![Bible Black - Heaven and Hell [Official Music Video]](http://web.archive.org./web/20110612063627im_/http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QUs3i9oCs3U/0.jpg "Bible Black - Heaven and Hell [Official Music Video]")
The Jewish Bible, or Tanakh, is divided into three parts: (1) the five books of the Torah ("teaching" or "law") comprise the origins of the Israelite nation, its laws and its covenant with the God of Israel; (2) the Nevi'im ("prophets") containing the historic account of ancient Israel and Judah plus works of prophecy; and (3) the Ketuvim ("writings"), poetic and philosophical works such as the Psalms and the Book of Job.
The Christian Bible (sometimes known as the Holy Bible) is divided into two parts. The first is called the Old Testament, containing the 39 books of Hebrew Scripture, and the second portion is called the New Testament, containing a set of 27 books. Christian Bibles include the books of the Hebrew Bible, but arranged in a different order: Jewish Scripture ends with the people of Israel restored to Jerusalem and the temple and the Christian arrangement ends with the book of the prophet Malachi.
The oldest surviving Christian Bibles are Greek manuscripts from the 4th century; the oldest complete Jewish Bible is a Greek translation, also dating to the 4th century. The oldest complete manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible (the Masoretic text) date from the Middle Ages.
During the three centuries following the establishment of Christianity in the 1st century, Church Fathers compiled Gospel accounts and letters of apostles into a Christian Bible which became known as the New Testament. The Old and New Testaments together are commonly referred to as "The Holy Bible" (). The canonical composition of the Old Testament is under dispute between Christian groups: Protestants hold only the books of the Hebrew Bible to be canonical; Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox additionally consider the deuterocanonical books, a group of Jewish books, to be canonical. The New Testament is composed of the Gospels ("good news"), the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles (letters), and the Book of Revelation.
If counted as a single book, the Bible is the best-selling book in history with approximate sales estimates ranging in the billions.
Middle Latin biblia is short for biblia sacra "holy book"; while biblia in Greek and Late Latin is neuter plural (gen. bibliorum), it gradually came to be regarded as a feminine singular noun (biblia, gen. bibliae) in medieval Latin, and so the word was loaned as a singular into the vernaculars of Western Europe. Latin biblia sacra "holy books" translates Greek ta biblia ta hagia, "the holy books".
The word itself had the literal meaning of "paper" or "scroll," the and came to be used as the ordinary word for "book" It is the diminutive of bublos, "Egyptian papyrus", possibly so called from the name of the Phoenician port Byblos (also known as Gebal) from whence Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece. The Greek ta biblia (lit. "little papyrus books") was "an expression Hellenistic Jews used to describe their sacred books (the Septuagint). Christian use of the term can be traced to ca. AD 223. and the Talmud.
Orthodox Judaism continues to accept the Oral Torah in its totality. Masorti and Conservative Judaism state that the Oral Tradition is to some degree divinely inspired, but disregard its legal elements in varying degrees. Reform Judaism also gives some credence to the Talmud containing the legal elements of the Oral Torah, but, as with the written Torah, asserts that both were inspired by, but not dictated by, God. Reconstructionist Judaism denies any connection of the Torah, Written or Oral, with God.
The article Jewish commentaries on the Bible discusses the Jewish understanding of the Bible, including Bible commentaries from the ancient Targums to classical Rabbinic literature, the midrash literature, the classical medieval commentators, and modern day Jewish Bible commentaries.
General Epistles, also called Jewish Epistles
Revelation, or the Apocalypse Re
The order of these books varies according to Church tradition. The New Testament books are ordered differently in the Catholic/Protestant tradition, the Slavonic tradition, the Syriac tradition and the Ethiopian tradition.
The autographs, the Greek manuscripts written by the original authors, have not survived. Scholars surmise the original Greek text from the versions that do survive. The three main textual traditions of the Greek New Testament are sometimes called the Alexandrian text-type (generally minimalist), the Byzantine text-type (generally maximalist), and the Western text-type (occasionally wild). Together they comprise most of the ancient manuscripts.
During the Protestant Reformation, certain reformers proposed different canonical lists to those currently in use. Though not without debate, see Antilegomena, the list of New Testament books would come to remain the same; however, the Old Testament texts present in the Septuagint, but not included in the Jewish canon, fell out of favor. In time they would come to be removed from most Protestant canons. Hence, in a Catholic context these texts are referred to as deuterocanonical books, whereas in a Protestant context they are referred to as Apocrypha, the label applied to all texts excluded from the biblical canon which were in the Septuagint. It should also be noted, that Catholics and Protestants both describe certain other books, such as the Acts of Peter, as apocryphal.
Thus, the Protestant Old Testament of today has a 39-book canon—the number varies from that of the books in the Tanakh (though not in content) because of a different method of division—while the Roman Catholic Church recognizes 46 books as part of the canonical Old Testament. The Orthodox Churches, in addition to the Catholic canon, recognise 3 Maccabees, 1 Esdras, Prayer of Manasseh and Psalm 151. Some include 2 Esdras. The Anglican Church also recognises a longer canon. The term "Hebrew Scriptures" is often used as being synonymous with the Protestant Old Testament, since the surviving scriptures in Hebrew include only those books, while Catholics and Orthodox include additional texts that have not survived in Hebrew. Both Catholics and Protestants have the same 27-book New Testament Canon.
The New Testament writers assumed the inspiration of the Old Testament, probably earliest stated in , "all Scripture is inspired of God."
In their book A General Introduction to the Bible, Norman Geisler and William Nix wrote: "The process of inspiration is a mystery of the providence of God, but the result of this process is a verbal, plenary, inerrant, and authoritative record." Most evangelical biblical scholars associate inspiration with only the original text; for example some American Protestants adhere to the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy which asserted that inspiration applied only to the autographic text of Scripture. A minority even within adherents of biblical literalism extend the claim of inerrancy to a particular translation, e.g. the King-James-Only Movement.
The original texts of the Tanakh were in Hebrew, although some portions were in Aramaic. In addition to the authoritative Masoretic Text, Jews still refer to the Septuagint, the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, and the Targum Onkelos, an Aramaic version of the Bible. There are several different ancient versions of the Tanakh in Hebrew, mostly differing by spelling, and the traditional Jewish version is based on the version known as Aleppo Codex. Even in this version by itself, there are words which are traditionally read differently from written (sometimes one word is written and another is read), because the oral tradition is considered more fundamental than the written one, and presumably mistakes had been made in copying the text over the generations.
The primary biblical text for early Christians was the Septuagint or (LXX). In addition, they translated the Hebrew Bible into several other languages. Translations were made into Syriac, Coptic, Ge'ez and Latin, among other languages. The Latin translations were historically the most important for the Church in the West, while the Greek-speaking East continued to use the Septuagint translations of the Old Testament and had no need to translate the New Testament.
The earliest Latin translation was the Old Latin text, or Vetus Latina, which, from internal evidence, seems to have been made by several authors over a period of time. It was based on the Septuagint, and thus included books not in the Hebrew Bible.
Pope Damasus I assembled the first list of books of the Bible at the Council of Rome in AD 382. He commissioned Saint Jerome to produce a reliable and consistent text by translating the original Greek and Hebrew texts into Latin. This translation became known as the Latin Vulgate Bible and in 1546 at the Council of Trent was declared by the Church to be the only authentic and official Bible in the Latin Rite.
Especially since the Protestant Reformation, Bible translations for many languages have been made. The Bible has seen a notably large number of English language translations.
The Bible continues to be translated to new languages, largely by Christian organisations such as Wycliffe Bible Translators, New Tribes Mission and the Bible society.
Subsequent scholars, notably Eduard Reuss, Karl Heinrich Graf and Wilhelm Vatke, turned their attention to the order in which the documents had been composed (which they deduced from internal clues) and placed them in the context of a theory of the development of ancient Israelite religion, suggesting that much of the Laws and the narrative of the Pentateuch were unknown to the Israelites in the time of Moses.
