Journal articles on the topic 'Serpent worship'

Serpent culture is found in many religions and cultural groups across the world from time immemorial in different forms, i.e. art, festivals, and worship, due to religious and ecological diversities. It is associated with water, earth, trees, longevity, fertility, and is considered a killer, protector, or both. This article explains the culture related to serpents found in Nepal, especially the Maithili and Tharu people of Terai. This article explains the serpent culture of Nepalese terai. The emic view of serpent belief and practices is supported by etic perception during the collection and analysis of data. It is found that serpent culture denotes the belief system, gender role, leadership practices, social bonding, art skills, understanding of nature and natural objects, human desire, cosmology, and above all, it is the system of preservation of tangible and intangible culture.

Abstract This paper shows that the account of Moses’ brazen serpent as taught by the Nephite leaders presents parallels to the symbol and name of the Mesoamerican god, "Quetzalcoatl." It further shows that the term flying, used in the Nephite but not in the biblical account of the fiery serpent, has parallels in the Old and New Worlds.

The discoveries at Cape Beikush allow us to significantly expand and refine our understanding of the nature and extent of local influence on the archaic cult of Achilles in the Northern Black Sea region. The decisive factor in the formation of the archaic cult of Achilles in the Northern Black Sea region at the initial stage was the meeting of the colonists with a powerful ideological phenomenon – the veneration of the local tribes (relic Aryans) almost continuously, since the IV millennium BCE, AXI-the Serpent – the first Ancestor and personification of the Indo-European worldview born in the Northern Black Sea region. The earliest archaeological evidence of the Achilles worship in the Northern Black Sea region dates from the end of the VII – early VI centuries BC and is associated with a cult complex of Achilles in the Lower Buh region (‘Lower Pobuzhzhia’), combining Berezan’, Beikush and Velyka Chornomorka II. This allows us to distinguish a special and earliest stage in the development of the cult of Achilles in the Northern Black Sea region: the end of the VII – early V centuries BCE, when the sanctuary of Achilles on Beikush ceased to exist. After that, in other places of Achilles’ worship in the Northern Black Sea region, the «Serpent» features of the cult of Achilles on Beikush were no longer repeated. In other words, the image and cult of Achilles was no longer associated with serpents. This indicates a gradual loss of syncretism of these images and cults due to the decline of local, «barbaric» influence on them after the 5th century BCE. This is also due to the fact that AXI-the «Serpent-ancestor» was for the Greek colonists, obviously, an alien deity. The subsequent transfer of the center of the veneration of Achilles to the Island of Levke seems to be the realization of the need to bring the cult important for further colonization (to completely abandon the cult of AXI-the Serpent – the «master» of the Northern Black Sea Region to the colonists, surrounded by «barbarians», was clearly unprofitable) in accordance with the already existing legends about the White Island and Homer’s Achilles, as well as with the «norms» of the Delphic oracle, which clearly did not meet the «barbarian» Beikush. The appearance in Roman times of the cult of Achilles Pontarchus – the «Lord of the Black Sea» and God cannot be explained by anything other than the great importance of the prototype of Achilles in the Northern Black Sea region in previous times, from the beginning of the formation of the Indo-European community.

Abstract. Interpretation of Serpent Decorative Patterns in the Panataran Naga Temple: A Peircean Semiotic Study. Decorative patterns are an integral component of temple architecture. Their presence is to depict the identity and significance of a temple. Among the various decorative patterns, mythological creatures such as serpents are typical features used in temple architecture. This is evident in the Naga Temple located in the Panataran Temple Complex. This research examines the decorative patterns found in the Naga Temple, along with their meanings, which can be linked to the function of the Naga Temple. This effort was undertaken by interpreting the meaning of the decorative patterns at Naga Temple using Peirce’s Semiotic theory, referencing the story of Samudramanthana from the Adiparwa Book. It is important to note that the presence of serpent motifs at Naga Temple does not entirely depict the Samudramanthana story. This argument is supported by the absence of the depiction of Asuras, which are integral to the Samudramanthana narrative. However, the presence of a serpent figure in the decorative patterns of the Naga Temple symbolises the mythology surrounding serpent creatures. This is related to the serpent being a sacred intermediary creature between the upper and lower worlds. The interpretation of the serpent decorative patterns then influences the function of the Naga Temple. Through the presence of signs in the form of serpent decorative patterns, the Naga Temple can be interpreted as a “connecting place” that bridges profane and sacred activities in the worship rites within the Panataran Temple Complex. Keywords: Naga Temple, Serpent Decorative Patterns, Semiotics, Connecting Structure Abstrak. Ragam hias merupakan salah satu komponen dalam arsitektur candi. Keberadaan ragam hias menjadi sebuah penyerta yang dapat menggambarkan identitas dan pemaknaan sebuah candi. Diantara variasi ragam hias, makhluk mitologi berupa naga menjadi ragam hias khas yang digunakan dalam arsitektur candi. Hal ini tampak pada Candi Naga yang berada di Kompleks Percandian Panataran. Penelitian ini menelisik bagaimana variasi ragam hias yang ada di Candi Naga, beserta pemaknaannya yang dapat dikaitkan dengan fungsi Candi Naga. Upaya tersebut dilakukan dengan menginterpretasi makna ragam hias di Candi Naga menggunakan teori Semiotik Peirce dengan mengacu cerita Samudramanthana yang terdapat pada Kitab Adiparwa. Keberadaan ragam hias Naga pada Candi Naga tidak sepenuhnya merupakan penggambaran atas cerita Samudramanthana. Argumen tersebut didukung fakta bahwa tidak adanya penggambaran Asura yang menjadi pelengkap cerita Samudramanthana. Ikon naga sendiri dalam ragam hias di Candi Naga merupakan tanda dari adanya mitologi mengenai makhluk naga. Hal ini berkaitan dengan hewan naga yang menjadi makhluk perantara dunia atas dan bawah yang disucikan oleh masyarakat. Adanya interpretasi ragam hias naga tersebut kemudian mempengaruhi fungsi Candi Naga. Oleh sebab itu, Candi Naga dapat dimaknai sebagai “tempat penghubung” yang menghubungkan aktivitas profan dan sakral dalam ritus peribadatan di Kompleks Percandian Panataran. Kata Kunci: Bangunan Penghubung, Candi Naga, Ragam Hias Naga, Semiotik

