Journal articles on the topic 'God Gods, Egyptian'

This paper presents an analytical study of the role of creative words in ancient Egyptian religious thought. Magic was considered to be a creative word. Also, the word of God was penetrative; because the world was created by seven words spoken consecutively by the creator, and every word spoken by the gods was considered to be penetrative. Puns were among the most preferable expressions by the gods, as any sentence or expression used by the god –concerning a given place or creature- gave it a name and, subsequently, a concrete reality; and this was one of the ways often used by the creator. A certain reality emerged from every oral conversation spoken by the gods, whoever they were. Similar to words, writing entailed a magical power. Knowing the power of the word, the god Djhwty is able to transfer anything into any image he wanted. Djhwty is not the real creator, but he works on the permanence of knowledge, as he was considered the gods' memory which records words and allows the creator himself to be aware of all the existence. While the creator knows about the future, Djhwty gained a non mistaken vision from this knowledge thanks to his records. The exchange of knowledge between him and the god of gods made him an intermediary between godly knowledge and the knowledge that he suggests and the one he takes. Djhwty is not only the deity that 'has the powerful insight' (sἰʒ), but also which 'knows everything' (rḫ), as he receives the former and transmits the latter. And he who records, saves and spreads the knowledge between gods and humans. Finally, writing is considered to be the medium for such transmission, i.e. a means of transmitting the knowledge (rḫ). (Please note that this article is in Arabic)

AbstractIn De Mysteriis VIII Iamblichus gives two orderings of first principles, one in purely Neoplatonic terms drawn from his own philosophical system, and the other in the form of several Egyptian gods, glossed with Neoplatonic language again taken from his own system. The first ordering or taxis includes the Simple One and the One Existent, two of the elements of Iamblichus' realm of the One. The second taxis includes the Egyptian (H)eikton, which has now been identified with the god of magic, Heka, glossed as the One Existent. The Egyptian god Kmeph is also a member of this taxis, and is the Egyptian Kematef, a god of creation associated with the solar Amun-Re. Iamblichus refers to this god also as the Hegemon of the celestial gods, which should be equated to Helios, specifically the noeric Helios as described by Julian in his Hymn to Helios. Iamblichus describes Kmeph as an “intellect knowing himself”, and so the noeric Kmeph/Helios should also be seen as the Paternal Demiurgic Zeus, explicitly described also by Proclus as an intellect knowing himself. This notion of a self-thinking intellect may offer a solution to the problematic formulation by Proclus in his Timaeus commentary of Iamblichus' view of the Demiurgy encompassing all the noeric realm. The identification of Kmeph as the noeric Helios now also allows the first direct parallels to de Mysteriis to be found in extant Hermetica. In addition it can be inferred from the specific Neoplatonic terminology employed that the noetic Father of Demiurges, Kronos, appears, as well as the secondary Demiurgic triad of Zeus, Poseidon, and Pluto, in the forms of the Egyptian Amun, Ptah, and Osiris, thus raising the question that much of the theology documented only in Proclus might appear already to have been established by Iamblichus.

It has long been known that the Egyptian pharaoh was regarded as divine in Egyptian culture. He was the son of Re and the mediator between the gods and humankind. During the royal coronation, he was transformed into a manifestation of the god Horus. He could be referred to as antr(‘divine being’, ‘god’), and was regularly described in inscriptions as ‘the good god’ or ‘perfect god’ (ntr nfr). By the New Kingdom period, the king's divinity was believed to be imbued by his possession of a divine manifestation of the god Amun-Re called the ‘living royalka’, which came upon him at his coronation, and which was also renewed during the yearlyopetfestival held in the Luxor temple in Thebes. As late as the period of Persian domination over Egypt in the fifth centuryb.c., Egyptian temple texts continued to describe their foreign king Darius I as a divine being, owing to the ‘living royalka’. This hieroglyphic formula proclaiming the king's divinity continues for Alexander the Great and even in Ptolemaic temple reliefs.

El dios Serapis era una de las divinidades más importantes en la época de la conquista de Egipto por Alejandro Magno en 332 a.C. Este dios egipcio fue asociándose a distintos dioses griegos, helenizándose en un proceso de hibridación extendido a lo largo de la dinastía ptolemaica. Tal hibridación dio lugar a que la iconografía del dios evolucionase en función de sus características, que bien podían ser de origen egipcio o griego, y a su ámbito de influencia. La expansión del culto de este dios se debió principalmente a la promoción y al mecenazgo real, justificados por la necesidad de acercar de alguna forma a la población griega y egipcia. Tanto la iconografía como los templos indican que hubo una relación continua entre estas dos poblaciones. Un estudio en profundidad sobre este dios permitirá conocer mejor la naturaleza de estos contactos a lo largo de todo el periodo. Abastract The god Serapis was one of the most important divinities in the epoch of Alexander the Great’s conquest of Egypt, in 332 B.C. This Egyptian god became associated with different Greek gods, hellenizing itself in a process of hybridization extended along the Ptolemaic dynasty. Such hybridization resulted in an evolution of the god’s iconography according to its characteristics, whether Egyptian or Greek, and its scope of implementation. The expansion of the cult of this god was due mainly to royal promotion and patronage, justified by the need to somehow bring the Greek and Egyptian population closer. Both the iconography and the temples show that there was a continuous relationship between these two populations. An in-depth study of this god will allow to improve the knowledge of the nature of the contacts between these two populations throughout the entire period.

The Souda encyclopaedia brought into being around 1000 A.D. is a product of Byzantine humanism. This epoch is proud of its knowledge of classical antiquity, it wants to harmonize it with its own knowledge, and not make it forgotten. It equally wants to look upon the notions of ancient Egyptian religion in a correct way, and give a correct idea of them. In the encyclopaedia three variants of forwarding the Egyptian substance of myths can be detected. The first consists in regarding gods as former monarchs. It enlists the gods under the names of the Greek gods identified with them, and considers them as early monarchs of Egypt. This does not cause any difficulty as also Egyptian tradition is convinced of its first monarchs being creative gods. This in itself is not a new discovery. Earlier World chronicles described the histories of ancient peoples in a similar way; moreover it is exactly the texts of the former that Souda includes in the encyclopaedia. – The second variant mentions Egyptian gods by their own names, and describes them as being of godly character. You cannot feel any aversion in the encyclopaedia, apart sometimes from the euhemistic view, according to which a god was, in reality, an ancient monarch in whose honour a temple was erected after his death. – The third group of knowledge must, however, be a product of the new way of thinking. The editors of Souda preserve the neo-Platonist philosophers of the 5th century by including Damascus’ work. These philosophers fi ght, by means of the saint synchretism, for the preservation of the ancient religion in Egypt. The considerate description of the philosophers defending pagan cults against Christianism allows the emotional atmosphere of the epoch to unfold. The editor/editors of the encyclopaedia does/do not want to keep secret or make disappear the substance of knowledge and the way of thinking of ancient epochs. They want to preserve them and to build them into the substance of present knowledge in a way similar to the one, by which they try to connect, with each other, the traditions of diff erent peoples.

The birth story of Solomon is unique in the ancient Israelite historiography from the monarchic period. Though the birth name of the newborn child was “Solomon,” he received an additional name “Yedidyah.” The purpose of this name should be understood within three contexts: the immediate passage in 2 Samuel 12; the wider story regarding Solomon’s rise to power in 1 King 1–2; and comparable ancient Near Eastern texts that recount the claims of usurpers outside the royal line to a throne. The latter attempted to legitimize their kingship by introducing themselves as beloved or chosen by patron deities, occasionally taking a new throne-name to reflect their status vis-à-vis the god or gods. This historical and literary phenomenon is clearly reflected from Mesopotamian, Anatolian, Persian, and Egyptian writings of different periods. The discussion here reveals that in ancient Israel and in the surrounding cultures, both Semitic and non-Semitic, the method of self-legitimation by usurpers was to claim that they had divine legitimization.

The popular yet demonic guardian of ancient Egypt, Bes, combines dwarfish and leonine features, and embodies opposing traits such as a fierce and gentle demeanor, a hideous and comical appearance, serious and humorous roles, an animalistic and numinous nature. Drawing connections with similarly stunted figures, great and small cats, sacred cows, baboons, demonic monsters, universal gods and infant deities, this article will focus on the animalistic associations of the Bes figure to illustrate that this leonine dwarf encompassed a wider religious significance than apotropaic and regenerative functions alone. Bes was thought to come from afar but was always close; the leonine dwarf guarded the sun god Ra along the diurnal solar circuit; the figure protected pregnant women and newborn children; it was a dancer and musician; the figure belonged to the company of magical monsters of hybrid appearance as averter of evil and sword-wielding fighter. Exploring the human and animal, demonic and numinous aspects of this leonine dwarf will not only further our understanding of its nature and function, but also its significance and popularity.

