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Rainbow serpents, dragons and dragon-slayers: Global traits, ancient Egyptian particulars, and alchemical echoes2024 •
Robert Blust has recently established that – globally – dragons evolved from rainbow serpents, which in turn represent a prehistoric understanding of rainbows. The present paper, which is richly illustrated, explores the “dragon-scape” of ancient Egypt in search of traits that may have survived from these earlier stages. The cryptic pD.tyw Sw and Iaau of Coffin Text 698 might betray a dim remembrance of the archaic Rainbow Taboo, which forbids one to point at a rainbow. The beneficent snake-god of the Shipwrecked Sailor preserves a comprehensive set of traits that hint at its origin in a rainbow-serpent-dragon; the same is true of the malevolent chaos-serpent Apophis. Amongst many such features, both entities are able to withhold water and both are vulnerable to thunderbolts. Many dragons can breathe/spit fire, and these may either be malevolent or upholders of maat. Most malevolent dragons are male. Most Egyptian dragons have snake-based bodies, which are often augmented by human legs/feet and/or avian wings. The explicitly winged dragons seem typically to be protective, as do serpents with a circular body configuration and/or a head at each end. Some of these, such as Mehen and his associates, seem to anticipate by millennia the ouroboros and the Rebis of European alchemy, a discipline whose magnum opus is crowned by a coincidentia oppositorum analogous to the fusion of Re with Osiris during the sun-god’s nocturnal journey. Typologically, Narmer’s serpopards, the therioanthropomorphic forms of Sobek, Renenutet and Taweret, and “the devouress” Ammut all conform to the ancient Near Eastern dragon paradigm (i.e., a mammalian body with reptilian embellishments) rather than the global default (of a reptilian body with mammalian embellishments), but – of these – only the serpopards are likely to be true Mesopotamian imports. Most female dragons are protective; Ammut is an exception, and may be a conscious priestly confection. One can trace a conceptual path from Sobek’s rapacious desire for women to the annual marriage/sacrifice of a maiden to the Nile-dragon that, in Coptic legend, is vanquished by St. George. The saint’s act is a protective intervention that itself has ancient antecedents in the spearing of Apophis by Seth, which in turn conforms to the archaic pattern of a Thunderer felling a dragon by lightning-strike or thunderbolt.
Israel/Palestine in World Religions;Whose Promised Land?
Israel/Palestine in World Religions;Whose Promised Land? (cover)2024 •
The struggle over Israel/Palestine is not just another contest by competing nationalisms or an instance of geopolitical competition. It is also about control of sacred territory that involves local Jews, Muslims, and Christians as well as worldwide faith communities, each of whom with their own interests and stake in what transpires. This book presents the multiple positions within the great monotheistic traditions and also demonstrates that secular discourses in the public square concerning ownership privileges, historical precedence, political rights, and justice that have allegedly replaced religious claims actually coexist and often complement the theological. It thereby uniquely explores the century-long tangle of secular and theological debates about Israel’s legitimacy. Whether readers support a Jewish state or are resolutely opposed, the serious and substantial scholarship of this well-reasoned and innovative book will contribute to a nuanced and better-informed understanding of a festering issue that has entered its second century on the international agenda.
We attempt to advance beyond the original metabiological model presented in the author's Proving Darwin. See also Stephen Wolfram’s important new paper: https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2024/05/why-does-biological-evolution-work-a-minimal-model-for-biological-evolution-and-other-adaptive-processes/
V. Squires (ed.), Rangeland Stewardship in Central Asia: Balancing Improved Livelihoods, Biodiversity Conservation and Land Protection, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5367-9_9, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2012
The Feed-Livestock Nexus: Livestock Development Policy in Tajikistan2012 •
Ondokuz Mayıs Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi dergisi
DESCARTES’TA TANRI FİKRİ ve TANRI’NIN VARLIĞI2022 •
2023 •
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2016 •
Integrative Medicine Research
Prescription patterns of individual herbs of traditional herbal medicine in Korea: An analysis of patients’ data from a national university EMR record2015 •
Clinical Infectious Diseases
Indication for Antibiotic Prescription Among Children Attending Primary Healthcare Services in Rural Burkina Faso2021 •
Adaptive Agents and Multi-Agents Systems
Proceedings of the fourth international conference on Autonomous agents2000 •