungeons and Dragons, Tale of the Five Rings, White Wolf Changeling on to World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online. Our fascination has become a cultural obsession that seems to have no end in sight. I for one am glad to know that Fairies will continue to be a part of our every day world as we stretch our imaginations and create more stories and games to entertain and enjoy.
Stories of Fairies have been with us for thousands of years. They have been prevalent in nearly every culture, on nearly every continent. Like Dragons, Vampires and other legendary creatures, they seem to have the ability to cross boundaries and be present in the folklore of most countries. They range from stories of cute little pixie like creatures that fly around magically and cause mischief to mysterious and powerful ethereally beautiful High Elves. Even before Tolkien came into the picture, there were stories of Fairies and the Daoine Sidhe or other versions of tall humanoids with pointy ears. They all seem to have a tendency to kidnap hapless victims who crossed their paths and have magic that was both powerful and frightening. They had the ability to beguile and bemuse, to hinder or help on a whim.
Fairies have not always been strictly about the cute and delicate looking pixies and the proud Elves that we associate them with today. They have a dark and varied past. From Evil Djinn to Celtic Water Horses, Red-Caps, pookas, Bane-sidhe, trolls, ogres and giants. Each creature has it’s dangers and cautionary tales. The Djinn (or Genies) would grant wishes that would go horribly wrong. Water Horses would entice you to hop on for a ride and carry their helpless victims into deep water and drown them. Red-Caps would devour badly behaved children and dip their caps in their blood. Pookas were shape changing dry land versions of Water Horses would could appear in many forms from a Raven to a black horse. Then there was the Wild Hunt, which would slay anyone unfortunate enough to be in their path as they rode across the country side.
There are also the more innocent versions of Fairies. The little mischievous pixies who play tricks upon the mean and unwary. The brownies who keep house and help the thrifty and kind. Gnomes who tend gardens and help things grow. From simple bedtime fairy tales to cautionary tales of bloodshed and misery Fairies have been a favorite topic of conversation for those who love both the fanciful and the dangerous. Fascination with the magical world of Fairies, Elves, Gnomes and other magical creatures has always been a prevalent theme in our imaginations and hearts.
The Brothers Grimm made Fairies more commonly known. Magic and mysterious creatures that could hinder or help the Questing hero became a common feature in our fiction. Tolkien took all of this and created a work of fiction that has fired the imagination of millions of people all over the world. Now we have not only books and movies of Fairies and magic, but also Role Playing Games. From table top Dungeons and Dragons, Tale of the Five Rings, White Wolf Changeling on to World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online. Our fascination has become a cultural obsession that seems to have no end in sight. I for one am glad to know that Fairies will continue to be a part of our every day world as we stretch our imaginations and create more stories and games to entertain and enjoy.
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