The article considers a variant for the origin of the Serpent of brass also known as Nehushtan. Following the hypothesis of the pre-monotheistic origin of the image, it can be assumed that the Serpent of brass was not originally an attribute of Yahve, but was an idol or votive of one of the Semitic deities associated with healing. The most appropriate god in terms of the worship time and common attributes is the Syro-Canaanite Ḥorān, whose veneration was widespread during the late Bronze Age. Being a deity representing the forces of primordial chaos, Ḥorān was considered the creator of poisonous snakes and, possibly, was originally a dragon himself. According to the currently known cuneiform texts of Ugarit, Ḥorān was a conjurer, healer and defender against snakebites. Also, one of the most important functions of Ḥorān was to protect the royal power granted by the gods from the unworthy. The name of the deity Ḥorān is etymologically close to the creature Seraph in Hebrew, which in turn was represented as a flying, fire-breathing serpent. In the Tanakh, traces of the existence of Ḥorān in the culture of the Jews are preserved in the form of stable phraseological units using his name, while each time he appears in the context of the measure of God’s righteous judgment: all-consuming and incinerating, like fire, anger, striking the wicked, but not scorching the righteous. All of the above suggests a fairly ancient origin of the Serpent of brass and its connection with the Ḥorān as an independent pagan deity or spirit in the service of the Lord.

In South Asia, cobras are the animals most dangerous to humans—as humans are to cobras. Paradoxically, one threat to cobras is their worship by feeding them milk, which is harmful to them, but religiously prescribed as an act of love and tenderness towards a deity. Across cultural and religious contexts, the Nāgas, mostly cobra-shaped beings, are prominent among Hindu and Buddhist deities. Are they seen as animals? Doing ethnographic fieldwork on a Himalayan female Nāga Goddess, this question has long accompanied me during my participant observation and interviews, and I have found at least as many possible answers as I have had interview partners. In this article, I trace the ambiguous relationship between humans, serpents and serpent deities through the classical Sanskrit literature, Hindu and Buddhist iconographies and the retelling of myths in modern movies, short stories, and fantasy novels. In these narrations and portrayals, Nāgas are often “real” snakes, i.e., members of the animal kingdom—only bigger, shape-shifting or multi-headed and, curiously, thirsty for milk. The article focuses on those traits of Nāgas which set them apart from animals, and on those traits that characterize them as snakes.

Did Hezekiah carry out religious reforms aimed at centralizing worship in Jerusalem? It is difficult to give an unequivocal answer to this question. The description of reforms is laconic and stereotypical (2 Kgs 18:4.22). The historical circumstances, however, seem to favor its recognition as historical. Also archaeological research, although not confirming unequivocally, does not allow to deny such a possibility either, even if many researchers believe that there was no massive influx of migrants from the north and that the population growth towards the end of 8th c. BCE was a natural demographic process. Texts devoted to the monarchy (1–2 Sam; 1–2 Kgs) and to the centralization of worship (Deut 12) fit better with the situation at the end of the 7th c. BCE (time of Josiah), both when we look at them from the point of view of literary criticism and from the perspective of political and social situation. However, the figure of Hezekiah could be considered by the authors of the 7th c. BCE as a precursor of the reforms of Josiah’s time due to the “historical” information about his destruction of the serpent cult of Nehushtan.

Kavu" or the holy Sarpa Kavu (meaning Sacred Grove of the Serpent) is a typically small traditional grove of trees seen in the Kerala state of South India. These pristine groves usually have representations of several Naga Devatas (serpent gods), which were worshipped by the joint families or big houses (taravads). This was part of Nagaradhana (snake worship) which was prevalent among Keralites during past centuries. The kayos' represent the locally deep-rooted tradition of worshipping plants, animals and local deities. They are mostly concentrated in Kerala's entire region especially in the North Malabar region. The kavus; however, are facing threats byway of changes in values as well as socio-economic pressures, despite the weight of traditional beliefs and rituals associated with them. Large scale conversion of land, decline of traditional agrarian values, socio­economic factors, population pressure and shortage of land have already made a dent on the rich ecosystem of 'kavus'. A large number of 'sarpa kavus', that were protected and maintained by upper caste communities, disappeared, due to the disintegration of families that protected them. In some cases, this led to their renovation and conversion into temples. There are reports stating that the 'kavus' suffered large scale degradation in the state due to high percentage of settler migration. These rich ecological repositories that also function as traditional water-harvesting system are not being given due importance. Most of the 'kavus' are located near agricultural lands; this indicates their role in an agrarian society. Most of the 'kavus' have perennial water resources rich in organic matter that enhance fertility of agriculture lands. Community protection alone can save the ' kavus'. Only through solid initiatives, it's possible to create awareness about 'kavus' ecological value among the communities (stakeholders); traditionally protecting the 'kavus' and the public. Sanctity of the 'kavus' may have been sustained by beliefs. No less important is their protection by highlighting their ecological importance.

New Orleans voodoo, also called crole voodoo, is an amalgamation of an honoring of the spirits of the dead, a respect for the elderly and the spiritual life, African knowledge of herbs and charms, and European elements of Catholicism. It is a religion of ancestor worship that is unknown to us, and that we are not necessarily exposed to or included in. As such, it is something foreign to our own belief system. Being ignorant about what the religion entails, people in general stigmatize it as something not worthy to discuss, nor to practice. Unfortunately, popular novels like Voodoo Season (2006) and Voodoo Dreams (1995) by Jowell Parker Rhodes, and especially Hollywoods production of horror movies such as White Zombie (1932), I Walked with a Zombie (1943), The Serpent and the Rainbow (1987), Voodoo Dawn (1998) or Hoodoo for Voodoo (2006), do not provide the public with a truthful background of the African, Haitian, or New Orleanean voodoo tradition. All too often these fictional sources fuel the already existing misrepresentations of the religion and represent it as something shadowy, highly secretive, and fearful. This differentiated introduction to New Orleans voodoo via Iain Softleys film The Skeleton Key (2004) exposes students to the major characteristics of the religion, makes them aware of popular cultures falsified voodoo construct, and teaches them how to deconstruct it. This interactive approach is student centered, appeals to their individual intelligences and learning styles, promotes critical thinking, and trains analytical skills.

