Ezekiel’s Valley of Dry Bones by Abraham Rattner: Faith is Taking the First Step

Fredericks was commissioned to sculpt a 6-foot-tall crucifix, but instead designed this 28-foot full-scale model, for a bronze to be placed at the Indian River Catholic Shrine in Indian River, Michigan. The sculpture reminds me of church because it represents the crucifixion of Jesus. It had a facial expression that reveals apparent emotions of pain and sadness. The size and placing of the sculpture up on the wall is a dominant settling force for the eye, and it contrasts well with other sculptures around it. The white plaster on the sculpture establishes a powerful element as a visual

“The Gospel for Those Broken by the Church” by Dr. Ron Rosenbladt is a presentation that focuses on those who have left the church behind and no longer associate themselves with it. He categorizes those who have left into two sections: “sad” alumni and “mad” alumni. Sad alumni are those people who really wanted to believe but never could really get it right, while mad alumni are those who were “conned” by the church into giving themselves over to Christ and trying to believe and then when things didn’t quite work out, they were tossed away. This presentation focuses on how to bring people like this back to the faith, both the sad and mad alumni.

From 1734 to 1750 a religious revival called the Great Awakening swept through New England. Jonathan Edwards was an influential portion of this movement. By giving sermons and informing his congregations about the repercussions of their self-satisfaction, Edwards was considered to be America’s greatest religious thinker. On July 8, 1741, Edwards delivered his famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”. In this sermon, Edwards uses repetition, imagery and pathos to convince his audience that if they did not turn to God, they would have to deal with his wrath.

In this paper you will see how the drawings that I have presented to you make sense and are not just randomly there. There are names, places, religion, and lines present in this art piece that mean something to me and others as well. I’m from two places and not just one but I spend more time in one place than the other, so somethings of what I have known from the other place have been lost in time and memory. The memories come and go but remain lost because of the fact that they aren’t remembered and from being seen as unimportant to my present when in reality they are just as important. “I write the myths in me, the myths I am, the myths I want to become,” Anzaldua.

The great American scholar, William Foxwell Albright was an American Biblical archaeologist, and is considered to by many to be the “father of Biblical archaeology,” because of his contributions to the archaeological historicity of the Bible. “More than any other scholar Albright’s astounding corpus of books, articles, and public lectures defined a new relationship between archaeology and Biblical studies.”

Brown, M. L. (2010). Jeremiah. In T. Longman III & D. E. Garland (Eds.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Jeremiah–Ezekiel (Revised Edition) (Vol. 7, p. 358). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

(Sources C and E) are about ‘Human Sacrifice’ and ‘Spanish Siege of Tenochtitlan’. They evidently show the Aztecs attention to detail to make the drawings look so realistic and lifelike. The two art pieces show age and a great deal of expression. The art looks alive, though, it is about death. This reflects the Aztecs desire to elude loss and

The book of Amos is the earliest preserved example of classic prophetic writings. It consists of nine chapters, but Amos did not write the entirety of them. “A majority of scholars think that not all of the material in Amos goes back to the prophet himself but was added later by ancient editors of the book.” The anthology contains a variation of materials: prophecies, visions and addresses from Amos to the people of Israel. Two major themes of the book are the social injustice in Israel, and the impending doom in Israel’s future.

Death. The topic no one likes to discuss despite it being an inevitable part of life since humans came into existence. Simply thinking about the phrase, “I am going to die,” causes most people to become extremely uncomfortable, evoking unwanted emotions such as dread and fear. Humans will do anything to distract themselves from this depressing reality. Whether it’s using drugs or going out with friends, people frequently engage in activities that push darker thoughts to the back of their minds to be dealt with at a later time. Hanging in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA), the painting Leyster, The Last Drop (Fig. 1) captures the complexities of coming to terms with one’s own mortality. Judith Leyster’s use of lighting, color, and symbols in the piece come together to express the struggle people go through to give their lives meaning in the context of eternity, making observers confront the temporal limits of their humanity right on the spot.

Literature in the colonial period is most often used fear to convince people to believe in whatever the writer believes in. This is commonly used to communicate an idea about a problem in religion, politics, or culture. The most well known pieces of literature in the colonial period used to influence somewhat religiously is Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, a sermon by Jonathan Edwards. Its purpose is to scare people into not being sinful. He uses intense imagery to describe the afterlife for sinners and how God is the only thing standing between them and eternal damnation.

The Great Awakening was a revival of religion in the early American colonies. Some will say that the awakening had negative effects on the colonies, maybe, but overall I believe the Great Awakening had a positive effect and opened the eyes of the colonist, showing them truths of living in the New World and of things that could come for its future. These effects that the Great Awakening had on the early colonies is greatly studied and looked at, because it was what set the ground work for the religious views we have today in our country. Three sources, given to me, telling of the effects that the revival of religion had on early America was quite interesting to me. I found them to be a great insight to the basis of how the revival effected

Since its original publication in 1930, the novel As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner has drawn much exploration and critique. Though this analysis is very far reaching and broad in topic, one interesting route of investigation is the novel's connection to the Old Testament. One does not have to be a Christian to study the similarities in theme; there are very many occurrences of biblical subject matter and correlation, these having been studied by student and scholar alike. The Old Testament is known commonly as the more historical part of the Bible; it sets up the background knowledge to the New Testament and gives readers an idea of the nature of the times. Many general themes of the Old Testament are reflected in the Bible as a whole,

While reading Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God, by Jonathan Edwards I came across some points that caught my attention. This story is based on how a pastor tries to persuade his congregation from the sins and make them to be fearful of the divine wrath, of God. I personally can relate to this story because of my religion. I am Pentecostal and I can see why Edwards would use such words towards his congregation so that they won’t perish and go to hell. My Pastor uses similar approaches like this when she preaches. In “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” Edwards uses frightening words and religious metaphors to divert people from the congregation from the sins and condemning them to hell if they provoke the wrath of God and to establish that everyone should be fearful of him.

This potential pathway also accurately portrayed the correlation and dependent relationship between a person's body during death, and how nature still takes control over the human body even after life. In the original pieces, I had painted a rib cage and the bones of a hand, using Baroque watercolour pencils. For my developed potential pathways, I had created larger and more detailed versions. Two out of the three paintings had become potential final pieces, the third not being developed enough to my standards. Refining this further, I had decided to use the Eraldo watercolour set, creating more vibrancy and tone in the plants that are entwined with the skeleton. I refrained from focusing on organs, but rather the bones that remain after death. I had woven numerous plants and flowers throughout the cracks and creases of the skeletal hand, exploring the concept further in depth. I had altered my original theme by using warm colours in comparison to the cool; instead of the harsh blue and purple hues, the definite plan for my final piece was refined with blossoming flowers and warm coloured bone structure. This had given the overall painting a vibrant hue, exploring the beauty in physical alterations from life to death, and the environmental factors contributing to its physical

Looking back, we can see glimpses of the lives of those who lived in the Ancient Near East, known as the ANE, through their stories and myths that have survived over centuries of time. Many of these stories contain unique elements that make each one personal to the civilization that they belong to, but there are common themes and ideas that are virtually shared between the traditional stories stemming from this region of the world. In fact, these parallels even extend into Old Testament literature; laced within the stories that we’ve come to know and love. It is not surprising that the Old Testament contains similarities found within ANE tradition, seeing that