AbstractThe theophany in Psalm xviii includes, together with the storm imagery, images of wings/flight and bows/arrows in a combination appearing nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible Hebrew (HB). On the other hand, in the iconography of the ancient Near East, these motifs are often part of a divine apparition, especially to a king in battle. One of the major examples is the winged disc, which in many cases contains the image of a god armed with a bow. We present a number of examples of the motifs of winged gods and bows from Egyptian and Neo-Assyrian sources, both iconographic and textual. In particular, the Neo-Assyrian parallels relate to the theme of the divine glory, kbd, Akk. melammu, and the divine empowerment of the king which assures his victory in battle. In the context of these examples, the theophany (vss. 8-18) and the battle scene (vss. 30, 33-43) can be understood as two perspectives on a single event involving God and the king. This approach leads us to suggest an emendation in the difficult verses, 35-36.

This article introduces five terracotta figurines acquired in Egypt by Vladimir S. Golenishchev and N. G. Ter-Mikaelyan and currently preserved at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. Three statuettes depict the child god Harpocrates with the attributes of royal power; two figurines demonstrate the identification of Harpocrates with the Greek god Eros. Most of the objects can be dated mainly to the Roman times, one is to be dated to the late Ptolemaic period. The places of finding or manufacturing of figurines are mostly unknown; however, according to a number of specific features, these could be towns of the Fayum Oasis, the Delta, and in one case — probably, Edfu. Terracotta figurines of Harpocrates with royal regalia are rare, especially in comparison with the wide-spread occurrence of terracottaе with Harpocrates holding a pot or cornucopia; all these data bring his functions as patron of fertility and defender of health to the fore. The presence of royal attributes seems to be a kind of secondary, partly decorative elements that only enhance the most popular aspects of terracotta images of Harpocrates. The type of figurines depicting Harpocrates sitting on a throne with the crown of the god Amun reproduces the iconography of small bronze sculpture. In other types of terracotta the royal attributes most frequently found are the double crown and — rarely — a nemes-headdress; the crown is usually surrounded by lotus buds, a favorite motive of Harpocrates’ iconography. The childish image of Harpocrates in the time of interaction between Eastern and Western cultures led to a natural synthesis of images of the child gods of Egyptian and Graeco-Roman worlds — Harpocrates and Eros. Apparently, such terracottaе, which had more Hellenistic than Egyptian features, were in demand by the population of different towns in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt.

Resumen: El ritual y la religión están conectados al deporte del Faraón. Durante el festival del jubileo, el rey que iba envejeciendo debía demostrar su aptitud en un ritual de carreta que también le daba nuevos poderes. En el Reino Nuevo, el Faraón es comparado con Montu, el dios de la guerra, cuando practica deporte, una calificación para asumir el título de gobernante. Inscrito en la estela de Amenofis II en la Esfinge, el texto egipcio más largo que describe el deporte, se menciona a los dioses Montu (en seis ocasiones), Amón (en cinco) y Atón (en tres), mientras que Astarté, Geb, Horus, Maat, Ra, Reshef y Seth sólo son mencionados una vez cada uno. Más aún, puede resultar sorprendente descubrir que el derecho a gobernar entre los dioses era disputado dos veces por medio de la competición deportiva, como es el caso en el relato mitológico titulado “El conflicto de Horus y Seth”.Abstract: Ritual and religion are connected to the sport of Pharaoh. During the jubilee festival, the ageing king had to demonstrate his fitness in a running ritual which also gave him new powers. In the New Kingdom, Pharaoh is compared with Month, the god of war, when practicing sport, a qualification for assuming the mantle of ruler. Enscribed on the Sphinx-stela of Amenophis II, the longest Egyptian text depicting sport, the gods Month (six times), Amun (five times) and Atum (three times) are mentioned, whereas Astarte, Geb, Horus, Maat, Ra, Reshef and Seth are only mentioned once each. Further, it may be surprising to discover that the right to rule among the gods was disputed twice by means of sporting competition, as is the case in the mythological story entitled “The Conflict of Horus and Seth”.Palabras clave: ritual, religión, deporte, Reino Nuevo, faraón, Egipto, dioses.Key words: ritual, religion, sport, New Kingdom, Pharaoh, Egypt, gods.

The stela of Paser, which the Cairo Museum possesses (JdE 43649), is one of the most important religious documents ever found in Egypt. It was unearthed in Abydos, but the exact provenance is unknown. The stela is a limestone of very mediocre quality, and measures 54×35 cm. It was purchased in Balliana, the market town of the Abydos region. The inscriptions and representations are somewhat carelessly incised. It is the single document which provides the greatest information on the cult of King Nebhepetre Ahmose I at Abydos. A good photograph is reproduced of G. Legrain “Un miracle d‘Ahmes Ier a Abydos sous le regne de Ramses II.”, in ASAE 16, 1916. It describes a land dispute put before the barque oracle of the deified Nebpehtyre Ahmose I, in the Year fourteen of the King Ramses II of the Nineteenth Dynasty, some two-hundred-and-thirty- five years following the death of Nebpehtyre Ahmose I. The names and titles of the priests and priestesses serving the cult of King Nebpehtyre Ahmose I are found on a variety of objects from Abydos, spanning the period from the early Eighteenth Dynasty into the reign of King Ramses II of the Nineteenth Dynasty. The activity of an oracle cult of the deified King during the Ramesside Period implies that significant transformations to the nature and practice of Ahmose‘s worship had taken place over time at Abydos. Perhaps the oracles are the best illustrations of the interest which the deity was believed to take in human affairs. The oracles also show how the Egyptians almost forced their gods to abandon a passive attitude towards men and to reveal their will, advice or knowledge. This was through the intermediary of the statue of the god which was asked questions, though more than one case is related where the initiative was from the god himself. Strangely enough, the practice of approaching the god and consulting him appears relatively late in Egypt, the first known instances dating from the New Kingdom. It is not necessary to conclude from this, as has sometimes been done, that the practice was originally unknown to Egypt, and was introduced from abroad. On the contrary, consultation with the god is the natural outcome of man‘s reasoning, and the rather original technique which the Egyptians devised for this purpose suggests that oracles in Egypt were of native origin. The first reference to the divine being manifested is probably that made by King Tuthmosis III, who relates how, when he was still a boy, the god Amun, in the course of a procession of his statue round the temple, noticed him and halted. (Please note that this article is in Arabic)

The author examines the process of establishment of Christian understanding of freedom of conscience and freedom of religion and tolerance. In doing so, he draws on the achievements of the Greek and Greek-Roman traditions of interpreting freedom of conscience. The time of late antiquity accounts for the time of organizational establishment and strengthening of the new religion - Christianity. Describing this period, the author notes the presence of a variety of cults and sects in which foreign gods (in particular, Egyptian and Iranian) were worshiped. In this situation, individuals were free to choose their faith and satisfy their personal need for spiritual connection with God or gods. Against the background of the fall of the authority of ancient religions, the emergence and strengthening of the Emperor cult Christians seek recognition by the authorities, the equation of rights. After all, Christianity becomes a state religion. At this time, a new religious paradigm was emerging that could be a factor in the multi-ethnic, multi-tribal, or multilingual unity of the Roman Empire. The tendency of growing interest in monotheistic, in particular Jewish, religion became noticeable: the idea of one and all-pervading God was opposed to ancient polytheism. The article reveals the peculiarities of the Christian understanding of freedom, which underlies the inner personal spiritual freedom bestowed by God. Christianity the first formulated the idea of freedom of religious conscience as freedom to choose religion. In addition to the individual dimension of freedom of conscience, Christianity has actualized the community's right to freedom of religion, freedom of outside religion, and worship. At the same time, it theoretically substantiated these rights and practically required its observance by the authorities. The legitimacy of the affirmation of the principle of freedom of religious conscience is the Milan edict of 313, which opened the union of the Christian church and the state, as well as the constitutionalization of the Christian church as a state church. This provoked persecution on religious grounds and the struggle of different movements, both within Christianity and beyond, for the right to freedom of religion, the free expression of their religious beliefs. Christianity significantly influenced the evolution of ideas about freedom of conscience, becoming the semantic nucleus of its modern understanding. However, early Christianity proved to be a force that, in the struggle for its claim, was repeatedly harassed, but also resorted to persecution of dissenters, showing intolerance to other worldviews and religions.

Dance is a human cultural activity aimed at non-verbal emotional communication, mentioned for the first time in the circle of European culture by Homer in the Iliad (8th/7th century BC). In Indian culture — the most extensive one of four contemporary civilizations of antiquity (next to Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Chinese), whose cradle is the Indus Valley Civilization — the first material evidence of the presence of dance is dated between 2300–1750 BC. It is a bronze statuette of a dancing girl, making us aware of the fact that this type of activity has accompanied people since the dawn of time, regardless of their origin and cultural affiliation. India and its oldest religion, Hinduism, have made this art highly prized because of its original, pure spiritual character. The first treatise entirely devoted to dance, entitled Natyashastra (Treatise on Performing Arts), was written according to tradition between the 2nd century BC and the 2nd century AD, although many premises indicate that its beginnings date back to the 5th century BC, and the final version — to around 5th century AD. Its author was Bharata Muni, an ancient sage, theatrologist and musicologist who allegedly received knowledge of arts from the god Brahma himself to create a symbolic representation of the world which, by showing good and evil, would persuade both the viewers and the performers to act ethically. From Natyashastra it appears that dance was created by the gods for their worship. In its most original form, dance grew out of the sacrificial ritual, hence the knowledge of it was secret, highly codified and communicated in strict confidentiality. The patron of the dance and its divine performer par excellence is the god Shiva in the aspect of Nataraja (Lord of the Dance), who in one image combines god as the creator, protector and destroyer of the universe, while simultaneously containing the Indian concept of an endless time cycle. Accurate recreation of the mythical dance initiated by Shiva guarantees that the faithful achieve salvation by overcoming sin, ignorance, and laziness represented by the demon Apasmara, on whom the god treads in a dancing trance. For the Indian Hindu culture dance has a highly important ritualistic and mystical meaning, hence it is also present along with music and singing, which is a melodic recitation of sacred verses, in all literature, from the Vedas (sacred books of Hinduism), through encyclopedic Puranas, to epics such as Mahabharata and Ramayana. Dance is indispensable to the theater as well as visual and audiovisual arts, brings relief to those in mourning and sorrow, leads to liberation from samsara (the wheel of incarnations), and is a reflection of divinity in its purest, most dynamic manifestation: movement. Thanks to dance being a rejection of oneself, entering a mystical trance, one can connect with the Absolute here on Earth and experience divinity.

