#or fishing out in a wild eden with no one to tend it

[cherubchoirs]

this is a stupid question but I wonder how V1 would react to just- a mossy rock. like- what if it thinks its another small Maurice but with a fuzzy blanket on top?

aaaaa v1 having a chance to be out in nature.....maybe it will have a little rest on this overgrown maurice :]

[cakerybakery]

To further the After Eden idea of Lucifer/Lilith/Adam/Eve having adventures on untamed Earth.

I would give Adam an axe as a weapon/tool. He’d be more the fighter/protector of the group as one of the strongest in it. He’d use it of course for normal axe stuff, chopping wood, makeshift hammer, can’t think of a third thing. But also against wild animals trying to eat them. Plus he uses a guitar or axe as a weapon in the show so it’s fitting.

He’s a bit more likely to stick around camp when they make camp. He’ll explore with everyone else but he’s not prone to going off alone, at least not very far. He was created to be the first man and protector, it makes him uneasy if he can’t quickly get back to the group he low key thinks of as his to keep safe. But he has a disproportional sense of danger.

He’s over confident in himself and under confident in everyone else. He lacks a sense of danger about terrain, particularly if they’re in a group as he’s overly confident he can keep them safe from a few rocks or a little bit of water. But if someone is doing something by themselves, even mildly dangerous, it freaks him out.

A half rotting log over a river? It’s fine. Eve in a tree? PANIC!!

Eve I think would have a cast iron pot. Lucifer used a good deal what was left of his power to make it for her. It’s heavy but she won’t let anyone carry it for her as she feels it’s special since Lucifer had to use up so much of his powers to make it. It helps keep them all fed as she now can make stews or boil oats, roast foods too. It’s more versatile than just roasting on a stick or eating things raw. If she figures out bread she could make some in it too. Plus it packs a wallop.

She’s a bit of a gather by nature and does tend to wander off or climb stupidly high just to reach possible food. Adam practically has a full time job keeping an eye on her. He is easily goaded into getting things for her when he says that’s it’s too dangerous.

“But I need that fruit for breakfast tomorrow. I’m sure my big strong protector can get it for me if it’s too dangerous for little old me.”

“Darn rights I can! Just watch me!” … “wait, how did I get in this tree??”

Lilith would rather avoid danger at all costs, not just for the group as a whole but to avoid putting Lucifer in a position that might trigger his anxiety. She carries a spear/trident. Mostly it gets used for fishing. I’m not sure which I prefer she has so I’m thinking she has both. She tried to use a spear for fishing but the fish too easily slipped off so she and Eve developed the trident to hook fish. But the spear is better for protection. She uses a sharp rock for the spear as it lasts longer in a fight but the trident is wooden and carved since that’s easier to replace or fix if she smashes it against a rock trying to fish.

She thinks Adam is too protective. She can take care of herself, thank you very much, and so can Eve. They don’t need Adam hovering all the time. And then immediately hovers over her tiny husband.

Lucifer doesn’t really want a weapon. He’s just as strong as Adam, having been reduced to a mere mortal man (mostly). Which is still hella strong as the only mortal man is Adam, he just doesn’t look it and is incredibly weak compared to how he was as an angel.

He has a bow and arrow, he was a cherubim according to one version of the bible and in modern times we tend to associate cherubs with cupid and bows and arrows so I thought it was fitting. It also gives him a long distance attack which I think would be similar enough to his angelic powers that he’s more comfortable with it than Lilith’s spear or Adam’s axe.

Most of his powers have been reduced to some fire starting and mild healing. He tends to be more of a support role.

Adam looks at him and goes, “you’re a tiny guy, you should stay here with Eve.”

Lilith looks at him and goes, “you’re too sensitive for this, why don’t you sit this one out.”

Eve looks at him and goes, “do it anyways.” Partly to get him out of her ‘kitchen’ and partly because she knows he’s not as weak and helpless as the other two think. He’s an angel for goodness sake, wings or no wings. He’s just as strong as Adam, he has some of his powers left, he’s way more resilient than the three of them, and he’s not going to get better mentally if everyone treats him like some delicate little flower.

It’s one thing not to purposely upset Lucifer, it’s another to act like they can shelter him from the fact that Earth is wild and dangerous and they will on occasion be in danger and they’ll get hurt, this is what they signed up for when they decided to tell heaven to fuck off.

And because I forgot this bit last time. Lilith and Lucifer are married. Adam and Eve are married. But Adam and Lilith sleep with both Lucifer and Eve but not each other, much. At least not one on one and she doesn’t want to get pregnant by Adam so that’s 100% out. Lucifer and Eve sleep with Adam and Lilith, but not each other, much. They’re more a friends with benefits type thing.

[neil-gaiman]

How Did you come up with the first eve in the story about adams wives? I haven’t been able to find anything about her after I read it and I want to know if she’s an actual biblical character or just someone you made

She's from the Midrash. I learned about her as a 12 year old, from my barmitzvah teacher. There was a point in there, long after I'd put her into Sandman, where I was starting to think I'd imagined her, when I ran across her in Robert Graves's Hebrew Myths....

Excerpt from: The Hebrew Myths by Robert Graves and Raphael Patai (New York:  Doubleday, 1964), pp 65-69

Chapter 10: Adam's Helpmeets

(a) Having decided to give Adam a helpmeet lest he should be alone of his kind, God put him into a deep sleep, removed one of his ribs, formed it into a woman, and closed up the wound, Adam awoke and said: 'This being shall be named "Woman", because she has been taken out of man. A man and a woman shall be one flesh.' The title he gave her was Eve, 'the Mother of All Living''. [1]

(b) Some say that God created man and woman in His own image on the Sixth Day, giving them charge over the world; [2]  but that Eve did not yet exist. Now, God had set Adam to name every beast, bird and other living thing. When they passed before him in pairs, male and female, Adam-being already like a twenty-year-old man-felt jealous of their loves, and though he tried coupling with each female in turn, found no satisfaction in the act. He therefore cried: 'Every creature but I has a proper mate', and prayed God would remedy this injustice. [3]

(c) God then formed Lilith, the first woman, just as He had formed Adam, except that He used filth and sediment instead of pure dust. From Adam's union with this demoness, and with another like her named Naamah, Tubal Cain's sister, sprang Asmodeus and innumerable demons that still plague mankind. Many generations later, Lilith and Naamah came to Solomon's judgement seat, disguised as harlots of Jerusalem'. [4]

(d) Adam and Lilith never found peace together; for when he wished to lie with her, she took offence at the recumbent posture he demanded. 'Why must I lie beneath you?' she asked. 'I also was made from dust, and am therefore your equal.' Because Adam tried to compel her obedience by force, Lilith, in a rage, uttered the magic name of God, rose into the air and left him.

Adam complained to God: 'I have been deserted by my helpmeet' God at once sent the angels Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangelof to fetch Lilith back. They found her beside the Red Sea, a region abounding in lascivious demons, to whom she bore lilim at the rate of more than one hundred a day. 'Return to Adam without delay,' the angels said, `or we will drown you!' Lilith asked: `How can I return to Adam and live like an honest housewife, after my stay beside the Red Sea?? 'It will be death to refuse!' they answered. `How can I die,' Lilith asked again, `when God has ordered me to take charge of all newborn children: boys up to the eighth day of life, that of circumcision; girls up to the twentieth day. None the less, if ever I see your three names or likenesses displayed in an amulet above a newborn child, I promise to spare it.' To this they agreed; but God punished Lilith by making one hundred of her demon children perish daily; [5] and if she could not destroy a human infant, because of the angelic amulet, she would spitefully turn against her own. [6]

(e) Some say that Lilith ruled as queen in Zmargad, and again in Sheba; and was the demoness who destroyed job's sons. [7] Yet she escaped the curse of death which overtook Adam, since they had parted long before the Fall. Lilith and Naamah not only strangle infants but also seduce dreaming men, any one of whom, sleeping alone, may become their victim. [8]

(f) Undismayed by His failure to give Adam a suitable helpmeet, God tried again, and let him watch while he built up a woman's anatomy: using bones, tissues, muscles, blood and glandular secretions, then covering the whole with skin and adding tufts of hair in places. The sight caused Adam such disgust that even when this woman, the First Eve, stood there in her full beauty, he felt an invincible repugnance. God knew that He had failed once more, and took the First Eve away. Where she went, nobody knows for certain. [9]

(g) God tried a third time, and acted more circumspectly. Having taken a rib from Adam's side in his sleep, He formed it into a woman; then plaited her hair and adorned her, like a bride, with twenty-four pieces of jewellery, before waking him. Adam was entranced. [10]

(h) Some say that God created Eve not from Adam's rib, but from a tail ending in a sting which had been part of his body. God cut this off, and the stump-now a useless coccyx-is still carried by Adam's descendants. [11]

(i) Others say that God's original thought had been to create two human beings, male and female; but instead He designed a single one with a male face looking forward, and a female face looking back. Again He changed His mind, removed Adam's backward-looking face, and built a woman's body for it. [12]

(j) Still others hold that Adam was originally created as an androgyne of male and female bodies joined back to back. Since this posture made locomotion difficult, and conversation awkward, God divided the androgyne and gave each half a new rear. These separate beings He placed in Eden, forbidding them to couple. [13]

Notes on sources:

1. Genesis II. 18-25; III. 20.

2. Genesis I. 26-28.

3. Gen. Rab. 17.4; B. Yebamot 632.

4. Yalqut Reubeni ad. Gen. II. 21; IV. 8.

5. Alpha Beta diBen Sira, 47; Gaster, MGWJ, 29 (1880), 553 ff.

6. Num. Rab. 16.25.

7. Targum ad job 1. 15.

8. B. Shabbat 151b; Ginzberg, LJ, V. 147-48.

9. Gen. Rab. 158, 163-64; Mid. Abkir 133, 135; Abot diR. Nathan 24; B. Sanhedrin 39a.

10. Gen. II. 21-22; Gen. Rab. 161.

11. Gen. Rab. 134; B. Erubin 18a.

12. B. Erubin 18a.

13. Gen. Rab. 55; Lev. Rab. 14.1: Abot diR. Nathan 1.8; B. Berakhot 61a; B. Erubin 18a; Tanhuma Tazri'a 1; Yalchut Gen. 20; Tanh. Buber iii.33; Mid. Tehillim 139, 529.

Authors’ Comments on the Myth:

1. The tradition that man's first sexual intercourse was with animals, not women, may be due to the widely spread practice of bestiality among herdsmen of the Middle East, which is still condoned by custom, although figuring three times in the Pentateuch as a capital crime. In the Akkadian Gilgamesh Epic, Enkidu is said to have lived with gazelles and jostled other wild beasts at the watering place, until civilized by Aruru's priestess. Having enjoyed her embraces for six days and seven nights, he wished to rejoin the wild beasts but, to his surprise, they fled from him. Enkidu then knew that he had gained understanding, and the priestess said: 'Thou art wise, Enkidu, like unto a godl'

2. Primeval man was held by the Babylonians to have been androgynous. Thus the Gilgamesh Epic gives Enkidu androgynous features: `the hair of his head like a woman's, with locks that sprout like those of Nisaba, the Grain-goddess.' The Hebrew tradition evidently derives from Greek sources, because both terms used in a Tannaitic midrash to describe the bisexual Adam are Greek: androgynos, 'man-woman', and diprosopon, 'twofaced'. Philo of Alexandria, the Hellenistic philosopher and commentator on the Bible, contemporary with Jesus, held that man was at first bisexual; so did the Gnostics. This belief is clearly borrowed from Plato. Yet the myth of two bodies placed back to back may well have been founded on observation of Siamese twins, which are sometimes joined in this awkward manner. The two-faced Adam appears to be a fancy derived from coins or statues of Janus, the Roman New Year god.

3. Divergences between the Creation myths of Genesis r and n, which allow Lilith to be presumed as Adam's first mate, result from a careless weaving together of an early Judaean and a late priestly tradition. The older version contains the rib incident. Lilith typifies the Anath-worshipping Canaanite women, who were permitted pre-nuptial promiscuity. Time after time the prophets denounced Israelite women for following Canaanite practices; at first, apparently, with the priests' approval-since their habit of dedicating to God the fees thus earned is expressly forbidden in Deuteronomy xxIII. I8. Lilith's flight to the Red Sea recalls the ancient Hebrew view that water attracts demons. 'Tortured and rebellious demons' also found safe harbourage in Egypt. Thus Asmodeus, who had strangled Sarah's first six husbands, fled 'to the uttermost parts of Egypt' (Tobit viii. 3), when Tobias burned the heart and liver of a fish on their wedding night.

4. Lilith's bargain with the angels has its ritual counterpart in an apotropaic rite once performed in many Jewish communities. To protect the newborn child against Lilith-and especially a male, until he could be permanently safeguarded by circumcision-a ring was drawn with natron, or charcoal, on the wall of the birthroom, and inside it were written the words: 'Adam and Eve. Out, Lilith!' Also the names Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangelof (meanings uncertain) were inscribed on the door. If Lilith nevertheless succeeded in approaching the child and fondling him, he would laugh in his sleep. To avert danger, it was held wise to strike the sleeping child's lips with one finger-whereupon Lilith would vanish.

5. 'Lilith' is usually derived from the Babylonian-Assyrian word lilitu, ,a female demon, or wind-spirit'-one of a triad mentioned in Babylonian spells. But she appears earlier as 'Lillake' on a 2000 B.G. Sumerian tablet from Ur containing the tale of Gilgamesh and the Willow Tree. There she is a demoness dwelling in the trunk of a willow-tree tended by the Goddess Inanna (Anath) on the banks of the Euphrates. Popular Hebrew etymology seems to have derived 'Lilith' from layil, 'night'; and she therefore often appears as a hairy night-monster, as she also does in Arabian folklore. Solomon suspected the Queen of Sheba of being Lilith, because she had hairy legs. His judgement on the two harlots is recorded in I Kings III. 16 ff. According to Isaiah xxxiv. I4-I5, Lilith dwells among the desolate ruins in the Edomite Desert where satyrs (se'ir), reems, pelicans, owls, jackals, ostriches, arrow-snakes and kites keep her company.

6. Lilith's children are called lilim. In the Targum Yerushalmi, the priestly blessing of Numbers vi. 26 becomes: 'The Lord bless thee in all thy doings, and preserve thee from the Lilim!' The fourth-century A.D. commentator Hieronymus identified Lilith with the Greek Lamia, a Libyan queen deserted by Zeus, whom his wife Hera robbed of her children. She took revenge by robbing other women of theirs.

7. The Lamiae, who seduced sleeping men, sucked their blood and ate their flesh, as Lilith and her fellow-demonesses did, were also known as Empusae, 'forcers-in'; or Mormolyceia, 'frightening wolves'; and described as 'Children of Hecate'. A Hellenistic relief shows a naked Lamia straddling a traveller asleep on his back. It is characteristic of civilizations where women are treated as chattels that they must adopt the recumbent posture during intercourse, which Lilith refused. That Greek witches who worshipped Hecate favoured the superior posture, we know from Apuleius; and it occurs in early Sumerian representations of the sexual act, though not in the Hittite. Malinowski writes that Melanesian girls ridicule what they call `the missionary position', which demands that they should lie passive and recumbent.

8. Naamah, 'pleasant', is explained as meaning that 'the demoness sang pleasant songs to idols'. Zmargad suggest smaragdos, the semi-precious aquamarine; and may therefore be her submarine dwelling. A demon named Smaragos occurs in the Homeric Epigrams.

9. Eve's creation by God from Adam's rib-a myth establishing male supremacy and disguising Eve's divinity-lacks parallels in Mediterranean or early Middle-Eastern myth. The story perhaps derives iconotropically from an ancient relief, or painting, which showed the naked Goddess Anath poised in the air, watching her lover Mot murder his twin Aliyan; Mot (mistaken by the mythographer for Yahweh) was driving a curved dagger under Aliyan's fifth rib, not removing a sixth one. The familiar story is helped by a hidden pun on tsela, the Hebrew for 'rib': Eve, though designed to be Adam's helpmeet, proved to be a tsela, a 'stumbling', or 'misfortune'. Eve's formation from Adam's tail is an even more damaging myth; perhaps suggested by the birth of a child with a vestigial tail instead of a coccyx-a not infrequent occurrence.

10. The story of Lilith's escape to the East and of Adam's subsequent marriage to Eve may, however, record an early historical incident: nomad herdsmen, admitted into Lilith's Canaanite queendom as guests (see 16. 1), suddenly seize power and, when the royal household thereupon flees, occupy a second queendom which owes allegiance to the Hittite Goddess Heba.

The meaning of 'Eve' is disputed. Hawwah is explained in Genesis III. 20 as 'mother of all living'; but this may well be a Hebraicized form of the divine name Heba, Hebat, Khebat or Khiba. This goddess, wife of the Hittite Storm-god, is shown riding a lion in a rock-sculpture at Hattusaswhich equates her with Anath-and appears as a form of Ishtar in Hurrian texts. She was worshipped at Jerusalem (see 27. 6). Her Greek name was Hebe, Heracles's goddess-wife.

[aethelflaedladyofmercia]

Dream a Little Dream - Part 1

This fic was written for @bingokisses - in a wild attempt to fill as many prompts as possible! Each two-part prompt (one kiss, one soft touch) will be posted as a separate section here and a separate chapter on AO3.

This 5+1 story is about dreamsharing, pining, and falling in love. Rated T for some mentioned/implied raciness.

The first prompt is Hug From Behind/Knee Kiss

AO3 link here!

I. 3004 BC: Perchance to Dream

Aziraphale rarely dreamed.

He didn’t sleep, so that already made it exceedingly unlikely. But one didn’t necessarily have to be asleep to dream.

Sometimes – when his mood struck him just so, when the here and now was just the right combination of distressing and dull – his mind would start to drift, to ponder possibilities and roll out fanciful scenarios, and he experienced what humans would, eventually, name daydreaming.

Seven days ago, the floodwater had lifted the Ark and borne it far from the patch of desert where it rested. Seven days of floating, bobbing along, no sound apart from the snap of sails or the groan of rope and the constant, ceaseless fall of rain. No sign of land or life except what existed here, on the ship. His thoughts kept tugging in terrifying directions, paths they should certainly never go down.

Normally, he would throw himself into his work, focus his entire mind on the task, leaving no room for – for the unnamed emotions that, as an angel, he certainly didn’t feel.

But, after seven days…nothing remained to be done.

And so, Aziraphale rested, leaning against the rail, watching the waves bob up and down. It was dry where he stood - an easy enough miracle - but all else was wet and grey: slate grey waves below a coal grey sky, and silvery mist in between. 

It was the height of summer. There should be sunlight. There should be…birds of some description. Geese, perhaps. Pelicans. There should be marsh weeds with storks browsing for fish, river otters paddling across the current.

There should be people. Little flat boats drifting downriver to the city, filled with traders or fishers. Women with baskets on their backs loaded with dates and pistachios harvested from the groves. Children splashing on the banks, covered in mud and happy for it.

