Students go to hell and back in this course that looks at depictions of the damned throughout the ages

Photo by Maxim Tajer on Unsplash


The Conversation

November 26, 2024

Title of course:

“Road to Hell: The Apocalypse in Classical and Contemporary Forms”

What prompted the idea for the course?

When Meghan R. Henning, a scholar of early Christianity, completed her 2014 book on how the concept of hell evolved in the early Christian church, she wanted to develop a course that examined how these visions of hell found their way into contemporary media. Soon after, she met Joseph Valenzano III, a communication scholar who studies religious rhetoric in film and television. The course “Road to Hell” was born in 2015 as a collaboration between the two. I’ve been teaching the course since 2020, which aligns with my research focus on intersections of film and television production with geography and American culture.

What does the course explore?

The course begins with the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead. It ends with the evangelical “hell houses” of the 21st-century United States that attempt to scare visitors into salvation with horrific visions of secular sinners being dragged into hell. It’s a chronology that spans about 3,500 years.

Along the way, the course explores other versions of the afterlife, such as the ancient Jewish concept of Sheol, Greek and Roman visions of Hades, Norse mythology’s Ragnarok, and the evolution of Christian concepts of hell and the end-times from the Gospels and the Book of Revelation through Dante’s Inferno, and how all these visions align with scholarly definitions of an apocalypse. In each of these lessons, students compare these traditions against contemporary film and television that evoke the iconography and thematic content of those apocalypses. Scene from ‘Angel Heart’ featuring Robert De Niro as Louis Cyphre, a veiled reference to ‘Lucifer.’

Why is this course relevant now?

Even outside of the Christian tradition, hell is a concept that is never far from people’s minds, and since at least the 1970s, the end-times have been a part of mainstream American discourse. Most people have an idea of what hell or the end-times look like, but few understand where these ideas come from, or how much those ideas are mediated by popular culture.

What’s a critical lesson from the course?

The images we see in books, TV shows and movies are a part of a rhetorical tradition that goes back thousands of years. Understanding where those images come from and how they are used in contemporary media helps people understand the relationship between ancient times and the present day.

What materials does the course feature?

“Hell Hath No Fury: Gender, Disability, and the Invention of Damned Bodies in Early Christian Literature,” by Meghan R. Henning.

“Enraptured by Rapture: Production Context, Biblical Interpretation, and Evangelical Eschatology in The Rapture, Left Behind, and This is the End,” an October 2024 article in the Journal of Religion & Film by Robert G. Joseph, Laura M. Tringali and Meghan R. Henning.

“Giving the Devil His Due: Satan and Cinema,” edited by Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock and Regina M. Hansen.

What will the course prepare students to do?

By the semester’s end, students complete their own analyses of their chosen ancient apocalypse and contemporary media with a final presentation. Like all good humanities courses, Road to Hell encourages its students to reach into the past in order to better understand how reality is constructed in the present.

Robert Gordon Joseph, Senior Lecturer of Communication, University of Dayton

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

JESUS WAS PALESTINIAN

How the Bible contradicts itself over key details about Jesus' birth

Photo by Michael Payne on Unsplash

The Conversation

November 26, 2024

Every Christmas, a relatively small town in the Palestinian West Bank comes center stage: Bethlehem. Jesus, according to some biblical sources, was born in this town some two millennia ago.

Yet the New Testament Gospels do not agree about the details of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem. Some do not mention Bethlehem or Jesus' birth at all.

The Gospels' different views might be hard to reconcile. But as a scholar of the New Testament, what I argue is that the Gospels offer an important insight into the Greco-Roman views of ethnic identity, including genealogies.

Today, genealogies may bring more awareness of one's family medical history or help uncover lost family members. In the Greco-Roman era, birth stories and genealogical claims were used to establish rights to rule and link individuals with purported ancestral grandeur.

Gospel of Matthew

According to the Gospel of Matthew, the first Gospel in the canon of the New Testament, Joseph and Mary were in Bethlehem when Jesus was born. The story begins with wise men who come to the city of Jerusalem after seeing a star that they interpreted as signaling the birth of a new king.