This essay re-evaluates the characterization and function of Ptolemy IV Philopator in 3 Maccabees. God’s role as kingly foil to Ptolemy allows for the propagation and maintenance of Egyptian Jewish identity and cultural practice while acknowledging the earthly social order. I argue the author makes a deliberate choice not to offer a consistent earthly advocate within the narrative while emphasizing God’s direct intervention. This choice can be contextualized as a response to works such as 1 and 2 Maccabees and Greek Esther, which advocate the formation of a nation through military campaigns.

Abstract In the past, different points in time have been set as demarcating the beginning of the end of Ancient Egyptian religion. One of these is the start of the so-called “proscription” of the god Seth, whose names and images are found damaged in many of their occurrences. In previous studies, this observation was explained as the result of intentional destruction performed during the first millennium BCE, and as such as indicative of the decay of Ancient Egyptian religion at this time. However, Seth was from his earliest attestations conceived as a deity ready to perform acts of violence and disruption; under specific circumstances he needed to be banished, but his character was also valued in circumstances requiring violence. This article discusses the problems, fallacies, and arguments of interpreting the intentions behind the destruction of monuments in general and the treatment of Seth in particular. It will be argued that “negating” the image of the “negative” god was not done with malicious intent, but to highlight this god’s role, which was important for the context of the image. It will be proposed that this phenomenon proves that Egyptian religion was still vibrantly alive at that time, not fading away and dying.

The account of the battle against the Amalekites in Exodus 17.8-16 contains several contested portions, including the interpretation of the raising of Moses’ hands, the significance of the staff of God, and the number of hands Moses holds up. This article will argue that the ambiguity surrounding the presence/absence of the staff and the number of upraised hands functions to portray the episode as a transition in the narrative (a high-level Janus parallelism) in relation to the role of the divine warrior in Israelite combat. The presence of the staff of God in the one hand raised by Moses recalls the great works of God in the exodus and emphasizes divine initiative in battle, while the raising of two hands signifies prayer (as supported by parallels in the Zakkur stela and Egyptian reliefs) and looks forward to Israel fighting at its own initiative in future battles.

AbstractZebaoth is the most frequent attribute for Jhwh in the Hebrew Bible. It's connotation is god's majesty and power. Yet its etymology and original meaning are still under debate. In modern research as well as in the OT, sebāot is connected with the root sābā, meaning "host". The changing identifi cations (the hosts of Israel's army, the stars as Jhwh's heavenly hosts, all of Jhwh's creation) and the modern interpretations (esp. as an abstract plural or plural of intensity) as well as the grammatical problems of the combination "Jhwh sebāot", point to the idea, that sebāot had an non-Hebrew origin and was taken over and understood in Hebrew context. The paper then takes up and advances the suggestion of M. Görg, that sebāot has an Egyptian origin, in the sense of "belonging to/owning the throne". This is explained and advanced in its linguistic development, and in relation to the political and religio-historical situation of Canaan at the turn from the Late Bronze to the Early Iron Age, including the archaeological evidence concerning Shilo in relation to nearby Aphek, the Egyptian administrative center at that time. So, Zebaoth designates the enthroned, powerful god in his majesty; this basic understanding is held through, though understood in the light of the Hebrew word for hosts, which were identified in different—appropriate—ways.

Anti-Judaism existed in Anglo-Saxon England without the presence of actual Jewish communities. The understanding of Jews and Judaism in Anglo-Saxon England is therefore solely a textual phenomenon, a matter of stereotypes embedded in longstanding Christian cultural traditions. For instance, consider the homily De populo Israhel (written between 1002 and 1005), a condensation and translation of selections from Exodus and Numbers by the prolific monk Ælfric of Eynsham (c. 955–c. 1020). The text narrates the tribulations of the Israelites in the desert: Ælfric explains that although God ‘worhte feala wundra on ðam westene’, the Israelites were ‘wiðerræde witodlice to oft’ and angered him. The intractable attitude of God's chosen people in the desert demands an explanation; why did the Israelites spurn the heaven-sent manna and long for the repasts of their Egyptian captivity? Ælfric clarifies their behaviour through a string of typological associations. He explains that the manna ‘hæfde Þa getacnunge ures Hælendes Cristes’.

<p>Jihâd is one of the Islamic teachings which has been extensively discussed since the last few decades due to the increasing acts of violence perpetrated by some Muslims. This article tries to join this discussion by presenting Muh ammad ‘Abd al-Salâm Faraj’s concept of jihâd and his ideas of Islamic state and Caliphate by referring to his al-Farîd ah al-Ghâ’ibah (the Neglected Duty). We argue that Faraj’s basic perception of the Egyptian politics and society at the time shaped his whole concept of state and Caliphate. We hence contend that his proposal of jihâd is born out of his disappointment of the Egyptian government and even society as far as applying Islamic law is concerned. He uncompromisingly believed that the government and society are hypocrite and apostate for distancing themselves from the divine law of God. This belief prompted four members of Jihâd Organization to which Faraj belongs, to assassinate President Sadat in October 1981. By jihad, Faraj means fighting and confrontation against enemies even through bloodshed. And by enemies he means anyone who is not willing to apply God’s law on</p><p>earth. The most controversial idea that Faraj has tried to pose is that jihâd is considered to the sixth pillar of Islam, which has to be carried out by each and every member of Muslim ummah.</p>

The ancient Egyptian false-door stela of Neferiu from the Denderite nome has several unusual features: on the right jambs he boasts that “nourished (even) the great in the year of famine” and claims that the god Iqer awarded him prosperous longevity; on the left he is depicted as a portly old man; etc. How can these peculiarities be explained? During the First Intermediate Period in the Denderite nome false-door stelae were a luxury appropriate only for top officials and their nearest relatives. However, the false door of Neferiu is an exception to this rule. He is not said to have held any office, and although his ranking titles seem relatively high, we know that at that period such titles were often appropriated by provincials devoid of top positions. Thus, on account of his low “official status” (if any at all), Neferiu needed to inventively justify his moral right to his prestigious false door, and this is the purport of his inscription on its right jambs. The reference to “nourishing (even) the great” implies that in the year of famine Neferiu, owing to his wealth and generosity, turned out to be a more useful person for his town than even its top officials. His claims that he “was aggrandized beyond great men and officials” and praised by “the entire town” also put him on a par with local magnates. His prosperous longevity, “documented” by his “elderly” representation on the left, is said to have been granted by the god Iqer (in gratitude for the salvation of his townspeople, the god’s flock and providers). Meanwhile, it was mostly nomarchs and overseers of priests who attributed their good fortune to the favor of a local god. So, since Neferiu was a man useful for his town no less than its top officials, was he not – just like them – also worthy of a false-door?

At the core of the various messages that have been sent out about the Coronavirus is how to deal with an invisible threat. Revealing the invisible is however an ancient issue, one that goes back thousands of years and reoccurs throughout human history. This article is an exploration of the complex interrelationship between several long-standing visual tropes that over historical time have emerged from various cultures in response to a need to communicate invisible forces. Beginning with reflections on the poster for the International Hygiene Exhibition of 1911 held in Dresden, linking in images of an Egyptian sun god, via extramission theory and thoughts about the first drawings done through a handheld, lens-focused microscope by Robert Hooke, a series of links and interconnections are made that explore how the invisible has been represented and how the invisible virus can be read as a type of ‘dark star’ or anti-sun. Christian traditions of the use of unnatural colour to signify both invisible power and demonic possession and the way the Coronavirus has itself been depicted are compared to historical visual tropes such as the aureola and the mandorla as used in the Greek Orthodox Church to depict sacred moments that transcend time and space. From Buddhist and Christian uses of halos via images of sea-mines, a complex series of interconnections are revealed that are now being tapped into by Government-sanctioned information leaflets relating to the Coronavirus outbreak.

