Academic literature on the topic 'Bethlehem Stars'

The Morning Song of the StarsBy Sune AukenIn 1846 Grundtvig wrote the historical hymn The Shepherds by Bethlehem (Hyrderne ved Betlehem), which describes the shepherds talking together during the night before the birth of Christ, followed by the song of the Angels. His friend, P.A. Fenger made a new version of it, removing the discussion among the shepherds (the first 12 stanzas), while keeping the song of the Angels (the last 5 stanzas). This version, Friends! God's Angel Gently Spoke (Venner! sagde Guds engel blidt) became the commonly known form of the hymn.Though Fenger’s edition is judged to be well carried out and absolutely necessary, the article argues that the two parts of the poem are intimately connected and that important points were thus lost in Fenger’s version.The shepherds discuss the present situation as compared to the past, and a young (unnamed) shepherd argues with great sorrow and almost anger that the present is horrible compared to the time of King David (as they are close to King David’s city, it is natural for them to draw him into their discussion). He has seen a young couple (who the reader perceives to be Joseph and Mary) in Bethlehem, and he thinks that their plight finally proves his point: Joseph, the descendant of King David, has come to Bethlehem by order of a heathen King far, far away, and there is not even a place where the pregnant wife can give birth to her child. Against this, an old shepherd called Jonathan argues, with a reference to God’s speech in the Book of Job, that the young shepherd does not possess the knowledge to judge: he did not hear the morning song of the stars at the Creation. Jonathan trusts the the prophecies in the Scriptures, and he argues that God is able to pronounce his ≫Let there be light≪ to the world as a ≫Let there be light again.≪As soon as Jonathan has finished his speech, the whole issue is settled by the appearance of the Angels. They tell them about the new-born Christ, and sing a song for them which sounds like the song of the stars, thus proving Jonathan right: God has repeated the creation, and a new light is born into the world.

The Human Being as a Microcosm: Grundtvig's Great Poem on Human Life’By Niels Henrik GregersenAll of Grundtvig’s hymns are about human existence but only one hymn is actually entitled ‘Human Life’ (Sang- Værk IV, 173). This long poem from 1847, widely neglected in Grundtvig scholarship, describes the human potential for growth and transformation, and does so with a consistent use of five symbols of nature: Nature as star, rock, ocean, bird and flower. Through the lens of these five natural symbols (all of which have strong Biblical allusions) Grundtvig describes seven steps of human self-transformation in the image and likeness of God.The egotistic human heart is, first, likened to the coldness of the heavenly stars. In a second step, the superiority of humanity over nature is described in terms of the human capacity to discern life’s meaning (the eye is greater than the star) and to express it in terms of language (the word is even greater than the eye). In a third step, the human being is described as comprising nature in its fullness (the star is in the eye as well as behind the brow). In a fourth step, the human being is described in its painful lack of eternity, despite its fullness compared with other created beings. In a fifth step, a Christology of longing is presented, according to which Christ comprises what the human being does not comprise: time and eternity in one person. Thus, the high star of Bethlehem leads the human mind to the low crib of the poor child, in whom nature and spirit, time and eternity were united; by contrast, human existence is temporal but is longing for eternity. In a sixth step, humanity is transformed into the image and likeness of Jesus Christ. This process finally leads, in the seventh step, to a new song, a praising of God which takes up and yet renews Psalm 8 of the Old Testament.It is argued that Grundtvig understands the human being after the model of Christ. The notion of imago dei is portrayed in similitudine Christi. According to Col 1,15 f, Christ comprises both the heavens and earth, both the visible and the invisible realms of reality. Just as Jesus Christ was God and man in one person (»distinctively, yet not separated« as it was said in the Chalcedonian formula of 431), so does the human being comprise both the natural and spiritual realm of reality. Christ is the archetypical microcosm, humanity is the ectypical microcosm who, ideally at least, combines nature and spirit.On this interpretation, Grundtvig is seen as a Christian Platonist, who consistently uses the ‘principle of plenitude’ (Arthur Lovej oy), but combines it with a strong emphasis on the human being as a microcosm of both the physical and the spiritual realms of reality. This Platonic-Christian notion of humanity as ‘double microcosm’ explains why Grundtvig, in one and the same poem, can describe human existence as being nature in its fulness, and yet as superior to nature. It also explains his critical stance vis-a-vis the Romantic philosophy of nature. Also Grundtvig’s nephew, the philosopher Heinrich Steffens, used the idea of humanity as a microcosm in his famous Prolegomena to Philosophical Lectures from 1803. But unlike Steffens, Grundtvig refuses to speak of a gradual transformation from nature to the emergence of the spirit. In Grundtvig’s view, there is no slide from nature to spirit; rather, the spiritual realm is prior to the realm of physical nature. Against this background, Grundtvig could only understand the Romantic vision of humanity as the spirit of nature as a bisected version of the full Christian idea of the human being as a microcosm. On this important point, Grundtvig departed from his fellow-Romanticists.

Abstract Background Collagen VI-related dystrophies are a subtype of congenital muscular dystrophy caused by pathogenic variants in COL6A1, COL6A2 or COL6A3 genes affecting skeletal muscles and connective tissue. The clinical phenotype ranges from the milder Bethlem myopathy to the severe Ullrich congenital muscular dystrophy (UCMD). Herein, we report the first consanguineous Sri Lankan family with two children affected with UCMD due to a novel variant in the COL6A1 gene. Case presentation Two sisters, aged 10-years and 7-years, presented with progressive, bilateral proximal muscle weakness. Both probands had delayed motor milestones and demonstrated difficulty in standing from a squatting position, climbing stairs and raising arms above the shoulders. Cognitive, language and social development were age appropriate. Examination showed proximal muscle weakness of the upper and lower extremities and hyperlaxity of the wrist and fingers in both with some variability in clinical severity noted between the two siblings. Serum creatine kinase levels were elevated, and electromyography showed low polyphasic motor unit potentials in the 10-year-old and myopathic features with short duration motor unit potentials with no polyphasia in the 7-year-old. Whole exome sequencing (WES) was performed and a novel, homozygous missense, likely pathogenic variant in exon 25 of COL6A1 gene [NM_001848: c.1667G > T;NP_001839.2:p.Gly556Val] was identified in both probands. This variant was validated by Sanger sequencing in proband 1 as well as proband 2, and the parents and an unaffected sibling were found to be heterozygote carriers for the same variant. Conclusions The findings in this family add to the expanding number of COL6A1 variants identified and provides a better understanding of the genotype-phenotype correlations associated with UCMD.