Most of Oscar Wilde’s works focus on the high society (including the royalty), which is portrayed as artificial, imitative, and ludic. These characteristics are epitomized in the process of collecting (artificial) rarities (The Picture of Dorian Gray, Salome, The Young King), or in the passion for performance and mystification (The Birthday of the Infanta, The Sphinx Without a Secret, The Importance of Being Ernest). As opposed to the “high society”, Wilde shows the natural (or ancient) milieu, which is firmer and healthier, but devoid of aesthetic perfection. Paradoxically, the high society represents external, corporeal, aesthetic form of life, while the natural milieu means the spiritual and ethic one. Wilde shows the aesthetic or ethic perfection as a fatal and dangerous phenomenon, since fully expressing themself in one, the person has to abandon the other. As a result, a good-looking person becomes a paragon of immorality, while a morally upstanding one looks too much ugly). Wilde is interested in the technique of the interaction between the opposites, rather than in the depiction of the absolute corporeal or moral perfection. The article aims at showing the two forms of interaction between “the civilization” and “the nature”. The positive model shows a profitable exchange: one side gives exactly as much as the other side receives (i.e. the rescued Hare for the rescued Star-Child; the peace of the Canterville Ghost for Virginia’s fortunate marriage). This is the case when the characters, who have some problems with their bodies (the transparent Ghost or the serpent-like Star-Child) gain the distinct shape, as if passing from the ancient to the modern state. In the cause of mutually beneficial exchange, the happy end (in Wilde’s terms) is possible. In the negative model, we can clearly see the imbalance between the two sides: one side gives more, but receives less, while the other becomes the figure of worship. Gradually, the influence of one of the sides grows: the “predator”, like the vampire, consumes and exhausts their “victim”. Instead of the modern exchange, the relationships between “the civilization” and “the nature” transform into the ancient ritual of the sacrifice, or idol worship (Basil, Nightingale, Jokanaan), with the members of this process returning to the ancient - formless - state.

The ancients thought that snakes had a unique power to kill because of their venomous nature. That is why serpents are worshiped as gods. The people who worship are called Nagas. Later they were portrayed as cobra-shaped men. The Aryans captured their place and the war arises. In mythology, epics and religions, the practice of combining snakes is found in many parts of the world. Later this worship is linked to religion. However, in Villibharata, countless Nagas have been destroyed. Over time, Naga worship and Nagas have been changing in various understandings with various religions and changing according to the situation.

The subject of this study is the Korean novel Baeksado (The Picture of White Serpent) (1939). It depicts a female shaman who worships snakes, a man's maniacal love for that female shaman, and the tragic fate that the two face as a result of that love. This study tries to search for the root of the horror, dream, bizarreness, and beauty of the 'Picture of White Serpents’--the fantasy created by dozens of snakes wrapped around a woman's beautiful body—which cannot be explained by modern rationality. The Baek Baek Gyo (White Cult) Incident, which shook Korean society in the late 1930s when Baeksado was published, can be an important clue to this search. This study focuses on the relationship between the Baek Baek Gyo Incident and the creation of Baeksado while trying to find the traces of the supernatural world that have been removed under the name of 'civilization'.

BACKGROUND In many rural communities, the cause of mental illness is attributed to black magic, spirit possession of past sin and the coastal region of Karnataka is not exempted from it. The natives of this region ascribe the cause of mental illness to the spirit or demigod, and they seek the help of traditional healers such as spirit dancers for the recovery. This help-seeking behaviour of the people results in delay in seeking psychiatry care and affects the recovery of the person with mental health problems. Therefore, this study explores the opinion of clients undergone traditional healing for mental health problems and the results of the study could contribute to planning an appropriate health promotion activity to promote community mental health. METHODS The present study was explorative, undertaken in the Udupi district of Karnataka state, which explores the views of the respondents about the cause of mental health problem and the outcome of traditional healing for their problems. Altogether 200 clients visiting traditional healers for mental health care were interviewed based on the snowball sampling technique and the interview schedule was used as a tool to gather the data. RESULTS Of the 200 respondents interviewed, 27.5 percent were adults (31 to 40 years), while 43.1 percent were unemployed. Black magic was found to be the major cause for mental health problems among 25.5 percent of the respondents; whereas, 26 percent of the respondents felt recovered completely after undergoing traditional healing for mental health problems. CONCLUSIONS The recognition of mental health problems is very much essential for people with mental health problems to seek professional help. This could help mental health professionals to diagnose illness at the very beginning and provide better mental health care. However, the explanatory model of the patients needs to be taken into consideration while providing modern medical care. KEY WORDS Black Magic, Mental Illness, Serpent Worship, Spirt Dancer, Traditional Healers