These were synthesized by Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918), who suggested a historical framework for the composition of the documents and their redaction (combination) into the final document known as the Pentateuch. This hypothesis was challenged by William Henry Green in his The Mosaic Origins of the Pentateuchal Codes (available online). Nonetheless, according to contemporary Torah scholar Richard Elliott Friedman, Wellhausen's model of the documentary hypothesis continues to dominate the field of biblical scholarship: "To this day, if you want to disagree, you disagree with Wellhausen. If you want to pose a new model, you compare its merits with those of Wellhausen's model."
The documentary hypothesis is important in the field of biblical studies not only because it claims that the Torah was written by different people at different times—generally long after the events it describes— but it also proposed what was at the time a radically new way of reading the Bible. Many proponents of the documentary hypothesis view the Bible more as a body of literature than a work of history, believing that the historical value of the text lies not in its account of the events that it describes, but in what critics can infer about the times in which the authors lived (as critics may read Hamlet to learn about 17th-century England, but will not read it to learn about 7th-century Denmark).
Wellhausen's hypothesis proposed that the four documents were composed in the order J-E-D-P, with P, containing the bulk of the Jewish law, dating from the post-Exilic Second Temple period (i.e., after 515 BC);
The documentary hypothesis has been modified by numerous later authors. The contemporary view is that P is earlier than D, and that all four books date from the First Temple period (i.e., prior to 587 BC). Martin Noth (who in 1943 provided evidence that Deuteronomy plus the following six books make a unified history from the hand of a single editor), Harold Bloom, Frank Moore Cross and Richard Elliot Friedman also presented versions of the hypothesis.
The documentary hypothesis, at least in the four-document version advanced by Wellhausen, has been controversial since its formulation, and not all biblical scholars accept J, E, D, and P as meaningful terms. Critics question the existence of separate, identifiable documents, positing instead that the biblical text is made up of almost innumerable strands so interwoven as to be hardly untangleable. The J documen in particular, has been subjected to such intense dissection that it seems in danger of disappearing.
The hypothesis dominated biblical scholarship for much of the 20th century, and, although increasingly challenged by other models in the last part of the 20th century, its terminology and insights continue to provide the framework for modern theories on the origins of the Torah.
There are a wide range of interpretations of the existing Biblical archaeology. One broad division includes Biblical maximalism that generally take the view that most of the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible is essentially based on history although presented through the religious viewpoint of its time. It is considered the opposite of biblical minimalism which considers the Bible a purely post-exilic (5th century BCE and later) composition. In any case, even accepting Biblical minimalism, the Bible is a historical document containing first-hand information on the Hellenistic and Roman eras, and there is universal scholarly consensus that the events of the Babylonian captivity of the 6th century onward have a basis in history.
On the other hand, the historicity of the biblical account of the history of ancient Israel and Judah of the 10th to 7th centuries BC is disputed in scholarship. The biblical account of the 8th to 7th centuries is widely, but not universally, accepted as historical, while the verdict on the earliest period of the United Monarchy (10th century BC) and the historicity of David is far from clear. For this reason, archaeological evidence providing information on this period, such as the Tel Dan Stele, can potentially be decisive.
Finally, the biblical account of events of the Exodus from Egypt in the Torah, and the migration to the Promised Land and the period of Judges are not considered historical in scholarship.
Regarding the New Testament, the setting being the Roman Empire period in the 1st century, the historical context is well established. There has nevertheless been some debate on the historicity of Jesus, but the mainstream opinion is clearly that Jesus was one of several known historical itinerant preachers in 1st-century Roman Judea, teaching in the context of the religious upheavals and sectarianism of Second Temple Judaism.
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Tim Hawkins |
|---|---|
| Background | solo_singer |
| Birth name | Tim Hawkins |
| Occupation | Singer, Songwriter, Comedian |
| Years active | 2002-present |
| Url | http://www.timhawkins.net |
In 2007, Hawkins began to release his comedy on the Internet, with his videos gaining more than 50 million views on YouTube and Facebook since.
Hawkins has four children, and his wife is winning a battle with breast cancer, which Hawkins often alludes to during a serious portion of his stand-up show. He played outfield collegially for the University of Missouri.
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Ravi Zacharias |
|---|---|
| Birth date | (age 64) |
| Birth place | Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India |
| Nationality | Indian, Canadian and American |
| Residence | Atlanta, Georgia, USA |
| Occupation | Christian apologist, Founder and Chairman of the Board of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries |
| Religion | Christian |
| Website | http://www.rzim.org |
| Region | Western Philosophy |
|---|---|
| Era | 21st-century philosophy |
| Color | #B0C4DE |
| Name | Ravi Zacharias |
| Birth place | Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India |
| School tradition | Christian philosophy |
| Main interests | Philosophy of religion, Christian Apologetics, Worldview |
| Notable ideas | Four Criteria for a Coherent Worldview |
| Influences | Norman Geisler, C.S. Lewis, John Polkinghorne, Don Cupitt, Malcolm Muggeridge, Francis Schaeffer |
Frederick Antony Ravi Kumar Zacharias (born 1946) is an Indian-born, Canadian-American evangelical Christian apologist and evangelist. Zacharias is the author of numerous Christian books, including Gold Medallion Book Award winner Can Man Live Without God? and bestsellers Light in the Shadow of Jihad and The Grand Weaver. He is the founder and chairman of the board of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, host of the radio programs Let My People Think and Just Thinking (heard weekly and daily, respectively, on Christian stations across the U.S.), and visiting professor at Wycliffe Hall of Oxford, where he teaches apologetics and evangelism. Previously, Zacharias studied as a visiting scholar at Cambridge University and held the chair in Evangelism and Contemporary Thought at Alliance Theological Seminary from 1981 to 1984. Commentator Chuck Colson referred to Zacharias as "the great apologist of our time."
He was later ordained by the Christian and Missionary Alliance and commissioned as an international evangelist. He founded Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in 1984 to pursue his calling as a "classical evangelist in the arena of the intellectually resistant." Zacharias continues to be a frequent guest at these forums, both giving lectures and answering students in question and answer sessions at academic institutions such as the University of Georgia, the University of Michigan, and Penn State.
Zacharias attracted media attention when in 2004 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) opened its signature pulpit at the Salt Lake Tabernacle to an outside evangelist for the first time in over a century (the last being Dwight L. Moody in 1871). Zacharias delivered a sermon on "Who Is the Truth? Defending Jesus Christ as The Way, The Truth and The Life" to some 7,000 lay-persons and scholars from both LDS and Protestant camps in an initiatory move towards open dialog between the camps.
Some evangelicals criticized Zacharias' decision not to use this opportunity to directly address the "deep and foundational" differences between the historic Christian faith and that of the LDS church. He responded by asserting that Christians should not immediately condemn Mormonism's theological differences but "graciously build one step at a time in communicating our faith with clarity and conviction". He said this is just as effective as showing someone the faults of their faith. The speaking engagement was nearly sabotaged by a claim by event organizer Greg Johnson, president of Standing Together, that Zacharias had nothing to do with editing the book The Kingdom of the Cults and had only loaned his name to the latest edition. Johnson later apologized for his comment.
Zacharias is also a frequent keynote lecturer within the evangelical community at events such as the Future of Truth conference in 2004, the National Religious Broadcasters' Convention and Exposition in 2005, the National Conference on Christian Apologetics in 2006.
On successive nights in October 2007, he addressed first the students and faculty of Virginia Tech, then the community of Blacksburg, Virginia, on the topic of evil and suffering in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre. In addition, Zacharias has represented the evangelical community at occasions such as the National Day of Prayer in Washington, DC, the Annual Prayer Breakfast at the United Nations, and the African Union Prayer Breakfast in Maputo, Mozambique, and was named honorary chairman of the 2008 National Day of Prayer task force.
Zacharias was also interviewed in Focus on the Family's Truth Project.
In November 2009, Zacharias signed an ecumenical statement known as the calling on Evangelicals, Catholics and Orthodox to engage in civil disobedience with regard to laws which the declaration claims would force them to accept abortion, same-sex marriage or other matters that go against their religious consciences.
