Metaphor: The Lamb of God

Today David and JoAnn Seely presented an amazing lecture on the
metaphor of the lamb of god. They showed amazing art work and quotes
from the bible and other literature.

The poem "The Lamb" by William Blake illustrates many of the qualities
we view lambs as having. They devided the lecure into 3 parts, three
ways we can view the metaphor. The sacraficial lamb, the Suffering
Servant, and the Apocalyptic lamb.

They showed some amazing christian art work, a couple had melchezidek
portrayed, which I have not seen before. Abel had his sacrifice,
Melchedek had bread and wine (symbol of the sacrament) and Abraham was
sacrificing Issac in one mosaic.

Akedah is the greek word for Binding, which is what the jews call
Genesis 22 (When Abraham sacrifices Issac). There is an interesting
Jewish artwork (which is rare to find because the Jews did not make
much art because of the graven images problem) that illustrates this
event. There are two very different paintings by Carravaggio that
portray this event in two very distinct ways.

A group in Israel, the smaritans still practice animal sacrifice, but
it is culturally acceptable and a form a worship, unlike what it is
for us westerners. The children bring the lambs which they have raised
to the gathering, were people are happy, right at sundown the lambs
are sacrificed, and the people rejoice (in a good way).

We often think of death when we think of blood, but it would be more
proper to think of life. When Jesus gave his blood for us, he gave us
life. This is illustrated in Exodus 24:8 and Matt 26:28.

The image of the cross is often seen as a sad thing, when it can be
seen as a glorious thing. It is a symbol of triumph and vctory, often
the lamb (in paintings) is close to a banner, a banner uses a cross to
support the fabric of the banner. The metaphor of the lamb of god is
powerful and can change our lives.

The Long Now: Lecture on campus

I attended a lecture on campus sponsored by the Humanities Department.
The author of "The Long Now" spoke. Here are my notes:

I found the lecture interesting, even from the overflow room with only
a video feed of the slides. The main idea was that we should not be as
rushed. Time has been around a long time. He made a clock that is in
the mountains, that measures years by the thousands of years. It will
be interesting to see if he is remembered for that.

He talked about bristlecone pines how they are the oldest living
things on earth, 5000 years old. We don't know why the Jericho Tower
was built, nor Stonehenge. Perhaps they had something to do with time.

Shinto shrines in Japan are rebuilt every 20 years, because of all the
earthquakes and wet climate factors. This obviously did not happen
with Stonehenge. He also talked about the bowling ball shaped thing
that is on old globes. I have always wondered what that was! He showed
pictures of the sun's movement that demonstrated the purpose of the
object.

He showed slides of mosques in turkey that were left standing after
earthquakes because of the care in their building that had been taken.
He showed many pictures of mosques in Indonesia that were left
standing after the tsunami.

He talked about the dangers of global warming. It was interesting to
find out that Methane in sea beds can just come out, making the
atmosphere warmer. If the Ross Ice Shelf separates from Antarctica and
melts, Oceans will rise 16 feet! There is a trend that implicates that
we are moving toward a permanent El Nino effect.

Environmentalist have given Nuclear Fission a bad rap, and it is not
nearly as bad as most people think. They are creating portable
concrete containers to store nuclear waste. These are very useful, as
it delays the decision of where we will put this waste for 1000 years.