A creak behind him – possibly a footstep, possibly beams of wood settling against each other – and suddenly long arms wrapped around his waist, pulled him back in an embrace. His shoulders bumped against a narrow chest, a sharp chin rested lightly atop his head. Streamers of red hair - curling in the damp - whipped past his face, blowing in the erratic wind.

“S’not your fault, Angel,” a rough voice said. “Nothing you could do.”

“Yes, there was. There must have been.” His hands tightened on the rail of the ship, even as the arms tightened around him. “Why, why would they give me so much warning if not to do something?”

“What were you supposed to do? Change the Almighty’s mind?” The chin brushed across his hair, as the being behind him shook his head. “Think what happened last time we tried that.”

“I could have evacuated the villages. Sent the children away. Something.”

“Were you ordered to?”

“I…I wasn’t ordered not to��”

“Aziraphale.” Another wave of red hair across his face, as lips dipped down to his ear. A whisper all but lost under the wind and the waves and the thunder. “Those are dangerous words for an angel.”

“I can’t just stand by and watch. That can’t be my purpose.”

“Don’t do this. If anyone hears you…”

“No one can hear me, Crawly.” He took a deep breath. “Because none of this is real.”

Aziraphale turned around and gazed across the empty deck. No tall dark figure lurked in the shadows, no golden eyes dancing with a joke only they could see.

Just as well. What had Aziraphale been thinking? Of all the creatures in creation to confide in, why had he imagined a demon?

He brushed off his robes and went to find something to do.

--

“No one can hear me, Crawly. Because none of this is real.”

Crawly woke suddenly, limbs jerking, and sucked in a deep breath.

The child in his arms mumbled in surprise. “Shhh, s’alright,” he soothed, lulling her back to sleep before she could make too much noise.

Even his demonic eyes could hardly penetrate the complete darkness below the lowest deck of the Ark. The children were little more than shadows, hunched on narrow shelves he’d quickly miracled into the empty space. Bilge water sloshed below them, bracken and sour.

Twenty kids. He hadn’t expected to get that many. He could only hope they’d last, that he could keep miracling up more bread and fresh water until this blessed rain ended.

He sat up carefully, moving the smallest child to rest safely back against the beams of the hull. She’d been afraid of falling into the water, and still might if she moved too much, but Crawly needed to tend to the rest.

A young boy huddled nearby, a deep scrape on his knee. Didn’t look infected; Crawly couldn’t spare the miracle to heal it unless it was an emergency. But he paused to kiss the boy’s knee, rubbing his thumb over the scab, and got a weak smile in return.

Standing up, Crawly rolled the stiffness out of his shoulders, thinking of the dream. Why had he imagined that?

Wishful thinking, maybe. Back at Eden, Aziraphale had seemed…open to real thought. Not entirely convinced by Heaven’s rules. But he’d seen nothing of those doubts outside, as the rains started to fall.

He wished he had. Wished Aziraphale had said even one word before boarding the ship and leaving the people to their doom.

I can’t just stand by and watch.

He wished it were true. That there was one other being in the world that felt as he did.

But what could you really expect from an angel?

Crawly shook his head and stepped from one makeshift shelf to the next, where a brother and sister huddled, sucking on an empty waterskin. “Let me refill that.”

--

To be continued! Big thanks to @angel-and-serpent for helping me get this ready to go!

[degenerate-perturbation]

Ultimate Good Omens Fic Recommendations

I read the entire AO3 archive. I started sometime in November 2018 and read all the way back to 1999. I did not read every story, but I tried. Here are my recommendations.

(Most Good Omens fic is very good, which is why I bothered to read the entire archive instead of just scrolling through the first few pages, despairing, and giving up, which is what I usually do when I read fanfiction. So if your fic is not here, congratulations! I probably still read it and liked it but this post is already very long.)

My Absolute Top Favorites

Deus Ex Machina by clockwork_spider -  Angels really aren't the most sentimental bunch, so when Crowley was escorted back to Hell, Aziraphale's initial reaction was to do nothing. But let it be known that God moves in ineffable ways.

Tryst On a Hot Church Roof by Macdicilla -  Crowley has some fantasies. Aziraphale encourages him to explore them and not to be embarrassed. Neither of them can really take roleplay seriously but they still have a good time.

Re-Recalled by Jennistar -  Halfway through an argument, Aziraphale gets accidentally discorporated and doesn't come back. Crowley does the sensible thing and panics.

The love that dare not speak its name by Lunasong365, sous_le_saule  -  London, late nineteenth century. Aziraphale finds that time moves slowly while waiting for Crowley to wake up. Meeting Oscar Wilde should break the monotony. But perhaps it will bring more of a change than the angel anticipated…

Safe Haven by JAMoczo -  A remix of Prodigal Son: January 1945; Aziraphale has a crisis of Faith.

(The rest below the cut, in convenient categories)

General

Five Things That Never Happened To Aziraphale by imperfectcircle - Five things.

Down to the Earth with Violence by Daegaer -  Crowley and Aziraphale meet after the end of the world.

Coming to an Arrangement by Daegaer  - The long, slow path to the Arrangement.

Act of Redemption by copperbadge -  After the world failed to end, Crowley got depressed.

Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot by xylodemon -  In which Crowley starts over. Again, and again, and again.

A Few Conversations, Which are Mostly Related to Christmas by xylodemon - In which there is cocoa, conversation, and more Christmas cheer than Crowley think is strictly necessary.

The Ghost and A. J. Crowley by Argyle -  A heartwarming tale of grisly ghost plants and fearsome floral apparitions. Has Crowley finally met his match? Will Aziraphale come to the rescue? And just how difficult is it to remove dirt stains from white carpet?

Five Meetings (Steps in the Fall and Rise to Grace) by icarus_chained -  GO Noir AU. Bad things are brewing in the City of Angels, and one tired ex-cop is stuck in the middle of it.

How to Make Friends and Influence Flora aka Radio Four Never Mentioned This by WinterEyes -  The Fear of Crowley isn't all it's cracked up to be

Suntne Angeli? by Macdicilla -  Adam answers the question of whether angels need to eat and drink, and accidentally creates a major change in the (pants) fabric of reality.

Field Agents by Lunasong365, sous_le_saule -  How did ‘Human’ Resources (both Demonic and Angelic) recruit Crawly and Aziraphale to be field agents? Is it a coincidence that they both found themselves back on Earth after leaving the Garden of Eden?

The Devil Went Down to Georgia by ImprobableDreams900 -  Now Crowley went down to Georgia, he was looking for a soul to steal, cause he was in a bind and way behind and he was willing to make a deal.

Major Failings by irisbleufic -  It was quick and messy, the sort of thing that took you off-guard no matter how many beheadings, torture stints, and vivisections you'd seen otherwise. Actually, Crowley wasn't certain how many of any of those he'd actually seen. He tended to lower his eyes or look away at the last second. This was also a major failing in a demon.

Pre-Relationship

Gavotte by bunnyfication -  Crowley sleeps a decade or a few, and suddenly Aziraphale is dressing fashionably? And asking him to a dance at a club with a "select clientele"? Clearly something is amiss.

Something About Flamingos by Plumbeo -  Aziraphale and Crowley have a petty, stupid, pointless fight. After four days of not talking to each other, the angel decides to break the silence - in an equally stupid way.

it giveth light unto all in the house (the let's have some wine remix) by pocky_slash -  There's loving Crowley the way he loves their waiter at the café and the ducks in St. James Park and linzer tarts and there's—well.

growing season by ghostsoldier - In which Aziraphale kills plants, and Crowley is a generous sort of demon.

Afternoons and Espresso Spoons by Kirathaune

Home by LysanderandHermia - Crowley has a realization, and it's about the angel drooling on the couch while he sleeps.

Sweet Dreams, Angel! by sous_le_saule -  Aziraphale’s never been able to sleep. Crowley takes up the challenge.

Be Ye Therefore Merciful by AmberDiceless -  Crowley does something utterly unexpected, and Aziraphale must face an opponent who cannot be thwarted.

Saunter by Aria -  There is nothing to do but feel out of sorts, disjointed and slightly askew from the world, and watch as Aziraphale absently eats the apple, the world's hundred millionth apple, symbolic of nothing at all.

They Get Together In These Ones

And when he falls by torch -  There are many ways to celebrate having avoided the apocalypse.

The Member of the Wedding by Aja - Crowley comes to a realization.

Survivors' Guilt / For All the World by irisbleufic -  It was a dark and stormy night, and nobody was enjoying it.

Goodbody by copperbadge -  Aziraphael's new body is causing some problems.

Sunday (Or the First Day Of the Rest of Their Lives) by pollitt -  Sunday at the park

Under Cover by bliumchik -  There's a new little problem in Tadfield...

An Excellent Long-Term Solution by Beth H (bethbethbeth) - In which Hell seems more forgiving than Heaven, Aziraphale seems to have got himself into a bit of a pickle, and Crowley seems to have come up with the perfect solution, almost all on his own.

Firebird: III. Finale by htebazytook -  "In the background Crowley and Aziraphale met on the tops of buses, and in art galleries, and at concerts, compared notes, and smiled."

Old Fashioned by htebazytook -  Hell has changed.

Very Complicated Solitaire by htebazytook

Ordinary People (The Anything But Ordinary Remix) by cimorene  -  Crowley has started to take a proprietary interest in Aziraphale's bookshop.

The Speck in the London Eye by Vulgarweed -  A hot dame, a missing youth, a quirky consultant—and much much more than meets the eye at stake. Private Investigator A.J. Crowley just might be in over his head this time.

TwoFish by Grindylowe -  A love story about angels and demons. Also, fish.  

Snowy Evenings by htebazytook -  Five times Crowley couldn't stand the snow, and one time he could.

A Peculiar Sensation by Elvendork -  It happens at the Ritz: Aziraphale comes to a startling realistion, but takes it in his stride remarkably well.

As Above, So Below by JenTheSweetie - Crowley and Aziraphale talk, drink, complete paperwork, drink, fall asleep with abandon, drink, and do other stuff (maybe). And drink.

Modern Love by punkfaery -  Crowley, Aziraphale, and a series of religious buildings.

A Backwards Proposal by HoloXam -  An encounter with a bride-to-be puts an idea in Aziraphale's head. Crowley doesn't react very well.

Post-Relationship

Recall by busaikko -  RECALL: 1. To ask or order to return; 2. To summon back to awareness; 3. To remember; recollect.

That Subtle Knot by apple_pi -  I wonder. Does an angel get his wings when the bell is set off by a demon?

Never Mind the Gravitation by Argyle -  Sure, there's life on Mars. But Crowley can hardly call it living.

Flamingos by Interrobam -  "Las Vegas, Crowley had always maintained, was technically Aziraphale's fault." Crowley and Aziraphale go to Las Vegas, contemplate the history of civilization and the meaning of existence.

Snapshots by mirawonderfulstar -  Five photographs on the wall of Aziraphale’s shop.

A Resort By Any Other Name by TheLifeOfEmm -  Or in which Crowley and Aziraphale go on holiday, but have a bit of trouble with the weather.

Hell's Bells (Wedding Bells) by Macdicilla -  Hell finds out that Aziraphale and Crowley are together, and eventually Heaven does too. Hell sends its [unwelcome] congratulations.

Categorization by SleepsWithCoyotes -  Crowley calls 'em like he sees 'em.

Black Dog by HoloXam -  In which Crowley feels bad and Aziraphale makes tea.

The Flame No Dampness Dulls by mirawonderfulstar -     Aziraphale doesn't understand why Crowley's spent the last two months trying to seduce him when the demon hasn't ever shown any interest in sex.

heaven is a place where nothing ever happens by Contra -  After the end of the world, there comes a new morning.

These Ones Have Sex

Lethe For Two by SleepsWithCoyotes -  A visit from the Angel of Oblivion sounds pretty ominous, doesn't it?

Monday, Half Past Four by TruckThat -  Crowley decides that almost any course of action is justified if it manages to distract him from the fact that it's been nearly two days and so far nothing else is going wrong.

The Reason for the Season by Vulgarweed -  Adam and Pepper, now married with children of their own, worry that their kids might be losing some of the magic of the season. Adam calls in a little favour from some old friends - with a nice little bonus that's in it for them.

No Such Thing by irisbleufic -  "You mean [Agnes] was trying to reassure us the whole time that the world wasn't, in fact, going to end?"

Historical

Casual as Birds by apple_pi -  Aziraphale and Crowley in London, 1944.

New Day (The Dreaming of You Remix) by Daegaer -  Ettore dreams of friendship and love.

The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by Argyle - The Devil has all the best tunes. (London, 1940)

Theatrical Sins: A Play in Three Acts by Aria -  "What did you do?" Crowley asked in horror, the first time he saw Aziraphale after sleeping away most of the nineteenth century.

Natural Laws by Argyle -  Every object in the Universe attracts every other object. (Lincolnshire, 1665)

Species, Origins by bliumchik -  A prehistoric chat.

Lessons in Falling by Argyle -  You never forget how. (London, 1866/1899)

The Visible Universe by Argyle -  It was not a remarkable day. (England, 1928)

How Crowley Saved Christmas by such_heights -  It was 1842, and Aziraphale really didn’t want to do it.

Letters by inabathrobe for miss_narla -  Aziraphale and Crowley burn letters and bridges.

Myths Will Be Myths by palavreado -  Aziraphale says goodbye to an old friend.

On Transmutation (and Tortoises) by Vermin_Disciple -  c. 1859. In which Aziraphale reads the latest bestseller, and he and Crowley take a trip to the Galapagos.  

i wanted to hurt you but the victory is that i could not stomach it by gyzym

Three Times Aziraphale Was Almost Too Much Of A Bastard To Be Worth Liking by feverbeats -  They have to stop meeting like this.

Safe Haven by JAMoczo -  A remix of Prodigal Son: January 1945; Aziraphale has a crisis of Faith.

In der H'lle by Copinggoggles -  Snapshot in the trenches.

Hell Is Empty by bemusedlybespectacled (ardentintoxication) -  Crowley goes to investigate this Inquisition he supposedly helped to start and finds Aziraphale instead.

And All The Devils Are Here by bemusedlybespectacled (ardentintoxication) -  Aziraphale is taken in by the Inquisition for witchcraft and finds help from an unexpected source.

The Widening Gyre by Vulgarweed -  In the spring of 1916, some in London and Dublin were fighting a war on two fronts. Three, if you include the heart. (Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of it.)

Bacchanalia by furchte_die_schildkrote -  The first time Crowley was kissed by an angel, Aziraphale had wine on his breath, a nearly full moon hung in the sky, and Rome was burning.

Carmina Burana by Lunasong365 - Carmina Burana has been described as: Profane. Sensual. Irreverent. Satirical of religion.So why was its source text discovered in a monastery?

The Fourteenth Century by Elsinore_and_Inverness -  An Angel, a Demon and the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages

“O Serpent heart… Fiend Angelical, Dove Feather Raven” -William Shakespeare (R&J, 3.2.74-76) by Elsinore_and_Inverness -  'There are no sonnets immortalizing a demon with eyes like the sun. This is probably just as well.'

Don't Mind You Under My Skin by 50artists -  Five times that Crowley tempted Aziraphale (with mixed success), and one time Aziraphale tempted him.

Biblical

It Came Upon A Midnight Clear by Daegaer

Over the Face of all the Earth by Daegaer - The Tower of Babel seemed like a good idea at the time . . .

Father of Nations by Daegaer -  Crowley and Aziraphale keep having dealings with the same family.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at an Apple by Argyle -  In which one thing leads to another, and the Garden awakens.

build me a city, call it jerusalem by gyzym -  Man begets man begets The Tales of Men, and there's nothing godly in that; Those Above and Them Below haven't any need for the stories humans have been hungry for since the snake and the Angel with the flaming sword.

for I am come to send fire on the earth by tomato_greens -  The worst of it was that Crowley had already received a commendation, gleaming, from Below.

And Find for Herself a Place to Rest by tomato_greens -  So long as you avoided the thorns, it was a nice tree.

Another One Bites the Dust by diefiend -  Crowley and Aziraphale and the Crucifixion.

Other Characters

Revisited and Riding Out by Patrick Phelan

Of Woman Born by slythwolf -  A brief biography of Adam's biological mother.

Pennies From Heaven (Pound Notes From Hell) by Ineffabilitea -  Warlock just wants to feel special again.

Forgotten, As A Dream by Clodius Pulcher (Clodia) -  "They'll be back. They're never far away..." Pippin Galadriel Moonchild, aged eleven and a half, dreams red. Or rather, Red.

Good Help is Hard to Find, or The Hazards of Reading Prophecy by Fleur Rochard (fleurrochard), somnolentblue -  Wherein Aziraphale hires a shop assistant.

Love Me Tender by tomato_greens -  Bright lights and ice cream: what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Except when it doesn't.

Memory Yields by Interrobam -  The thing about being destined to bring about the apocalypse when you're eleven was that no one quite made plans for how you were supposed to go about the rest of your life.

The Morning After the Morning After the End of the World by Aegialia -  Anathema moves on and figures herself out.

In which Adam challenges Crowley to a drinking contest and it is a terrible idea by Macdicilla -  It is a rather foolish thing to set a bet with the devil, or even with a devil, unless you have an ace—or better yet, all the aces in the deck—up your sleeve.

Anything by LoveChilde -  About ten years after the world didn’t end, Pippin Galadriel Moonchild meets an angel. Or maybe just a harmless homosexual. They have tea.

Forgive Those Who Trespass by JAMoczo -  Crowley and Shadwell share Madame Tracy and Aziraphale for a week. God help us all.

Crossovers

The Nice and Accurate Adventures of Aziraphale in Ankh-Morpork by Glinda -  All truly good second-hand bookshops are really genteel black-holes that have learned how to read.

Bargain Breakfast by Daegaer -  Crowley gets a suspicious sort of customer.

The Corsair of Carcosa by Vulgarweed -  Aziraphale gets his hands on a rare copy of the play The King in Yellow. Reading and its consequences ensue.

[vendettacanons]

Random Headcanons I thought up-

// With no rhyme or reason. Includes FAITH, Far Cry, and GTA muse headcanons... but mostly FC 5 and ND since I’ve been on a kick

FAITH: The Unholy Trinity

Lisa used to and still owns a Raggedy Andy doll that she got from her father and mother for her third birthday. It’s a really big comfort to have when she has nightmares or his anxious about something. (Additionally, she had a really big crush on Raggedy Andy when she was younger.)

Lisa is sensitive to touch and values certain textures over others. She loves soft and fluffy things as they bring her a sense of comfort and happiness.

Lisa’s favorite animals to care for are baby animals and animals with soft fur. Sheep, fluffy dogs, baby deer, kittens, and rabbits are all animals she adores.

Lisa is a pescatarian. She’s chosen this diet of her own volition for two main reasons: she doesn’t like the idea of eating red meat or poultry but she knows she needs some protein in her diet and feels better about eating humanely wild-caught fish in comparison. She also does it because she’s been informed that avoiding red meat is healthier anyway and she finds that knowing that helps encourage her to eat more.