In particular, Zacharias's own style of apologetic focuses predominantly on Christianity's answers to life's great existential questions, with logical and scientifically inclined defense of God. In some discussion Zacharias appropriates to scientific matters, he answers the question of human origin. He has voiced skepticism over what he believes to be inadequate empirical evidence in the fossil records for an honest endorsement of the theory of evolution. He also questions the claim that evolution is compatible with the second law of thermodynamics, quoting the two to be inconsistent and irreconcilable. This stems from the belief that the second law of thermodynamics dictates that all closed systems in the universe will, unless acted upon by some external influence, tend to disorder. This notion, says Zacharias, does not conform to the key tenets of evolution, which postulate a marked increase in the order of biological life.
Category:Living people Category:1946 births Category:Christian writers Category:Christian ministers Category:Christian apologists Category:American writers Category:Members of the Christian and Missionary Alliance Category:Indian immigrants to Canada Category:Indian immigrants to the United States Category:Canadian people of Indian descent Category:American people of Indian descent Category:People from Delhi Category:Tamil people Category:Canadian evangelicals Category:Indian evangelicals Category:Converts to Christianity from atheism or agnosticism Category:Trinity Evangelical Divinity School alumni Category:People who attempted suicide
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Penn & Teller |
|---|---|
| Caption | Teller and Penn at The Amaz!ng Meeting 6. |
| Birth name | Penn JilletteRaymond Joseph Teller |
| Birth date | Penn Jillette (March 5, 1955) Teller (February 14, 1948) |
| Birth place | San Francisco |
| Residence | Las Vegas |
| Othernames | Asparagus Valley Cultural Society |
| Homepage | pennandteller.com |
| Known for | MagicComedy |
Penn & Teller (Penn Jillette and Teller) are Las Vegas headliners whose act is an amalgam of illusion and comedy. Penn Jillette is a raconteur; Teller generally uses mime while performing, although his voice can occasionally be heard throughout their performance. They specialize in gory tricks, exposing frauds, and performing clever pranks, and have become associated with Las Vegas, atheism, scientific skepticism, and libertarianism. Penn and Teller are both self-proclaimed atheists, debunkers, skeptics, and Fellows of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank in Washington, DC.
By 1985, Penn & Teller were receiving rave reviews for their Off Broadway show and Emmy award-winning PBS special, Penn & Teller Go Public. In 1987, they began the first of two successful Broadway runs. Through the late 1980s and early 1990s, the duo made numerous television appearances on Late Night with David Letterman and Saturday Night Live, as well as The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Today, and many others.
Penn & Teller had national tours throughout the 1990s, gaining critical praise. They have also made television guest appearances on Babylon 5 (as the comedy team Rebo and Zooty), The Drew Carey Show, a few episodes of Hollywood Squares from 1998 until 2004, ABC's Muppets Tonight, FOX's The Bernie Mac Show, an episode of the game show Fear Factor on NBC, NBC's The West Wing, guest stars during a two-part episode of the final season of ABC's Home Improvement in 1998, four episodes during season 1 of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch in 1996, NBC's Las Vegas, and FOX's The Simpsons episode Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder and Futurama film in 2009. They also appeared as Three-card Monte scam artists in the music video for "It's Tricky" by Run-DMC in 1987, and are thrown out of a Las Vegas hotel room in the music video for "Waking Up in Vegas" by Katy Perry in 2009.
Their Showtime Network television show takes a skeptical look at psychics, religion, the pseudoscientific, conspiracy theories, and the paranormal. It has also featured critical segments on gun control, astrology, Feng Shui, environmental issues, PETA, weight loss, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the war on drugs.
On , the duo describe their social and political views as libertarian.
They have also described themselves as teetotalers. Their book, Penn & Teller's How to Play in Traffic, explains that they avoid absolutely all alcohol and drugs, including caffeine, though they do appear to smoke cigarettes in some videos. Penn has said that he has never even tasted alcohol, and that his tolerance for certain drugs is so low that his doctor only had to administer a minute amount of anesthetic relative to what one would expect necessary for a man of his size to undergo surgery.
The pair have written several books about magic, including Penn & Teller's Cruel Tricks For Dear Friends, Penn & Teller's How to Play with Your Food, and Penn & Teller's How to Play in Traffic. Since 2001, Penn & Teller have performed six nights a week (or as Penn puts it on Bullshit!: "Every night of the week . . . except Fridays!") in Las Vegas at the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino.
Penn Jillette hosted a weekday one-hour talk show on Infinity Broadcasting's Free FM radio network from January 3, 2006 to March 2, 2007 with cohost Michael Goudeau. He also hosted the game show Identity, which debuted on December 18, 2006 on NBC.
Penn & Teller have also shown support for the Brights movement and are now listed on the movement's homepage under the Enthusiastic Brights section. According to an article in Wired magazine, their license plates are customized so they read, "Atheist" and "Godless", and when Penn signs autographs, he often writes down, "there is no God" with his signature.
Sometimes, the pair will claim to reveal a secret of how a magic trick is done, but those tricks are usually invented by the duo for the sole purpose of exposing them, and therefore designed with more spectacular and weird methods than would have been necessary had it just been a "proper" magic trick. For example, in the "reveal" of one trick, while Teller waits for his cue, he reads magazines and eats a snack. Another example is their rendition of the cups and balls, using transparent cups.
Penn and Teller perform their own adaptation of the famous bullet catch illusion. Each simultaneously fires a gun at the other, through small panes of glass, and then "catches" the other's bullet in his mouth.
They also have an assortment of card tricks in their repertoire, virtually all of them involving the force of the Three of Clubs on an unsuspecting audience member as this card is easy for viewers to identify on television cameras.
The duo will sometimes perform tricks that discuss the intellectual underpinnings of magic. One of their acts, titled "Magician vs. Juggler", features Teller performing card tricks while Penn juggles and delivers a monologue on the difference between the two: jugglers start as socially aware children who go outside and learn juggling with other children; magicians are misfits who stay in the house and teach themselves magic tricks out of spite.
In one of their most politically charged tricks, they make a U.S. flag seem to disappear by wrapping it in a copy of the United States Bill of Rights, and apparently setting the flag on fire, so that "the flag is gone but the Bill of Rights remains." The act may also feature the "Chinese bill of rights", presented as a transparent piece of acetate. They normally end the routine by restoring the unscathed flag to its starting place on the flagpole; however, on a TV guest appearance on The West Wing this final part was omitted.
One of their more recent tricks involves a powered nail gun with a quantity of missing nails from the series of nails in its magazine. Penn begins by firing several nails (presumably real) into a board in front of him. He then proceeds to turn the nail gun on himself several times while suffering no injuries. His patter builds as he oscillates between firing blanks at himself and firing nails into the board. While performing he explains that the trick is merely memorization, but the lone fact that he does not flinch when he could fire a nail into his hand is the trick. A later revision to the trick replaced the (false) claims of memorisation with a more open explanation allowing the audience to enjoy the rhythm of the nail gun without fear of a serious mishap.
An avid upright bassist, Penn frequently accompanies jazz pianist Mike Jones, who opens for the magicians' Las Vegas show.
One of their most recent tricks is a modern version of the bag escape replacing the traditional sack with a black bin liner. Teller is placed in the bag which is then filled with helium and sealed by an audience member. For the escape the audience are blinded by a bright light for a second and when they are able to see again Teller has escaped from the bag and Penn is holding the bag, still full of helium, above his head which he then lets float to the ceiling. The duo had hoped to put the trick in their mini-tour in London however it was first shown to the public in their Las Vegas show on 18 August 2010
Nominations
They have recently recorded a UK TV Show called '', hosted by Jonathan Ross. It challenges aspiring magicians to perform in front of Penn and Teller. If any illusionist can fool the professionals, they will win a five star trip to Las Vegas to perform as the opening act in Penn & Teller’s world famous show at the Rio Hotel & Casino.
