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Tower of Babel

The Tower of Babel  is a myth in the Book of Genesis of the Tanakh (also referred to as the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament) meant to explain the origin of different languages. According to the story, a united humanity of the generations following the Great Flood, speaking a single language and migrating from the east, came to the land of Shinar(Hebrew: שנער‎). There they agreed to build a city and tower; seeing this, God confounded their speech so that they could no longer understand each other and scattered them around the world.

Samson

According to the biblical account, Samson was given supernatural strength by God in order to combat his enemies and perform heroic feats such as killing a lion, slaying an entire army with only the jawbone of an ass, and destroying a pagan temple. Samson had two vulnerabilities, however: his attraction to untrustworthy women and his hair, without which he was powerless. These vulnerabilities ultimately proved fatal for him.

Delilah

Delilah is a character in the Hebrew bible Book of Judges, where she is the "woman in the valley of Sorek" whom Samson loved, and who was his downfall. Her figure, one of several dangerous temptresses in the Hebrew Bible, has become emblematic: "Samson loved Delilah, she betrayed him, and, what is worse, she did it for money," Madlyn Kahr begins her study of the Delilah motif in European painting.

Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The first version, published in 1667, consisted of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse. A second edition followed in 1674, arranged into twelve books (in the manner of Virgil's Aeneid) with minor revisions throughout and a note on the versification. It is considered by critics to be Milton's major work, and it helped solidify his reputation as one of the greatest English poets of his time.

The poem concerns the Biblical story of the Fall of Man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Milton's purpose, stated in Book I, is to "justify the ways of God to men".

Seven deadly sins

The seven deadly sins, also known as the capital vices or cardinal sins, is a Western religious grouping and classification of vices. This grouping emerged in the fourth century AD and was used for Christian ethical education and for confession. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a mortal or deadly sin is believed to destroy the life of grace and charity within a person. Though the sins have fluctuated over time, the currently recognized list includes pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony,wrath and sloth. There is a parallel tradition of seven virtues.

Moses

Moses is a prophet in Abrahamic religions. According to the Hebrew Bible, he was a former Egyptian prince who later in life became a religious leader and lawgiver, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed. The historical consensus is that Moses is not an historical figure. Also called Moshe Rabbenu in Hebrew, he is the most important prophet in Judaism. He is also an important prophet in Christianity, Islam,Baha'ism as well as a number of other faiths.

According to the Book of Exodus, Moses was born in a time when his people, the Israelites, an enslaved minority, were increasing in numbers and the Egyptian Pharaoh was worried that they might ally with Egypt's enemies. Moses' Hebrew mother, Jochebed, secretly hid him when the Pharaoh ordered all newborn Hebrew boys to be killed in order to reduce the population of the Israelites. Through the Pharaoh's daughter (identified as Queen Bithia in the Midrash), the child was adopted as a foundling from the Nile river and grew up with the Egyptian royal family. After killing an Egyptian slavemaster (because the slavemaster was smiting a Hebrew), Moses fled across the Red Sea to Midian, where he encountered the God of Israel speaking to him from within a "burning bush which was not consumed by the fire" on Mount Horeb (which he regarded as the Mountain of God).

God sent Moses back to Egypt to demand the release of the Israelites from slavery. Moses said that he could not speak with assurance or eloquence, so God allowed Aaron, his brother, to become his spokesperson. After the Ten Plagues, Moses led the Exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt and across the Red Sea, after which they based themselves at Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments. After 40 years of wandering in the desert, Moses died within sight of the Promised Land.

Burning Bush

The burning bush is an object described by the Book of Exodus as being located on Mount Horeb. According to the narrative, the bush was on fire, but was not consumed by the flames, hence the name. In the biblical narrative, the burning bush is the location at which Moses was appointed by Yahweh (God) to lead the Israelites out of Egypt and into Canaan.

Plagues of Egypt

The Plagues of Egypt, also called the ten biblical plagues, were ten calamities that, according to the biblical Book of Exodus, the God of Israel inflicted upon Egypt to persuade the Pharaoh to release the ill-treated Israelites from slavery. Pharaoh capitulated after the tenth plague, triggering the Exodus of the Hebrew people. The plagues served to contrast the power of the God of Israel with the Egyptian gods, invalidating them. Some commentators have associated several of the plagues with judgment on specific gods associated with the Nile, fertility and natural phenomena. According to all the gods of Egypt would be judged through the tenth and final plague: "On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD."