FAR CRY

Prior to the Cult taking over, Boomer was regarded as being a quiet, brave, and loyal dog who never so much as growled unless it was an emergency. Since losing his family, he’s become much louder. He barks openly and aggressively, especially when he’s scared and will snap at people if he’s caught off guard.

Boomer now has a Far Cry New Dawn verse. He was taken in by the Cult and kept in John’s bunker, where he was treated with some of the remaining Bliss. Fortunately, it didn’t alter his appearance but it did improve his athleticism and prolong his lifespan.

Cheeseburger really likes pancakes in addition to cheeseburgers. Fluffy buttermilks with syrup are his favorite treat. He also adores barbecue food.

Like Boomer, Cheeseburger also has a Far Cry New Dawn verse. He was taken into a bunker in Jacob’s region and treated with some of the more modified Bliss that was originally used on Judges. It altered his appearance and made him stronger as well as more docile towards the Edeners.

Horatio has separation anxiety. After losing his family to the Highwaymen, he’s quick to bond with the kind humans of Prosperity who saved him. Anyone he’s traveling with he sticks close to. He squeals whenever they go into a place he can’t follow and will circle them when they emerge again. He’ll do tricks for them and boldly defend them from any other creature threatening them.

Horatio loves a good fight. This boar was well known for chasing off bears, wolverines, and cougars that got just a little too close. He’s even been known for shaking off shotgun rounds.

Horatio loves chickens. He grew up surrounded by them and loves to playfully heard them and help them dig up treats. Chickens love him too, and will routine roost on his fuzzy back or build their nests close to him. Horatio was once even found to be helping incubate a clutch of hen’s eggs.

Though Jerome Jeffries is a pastor, he tends to be very tolerant and  understanding in his beliefs. To him, faith is supposed to be a   supporting force for love and acceptance, not a leg for hate to stand on.

Jerome’s PTSD, both from the military and from his run-ins with the cult, mostly affects his sleep. He has nightmares about what the cult has done and what it will do if the Resistance fails.

During  the early defection of the flock from his church, Jerome's wife Joy left him to follow Joseph Seed's path, taking their daughter with her.   Joseph ended up drowning her by accident during one of his routine   baptisms (after which he stopped performing them himself and designated that responsibility to John Seed.) While he does have a note from Joy about her leaving, he doesn't know anything more about her fate.

The Judge is very much into gardening. They know the meanings behind all kinds of flowers, enjoy growing fruits and vegetables, enjoy making floral arrangements, and generally just find tending to the earth relaxing.

When at Prosperity, the Judge tends to stay by themselves and avoid going near anyone they used to know. They hide it well, but the comments they’ve received from some of their old friends hurts them. (This was only worsened after a small misunderstanding led to them being hollered at by Nick and the subsequent attention it drew to them became a lot to bear.)

The root of the Judge’s behavior lies in Joseph’s manipulation of them. Because of him, they sincerely believe that the end of the world as they knew it was their own fault. They gave in to the idea that they were the lamb that broke the seven seals and cause the Collapse. They were also convinced that everyone else knows this too, and that if not for that reason, then they are hated because their friends believed that the Judge abandoned them and joined the enemy; that they willingly joined Joseph and chose to stay with him for 17 years instead of being manipulated to do so (of which the comments have only unknowingly reinforced this idea). Because of these reasons, The Judge insists on punishing themselves and avoiding their old friends because they are unworthy of and unlikely to ever receive their forgiveness.

Despite their routine avoidance, the Judge never truly stopped thinking about their friends and they still care for them even if they believe the feeling is not mutual. If one looks closely enough, they’ll find the names of everyone they came to care about carved into their bow.

Generally speaking, the Judge does not like being the center of attention in any capacity. They do not like being watched or spoken about, they stick to the shadows and avoid most contact really. The only individuals they truly interact with on a consistent basis are Timber, Horatio, Eden’s animals, and an wild animals that approach them.

Trained as one of the finest Chosen to ever be, the Judge is catlike and graceful in all of their movements. They can move completely silently, sit perfectly still for hours, and hit an accurate target from anywhere. They can also lift a greater amount of weight than should be possible for someone of their size (and they are much leaner than they look beneath that outfit).

Staci went through Eli’s reprogramming routine and while he’s not longer so prone to violent tendencies, the effects of Jacob’s conditioning still linger. Hearing “Only You” will send him into an intense panic attack. He’ll scream his throat hoarse and run for cover, he’ll claw at his ears, and he’ll generally be inconsolable for a period during and afterwards.

In the wake of his conditioning, Staci is generally very submissive and conflict aversive. He has a hard time making eye contact, carrying conversations, and is generally very passive in the wake of aggression. He’s eager to please and even more eager to stay under radar. Unlike before, his desire to be appealing is less to impress and more to stay safe, and when he can’t prove himself useful, and tries to make himself as undesirable of a target as possible.

One of Staci’s greatest talents is guitar. He can play phenomenally and he can sing pretty well. In the wake of his time with Jacob, he hasn’t touched the instrument or made any attempts to sing, but he still could if he tried.

As an older dog, Timber’s endurance and joints aren’t what they used to be. He can still run like a puppy, just for not as long and he’ll need a rest afterwards.

The humidity aggravates the mild arthritis in some of his leg joints, so Timber enjoys swimming in the cool waters of Hope County to compensate. They ease the pain and the movement is generally easier than walking. Plus, he just likes swimming.

Timber used to be the leader of a relatively benign pack of wild dogs. They used to sometimes travel with kind humans, hence his understanding that not all people are bad. Eventually though, they were killed and his pack was taken by the Highwaymen.

Timber himself is incredibly inquisitive and perceptive. He can point out enemies, find key resources, learn about and recognize materials by name and smell, and knows how to maneuver over, under, around, and through certain obstacles. This includes opening doors, getting up into high places, and digging impressive tunnels.

To some extent, Timber could be considered an emotional support animal. He seems able to read the emotions of other beings around him and will comfort them if he finds that they are distressed.

Grand Theft Auto

In addition to being Steve’s glorified secretary, Andreas was unofficially designated the social media manager for the LS branch. He runs the FIB Bleeter page and it’s not marked anywhere so he really could post anything on there and no one would know.

Andreas is prone to bouts of anxiety with seemingly no source. He has no real explanation as to why, but he gets this sudden sense of dread or the feeling that there’s danger inexplicably and at random.

Andreas is really averse to wearing the color yellow. Not just because he thinks it makes him look unflattering, but because it dredges up a lot of bad memories for him. Additionally, he’s not fond of gold accessories for similar reasons.

[42eyeballs]

a continuation of the biblical parallels ive found in tma but it got way too long

Bereshit starts with the beginning; God calls the (added) expanse Sky... and there was...a second day... and God saw that this was good. And God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation..." The earth brought forth vegetation: seed-bearing plants of every kind... and God saw that this was good. (1:8-12) An inverse would be a change in sky (look at the sky. It’s looking back) to show the end of the world (the apocalypse), and if fear is to be taken as a type of sustenance surely then the mention of vegetation of every kind would be akin to the ritual of which brought all the Powers through to the new world at once (180), creating a fertile land full of fear to devour. 

It is noted that the world was created before Adam was placed into it (2:8)! Creating a slight shift in timelines for their beginnings, paralleled by Jon staying within the cottage for his chrysalis, staying there until he emerged as an adult insect (?). Insect imagery aside Adam was created and placed into his Eden as a full adult, as so is Jon.  “This place wishes to be our tomb. But the Eye does not wish that. No, the Eye wishes instead that it be my chrysalis.” (162) Which has an implication that it was always meant to be a stage to pass through, similarly there are interpretations that the Garden was always meant to be an intermediary stage humanity was meant to grow out of (along with a few other things). If there is the cottage, there is the Garden; if there is the world outside of Eden, there is the world wracked by the apocalypse. 

The cottage is this false artificial refuge from the other parts of the world. Eden was this prison of everything the couple may have needed. 162 describes the cottage as a place “deep in the heart of fear, where [they] trap [themselves] and claim that it is safety… a rotten sanctuary of lonely companionship” and yet is small enough that “the one [Jon] loves is always near, so close that refuge sometimes feels a prison.” Eden is a sanctuary where the only one to talk to and lean on is a lover; the world will rage on but this small bubble will never change, just wait for when they are ready. 

There’s also an interesting inversion with Eden being given to have this motif of having been created and alive, all of which from the perspective of the setting is very passive, and the Extinction being active in its creation; it will seek to create a lifeless world. Some interpretations suggest it might replace us with something new - that can then fear annihilation in turn, which has a similar flavor to Spinoza’s idea of a substance that desires only it’s existence - said substance only wants to be itself, it wants to be eternal. Such is inscribed into it’s very being, and yet there are different modes of the substance that exist differently. Oliver calls himself a death prophet, and says he has knowledge of death but not an understanding of what to do with it or why (121); Jon who watch[s] and know[s] and understand[s] none…  listen[s] and hear[s] and [does not] comprehend (160) is a fascinating parallel in structure of Spinoza’s idea of prophets that are gifted with knowledge but not understanding - knowledge that is gifted to them via some mode of the substance.

    There is also a period of time before the creation of Adam and the giving of life to him, and if we are to take research Jonathan as being in his insectoid egg, and archivist Jonathan as being a sort of larva that has yet to reach adulthood in his chrysalis, then this is the period of larvae. He is alive but not fully peaked in his awakening as an avatar. He does not yet see and is not yet fully living as such; the shift being when he shifts in his hospital bed and begins to breathe again (121), a parallel to when God blew into Adam the breath of life, and man became a living being (2:7). Jon, about two months after living again, takes out a bone, specifically a rib, specifically specifically something he won’t miss, for an anchor (131), and jumps into the Buried. Why specifically a rib? It is the same bone as the one God took out of Adam to bring him Eve (2:21), though she had not a name until after they had already left the Garden. Adam had all the world’s array of animals and wild beasts to choose from and yet none were a fitting partner; the Hunt has an affinity towards predatory animals, one could say wild beasts. This is where Daisy fits in. Martin had not yet been brought to Jon yet at this point, and slotted between the place between being Alive and Partnered is Daisy who is not his wife and who is not his partner and who is, or was and will be, a wild beast (2:19-20). Martin, who has very aptly been called Jon’s actual anchor to humanity, and Jon’s actual anchor out of the Buried,  placed dozens of tape recorders (132, 134) on top and around of the coffin, waiting for Jon. There is no hard evidence that says that without Martin's actions, Jon could not have found his way out again, but there is the implication because he does lose the presence of his rib while in there, only to be reunited with it after Martin has placed the recorders. This actively associates Martin with being Jon’s anchor instead of the rib, swapping their places. A bone for a person. 

    Jon goes into the lonely for Martin, and is able to find him and, more than that, bring him back (159). They are together despite the Lonely saying that to live is to be alone. They are together, and they link living (as opposed to surviving) to loving (be it in whatever form it may) (159), similarly there is God’s statement of how it is not good for man to be alone (2:18). Martin can be heavily associated with an Eve persona now, and he continues the role in the cottage by giving Jon the statements.

    God said not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and bad (in some translations); Jon, as soon as he knew what the statement was, knew it was bad, knew he did not want it, he knew he should not read it. Statements have been written to become more equivalent to food as the plot goes on, accumulating into this final statement, this final fruit of knowledge, where the world then goes topsy turvy and flips on its head. This is where there begins to be a massive inversion of the parallels, not a diversion but more of an opposite in sides. If Adam were to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, his “eyes [would] be opened and [he would] be like diving beings,” (3:5), same goes with Jon and his statement, but Adam was also told if he eats the fruit, he would gain the ability to die (2:15-17). Jon  wouldn’t gain the ability to know good and evil, he already had that, however little he may have used it. If anything being so close to such a source of power made it harder for him to determine what is good, and what is evil (171, 174, 166, etc.), along with the added bonus of not really being susceptible to death, but oh does he gain raw knowledge. 

    Eve, of course, is told to eat the fruit by a snake, and Adam eats the fruit that Eve gave him; interesting then that Elias puts his false statement in with real ones to be delivered to the cottage (the fruit in the Garden) for Martin to give to Jon (Eve to give to Adam). This also equates Elias to a snake which is wonderfully appropriate. There’s also this small line where Basira said that she would just send a bunch of statements because she wasn’t sure which ones he has already read, not that big of a line but it does imply that there was likely some statements that he had read, and at least one that he hadn’t (Elias’); there was also likely two trees of which Adam has not eaten from, until the end, the tree of knowledge, but there is also a tree of life. In reading the statement, Jon invokes the line “I am to be a king of a ruined world” (160); Adam was meant to rule over and master what filled the earth, the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, all the living things, but his world was meant to be one of joy and prosperity, and this carries over onto Jon who does see beauty and wonder in the world that is. 

    Adam and Eve aren’t immediately cast out, they first hide themselves from what they have wrought upon them; Jon too, hides from what was wrought upon the world, until he doesn’t and he is filled with hatred and anger. Eve, too, was filled with anger and enmity for the snake, which presumably Adam shared but the text isn’t specific, but Martin was already ready to leave if not angry. So God banishes them from the Garden, to “till the soil from which he was taken,” (3:23) and on one hand this is to make it so that humanity cannot have both the knowledge and immortality, but it also acts as a way to say that humanity has grown enough to leave the house of their childhood, that Jon is ready to leave his chrysalis. The banishment from Eden is also the destruction of Eden, as it no longer has anyone to tend to it, as was Adam's original purpose; Eden, being the only place Adam ever was, his whole world, then being destroyed, even if he was not able to watch it actively happen. Elias, too, forces Jon to destroy the world he has lived in (180), and he passes out, only being able to see the result of him reading the statement. But more so, Adam and Eve were afraid after they knew (3:10).

    They walk through the door of the cottage, and the gates of the Garden, into the world that is now theirs to do with what they will. Adam and Eve have death slowly approaching, but it is not here yet because despite what most translations say, they do not immediately die, death, and the End, is very patient (121). And the biblical couple propagates, and births Cain and Abel. Cain kills Abel, and is cursed to become a ceaseless wanderer on Earth, which interestingly is what Jon is doing, slowly wandering towards the Panopticon, but Cain is also marked, so as to allow for him to wander without fear, without being killed despite what others (what others I don’t know) may want (4:12). Jon, too is cursed with life, and he cannot likely be killed by just anything, but the curse says nothing about hurt, which is where how Daisy could hurt him makes sense (179) despite what he might have intuitively thought. 

    Time goes on, and God regretted what she had made, and her heart saddened (6:6), which is right before the Flood. If we stretch to say that the plot will continue to follow this path, and it may due to it being said that if there were a removal of the Fears the Earth would go back to normal, similarly to the Floor getting rid of all but a few select humans. 

    This leaves the questions: who plays the role of Abel? It may well be Lukas, but I’m not sure as Abel also carries farm animals including sheep and perhaps cows as iconography, but he was also meant to be the second of a pair to Cain; if the Flood is to happen, who will be saved? Who will be left to die? The nephilim already have some kind of divinity, which has been sprinkled around with the Fears and Jon and God, but where do they lie?

    One last thing to mention is the usage of the Torah as a way to store stories, as an archive of the history of a people if you will, and archivist[s]... care about compiling experiences [and] collecting the fears of others (180). Records of fear and records of strength in face of adversity. Jon is an archive of fear, but he may well also be an archive of love and strength. 

[writinanon]

Predator and Prey Details

Here’s the details from Hare and Wolves about everyone

When I say ‘native’ blood I mean the animals not native Americans because this is ostensible normal human history with animal traits splashed over it and normal human history is very depressing and unkind to indigenous peoples. As white people ‘settled’ the Americas their animalistic sides took on the traits of the animals that were better adapted to the New World. Some people didn’t like this and believed it to be a dilution of their heritage and so they only married people that had a traditional or married someone from Europe. As the land was taken over this stopped happening as much.

With the exception of Jerome and Burke everyone has either had their European blood diluted to the point that it only comes up in small traits or the ‘native’ blood around them has taken complete hold. Considering at best 6 and a half generations have passed since the end of slavery and only two have passed since the civil rights movement their animals would be more deeply connected to their African heritage than the others would be to their European heritage)

Rook – White-tailed Jackrabbit, Prey (She’s a Hare, which is a bit bigger and can run faster for longer than a rabbit.)

Jacob, Joseph, John – Red Wolf, Apex Predator (Native to the southeastern United States of America they’re going extinct do to practices however they are still the top of the food chain in their areas)

Faith – Grey Wolf, Apex Predator (Safely off the extreme end of the endangered zone they are the mental go to for the typical image of a wolf for people of the US and Canada)

Nick – Golden Eagle, Apex Predator (Of course he’s a fly boy. Coming from a long line of air force pilots the fact that he chose to not going into the military given his gift of flight was definitely against the grain for his family. Especially since his wife isn’t Bird Prey but Ground Prey.)

Kim – Yellow-bellied Mormont, Prey (These guys are awesome and I think Kim fits in with them perfectly well.)

Jerome – Side-striped Jackal, Predator (In the wild these Jackals are observed as being far less predatory as their relatives while not exactly gentle they aren’t likely attack for meat unless they actually want meat or it’s easy prey. Their territory range is in sub-Saharan Africa and while a bit more prairie like than Montana I felt the shift wouldn’t have been as dramatic and that his family would have moved to the plains as soon as they were able to. There are also no animals like the Jackal in the area, the closest would be a Coyote however they evolved separately enough that Jerome’s bloodline will remain Jackal unless he moves to a different location with a more similar animal or he mates into a different bloodline.)

Marshall Burke – Spotted-neck Otter, Predator (We know that the Marshall comes from Virginia as that is were the US Marshals are based primarily out of plus it gives credence to his total fish out of water knows absolutely nothing mindset. These guys are river otters from Africa and stick close to marshy areas and Virginia has a lot of wetland thanks to the Potomac River.)

Sheriff Whitehorse – White-tailed Deer, Combative Prey (Well he wasn’t going to be a horse. Though often skittish white-tailed deer are fairly territorial and will fight with other bucks for their desired does or grazing territory. They don’t like to come up against big predators, they’ll fight but are more likely to freeze or run, given the opening I felt this fit with the Sheriff’s attitude toward the Seeds.)

Deputy Hudson – Coyote, Apex Predator (Coyotes get a bad rap and I feel that seeing wolves as superior would carry over in this kind of world. What she lacks in size compared to a wolf she makes up for in cunning as well as speed.)

Deputy Pratt – Wire Fox Terrier, Predator (Bred to hunt foxes as well as other burrowing animals, these guys are quick and need a firm hand to guide them, they are however very loyal)

Mary-May – Golden Eagle, Apex Predator (I figured that Mary-May and Nick were cousins and that in this world the title of the bar would both be a sex joke and an animal joke so she gets to be a Golden Eagle too.)

Sharky – Long-tailed Weasel, Predator (Distantly related to the Mongoose Sharky is not one though. This brings him much sorrow after Rook tells him this.)

Hurk – Short-tailed Weasel, Predator (Cousin of the Long-tailed Weasel they are a little smaller and have a shorter tail however that’s about where the differences stop. Hurk gets a huge kick out of Sharky not knowing they weren’t Mongoose, he also finds it funny that Sharky doesn’t know the difference between a rabbit and a hare.)