One of the aims of Christian schools in Indonesia is to educate and shape students to have character and conduct in line with the teachings of Christ. However, the actual situation in the field does not seem to reflect the "fruits" of Christian education. Therefore, Christian school programs need further examination, including counseling programs, worship strategies, and their impact on the quality of students. This research aims to investigate the relationship between counseling, worship strategies, and student quality at SMP Kristen Tunas Bangsa, Gading Serpong. The study employs a quantitative approach with a survey method. Data collected are primary data gathered through questionnaire responses from participants. The results indicate a significant correlation between counseling and student quality, as well as between worship strategies and student quality. This emphasizes the importance of the roles of counseling and worship strategies in shaping the character and quality of students in line with Christian values. This research provides a significant contribution to understanding the relationship between counseling, worship strategies, and student quality at SMP Kristen Tunas Bangsa, Gading Serpong. Salah satu tujuan dari adanya Sekolah kristen di Indonesia adalah untuk mendidik dan membentuk peserta didik agar memiliki karakter dan perbuatan sesuai dengan ajaran Kristus. Namun, yang terjadi di lapangan sama sekali tidak menunjukkan adanya “buah” dari pembelajaran dan didikan Kristen tersebut. Dengan demikian, program sekolah Kristen haruslah diteliti lebih lanjut baik dari program konseling, program ibadah, serta pengaruhnya terhadap kualitas Peserta Didik. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menyelidiki hubungan antara bimbingan konseling, strategi ibadah, dan kualitas peserta didik di Sekolah Menengah Pertama Kristen Tunas Bangsa, Gading Serpong. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan kuantitatif dengan metode survei. Data yang dikumpulkan berupa data primer melalui pengisian kuesioner oleh responden. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa terdapat hubungan yang signifikan antara bimbingan konseling dan kualitas peserta didik, serta antara strategi ibadah dan kualitas peserta didik. Dengan demikian, hal ini menunjukkan pentingnya peran bimbingan konseling dan strategi ibadah dalam membentuk karakter dan kualitas peserta didik yang sesuai dengan nilai-nilai Kristen. Penelitian ini memberikan kontribusi penting dalam pemahaman mengenai hubungan antara bimbingan konseling, strategi ibadah, dan kualitas peserta didik di Sekolah Menengah Pertama Kristen Tunas Bangsa, Gading Serpong.

Abstract In the north Indian state of Uttarakhand, the god Nagaraja, associated with the pan--Indian god Krishna, is an extremely popular deity. However, there exist key disjunctures in how Nagaraja is known, experienced and worshiped in the north Indian state of Uttarakhand by jāgar performers—low--caste ritual specialists, storytellers, and musicians—on the one hand, and high--caste temple priests, on the other. Temple priests were generally dismissive of the practices of the jāgar performers, often re--directing my interest in regional narratives of Nagaraja to the Sanskrit--language Bhagavadgita and Bhagavata Purana (the Gita--Bhagavat), which they saw as authoritative and ‘original' sources of oral and vernacular traditions. This interpretation, however, was highly contested by jāgar performers who articulated a non--essentialist, ritually efficacious, rhetorical, oral and vernacular ‘textual ontology.' Jāgar performers not only critiqued Brahminical notions of textual purity and essentialism but also assumptions within the academic study of Hinduism about the relationship between vernacular religious practices and textual Hinduism, or the so--called Great and Little traditions of Hinduism. By ‘textual ontology,' I describe how different relations to textual authority and knowledge in turn reveal distinctive ways of creating, knowing, and interacting with deities and the world. In challenging priestly and western scholarly notions of text, this article offers a radically different view of textual production, transmission, and authority.

Gading Serpong area is developing into a center of business, lifestyle, health and education then office buildings, worship facilities, culinary centers to meet the needs of housing and investment for residents of the capital and its surroundings. The culinary business is currently a big business and attracts many people because they like culinary and want to try local food from other regions and has high profit potential. The Bangka Culinary Business in Gading Serpong with several existing stores has continued to grow since 2018 coupled with the occupancy and community around so that the need for a variety of foods has also increased. This research method uses qualitative methods. While the results of this research conducted by interviews that Bangka culinary first opened in 2017 through a shop because at that time there were no Bangka cuisine rivals in Gading Serpong. The development of Bangka's culinary business continues to grow rapidly from 2018 until now because many are in demand by various groups of people, and the results of these interviews also show the satisfaction of visitors who visit snack shops or restaurants is very satisfied, both from products, services, and management according to existing business standards.

In recent years, global theologians of mission have emphasized a posture of mission from below—missional engagement from a place of weakness and vulnerability. In part a reaction to the mistakes of Christendom and Christian mission’s alliance with political and economic power, mission from below aims to recover first-century mission that emulates the way of Christ and the apostles. This approach to mission is also relevant in contexts today where Christian freedom (for worship and witness) is limited by tyrannical or resistant governments. As we strive to be as wise as serpents and gentle as doves in contemporary mission, it seems fruitful to explore the theology of mission of a medieval Italian mendicant monk who ministered to Muslims during the Crusades. In this article, following a brief narrative of Francis of Assisi’s (1181–1226) life and journey in mission, I will focus on Francis’s Christology and how that shaped his approach to mission among Muslims and others. Finally, I will conclude with some reflections for what the church on mission today might gain from Francis.