It goes on to describe their meeting with the local Jewish king named Herod, of whom they inquire about the location of Jesus' birth. The Gospel says that the star of Bethlehem subsequently leads them to a house – not a manger – where Jesus has been born to Joseph and Mary. Overjoyed, they worship Jesus and present gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. These were valuable gifts, especially frankincense and myrrh, which were costly fragrances that had medicinal use.

The Gospel explains that after their visit, Joseph has a dream where he is warned of Herod's attempt to kill baby Jesus. When the wise men went to Herod with the news that a child had been born to be the king of the Jews, he made a plan to kill all young children to remove the threat to his throne. It then mentions how Joseph, Mary and infant Jesus leave for Egypt to escape King Herod's attempt to assassinate all young children.

Matthew also says that after Herod dies from an illness, Joseph, Mary and Jesus do not return to Bethlehem. Instead, they travel north to Nazareth in Galilee, which is modern-day Nazareth in Israel.

Gospel of Luke

The Gospel of Luke, an account of Jesus' life which was written during the same period as the Gospel of Matthew, has a different version of Jesus' birth. The Gospel of Luke starts with Joseph and a pregnant Mary in Galilee. They journey to Bethlehem in response to a census that the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus required for all the Jewish people. Since Joseph was a descendant of King David, Bethlehem was the hometown where he was required to register.

The Gospel of Luke includes no flight to Egypt, no paranoid King Herod, no murder of children and no wise men visiting baby Jesus. Jesus is born in a manger because all the travelers overcrowded the guest rooms. After the birth, Joseph and Mary are visited not by wise men but shepherds, who were also overjoyed at Jesus' birth.

Luke says these shepherds were notified about Jesus' location in Bethlehem by angels. There is no guiding star in Luke's story, nor do the shepherds bring gifts to baby Jesus. Luke also mentions that Joseph, Mary and Jesus leave Bethlehem eight days after his birth and travel to Jerusalem and then to Nazareth.

The differences between Matthew and Luke are nearly impossible to reconcile, although they do share some similarities. John Meier, a scholar on the historical Jesus, explains that Jesus' “birth at Bethlehem is to be taken not as a historical fact" but as a “theological affirmation put into the form of an apparently historical narrative." In other words, the belief that Jesus was a descendant of King David led to the development of a story about Jesus' birth in Bethlehem.

Raymond Brown, another scholar on the Gospels, also states that “the two narratives are not only different – they are contrary to each other in a number of details."

Mark's and John's Gospels

What makes it more difficult is that neither the other Gospels, that of Mark and John, mentions Jesus' birth or his connection to Bethlehem.

The Gospel of Mark is the earliest account of Jesus' life, written around A.D. 60. The opening chapter of Mark says that Jesus is from “Nazareth of Galilee." This is repeated throughout the Gospel on several occasions, and Bethlehem is never mentioned.

A blind beggar in the Gospel of Mark describes Jesus as both from Nazareth and the son of David, the second king of Israel and Judah during 1010-970 B.C. But King David was not born in Nazareth, nor associated with that city. He was from Bethlehem. Yet Mark doesn't identify Jesus with the city Bethlehem.

The Gospel of John, written approximately 15 to 20 years after that of Mark, also does not associate Jesus with Bethlehem. Galilee is Jesus' hometown. Jesus finds his first disciples, does several miracles and has brothers in Galilee.

This is not to say that John was unaware of Bethlehem's significance. John mentions a debate where some Jewish people referred to the prophecy which claimed that the messiah would be a descendant of David and come from Bethlehem. But Jesus according to John's Gospel is never associated with Bethlehem, but with Galilee, and more specifically, Nazareth.

The Gospels of Mark and John reveal that they either had trouble linking Bethlehem with Jesus, did not know his birthplace, or were not concerned with this city.

These were not the only ones. Apostle Paul, who wrote the earliest documents of the New Testament, considered Jesus a descendant of David but does not associate him with Bethlehem. The Book of Revelation also affirms that Jesus was a descendant of David but does not mention Bethlehem.

An ethnic identity

During the period of Jesus' life, there were multiple perspectives on the Messiah. In one stream of Jewish thought, the Messiah was expected to be an everlasting ruler from the lineage of David. Other Jewish texts, such as the book 4 Ezra, written in the same century as the Gospels, and the Jewish sectarian Qumran literature, which is written two centuries earlier, also echo this belief.

