Genesis Theology Essays - Phoenician Mythology, Levantine Mythology

Genesis Theology Pentateuch is considered to be the most important part in the Old Testament. It recorded the account of creation, the fall of man, the Law Code as well as the experience of the Ancient Israel. Among them Genesis is the first book recorded incidents happened from the creation of the world to Joseph's time. In chapter one to eleven, the origin of the world and human race are introduced and in chapter twelve onwards are the stories of the Ancestors. In this passage, we will concentrate in discussing the theology of chapter one to eleven which contained much valuable and important message for the readers who were probably Israelites in post-exilic period (which would be discussed later). In order to understand the text it is important to have some knowledge about the background of the readers as the author should compose his work under their background so that they may understand easily. Hence brief introduction of the background of Ancient Israelites and Genesis as well as its authorship would be given before we go into discussing its theology. The discussion will be within four topics ---(a) Yahweh has supreme authority and power, (b) Man---as image of God, (c) Mankind's failure and God's reaction and (d) Creation---a continuing process. (B) Background of Canaanites' Religion and Ancient Israelites Both Biblical record and archeological evidence showed that beside the Israelites, there were many other people living in Palestine. They included Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaim, Amorites, Canaanites, Girga*censored*es and Jebusites. In this passage, they are all regarded as Canaanites. Basically, the Canaanites' religions are polytheistic. They believed in many gods in many different levels including those national god, functional gods and family gods or ancestors. In the following paragraphs, a brief introduction of Canaanites' religions would be given as a background for the studies of religion of ancient Israelites. Religion in Ancient Near East Although the gods they worshipped were different, tribes in Ancient Near East did have similar although not exactly the same doctrines. As mentioned above, their religions are polytheistic. Each god in their religion had different function and statues. They had different characters and might fight among themselves. We are going to discuss the religion in Canaan and Babylon as examples. One point must be noted is that the functions of the gods in Canaan are closely related to natural phenomena . For example, Baal Hadad was known as the thunder god who was responsible for raining. Other examples included El Elyon who was known as the sun god , Yamm who was the god of the sea and Mot who was the god of death . Some of the gods were related to daily life. For instant, Anath was the goddess of war and Astarte was known as the goddess of love and fertility and also of war. Another function of Baal was related to fertility. The Canaanites always explained natural phenomena using myths. The alternation of the seasons and the death and renewal of vegetation were believed to be explained through the following myth. When Baal had his temple built, he sent a message to the god of death Mot in which he threatened Mot's life. After that there was a struggle between Mot and Baal and Baal was killed in the battle. After some times Baal's sister Anath went down to the underworld and defeated Mot. Baal was resurrected from death and returned to his power to bring about raining to the Earth. The Canaanites believed that the death and resurrection of Baal happened every year. The defeat of Baal indicated the death of vegetation due to winter frosts or summer drought. The resurrection of Baal revealed the vegetation grew because of annual or seasonal flooding. In this myth, one could easily observe that other that a thunder god, Baal was also a god of fertility. In the sight of the people in Ancient Near East, men were just the slaves of gods. For instance, in Babylon, people believed that mankind was created only because of the laziness of gods. The gods created men so that they could take over their work and serve them. The gods needed the sacrifice of men. However, due to the noise and din of men, Enlil, the King of the lands wanted to destroy men. Another god Ea brought about deliverance to Atrahasis in a series of plagues. Finally, Enlil sent a flood and again Ea warned Atrahasis who made a ship to save himself later. The Gilgamesh Epic had another record of the flood story. When

Scholarship Essay Sample About Why I Deserve the Business Scholarship

Scholarship Essay Sample About Why I Deserve the Business ScholarshipAre you ready to write a scholarship essay sample about why I deserve the business scholarship? Well, if you're looking for ideas on how to go about this, keep reading. This will provide you with some really good tips that can help you accomplish this task successfully. Reading through this article is certainly going to be useful and helpful to you.The first thing that you want to do is to decide what your topic is going to be. There are so many different scholarship programs that exist today, and they vary in their types of grant offers. The exact type of business scholarship that you are seeking depends on the type of business you are running or operate.Now, you want to decide what your main goal is in writing this kind of essay. Do you just want to convince them of the worth of your business and its success? Or, do you want to persuade them to give you the business scholarship money?If your main goal is to persua de them to give you the business scholarship money, then you want to figure out how you can convince them. One great way to do this is to research the various business scholarships that are out there today. You might want to visit the official website of each program to learn more about it.If you want to do this, then it would be a good idea to make notes while doing this. Not only do you want to make notes, but you also want to have copies of these notes to read back and analyze later. This will help you better understand the program and where it is applicable. And, when you know all this, it will make your essay better and easier to write.The next step that you need to take is to compile your scholarship essay sample. This is something that you can do yourself or you can hire someone else to do it for you. This will depend on what your budget is and the services that you need to get done.However, if you are on a tight budget, then you might want to make use of free samples. For ex ample, if you are just looking for information on scholarships, you could look at the websites of companies and agencies that offer scholarship assistance to people who are in need.