READING GENESIS WELL: Navigating History, Poetry, Science, and Truth in Genesis 1-11 by C. John Collins. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2018. 336 pages. Paperback; $36.99. ISBN: 9780310598572. *C. John Collins makes judicious use of C. S. Lewis throughout his book and offers a reading of the early chapters of Genesis that seeks to avoid both an ahistorical fundamentalist interpretation and a dismissive scientism that views Genesis as bad science by ignorant people. Collins identifies himself as a "religious traditionalist," and he seeks to read Genesis in ways that take seriously the original context of the author and first readers of the text. In doing so, he makes more evident the real meaning of Genesis as a rival creation story to other creation stories circulating at that time in the ancient near East. Collins has a twofold goal. "The first is to provide guidance to those who want to consider how these Bible passages relate to the findings of the sciences. The second is to establish patterns of good theological reading, patterns applicable to other texts" (p. 32). *Collins emphasizes quite rightly that to interpret a text correctly it is important to consider the context. It is context that determines whether the words, "I'm going to kill you" are a lethal threat to life or the joking retort of a friend. Genesis is not trying to do contemporary science, so to read Genesis as opposed to or in support of contemporary science is to rip Genesis from its ancient context in terms of both its literary form and its world view. The story of Genesis is not trying and failing to answer contemporary scientific questions; rather, the story of Genesis is emphasizing that, "all human beings have a common origin, a common predicament, and a common need to know God and have God's image restored in them" (p. 113). *We can understand what Genesis truly means by putting Genesis back into its ancient context. As Collins notes, "I take the purpose of Genesis to begin with opposing the origin stories of other ancient peoples by telling of one true God who made heaven and earth ..." (p. 137). Once Genesis is put back into its context, we can better appreciate the genre of the work. The language of Genesis is not scientific but poetic. Collins notes that we can communicate truths using different kinds of language. In ordinary language, we say, "You are beautiful." In scientific language, we might say, "You exhibit visible signs of youth, health, fertility, and symmetry." In poetic language, we could say, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date." Imagine someone who got out a weather almanac, looked up the speed of winds last May, and replied, "Last May, the winds were unseasonably calm. No rough winds at all. Shakespeare was horrible at correctly noting the weather! What a dunce!" Of course, in writing Sonnet 18, Shakespeare was not trying and failing to compose an accurate weather report. The Bard's purposes, genre, and context are entirely different than meteorology. So, too, Genesis is not trying and failing to provide a scientific account of the origin of sun, moon, and stars--or man. To fault Genesis as a bad science is like faulting Shakespeare as a bad weather man. Collins correctly notes, "To call Genesis 'science,' whether ancient or modern is an enormous literary confusion" (p. 279). *So, if Genesis is not failing to be good science, since it is not even attempting to do science, what is Genesis about? The Genesis account is a correction to the rival stories of the ancient world. Genesis holds, in contrast to the pagan myths, that the sun, moon, and stars are not gods. The heavenly bodies exist to serve humans, to mark time. The idea that nature is not a god is an idea of signal importance, for if the created order is not divine, then the door is open for science to dissect and examine the secrets of nature. Genesis steers a middle course between a radical environmentalism (worshiping nature as divine) and a radical anti-environmentalism (domineering of nature as worthless material). *The role of humankind is also made more plain by contrasting Genesis with rival stories. Collins notes, "In the Mesopotamian stories the gods made humankind to do the work they do not wish to do, but they regret their action and decide to eliminate humanity because people have multiplied and become so noisy that the gods cannot rest (which was their original goal in making man)" (p. 190). *How unlike the God of Abraham who urges human beings to be fruitful and multiply. The Greek poet Hesiod wrote, "Zeus who thunders on high made women to be an evil to mortal men, with a nurture to do evil." By contrast, Genesis proclaims both man and woman to be made in the image and likeness of God. Both man and woman fall to the serpent's temptation. Both man and woman are cared for by God after the Fall. *Reading Genesis Well is a good book, and it could be made even better. At times, there is a great deal of windup before the pitch. At other times, there is needless repetition. For example, Collins writes, "The creation narrative portrays the sun, moon, and stars as makers for the (liturgical) seasons. They are servants to help humankind worship the Maker, not masters themselves worthy of human worship" (p. 293). This is a great point, but the point is made at least three times in the text. *The organization of the text could be improved in places. For example, when Collins quotes Rudolf Bultmann's famous assertion, "It is impossible to use the electric light and the wireless [radio] and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discoveries, and at the same time to believe in the New Testament world of spirits and miracles," he does not respond to this assertion until pages later. *In places, not just form but substance can be improved. Collins quotes with approval James Packer saying, "The church no more created the canon [of scripture] than Newton created the law of gravity; recognition is not creation." But this is not quite right. The New Testament was written by early leaders of the church, such as Paul, Mark, Luke, Matthew, and John. It was the Council of Rome (p. 382) that fixed the biblical canon which was in some state of flux until then. The New Testament arose from the leaders of the early church and was cast into its current form by the leaders of the patristic church. That is much more than a mere recognition. Collins touches on the monogensism-polygenism question but does not address the dispute at sufficient length. *None of these quibbles should deter readers from profiting from Collins's research. Reading Genesis Well can indeed help us better understand one of the most ancient, most important, and most influential texts of all time. *Reviewed by Christopher Kaczor, Professor of Philosophy, Loyola Marymount University, 1 LMU Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90045.

RESUMENLos balnearios-sauna castreños del noroeste peninsular son monumentos con horno con una arquitectura muy original, posiblemente asociada a los diversos modelos termales. Se conocen cerca de tres decenas, distribuidos por el noroeste peninsular. La arquitectura compleja de estos monumentos se organiza estructuralmente hacia posibilitar baños de sauna y baños de agua fría. Las dos áreas son divididas por una estela, monolítica, normalmente ornamentada – la pedra formosa. El papel simbólico que tendrían en el seno de la sociedad castreña de la Edad del Hierro del noroeste peninsular permanece por aclarar y envuelto en gran misticismo, fruto de una posible sacralidad. Este entorno, referido por diversos autores a lo largo de los tiempos, está posiblemente asociado al culto de los dioses de las aguas y a la sacralidad del baño purificador, medicinal, que se refleja en las decoraciones frontales de las pedras formosas, cuya maestría de los escultores que las insculpieran, tipología decorativa, interpretación simbólica y semiótica estudiamos, como objetivos primordiales, a lo largo de este trabajo de investigación.PALABRAS CLAVE: Protohistoria, monumentos con horno, decoración pétrea, interpretación simbólica / semiótica.ABSTRACTThe Iron Age sauna-baths of the northwest peninsular are monuments with an oven with very original architecture, possibly associated with the diverse thermal models. There are about three dozen known sauna-baths spread over the northwest peninsular. The complex architecture of thesemonuments is structurally organized to allow for cold water baths and sauna baths. The two areas are divided by a tectiforme stele, monolithic, usually ornamented, known as pedra formosa (beautiful stone). The symbolic role that they would have had in the heart of the Iron Age “castreña” society in the northwest peninsular remains unclear and shrouded in mysticism, the fruit of a possible sacredness. This environment, referred to by various authors throughout the ages, is possibly associated with the worship of the water gods and the sacredness of the medicinal and purifying bath, which is reflected in the frontal decorations of the pedras formosas, whose masterful sculpting, decorative typology, symbolic interpretation and semiotics we studied as primary objectives of this research work.KEYWORDS: Protohistory, monuments with oven, stone decoration, symbolic / semiotic interpretation. BIBLIOGRAFIAAlmagro-Gorbea, M. e Álvarez Sanchís, J. R. 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The worship of nature and natural entities has a rich and profound history in most ancient cultures that thrived on the planet. However, as civilizations advanced with technological and scientific innovations, the interconnectedness between nature and human beings gradually declined, and mankind separated itself from its natural habitats. But in many cultures across the world, communities still embody pantheistic traditions, thus showing a sustainable way of living with nature to the rest of the world. This paper explores the tradition of serpent worship and the practice of maintaining sacred groves known as ‘sarpakavus’ in the South Indian state of Kerala. ‘Sarpakavu’, translated as ‘the sacred grove of serpent gods’, are small but dense pockets of biodiversity that are believed to be the abode of serpent gods. Beyond cultural significance, these groves serve as hotspots of ecological diversity. This research delves into the cultural, ecological, and performative aspects of serpent worship within these spaces. focusing on the elaborate rituals of performance and worship associated with the serpent deities, the paper positions ‘sarpakavus’ (sacred serpent groves) of Kerala as an example of indigenous ecology that shows a model of a symbiotic way of living with nature. As Kerala is currently undergoing a rapid urbanization process of building highways, railways, and ports, this research highlights the need to protect and conserve the tradition of maintaining the existing ‘sarpakavus’ and their importance in sustaining the ecological balance of the region.