Passover

Passover or Pesach , is an important, biblically derived Jewish festival. The Jewish people celebrate Passover as a commemoration of their liberation by God from slavery in Egypt and their freedom as a nation under the leadership of Moses. It commemorates the story of the Exodus as described in the Hebrew Bible especially in the Book of Exodus, in which the Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt. According to standard biblical chronology, this event would have taken place at about 1300 BCE (AM 2450).

Ten commandments

1. You shall have no other gods before Me.
2. You shall not make idols.
3. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
5. Honor your father and your mother.
6. You shall not murder.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
10. You shall not covet.

Parable

A parable is a succinct, didactic story, in prose or verse, which illustrates one or more instructive lessons or principles. It differs from a fable in that fables employ animals, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature as characters, whereas parables have human characters. A parable is a type of analogy.

Words

para-平行

paragraph,parable,parachute,parallel

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Psalm 23(King James Version)

 1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

 2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadethme beside the still waters.

 3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths ofrighteousness for his name’s sake.

 4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow ofdeath, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

 5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Protestantism

Protestantism is a form of Christian faith and practice which originated with the Protestant Reformation, a movement against what its followers considered to be errors in the Roman Catholic Church. It is one of the three major divisions of Christendom, together with Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.

Vulgate

The Vulgate is a late fourth-century Latin translation of the Bible that became, during the 16th century, the Catholic Church's officially promulgated Latin version of the Bible.

Cain and Abel

Cain and Abel were, according to the Book of Genesis, two sons of Adam and Eve. Cain is described as a crop farmer and his younger brother Abel as a shepherd. Cain was the first human born and Abel was the first human to die. Cain committed the first murder by killing Abel. Interpretations of Genesis 4 by ancient and modern commentators have typically assumed that the motives were jealousy and anger. The story of Cain and Abel is found in the Christian Bible, Jewish Torah and Muslim Quran.

Pandora

According to the myth, Pandora opened a jar (pithos), in modern accounts sometimes mistranslated as "Pandora's box" (see below), releasing all the evils of humanity—although the particular evils, aside from plagues and diseases, are not specified in detail by Hesiod—leaving only Hope inside once she had closed it again.

Fig

Vocabulary

Monotheism 

-Mono one

-Thei god

Quote

Hamlet:  Frailty, thy name is woman!

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scrooge

A miserly curmudgeon in Dickens' Christmas Carol.

Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens  was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the twentieth century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity.

Noah's ark

Noah's Ark  is the vessel in the Genesis flood narrative(Genesis chapters 6–9) by which God spares Noah, his family, and a remnant of all the world's animals from the flood. According to Genesis, God gave Noah instructions for building the ark. Seven days before the deluge, God told Noah to enter the ark with his household and the animals. The story goes on to describe the ark being afloat throughout the flood and subsequent receding of the waters before it came to rest on the Mountains of Ararat. The story is repeated, with variations, in the Quran, where the ark appears as Safina Nuh (Arabic: سفينة نوح‎ "Noah's boat"). The Genesis flood narrative is similar to numerous other flood myths from a variety of cultures. The earliest known written flood myth is the Sumerian flood myth found in the Epic of Ziusudra. Searches for Noah's Ark have been made from at least the time of Eusebius (c.275–339 CE) to the present day. There is no scientific evidence for a global flood, and despite many expeditions, no evidence of the ark has been found.

Joseph

Joseph  is a figure in the Gospels, the husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, and is venerated as Saint Joseph in the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion, Lutheranism and Methodism. Christian tradition places Joseph as Jesus' foster father. Some historians state that Joseph was Jesus's father. Some differing views are due to theological interpretations versus historical views.

Mary

According to the New Testament, Mary, also known as St Mary the Virgin, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Mary,Mary the Mother of God, or the Virgin Mary—amongst other titles, styles and honorifics—was a Galilean Jewish woman of Nazareth and the mother ofJesus.

The gospels of Matthew and Luke in the New Testament describe Mary as a virgin  and Christians believe that she conceived her son while a virgin by the Holy Spirit. This took place when she was already betrothed to Joseph and was awaiting the concluding rite of marriage, the formal home-taking ceremony. She married Joseph and accompanied him to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born. 

Original sin

Original sin, in Christian theology, is humanity's original state of sinfulness (propensity toward active sinning) resulting from the Fall of Man (the fallenness of the human 'species being').