But within the Hebrew Bible, a prophetic book called Micah, thought to be written around B.C. 722, prophesies that the messiah would come from David's hometown, Bethlehem. This text is repeated in Matthew's version. Luke mentions that Jesus is not only genealogically connected to King David, but also born in Bethlehem, “the city of David."

Genealogical claims were made for important ancient founders and political leaders. For example, Ion, the founder of the Greek colonies in Asia, was considered to be a descendant of Apollo. Alexander the Great, whose empire reached from Macedonia to India, was claimed to be a son of Hercules. Caesar Augustus, who was the first Roman emperor, was proclaimed as a descendant of Apollo. And a Jewish writer named Philo who lived in the first century wrote that Abraham and the Jewish priest and prophets were born of God.

Regardless of whether these claims were accepted at the time to be true, they shaped a person's ethnic identity, political status and claims to honor. As the Greek historian Polybius explains, the renown deeds of ancestors are “part of the heritage of posterity."

Matthew and Luke's inclusion of the city of Bethlehem contributed to the claim that Jesus was the Messiah from a Davidic lineage. They made sure that readers were aware of Jesus' genealogical connection to King David with the mention of this city. Birth stories in Bethlehem solidified the claim that Jesus was a rightful descendant of King David.

So today, when the importance of Bethlehem is heard in Christmas carols or displayed in Nativity scenes, the name of the town connects Jesus to an ancestral lineage and the prophetic hope for a new leader like King David

.

Fuller Theological Seminary is a member of the Association of Theological Schools.The ATS is a funding partner of The Conversation US.

Rodolfo Galvan Estrada III, Adjunct Assistant Professor of the New Testament, Fuller Theological Seminary

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

 

Review of James C. Ford, Atheism at the agora: a history of unbelief in ancient Greek polytheism. Routledge monographs in classical studies. London; New York: Routledge, 2023. Pp. 218. ISBN 9781032492995

Jan N . Bremmer

2024, BMCR 2024.11.35

93 Views6 Pages

1 File ▾

Religion,

Sociology of Religion,

Atheism,

Social and Cultural Anthropology,

Greek Religion,

Ancient Greek Religion,

Classics: Ancient History and Archaeology,

Ancient Athens,

Anthropology of Religion

 less ▴

Show more ▾

This is a review of James Ford's recent book on atheism in ancient Greece

https://www.academia.edu/125910988/Review_of_James_C_Ford_Atheism_at_the_agora_a_history_of_unbelief_in_ancient_Greek_polytheism_Routledge_monographs_in_classical_studies_London_New_York_Routledge_2023_Pp_218_ISBN_9781032492995?email_work_card=title

Aluminum, steel most exposed metals to Trump tariffs, Citi says

Bloomberg News | November 26, 2024 | 

Rolls of galvanized steel sheet. Stock image.

Aluminum and steel will be the most impacted metals under President-elect Donald Trump’s threat to impose 25% tariffs on imports from top suppliers Canada and Mexico, according to Citigroup analysts.


The two US trade partners are the biggest providers of the metals to the US and Trump’s plan to levy tariffs on imports of the metals will result in higher steel and aluminum prices across the US, according to analysts led by Alexander Hacking. The US gets about 70% of its aluminum from abroad, with 60% of that from Canada. Steel imports account for 24% of the American supply, with Canada providing a quarter of the amount and Mexico about 15%.


A 25% tariff as announced by Trump on Monday would likely cause steel prices to rise by $100 to $150 a short ton, the analysts said in a Nov. 26 note. For US aluminum prices, the Midwest premium over that of the London Metal Exchange could more than double to as much as 50 cents more — a move that could benefit six US smelters. Still, the analysts warned “it could take years to reconfigure this supply chain.”

“Equity investors would likely be cautious in pricing duration on any windfall profits — assuming that this is seen as a negotiating tactic/temporary impact, in our view,” the analysts wrote. “During Trump’s first term administration, we saw steel buyers stockpile on tariff headlines and would expect something similar this time around.”