Category:Living people Category:Magician of the year Award winner Category:Celebrity duos Category:American magicians Category:Comedy duos Category:Duos Category:1955 births
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Michael Shermer |
|---|---|
| Caption | Shermer on the Skeptics Society Geology Tour on June 8, 2007. |
| Birth name | Michael Brant Shermer |
| Birth date | September 08, 1954 |
| Birth place | Glendale, California, USA |
| Occupation | Academic Historian of science and editor |
| Title | Editor-in-Chief of Skeptic and |
| Website | MichaelShermer.com |
Shermer is also the producer and co-host of the 13-hour Fox Family television (now ABC Family) series Exploring the Unknown. Since April 2004, he has been a monthly columnist for Scientific American magazine with his Skeptic column. Shermer states he was once a fundamentalist Christian, but converted from a belief in God during his graduate studies, and has described himself as an agnostic, nontheist, atheist and advocate for humanist philosophy. He has expressed reservations about such labels, however, as he sees them being used in the service of 'pigeonholing,' and prefers to simply be called a skeptic. He completed his Bachelor's degree in Psychology/Biology at Pepperdine in 1976.
Shermer's graduate studies in experimental psychology at California State University, Fullerton, led to many after-class discussions with professors Bayard Brattstrom and Meg White, which is when his "Christian ichthys got away, and with it my religion." Shermer completed his master's degree from California State University in Experimental Psychology in 1978.
During the decade in which he raced long distances, he helped to found the 3,000-mile nonstop transcontinental bicycle Race Across America (along with Lon Haldeman and John Marino), in which he competed five times (1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1989), was Assistant Race Director six years, and Executive Race Director seven years. Shermer's embrace of scientific skepticism crystallized during his time as a cyclist, explaining, "I became a skeptic on Saturday, August 6, 1983, on the long climbing road to Loveland Pass, Colorado" after months of training under the guidance of a "nutritionist" with an unaccredited Ph.D. After years of practicing acupuncture, chiropractic, massage therapy, negative ions, rolfing, pyramid power, fundamentalist Christianity, and "a host of weird things" (with the exception of drugs) to improve his life and training, Shermer stopped rationalizing the failure of these practices. Shermer would later produce several documentaries on cycling.
Before starting the Skeptics Society, Shermer was a Professor of the History of Science at Occidental College, California. Since 2007, Shermer has been an adjunct professor at Claremont Graduate University.
In 1992 Shermer started the Skeptics Society, which produces Skeptic magazine and currently has over 55,000 members. In addition, the group organizes the Caltech Lecture Series which offers speakers on a wide range of topics relating to science, psychology, social issues, religion/atheism, skepticism, etc. Past speakers include Stephen Jay Gould, Jared Diamond, Donald Johanson, Julia Sweeney, Richard Dawkins, Philip Zimbardo, Steven Pinker, Carol Tavris, David Baltimore, Lisa Randall, Daniel Dennett, Tim Flannery, Lawrence Krauss, Michio Kaku, Susan Blackmore, Christof Koch, Alison Gopnik, Ursula Goodenough, Edward Tufte, Bjorn Lomborg, Sam Harris, Jeff Schweitzer and many others. The lectures occur on Sunday afternoons, and are open to the public for a nominal fee.
In How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science, Shermer explored the psychology behind the belief in God. In its introduction Shermer wrote "Never in history have so many, and such a high percentage of the population, believed in God. Not only is God not dead as Nietzsche proclaimed, but he has never been more alive."
In early 2002, Shermer's Scientific American column introduced Shermer's Last Law, the notion that "any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God." Shermer's Last Law is a spin on Clarke's Third Law.
In 2002, Shermer and Alex Grobman wrote their book Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It? which examined and refuted the Holocaust denial movement. This book recounts meeting various denialists and concludes that free speech is the best way to deal with pseudohistory.
was released in 2005 . Then his 2006 book , marshals point-by-point arguments supporting evolution, sharply criticizing Intelligent Design. This book also argues that science cannot invalidate religion, and that Christians and conservatives can and should accept evolution.
In June 2006, Shermer, who formerly expressed skepticism regarding the mainstream scientific view on global warming, wrote that, in view of the accumulation of evidence, the position of denying global warming is no longer tenable.
Shermer's most recent book The Mind of The Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economics was released in 2007. In it Shermer reports on the findings of multiple behavioral and biochemical studies that address evolutionary explanations for modern behavior.
In February 2009, Shermer published The History of Science: A Sweeping Visage of Science and its History, a 25-hour audio lecture.
Shermer appeared as a guest on Donahue in 1994 to respond to Bradley Smith's and David Cole's Holocaust denial claims, and in 1995 on The Oprah Winfrey Show to challenge Rosemary Altea's psychic claims. Shermer made a guest appearance in a 2004 episode of Penn & Teller's Bullshit!, in which he argued that events in the Bible constitute "mythic storytelling," rather than events described literally. His stance was supported by the show's hosts, who have expressed their own atheism. The episode in question, The Bible: Fact or Fiction?, sought to debunk the notion that the Bible is an empirically reliable historical record. Opposing Shermer was Paul Maier, professor of ancient history at Western Michigan University.
Shermer made several appearances on NBC's daytime paranormal-themed show The Other Side in 1994 and 1995. After getting to know that show's producers, he made a formal pitch to their production company for his own skepticism-oriented reality show whose aim would be to present points of view of both believers and skeptics. His proposals were not fruitful, but several years later, one of the executives of that company went to work for the then-newly formed Fox Family Channel, and impressed with Shermer's show treatment, requested he pitch it to the network. The network picked up the series, Exploring the Unknown, of which Shermer became a producer and cohost. The series, which was budgeted at approximately $200,000USD per episode, was viewed by Shermer as a direct extension of the work done at the Skeptics Society and Skeptic magazine, and would enable Shermer to reach more people. The equivocal title was chosen so as to not tip off guests or viewers as to the skeptical nature of the show. Various segments from Exploring the Unknown can be found on Shermer's YouTube channel.
Shermer has been a speaker at all three Beyond Belief events from 2006 to 2008. He also spoke at the 2006 TED Conference on "Why people believe strange things."
Shermer is a frequent guest on Skepticality, the official podcast of Skeptic.
On August 21, 2010, Dr. Shermer was honored with an award recognizing his contributions in the skeptical field, from The IIG during its 10th Anniversary Gala.
He has appeared on the following programs:
Politically, Shermer has described himself as a libertarian.
|}
Category:1954 births Category:Living people Category:American skeptics Category:American humanists Category:American agnostics Category:American libertarians Category:American scientists Category:California State University, Fullerton alumni Category:People from Glendale, California Category:Pepperdine University alumni
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | James Randi |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Randall James Hamilton Zwinge |
| Birth date | August 07, 1928 |
| Birth place | Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Occupation | Magician, writer, skeptic |
| Website | www.randi.org |
| Nationality | Canadian-American |
| Religion | Atheist |
Although often referred to as a "debunker," Randi rejects that title owing to its perceived bias, instead describing himself as an "investigator." He has written about the paranormal, skepticism, and the history of magic. He was a frequent guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and is occasionally featured on the television program . The JREF sponsors The One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge offering a prize of US$1,000,000 to eligible applicants who can demonstrate evidence of any paranormal, supernatural or occult power or event under test conditions agreed to by both parties.
Randi was the host of The Amazing Randi Show on New York radio station WOR in the mid 1960s. This radio show, which filled Long John Nebel's old slot with similar content after Nebel went to WNBC in 1962, had frequent pro-paranormal guests, including Randi's then friend James Moseley. Randi, in turn, spoke at Moseley's 1967 Fourth Congress of Scientific Ufologists in New York City, stating, "Let's not fool ourselves. There are some garden variety liars involved in all this. But in among all the trash and nonsense perpetrated in the name of Ufology, I think there is a small grain of truth."
Randi also hosted numerous television specials and went on several world tours. Then Randi appeared as "The Amazing Randi" on a television show titled Wonderama from 1967 to 1972, and as host of a failed revival of the 1950s children's show The Magic Clown in 1970. In the February 2, 1974, issue of Abracadabra (a British conjuring magazine), Randi defined the magic community, saying, "I know of no calling which depends so much upon mutual trust and faith as does ours." In the December 2003 issue of The Linking Ring, the monthly publication of The International Brotherhood of Magicians, Points to Ponder: Another Matter of Ethics, p. 97, it is stated, "Perhaps Randi's ethics are what make him Amazing" and "The Amazing Randi not only talks the talk, he walks the walk."