Sistine Chapel

The Sistine Chapel  is a chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the Pope, in Vatican City. 

Abraham

Abraham, birthname Abram, is the first of the three biblical patriarchs. His story, told in chapters 11 through 25 of the Book of Genesis, plays a prominent role in Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the Bahá'í Faith.The Genesis narrative revolves around the themes of posterity and land rights. Abraham was called by Yahweh (the national god of the Israelites) to leave the house of his father Terah and settle in a land which was already settled by the descendants of Canaan; however, God promised it to Abraham and his progeny. Various candidates were put forward who might inherit the land after him, but all were dismissed except for Isaac, Abraham's son by his half-sister Sarah. Abraham purchased the Cave of the Patriarchs at Hebron to be Sarah's grave when she died, thus establishing his right to that land. In the second generation, Abraham's heir Isaac was married to a woman from his own relatives, thus ruling the Canaanites out of any right to his inheritance. Abraham later married Keturah and had six more sons, but on his death, when he was buried beside Sarah, it was Isaac who received "all Abraham's goods", while the other sons received only "gifts".

Isaac

Isaac as described in the Hebrew Bible and the Qur'an, was the second son of Abraham, the only son Abraham had with his wife Sarah, and the father of Jacob and Esau. According to the Book of Genesis, Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born, and Sarah was past 90.

According to the Genesis narrative, Abraham brought Isaac to Mount Moriah, where, at God's command, Abraham built a sacrificial altar to sacrifice Isaac. This event served as a test of Abraham's faith. At the last moment an angel stopped him.

Ishmael

Ishmael  is a figure in the Tanakh and the Qur'an and was Abraham's first son according to Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Ishmael was born to Abraham and Sarah's handmaiden Hagar . According to the Genesis account, he died at the age of 137.

The Book of Genesis and Islamic traditions consider Ishmael to be the ancestor of the Ishmaelites. According to Muslim tradition, Ishmael and his mother are said to be buried next to the Kaaba in Mecca.

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The important part in a book is written in 

1,Boldface
2,Italics 
3,Underlined

How to take great notes?

1. Write down the conclusions instead of facts.
2. Use color
3. Review

Platonic academy

The Academy was founded by Plato in ca. 387 BC in Athens. Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) studied there for twenty years (367 BC – 347 BC) before founding his own school, the Lyceum. The Academy persisted throughout the Hellenistic period as a skeptical school, until coming to an end after the death of Philo of Larissa in 83 BC. Although philosophers continued to teach Plato's philosophy in Athens during the Roman era, it was not until AD 410 that a revived Academy was established as a center for Neoplatonism, persisting until 529 AD when it was finally closed by Justinian I.

The Platonic Academy has been cited by historians as the first higher learning institution in the Western world.

Catharsis

Catharsis (meaning "purification" or "cleansing") is the purification and purgation of emotions—especially pity and fear—through art or any extreme change in emotion that results in renewal and restoration. It is a metaphor originally used by Aristotle in the Poetics, comparing the effects of tragedy on the mind of spectator to the effect of a cathartic on the body.

Mimesis

Mimesis, is a critical and philosophical term that carries a wide range of meanings, which include imitation, representation, mimicry, imitatio, receptivity, nonsensuous similarity, the act of resembling, the act of expression, and the presentation of the self.

Classical unities

The classical unities, Aristotelian unities, or three unities are rules for drama derived from a passage in Aristotle's Poetics. In their neoclassical form they are as follows:

1. unity of action: a play should have one action that it follows, with minimal subplots.
2. unity of time: the action in a play should occur over a period of no more than 24 hours.
3. unity of place: a play should exist in a single physical space and should not attempt to compress geography, nor should the stage represent more than one place.

Hamartia

 Hamartia  means “to miss the mark” or “to err”. It is most often associated with Greek tragedy, although it is also used in Christian theology. Hamartia as it pertains to dramatic literature was first used by Aristotle in his Poetics. In tragedy, hamartia is commonly understood to refer to the protagonist’s error or flaw that leads to a chain of plot actions culminating in a reversal from their good fortune to bad. What qualifies as the error or flaw can include an error resulting from ignorance, an error of judgement, a flaw in character, or sin. The spectrum of meanings has invited debate among critics and scholars, and different interpretations among dramatists.

Words

omniscient: Having complete or unlimited knowledge, awareness, orunderstanding; perceiving all things.

-omni means all

-scient means knowing