According to modern scientific and philosophical representations, the world is its creation as development. Because of anthroponoospherization, world development appears as a historical and spiritual development. A measure of progressive development are: 1) the completeness of the implementation of legislative tendency (directions) of development, 2) the superiority of the old to new, 3) the increase of consciousness and spiritual factors of development. In the development of society, the historical-spiritual appear to it: 1) degrees, 2) local ways (civilization) actually happen-ideas-development, which are: 1) initial with the stages of anthroposociogenesis, tribal community of collectors and hunters, the clan community of farmers and herders, 2) agrarian society with the stages of the first civilizations of the copper stone age (Ancient Egyptian, Sumerian-Babylonian, Indo, Aegean, Hatto-Smallasian Early Chinese, Ancient American) iron age from the 1st millennium BC of ancient (Middle East, Antique, Ancient Indian and Ancient Chinese) and medieval (Far Eastern, Indian, Austrian, Central Asian, Iranian-Islamic, Eastern Christian and West Christian local civilizations) and so-called industrial society with preindustrialization XVIІІ-mid. ХVІІ century, industrialization the middle of ХVІІ–ХІХ centuries, industrial first half of Twentieth century and, the middle of XX century, the globalization-information stages of development with the corresponding all of them-events-ideas-development. Stages of development are determined by their main direction. Civilizations can be defined as local socio-culturaland organisms that are inherent in the physiognomic unity of distinctive features. In the process of historical development there is a growth of conscious-spiritual factors of development (socio-cultural paradigm), mainly as the implementation of various socio-cultural projects, which prompts the creation of consciously projected, intellectually creative, idea-creative, spiritually-constructed world as it happens-idea- development. Events are actingknowledged as ideas, and ideas are projected as development. All further history of mankind is the deduction and embodiment of consciously-projected ideas. Socio-cultural projects require the realization, and that’s why historical development is somehow dejected, and is carried out as some kind of enthusiasm. Religion - faith in God through the cult, what is the act of consciousness (faith) of world creation (God) through its activation in itself (the cult). The historical-spiritual world-development are as follows: 1) the continuation of the world creation, 2) the belief of realization as a kind of locomotive, because of what 3) religious socio-cultural projects of spiritual world transformation are currently the largest. From the New Times monotheism comes into the secular phase of practicing faith. From the seventeenth century humanity passes to industrial ways of development and to the twentieth century. the world economy is formed, world politics and world spirituality that are from the middle of Twentieth century turn into the globalization-informational period of “the inventive future”, when any social and cultural projects can be implemented. There is a world civilization as a cathedral unity of national cultures. In the field of religious, there is not immorality, but newly-religions as a God's gradual faith. Innovation faith occurs as: 1) ecumenization, 2) secularization, and 3) new secular dynastic theologians. A peculiar “spiritual evaporation” of globalization processes is the maturation of the so-called universal religion. There can be no universal religion, only a universal faith can be. Universal religion is not a separate religion, but the unity of all religions of the world as its spiritual transformation. Universal religion arises as 1) activation of the creative forces of man, 2) the locomotive of socio-cultural projects that require the faith realization, 3) as a social and cultural project for the spiritual transformation of the world (God's reign, etc.). The unity of all religions in the world is currently the most expressed in theistic evolutionism, which in modern universal evolutionism receives a scientific and philosophical justification, where a new process-creative-centric image of the world for its transformation arises. Secular gradual faith passes into the development of the world, world-wide – the consciousness of the world as its development, which is achieved by the event-idea-development. The world of faith appears in three hypostases: 1) as the unity of all religions of the world as its spiritual transformation, 2) the world is not religion, but faith, and 3) acts consciousness of the world as its development. Concentration of the meanings of spiritual uplift form the so-called spiritual republics (Zion, Shambhala, mountainous Jerusalem, etc.) as our antisocial spiritual homeland. World-development of historical-spiritual appears as an intelligent world development (World building).

Abstract The article discusses the background and implications of the title “the God of Heaven” used as an epithet for YHW in Elephantine. It argues that one should look for the background in the winged symbol used in both Achaemenid and Egyptian iconography. In the Achaemenid–Egyptian context, the title “the God of Heaven” worked as a transmedial, textual reference to the winged symbol that was common to both Achaemenid and Egyptian iconography. In Egypt during the Achaemenid period, the reference of the winged symbol and the title “the God of Heaven” was ultimately the Achaemenid dynasty god Ahura Mazda and perhaps the Egyptian king-protector Horus-Behdety. In the identification of YHW with “the God of Heaven,” we witness an interpretatio persica et aegyptiaca of YHW into the supreme gods of the Achaemenids and the Egyptians.

It is not clear what an Egyptian god was, what was believed about them, or how people responded to them. This qualitative work induces the nature of gods from the fourth and third millennia B.C.E. culture with the intention of stating what Egyptians believed. Framed in a philosophical design, it explores three features. First, using language, archaeology, and iconography the essentials of the god identity are outlined for original qualification. Second, god existence is argued using classical proofs. Third, god character is examined to reveal the specific psychological archetype that dictated their behaviour in myth. Then, delineated by the essential qualities of all three features, the nature of the gods is consolidated and filtered through an Old Kingdom value structure to reveal their conception—habitual ideal individual behaviour. The ancient Egyptians had a monistic idea for god that was internalised by every individual thus creating a system of internal equality despite the external inequality.

Unlike in the New Testament whereby faith in Christ can resurrect the dead, the ancient Egyptians believed that the bereaved created the resurrection of their deceased through burial rituals and by encouraging the living to serve their kings. They thought that faith alone in god or the gods was not enough to resurrect the dead, thus they seemingly superimposed resurrection alongside burials. Using the various forms of Egyptian burial rituals and evaluated from the perspective of the Christian concept of resurrection, this researcher attempts to search for the motives behind specific Egyptian burial rituals. The researcher proposes that the activities of the bereaved or of the living over the dead were paramount in resurrecting the dead in ancient Egypt. The purpose of this research is, firstly, to explain how the Egyptian burial rituals influenced their thoughts on resurrection and, secondly, to show that the Egyptian god(s) might have depended on the living to raise the dead.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The ancient Egyptians lived their lives mainly to satisfy the interests of the dead, hence their extensive burial rituals. Whilst they believed in the power of the gods to raise the dead, there seemed to be another motive behind their burial practices which suggested that the living may have had more power to raise the dead. The power was realised in the activities of the living in the form of burials, tomb designs, mummification, food offering, and in remembering the dead. This research explains that these burial activities were relevant in resurrecting the dead without which the gods alone were not able to do that.

The article examines the concept of religious symbols, the history of the origin of religious-mystical symbols in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, their essence and content and meaning today. Also, the author’s views on the introduction of the concepts of symbol and religious symbols into scientifc circulation are expressed, various defnitions of these concepts by Western scientists are given, the role of symbols in society is determined. It is noted that in ancient Egyptian beliefs, each tribe worshiped and revered not only its own god, but also a certain animal that was somehow connected with this god, regardless of whether they were both in separate forms or zoo-anthropomorphic, that is, presented in the form religious symbol «man-animal». In particular, from the article you can learn a lot about such popular symbols as the Ankh Amenti, Ba, Shenu, Jed, The pen Maat, Urey, Ujat. Also, the work contains information about the symbols represented in the religious beliefs of Ancient Greece from various sources that have come down to us, ancient Greek epics, the works of Greek philosophers. Since the ancient Greeks and Romans often deifed several animals and birds, the moon and the sun, gods in human forms, based on the mythologies of these peoples, a comparative analysis of some religious and mystical symbols was carried out, such as Ares - Mars, Asclepius, harpies, Hermes - Mercury, Zeus - Jupiter, Nika - Victoria, Pegasus, Themis. Besides, this scientifc study reflects the scientifc views that the religious worldview of the ancient Romans was associated with agriculture, rituals deifying nature, mysticalreligious images and ancestral spirits, which were usually carried out by the head of the family. Shows the essence and content of attributes and symbols that appeared later in ancient Roman beliefs as a result of rituals of animal and plant sacrifces, worship and special rituals

Symeon of Emesa is a holy fool. When holy fools appear in public, they behave as if they were mad, but at night when they are alone with God, they act as "normal" ascetics: they pray and cry and prostate themselves. When Symeon came to Emesa, he tied a dead dog to his belt and dragged it through the city gate. In my view, Symeon with his dead dog and idiotic and enigmatic behaviour is to be understood in relation to the passion of Christ. Holy foolishness is an ascetic practice, which is located and performed in the moral wilderness of the city. When anchoritic practices of asceticism take place in the physical wilderness of the desert or other remote (from civilisation) regions, the ascetic role model is Jesus i nthe desert. When the ascetic is a holy fool of the city, the model is Jesus in Jerusalem. When the anchoritic ascetic perform, their bodies, as well as their environment (the desert), are functioning as graphic and physical testimonies to the anchorites' virtuous souls. When the holy fools perform, their bodies are similarly a part of the fluid vanity of their environment: the city. But neither city nor body has any graphic equivalence to the holy fool's soul, which is the direct opposite of his body. The dog belonging to Simeon of Emesa is to be understood in the light of this relationship between soul and body, i.e., the dog is to be understood in relation to Christian virtues regarding asceticism, in particular holy foolishness. The significance of the dog does not necessarity depend on internal references to neither cynicism, as Derek Krueger would maintain, nor to Greek or Egyptian gods, as is the opinion of Ewald Kislinger. The dead dog is a symbol of Symeon's dead body.