During Alice Cooper's 1973–1974 tour, Randi performed as the dentist and executioner on stage. Also, Randi had designed and built several of the stage props, including the guillotine. Shortly after, in February 1975, Randi escaped from a straitjacket while suspended upside-down over Niagara Falls in the winter on the Canadian TV program World of Wizards.
Randi was once accused of actually using "psychic powers" to perform acts such as spoon bending. James Alcock relates this incident, which occurred at a meeting where Randi was duplicating the performances of Uri Geller: A professor from the University at Buffalo shouted out that Randi was a fraud. Randi said, "Yes, indeed, I'm a trickster, I'm a cheat, I'm a charlatan, that's what I do for a living. Everything I've done here was by trickery." The professor shouted back: "That's not what I mean. You're a fraud because you're pretending to do these things through trickery, but you're actually using psychic powers and misleading us by not admitting it." The famous author and believer in spiritualism Arthur Conan Doyle had years earlier made a similar accusation against the magician Harry Houdini. A similar event involved Senator Claiborne Pell. Pell believed in psychic phenomena. When Randi demonstrated viewing a hidden drawing by using trickery, Pell refused to believe that it was a trick, saying, "I think Randi may be a psychic and doesn't realize it."
Randi entered the international spotlight in 1972 when he publicly challenged the claims of Uri Geller. Randi accused Geller of being nothing more than a charlatan and a fraud who used standard magic tricks to accomplish his allegedly paranormal feats, and he supported his claims in the book The Truth About Uri Geller. Geller unsuccessfully sued Randi for $15 million in 1991. Geller's suit against the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) was thrown out in 1995, and he was ordered to pay $120,000 for filing a frivolous lawsuit.
Randi was a founding fellow and prominent member of CSICOP. During the period when Geller was filing numerous civil suits against him, CSICOP's leadership, wanting to avoid becoming a target of Geller's litigation, requested that Randi refrain from commenting on Geller. Randi refused and resigned. However, he still maintains a respectful relationship with the group and frequently writes articles for its magazine.
Randi has gone on to write several books criticizing beliefs and claims regarding the paranormal. He has also demonstrated flaws in studies suggesting the existence of paranormal phenomena; in his Project Alpha hoax, Randi revealed that he had been able to orchestrate a three-year-long compromise of a privately funded psychic research experiment. The hoax became a scandal and demonstrated the shortcomings of many paranormal research projects at the university level.
Randi has appeared on numerous TV shows, sometimes to directly debunk the claimed abilities of fellow guests. In a 1981 appearance on That's My Line, Randi appeared opposite psychic James Hydrick, who claimed that he could move things with his mind and demonstrated this ability on live television by apparently turning a page in a telephone book without touching it. Randi, having determined that Hydrick was surreptitiously blowing on the book, arranged packaging peanuts (polystyrene foam shapes) on the table in front of the telephone book for the demonstration, preventing Hydrick from demonstrating his abilities, which would have been exposed when the blowing moved the packaging. Many years later, Hydrick admitted his fraud.
Randi was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Genius award in 1986. The money was used for Randi's comprehensive exposé of faith healers, including Peter Popoff, W.V. Grant and Ernest Angley. When Popoff was exposed, he was forced to declare bankruptcy within the year.
In 1988, Randi tested the gullibility of the media by perpetrating a fraud of his own. By teaming up with Australia's 60 Minutes program and by releasing a fake press package, he built up publicity for a spirit channeler named Carlos who was actually artist Jose Alvarez, a friend of Randi's. Randi would tell him what to say through sophisticated radio equipment. The media and the public were taken in, as no reporter bothered to check Carlos's credentials and history, which were all fabricated. The hoax was exposed on 60 Minutes; Carlos and Randi explained how they pulled it off.
In the book The Faith Healers, Randi explains his anger and relentlessness as arising out of compassion for the helpless victims of frauds. Randi has also been critical of João de Deus (John of God), a self-proclaimed psychic surgeon who has received international attention. Randi observed, referring to psychic surgery, "To any experienced conjurer, the methods by which these seeming miracles are produced are very obvious."
In 1982, Randi verified the abilities of Arthur Lintgen, a Philadelphia physician who is able to determine the classical music recorded on a vinyl LP solely by examining the grooves on the record. However, Lintgen does not claim to have any paranormal ability, merely knowledge of the way that the grooves form patterns on particular recordings.
James Randi stated that Daniel Dunglas Home was caught cheating on a few occasions, but the episodes were never made public, and that the accordion Home is supposed to have played without touching it was a one-octave mouth organ that Home concealed under his large moustache. James Randi writes that one-octave mouth organs were found in Home's belongings after his death. According to Randi 'around 1960' William Lindsay Gresham told Randi he had seen these mouth organs in the Home collection at the Society for Psychical Research. Eric Dingwall who catalogued Home's collection on its arrival at the SPR does not record the presence of the mouth organs. According to Peter Lamont, the author of an extensive Home biography, "It is unlikely Dingwall would have missed these or did not make them public."
He has regularly featured on many podcasts that can be found online, including The Skeptics Society's official podcast Skepticality and the Center for Inquiry's official podcast Point of Inquiry. From September 2006 onwards, he has occasionally contributed to The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe podcast with a column titled "Randi Speaks." In addition, "The Amazing Show" is a podcast in which Randi shares various anecdotes in an interview format.
On Larry King Live, March 6, 2001, Larry King asked Sylvia Browne if she would take the challenge and she agreed. Then Randi appeared with Browne on Larry King Live on September 3, 2001, and she again accepted the challenge. However, she has refused to be tested and Randi keeps a clock on his website recording the number of weeks that have passed since Browne accepted the challenge without following through. During Larry King Live on June 5, 2001, Randi challenged Rosemary Altea to undergo testing for the million dollars. However, Altea would not even address the question. Instead Altea, in part, replied "I agree with what he says, that there are many, many people who claim to be spiritual mediums, they claim to talk to the dead. There are many people, we all know this. There are cheats and charlatans everywhere."
Starting on April 1, 2007, only those with an already existing media profile and the backing of a reputable academic were allowed to apply for the challenge. The resources freed up by not having to test obscure and possibly mentally ill claimants will then be used to more aggressively challenge notorious high-profile alleged psychics and mediums such as Sylvia Browne, Allison DuBois and John Edward with a campaign in the media.
Late in 1996, Randi launched a libel suit against a Toronto-area psychic named Earl Gordon Curley. Curley had made multiple objectionable comments about Randi on Usenet. Despite prodding Randi via Usenet to sue (Curley's comments had implied that if Randi did not sue, then his allegations must be true), Curley seemed entirely surprised when Randi actually retained Toronto's largest law firm and initiated legal proceedings. The suit was eventually dropped in 1998 when Earl Curley died at the age of 51.
Sniffex, producer of a dowsing bomb detection device, unsuccessfully sued Randi and the JREF in 2007. Sniffex sued Randi for his comments regarding a government test in which the Sniffex device failed. The company was later investigated and charged with fraud. Randi has said that one reason he became an American citizen was an incident while on tour with Alice Cooper where the Royal Canadian Mounted Police searched the band's lockers during a performance. Nothing was found, yet the RCMP trashed the room.
In February 2006, Randi underwent coronary artery bypass surgery. In early February 2006, he was declared to be in stable condition and "receiving excellent care" with his recovery proceeding well. The weekly commentary updates to his website were made by guests while he was hospitalized. Randi recovered after his surgery and was able to help organize and attend the 2007 Amazing Meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada (an annual convention of scientists, magicians, skeptics, atheists and freethinkers).
Randi was diagnosed with intestinal cancer in June 2009. He had a ping pong ball-sized tumor removed from his intestines during laparoscopic surgery. He announced this a week later at the July 2009 The Amazing Meeting as well as the fact that he was scheduled to begin chemotherapy in the following weeks. He also said at the conference: "One day, I'm gonna die. That's all there is to it. Hey, it's too bad, but I've got to make room. I'm using a lot of oxygen and such—I think it's good use of oxygen myself, but of course, I'm a little prejudiced on the matter."