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has suggested her country could respond to Trump’s threatened tariffs with levies of its own, warning the economic consequences would be dire. Given that the US is a net exporter of steel to Mexico, Citigroup said any retaliatory tariffs would hurt the US mills more, especially in sheet products.

Canada counts the US as its biggest export market for metals and minerals, with aluminum, iron and steel making up almost half of metals shipments, according to the Canadian government. The northern neighbor exported about C$59 billion ($42 billion) of metal ores, minerals and metal-and-mineral products to the US in 2022, according to Statistics Canada data.

(By Yvonne Yue Li)

Barrick says Ontario Superior Court dismisses 2022 Tanzanian security case

Reuters | November 26, 2024 | 

North Mara gold mine in Tanzania. (Image courtesy of Twiga Minerals | Instagram.)

Canada’s Barrick Gold said on Tuesday the Ontario Superior Court has dismissed a case against the miner brought by Tanzanian residents on security incidents in the country, as the courts lacked jurisdiction to consider the claims.


A group of 21 Tanzanian nationals had filed a lawsuit in Canada in November 2022, alleging that Barrick was complicit in extrajudicial killings by police guarding its North Mara mine.

Barrick owns a majority stake in North Mara Gold Mine Limited, located in northwest Tanzania, since 2019.

The lawsuit claimed that the miner “had effective and practical control” over Tanzanian police stationed at the mine.

Barrick said on Tuesday the case should not have been brought in Canada.

(By Seher Dareen; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)

The world’s biggest buyers of gold are now among East European central banks

THE GNOMES OF BELGRADE

Bloomberg News | November 28, 2024 | 

National Bank of Serbia. Image courtesy of serzhile, Flickr Commons.

Earlier this year, the Czech Republic’s central bank chief flew to London to have a look at a swelling stack of gold bars stored in the Bank of England’s concrete-encased vaults beneath Threadneedle Street.


Ales Michl’s mission to inspect the precious metal held for the Czech National Bank was part of the governor’s stated ambition to double the country’s stockpile to 100 metric tons in the next three years. It’s increased fivefold since he took office in 2022 with an aim to diversify the bank’s reserves.

Sign Up for the Precious Metals Digest
Sign Up




“We need to reduce volatility,” Michl, who grew animated when queried on the subject, told Bloomberg Television earlier this month. “And for that, we need an asset with zero correlation to stocks, and that asset is gold.”

The Czech policymaker isn’t alone in accelerating bullion purchases. Peers from Warsaw to Belgrade are joining the gold rush as a way to diversify investments and bet on future price increases, making eastern Europe one of the biggest buyers of the metal and helping to drive the gold rally.

Central banks around the world are stocking their gold arsenals as a shield against external shocks such as prospective trade wars brought on by Donald Trump’s second presidency and geopolitical tensions in Ukraine and the Middle East. But eastern European monetary guardians have made a particular show of topping up their gold piles.


In addition to Michl’s foray to London, his counterpart in Warsaw has penned a movie script on the history of Polish gold. Serbian authorities hauled their stockpile held abroad home to keep it safer in Belgrade — and help cut storage costs.

Striving for a sense of security is a powerful motive in a region that’s been ravaged by Europe’s wars of the past — and that now finds itself next door to the continent’s deadliest conflict since World War II.
‘An exclusive club’

Poland, which shares a border with Ukraine and is a staunch supporter of Kyiv’s war aims, was the largest buyer of gold globally in the second quarter, according to the World Gold Council’s latest data.

Poland’s central bank governor, Adam Glapinski, said gold and hard currency reserves are crucial to protecting the economy against catastrophic events. He increased bullion holdings to some 420 tons as of September, about half the stockpile of India or Japan.

“We are entering the exclusive club of the world’s biggest gold owners,” Glapinski gloated during a news conference last month, reinforcing his aim to raise gold’s share to 20% of all reserves.

The head of the National Bank of Poland lamented having no time to work on his draft script. A YouTube video produced by the central bank in February shows Glapinski basking in a vault lined with sealed boxes of six thousand gold bars, intoning that the stash “is the property of all Polish people.”

The Czechs are also prospective club members. The central bank in Prague boasts about $150 billion in foreign reserves — nearly half of gross domestic product — one of the world’s biggest by proportion.