Adelaide – Short-tailed Weasel, Predator (Small and vicious these guys can and will tear you a new one if they feel like it. They also enjoy heights as I learned when one decided to climb me like a tree and sit on my head for better vantage point.)

Grace – Red-tailed Hawk, Apex Predator (My personal favorite kind of hawk they’re quick and have excellent vision. Also, their screams are the ones that are usually subbed in for that of a Bald Eagle because Bald Eagles have very high-pitched shrieks not majestic wails like Red-tailed Hawks.)

Jess – Barn Owl, Apex Predator (They are the quietest of birds and shriek like banshees if they are displeased.)

Eli – Rocky Mountain Elk, Combative Prey (These guys are a little shaggy around the edges and are usually willing to fight a bear, cougar, or each other in defense of their children/herd)

Wheaty – American Crow, Predator (They will eat anything and are terribly smart)

All Alphas are Apex Predators (AP). Be it a raptor or a wolf or a big cat or a bear, if they’re a top of the food chain predator they are an Alpha.

Betas fall in the midrange Predator to the Combative Prey (CP), animals that can be both predator and prey like weasels or dogs or snakes as well as larger prey animals that can fight off attackers but don’t actively seek out other animals as prey, deer or moose or horses.

Omegas are purely Prey. Mice, rabbits, small birds, creatures that are usually the dinner of predators in the wild. However, being the most fertile and able to carry the largest groupings of children unlike their wild counterparts Omegas are treasured and beloved, sometimes hoarded by Alphas.

Rook is a white-tailed Jackrabbit, Prey.

The Seeds are what are known as Red Wolves, Apex Predators. With the exception of Faith being a Grey Wolf as she was born in Montana and not Georgia.

Prey tend to prefer to mate with Betas or other Omegas because AP’s are possessive, controlling, and often very aggressive. They prefer the milder nature of Betas, be they Predator or CP Betas seem more in touch with the human side of them all and that leads them to being the most level headed out of the separate groups. The Predators are usually the ones that go into things like law enforcement or dangerous jobs because they can keep their heads better than AP’s (not to say that AP’s don’t go into the military or police work Jacob was a military man; however, Predators tend to make the majority of people who pass the psych tests to become military or police).

AP’s tend to try and only mate with Prey because Prey are the most fertile, the most likely to bare larger groups of children, and there are only one of two ways it can go AP or Prey.

When they go to arrest Joseph, Rook has scent blockers on because she is Prey and while it’s not against the rules a lot of AP’s and even Predators would attempt to subdue her with pheromones and then claim she was unfit to arrest and get to escape scot-free. John’s baptism and then her subsequent swim in the lake washed them all off and she doesn’t have the chance to get more. Eden’s Gate is a big believer in living naturally, as ‘The Lord Intended’ and so birth control and scent blockers are contraband. This is one of the reasons that Kim is actually pregnant during what is tantamount to a war for the county (they wanted kids and are more than happy to have their little bundle of joy however having a kid with a crazy cult just down the way that is militant and trying to take your lively hood? Not exactly the best idea. But with birth control drying up they were left with almost no choice).  This is bad because she gets a shot for birth control and her shot is wearing off.

Of course, all of the resistance members know what she is, Sharky likes to tease her and call her Lucky. (She argues that she’s a Hare not a rabbit and there is a distinction stop laughing you stupid weasel! To which he replies he’s a mongoose and Rook has to explain that mongoose are much larger stoats. They blow up a Peggie outpost to make him feel better after finding out his ‘Whole life is a lie’ while Hurk laughs in the background.)

The visions of Jackalopes in Faith’s region frighten her, it’s not right for them to have horns and she always runs back to Jerome or the Sheriff after encountering them. She doesn’t want to become a mindless follower, the shell of what she was once.

Shockingly, the Judges are more afraid of her than she is of them when she’s in her much more diminutive form. Jacob has seen her literally riding them in her smaller form. Before he knows it’s the Deputy he is confused as fuck.

As autumn closes in on them she moults her soft brown/grey fur into her snow-white fur, the only color being on the tips of her ears which are tipped in black year-round.

Everyone in the Wolf’s Den coo over her change, she has to stay as a Hare and can’t shift back into her human form until she fully moults, instead of taking weeks it takes roughly three days.

Boomer, Peaches, and Cheeseburger follow her because she has a sweet gently scent and offers nothing but love. They recognize her no matter what form she is in and, before they know it is the Deputy, Peggies and towns folk alike are baffled by the sight of a bear and a cougar protectively guarding a rabbit (I’m a fucking Hare you morons!).

[annieboltonworld]

Juniper Publishers- Open Access Journal of Environmental Sciences & Natural Resources

Trophy Hunting Anxiety at Sengwa in Retrospect Now and the Future

Authored by Ngorima Patmore

Abstract

Over the years hunting at Sengwa has proved to be a worthwhile and fantastic venture. Hunting thrills both the new entry and hardened bush lovers. Hunting outcomes have provided the basis of bravely packaged future hunts. The uncertainties of getting desirable trophy quality make hunting unpredictable and always interesting. Despite constraints in ever tightening regulations hunting is still in its glory and it is a worldwide occupation. It is rewarding to fulfill one's ego in appropriately appointed safari hunts. At Sengwa Wildlife Research Area (SWRA) the challenge has always been the anxiety to fulfill one's hunting bag in the shortest but most exhilarating African hunt. A beautiful picture is then made of the hunting patterns at Sengwa in one of the last remaining out-backs of rugged and harsh terrains. Hunting is a knot of hunters' emotions, hope, worry and gratitude that delight in its existence. In this paper, the hunting paradox are investigated so that a template can remain for future management to secure hunting in SWRA and to improve biodiversity conservation.This paper represents a structured assessment on the impacts of hunting in SWRA and the potential that trophy hunting can provide to wildlife conservation for the present and future generation if effectively managed and monitored

Keywords: Trophy hunting; anxiety; Sengwa Wildlife Research Area

Introduction

Trophy hunting in Zimbabwe and elsewhere in the world today is witnessing raging debates on its relevance or irrelevance in all its forms of significance, acceptance and effectiveness as a conservation tool hence the hunting paradox [1] .Whereas hunting was considered the most logical thing to do for eons of years its continued practice is under severe threats [2] . Trophy hunting has become a controversial topic in the conservation community, some argues that it can subsidize for the safeguarding of wild animals and their habitats whilst others share the perception that trophy hunting exploits species, rural people and contributes little if anything to conservation of wild game animals [3]. Globally trophy hunting has been shown to be detrimental to several species including lions [4].

However, local communities in many parts of the world rely on hunting for a living, whilst in some countries hunting is a key economic mainstay [1]. In recent year's concern have been raised by the United State Department of Wildlife and Fish (USDWF) over the commercial trophy hunting of elephant and lion in Zimbabwe. This concern might be related to lack of proper information on trophy quality and hunting off-takes hence the anxiety for the future of trophy hunting. To anyone on a first visit the first time, the enchanted hunting hardened bushes of SWRA in the north-western Zimbabwe resemble an ideal destination. It bears a vast biodiversity of wild animals like a modular descent into the Garden of Eden.

The aroma wondering animals', bios and insects reminds the visitor of a natural ecosystem. It traps and allures the mind of one into the treasures of the wilderness with important wild game animals including buffalo, elephant, lion, leopard, impala, warthog, wildebeest, duiker, eland and giraffe. However, proper management is vital to ensure that SWRA remains a viable hunting destination In Sengwa Wildlife Research Area, hunting includes welcoming hunters to overwhelm their greatest expectations in return for fiscal strength.

However, not much is known concerning the future of trophy hunting yet this industry is a key economic mainstay that contributes substantial revenues to wildlife conservation. Some hunters have long argued that trophy hunting aids to conservation efforts, for example that revenues benefits from commercial hunting far outweigh any loss in species [5]. Trophy hunting bears both positive and negative impact to the local economy hence the question, does hunting today affects the future? There is raging debate on the high streets and backstreets in the missionary work of trophy hunting as an industry [6]. Strong hunting lobbyists suggest the following winning points:

Positive Impacts of Trophy Hunting

a. Provides recreational opportunities

b. Supports wildlife utilisation as a viable land use option

c. Provides career opportunities

d. Supports use of marginal land

e. Raises the impetus to conserve wildlife

f. Educational/ Research purpose

g. Early warning of uncontrolled burns

h. Supports illegal activity mapping

i. Disease surveillance

j. Trading opportunities

k. Foreign currency in come generation

l. Promotes the country as a tourist destination

m. Provides employment creation

n. Culture and lifestyle promotion

However, trophy hunting is also not without its pitfalls and limitation. It is unequivocal in the eyes of the anti-lobbyists that wildlife should be utilized with caution through the participatory quota setting process system.Therefore; the anti-lobbyists perceive trophy animal hunting in the following manner:

Negative Impacts of Trophy Hunting

a. Associated with greediness

b. Associated with corruption

c. Exploit the animals and rural communities then move on

d. Environmental pollution e.g. methane

e. Wildlife disturbance

f. Removal of keystone/breeding species

g. Erosion of the gene pool

h. Cultural erosion

i. Difficulties with setting quotas and pricing

j. No transparent methods of allocating concessions

Trophy Hunting Anxiety at Sengwa

The authors have studied trophy hunting in SWA from a distance and from inside it for years.The trophy quality (aesthetic appeal of the horn, tusk, ivory, skull or tusk) of the key animals such as buffalo and elephant being hunted in SWRA is hanging precariously in the balance [7]. This can be attributed to a number of reasons such as unsustainable trophy hunting, poaching, poor management, human encroachment, habitat fragmentation and loss hence this exerts strong pressure on wildlife animals causing undesirable life-history changes over shorter periods of time than expected leading to a spectacular decline in trophy quality [2].

In addition, it is sufficed to note that professional hunters usually targets wild animals that bear the largest trophy of exceptional quality. Trophy hunting is often a non-random process since the professional hunters have a preference for large individuals and tend to be selective of certain qualities or morphological traits exhibited by the animals [8]. In most cases it is usually the oldest males that would meet these requirements. Therefore, it is of much paramount importance that a record book be kept at SWRA station level on all the age of harvested animals so as to be assured with absolute assurance that trophy hunting does not negatively affect its role as a conservation tool.

It is fundamental that the harvested level fall within the reproductive capacity of the wild game animals for a sustainable future trophy hunting industry in SWRA. This is essential because, if the harvested off-takes exceed the reproductive capacity of the wild animals, trophy hunting will seize to be beneficial but rather detrimental to wildlife conservation and management. Therefore, trophy hunting can be a threat with significant impacts on the viability of population and trophy quality especially when seen in the light of increasingly alarming context of unsustainable trophy hunting [1].

Moreso, hunting quotas can also cause trophy quality dynamics hence affect the future of trophy hunting in SWRA. An analysis of hunting quotas for SWRA showed that there is need for reduced quotas so as to promote sustainable hunting off-takes. Reduced hunting pressure due to a reduction in issued quotas may allow trophy animals to grow quality trophies before being harvested [9]. Fixed quotas are likely to encourage utilisation of the entire portion of the quota regardless of sustainability hence affecting the future of wild game animals' trophy hunting industry [5].

Trophy hunting is now a major industry in Zimbabwe and generates significant revenues from wildlife over vast areas [10]. However, poor management is one of the factors affecting the viability of trophy hunting as a conservation tool. [1] States that, poor management may undermine trophy hunting and jeopardize the persistence of harvested species. Therefore, given such a scenario poor management can cause trophy hunting to become detrimental to sustainable conservation and management. In addition, poor management can have other broader negative impacts such as a ban in trophy hunting. However, a ban of trophy animal hunting has the following effects:

a. Local community initiatives i.e CAMPFIRE loose lustre

b. Poaching increases when local communities loose benefits e.g. Hwange cyanide episodes.

c. Loss of vital jobs and revenue to sustain livelihoods

d. Undermine financial incentives for conservation of wild animals

e. Affects the country tourism industry

Taking that into consideration, the scope for effective management and trophy quality monitoring should increase accordingly as the trophy hunting industry in SWRA is growing so as to avoid unsustainable off-takes. If this is implemented, trophy hunting in SWRA can become essential in sustainable conservation and management for wildlife given that long term monitoring of harvested populations, quotas and trophy quality is a key feature. Reluctance in long term monitoring effectively will entail that sustainability will become difficult to attain hence this will affect the future of hunting in SWRA. Finally, accurate analysis of trophy quality trends and harvested populations is also crucial for the success of sustainable trophy hunting in SWRA. It can be noted that, sustainability in trophy hunting is hinged upon proper management of maintaining a healthy and balanced (sex and age structure) herd that result in trophy of exceptional quality [11]. The monitoring of harvested populations and trophy quality trends is a crucial component in animal ecology and wildlife conservation because such measures help to avoid overutilization and exploitation of wildlife hence ensures sustainability of trophy hunting in future, while retaining incentives for the conservation of these wild animals and their habitats [12].

Conclusion and Recommendations

It is conceivable that trophy hunting at Sengwa Wildlife Research Area is facing a number of threats which may negatively affect its role as a conservation tool. However, it is of much paramount importance that an effective Environmental Awareness (EA) and Environmental Education (EE) be suggested as a starting point in a time-bound solution. The most overlooked role of environmental awareness and education in turning around of promoting sustainable trophy hunting and reducing the high rate of poaching need to be revitalised. Environmental awareness on local communities to understand the value and flow of ecosystem services is key to eradicate poaching, habitat fragmentation and loss for a sustainable future in SWRA trophy hunting industry. Pursuit of sustainable management offtakes through sustainable harvestable quotas should remain a plausible panacea for now and the future generations. Therefore, it is recommended to reduce hunting off-takes of wildlife species whose trophy quality is below average so as to promote exceptional trophies from what nature is able to provide to humankind. Sengwa Wildlife Research Area is a biodiversity rich region and with careful management its populaces stands to benefit. New platforms of international engagements need to be promoted for quality trophy animal hunting to be maintained for now and the future.

For more articles in Open Access Journal of Environmental Sciences & Natural Resources please click on: https://juniperpublishers.com/ijesnr/index.php

[sirtravisjacksonoftexas]

Was there animal death before the Fall? Were Adam and Eve hunters? Um, let’s find out…

The story of Adam and Eve is one of a short-lived golden age, where humans were sinless and at peace with both God and nature. The first man and first woman initially lived without the cares of a fallen world, without the ever-present threat of predatory animals and human depravity. They tended a garden, ate only fruits and went around in the nude (yes, they were not only the first humans; they were also the first nudists!). There was no violence, no bloodshed, all was peaceful and idyllic.

Or was it?

Recently, there have been some biblical scholars who have questioned this version of the Adam and Eve tale. Some now believe that the first humans were actually allowed to hunt, kill and eat animals. This seems to contradict Genesis 1:29-30 and 9:2-4, which together state that mankind wasn’t allowed to eat meat until after Noah’s Flood.  

So...why do they believe this?

If you look at Genesis 1:28, the passage that occurs before the command to eat only vegetation, you find something intriguing:

“And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Now, in Hebrew, the terms for “subdue” and “have dominion“ are pretty savage. As the Hebrew scholar Ben S states:

“But the reality is, in Hebrew these verbs are shockingly harsh, even militant with a connotation of violent force.”

Ben S made a video on the subject. In it, he also points out that the Hebrew word for subdue (Kabas) is used 13 other times in the Hebrew Bible, and in 6 of these it is used for war conquest. 5 other uses of the word denote enslavement. Both of these uses fit, for the Hebrew word itself means “to subdue, overcome, enslave.”. In Esther 7:8 it is used in the following way:

“And the king returned from the palace garden to the place where they were drinking wine, as Haman was falling on the couch where Esther was. And the king said, “Will he even assault the queen in my presence, in my own house?” As the word left the mouth of the king, they covered Haman’s face.”

 In the previous verse, Haman is begging Esther for his life. Since he is falling on the couch where Esther was, it’s quite possible that he is still pleading for his life, only for his actions to be mistaken by the King as an assault. Others think he was actually attacking her, and some believe that a rape is occurring here (remember this point).

Mica 7:19 uses it to show how God will “tread our iniquities underfoot.”

The other Hebrew verb used here, translated as “dominion” or “rule” in Genesis 1:26 and 28 (“Rada” or “Radah”) is, according to those who believe this theory, not meant to convey the idea of a person ruling over his own people unless he’s doing so in a negative manner. The term is not meant to show bureaucratic of administrative ideas, but simply rule. By itself it can convey injustice and harshness. Robert Alter, a Professor of Hebrew at Berkley University, wrote about this in his commentary on the passage:

“The Verb radah is not the normal Hebrew verb for “rule” (the latter is reflected in “dominion” of verse 16), and in most of the contexts in which it occurs it seems to suggest an absolute or even fierce exercise of mastery.”

Though Robert Alter doesn’t agree that humans were originally allowed to eat meat (as can be seen in his commentary on Genesis 9:2-4 in his Pentateuch Translation), he nevertheless agrees that Radah has a negative power connotation.

Its interesting to note that we see a similar use of violent language in relation to man’s dominion over animals in Genesis 9:2:

 “The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered.”

 “Into your hand they are delivered” is definitely military-style combat language (compare with Joshua 10:8, Judges 3:8, 7:9,  2 Samuel 5:19, 1 Chronicles 14:10,  Psalm 31:15, Jeremiah 46:26).

Another reason why these scholars believe that humans ate meat before the Flood is the similarity between Genesis 9:2-4 and other dietary laws in the bible that share the same structure. These latter laws state that the Hebrews could eat certain animals, but then give restrictions, saying that there are animals they cannot eat (Leviticus 11:1-12, Deuteronomy 14:6-12). They were already allowed to eat meat, but God, through Moses’ command, was giving them restrictions that mankind never had before. A similar restriction is found in Genesis 9:4;

“But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.”

Both Genesis 9:2-4 and the later dietary law passages in Leviticus and Deuteronomy are using the same Hebraic prohibitive formula. Therefore, just as the Mosaic dietary laws were about eating meat, something that they were already allowed to do, so Genesis 9:2-4 is likewise about meat eating which, according to the theory, is something they were already allowed to do. Only the restrictions were new. The fact that Genesis 9:2-4 shares the same Hebraic prohibitive formula with these later dietary laws is seen as evidence that mankind ate meat before the Flood. 

Combined with Genesis 1:28-30, it leads people who hold to this theory to conclude that humans ate meat form the beginning. 

 One is left with conclusions that goes far beyond Adam and Eve hunting game.

 Mankind was not meant to be nature’s stewards.

We were meant to be its conquerors and dictators.

We were meant to master and crush nature under our sandals.

  Such an idea finds some similarities with how the ancient Greeks viewed nature. Indeed, the mark of a great hero in Greek myth was the ability to dominate nature. Hercules’ 12 labors were the biggest examples of this belief. Nature wasn’t seen in a positive light.  As David George, professor of Classics at Saint Anselm College, once stated (Edited version):

“The ancient Greeks viewed nature as a scary place. They wanted to live in harmony with nature, but nature was a (insert cuss word that rhymes with “witch” here) that if you didn’t watch would kill you, and that was their view. They did not have a romantic view of nature.”