Official
Supportive
Media
Transcripts (Sylvia Browne and Randi) (Sylvia Browne's manager and Randi) (Altea and James Randi) (Rosemary Altea and Randi) (Sylvia Browne and Randi)
Criticism
Category:1928 births Category:Living people Category:American atheists Category:American magicians Category:American people of Canadian descent Category:American people of German descent Category:American skeptics Category:Canadian atheists Category:Canadian immigrants to the United States Category:Canadian magicians Category:Canadian people of German descent Category:Canadian skeptics Category:Cancer patients Category:Gay writers Category:LGBT writers from Canada Category:LGBT writers from the United States Category:MacArthur Fellows Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:People from Toronto Category:Professional magicians Category:American humanists
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Eve |
|---|---|
| Caption | Adam and Eve by Lucas Cranach the Elder shows Eve giving Adam the fruit. |
| Birth date | 3760 BC (Hebrew calendar)4004 BC (Ussher chronology) |
| Birth place | Garden of Eden |
| Death date | 2820 BC (Hebrew calendar) [aged 940]3064 BC (Ussher chronology) |
| Death place | Unknown |
| Spouse | Adam |
| Children | CainAbelSethmore sons and daughters |
Eve (Hebrew: חַוָּה, Ḥawwāh in Classical Hebrew, Modern Israeli Hebrew: "Khavah", Arabic:حواء) was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the first woman and the second person created by God, and an important figure in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Her husband was Adam, from whose rib God created her to be his companion. She succumbs to the serpent's temptation via the suggestion that to eat the forbidden fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil would improve on the way God had made her, and that she would not die, and she, believing the Serpent rather than the earlier instruction from God, shares the fruit with Adam. As a result, the first humans are expelled from the Garden of Eden and are cursed.
Eve is the first woman mentioned in the Bible. Here it was Adam who gave her the name Eve. Eve lived with Adam in the Garden of Eden during the time Adam was described as having walked with God. Eventually, however, with the Fall, the pair were removed from the garden because she was encouraged by a serpent to take a fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and with the Temptation led Adam to eat of the Forbidden Fruit.
In the Tyndale translation Eve is the name given to the beasts by Adam, his wife is called Heua.
Eve is not a saint's name, but the traditional name day of Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, has been celebrated on December 24 since the Middle Ages in many European countries, e.g. Germany, the Netherlands, Hungary, Scandinavia, Estonia.
by Michelangelo]]
:"And God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man" After her creation, Adam names his companion Woman, "because she was taken out of Man." "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh."
Eve is also mentioned in the Book of Tobit (viii, 8; Sept., viii, 6) where it is simply affirmed that she was given to Adam for a helper.
An alternate tradition, originating in a Jewish book called The Alphabet of Ben-Sira which entered Europe from the East in the 6th century A.D suggests that Lilith, not Eve, was Adam's first wife, created at the same time and from the same dust. The tradition goes that Lilith, claiming to be created equal, refused to sleep or serve "under him" (Adam). When Adam tried to force her into the "inferior" position, she flew away from Eden into the air, where she copulated with demons, conceiving hundreds more each day. God sent three angels after her, who threatened to kill her brood if she refused to return to Adam. But she did refuse. So God made Eve from Adam's rib to be his "second wife."
Controversy regarding the "rib" continues to the present day, regarding the Sumerian and the original Hebrew words for rib. The common translation, for example, that of the King James Version, is that אַחַת מִצַּלְעֹתָיו means "one of his ribs". The contrary position is that the term צלע ṣelaʿ, occurring forty-one times in the Tanakh, is most often translated as "side" in general.[7]. "Rib" is, however, the etymologically primary meaning of the term, which is from a root ṣ-l-ʿ, "bend", cognate to Assyrian ṣêlu "rib".[8] Also God took "one" ( ʾeḫad) of Adam's 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 [of a man or animal]" in general. The specification "one of the πλευρά" thus closely imitates the Hebrew text. The Aramaic form of the word is עלע ʿalaʿ, which appears, also in the meaning "rib", in Daniel 7:5.
An old story of the rib is told by Rabbi Joshua:
:"God deliberated from what member He would create woman, and He reasoned with Himself thus: I must not create her from Adam's head, for she would be a proud person, and hold her head high. If I create her from the eye, then she will wish to pry into all things; if from the ear, she will wish to hear all things; if from the mouth, she will talk much; if from the heart, she will envy people; if from the hand, she will desire to take all things; if from the feet, she will be a gadabout. Therefore I will create her from the member which is hid, that is the rib, which is not even seen when man is naked."[9]
illustration of Eve and the serpent]] Anatomically, men and women have the same number of ribs - 24. When this fact was noted by the Flemish anatomist Vesalius in 1524 it touched off a wave of controversy, as it seemed to contradict Genesis 2:21.
Some hold that the origin of this motif is the Sumerian myth in which the goddess Ninhursag created a beautiful garden full of lush vegetation and fruit trees, called Edinu, in Dilmun, the Sumerian earthly Paradise, a place which the Sumerians believed to exist to the east of their own land, beyond the sea. Ninhursag charged Enki, her lover and husband, with controlling the wild animals and tending the garden, but Enki became curious about the garden and his assistant, Adapa, selected seven plants and offered them to Enki, who ate them. (In other versions of the story he seduced in turn seven generations of the offspring of his divine marriage with Ninhursag). This enraged Ninhursag, and she caused Enki to fall ill. Enki felt pain in his rib, which is a pun in Sumerian, as the word "ti" means both "rib" and "life". The other gods persuaded Ninhursag to relent. Ninhursag then created a new goddess named Ninti, (a name made up of "Nin", or "lady", plus "ti", and which can be translated as both Lady of Living and Lady of the Rib), to cure Enki. Ninhursag is known as mother of all living creatures, and thus holds the same position in the story as does Eve. The story has a clear parallel with Eve's creation from Adam's rib, but given that the pun with rib is present only in Sumerian, linguistic criticism places the Sumerian account as the more ancient.
"Behold," says God, "the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil." God expels the couple from Eden, "lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever;" the gate of Eden is sealed by cherubim and a flaming sword "to guard the way to the tree of life."
Preserved in the Midrash, and the mediaeval Alphabet of Ben Sira, this rabbinic tradition held that the first woman refused to take the submissive position to Adam in sex, and eventually fled from him, consequently leaving him lonely. This first woman was identified in the Midrash as Lilith, a figure elsewhere described as a night demon.
The word liyliyth can also mean "screech owl", as it is translated in the King James Version of Isaiah 34:14, although some scholars take this to be a reference to the same demonic entity as mentioned in the Talmud.
In the Talmud, Adam is said to have separated from Eve for 130 years, during which time his ejaculations gave rise to "ghouls, and demons." Elsewhere in the Talmud, Lilith is identified as the mother of these creatures. The demons were said to prey on newborn males before they had been circumcised, and so a tradition arose in which a protective amulet was placed around the neck of newborns. Traditions in the Midrash concerning Lilith, and her sexual appetite, have been compared to Sumerian mythology concerning the demon ki-sikil-lil-la-ke, by scholars who postulate an intermediate Akkadian folk etymology interpreting the lil-la-ke portion of the name as a corruption of lîlîtu, literally meaning female night demon.
The Alphabet of Ben Sira Midrash goes even further and identifies a third wife, created after Lilith deserted Adam, but before Eve. This unnamed wife was purportedly made in the same way as Adam, from the "dust of the earth", but the sight of her being created proved too much for Adam to take and he refused to go near her. It is also said that she was created from nothing at all, and that God created into being a skeleton, then organs, and then flesh. The Midrash tells that Adam saw her as "full of blood and secretions," suggesting that he witnessed her creation and was horrified at seeing a body from the inside out. Ben Sira does not record this wife's fate. She was never named, and it assumed that she was allowed to leave the Garden a perpetual virgin, or was ultimately destroyed by God in favor of Eve, who was created when Adam was asleep and oblivious. It should be noted here, that both Lilith and the Second Wife are free from any curse of the Tree of Knowledge, as they left long before the event occurred.
Genesis does not tell for how long Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, but the Book of Jubilees states that they were removed from the garden on the new moon of the fourth month of the 8th year after creation (Jubilees 3:33); other Jewish sources assert that it was less than a day. Shortly after their expulsion, Eve brought forth her first-born child, and thereafter their second — Cain and Abel, respectively.