The objective of this paper is to outline some aspects of dwarfism in the Antiquity. The author focuses in particular on Ancient Egypt where one of the most prominent of gods – Bes – suffered from dwarfism. It was believed that little people were somehow connected to other Egyptians gods, which is why they were treated with respect and dignity. Different attitude towards little people can be seen in AncientIsrael where they were excluded from the society, as disability at the time was considered as a punishment from God. The paper also covers Ancient Greece. Aristotle was the first scholar to describe dwarfism. He noted in particular the intelligence of the little people, which according to him was not developed particularly well, compared to the rest of the society.

This article discusses the concept of divine sonship (παῖδα κυρίου) in the Book of Wisdom, chapter 2, verse 13b from the linguistic, literary,and theological perspectives. In this verse, the Bible author uses the phrase “a child/son of God” to express the unique relationship a righteous person has with God and demonstrate the consciousness of belonging to the Lord by the Jewish populace in diaspora. The aim of this paper is to explore how the author, by describing the pivotal feature of the life of the righteous in Wis 2:13b, uses the Greek terminology of his time as a means to teach about the faith. Lexical-syntactical, historical-cultural, and theological analyses are used to interpret the concept of the divine sonship in the Book of Wisdom. The patrimony of the Old Testament is taken into consideration as well. The Book of Wisdom written by a Jewish author in Egyptian Alexandria between 30 BCE – 14 CE reflects biblical theological thought, yet Pseudo-Solomon uses the terminology relevant to a Hellenistic milieu where he lives. The author teaches a younger Jewish generation in diaspora about their own religious tradition. The Jewish youth born in diaspora was more interested in contemporary philosophical/cultural trends than in the tradition of the ancestors. To attract them, the religious mentors present the topic using the conceptual terminology of the time. The concept of the divine sonship articulates the idea of a privileged status of the Jews and at the same time a responsibility that this status requires. This privileged status is traced back to the Exodus story when Israel was chosen as God’s people. As the book was written in diaspora, it also reflects the challenges the Jewish community was facing at that time. It was vital for the older generation to teach the younger generation about their ancestors and their beliefs. At the same time, the Hellenistic settings required Pseudo-Solomon to write in language that the audience spoke and to use the terminology that would yield meaning. The father-son image helps to identify the close relationship between the God and his people, mutual responsibility, and affection.

Postmodern theory, quite rightly I think, warns us against the grand narratives of modernism; the stories that purport to show history as a progression to a present or future enlightened state. Such narratives are problematic because they produce the idea that history is somehow inevitable and fixed and perfectly knowable. I want to apply this notion of the grand narrative to a highly specific case study -- a certain genre of computer strategy games: the 'god' game, which utilises the grand narrative as a innate structuring principle. The god game is a sub-genre of the strategy game -- a genre that grew out of an analogue hobby: warfare simulations and board games. When transferred to the computer, the genre took with it many of its built-in restrictions -- "playing fields" composed of hex grids, elaborate tables charting vital statistics, and a "turn-based" playing regime. The advantages of the computer were that it could automate a machine opponent for the human player to compete against -- and it also automated the various dice rolls and charts that made the games tedious to the uninitiated. Most of these warfare simulations limited their subject matter to specific historical settings -- great battles and so on --, but the transfer to the digital medium enabled more ambitious aims. Simply put, to chart and direct the course of human history. The two first and still most famous attempts to do this were Sim City and Populous. The former put the player in the role of mayor and town planner, and charged them to build and maintain a city. The latter conferred on the player Godhood -- and placed them in charge of a small band of worshippers who had to be looked after by changing the landscape and calling down volcanoes and earthquakes on rival tribes. These games look primitive today, but they developed and refined the conceptual and visual vocabulary (particularly the "gods-eye-view" -- the sense of viewing and manipulating the events on screen from a great distance that paradoxically imparted perfect detail) that virtually all their successors would utilise. It was a game (portentously) called Civilization that would first marry the god game elements and the strategic warfare elements with a codified and modular map of human history. In it the player was directed to lead a tribe (the English, the French, the Egyptians etc) throughout human history, researching new technologies, exploring, fighting, conquering, until the space age. The final goal, the telos, was to construct a spaceship that could successfully transport the player's chosen tribe to the Alpha Centauri solar system. The choice of tribe affected a few initial starting conditions -- principally the number of beginning technologies. But other than that it assumed no overriding cultural differences or imperatives and imposed on all an ahistorically westernised path of conquest and colonialism. Historical changes and events were rendered into discrete, abstracted symbols -- monuments to build and place in a player's city. And these symbols were resolutely western -- Shakespeare's Globe, Darwin's voyage on the Beagle, the Manhattan project. I don't think it is too much to suggest that computer games such as this are highly effective tools of the hegemonic apparatus, through their seductive encoding of specific historio-political models through an entertaining front end. The time is ripe to begin to develop more sophisticated and resistant reading strategies to respond to these most beguiling of games. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Nick Caldwell. "Games R US -- and Most of the Western World as Well: The Hegemony of the Strategic Computer Game." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 1.5 (1998). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9812/strat.php>. Chicago style: Nick Caldwell, "Games R US -- and Most of the Western World as Well: The Hegemony of the Strategic Computer Game," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 1, no. 5 (1998), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9812/strat.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Nick Caldwell. (1998) Games r US -- and most of the western world as well: the hegemony of the strategic computer game. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 1(5). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9812/strat.php> ([your date of access]).

Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties. —John Milton (1608-1674) Introduction The publication of 12 cartoons depicting images of Prophet Mohammed [Peace Be Upon Him] first in Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005, and later reprinted in European media and two New Zealand newspapers, sparked protests around the Muslim world. The Australian newspapers – with the exception of The Courier-Mail, which published one cartoon – refrained from reprinting the cartoons, acknowledging that depictions of the Prophet are regarded as “blasphemous by Muslims”. How is this apparent act of restraint to be assessed? Edward Said, in his book Covering Islam has acknowledged that there have been many Muslim provocations and troubling incidents by Islamic countries such as Iran, Libya, Sudan, and others in the 1980s. However, he contends that the use of the label “Islam” by non-Muslim commentators, either to explain or indiscriminately condemn “Islam”, ends up becoming a form of attack, which in turn provokes more hostility (xv-xvi). This article examines how two Australian newspapers – The Australian and The West Australian – handled the debate on the Prophet Muhammad cartoons and considers whether in the name of “free speech” it ended in “a form of attack” on Australian Muslims. It also considers the media’s treatment of Muslim Australians’ “free speech” on previous occasions. This article is drawn from the oral testimonies of Muslims of diverse ethnic background. Since 1998, as part of PhD and post-doctoral research on Muslims in Australia, the author conducted 130 face-to-face, in-depth, taped interviews of Muslims, aged 18-90, both male and female. While speaking about their settlement experience, several interviewees made unsolicited remarks about Western/Australian media, all of them making the point that Muslims were being demonised. Australian Muslims Many of Australia’s 281,578 Muslims — 1.5 per cent of the total population (Australian Bureau of Statistics) — believe that as a result of media bias, they are vilified in society as “terrorists”, and discriminated in the workplace (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission; Dreher 13; Kabir 266-277). The ABS figures support their claim of discrimination in the workplace; in 1996 the unemployment rate for Muslim Australians was 25 per cent, compared to 9 per cent for the national total. In 2001, it was reduced to 18.5 per cent, compared to 6.8 per cent for the national total, but the ratio of underprivileged positions in the labour market remained almost three times higher than for the wider community. Instead of reflecting on Muslims’ labour market issues or highlighting the social issues confronting Muslims since 9/11, some Australian media, in the name of “free speech”, reinforce negative perceptions of Muslims through images, cartoons and headlines. In 2004, one Muslim informant offered their perceptions of Australian media: I think the Australian media are quite prejudiced, and they only do show one side of the story, which is quite pro-Bush, pro-Howard, pro-war. Probably the least prejudiced media would be ABC or SBS, but the most pro-Jewish, pro-America, would be Channel Seven, Channel Nine, Channel Ten. They only ever show things from one side of the story. This article considers the validity of the Muslim interviewee’s perception that Australian media representation is one-sided. On 26 October 2005, under the headline: “Draw a Cartoon about Mohammed and You Must Die”, The Australian warned its readers: ISLAM is no laughing matter. Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, is being protected by security guards and several cartoonists have gone into hiding after the newspaper published a series of 12 cartoons about the prophet Mohammed. According to Islam, it is blasphemous to make images of the prophet. Muslim fundamentalists have threatened to bomb the paper’s offices and kill the cartoonists (17). Militant Muslims The most provocative cartoons appearing in the Danish media are probably those showing a Muhammad-like figure wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse coming out of it, or a queue of smoking suicide bombers on a cloud with an Islamic cleric saying, “Stop stop we have run out of virgins”. Another showed a blindfolded Muslim man with two veiled Muslim women standing behind him. These messages appeared to be concerned with Islam’s repression of women (Jyllands-Posten), and possibly with the American channel CBS airing an interview in August 2001 of a Palestinian Hamas activist, Muhammad Abu Wardeh, who recruited terrorists for suicide bombings in Israel. Abu Wardeh was quoted as saying: “I described to him [the suicide bomber] how God would compensate the martyr for sacrificing his life for his land. If you become a martyr, God will give you 70 virgins, 70 wives and everlasting happiness” (The Guardian). Perhaps to serve their goals, the militants have re-interpreted the verses of the Holy Quran (Sura 44:51-54; 55:56) where it is said that Muslims who perform good deeds will be blessed by the huris or “pure being” (Ali 1290-1291; 1404). However, since 9/11, it is also clear that the Muslim militant groups such as the Al-Qaeda have become the “new enemy” of the West. They have used religion to justify the terrorist acts and suicide bombings that have impacted on Western interests in New York, Washington, Bali, Madrid amongst other places. But it should be noted that there are Muslim critics, such as Pakistani-born writer, Irshad Manji, Bangladeshi-born writer Taslima Nasreen and Somalian-born Dutch parliamentarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who have been constant critics of Muslim men’s oppression of women and have urged reformation. However, their extremist fellow believers threatened them with a death sentence for their “free speech” (Chadwick). The non-Muslim Dutch film director, Theo van Gogh, also a critic of Islam and a supporter of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, advocated a reduction in immigration into Holland, especially by Muslims. Both van Gogh and Hirsi Ali – who co-scripted and co-produced the film Submission – received death threats from Muslim extremists because the film exhibited the verses of the Quran across the chest, stomach and thighs of an almost naked girl, and featured four women in see-through robes showing their breasts, with texts from the Quran daubed on their bodies, talking about the abuse they had suffered under Islam (Anon 25). Whereas there may be some justification for the claim made in the film, that some Muslim men interpret the Quran to oppress women (Doogue and Kirkwood 220), the writing of the Quranic verses on almost-naked women is surely offensive to all Muslims because the Quran teaches Muslim women to dress modestly (Sura 24: 30-31; Ali 873). On 4 November 2004, The West Australian reported that the Dutch director Theo van Gogh was murdered by a 26-year-old Dutch-Moroccan Muslim on 2 November 2004 (27). Hirsi Ali, the co-producer of the film was forced to go into hiding after van Gogh’s murder. In the face of a growing clamour from both the Dutch Muslims and the secular communities to silence her, Ayaan Hirsi Ali resigned from the Dutch Parliament in May 2006 and decided to re-settle in Washington (Jardine 2006). It should be noted that militant Muslims form a tiny but forceful minority of the 1.4 billion Muslims worldwide. The Muslim majority are moderate and peaceful (Doogue and Kirkwood 79-80). Some Muslim scholars argue that there is specific instruction in the Quran for people to apply their knowledge and arrive at whatever interpretation is of greatest benefit to the community. It may be that stricter practitioners would not agree with the moderate interpretation of the Quran and vice versa (Doogue and Kirkwood 232). Therefore, when the Western media makes a mockery of the Muslim religion or their Prophet in the name of “free speech”, or generalises all Muslims for the acts of a few through headlines or cartoons, it impacts on the Muslims residing in the West. Prophet Muhammad’s Cartoons With the above-mentioned publication of Prophet Muhammad’s cartoons in Denmark, Islamic critics charged that the cartoons were a deliberate provocation and insult to their religion, designed to incite hatred and polarise people of different faiths. In February 2006, regrettably, violent reactions took place in the Middle East, Europe and in Asia. Danish embassies were attacked and, in some instances, were set on fire. The demonstrators chanted, “With our blood and souls we defend you, O Prophet of God!”. Some replaced the Danish flag with a green one printed with the first pillar of Islam (Kalima): “There is no god but God and Mohammed is the messenger of God”. Some considered the cartoons “an unforgivable insult” that merited punishment by death (The Age). A debate on “free speech” soon emerged in newspapers throughout the world. On 7 February 2006 the editorial in The West Australian, “World Has Had Enough of Muslim Fanatics”, stated that the newspaper would not publish cartoons of Mohammad that have drawn protests from Muslims around the world. The newspaper acknowledged that depictions of the prophet are regarded as “blasphemous by Muslims” (18). However, the editorial was juxtaposed with another article “Can Liberty Survive a Clash of Cultures?”, with an image of bearded men wearing Muslim head coverings, holding Arabic placards and chanting slogans, implying the violent nature of Islam. And in the letters page of this newspaper, published on the same day, appeared the following headlines (20): Another Excuse for Muslims to Threaten Us Islam Attacked Cartoon Rage: Greatest Threat to World Peace We’re Living in Dangerous Times Why Treat Embassies with Contempt? Muslim Religion Is Not So Soft Civilised World Is Threatened The West Australian is a state-based newspaper that tends to side with the conservative Liberal party, and is designed to appeal to the “man in the street”. The West Australian did not republish the Prophet Muhammad cartoon, but for 8 days from 7 to 15 February 2006 the letters to the editor and opinion columns consistently criticised Islam and upheld “superior” Western secular values. During this period, the newspaper did publish a few letters that condemned the Danish cartoonist, including the author’s letter, which also condemned the Muslims’ attack on the embassies. But the overall message was that Western secular values were superior to Islamic values. In other words, the newspaper adopted a jingoistic posture and asserted the cultural superiority of mainstream Australians. The Danish cartoons also sparked a debate on “free speech” in Australia’s leading newspaper, The Australian, which is a national newspaper that also tends to reflect the values of the ruling national government – also the conservative Liberal party. And it followed a similar pattern of debate as The West Australian. On 14 February 2006, The Australian (13) published a reader’s criticism of The Australian for not republishing the cartoons. The author questioned whether the Muslims deserved any tolerance because their Holy Book teaches intolerance. The Koran [Quran] (22:19) says: Garments of fire have been prepared for the unbelievers. Scalding water shall be poured upon their heads, melting their skins and that which is in their bellies. Perhaps this reader did not find the three cartoons published in The Australian a few days earlier to be ‘offensive’ to the Australian Muslims. In the first, on 6 February 2006, the cartoonist Bill Leak showed that his head was chopped off by some masked people (8), implying that Muslim militants, such as the Hamas, would commit such