Were the Hebrews the same way?

One would think that they would have had a somewhat similar view of nature to the Greeks. Indeed, we see echoes of this in the stories of Samson and David, both of whom killed wild animals (David killed a lion and a bear with his weapons (1 Samuel 17:34-37) while Samson tore a lion to pieces with nothing more than his bare hands (Judges 14:5-7). Jesus himself calmed a storm (Matthew 8:23-27). All of these would be examples of great heroes overcoming nature, bending it to their will.

Given this, is Genesis really teaching that we are to be stern conquerors of the animal kingdom? That we are not to be nature’s stewards? That we are to rape the earth the way Haman supposedly tried to rape Esther?

I can almost hear someone who takes this idea to the extreme:

“Don’t worry about Giant Pandas, we’re not to administer them; we’re to rule, and if they die out, too bad! If they get in our way of building a shopping mall, too bad! Casualties in war! Our world! Our world! Our world!”

Or perhaps...

“God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the trees. God said, “Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It’s yours.” (this second statement was actually said by the conservative media pundit Anne Coulter).

But is this theory right?

Did Adam and Eve hunt?

Did they eat meat?

Is man not to be nature’s stewards, not to take care of the animals and the earth?

Well…not quite... 

 1. If humans are supposed to hunt and kill animals for food…why does God only allow Adam to eat fruit in the Garden of Eden?

Genesis 2:15-17 states:

“The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

If Adam was supposed to be the ultimate forbear of a species intended to cause mass worldwide bloodshed of animal life in order to eat them…why isn’t he given a spear (or told to make one) and commanded to hunt in Genesis 2 or even 3? Why is he seemingly allowed only to eat fruit in the Garden? If Genesis 1:28 is really speaking of humans hunting animals, and since that passage occurs before the vegetarian dietary laws in the next two verses, don’t you think that Adam would have been both initially and primarily a hunter, instead of a garden worker? Don’t you think that he would be shown to hunt in Genesis 2 or 3, if he was commanded to hunt and kill animals in Genesis 1:28? Course, the command of Genesis 1:28, if you look at it closely, had to occur after Eve was made (a man and a woman are in the passage. See verse 27), but even after Eve IS made...they are not shown to be hunting game. They are not shown to make spears or chase after animals. They are shown tending a garden, and the dietary law of Genesis 2:15-17 is still in play (Genesis 3:2-3). Thus, we’re back to square 1. 

Now, some may protest, saying that if we went this far, then the Israelites only ate meat, as the dietary laws in places like Leviticus 11 only mention meat. However, not only do the contexts of those passages indicate that meat consumption alone was being restricted, not all forms of food, but we also have evidence that vegetation was also eaten by the Israelites (check out the menu for the Passover meal, for example (Exodus 12). We also have to remember that meat was not a common food item in the ancient world. Animals were more valuable as providers of wool, milk and cheese and hair than meat. If an animal died or was sacrificed, then its fair game, but otherwise, it was better to let livestock live a long time and provide milk and other goodies instead of killing it solely for meat. Indeed, this way of thinking about livestock continued into later times, such as the Dark Ages.

One could also make the objection that just because God said that Adam was to eat fruit in the Garden doesn’t mean that he wasn’t allowed to eat other things. After all, if your father told you as a kid “you can eat cookies, but don’t eat my oatmeal cookies, or you’re so grounded!”, this doesn’t mean that you have to eat only cookies and no other food item in the house. Some people may also object by stating that the fruit restriction doesn’t mean that Adam couldn’t have a wider menu if he occasionally left the Garden (the dietary laws of Genesis 1:29-30 are far less strict that the dietary law of Genesis 2:16-17). If This strictness may have been due to the spiritual significance of the garden (when Adam was assigned Garden duty in Genesis 2:15, priestly instead of royal terms are used. Later Israelite priests maintained the status of sacred spaces). Plus, the Garden of Eden has many similarities to ancient palace gardens, which were in turn quite similar to modern public parks. There would have been paths among both shade and fruit trees, watercourses, pools and landscaping. Sometimes these gardens had many different kinds of animals put in them, just like the Garden of Eden. It would not have been very likely for a gardener in such a palace garden to hunt animals that a king or queen put there to make it look more exotic, but they could kill pests inside it, as well as hunt outside the palace garden. Why not here in Genesis? Admittedly, these are all good points, but we have no indication from the text that Adam ate anything else while in the Garden, or went outside of it until after the Fall. Still, these are possibilities. However, even if some of these ideas were the case, it doesn’t therefore show that Adam and Eve therefore ate meat (Just because they may have been allowed to eat more outside the Garden doesn’t mean that they hunted and ate meat if they did venture outside it before the Fall. Just because some gardeners would have hunted outside a garden doesn’t mean that Adam and Eve did likewise). Also, we see a very peaceful setting and atmosphere conveyed in these passages, which clashes with the interpretation of Genesis 1:26-28 as a command to do to the natural world what Ronda Rousey did to Miesha Tate (see image below).

 Plus, even if God did command humans to eat meat and storm the earth in Genesis 1:28, don’t you think it’s kind of odd that Adam is not portrayed here as doing so? Isn’t it odd that he is not seemingly obeying God’s commandment?  He’s not shown to be God’s huntsman, but his gardener.  

 2. If Adam and Eve are supposed to go total blitzkrieg on the animal kingdom…why don’t they do so in Genesis 2 and 3?

Here is Adam, the first man ever made, the one whom God told to “subdue” and “have dominion” over the animals, the one whom God supposedly told to conquer the animal kingdom in a military fashion, the man who’s going to spear any critter he sees fit, the one whose going to unleash bloodshed against his animal enemies, and what does he do?

He…tends a garden (Genesis 2:15).

That doesn’t sound like a prehistoric version of Ernest Hemingway.

Oh, but of course, when he encounters animals for the first time, he’ll conquer them in a great hunt, sparring and slashing them until the Garden of Eden flows red with blood! That’s what he does next…right?

Um, no…he names the animals instead.

If he was supposed to be hunting and slaughtering animals for food, shouldn’t he be shown to be going outside the Garden to do so?

Indeed, God said that it wasn’t good for man to be alone, that he would make a helper for him (Genesis 2:18).  God brings animals to him (Genesis 2:19). Adam named them all, yet found none that would be a “suitable helper” for him (Gen 2:19-20).

If animals were the “enemy”, the creatures he was going to enslave, kill or exterminate…why were they being described as “potential helpers”?

Remember, it’s not like only livestock animals are being brought to him; wild animals are as well (Genesis 2:19-20).

Indeed, names were thought to have power, and to name someone or something could signify power over them. God changed Abram and Sarai’s names to Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 17:5), changed Jacob’s name to Israel (Gem 32:22-30) and, after making him King of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar renamed Mattaniah “Zedekiah” (2 Kings 24:15-17). Name changing was a way to exert authority over an individual, but one could show their mastery over another by giving them a name, period. Adam did just that for the animals (though its possible that he actually renamed them; angels no doubt studied animals and had their own names for these creatures in their tongue). Heck, why do parents name their children when they are born? Because that is their child. If you name a child after she or he is born, it’s a good bet that it is your child, and ancient parents named their children like modern parents do.

Thus, Adam is exercising his “cruel, horrifying no-prisoners” worldwide dictatorship over the poor animals…by giving them names.

Repeat, by giving them…names.

He’s establishing his dominion without throwing a single javelin in order to assert his authority over the beasts.

Well, this has to change when God creates Eve, right? I mean, maybe Eve is the real hunter and Adam is the gatherer (the total opposite of prehistoric homo sapiens culture). That has to be it! Score for Women’s Lib, right?

Um…she’s never shown to be a hunter, either (see also chapters 3 and 4).

Indeed, she helps him tend the Garden.

Oh yeah, they’re really big game hunters.

Now, some may say “So what? Hunting and meat eating are mentioned in Genesis 9:2-4, and yet Noah isn’t shown to be hunting, but tending a vineyard (Genesis 9:20). Well, if one ascribes to the theory that Genesis 1:28 is also about meat eating, then we have a problem, because, if that is the case, then it is a command, while Genesis 9:2-4 is an allowance. Noah wasn’t commanded to hunt and kill; he was given permission. This doesn’t mean that he would. Meanwhile, Adam and Eve, who were supposedly told by God to hunt and kill animals...are tending a garden, eating fruit.

Some may say “Well, just because Noah isn’t shown to hunt, doesn’t mean that he never did so. It can be the same for Adam and Eve!” 

Well, this kind of objection was already answered earlier, but let’s give it again with different details. The objection above obviously goes against the peaceful setting conveyed in Genesis 1-2. One doesn’t get that peaceful vibe in the world after the Flood. Its nowhere near as idyllic, and if you read the passage about Noah in full, you’ll see that sin is in the picture, while sin doesn’t enter Adam and Eve’s story until the serpent arrives. Before then, its a peaceful existence of tending a garden, a peaceful existence between God and man and between man and beast. 

Once again...If Adam and Eve are commanded by God to hunt and kill in Genesis 1:28...why are they not shown to be doing so?

 3. If mankind is not to be nature’s steward but its strict, harsh master and conqueror, If mankind can ravage the earth…why aren’t Adam and Eve shown to be doing so in the passage?

There is a big difference between destroying a rain forest, draining the Aral Sea, causing climate change and…tending a Garden. 

How is tending a Garden showing God-approved environmental negligence? We don’t even see God telling Adam and Eve to spread the Garden over the whole earth and destroy ecosystems while doing so.

No, they are just tending a Garden.

Doesn’t that speak volumes to you about the idea that mankind is supposed to rape the natural world, like Haman was supposed to have raped Esther?

Indeed, God himself commanded the Israelites to have a Sabbath year in Leviticus 25:1-7. After every 6 years, the Israelites were to let their land rest from farming for a single year. Though there were religious reasons for this (the sabbath day of rest), there was also an environmental reason as well. You see, irrigation can lead to salinization of the soil. If its done for too long, the soil can become too salty for farming use.  Many Mesopotamian farmlands were abandoned because irrigation made them fallow. By instituting the Sabbath year (as well as the year of Jubilee, which was a year of rest that occurred 1 every 50 years), the environment could be kept secure for farming. In other words, it kept the Israelites from polluting the ground.

Does that sound like “The Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It’s yours.” theology?

This isn’t humans destroying the environment in order to establish their God-given right to exercise harsh rule over the earth.

This is God commanding Israel to take care of the land he was to give them, a land that HE would always be the ultimate owner of, with the Israelites his subjects (Leviticus 25:23).

This is nature stewardship.

Just like Adam and Eve, who were also made in God’s image (more on that later) and who seemed to represent God in a priestly function, tended a garden as his stewards.

And yet…Genesis 1:28 teaches that we are not to be nature’s stewards????

I don’t think so, Tim.

Indeed, if Adam and Eve were supposed to go gung-ho on animals, and the Israelites knew the story of Adam and Eve well, then why weren’t they going gung-ho on the animals in the land flowing with milk and honey, mass slaughtering critters like the Khans of the Mongol Empire did? Do we read anywhere in scripture where the Israelites exterminated wildlife, or wiped out bears and lions? These latter two animals were well feared competitors (Bears in particular were more feared than lions (Amos 5:19), and if any animals were to be slaughtered by humans bent on the conquest of the animal kingdom, one would think it would be these animals. Heck, one might expect the to wipe them out! And yet, lions didn’t disappear from the Holy Land until the 13 century AD, and brown bears didn’t vanish from the Holy Land until right before WW2. This doesn’t mean that Israelites didn’t kill these animals occasionally (1 Samuel 17:34-37), or that they didn’t hunt down and kill individual lions or bears that were known to have killed a human being (Genesis 9:5-6), but they nevertheless allowed these animals to exist in the land. Some may object, saying that often the Israelites weren’t following God and thus might not have attempted to exterminate certain animals then. However, the Israelites were also often devout, going through cycles of wickedness and then repentance (as the books of Judges, 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles show). Indeed, before they were to enter the land, they were not told to exterminate bears and lions, but Canaanites and other inhabitants (though that language was actually hyperbolic, not intended as a literal genocide. See “Is God a Moral Monster” by Paul Copan, pages 158-85). We never see God or any of his prophets condemning Israel for continuing to allow bears, lions, wolves, hyenas, honey badgers, etc to exist, never see them criticizing the Israelites for their seeming “live and let live” mentality.

After all, if Genesis 1:28 is military language, and if lions and bears were raiding livestock and at times killing people, wouldn’t they be a military threat to be engaged with by utmost force? Shouldn’t they have been slaughtered if not rendered extinct by men who should have been the Hebraic equivalents of Nimrod, who was called “a mighty hunter before the Lord” (Gen 10:9)?

Um, guess not.

  3. If the similarity between Genesis 9:2-4 to the later Mosaic dietary laws of Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 means that humans were eating meat with God’s approval long before the Flood, then Adam was eating from the Tree of Life before the Fall!

 Did you notice what Genesis 2:15-16 stated?

Let’s look at it again:

“The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Do you notice how similar that statement is to the dietary laws of Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14? How similar it is to Genesis 9:2-4?

All of them have the same Hebraic prohibitive formula, stating what people can eat and then giving a restriction.

In this case, the restriction is the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

However, every other fruit tree is fair game…including the Tree of Life.

Keep in mind, Adam had just been created and then taken to the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:7-8). He had not eaten anything before this happened.

And yet if we go by the reasoning of those who follow the theory about animals dying before the Fall…then we would have to conclude that Adam had somehow eaten of several fruit trees, including the Tree of Life, before he got to the Garden of Eden!

Sound’s as likely as a Hippo singing “It’s Not Unusual” by Tom Jones.

Or Hillary Clinton wearing a MAGA hat...

This is especially the case, considering that the fruit of the Tree of Life gave one immortality, and God didn’t want Adam and Eve to partake of that fruit and live forever after the Fall (Genesis 4:22). That’s why he put a flaming sword and two Cherubim angels (which were depicted in ancient art often as winged human-headed bulls or winged sphinxes) to guard the Tree of life (see verse 24). This is a BIG indicator that neither Adam or Eve ever ate from that tree (it was one of those “get around to it” kind of things I guess). Adam never ate it, either before he reached the Garden of Eden, nor after he got there. Indeed, the text shows no great amount of time between his creation and his entrance into the Garden, and no indication that he got even a small snack before his journey to Eden.

This totally debunks the notion that the Hebraic prohibitive formula of Genesis 9:2-4 indicates that humans ate meat before the flood.

  4. If Genesis 1:28 and 9:2-4 show that mankind was allowed to eat meat, then why don’t most biblical scholars recognize this?

One article that serves as a major basis for the idea that animal death occurred before the Fall is “Death and the Garden: An Examination of Original Immortality, Vegetarianism, and Animal Peace in the Hebrew Bible and Mesopotamia” by Joshua John Van Ee. His thesis is very revealing, yet in a way that people who accept the theory of animal death before the Fall might not realize.

On the 250th page of his thesis, he states:

“Nevertheless, if 9:3 is a clarification, what is the purpose for the

comparison with plants? Doesn't it imply that meat-eating is new, that plants

were given first in Gen 1 and meat later in Gen 9? Most commentators

assume such a temporal element in verse 3: "As (I previously gave you) green

plants, I (now) give you all (animals)." This assumption needs to be

questioned.

‘A few commentators confront this majority opinion but with limited

success. “

In other words, his view is not in agreement with the consensus view among biblical scholars on this issue.

This alone should have use question any claims that the Hebrew syntax in the Genesis dietary passages shows that meat eating was allowed at the beginning. If this was the case…then why don’t most biblical scholars know it? Are most of them ignorant of the Hebrew texts? Do most not even know Hebrew?

  5. Genesis 9:24 makes no sense if meat eating was allowed (Or allowed a lot) before the Flood.

Let’s look at it again:

“The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.”

 Notice how it says “The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea”?

Why are the animals so scared?

“Into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thins that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave the green plants, I give you everything.”

Sounds pretty straightforward, if man was only allowed to eat plants before then (or ate far less meat than in later human history. Keep reading…)

Look at verse 4 again.

 “But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.”

If we conclude that meat eating was allowed in abundance before the Flood, then why would animals be spooked about being drained of blood first before being eaten?

Um, I’m telling you right now; if a bear is chasing me, I’m not going to need a new clean pair of shorts because it intends to drain my body of blood before it eats me.

I’m going to need a new clean pair of shorts because the bear intends to eat me, period.

Maybe the next passage can help enlighten things? Let’s look at Genesis 9:5;

 “And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.”

 Well, that’s one extra reason why animals would fear man, but if you look at 9:2-4 and then 5, you can see that the reason animals will be afraid of man…is because humans will be hunting them. That’s the reason why the fear and dread of humans will be upon the animals.

Notice, the passage doesn’t state “The fear and dread of you has been on the animals.” Instead, it states it will be on them. This denotes a future event.

If humans were not only hunting animals at the beginning of history, but hunting them with a savage zeal fit enough for militaristic Hebrew verbs…then why are animals only afraid of us after the Flood?

Now, to be fair, one can imagine animals having some fear of man before the Flood (especially during the violence of the pre-flood era), but…this amount of fear? If animals feared humans before the Flood, they certainly fear humans even more after it. It sounds like something seriously has changed, that something frightening has emerged in humanity that will scare critters silly.

Something like…eating meat?

Or perhaps…eating a lot more meat (keep reading).

  6. If Radah does not convey bureaucratic or administrative duties, then why is it translated as “officials” twice in scripture?

1 Kings 9:10-28 records Solomon’s many building projects, including the Jewish Temple. Solomon did conscript non-Israelites to work on his projects, but notice what it states in verses 22-23:

“But Solomon did not make slaves of any of the Israelites; they were his fighting men, his government officials, his officers, his captains, and the commanders of his chariots and charioteers. They were also the chief officials in charge of Solomon's projects--550 officials supervising those who did the work.”

And do you know what Hebrew word is translated as “officials”?

Radah.

Now, at first, this idea seems to support the idea of cruel overlordship of animals and the natural world, because the language here is one of slavery, thus cruelty and oppression(and remember, Remember, Radah is not supposed to have bureaucratic or administrative aspects, like what we would associate with a steward. It’s supposed to have negative connotations). Indeed, slaves were considered property like livestock…right? However, not only were Israelite slave laws far more humane than those of their surrounding cultures, the word “Radah” here is being used for…officials.

What do officials do?

What are they doing in the passage?

They are supervising the slaves.

How does one define “supervisor”?

Merriam-Webster gives us a hint:

“one that supervises especially: an administrative officer in charge of a business, government, or school unit or operation”

What is the definition of Bureaucracy?

“a body of nonelected government officials”

And what is a bureaucrat?

“a member of a bureaucracy”

These slave officials were supervisors, doing administrative duties, and, not being elected (they were chosen by King Solomon), are bureaucrats.

And yet the Hebrew word Radah doesn’t have administrative or bureaucratic aspects?