Another Jewish tradition---also used to explain "male and female He created them" line, is that God originally created Adam as a hermaphrodite[Midrash Rabbah - Genesis VIII:1], and in this way was bodily and spiritually male and female. He later decided that "it is not good for [Adam] to be alone," and created the separate beings of Adam and Eve, thus creating the idea of two people joining together to achieve a union of the two separate spirits.
Only three of Adam's children (Cain, Abel, and Seth) are explicitly named in Genesis, although it does state that there were other sons and daughters as well (Genesis 5:4). In Jubilees, two daughters are named - Azûrâ being the first, and Awân, who was born after Seth, Cain, Abel, nine other sons, and Azûrâ. Jubilees goes on to state that Cain later married Awân and Seth married Azûrâ, thus, accounting for their descendants. However, according to Genesis Rabba and other later sources, either Cain had a twin sister, and Abel had two twin sisters, or Cain had a twin sister named Lebuda, and Abel a twin sister named Qelimath. In the Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan, Cain's twin sister is named Luluwa, and Abel's twin sister is named Aklia.
Other pseudepigrapha give further details of their life outside of Eden, in particular, the Life of Adam and Eve (also known as the Apocalypse of Moses) consists entirely of a description of their life outside Eden. Generally in Judaism Eve's sin was used as an example of what can happen to women who stray from their childbearing duties.
According to traditional Jewish belief, Eve is buried in the Cave of Machpelah, in Hebron.
Drawing upon the statement in II Cor., xi, 3, where reference is made to her seduction by the serpent, and in I Tim., ii, 13, where the Apostle enjoins submission and silence upon women, arguing that "Adam was first formed; then Eve. And Adam was not seduced, but the woman being seduced, was in the transgression", because Eve had tempted Adam to eat of the fatal fruit, some early Fathers of the Church held her and all subsequent women to be the first sinners, and especially responsible for the Fall because of the sin of Eve. She was also called "the lance of the demon", "the road of iniquity" "the sting of the scorpion", "a daughter of falsehood, the sentinel of Hell", "the enemy of peace" and "of the wild beast, the most dangerous." "You are the devil's gateway," Tertullian told his female listeners in the early 2nd century, and went on to explain that all women were responsible for the death of Christ: "On account of your desert _ that is, death - even the Son of God had to die." In this way Eve is equated with the Greco-Roman myth of Pandora who was responsible for bringing evil into the world.
Saint Augustine, according to Elaine Pagels, used the sin of Eve to justify his idiosyncratic view of humanity as permanently scarred by the Fall, which led to the Catholic doctrine of Original sin.
In 1486 the Renaissance Dominicans Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger took this further as one of their justifications in the Malleus Maleficarum ("Hammer of the Witches") a central text in three centuries of persecution of "witches". Such "Eve bashing" is much more common in Christianity than in Judaism or Islam, though major differences in women status does not seem to have been the result. This is often balanced by the typology of the Madonna, much as "Old Adam" is balanced by Christ - this is even the case in the "Mallus" whose authors were capable of writings things such as "Justly we may say with Cato of Utica: If the world could be rid of women, we should not be without God in our intercourse. For truly, without the wickedness of women, to say nothing of witchcraft, the world would still remain proof against innumerable dangers" but were perhaps aware that (tragically) a large percentage of those accusing witches were female as well, and feared losing their support: "There are also others who bring forward yet other reasons, of which preachers should be very careful how they make use. For it is true that in the Old Testament the Scriptures have much that is evil to say about women, and this because of the first temptress, Eve, and her imitators; yet afterwards in the New Testament we find a change of name, as from Eva to Ave (as S. Jerome says), and the whole sin of Eve taken away by the benediction of Mary. Therefore preachers should always say as much praise of them as possible." It is interesting to note that in pre - industrial times, misogynic authorities were often (such as in "The Romance of the Rose" feminist debate) just called "The Roman Books", due to the perceived paternalistic attitude of both Pagan & Christian Romans to gender problems. Another example often given of this, Gregory of Tours report of how, in the 585CE Council of Macon, attended by 43 bishops that one bishop maintained that woman could not be included under the term "man", and as being responsible for Adam's sin, had a deficient soul. However, he accepted the reasoning of the other bishops and did not press his case for the holy book of the Old Testament tells us that in the beginning, when God created man, "Male and female he created them and called their name Adam," which means earthly man; even so, he called the woman Eve, yet of both he used the word "man."
Eve in Christian Art is most usually portrayed as the temptress of Adam, and often during the Renaissance the serpent in the Garden is portrayed as having a woman's face identical to that of Eve.
Some Christians claim monogamy is implied in the story of Adam and Eve as one woman is created for one man. Eve's being taken from his side implies not only her secondary role in the conjugal state (1 Corinthians 11:9), but also emphasizes the intimate union between husband and wife, and the dependence of the latter on the former "Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh."
Eve is commemorated as a matriarch in the Calendar of Saints of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod with Adam on December 19.
As a result of such Gnostic beliefs, especially among Marcionites, women were considered equal to men, being revered as prophets, teachers, travelling evangelists, faith healers, priests and even bishops.
In particular, Sura 7 recounts:
(Al-A`raf 7:22-23)
Islamic texts, which include Quran and the books of Sunnah (Hadith), differ from the Biblical story of Adam and Eve. The Qur'an, contrary to the Bible, places equal blame on both Adam and Eve for their mistake. The Qur'an does not say that Eve tempted Adam to eat from the tree or even that she had eaten before him. In the book it states both Adam and Eve committed a sin and then asked God for forgiveness and He forgave them both. Original Sin is not generally considered to exist in Islam.
Traditionally, the final resting place of Eve is said to be the "Tomb of Eve" in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
An alternative view was given by Matilda Joslyn Gage who in Woman, Church and State: A Historical Account of the Status of Woman Through the Christian Ages with Reminiscences of the Matriarchate (1893, reprinted by Arno Press Inc, 1972), who showed that in book printed in Amsterdam, 1700, in a series of eleven reasons, threw the greater culpability upon Adam, saying of Eve (pages 522–523):
First: The serpent tempted her before she thought of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and suffered herself to be persuaded that not well understood his meaning. Second: That believing that God had not given such prohibition she ate the fruit. Third: Sinning through ignorance she committed a less heinous crime than Adam. Fourth: That Eve did not necessarily mean the penalty of eternal death, for God's decree only imported that man should die if he sinned against his conscience. Fifth: That God might have inflicted death on Eve without injustice, yet he resolved, so great is his mercy toward his works, to let her live, in (that) she had not sinned maliciously. Sixth: That being exempted from the punishment contained in God's decree, she might retain all the prerogatives of her sex except those that were not incidental with the infirmities to which God condemned her. Seventh: That she retained in particulars the prerogative of bringing forth children who had a right to eternal happiness on condition of obeying the new Adam. Eighth: That as mankind was to proceed from Adam and Eve, Adam was preserved alive only because his preservation was necessary for the procreation of children. Ninth: That it was by accident therefore, that the sentence of death was not executed on him, but that otherwise he was more (justly) punished than his wife. Tenth: That she was not driven out from Paradise as he was, but was only obliged to leave it to find out Adam in the earth; and that it was full privilege of returning thither again. Eleventh: That the children of Adam and Eve were subject to eternal damnation, not a proceeding from Eve, but as proceeding from Adam."
Early feminist theologian Katharine Bushnell writes that Eve was deceived by the Serpent and therefore sinned in ignorance. She confesses her sin and God does not banish her from Eden. Adam, however, sinned in full knowledge and does not repent, and is therefore assigned the blame.
Pamela Norris in her book "Eve: A Biography" argues that throughout history the story of Eve "was developed to manipulate and control women." Bryce Christiansen, commenting upon Norris's work shows how "The effort to demystify Eve requires a context that sharply contrasts her subordination to Adam with the awesome power of female deities prominent in Babylonian and Canaanite myths. Norris exposes the various ways in which the Genesis account of Eve's transgression has justified centuries of scapegoating women". Norris also reports upon the snaky Lamias and Liliths who haunted nineteenth-century painting and literature, suggesting that centuries of disobedient women have been linked with Eve, the original bad girl, providing ample ammunition for male fears and fantasies.