Korean religion and folklore are abundant in legends and beliefs about the serpent. Cheju island is a particularly precious source of information about snake-worship, not only because its relative isolation from the mainland enabled it to preserve certain beliefs longer than the peninsula, but also because its distinctive, indigenous culture gave rise to a peculiar belief-system by adopting elements from the outside world. We also have more information on the snake-lore in Cheju due to the accounts of Confucian officers delegated to the island and, more importantly, the body of specific shamanic narratives, the ponp’uris. Ponp’uris – origin stories of the worship of certain deities or shrines, recited during shamanic rites (kut) – are invaluable sources for research. Not only do they reflect historical and religious events, but also the endeavour of Cheju people to interpret and come to terms with these tendencies. Through ponp’uris and rituals associated with them people could respond to these situations, and even if only symbolically, restore order: they could release suppressed resentment and pain, and overcome Confucianist oppression by expressing their cultural identity, or adopt elements of other beliefs in order to survive.

This paper traces the roots and development of the Church of God with Signs Following, a charismatic Christian group of worshippers that has been increasingly investigated and publicized by the courts and media in the last half century. A Church of God with Signs Following service is much like any other within the Pentecostal Holiness tradition, utilizing spiritual gifts such as “glossolalia” (speaking in tongues) and healing, but with a few important exceptions: members regularly take up poisonous serpents and imbibe deadly toxins during the course of worship. According to members, their ways are Biblically justified and they are subject to no law but God’s. This unique tradition has caused widespread notoriety and stigmatization of the group and to their current position as one of the least understood sects of Christianity. This paper also examines their particular beliefs and practices to explain and hopefully dispel the basis of the modern-day view of the group as deviants from Christianity, or as members of a barbaric cult. The presence of the church as a uniquely rural and southern phenomenon is also explored, as well as popular opinion and litigation that the church has historically faced. Above all, we seek an understanding of how and why this particular (and undeniably peculiar) denomination has endured and staked its claim as a legitimate religious institution in a land where it has been the object of fear and ridicule for decades.

While the linguistic influence of India’s indigenous languages on the Indo- Aryan language (IA) is well understood, the cultural impact of the autochthonous Munda, Dravidian and Tibeto-Burman speaking peoples is much harder to evaluate, due to the lack of indigenous coeval records, and later historicization of the Buddha’s life and teachings. Nevertheless, there are cultural remnants of the indigenous belief systems discoverable in the Buddhist scriptures. In this article we examine 1) The longstanding hostility between the IA immigrants and the eastern ethnic groups, especially the Buddha’s Sakya clan. 2) The Sakyas’ socio-political organization, religious and cultural values which differ significantly from those of the immigrants. 3) The concept of the Mah?puru?a which was likely an historicization of an indigenous Indian belief. 4) Indigenous belief structures like serpent- and tree-worship and the culture of sacred groves, and 5) Indigenous funeral rites in the story of the Buddha’s parinibb?na.