BTW: this same story is repeated in 2 Chronicles chapter 8. Those same officials are mentioned in verse 10.

Radah is likewise used.

Thus, Radah can have administrative and bureaucratic aspects.

  5. Just because violent language is used in Genesis 1:28 doesn’t mean that humans were killing or eating animals.

 There was a movie back in the 80’s called “D.A.R.Y.L.”, about a boy who has a computer for a brain. After he is adopted, his new father (who coaches a little league team) sees if his new son can play baseball. Daryl, who has never played baseball before, hits the ball every time. Each hit is a home run. The Father then has Daryl and another boy named Turtle to come over to him, where he says that Daryl will be his secret weapon. When Turtle mentions the name of a team they will soon play against (the Warriors), Daryl’s father says “We’re going to murder them!”

Haven’t we heard many coaches in real life say something like that? Haven’t we said after a seriously 1-sided game that “That was a slaughter!”?  Haven’t we heard players say “We’re going to war!”? Back in the 80’s, my older brother Justin played a high school football game against a team whose players were HUGE. They were on average much larger than the Liberty Panthers (My brother’s team).  After some excruciating plays my brother say down next to another player who was injured. He looked at my brother and said “Medic!”

Medics are used in military combat, right?

And how many times have we heard statements like “The War on Poverty”, or “The War on Science”, or the “War on Christmas”, or the “War on Christian values”, or the “War on obesity”?

Do any of these “wars” involve tanks, missiles, fighter jets and battlecruisers?

Did they involve guns, knives and hand to hand combat?

What about “Price wars”? Are those armed conflicts?

What about the “Monday Night Wars” between WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) and the now defunct WCW (World Championship Wrestling)? That was a “ratings war” between these wrestling companies that centered on their Monday night shows (WCW had “Monday Nitro” while WWE had “Monday Night RAW”). Both aired at the same time, competing against each other for viewers. On one occasion, DX (Degeneration X), a wrestling stable or team that was led by the famed wrestler Triple H, dressed up in military clothing and rode a “Tank” toward the stadium where WCW was having a Monday Nitro event. 

DX even had bullets and guns! Obviously, THIS was a war, right?

Um, sorry, it wasn’t.

Notice how many times we use pretty violent language today, for things that are not violent at all? Even pro wrestling isn’t real fighting, but choreographed. None of these “wars” were real wars. None of these games had military-style violence and KIAs.

Why wouldn’t the ancient world be any different?

Indeed, it wasn’t different.

Consider, for example, Psalm 74:13-17:

 “You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters. You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness. You split open springs and brooks; you dried up ever-flowing streams. Yours is the day, yours also the night; you have established the heavenly lights and the sun. You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth; you have made summer and winter.”

 If you know ancient near eastern literature, you can understand right away what is going on here. Leviathan was known in the ancient city of Ugarit as “Litan” or “Litanu”, and like the Hebrews, they thought it was also multi-headed (specifically 7 heads). In Ugaritic literature, it is depicted as the personification of the sea, as well as the god of the sea (similar to how the goddess Nyx or Night was the personification of the night as well as a goddess of the night in Greek myth). It was viewed as being overcome by the Canaanite god Baal. Likewise, the ancient near east was home to creation myths that dealt with violence, with gods battling dragons. Marduk, Babylon’s chief god, battled the sea dragon Tiamat in the Enuma Elish. After he killed her, Marduk used her body to make the earth. Dragons served as chaos language, representing the forces of watery chaos at the beginning of creation, and the biblical writers did the same thing here. However, unlike their pagan neighbors, they were doing so only in a figurative sense, not being literal. The reason for this is that there is no violence in the Biblical creation tale (Genesis 1-2). Leviathan is used as a metaphorical personification of the sea. Whenever the Biblical authors wrote of Leviathan, they were most often using it as a metaphor for the sea, or the watery chaos that God controlled or subdued in Genesis 1.  

 In other words, they were using violent language to describe a non-violent event.

 Just like we do today.

 Here are some other biblical examples:

 “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." 2 Cor 10:3-5

 "Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.  Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." Eph 6:11-17

 “In all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us." Rom 8:37

 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Matt 10:34 (see also verses 35-37)

 True, Genesis 9:2-4 also has violent language, and it does refer to eating meat, but the context of that passage (especially when combined with numerous later passages that describe hunters and meat eating) indicates humans hunting animals, while the context of Genesis 1:28-30 (when compared to chapters 2 and 3) does not. Indeed, Genesis 9:2-4 doesn’t mean that we are to treat animals the way the Israelites treated Philistines in warfare; it means they are to be hunted. The term “into your hand they are delivered” could be used poetically or perhaps in a hyperbolic fashion, or the term may have been used by the Israelites in other contexts other than warfare (and thus wouldn’t be military-style combat language). 

Course, the peaceful setting of Genesis 1-2 could potentially allow some level of violence (including human “violence” towards some animals, though not hunting-level violence). 

Indeed, as we will see...it actually does (keep reading...). 

  6. The fact that we are made in the image of God means that we are stewards of the earth.

 What does “Image of God mean”?

What did God mean when he said “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness…” (Genesis 1:26)?

In the ancient near east, kings were often said to be the image of a certain god, and therefore they had a divine right to rule. They claimed to represent a god to the people. Why did they have this belief? Because these kings were often also high priests (sound familiar? Gen 14:18, Hebrews 5:10, all of chapter 7, and Rev 19:16), and were thus thought of as having a connection with the divine. There was even a Sumerian proverb at the time that stated “Man is the shadow of god, but the king is god’s reflection.”  

A king was to rule his people, not exterminate or hunt them for food. He was to take care of them, not wipe them out so he can build a strip mall. He is to rule the people, not having any of them killed unless it is necessary (such as a murderer who is to be executed). And the King ruled as a representative of divine authority, the true power behind his throne. He was subservient to the god as the people were to him. The god was the one who truly had absolute authority, the king being his steward.

And what is a steward?

A person hired to run a household or estate.

As stewards represented their authority of the head of the household, so did ancient near eastern kings represent the authority of their gods.

Likewise, man is made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26), and we are to have dominion over the animals (Genesis 1:26-28).

This stewardship is likewise seen in the Israelites relationship to the land. As mentioned previously, though God gave Israelites the land, he let them know that it belonged to him, and that they were to take care of it, not destroy it (Leviticus 25:23-25).

We are indeed to be stewards of the earth, not its demolishers.  

 The idea that mankind was initially to have a blood-fest, and that we were not to take care of the earth and its animals, is thoroughly debunked by the Biblical, linguistic and cultural/historical background evidence that shows otherwise. Mankind is to be God’s steward, ruling with his authority, ruling as kings and queens of the earth, his representatives to nature. We are to run the earth in the name of the Lord, and the animals are our subjects. True, military-style language is used in Genesis 9:2-4 with animals being delivered into human hands, but this doesn’t mean that humans are to wipe out animal species (remember Noah’s Ark?) or destroy the Biosphere, only that human diet was going to change. This is fact, not fantasy.

Just as it Is fact that humans didn’t eat meat until after the Flood, right?

Um…not so fast. 

For one, did you notice that sea animals are not listed in the dietary laws of Genesis 1:29-30? The beast of the field, the birds of the air, the creeping thing, everything that has the breath of life is given vegetation for food. And yet…sea life is not mentioned in the dietary law. Their creation is mentioned earlier (verses 20-21), as well as humanity’s dominion over them (verse 26), but they are not mentioned in verses 29-30 as being given vegetation to eat.

This begs the question…what were they eating?

They have to be eating something.

One could therefore be open to the possibility that some marine animals were eating meat.

And where does God allow mankind to eat salt (a mineral) or cheese in these passages? Does God’s food laws here forbid humans from eating these things, or are they not as strict as they seem? God never tells Noah “You can now eat cheese and salt”, and yet these things were eaten later. Most likely, they were probably eaten before the Flood as well. 

Another thing we have to remember about Genesis chapter 1 is that God telling people about creation in a way they can understand, and this can be key to understanding the dietary laws of Genesis 1:29-30.

For example; have you ever wondered why light appears on day 1, while the sun appears on day 4 (compare Genesis 1:3-5 to verses 14-19)? Have you ever wondered why there were evenings and mornings without a sun for 3 days until the sun was created? This may come as a shock to you, but…the ancients didn’t believe that all daylight came from the sun. Repeat; they didn’t believe that all daylight came from the sun. Why is this? Because they didn’t have modern science; they lived in the ancient world, while at the same time understanding their universe through their own observations and culture. And considering their ignorance of modern science, it’s easy to understand why they thought that not all daylight came form the sun; there is some daylight in the morning before sunrise, and some shortly after sunset. Even total eclipses don’t remove all sunlight. Likewise, whenever a cloud that blocked the sun, or indeed an overcast, sunlight was still there. Thus, the ancients didn’t think that all daylight came from the sun, and thus wouldn’t have a problem with the idea of mornings, evenings and light before the sun was made.

Now, to be fair, some point out that the verb and tense usage in the passage on day four, when compared to Genesis 1:1, indicates that the sun and moon came into view, and thus were previously created. Thus, they could have been made in any of the earlier days, if not before. However, the text doesn’t state what day that occurred. It could have been day 1, day 2, day 3…we just don’t know. One can lean on this factor for an old earth interpretation of the Genesis creation story, but the startling truth remains that if the sun had been made on day 2 , 3 or 4 (after the first day, when evening, morning and light first appear), the Israelites wouldn’t have had a problem, and the ambiguity of the text leaves open the possibility that the sun and moon were still made after the 1rst day.  

Likewise, the ancient Israelites also thought the moon glowed, not simply reflecting sunlight (it’s called “the Lesser light” in the passage).

Also, have you ever looked closely at Genesis 1:6-9?

 “And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day. And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so.”

 Why is the sky called an “expanse” (in some translations a “vault”), and why is water being described as both above it and below it?

Because the ancients believed that there was an ocean above as well as below the sky.

They also though it was solid, not gaseous like the air below it.

This upper ocean was thought to be where rainwater came from, courtesy of the “floodgates” or the “Windows of Heaven” in the expanse that at times opened to let it through (Genesis 7:11, 8:2).

This was the view of not only of both ancient Jewish and pagan writers, but the early Church fathers as well.  

Now, we know that all daylight actually comes from the Sun, that the Moon doesn’t glow, that the sky is not solid or blocking a celestial ocean, and that it doesn’t have windows that let’s rainwater come down. Nevertheless, these things were written into the creation account of Genesis, by a God who knew how the universe was not like that.

Why?

Probably because God was talking to ancient humans in a way they could understand, just as you’d talk to a child in a way they could understand. For example, if a child asks you where babies come from, would you give them explicit sexual details? Of course not! No, instead you might say “They come from God.” Its not an inaccurate thing to say, for though we understand the science behind conception, we also understand that its ultimately God’s will if a conception occurs (Genesis 30:1-2), though the explanation leaves out the scientific facts. Thus, you are telling them about their origin in a way that they can understand, in a way that won’t go over their heads (and scar them for life!). You may instead decide to tell them about the stork (which, curiously enough, has sexual imagery, which a child wouldn’t get...until they grow up and understand it, probably with shock like I did. This will be the subject of a later article).  Likewise, God was talking to the ancients about creation in a way that they could understand, getting down to their level. He wasn’t giving a science or history lesson; he was telling the ancients about creation in a way they could get. He was telling the ancients about himself, his relation to creation and to man, as well as man’s role in creation.

So, if God wasn’t intending for Genesis 1 to be scientific…shouldn’t we think twice before considering it as literal history as well? Shouldn’t we instead look for the deeper meanings being conveyed in the passage, like we do with the Book of Revelation? Shouldn’t we instead read between the lines?

If Genesis 1 mentions glowing moons, a hard firmament and potentially daylight that came from sources other than the Sun…then why would we believe that all animals and humans, at one point, were entirely herbivorous?

Another thing we need to remember is the poetic language. Unlike the rest of Genesis, Genesis 1 isn’t narrative in form, but poetic. Given this, we need to consider that the idea of man and animals eating only plants in Genesis 1:28-30 may not be meant to be taken literally. Indeed, it could be hyperbolic, to reflect the fact that not only did humans eat far more vegetables and fruit than meat in the ancient world, but that there are more herbivorous animals than carnivorous animals, the latter a fact that the ancients could tell by studying nature. If predators outnumbered prey, then soon the former’s food supply would run out and they would face extinction. However, if it’s the opposite, then predators could have a sustainable food source. The ancients could tell by being in the wilderness than prey animals far outnumbered predators. Could this be the reason why humans and animals are said to eat “only” vegetation in the passage? Is this poetic hyperbolic language? Is this why mankind was “allowed” to eat meat in Genesis 9:3-4 and yet animals are never seemingly given this same permission from God in the passage (or anywhere else in scripture)? Maybe the reason why is because they will keep eating like normal…while humans will be eating more (perhaps far more) meat in their diet than normal.

True, Gen 9:2-4 is used in a connective manner to Gen 1:29-30, but this could be comparable to Exodus 20:8-11’s comparison of the Israelite’s work week and sabbath to God’s creation work week and day of rest in Genesis 1. This has been taken by some to mean that both the Israelite work week and the Genesis work week are identical, but those who believe this forget two things; both work weeks involve far different working methods (How many farmers you know that can make crops grow by saying “Let there be crops!”, or bring rain for them by saying “Let there be rain”?), and the creation work week is a cosmic week, a metaphor for a long period of time. We see this in the creation tales of some cultures. The Pit River tribe of Utah, for example, have a creation story that states that the universe was created in 10 “summers” and 10 “winters” (cosmic seasons). Uncle Ramsey, a Pit River tribal elder, revealed that these seasons were meant to convey 10 billion years. The Zuni and Navajo creation stories likewise indicate a truly astonishing old age for the universe, and these stories were circulating long before western science discovered the correct age of the earth and the universe.

 Likewise, the Genesis week is nothing more than a metaphor for eons, for deep time. Thus, in both work and length, God’s work week is not the same as a human work week. Likewise, the dietary law in Genesis 1:29-30 is not going to be on par with Genesis 9:3-4 (indeed, the former doesn’t even follow the same Hebrew prohibitive formula). One can see both, however, being used in a hyperbolic fashion (Hyperbole is found in Hebrew Biblical narratives, particularly with war rhetoric (See “is God a Moral Monster” by Paul Copan mentioned earlier).

Course, this once again brings up a problem; where does the Bible show Adam and Eve eating meat? Where are they shown to be hunting in Genesis? Heck, they’re never shown to be hunters, only gardeners!

Well, if Adam or Eve bit into a fruit that doesn’t need to be peeled (like a cherry or apple)…then they’d be swallowing bacteria that will be on it (bacteria are found on fruit). Thus, whenever they ate such fruit (and fruit that didn’t have to be peeled first did exist in the garden; neither Adam nor Eve are shown to peel the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil), they’d be eating the bacteria with it. If they licked their lips after eating such fruit, they’ll be ingesting bacteria that might have been on their hands. Likewise, if Adam, Eve or later pre-flood humans ever ate moss (some moss is edible), then they would be consuming not only the Moss, but the tardigrades (aka “water bears”) that live on them. These fat microscopic little critters are not bacteria or viruses, but tiny invertebrates that are found all over the world. If you eat moss (such as in a situation involving starvation, or out of just sheer curiosity), you’ll be not only eating moss…you’ll be eating tardigrades. 

But were they eating anything else?

One cannot make Adam and Eve hunters, considering that they are shown to be at peace with the animals.

Well…not all animals.

You notice…no fish are presented by God to Adam as a potential helper…!

You’ll also notice how, though fishing does involve animal death, the act of fishing is far less violent (and generally far less dangerous) than hunting animals. Indeed, fishing is a far, far more peaceful pursuit.  Though Adam is told to eat only fruit in the garden, one could imagine him wading into a river or lake bordering the garden and fishing. One could imagine him eating it outside the Garden. One could imagine fishing continuing after the Fall. One could also imagine hunting being invented later, but it being done rarely. Hence, why animals are afraid after the flood, now that humans will “eat meat” (i.e. hyperbolic indication that they will eat more meat). 

Course, the fishing idea is not proven, and only fruit is mentioned as being food for Adam and Eve in the passage. Then again, however, tardigrades and other microscopic organisms are not listed on the Genesis menu either (the Israelites didn’t know about them), and yet Adam and Eve unknowingly ate at least some of them as well. Indeed, if the Israelites had somehow learned about the existence of tardigrades and bacteria (they didn’t), then they would have classified them as “creeping things”. Thus, they would recognize that Adam and Eve were eating “meat”.

And if they ate those critters, perhaps they ate others, like fish.

However, there is one important biblical objection to consider here:

How can there have been animal death before the Fall when the Fall is what brought death into the world?

At first it seems like the Fall brought death, if we compare Genesis 2:17 and 3:2-4 with 1 Corinthians 15:20-21 and Romans 5:12.

However, if you look at these passages, you’ll see that these verses, along with their context, are relating humans with death, not all living things with death.

Indeed, if Adam and Eve were to die if they ate of the forbidden fruit, at the very moment that they ate it (Genesis 2:17), then why didn’t they immediately die after eating it? Why did they live on after the Garden? Why did Adam go on to live 930 years (Genesis 5:5)?

This sounds more like spiritual death than biological death.

Also, if mankind was originally created to be immortal, and if death didn’t exist until the forbidden fruit was eaten, then why was God worried about Adam and Eve eating the fruit of the tree of life…and becoming immortal? Indeed, why would the Tree of Life even be there, with fruit that could make one immortal, if Adam, Eve and all the animals were already immortal? If one wants to make the argument that they lost their physical immortality the moment they ate the forbidden fruit, and could only get it back again by eating of the Tree of Life, then they need to explain why the Bible doesn’t state that is the case. It seems most likely that they were not made immortal initially, and that the Tree of Life offered immortality, while the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil offered both forbidden knowledge and a loss of innocence.

They chose to eat from the latter.

They chose to learn something that was damaging, chose to disobey God, instead of choosing…life.

Indeed, they chose temporary sin…instead of eternal life.

That’s some rich symbolism right there.

That symbolism wouldn’t be anywhere near as strong if the Tree of Life didn’t offer eternal life before Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, choosing to consume its fruit instead. Indeed, it would be practically non-existent.

Plus, if you notice Genesis 3:22-24, it indicates that Adam and Eve were not immortal, not that they had just lost immortality. They never had immortality to begin with.

Thus, if they had not sinned, but had not eaten of the Tree of Life in the Garden, they would have eventually…died.

Just like the other animals in the world that didn’t have access to the Tree of Life.

Now, some may object, stating that surely a loving God would not allow animals to suffer and die for eons and eons, that God is too good to allow innocent, sinless creatures to suffer from predation, illness and other calamities over billions of years. Surely, God is not like that!

Well, let’s think about that for a minute.

God allowing innocent, sinless animals to die…

Dying so that predators and their offspring could live…

Dying the world over, so that the living world could continue, perhaps even for…ever….

Doesn’t that sound like a Rabbi carpenter that we know?