a brutal act. The Palestinian Hamas group often appear in masks before the media. In this context, it is important to note that Israel is an ally of Australia and the United States, whereas the Hamas is Israel’s enemy whose political ideology goes against Israel’s national interest. On 25 January 2006, the Hamas won a landslide victory in the Palestine elections but Israel refused to recognise this government because Hamas has not abandoned its militant ideology (Page 13). The cartoon, therefore, probably means that the cartoonist or perhaps The Australian has taken sides on behalf of Australia’s ally Israel. In the second cartoon, on 7 February 2006, Bill Leak sketched an Arab raising his sword over a school boy who was drawing in a classroom. The caption read, “One more line and I’ll chop your hand off!” (12). And in the third, on 10 February 2006, Bill Leak sketched Mr Mohammed’s shadow holding a sword with the caption: “The unacceptable face of fanaticism”. A reporter asked: “And so, Mr Mohammed, what do you have to say about the current crisis?” to which Mr Mohammed replied, “I refuse to be drawn on the subject” (16). The cartoonist also thought that the Danish cartoons should have been republished in the Australian newspapers (Insight). Cartoons are supposed to reflect the theme of the day. Therefore, Bill Leak’s cartoons were certainly topical. But his cartoons reveal that his or The Australian’s “freedom of expression” has been one-sided, all depicting Islam as representing violence. For example, after the Bali bombing on 21 November 2002, Leak sketched two fully veiled women, one carrying explosives under her veil and asking the other, “Does my bomb look big in this”? The cartoonist’s immediate response to criticism of the cartoon in a television programme was, “inevitably, when you look at a cartoon such as that one, the first thing you’ve got to do is remember that as a daily editorial cartoonist, you’re commenting first and foremost on the events of the day. They’re very ephemeral things”. He added, “It was…drawn about three years ago after a spate of suicide bombing attacks in Israel” (Insight). Earlier events also suggested that that The Australian resolutely supports Australia’s ally, Israel. On 13-14 November 2004 Bill Leak caricatured the recently deceased Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in The Weekend Australian (18). In the cartoon, God appeared to be displeased with him and would not allow him to enter paradise. Arafat was shown with explosives strapped to his body and threatening God by saying, “A cloud to myself or the whole place goes up….”. On the other hand, on 6 January 2006 the same cartoonist sympathetically portrayed ailing Israeli leader Ariel Sharon as a decent man wearing a black suit, with God willing to accept him (10); and the next day Sharon was portrayed as “a Man of Peace” (12). Politics and Religion Thus, the anecdotal evidence so far reveals that in the name of “freedom of expression”, or “free speech” The West Australian and The Australian newspapers have taken sides – either glorifying their “superior” Western culture or taking sides on behalf of its allies. On the other hand, these print media would not tolerate the “free speech” of a Muslim leader who spoke against their ally or another religious group. From the 1980s until recently, some print media, particularly The Australian, have been critical of the Egyptian-born Muslim spiritual leader Imam Taj el din al-Hilali for his “free speech”. In 1988 the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils bestowed the title of Mufti to Imam al- Hilali, and al-Hilali was elevated to a position of national religious leadership. Al-Hilali became a controversial figure after 1988 when he gave a speech to the Muslim students at Sydney University and accused Jews of trying to control the world through “sex, then sexual perversion, then the promotion of espionage, treason and economic hoarding” (Hewett 7). The Imam started being identified as a “Muslim chief” in the news headlines once he directly criticised American foreign policy during the 1990-91 Gulf crisis. The Imam interpreted US intervention in Kuwait as a “political dictatorship” that was exploiting the Gulf crisis because it was seen as a threat to its oil supply (Hewett 7). After the Bali bombings in 2002, the Howard government distributed information on terrorism through the “Alert and Alarmed” kit as part of its campaign of public awareness. The first casualty of the “Be alert, but not alarmed” campaign was the Imam al-Hilali. On 6 January 2003, police saw a tube of plastic protruding from a passenger door window and suspected that al-Hilali might have been carrying a gun when they pulled him over for traffic infringements. Sheikh al-Hilali was charged with resisting arrest and assaulting police (Morris 1, 4). On 8 January 2003 The Australian reminded its readers “Arrest Adds to Mufti’s Mystery” (9). The same issue of The Australian portrayed the Sheikh being stripped of his clothes by two policemen. The letter page also contained some unsympathetic opinions under the headline: “Mufti Deserved No Special Treatment” (10). In January 2004, al-Hilali was again brought under the spotlight. The Australian media alleged that al-Hilali praised the suicide bombers at a Mosque in Lebanon and said that the destruction of the World Trade Center was “God’s work against oppressors” (Guillatt 24). Without further investigation, The Australian again reported his alleged inflammatory comments. Under the headline, “Muslim Leader’s Jihad Call”, it condemned al-Hilali and accused him of strongly endorsing “terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas, during his visit to Lebanon”. Federal Labor Member of Parliament Michael Danby said, “Hilali’s presence in Australia is a mistake. He and his associates must give authorities an assurance he will not assist future homicide attacks” (Chulov 1, 5). Later investigations by Sydney’s Good Weekend Magazine and SBS Television found that al-Hilali’s speech had been mistranslated (Guillatt 24). However, the selected print media that had been very critical of the Sheikh did not highlight the mistranslation. On the other hand, the Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell has been critical of Islam and is also opposed to Australia’s involvement in the Iraq war in 2003, but the print media appeared to ignore his “free speech” (Dateline). In November 2004, Dr Pell said that secular liberal democracy was empty and selfish, and Islam was emerging as an alternative world view that attracted the alienated (Zwartz 3). In May 2006, Dr Pell said that he tried to reconcile claims that Islam was a faith of peace with those that suggested the Quran legitimised the killings of non-Muslims but: In my own reading of the Koran [Quran], I began to note down invocations to violence. There are so many of them, however, that I abandoned this exercise after 50 or 60 or 70 pages (Morris). Muslim leaders regarded Dr Pell’s anti-Islam statement as “inflammatory” (Morris). However, both the newspapers, The Australian and The West Australian remained uncritical of Dr Pell’s “free speech” against Islam. Conclusion Edward Said believed that media images are informed by official definitions of Islam that serve the interests of government and business. The success of the images is not in their accuracy but in the power of the people who produce them, the triumph of which is hardly challenged. “Labels have survived many experiences and have been capable of adapting to new events, information and realities” (9). In this paper the author accepts that, in the Australian context, militant Muslims are the “enemy of the West”. However, they are also the enemy of most moderate Australian Muslims. When some selected media take sides on behalf of the hegemony, or Australia’s “allies”, and offend moderate Australian Muslims, the media’s claim of “free speech” or “freedom of expression” remains highly questionable. Muslim interviewees in this study have noted a systemic bias in some Australian media, but they are not alone in detecting this bias (see the “Abu Who?” segment of Media Watch on ABC TV, 31 July 2006). To address this concern, Australian Muslim leaders need to play an active role in monitoring the media. This might take the form of a watchdog body within the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils. If the media bias is found to be persistent, the AFIC might then recommend legislative intervention or application of existing anti-discrimination policies; alternatively, AFIC could seek sanctions from within the Australian journalistic community. One way or another this practice should be stopped. References Ali, Abdullah Yusuf. The Holy Quran: Text, Translation and Commentary. New Revised Ed. Maryland, USA: Amana Corporation, 1989. Anonymous. “Dutch Courage in Aftermath of Film-Maker’s Slaying.” The Weekend Australian 6-7 Nov. 2004. Chadwick, Alex. “The Caged Virgin: A Call for Change in Islam.” 4 June 2006 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5382547>. Chulov, Martin. “Muslim Leader’s Jihad Call.” The Australian 19 Feb. 2004. Dateline. “Cardinal George Pell Interview.” SBS TV 6 April 2005. 7 June 2006 http://news.sbs.com.au/dateline/>. Dreher, Tanya. “Targeted”, Experiences of Racism in NSW after September 11, 2001. Sydney: University of Technology, 2005. Doogue, Geraldine, and Peter Kirkwood. Tomorrow’s Islam: Understanding Age-Old Beliefs and a Modern World. Sydney: ABC Books, 2005. Insight. “Culture Clash.” SBS TV 7 March 2006. 11 June 2006 http://news.sbs.com.au/insight/archive.php>. Guillatt, Richard. “Moderate or Menace.” Sydney Morning Herald Good Weekend 21 Aug. 2004. Hewett, Tony. “Australia Exploiting Crisis: Muslim Chief.” Sydney Morning Herald 27 Nov. 1990. Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Ismaa – Listen: National Consultations on Eliminating Prejudice against Arab and Muslim Australians. Sydney: Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 2004. Jyllands-Posten. 24 Jan. 2006. http://www.di2.nu/files/Muhammad_Cartoons_Jyllands_Posten.html>. Jardine, Lisa. “Liberalism under Pressure.” BBC News 5 June 2006. 12 June 2006 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5042418.stm>. Kabir, Nahid. Muslims in Australia: Immigration, Race Relations and Cultural History. London: Kegan Paul, 2005. Media Watch. “Abu Who?” ABC Television 31 July 2006. http://abc.net.au/mediawatch/>. Morris, Linda. “Imam Facing Charges after Row with Police.” Sydney Morning Herald 7 Jan. 2003. Morris, Linda. “Pell Challenges Islam – O Ye, of Little Tolerant Faith.” Sydney Morning Herald 5 May 2006. Page, Jeremy. “Russia May Sell Arms to Hamas.” The Australian 18 Feb. 2006. Said, Edward. Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World. London: Vintage, 1981, 1997. Submission. “Film Clip from Short Submission.” Submission. 11 June 2006. http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2655656?htv=12> The Age. “Embassies Torched over Cartoons.” 5 Feb. 2006. http://www.theage.com.au>. The Guardian. “Virgins? What Virgins?” 12 Jan. 2002. 4 June 2006 http://www.guardian.co.uk/>. Zwartz, Barney. “Islam Could Be New Communism, Pell Tells US Audience.” Sydney Morning Herald 12 Nov. 2004. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Kabir, Nahid. "Depiction of Muslims in Selected Australian Media: Free Speech or Taking Sides." M/C Journal 9.4 (2006). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0609/1-kabir.php>. APA Style Kabir, N. (Sep. 2006) "Depiction of Muslims in Selected Australian Media: Free Speech or Taking Sides," M/C Journal, 9(4). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0609/1-kabir.php>.