Michl, whose diversification drive includes US stock purchases, has confronted some criticism for buying gold as it reached a market record this year. Monetary officials have pushed back by insisting that the long-term purchases are gradual, reducing the impact of price volatility.

With the geopolitical winds churning, gold purchases have been a good bet for monetary policymakers. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. listed the metal among top commodity trades for 2025, saying prices could extend gains during Trump’s presidency and reach $3,000 an ounce by December next year.

“Geopolitical fragmentation is favorable for gold, while gradual dollar weakening should be a further tailwind,” Bank J. Safra Sarasin said in a report from Nov. 10.

For eastern Europe’s leaders, gold is viewed as a safe harbor — and a political selling point — as they maintain often complex balancing acts between the West, Russia and China. The Hungarian central bank has boosted its gold stash by more than a 10th to 110 tons this year.

The country’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban has relished being the EU’s chief disruptor with his ties to the Kremlin and Trump.

The central bank in Budapest has also lauded the metal as a safe haven. But gold has a role in the country’s historic identity.

The Money Museum, located in one of the palaces owned by the Hungarian National Bank, features a steam locomotive fashioned from yellow bars. The sculpture, called “The Rumble,” depicts the central bank’s staff, which fled the Soviet military at the end of World War II on a train loaded with gold reserves to prevent it from falling into foreign hands.

The associations figure no less in Serbia, where President Aleksandar Vucic, who like Orban holds a firm grip on power, had the country’s stockpile held outside the country repatriated in 2021. This year, he promised to buy bullion with “every surplus of money” that’s left in state coffers “to be safe and secure in hard times.”

Serbia’s central bank governor, Jorgovanka Tabakovic, has overseen a tripling of gold reserves to 48 tons since taking office in 2012. The accumulation was handled closely with Vucic, who provided the “strategic thinking, knowledge of global geopolitical relations and information” to back the gold purchases, she said.

“Gold is gaining value and importance in times of global turbulences, especially in geopolitical conflicts and periods of high inflation,” Tabakovic said in emailed response to questions. “Unfortunately, in recent years we’ve seen both factors at play.”

(By Peter Laca, Agnieszka Barteczko and Misha Savic)

Rise of China’s Xinjiang as coal hub undercuts climate goals

Bloomberg News | November 27, 2024 |

Coal mine in China. (Reference image by Peter Van den Bossche, Wikimedia Commons)

The western region of Xinjiang is emerging as a fourth hub for Chinese coal production, creating a new well of cut-price supply just as the country tries to start weaning itself off the heavily polluting fuel.


Output has surged 22% this year, the fastest growth of any region in China, and is on pace to top the half-billion ton mark by the end of December, according to data from the statistics bureau. Production costs are cheap at about 100 yuan ($13.80) a ton, far below the national average of around 370 yuan, Citigroup Inc. said.





Xinjiang’s rise up the rankings is jarring because China may be at or near its carbon peak, and cementing that shift relies heavily on using less coal. Although President Xi Jinping has vowed to start reducing nationwide consumption from 2026, several companies have announced new projects in recent months to take advantage of the region’s cheap and plentiful supply. That could undermine plans to rein in demand.

The problem historically for miners was Xinjiang’s location, thousands of kilometers from the eastern mega-cities that have traditionally consumed the most coal. But over the past decade, energy-thirsty endeavors like aluminum smelting and the production of polysilicon, used in solar panels, have shifted westward to take advantage of cheap coal and renewables.

About 80% of Xinjiang’s coal is used locally, with the rest exported to nearby provinces like Qinghai, Gansu and Ningxia, Citigroup’s analysts including Jack Shang said in a note earlier this week.

New developments in Xinjiang include plans announced in October by China Three Gorges Renewables Group Co. for six 660-megawatt coal generators to provide backup power to a massive renewables base in the south of the region. China Energy Investment Corp. also said last month it intends to spend 170 billion yuan on an integrated plant in the northwest to convert coal into oil products, a particularly intense source of emissions.

China is by far the world’s biggest producer and consumer of coal, and its other major mining hubs include Shanxi and Inner Mongolia, which each contribute over 1 billion tons a year, and Shaanxi, where output has increased to over 700 million tons.