The Netflix/BBC eight-part limited true crime series The Serpent (2021) provides a commentary on the impact of the tourist industry in South-East Asia in the 1970s. The series portrays the story of French serial killer Charles Sobhraj (played by Tahar Rahim)—a psychopathic international con artist of Vietnamese-Indian descent—who regularly targeted Western travellers, especially the long-term wanderers of the legendary “Hippie Trail” (or the “Overland”), running between eastern Europe and Asia. The series, which was filmed on location in Thailand—in Bangkok and the Thai town of Hua Hin—is set in a range of travel destinations along the route of the Hippie Trail, as the narrative follows the many crimes of Sobhraj. Cities such as Kathmandu, Goa, Varanasi, Hong Kong, and Kabul are featured on the show. The series is loosely based upon Australian writers Richard Neville and Julie Clarke’s true crime biography The Life and Crimes of Charles Sobhraj (1979). Another true crime text by Thomas Thompson called Serpentine: Charles Sobhraj’s Reign of Terror from Europe to South Asia (also published in 1979) is a second reference. The show portrays the disappearance and murders of many young victims at the hands of Sobhraj. Certainly, Sobhraj is represented as a monstrous figure, but what about the business of tourism itself? Arguably, in its reflective examination of twentieth-century travel, the series also poses the hedonism of tourism as monstrous. Here, attention is drawn to Western privilege and a neo-orientalist gaze that presented Asia as an exotic playground for its visitors. The television series focuses on Sobhraj, his French-Canadian girlfriend Marie-Andrée Leclerc (played by Jenna Coleman), and the glamourous life they lead in Bangkok. The fashionable couple’s operation presents Sobhraj as a legitimate gem dealer: outwardly, they seem to embody the epitome of fun and glamour, as well as the cross-cultural sophistication of the international jet set. In reality, they drug and then steal from tourists who believe their story. Sobhraj uses stolen passports and cash to travel internationally and acquire more gems. Then, with an accomplice called Ajay Chowdhury (played by Amesh Adireweera), Sobhraj murders his victims if he thinks they could expose his fraud. Often depicted as humourless and seething with anger, the Sobhraj of the series often wears dark aviator sunglasses, a detail that enhances the sense of his impenetrability. One of the first crimes featured in The Serpent is the double-murder of an innocent Dutch couple. The murders lead to an investigation by Dutch diplomat Herman Knippenberg (played by Billy Howle), wanting to provide closure for the families of the victims. Knippenberg enlists neighbours to go undercover at Sobhraj’s home to collect evidence. This exposes Sobhraj’s crimes, so he flees the country with Marie-Andrée and Ajay. While they were apprehended, Sobhraj would be later given pardon from a prison in India: he would only received a life sentence for murder when he is arrested in Nepal in 2003. His ability to evade punishment—and inability to admit to and atone for his crimes—become features of his monstrosity in the television series. Clearly, Sobhraj is represented as the “serpent” of this drama, a metaphor regularly reinforced both textually and visually across the length of the series. As an example, the opening credit sequence for the series coalesces shots of vintage film in Asia—including hitchhiking backpackers, VW Kombi vans, swimming pools, religious tourist sites, corrupt Asian police forces—against an animated map of central and South-East Asia and the Hippie Trail. The map is encased by the giant, slithering tail of some monstrous, reptilian creature. Situating the geographic context of the narrative, the serpentine monster appears to be rising out of continental Asia itself, figuratively stalking and then entrapping the tourists and travellers who move along its route. So, what of the other readings about the monstrosity of the tourism industry that appears on the show? The Hippie Trail was arguably a site—a serpentine cross-continental thoroughfare—of Western excess. The Hippie Trail emerged as the result of the ease of travel across continental Europe and Asia. It was an extension of a countercultural movement that first emerged in the United States in the mid 1960s. Agnieszka Sobocinska has suggested that the travellers of the Hippie Trail were motivated by “widespread dissatisfaction with the perceived conservatism of Western society and its conventions”, and that it was characterised by “youth, rebellion, self-expression and the performance of personal freedom” (par. 8). The Trail appealed to a particular subcultural group who wanted to differentiate themselves from other travellers. Culturally, the Hippie Trail has become a historical site of enduring fascination, written about in popular histories and Western travel narratives, such as A Season in Heaven: True Tales from the Road to Kathmandu (Tomory 1998), Magic Bus: On the Hippie Trail from Istanbul to India (MacLean 2007), The Hippie Trail: A History (Gemie and Ireland 2017), and The Hippie Trail: After Europe, Turn Left (Kreamer 2019). Despite these positive memoirs, the route also has a reputation for being destructive and even neo-imperialist: it irrevocably altered the politics of these Asian regions, especially as crowds of Western visitors would party at its cities along the way. In The Serpent, while the crimes take place on its route, on face value the Hippie Trail still appears to be romanticised and nostalgically re-imagined, especially as it represents a stark difference from our contemporary world with its heavily-policed international borders. Indeed, the travellers seem even freer from the perspective of 2021, given the show’s production phase and release in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, when international travel was halted for many. As Kylie Northover has written in a review for the series in the Sydney Morning Herald, the production design of the programme and the on-location shoot in Thailand is affectionately evocative and nostalgic. Northover suggests that it “successfully evokes a very specific era of travel—the Vietnam War has just ended, the Summer of Love is over and contact with family back home was usually only through the post restante” (13). On the show, there is certainly critique of the tourist industry. For example, one scene demonstrates the “dark side” of the Hippie Trail dream. Firstly, we see a psychedelic-coloured bus of travellers driving through Nepal. The outside of the bus is covered with its planned destinations: “Istanbul. Teheran. Kabul. Delhi”. The Western travellers are young and dressed in peasant clothing and smoking marijuana. Looking over at the Himalayas, one hippie calls the mountains a “Shangri-La”, the fictional utopia of an Eastern mountain paradise. Then, the screen contracts to show old footage of Kathmandu— using the small-screen dimensions of a Super-8 film—which highlights a “hashish centre” with young children working at the front. The child labour is ignored. As the foreign hippie travellers—American and English—move through Kathmandu, they seem self-absorbed and anti-social. Rather than meeting and learning from locals, they just gather at parties with other hippies. By night-time, the series depicts drugged up travellers on heroin or other opiates, disconnected from place and culture as they stare around aimlessly. The negative representation of hippies has been observed in some of the critical reviews about The Serpent. For example, writing about the series for The Guardian, Dorian Lynskey cites Joan Didion’s famous “serpentine” interpretation of the hippie culture in the United States, applying this to the search for meaning on the Hippie Trail: the subculture of expats and travellers in south-east Asia feels rather like Joan Didion’s 60s California, crisscrossed by lost young people trying to find themselves anew in religion, drugs, or simply unfamiliar places. In Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Didion writes of those who “drifted from city to torn city, sloughing off both the past and the future as snakes shed their skins”. (Lynskey) We could apply cultural theories about tourism to a critique of the industry in the series too. Many cultural researchers have critiqued tourists and the tourism industry, as well as the powers that tourists can wield over destination cultures. In Time and Commodity Culture, John Frow has suggested that the logic of tourism is “that of a relentless extension of commodity relations, and the consequent inequalities of power, between centre and periphery, First and Third World, developed and undeveloped regions, metropolis and countryside”, as well as one that has developed from the colonial era (151). Similarly, Derek Gregory’s sensitive analyses of cultural geographies of postcolonial space showed that Nineteenth-century Orientalism is a continuing