The computer game is perhaps the fastest growing and most quickly evolving cultural leisure technology in the western world. Invented as a form just under 40 years ago with the creation of Space War at MIT, computer and video games collectively account for hundreds of billions of dollars in sales across the world. And yet critical analysis of this cultural form is still in its infancy. Perhaps the sheer speed of the development of games may account for this. Thirty years ago, strategy games were screens of text instructions and a prompt where you could type a weather forecast. Today pretty much all games are flawlessly shaded and rendered polygons. The technology of film has barely changed at all in the same period. In any case, the critical study of games began in the eighties. The focus initially was on the psychology of the gamer. Most game players were children and teenagers during this period, and the focussing of their leisure time on this new and strange computer technology became a source of extreme moral panic for educators, parents and researchers alike. Later, research into the cultures of gaming would become more nuanced, and begin to detail the semiotics and narrative structures of games. It is in that kind of frame that this article is positioned. I want to look closely at a particular strategy game series, The Settlers. Firstly, however, a description of the strategy game genre. Strategy games put the player into a simulated inhabited environment and give the player almost total control over that environment and its simulated inhabitants. The strategy game has many genres, including the simulation game and the god game, but the sub-genre I will focus on in this paper is the real-time strategy game. The game requires the player to develop a functioning economy, geared around the production of weapons and armies, which are sent out to combat neighbouring tribes or armies. Real-time games typically give greater tactical control of the armies to the player, and slightly less detailed economic control. The aim is basically to amass as much gold or whatever as possible to buy as many troops as possible. However, the game I am about to discuss is, in addition to being a simple game of war, a very interesting simulation of economic and logistical constraints. The Settlers is series of fantasy computer strategy games developed by the German game design firm Blue Byte. The three extant Settlers games can be considered an evolution of game design rather than a continuing narrative, so, given the time constraints, for the purposes of this paper I will address only one game in the series, the most recently released title, The Settlers 3. The Settlers 3 tells the story of three expansionist empires, the Romans, the Egyptians, and the Asians, who have been thrust onto an uninhabited continent by the gods of their peoples to determine who is the fittest to survive. In other words, the game is founded from the beginning on a socio-Darwinian premise. In each level of the game, the settlers of each tribe must, under their player's direction, build an efficient and well maintained colony with a fully operating economy in order to achieve a set objective, which is usually to wipe out the opposing tribes by building up a large army, though it may be also to amass a predetermined level of a particular resource. Each level begins with about twenty settlers, a small guard hut to define the limits of the borders and a barely adequate supply of wooden planks, stone slabs and tools with which to begin to construct the economy. The player chooses building types from a menu and places them on the screen. Immediately the appropriate number of settlers walk across the landscape, leaving visible tracks in their wake, to pick up tools and supplies in order to construct the building. Typically, the player will order the construction of a woodcutter's hut, a sawmill, a stone cutter and a forester to ensure the steady flow of the basic construction materials to the rest of the colony. From this point more guard huts and towers are constructed to expand into new territory, and farms are built to feed the miners. Once constructed, the mine produce coal, gold and ore, which is sent down to the smelters to make iron bars (to make swords and tools) and gold bars (to pay the troops). Luxuries such as beer and wine are produced as a sacrifice to the gods. This results in rewards such as magical spells and promotion of the soldiers. Occasionally, incursions of enemy troops must be dealt with -- if they take a guard tower in battle, the borders, represented by lines of coloured flags, shrink, leading to the collapse and destruction of any building outside the boundaries. Finally, sufficient swords, bows and spears are produced, the soldiers are promoted, and they set off to pillage and destroy their neighbours' territory. If the previously mentioned enemy incursions were frequent enough, the final conflict where the player's warriors brutally annihilate the enemy is tremendously satisfying. The problematics of that particular game construct are left as an exercise for the audience. When territory is taken, the villages of the enemy go up in smoke and their resources are left lying on the ground, for the settlers to pick up and use for the benefit of the player. One of the things that make the game so fascinating to play is the complexity of the simulation. It must be said right away that the game employs many abstractions to make it playable and not utterly boring. For instance, only the miners out of all the settlers actually need food, and the mechanism by which new settlers are actually created is a bit vague (you construct a building called a "residence", and when it's completed, new setters simply troop out. And there only seem to be male settlers, unless you play the Amazons). Nonetheless, the game still quite explicitly details things most games of its type gloss right over. Unlike most games, pulling out all the stops in production just leads to bottlenecks where the transportation infrastructure can't get the goods to their destinations. Production levels have to be carefully monitored and throttled back where necessary to ensure the smooth flow of resources from A to B, C and D. Resources themselves -- coal lumps, gold bricks, fish, loaves of bread, swords --are modelled individually: you can actually track the process whereby an individual sheaf of wheat is harvested, picked up by a settler, carried off to the mill, turned into flour, sent to the bakery, made into a loaf of bread, and delivered to the coal miner for consumption. With its attention to the gritty detail of getting stuff from one place to the next, The Settlers is one of the very few truly logistically precise strategy games. Before I begin the analysis proper, I want to introduce some key terms that I'll be using a bit idiosyncratically in this paper. I'll be talking about gameplay quite a bit. Gameplay is a bit of a sliding signifier in the discourse of gaming theory -- loosely speaking it's that indefinable something that gets a player heated up about a game and keeps them playing for days on end. But here I want to be more precise. I'll offer a strategic definition. Gameplay is a way of quantifying the operations of a kind of economy of desire that operates between the player and the game itself. This economy has, as its constitutive elements, such factors as attention span, pleasure, ratio of novelty to repetition. These elements are in constant circulation in a game and the resulting economy is responsible for a good deal of the dynamism of the experience: in other words, the gameplay. What I want to focus on in this paper is what comes from the precise moment where two, quite central impulses of gameplay are in perfect balance, just before the first surrenders its grasp and the second takes over. The first impulse of play consists of two elements -- the visual presentation of the game, i.e. the pretty pictures that draw you in, and the narrative pretext of the story, the thing that gives what you are doing some kind of sense. It is on these two elements that classical ideological analysis of gameplay is typically founded. For instance, the archetypal platform game where all the female characters are helpless maidens who only exist as a way of getting the masculine protagonist into the action. The second impulse of gameplay is what might be called the "process", the somewhat under-theorised state where the visual trappings of the game and the motivating story line have slipped into the background, leaving only the sense of seamless integration of the player into the game's cybernetic feedback loop. The visual presentation and narrative pretext of The Settlers draws the player into a familiar fantasy of pre-modern existence. Presented to the player is a beautifully rendered virgin wilderness, filled with rolling hills, magnificent mountain ranges and vast forests, resounding with the sounds of the stream and brook, and the rustling of the wildlife. Into this wilderness the player must project an empire. That empire will consist of an elaborately detailed network (and I use the term deliberately) of cottage industries, labourers, paths, commodities, resources, defensive structures and places of worship. Real-world economic activities are consummately simulated as complex flows of information. The simulation is always fascinating to watch. Each node in this network, be it a fisherman's hut, a bakery, or a smelter, is exquisitely rendered, and full of picturesque, yet highly functional, animation. For instance, the process of a fisherman leaving his hut, going to a stream, setting his line, and catching a fish is visually expressive and lively, but it also is a specific bottleneck in the production process -- it takes a finite time, during which the carrier settlers stand around waiting for produce to deliver. This, then, is the game's crucial dialectic. What is depicted is a visually sumptuous, idyllic existence, but on closer inspection is a model of constant, uninterrupted, backbreaking labour. There are not even demarcations of day and night in the game -- life is perpetually midday and the working day will last forever. To put it less simply, perhaps, the game purposefully reifies the human social condition as being a reflexively structured mechanism of economic production under the guise of an ideologically idyllic pastoral paradise. It positions the player as not merely complicit in this mechanism but the fundamental point of determination within it. The balancing moment then is the point where the player begins to ignore or take for granted the visual lushness of the game's graphics and to focus instead on the underlying system, to internalise the lessons of the game -- the particular ideological and discursive assumptions about how economic and political systems successfully operate -- and to apply these lessons to the correct playing of the game, almost like a transition between REM dream-state sleep and deep sleep. And the analogy to sleep is not entirely specious -- critics and players alike have noted the way time stops when you play a game, with whole nights and days seemingly swallowed up in seconds of game time. The type of focus I am describing is not an interpretative one -- players are not expected to gain new insights of meaning from the act of playing at this new level of intensity, instead they are simply to blend their thoughts, actions and reactions with the dynamic processes of the game system. In a sense, a computer game is less a textual form than it is a kind of tool: in the same way proficient word processor users becomes so fluent in the operations of their software that the trappings -- toolbars, menus, mouse -- become secondary to the smooth continuous process of churning out words. Such a relationship does not exactly inspire thoughtful contemplation about the repressive qualities of Microsoft's hegemonic domination of office software, and the similar relationship with the computer game makes any kind of reflexivity about the gameplay's cultural referents seem simply counterproductive. It's an interesting dilemma for the theorist of gaming -- the point at which the underlying structure comes most clearly into focus during the state of play/analysis is also the moment when one is most resistant to the need to draw the wider connections. In this paper, I've tried to take a suggestive approach, to point out some of the ways that ideological assumptions about culture and production can be actualised in a simulated environment. And hopefully, I've also pointed out some of the pitfalls in a purely ideological analysis of games. Games are never just about the ideology. A nuanced analysis from a cultural studies point of view must also take into account the quite complex ways games not only articulate certain ideologies but they also complicate them. Beyond that, analysis must take into account the ways that games go beyond the paradigm of textuality and begin to take on the aspect of being whole systems of symbolic manipulation and transmission. It is only at this point that any kind of comprehensive and theoretically precise engagement with games as cultural texts and processes can be seriously begun. References Crawford, Chris. The Art of Computer Game Design. Berkeley, California: Osborne / McGraw-Hill, 1984. Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: HarperCollins, 1990. Fleming, Dan. Powerplay: Toys as Popular Culture. Manchester and New York: Manchester UP, 1996. Freidman, Ted. "Making Sense of Software: Computer Games and Interactive Textuality." CyberSociety: Computer-Mediated Communication and Community. Ed. Steven G. Jones. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1995. 73-89. Virilio, Paul. War and Cinema: The Logistics of Perception. Trans. Patrick Camiller. London and New York: Verso, 1989. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Nick Caldwell. "Settler Stories: Representational Ideologies in Computer Strategy Gaming." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3.5 (2000). [your date of access] <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0010/settlers.php>. Chicago style: Nick Caldwell, "Settler Stories: Representational Ideologies in Computer Strategy Gaming," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3, no. 5 (2000), <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0010/settlers.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Nick Caldwell. (2000) Settler Stories: Representational Ideologies in Computer Strategy Gaming. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3(5). <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0010/settlers.php> ([your date of access]).