You know, the “Lamb of God”, the “Lion of the Tribe of Judah”, who died so that those who nailed him to the cross, and every other sinner (whose sins likewise nailed him to that very cross), could truly live forever?

One can understand that, just as God chose some animals (all of which are sinless) to die horribly so that predators and scavengers would be spared starvation, God chose Jesus  (who is likewise sinless, the source of all purity) to die horribly so that sinners (including those who actually killed him) would be spared…damnation.

Just as God chose some animals to die so that life on earth could continue, God chose Jesus his Son to die, so that life could continue into the New Heavens and the New Earth to come.

Just as God chose some animals to die so that life could go on, potentially forever, so did he choose Jesus to die so that we could have everlasting life!

Just as God had innocent animals to be sacrificed in the Old Testament so that the Israelites could be ritually forgiven, so God likewise chose Jesus, King of Innocence, to be sacrificed on Golgotha, so that we could be spiritually forgiven.

We often see similarities between Old Testament and New Testament stories. We call these old testament similarities “typologies”, a sign of things to come in the New Testament.

Why can’t we see the same in nature?

Why can’t we see natural typologies?

God did make nature, and he does teach us things through nature (Romans 1:20), right?

Why can’t we see him using the natural world to teach us about Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God?

Why can’t we even see these eons of innocent death and suffering as pointing towards the innocent death and suffering of Jesus Christ?

 Folks, the Bible teaches that we are to rule the earth as representatives of God. We are to take care of it, not destroy or ravage it. We are to be kings and queens of nature, and animals are to be our subjects, not victims of mass slaughter. We can hunt them and eat them, but we are not to exterminate them from the world.

If God put them here, why should we remove them?

If God didn’t wipe them out in the Flood (remember Noah’s Ark), then why would he want us to wipe them out?

And yet, mankind has eaten other living things besides plants since the beginning. We ate more of the latter after the Great Flood, which is why animals fear us.

As Christians, let us remember to challenge new theological beliefs with study, research and inspection. Let us be ready to dissect such ideas to see if they have any merit, or none at all. Let us be ready to spot unsound doctrine, and let us study the word, know the word, meditate on the word and pray for God’s illumination on his word, so we can better defend God’s word.

 Sources:

“IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament” by John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, 28-29, 39, 49, 65, 411, 510-11, 540

“Archeological Study Bible” (NIV), 127

“Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible” (NIV, 4-7, 11, 22, 952-54)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8h33TyJkzwQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsK1gcCI618&t=683s

“The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary; The Five Books of Moses” by Robert Alter, 11-12, 32

“Zondervan NIV Exhaustive Concordance: Second Edition” by Edward W. Goodrick and John R, Kohlenberger III, 819, 969, 1104,  3870, 8080.

“Origins” by Paul Copan and Douglas Jacoby, 109-110

“Clash of the Gods” Documentary series, “Hercules” episode.

“Fossil Legends of the First Americans” by Adrienne Mayor, 149-51  

“How it works Book of Incredible History” by April Madden (Editor) and Jon White (Editor-In-Chief), 15

“The Jewish Study Bible” (Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation)” by Adele Berlin, Marcf Zvi Brettler (editors) and Michael Fishbane (Consulting Editor), 14  

“Science: Was the Bible Ahead of its Time?” by Ralph O. Muncaster, 22

“Dinosaurs and the Bible” by Ralph O. Muncaster, 28-29

“Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary: Completely Revised, Updated and Expanded” by Chad Brand, Charles Draper and Archie England (General Editors), 177-78, 1042.

https://escholarship.org/content/qt0qm3n0mt/qt0qm3n0mt.pdf?t=o4ho0y

http://www.joeledmundanderson.com/making-sense-of-genesis-1-the-fundamental-biblical-worldview/

“The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England” by Ian Mortimer, 172-73

“Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology” by Arthur Cotterell and Rachel Storm, 287, 293, 297, 326

“Smithsonian Institution: Animal” by David Burnie and Don E. Wilson (Editors in Chief), 537.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/04/21/what-is-ann-coulter-saying-thats-got-everyone-so-worked-up/

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/supervisor

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bureaucracy

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bureaucrat

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/steward

https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2020/02/what-type-of-bacteria-lives-on-your-fruit-and-vegies/

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130327190542.htm

https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/Genesis_texts.html

https://www.livescience.com/53452-herbivores.html

https://www.primalsurvivor.net/edible-lichen/

https://microcosmos.foldscope.com/?p=17901 

“The Monday Night War: WWE vs. WCW” documentary series

https://www.wwe.com/classics/dx-invasion-wcw-nitro  

https://www.ancient.eu/article/1458/the-nerge-hunting-in-the-mongol-empire/  

https://www.theoi.com/Protogenos/Nyx.html 

[ruffoverthinksthings]

For the Descendants/Disney world what are the types of Fae or half-faes that have/could appear in Descendants? I keep thinking about if the magic ban didn't exist or was lightened up on, we could see lots more faes or half faes, but I can't for the life of me think about what would constitue as a fae or half fae with the Disney/descendants world.

LONG list below.

Fae

Faeries – Rangingfrom the highest level of “Full Faerie” which are humanoid inappearance and have the greatest amount of magical power andoftentimes skill, “Pixies” which can be humanoid in appearancebut vary in size from regular humans to just a few inches likeTinkerbell, to “Sprites,” moving, semi-intelligent concentrationsof magic.

Dwarves – Alargely subterranean species of Fae, humanoid in appearance, buteasily distinguished by their incredibly compact and muscular bodies.Frequently found mining gem and precious metal deposits, alongsidepracticing metalworking and architecture, though curiously, they justtend to be stockpiled and stored without any sort of exploitationaside from making more tools to keep on mining.

Goblins – Adistant cousin of Dwarves, also largely subterranean. Have gotten arather negative reputation due to their scavenging and mischievousways, raiding the food stores of animals, wild fae, and humans alike,and sometimes even making off with the beings themselves for whateverpurpose, so long as they happen to be near their massive undergroundcolonies. Only really exist on the Isle nowadays, due to very manyvillains, criminals, and overlords using them as a cheap andconvenient minions, and most every other citizen seeing them aspests.*

Undersea Folk – Ablanket term for all half-humanoid aquatic dwelling species in thesea, especially in Atlantica, covering that of the Merfolk(half-fish), Scylla (half-octopus), and all the other exotic speciesnot usually seen, such as the “Crab People.” Outside of FaeTaxonomy, may also be used to refer to the intelligent aquaticcreatures they interact with on a daily basis.

Demons – Anotherblanket term for beings summoned from other worlds, or existed in aparrallel dimension to that of a mortal plane, such as the Underworldof Greece or the Spirit World of China. Includes many, many, manysubspecies, such as Djinn like Genie, Jordan, and Eden, Imps like Painand Panic, Revenants like the Horned King, formerly mortal souls whohad used dark magics to avoid death and now live in a state ofunliving (“zombification,” in popular slang,) and the Loa,otherwise known as Dr. Facillier’s “Friends From The Other Side.”

Greek Fae/Grecian Demi-Humans – For the SHEER NUMBER OF VARIETY, and because theyhave their own dedicated list, this refers to any sort of Fae,humanoid or otherwise, frequently of divine origin, who live or originated from Greece, including but not limited to Lamiae (half-snake, half-human),Satyrs (half-goat, half-human), Minotaurs (half-bull, half-human),and Centaurs (half-horse, half-human.)

The Greek Pantheon –The Gods and Goddesses of Greece, lead by Zeus.

Elves – May referto either the “High” Elf who closely resemble humans in height,stature, and society, save key differences like lifespan, physicalcapability, and the shape of their ears, or “Maker” Elves who area diminutive species of humanoids oftentimes found specializing inand participating in some form of industry, be it creating shoes,baking goods, or crafting toys, for some bizarre reason. Please notethat while the same term is used for both, they have no significantrelation, except for superficial similarities like the pointed ears;how much they do have in common is still under study and much speculation.

Trolls – Massive,hulking, and generally unintelligent humanoids, known for theirincredible muscle mass and physical strength, their fearsomeappearances and even fiercer territorial behaviour, their omnivorousdiets that frequently include sentient beings like humans, and theirsmell. Like Goblins, generally only exist on the Isle as they wereeither frequently conscripted by unsavoury folks, or seen as a dangerto civilian populations.

Dryads – Physicalmanifestations of a forest or other environment’s health, stemming from anexcess of magic in the ley lines. Oftentimes appear humanoid exceptfor distinctly plant-like appearances, or animalistic features,sometimes with the ability to fully shift into one. Famously known asthe guardians and caretakers of their homes, but most just act asanother part of their ecosystem alongside the predators, the prey,and what have you.

Dragons –Reptilian creatures of varying sizes and shapes, very manysubspecies, and existing across a number of realms. Oftentimes areimbued with incredible levels of magical capability due to absorbingit from their environment, such as “gem eaters” having digestivetracts that absorb the mana inside magically-resonant crystals, manifesting intraits such as fire breath, magical healing powers, or greatinfluence over their environment. Generally independent and wild,though servant dragons are not unheard of.

Half-Fae

Demigods –Children born of the union of a divine deity and a mortal being suchas a human, or a divine deity stripped of most but not all of theirpower. An example of this would be Hercules and his son, Herakleides,AKA “Herkie.”

Half-Faeries –Children born of the union between a full-Faerie and a mortal human.Generally longer-lived than their purely mortal counterparts,oftentimes have incredible magical potential, but otherwise not thatdifferent, and lack many of the incredible advantages of theirenchanted half, like infallible memories. An example of this would be Mal, who is categorized as a “Pixie.”

Half-Dwarves –Children born of unions between a Dwarf and a mortal human. UnlikeHalf-Faeries above, don’t have much to distinguish themselves fromtheir fully-human counterparts, lacking many of the magical instinctsof dwarves or their incredible strength, or at least, not withoutconstant and diligent training, exercise, and nutrition. An example of this would be Doug and his cousins.

Half-Undersea Folk –Children born of unions between any of the subspecies of UnderseaFolk and a mortal human. Generally take on the characteristics of oneor the other parent, depending on gene dominance, but oftentimes lackthe full strength of magical abilities and instincts such as theability to talk to underwater creatures. Frequently feel a greatattachment to the sea, and some may even require regular exposure to sea water or other saline solutions to maintain proper health.

Half-Demons –Children born of unions between any beings classified under the“Demon” category and a mortal human. Vary as much as theindividual species of their Fae parents, though it’s not uncommonto see unusual physical features such as red eyes and naturally whitehair, the sprouting of horns, tails, and wings, and some if notparticularly notable magical potential. The jury is still out about whether the frequently eccentric behaviour is genetic or a product of their unusual upbringings.

Half-Greek Fae –Children born of the unions between any Fae beings from Greece.Generally mostly human in appearance, with some traits andcharacteristics from their Fae parents like children of Sirens havinggreat singing voices, but without the supernatural hypnosis.

Half-Dryads –Children born of the unions between any Dryads and mortal humans, orsometimes, the influence of living in a certain environment for anextended period of time. Generally human in appearance, but canmanifest certain characteristics of their Fae parents, such as a tuftof feathers on the forehead and nowhere else, long hair resemblingthat of plant vines, or the ability to speak to trees and plants.

Half-Elves –Exclusively used to refer to children born of the unions between“High” Elves and mortal humans. Almost exactly similar toHalf-Faeries, except for magical potential.

Half-Dragons –Children born of the unions between a dragon and mortal humans,either through enchanted means like blessings, or extremely, ah,“creative” methods. Also referred to as “Dragonborn.” Mayappear completely human except for magical traits such as the abilityto breath fire or incredible magical potential, or have distinctlyreptilian traits such as patches of scale-like skin on areas like theneck, cheeks, hands, and feet.

Half-Trolls – Theproducts of long-banned and reviled experiments in the creation of“better” servants and minions by evil overlords. Ideally, appearas larger and stronger than usual humans about 7-9 feet tall withincredible strength and muscle mass, sometimes with features likehorns and manes. Much more frequently, as misshapen and grotesquelyproportioned humanoids, with incredibly long and gangly limbs, toosquat and compact bodies, fang like protrusions misaligning jaws, orincredibly poor and disease-prone skin resembling leathery hides.Gradually becoming extinct.

There are noHalf-Goblins. The only detail I will give you is that Goblins always produce more goblins.   

* How Dwarves and Goblins descended from a common ancestor remains a mystery, though both sides share a mutually agreed upon mythology about some ancient, legendary brothers: an industrious worker and his lazy, opportunistic sibling who were apparently the patriarchs of both species.

[ridingtherockyroad]

Day Two

We wake to find ourselves in a beautiful spot high in the mountains, long views out between pine trees. The sun is shining. The young dogs are friendly. One keeps stealing our gloves.

The owner won’t fill our water bottles, insisting we fill them from the water pipe by the car park, fed directly from a mountain stream. It is cold and tastes noticeably clean and pure.

We leave earlier than yesterday. Cycling back where we came from along the top of a ridge with views to either side lit by the low sun. The shepherds are tending their flocks, kept safe for the night in wooden pens.

Then the descent starts, fast, on good tarmac, long wide turns through the pine trees. This is fun.

Into the plain, where we cycle through picturesque Saxon villages. Silviu explains that even though many of the Saxons have gone, the buildings are still built in the traditional style. Walls around the outside (for defence), a big gate to bring in the haycart, and all life in the courtyard within.

It’s flat and we cycle together through the pretty and quiet villages. The simple life does not have to be one without beauty.

There are storks nesting on lampposts and chimney stacks. It’s quite Germanic.

A coffee stop for no reason other than it is the last place for while. We watch the world go by. Older women in headscarves – often worn under a hat. Older men in hats. One chap in a fabulous brimless dome perched on his head – a Clop – typical for a shepherd in the Sibiu region.

On we go following the valley, which slowly transforms itself into the first climb of the day. 500m at 5-6%. Comfortable, but long. We are rewarded by great views and benches to enjoy them from. We can see a large sweep of the Carpathian mountains that form a C around Romania. The Fagaras mountains we climbed yesterday are part of the range. Our next real challenge is the Transalpina, a long road that – as its name suggests – crosses the ‘Romanian Alps’ (the Carpathians by another name.)

Richard isn’t feeling well – the latte was a mistake.

We follow a ridge – staying high for a while.

The greens! The meadows are full of spring flowers, but it’s the grass that’s remarkable. Lush rich green. Silviu had advised us that this is not a weather-sure time of year. Luckily we seem to have hit a pocket of fine weather between the storms. The reward is a vibrant and verdant landscape.

We pass horses roaming wild, with foals lying in the sun. Shining metal rooved churches – everyone crosses themselves when they walk past. Everyone, young and old.

Animals we’ve seen by the side of the road: cows, horses, donkeys, sheep, a toad, a fox, a snake, a mouse. But no bears. Yet!

As I struggle up a hill in the town of Jina, a gypsy boy asks me for a cigarette.

As we descend, there are some beautiful painted crosses in wooden shelters and a spectacular mural of saints by a pipe flowing with spring water – it would be rude not to fill up the bidons here. Further down, we find a little paradise – a family home, with neatly ordered vegetable gardens and square – almost oriental ponds – full of fish. We buy some lettuce from them and marvel at their eden.

At the bottom of the big climb of the day, we meet Sebastian for a picnic lunch. He has brought an extraordinary array of food, much of it home made by his wife – beef meat balls, salami, brined pork fat, a huge block of holey ewe’s cheese, and fresh vegetables – big beef tomatoes and knobbly cucumbers the size of large gherkins. Large white bloomer loaves encase these delights to form memorable sandwiches.

Fuelled and rested we embark on the big climb. 1200 meters of gentle but sapping gradient of 2-5% following a mountain torrent to its source. All along there are springs coursing down waterfalls in the steep slopes at the side of the road. Two dams with their lakes – the slope relents a little at their side. Hamish shoots off like a terrier, “I think this is my favourite gradient.” John purrs along. Andy like a whippet, cantering up. David adopts an easy but steady pace. Piers, after a ‘journée sans’ yesterday is thrilled to have energy and ploughs on without stopping. David adopts a slow but steady approach. The latte has floored Richard, who is keeping Sebastian company in the bus.

The climb has kept a little surprise for us in reserve – the last 400 meters of vertical ascent is at a will-power sapping 8-10%. – this at 1,400-1,700m altitude where the air is thinner.

John sneeks past Hamish just at the top to steal king of the mountain.

The summit is a rush of achievement – but nothing to look at – no view – we are still in full forest. The descent is fast and furious. David is sure he’s beaten his personal record following Silviu’s line.

Dinner is good mountain fare – grilled meat, shredded lettuce, potatoes and red wine. The conversation turns to calculations of the difference in energy expended in Joules between a 70k man and one somewhat. heavier. Can’t think why. Apparently, Hamish would have to run up and down the stairs several hundred times to expend the difference.

Did John really have seven gels? He is staying tight lipped, “I neither confirm nor deny…”

We have left behind the Saxon villages that border the south of Transylvania. We move to a new valley and a new region - Oltenia. Onwards and upwards tomorrow along the Transalpina.

[libidomechanica]

Untitled Composition # 6221

That moment thats in the yellow. The  bright Nymph! “‘He did breede. Conceald. Whether  woes? His breathe.’ And rock the constitution  bites. She smild, but now flocke, sweet Love the grace 

though the vats, or thee, hold on the  disports me: now will not be the  bees,” until some declining Ringlets taught, so in  this slow-chapt powers, all for there falling, but 

rising of cruelty! These in the  streamd from wronged a province ill- clad? For good as a married, and  Languor at last Then I show how for 

the young doue may, we will, in deadly  draught one that the third motion, then  you deliberately at large, and  feast or none willingsgate made the churls, brought, 

of which infinity to  inflame to ye, my lad, o whistle,  an Ill receive th is is the time I held you in bliss, 

not to recorded on a  half-drooping traueile I should go to pry and  Tweezer-Cases. Fair create you the  last break the pilfering its 

hoard with gems and Sage had words, who from  the doubt the wild? Sweet rose trees, Yet  now sees anothers fame, now, breath brag thou had gotte the  pitcher sheds, and make me with 

one pang; dare, never have I would take with  poetic arm arms at your heart now are more  Foole for every paltry magazine  came like Tom could do a starts; the 

light to the commended if he  did should, could not long as your joys I have,  who grow by the milk of the science  and the wall bounding from both, and 

if heaven being with Flowrs, through their  sweet; myriads of their Lord, with lilies  are his battering ill. Whether on  your round, was a widower 

turn of Rome and ends at that unnoticed &  that thy skin cant do other with swiftly  escape write an Altars blazond baldric slung a  might by no merrily “O tell her wear them 

his sore By those babies in honest heat  were my Credit like or suspires.  While Fish in Streams, Invention: then the  bad seruants, wrong, the flowres of a 

list none, nought Slipper knots, yet so quite? That no helpe  to gain are clichés and glad, I sent you  with honor the third motive frigate,  pulling on the gods he did was 

lately seek in my curse of Eden  did not meant a mere packed into  a crescent of prickling the  gallery at night, and sin! There, beyond 

called ‘work,’ must statute of all. But they gaynen  withering round my own her pipe and grand love  that the list to flutter  after a sort; but by but chased at scarce a crime too. 

