A Problematic Book

2021 ◽  
pp. 3-26
Author(s):  
Kristin Swenson

This chapter discusses seven reasons why the Bible is problematic—in other words, more complicated than it appears at first glance. One is that the Bible is not a single book. As such, one cannot expect to read through the Bible, cover to cover, and encounter a neat dramatic structure defining a single story. Another reason is that there is more than one Bible, since what constitutes the whole of the Bible depends on the process of canonization. From there, the chapter argues that the Bible is problematic because the texts themselves were composed, and collected, over a long period of time. The Bible has a lot of different authors and editors, most of whom are anonymous. Even the latest texts come from a very long time ago. The Bible was written in languages that are utterly unfamiliar to most readers today. Finally, the chapter raises its final point: that most of the Bible's readers today “believe in” it.

1998 ◽  
pp. 46-52
Author(s):  
S. V. Rabotkina

A huge place in the spiritual life of medieval Rusich was occupied by the Bible, although for a long time Kievan Rus did not know it fully. The full text of the Holy Scriptures appears in the Church Slavonic language not earlier than 1499.


Animals ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 1768
Author(s):  
Roosa Piitulainen ◽  
Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas

Computer systems for primates to listen to audio have been researched for a long time. However, there is a lack of investigations into what kind of sounds primates would prefer to listen to, how to quantify their preference, and how audio systems and methods can be designed in an animal-focused manner. One pressing question is, if given the choice to control an audio system, would or could primates use such a system. In this study, we design an audio enrichment prototype and method for white-faced sakis that allows them to listen to different sounds in their regular zoo habitat while automatically logging their interactions. Focusing on animal-centred design, this prototype was built from low fidelity testing of different forms within the sakis’ enclosure and gathering requirements from those who care for and view the animal. This process of designing in a participatory manner with the sakis resulted in an interactive system that was shown to be viable, non-invasive, highly interactive, and easy to use in a zoo habitat. Recordings of the sakis’ interactions demonstrated that the sakis triggered traffic audio more than silence, rain sounds, zen, and electronic music. The data and method also highlight the benefit of a longitudinal study within the animals’ own environment to mitigate against the novelty effect and the day-to-day varying rhythm of the animals and the zoo environment. This study builds on animal-centred methods and design paradigms to allow the monitoring of the animals’ behaviours in zoo environments, demonstrating that useful data can be yielded from primate-controlled devices. For the Animal-Computer Interaction community, this is the first audio enrichment system used in zoo contexts within the animals own environment over a long period of time that gives the primate control over their interactions and records this automatically.


Africa ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 411-421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Fyfe

Opening ParagraphSeen in the widest perspective, 1787 is only one date among the uncounted tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of years during which the present Sierra Leone has been inhabited. Archaeologists have done disappointingly little work there. But it is clear from their findings (and by implication from findings in the rest of forest-belt West Africa) that people have lived there a very long time. Though traditional historiography always tends to present the peoples of Sierra Leone as immigrants from somewhere else, the language pattern suggests continuous occupation over a very long period. As Paul Hair (1967) has shown, there has been a striking linguistic continuity in coastal West Africa since the fifteenth century. Nor is there evidence to suggest that before that period stability and continuity were not the norm.


2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 400-414 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Alexanderson ◽  
Elisabet Näsman

This article is based on interviews with fifteen children, whose parents have addiction problems. Purpose: To contribute to in-depth understanding of children's situation when parents have ceased abusing drugs or alcohol. Method: An explorative interview study with childhood sociology and symbolic interactionism as theoretical framework. Outcome: The end of the abuse gives children space to feel how they feel, to reflect on the impact of the addiction on their health and personality, and to try changing themselves and their lives. Their need for processing may last for a long time. It can take time and be difficult to build up the relationship with the parent. Children can still feel care responsibility but also distrust and worry about relapses. However, teenagers can see opportunities to move on with their own life. If the abuse ends only for one of two parents with addiction problems, children are still affected by addiction. Conclusion: Children's need for processing in relation to the parents can both be time consuming and last for a long period of time, regardless of if the child lives with the parent or not. Children may need help for their own part but also in relation to the parent. Professionals should be encouraged to work with a family perspective, regardless of organizational divisions and if parents and children live together or not. This requires structures, procedures and resources for collaboration across organizational boundaries.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-84
Author(s):  
Vicente Esteve ◽  
Maria A. Prats

Abstract In this article, we use tests of explosive behavior in real house prices with annual data for the case of Australia for the period 1870–2020. The main contribution of this paper is the use of very long time series. It is important to use longer span data because it offers more powerful econometric results. To detect episodes of potential explosive behavior in house prices over this long period, we use the recursive unit root tests for explosiveness proposed by Phillips et al. (2011), (2015a,b). According to the results, there is a clear speculative bubble behavior in real house prices between 1997 and 2020, speculative process that has not yet been adjusted.