OUTLAW DEEP SEA MINING

India to auction first offshore minerals tranche worth more than $17.8bn

Reuters | November 28, 2024 | 

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (Image by COP26, Flickr.)

India will auction its first tranche of offshore minerals, which is worth more than 1.5 trillion rupees ($17.8 billion), a government source directly involved in the decision making told Reuters on Thursday.


A total of 13 blocks will be auctioned as part of the first tranche, including three for construction sand and another three for lime mud.

Seven out of the 13 blocks will be polymetallic nodules and have not been valued yet, the source said.

The source did not want to be identified as they are not authorized to speak to the media.

The federal mines ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters email seeking comment.

The ministry is expected to shortly announce the details of the auction.

($1 = 84.4470 Indian rupees)

(By Neha Arora; Editing by Sonia Cheema)

Oman firm replaces sanctioned Alrosa in Angolan diamond miner

Bloomberg News | November 28, 2024 | 

Credit: Catoca Mining Company

An Omani state-backed fund has acquired shares in Angola’s Catoca diamond-mining joint venture from Russia’s Alrosa PJSC.


Maaden International Investment LLC’s stake purchase was announced by Mineral Resources Minister Diamantino Azevedo on Thursday. Alrosa, which held a 41% interest in the Catoca operation, has been sanctioned by the US, EU and their allies.

Alrosa “will no longer be part of this partnership due to international sanctions imposed on Russia,” Azevedo said in the capital, Luanda. The restrictions were “affecting Angola’s credibility in the international diamond market,” he said.

While Alrosa is mainly active in Russia, it has been present in Angola since the early 1990s and helped develop Catoca – majority owned by the Angolan state – into one of the world’s largest diamond mines.

Azevedo had said earlier that the state-controlled Russian company had become a “toxic partner due to the global context.” Aysen Nikolayev, president of the Yakutia region in Russia, which owns a stake in Alrosa, said in September that the company was discussing the future of its Angolan projects and in talks with potential investors.

The Russian company vies with Anglo American Plc’s De Beers as the world’s largest producer of diamonds. Diamond prices are currently in a prolonged slump amid weak Chinese demand, too much supply and pressure from lab-grown gems.

Maaden International, which is owned by a consortium of Omani investors led by a state-owned firm, bought a 24% interest in a gold producer from Russian investors, including billionaire Alexander Nesis, in January.

Alrosa’s press service didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

(By William Clowes and Candido Mendes)

Botswana to become certifier in G7 Russian diamond ban

Reuters | November 27, 2024 | 

Stock Image

Major African diamond producer Botswana will join Antwerp as an origin certifier of rough diamonds for export to the G7 which banned imports of Russian stones from the start of this year, a joint statement said on Wednesday.


The addition of Botswana looks set to salvage implementation of the ban. The initial system would have seen all diamonds go through Europe’s diamond hub in Antwerp for verification, backed by a new tracing system.

African diamond producers Angola, Botswana and Namibia, as well as diamond miner De Beers, had said the mechanism was unfair and would hurt their economies.

“Botswana and the G7 diamond technical team are now crafting a roadmap to address any identified gaps, aiming to have the export certification node fully operational in Botswana as soon as possible next year,” the statement said.

The Group of Seven (G7) nations ban on direct Russian diamond imports took effect on Jan. 1, followed by a ban on Russia-origin diamonds via third countries from early March.

The tracing system was meant to be up and running by Sept. 1, but the EU delayed the implementation to March 2025.

(By Julia Payne; Editing by Ros Russell)

Codelco reaches contract agreement with project unit employees

Reuters | November 28, 2024 | 

Credit: Codelco

Chile’s state-owned miner Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer, said on Thursday it had reached a new collective bargaining agreement with the union in charge of developing some of its most important mines.


The new 36-month agreement with the workers from company’s projects unit affects some 620 employees and will come into effect on Dec. 1, Codelco said, without providing financial details of the new deal.

The unit runs the development of Codelco’s major projects designed to extend the life of its key mines, compensate for a drop in ore grades and boost production levels.

(By Fabian Cambero; Editing by David Evans)