Elaine Pagels in her book "Adam, Eve and the Serpent" shows how the disgust felt by early Christians for the flesh was a radical departure from both pagan and Jewish sexual attitudes. In fact, as she demonstrates, the ascetic movement in Christianity met with great resistance in the first four centuries. Sex only became fully tainted, inextricably linked to sin through the work of Tertullian and Augustine, attacking Gnosticism while adopting certain of their attitudes.
Modern feminists have tended to examine the story of Eve as the source of patriarchal misogyny in Christianity. Genesis 2-3 is more often cited than any other biblical text justifying the suppression of women and proof of their inferiority to men. Others like Phyllis Trible, have contested that it is a certain kind of interpretation of Genesis 2-3 that is the source of the problem. Trible, for instance, argues that before the fall, there is an amazing equality between Adam and Eve. Before the creation of Eve, she argues, 'ādām or human, is created from the 'ădāmāh or humus, and although a male pronoun is used for this creature Trible argues that it was androgynous, not yet sexually differentiated. This interpretation is not original, it in fact goes back through Rashi, the 10th century Jewish interpreter, and ultimately back to Plato.
Trible also argues that Eve is the crown of creation rather than an afterthought. She further argues that the word 'ēzer, meaning "helper" is not to signify a subordinate position to man as it is also most often used describe God and is thus a superior rather than an inferior being. In the story of the garden, Eve is also autonomous and independent while Adam is surprisingly passive.
Mieke Bal, while less positive than Trible, nevertheless argues that Eve taking of the fruit is the first act of human independence, and by gaining knowledge of good and evil, she achieves a position of greater equality with the divinity, rather than remaining a puppet of God.
Robert McElvaine argues that the story of Adam and Eve can be linked to the gender dynamics associated with the rise of Patriarchy in the ancient world. The Garden of Eden he claims is a mythical reference to hunting and gathering societies in which people lived in nature, not doing much work. With eating of the tree of Knowledge, first women, and then men took conscious control over the food supply, and now had to take care and be answerable for any ecological problems this brought. The parallel between Adam cursing Eve is paralleled in the Cain and Abel story, according to McElwaine, as "real men don't fool about with plants". Through associating male semen metaphorically with seed 'man became the Godlike creator of life and women from their Goddess-like creators [transformed] into ...dirt ...In Genesis the soil has no creative power" (p. 128). Projecting this into the sacred world, the belief that through planting seed in the Earth men had procreative power, just as with planting semen in the womb he had the same. As a result, it was argued, the Supreme God must also been male and men are closer to God than women. The hierarchy that emerged was
::God - over ::Men - over ::Women - over ::the Earth.
Thus according to McElvaine, men can be the sons of God, but all women are the daughters of men.
Category:Adam and Eve Category:Burials in Hebron Category:Hebrew Bible people Category:Old Testament female saints
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | ApologetiX |
|---|---|
| Background | group_or_band |
| Origin | United States |
| Genre | Christian rock, CCM, comedy rock, parody |
| Years active | 1992–present |
| Label | Parodudes |
| Url | www.apologetix.com |
| Current members | J. Jackson Keith Haynie Jimmy Tanner Bill Hubauer Tom Milnes Tom Tincha |
| Past members | Karl Messner Jerry Hayostek Bob Flaherty Fred Behanna Jeff Pakula Rick Servocky Andy Sparks Bill "Moose" Rieger |
ApologetiX gets their name from the word "apologetics," which is a defense of the Christian faith. Their logo, a triquetra, is an ancient symbol of the Holy Trinity.
ApologetiX has had multiple other drummers as well. Their longtime fill-in drummer, Keith Harrold (played on Isn't Wasn't Ain't and Keep The Change), David McKee (played on Jesus Christ Morningstar as well as two concerts in 1998), and Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz (drummer for "Weird Al" Yankovic), who played 7 tracks on Biblical Graffiti. 2004 American Christian Music Awards, Outstanding Modern/College Rock Artist
Karl was instrumental in establishing ApologetiX as a successful independent Christian band. As a web developer and programmer Karl designed the band's website & created a program called "Dexter" that handles the booking, online sales & other aspects of the band. The internet & tools like Dexter are challenging the notion that for a band to be successful, it needs to be signed to a large record label.
He announced his first solo album, tentatively called Liberty, in March 2009. The album is expected to be released in 2010.
Category:American Christian musical groups Category:Musical groups established in 1992 Category:Musical groups from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Category:Parody musicians Category:Religious parodies and satires
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Adam |
|---|---|
| Caption | Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam, a fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Adam is the figure on the left, and God the figure on the right. |
| Birth date | 3760 BC (Hebrew calendar)4004 BC (Ussher chronology) |
| Birth place | Garden of Eden |
| Death date | 2830 BC (Hebrew calendar) [aged 930]3074 BC (Ussher chronology) |
| Death place | Unknown |
| Spouse | LilithEve |
| Children | CainAbelSethmore sons and daughters |
As a result, both immediately become aware of the fact that they are naked, and thus cover themselves with garments made of fig leaves (Gen. 3.7). Then, finding God walking in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve hide themselves from God's presence (Gen. 3.8). God calls to Adam "Where art thou?" (Gen. 3.9, KJV) and Adam responds "I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself" (Gen. 3.10, KJV). When God then asks Adam if he had eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam responds that his wife had told him to (Gen. 3.11-12).
As a result of their breaking God's law, the couple were removed from the garden (Gen. 3.23) (the Fall of Man according to Christian doctrine) and both receive a curse. Adam's curse is contained in Gen. 3.17-19: "Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field: In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return" (KJV).
According to the Genealogies of Genesis, Adam died at the age of 930. With such numbers, calculations such as those of Archbishop Ussher would suggest that Adam would have died only about 127 years before the birth of Noah, nine generations after Adam. In other words, Adam's lifespan would have overlapped that of Lamech (father of Noah), at least fifty years. Ussher and a group of theologians and scholars in 1630 performed calculations and created a study that reported the creation of Adam on October 23, 4004 BC at 9:00 am and lived until 3074 BC. There was controversy over the fact that Ussher believed the whole creation process occurred on that day.
Although the Book of Joshua mentions a "City of Adam" at the time that the Israelites crossed the Jordan River on entering Canaan, it doesn't suggest any relationship between this city and the first man of Genesis. Traditional Jewish belief, on the other hand, says that following his death, Adam was buried in the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron.
He appears to an extent in both Eastern and Western Christian liturgies.
Eve's sin is counted as deliberate disobedience, as she did know that Jehovah had commanded them not to eat, but she is held to have been deceived by the Serpent. (She was deceived only about the effect of their disobedience, not about the will of God on the matter.) Adam's sin is considered even more reproachable, as he had not been deceived. Rather, when confronted with his sin, he attempted to blame both his wife Eve, and Jehovah himself. Genesis 3:12 NWT - "The woman who you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree and so I ate.". By his sin, he forfeited human perfection and was therefore unable to pass it on to his offspring.
The Latter Day Saints hold the belief that the "Fall" was not a tragedy, but a necessary part of God's plan. They believe that Adam and Eve had to partake of the forbidden fruit in order to fulfill God's will, and that it is good that they did so.
"Then began Satan to whisper suggestions to them, bringing openly before their minds all their shame that was hidden from them (before): he said: 'Your Lord only forbade you this tree, lest ye should become angels or such beings as live for ever.' And he swore to them both, that he was their sincere adviser. So by deceit he brought about their fall: when they tasted of the tree, their shame became manifest to them, and they began to sew together the leaves of the garden over their bodies. And their Lord called unto them: Did I not forbid you that tree, and tell you that Satan was an avowed enemy unto you?"
The Qur'an also mentions that Adam was misled by deception and was in fact pardoned by God after much repentance.
"Then Adam received (some) words from his Lord, so He turned to him mercifully; surely He is Oft-returning (to mercy), the Merciful."
Category:Burials in Hebron Category:Gnosticism Category:Hebrew Bible people Category:Old Testament saints Category:People celebrated in the Lutheran liturgical calendar Category:Prophets of Islam
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