Author(s):  
Vitaly A. Stolbov ◽  
Victoria V. Stolbova ◽  
Sergey D. Sheykin

Temporary ponds are specific freshwater habitats in which the characteristic fauna of aquatic organisms is formed. One of the large groups of invertebrates in temporary water bodies is water mites. In this work, water mites were studied in three different types of temporary ponds in the vicinity of the city of Tyumen, Western Siberia. The studies were carried out in two periods with a long time interval between them: in 2008–2010 and 2018–2019. In total, 33 species of water mites from 7 families were identified in the studied ponds. All ponds were dominated by vernal mite species typical for this type of water bodies. Also, they were characterized by similar seasonal dynamics of numbers. The species composition and the number of mites in different ponds varied, which is associated with different physicochemical parameters and the fauna of invertebrates, which served as food objects and hosts for the adults and larvae. Despite the small size and periodic drying of the ponds, the fauna of the mites inhabiting them has changed little over the long period of time that separates the studies. Only in one pond, which became permanent due to the rise of groundwater, significant changes in acarofauna were observed. Considering such constancy of the fauna of water mites of temporary ponds, they can be used as bioindicators of the ecological state of water bodies.


Author(s):  
Maxim V. Skorokhodov ◽  

“Estate topos” is usually considered in the works of authors who had estates or for a long time were living in estates of their relatives and friends. Significantly less attention is paid to the characterization of the “estate topos” in the texts of the authors, who, due to class restrictions, were not the owners of the estates and their frequent guests. In the literature of the Russian Silver Age, these are primarily the poets of the “peasant concord” group: N. Klyuev, S. Ese nin, A. Shiryaevets, S. Klychkov and oth- ers. For them, the most important and often the earliest in time of development of the source of knowledge about the Russian estate was Russian literature. The poets got an idea of estate complexes from personal experience. Elements of these complexes become symbols, each of which has a semantic filling formed over a long period. Revolutionary events of 1917–1921 lead to the rapid death of the estate world. If Klyuev in the early post-revolutionary years welcomed this process, then for Shiryaevets the Russian estate is inseparable from peasant life, Esenin is characterized by the transfer of elements of landlord complexes to the space of the peasant estate, in the heritage of Klychkov, like some other authors, an important role is played by a garden connected not only with the landowner estate, but also with peasant life, with the Garden of Eden.


2001 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 166-166
Author(s):  
Julieta Fierro

Great cultures have created language. They have discovered its strength among other reasons for education. For a long time the Bible was one of the few books available in western culture, its influence is beyond any doubt. Many developing nations have no science books in their mother tongue. They might carry a few translations but these do not convey the local culture so it is harder for students to grasp the concepts and to build on what they know. Books, even if they are extremely simple, should be written in local languages because that will facilitate the conveying of knowledge and the creation of scientific culture. In the books examples that pertain to every day local life must be given, in particular examples that have to do with women. Women play a central role in developing nations by child bearing; if they become literate they will influence enormously the quality of their children’s education, in particular their science comprehension. In México a collection that includes astronomy books has recently been edited by the National Council for Culture and Arts. The books are small and light, which encourages middle-school students to carry them around and read them while traveling in public transportation, such as the subway. Every other page is a new subject, that carries illustrations, abstracts and conclusions. The astronomy books are on search for extraterrestrial life, the stars and the universe. These books are distributed nation-wide and are inexpensive. They have been written by Mexican astronomers.


1992 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 343-353
Author(s):  
W. R. Ward

For a long time before dramatic recent events it has been clear that the German Democratic Republic has been in die position, embarrassing to a Marxist system, of having nothing generally marketable left except (to use the jargon) ‘superstructure’. The Luther celebrations conveniendy bolstered the implicit claim of the GDR to embody Saxony’s long-delayed revenge upon Prussia; still more conveniendy, they paid handsomely. Even the Francke celebrations probably paid their way, ruinous though his Orphan House has been allowed to become. When I was in Halle, a hard-pressed government had removed the statue of Handel (originally paid for in part by English subscriptions) for head-to-foot embellishment in gold leaf, and a Handel Festival office in the town was manned throughout the year. Bach is still more crucial, both to the republic’s need to pay its way and to the competition with the Federal Republic for the possession of the national tradition. There is no counterpart in Britain to the strength of the Passion-music tradition in East Germany. The celebrations which reach their peak in Easter Week at St Thomas’s, Leipzig, are like a cross between Wembley and Wimbledon here, the difference being that the black market in tickets is organized by the State for its own benefit. If Bach research in East Germany, based either on musicology or the Church, has remained an industry of overwhelming amplitude and technical complexity, the State has had its own Bach-research collective located in Leipzig, dedicated among other things to establishing the relation between Bach and the Enlightenment, that first chapter in the Marxist history of human liberation. Now that a good proportion of the population of the GDR seems bent on liberation by leaving the republic or sinking it, the moment seems ripe to take note for non-specialist readers of some of what has been achieved there in recent years.


1973 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 235-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernst Käsemann

In the Protestant tradition the Bible has long been regarded as the sole norm for the Church. It was from this root that, in the seventeenth century, there sprang first of all ‘biblical theology’, from which New Testament theology later branched off at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Radical historical criticism too kept closely to this tradition, and F. C. Baur made such a theology the goal of all his efforts in the study of the New Testament. Since that time the question how the problem thus posed is to be tackled and solved has remained a living issue in Germany. On the other hand, the problem for a long time held no interest for other church traditions, although here too the position has changed within the last two decades. In 1950 Meinertz wrote the first Catholic exposition, while the theme was taken up in France by Bonsirven in 1951, and by Richardson in England in 1958. Popular developments along these lines were to follow.


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