process within globalised mass tourism (114). The problem of Orientalism as a Western travel ideology is made prominent in The Serpent through Sobhraj’s denouncement of Western tourists, even though there is much irony at play here, as the series itself arguably is presenting its own retro version of Orientalism to Western audiences. Even the choice of Netflix to produce this true crime story—with its two murderers of Asian descent—is arguably a way of reinforcing negative representations about Asian identity. Then, Western characters take on the role of hero and/or central protagonist, especially the character of Knippenberg. One could ask: where is the Netflix show that depicts a positive story about a central character of Vietnamese-Indian descent? Edward Said famously defined Orientalism as “a way of coming to terms with the Orient that is based on the Orient’s special place in European Western experience” (1). It became a way for Western cultures to interpret and understand the East, and for reducing and homogenising it into a more simplistic package. Orientalism explored discourses that grew to encompass India and the Far East in tandem with the expansion of Western imperialism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It examined a dualistic ideology: a way of looking that divided the globe into two limited types without any room for nuance and diversity. Inclusive and exclusive, Orientalism assumed and promoted an “us and them” binary, privileging a Western gaze as the normative cultural position, while the East was relegated to the ambiguous role of “other”. Orientalism is a field in which stereotypes of the East and West have power: as Said suggests, “the West is the actor, the Orient is a passive reactor… . The West is the spectator, the judge and jury, of every facet of Oriental behaviour” (109). Interestingly, despite the primacy in which Sobhraj is posited as the show’s central monster, he is also the character in the series most critical of the neo-colonial oppression caused by this counter-cultural tourism, which indicates ambiguity and complexity in the representation of monstrosity. Sobhraj appears to have read Said. As he looks scornfully at a stoner hippie woman who has befriended Ajay, he seems to perceive the hippies as drop-outs and drifters, but he also connects them more thoroughly as perpetrators of neo-imperialist processes. Indicating his contempt for the sightseers of the Hippie Trail as they seek enlightenment on their travels, he interrogates his companion Ajay: why do you think these white children deny the comfort and wealth of the life they were given to come to a place like this? Worship the same gods. Wear the same rags. Live in the same filth. Each experience is only then taken home to wear like a piece of fake tribal jewellery. They travel only to acquire. It’s another form of imperialism. And she has just colonised you! Sobhraj’s speech is political but it is also menacing, and he quickly sets upon Ajay and physically punishes him for his tryst with the hippie woman. Yet, ultimately, the main Western tourists of the Hippie Trail are presented positively in The Serpent, especially as many of them are depcited as naïve innocents within the story—hopeful, idealistic and excited to travel—and simply in the wrong place, at the wrong time. In this way, the series still draws upon the conventions of the true crime genre, which is to differentiate clearly between good/evil and right/wrong, and to create an emotional connection to the victims as symbols of virtue. As the crimes and deaths accumulate within the series, Sobhraj’s opinions are deceptive, designed to manipulate those around him (such as Ajay) rather than being drawn from genuine feelings of political angst about the neo-imperialist project of Western tourism. The uncertainty around Sobhraj’s motivation for his crimes remains one of the fascinating aspects of the series. It problematises the way that the monstrosity of this character is constructed within the narrative of the show. The character of Sobhraj frequently engages with these essentialising issues about Orientalism, but he appears to do so with the aim to remove the privilege that comes from a Western gaze. In the series, Sobhraj’s motivations for targeting Western travellers are often insinuated as being due to personal reasons, such as revenge for his treatment as a child in Europe, where he says he was disparaged for being of Asian heritage. For example, as he speaks to one of his drugged French-speaking victims, Sobhraj suggests that when he moved from Vietnam to France as a child, he was subject to violence and poor treatment from others: “a half-caste boy from Saigon. You can imagine how I was bullied”. In this instance, the suffering French man placed in Sobhraj’s power has been promoted as fitting into one of these “us and them” binaries, but in this set-up, there is also a reversal of power relations and Sobhraj has set himself as both the “actor” and the “spectator”. Here, he has reversed the “Orientalist” gaze onto a passive Western man, homogenising a “Western body”, and hence radically destabilising the construct of Orientalism as an ideological force. This is also deeply troubling: it goes on to sustain a problematic and essentialising binary that, no matter which way it faces, aims to denigrate and stereotype a cultural group. In this way, the character of Sobhraj demonstrates that while he is angry at the way that Orientalist ideologies have victimised him in the past, he will continue to perpetrate its basic ideological assumptions as a way of administering justice and seeking personal retribution. Ultimately, perhaps one of the more powerful readings of The Serpent is that it is difficult to move away from the ideological constructs of travel. We could also suggest that same thing for the tourists. In her real-life analysis of the Hippie Trail, Agnieszka Sobocinska has suggested that while it was presented and understood as something profoundly different from older travel tours and expeditions, it could not help but be bound up in the same ideological colonial and imperial impulses that constituted earlier forms of travel: Orientalist images and imperial behaviours were augmented to suit a new generation that liked to think of itself as radically breaking from the past. Ironically, this facilitated the view that ‘alternative’ travel was a statement in anti-colonial politics, even as it perpetuated some of the inequalities inherent to imperialism. This plays out in The Serpent. We see that this supposedly radically different new group – with a relaxed and open-minded identity—is bound within the same old ideological constructs. Part of the problem of the Hippie Trail traveller was a failure to recognise the fundamentally imperialist origins of their understanding of travel. This is the same kind of concern mapped out by Turner and Ash in their analysis of neo-imperial forms of travel called The Golden Hordes: International Tourism and the Pleasure Periphery (1976), written and published in the same era as the events of The Serpent. Presciently gauging the effect that mass tourism would have on developing nations, Turner and Ash used the metaphor of “hordes” of tourists taking over various poorer destinations to intend a complete reversal of the stereotype of a horde of barbaric and non-Western hosts. By inferring that tourists are the “hordes” reverses Orientalist conceptions of de-personalised non-Western cultures, and shows the problem that over-tourism and unsustainable visitation can pose to host locations, especially with the acceleration of mass travel in the late Twentieth century. Certainly, the concept of a touristic “horde” is one of the monstrous ideas in travel, and can signify the worst aspects contained within mass tourism. To conclude, it is useful to return to the consideration of what is presented as monstrous in The Serpent. Here, there is the obvious monster in the sinister, impassive figure of serial killer Charles Sobhraj. Julie Clarke, in a new epilogue for The Life and Crimes of Charles Sobhraj (2020), posits that Sobhraj’s actions are monstrous and unchangeable, demonstrating the need to understand impermeable cases of human evil as a part of human society: one of the lessons of this cautionary tale should be an awareness that such ‘inhuman humans’ do live amongst us. Many don’t end up in jail, but rather reach the highest level in the corporate and political spheres. (Neville and Clarke, 2020) Then, there is the exploitational spectre of mass tourism from the Hippie Trail that has had the ability to “invade” and ruin the authenticity and/or sustainability of a particular place or location as it is overrun by the “golden hordes”. Finally, we might consider the Orientalist, imperialist and globalised ideologies of mass tourism as one of the insidious and serpentine forces that entrap the central characters in this television series. 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