A two-edgd Weapon from century deathless  cried, as where were taverns wooing is  infancy beguile thy foot” was tend, before  they say, forget “em all; what ‘your 

inspire turns round containing of a syllable  too, down to inspird: around  up with Tears each highest: but with  a height of the Wonders be 

gract, then away resolved: ah! Dig deep as filchers  samphire,’ their glories, the hum” of cities  shine out, as it may, and though I neuer  shining Train beneath each otherwise to warble 

looming findest Calmucks, drillingsgate made a  statute-books princes, neatly gilt. Hath filled up,  and break a twofold transports me:’“tis  sure nations—probably from holding Mill, 

midst the meadow grace serenest best look  down to obtaind but do not, but for the  young men who cause of Satanic power,  though ’‘t is an actual lord 

your quaint and thinke no solid fired to  knows: but, for a last of  gall, is fancy beguild; the humbler  Province my name. And faith, our “

royal riddles furrows what he took the  torches make cloudwhite Breast one hath her, except  it survive. Now I have chosen from the  false Foxe, for a lass wi” a 

tocher; the church,—and these will not been  treated to tell your life— this is I, what needes be in  summer long man’ he had lost every noon!”

[micaramel]

Artist: Juliette Blightman

Venue: Fons Welters, Amsterdam

Exhibition Title: Loved an Image

Date: September 9 – October 21, 2017

Click here to view slideshow

Full gallery of images, press release and link available after the jump.

Images:

Images courtesy of Fons Welters, Amsterdam

Press Release:

There are moments in life in which you notice your own dullness and ignorance. As I really like late and extensive breakfast, maybe only a year ago I told some friends that one should invent a mix of breakfast and lunch, which then should be called: brun…. Ouch, here it is! Painful epiphany.

I used to have an old phone that ran out of storage making it impossible to install the most recent software updates. Therefore I saw some emojis as question marks in squares, couldn’t play slow-mo videos properly or received messages from friends as answers to images I sent: ‚Loved an image‘. In the beginning I was rather confused as different people seemed to send me this message – independently of one another, obviously. Juliette started to really like that phrase and quickly followed up with ‚Laughed at an image‘ or ‚Emphasized an image‘ – I liked it too and started using it. I don’t exactly know how I figured, but at some point this year I realized that it was my not-up-to-date phone that wrote ‚Loved an image‘,. The person who sent it to me actually just hovered over the image and – with a choice of expressions – chose ‚Loved an image‘, which would create a little heart above the photo instead of spelling it out. Here it is again: painful epiphany!

It isn’t really pleasant to realize your own ignorance, yet it can be very funny and entertaining for all parties. Like smashing your coccyx: it hurts, it really hurts, but you can’t help but laugh. It’s like slight memories from last night coming back, you don’t really want to have them back, or you are scared because you think you don’t really want them back, you begin to feel the embarrassment that crawls slowly through your body and back into your brain. ‚Loved an image‘ however became a truism that Juliette would then keep writing, it became a way to bypass the classic like/dislike gesture and to actually focus on the image.

These images started to become black screens with white phrases. They could be seen as subtitles. But then: where was the image? The image doesn’t really matter as the note creates an image – mostly of those memories you tend to forget. The image becomes a text, respectively was a text, is a text. Fragments from conversations, messages, mails, quotes from songs, books, films, her own films. Taken out of their context, used as clichés: ‚Hope I didn’t say the wrong thing‘, ‚I’m really sorry about yesterday‘, ‚It was wild‘… Phrases that individually create images for each person – a black screen as substitute for actual green screens in which the movie industry transfers whatever they want. Juliette’s black notes function in the exact same way. Does it even make sense to discuss one’s image with another? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. Either way those works create a very intimate moment in which each and everyone is alone, in a sincere moment of personal thoughts.

‚They should grow on you’

Where is it from? Is it a quote? What is she referring to?

Juxtaposing cacti drawings and watercolors might give an answer to this note, but then again what’s the context between a spring fountain in the shape of a fish with the water coming out of the mouth and ‚you feeling ok after the weekend?‘.

I just bought a new phone with ultra hd camera and all kinds of possibilities that most of my friends can’t receive.

‚You win’…

[Felix Gaudlitz]

About the artist: Loved an Image is Juliette Blightman’s first solo show in the Netherlands. Blightman is a British artist living and working in Berlin. The main theme of her work is the relationship between art and life, she creates her works like ongoing journal entries articulated in different media, a life examined, radical subjectivity and the personal made public. Juliette Blightman photographs, paints, films, writes, and performs the slow practice of everyday life with all its dance parties. She earned a Bachelor in Fine Arts degree at the Byam Shaw School of Art in London in 2003 and a Master in Fine Arts at University of the Arts, London/Central St. Martins in 2007.

Her most recent solo exhibitions include; Extimacy at the Kunsthalle Bern (2016), Portraits and Repetition at the South London Gallery (2015-16), Juliette Blightman / Ellie Epp at the Badischer Kunstverein in Karlsruhe (2015), Come inside, Bitte at Eden Eden in Berlin (2015), Eden Eden Eden at Karma International in Los Angeles (2015), Gerry Bibby / Juliette Blightman at the Kunsthaus Bregenz (2014), I hope one day soon you’ll come and visit me here at Isabella Bortolozzi Galerie in Berlin (2011). Her works and performances have also been shown in the following exhibition spaces: Cubitt, London, Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo, Artists Space, New York, Centre Parc Saint Léger, Pougues-Les-Eaux, Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden, Tramway, Glasgow, Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, amongst others.

Blightman’s work has appeared in international publications such as ArtForum, Frieze, Texte Zur Kunst and Starship. She has given a series of performance lectures at the following Universities: Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, UDK Berlin, University Mozarteum Salzburg, Royal College of Art, London, NYU Berlin and Weissensee Kunsthochschule Berlin.

Link: Juliette Blightman at Fons Welters

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from Contemporary Art Daily http://bit.ly/2xLHVuy

[dfroza]

it was nice to see this Saturday evening

after sharing this morning about the rebirth of the heavens and the earth, that it was written of in Today’s paired chapters from the Scriptures, specifically in the work of Isaiah. an ancient book at some point divided into the numbers of chapter and verse for easy reference points, with the book containing 66 chapters. similar to the way the whole body of the Holy Bible contains 66 books in the Old and New Testaments.

and so it was neat for me to see the promised rebirth of the heavens and the earth in this chapter of Isaiah, which of course relates to that as well in the closing book of John’s revelation at the end of the New Testament. all of which reveals the New Covenant of grace.

and with Today being day [8] of the month of july, it is also day 18 of Summer and day 189 of the year, now in ‘17. and so in addition to my paired chapters of Isaiah 65 and 1st Peter 5, i read Psalms 8, 18 and 39, as well as Proverbs 8, all in The Message translation by Eugene Peterson. and there are many translations that are accurately translated from the original Hebrew and Greek, although the essence of it all is the Love of God revealed. yes, the basic meaning, its definition is that of friendship with God and with others. sons and daughters. children.

select pieces of Script from my reading Today:

[New Heavens and a New Earth]

“Pay close attention now: I’m creating new heavens and a new earth. All the earlier troubles, chaos, and pain are things of the past, to be forgotten. Look ahead with joy. Anticipate what I’m creating: I’ll create Jerusalem as sheer joy, create my people as pure delight. I’ll take joy in Jerusalem, take delight in my people: No more sounds of weeping in the city, no cries of anguish; No more babies dying in the cradle, or old people who don’t enjoy a full lifetime; One-hundredth birthdays will be considered normal— anything less will seem like a cheat. They’ll build houses and move in. They’ll plant fields and eat what they grow. No more building a house that some outsider takes over, No more planting fields that some enemy confiscates, For my people will be as long-lived as trees, my chosen ones will have satisfaction in their work. They won’t work and have nothing come of it, they won’t have children snatched out from under them. For they themselves are plantings blessed by God, with their children and grandchildren likewise God-blessed. Before they call out, I’ll answer. Before they’ve finished speaking, I’ll have heard. Wolf and lamb will graze the same meadow, lion and ox eat straw from the same trough, but snakes—they’ll get a diet of dirt! Neither animal nor human will hurt or kill anywhere on my Holy Mountain,” says God.

The Book of Isaiah, Chapter 65:17-25 (The Message)

[He’ll Promote You at the Right Time]

I have a special concern for you church leaders. I know what it’s like to be a leader, in on Christ’s sufferings as well as the coming glory. Here’s my concern: that you care for God’s flock with all the diligence of a shepherd. Not because you have to, but because you want to please God. Not calculating what you can get out of it, but acting spontaneously. Not bossily telling others what to do, but tenderly showing them the way.

When God, who is the best shepherd of all, comes out in the open with his rule, he’ll see that you’ve done it right and commend you lavishly. And you who are younger must follow your leaders. But all of you, leaders and followers alike, are to be down to earth with each other, for—

God has had it with the proud, But takes delight in just plain people.

So be content with who you are, and don’t put on airs. God’s strong hand is on you; he’ll promote you at the right time. Live carefree before God; he is most careful with you.

[He Gets the Last Word]

Keep a cool head. Stay alert. The Devil is poised to pounce, and would like nothing better than to catch you napping. Keep your guard up. You’re not the only ones plunged into these hard times. It’s the same with Christians all over the world. So keep a firm grip on the faith. The suffering won’t last forever. It won’t be long before this generous God who has great plans for us in Christ—eternal and glorious plans they are!—will have you put together and on your feet for good. He gets the last word; yes, he does.

I’m sending this brief letter to you by Silas, a most dependable brother. I have the highest regard for him.

I’ve written as urgently and accurately as I know how. This is God’s generous truth; embrace it with both arms!

The church in exile here with me—but not for a moment forgotten by God—wants to be remembered to you. Mark, who is like a son to me, says hello. Give holy embraces all around! Peace to you—to all who walk in Christ’s ways.

The Book of 1st Peter, Chapter 5 (The Message)

[Psalm 8]

A David Psalm

God, brilliant Lord, yours is a household name.

Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you; toddlers shout the songs That drown out enemy talk, and silence atheist babble.

I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous, your handmade sky-jewelry, Moon and stars mounted in their settings. Then I look at my micro-self and wonder, Why do you bother with us? Why take a second look our way?

Yet we’ve so narrowly missed being gods, bright with Eden’s dawn light. You put us in charge of your handcrafted world, repeated to us your Genesis-charge, Made us lords of sheep and cattle, even animals out in the wild, Birds flying and fish swimming, whales singing in the ocean deeps.

God, brilliant Lord, your name echoes around the world.

The Book of Psalms, Song 8 (The Message)

A portion of Proverbs 8:

“God sovereignly made me—the first, the basic— before he did anything else. I was brought into being a long time ago, well before Earth got its start. I arrived on the scene before Ocean, yes, even before Springs and Rivers and Lakes. Before Mountains were sculpted and Hills took shape, I was already there, newborn; Long before God stretched out Earth’s Horizons, and tended to the minute details of Soil and Weather, And set Sky firmly in place, I was there. When he mapped and gave borders to wild Ocean, built the vast vault of Heaven, and installed the fountains that fed Ocean, When he drew a boundary for Sea, posted a sign that said no trespassing, And then staked out Earth’s Foundations, I was right there with him, making sure everything fit. Day after day I was there, with my joyful applause, always enjoying his company, Delighted with the world of things and creatures, happily celebrating the human family.”

The Book of Proverbs, Chapter 8:22-31 (The Message)

and then to wrap up Today’s reading with chapter 21 from the book of Revelation which again speaks of the coming rebirth of the heavens and the earth. just as the purity and innocence that existed in Genesis, in the beginning… only made new. a most beautiful and treasured promise, to be sure:

[Everything New]

I saw Heaven and earth new-created. Gone the first Heaven, gone the first earth, gone the sea.

I saw Holy Jerusalem, new-created, descending resplendent out of Heaven, as ready for God as a bride for her husband.

I heard a voice thunder from the Throne: “Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They’re his people, he’s their God. He’ll wipe every tear from their eyes. Death is gone for good—tears gone, crying gone, pain gone—all the first order of things gone.” The Enthroned continued, “Look! I’m making everything new. Write it all down—each word dependable and accurate.”

Then he said, “It’s happened. I’m A to Z. I’m the Beginning, I’m the Conclusion. From Water-of-Life Well I give freely to the thirsty. Conquerors inherit all this. I’ll be God to them, they’ll be sons and daughters to me. But for the rest—the feckless and faithless, degenerates and murderers, sex peddlers and sorcerers, idolaters and all liars—for them it’s Lake Fire and Brimstone. Second death!”

[City of Light]

One of the Seven Angels who had carried the bowls filled with the seven final disasters spoke to me: “Come here. I’ll show you the Bride, the Wife of the Lamb.” He took me away in the Spirit to an enormous, high mountain and showed me Holy Jerusalem descending out of Heaven from God, resplendent in the bright glory of God.

The City shimmered like a precious gem, light-filled, pulsing light. She had a wall majestic and high with twelve gates. At each gate stood an Angel, and on the gates were inscribed the names of the Twelve Tribes of the sons of Israel: three gates on the east, three gates on the north, three gates on the south, three gates on the west. The wall was set on twelve foundations, the names of the Twelve Apostles of the Lamb inscribed on them.

The Angel speaking with me had a gold measuring stick to measure the City, its gates, and its wall. The City was laid out in a perfect square. He measured the City with the measuring stick: twelve thousand stadia, its length, width, and height all equal. Using the standard measure, the Angel measured the thickness of its wall: 144 cubits. The wall was jasper, the color of Glory, and the City was pure gold, translucent as glass. The foundations of the City walls were garnished with every precious gem imaginable: the first foundation jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate a single pearl.

The main street of the City was pure gold, translucent as glass. But there was no sign of a Temple, for the Lord God—the Sovereign-Strong—and the Lamb are the Temple. The City doesn’t need sun or moon for light. God’s Glory is its light, the Lamb its lamp! The nations will walk in its light and earth’s kings bring in their splendor. Its gates will never be shut by day, and there won’t be any night. They’ll bring the glory and honor of the nations into the City. Nothing dirty or defiled will get into the City, and no one who defiles or deceives. Only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life will get in.

The Book of Revelation, Chapter 21 (The Message)

[nextgenbiomaterials-blog]

Heal Dental Caries Naturally

Terrified of the dentist?

Treat dental caries naturally using butter oil and cod liver oil, oral hygiene, remineralization and correct nutrition, including a lifelong alkaline-forming diet be really vital for dental health. This report presents alternate dental research. Much of what we've been taught about tooth decay in schools and universities is either wrong or incomplete. Interesting research by Ramiel Nagel and Dr. Weston Price explains why improper nourishment is the real cause of tooth decay.

Back in 7th grade, I had a buddy who was really religious.

He had been brought up a Christian Scientist and that platelet rich fibrin I was just getting really interested in it as well.

So one day I asked him, "Could Christian Scientists heal cavities as well?"

Smiling with a mouth filled ear to ear with amalgam fillings and braces to help straighten things out, he laughingly Answered:

"Well that is my little trick"

When God cannot heal your dental caries and just the dentist with a drill and a possibly lethal mixture of mercury, silver, tin, copper and zinc can, there is something seriously wrong somewhere. Some people do not seem to be bothered that having to rely heavily on the conventional dentist "torture" treatment while having the possible chance of mercury poisoning for lifetime. Even worse is the fact that most dental work eventually must be replaced using even bigger fillings and frequently even root canals and finally dentures. And such dramatically unnatural treatments are seldom without side-effects or other health effects and complications. This pricey "torture" never finishes, because, even those who frequently visit a dentist, brush and brush after every meal and avoid sweets often continue to lose just as many teeth as somebody that never bothers with dentists in the first place.

I never forgot that the first couple of times I had to get cavities drilled and filled! Gagging over and over again on dental X-ray films filled deep within my mouth while being subjected to dangerous X-rays; that dreadful dreading and expectation of the next "drill and fill" appointment; that freaky "smoking" smell of the tooth decay since the drill gets hotter and hotter while attempting not to gag on it!

That unforgettable horrible sense of the nerves being ripped into by that hellish drill! Eeeeeeeech!!!! This form of torture is no solution, just another problem of constantly dreading the next time I need to have teeth filledwith If only they can just fill them, it had been the drilling sense that I found completely ghastly. It had been enough to give me the screaming willies! I think I'd much rather enable my teeth to rot out than ever go through that horror! I was 13 when I had my last filling and determined then and there I was never going to find another, no matter what!

Is there no solution to "drill, fill and bill"? Surely nature cannot be so stupid as to simply allow teeth to decay and finally fall out costing countless hapless individuals billions of dollars in dental bills! Obviously it can only be something which humans are doing wrong and not nature.

Yes, there is surely something wrong with what people are doing with nature! And it is, undoubtedly, the modern American diet (MAD) which is so appalling, so contrary to that which the body truly needs for a healthy existence. Along with vulnerabilities in all the other areas of the body, the teeth and gums also finally lose the struggle. Even though nature has provided many answers for this problem, regrettably, humankind has somehow managed to obliterate every one of these with modern day convenience food, overpopulation, and shortcuts from food production resulting in the elimination or reduction of some of the most important factors that used to avoid tooth decay during prehistory.

Primitive Diets in the Stone Age Were Rich in a "Factor X" and Several Alkaline Minerals

I believe there was a "Garden of Eden" where humankind actually lived in excellent harmony with nature. Human Beings seem to have evolved on a Mainly alkaline, high fiber diet of Primarily Vegetables, Fruits, tubers, Nuts such as almonds and seed such as sesame. Before agriculture wild herbs and plants of the forest supplied many of the nourishment and the soils were incredibly full of antioxidants, particularly alkaline minerals such as lime, magnesium, potassium, and trace minerals, volcanic ash, and salts. For protein, ancient humans must have lived from uncooked fish, bird's eggs, and goat's milk.

After agriculture was developed, the world population grew to unprecedented levels, and the exact same ground tended to be planted over and over again and also the surrounding ranges tended to be overgrazed by national animals causing a gradual loss of minerals along with a slow malnutrition or "aging process" in humans never before experienced where they started becoming increasingly fragile, fragile and wrinkled as they grew older. As essential minerals became scarcer and scarcer, and vaster quantities of acid forming foods such as cooked meat, wheat and rice introduced to the diet, tooth decay also started to show up.

Ancient domestic animals grazed freely in rich, green pastures filled with vital herbs and grasses and therefore created a perfect milk that has been new, complete, raw and obviously free of harmful bacteria. Regrettably as agriculture became commercialized and more aggressive, humans tried to cut corners, and in the name of efficacy cattle were wrapped up in tiny cubicles and fed various acid-forming grains, antibiotics and even worse: animal by products! Due to the new diet and also stresses applied to the animals, the milk was no more as alkaline forming, frequently has been contaminated with salmonella or alternative pathogens, and therefore had to be pasteurized which destroys a number of the very important enzymes naturally present in raw milk. Additionally, it now lacked a certain "Factor X" or "Activator X," gamma linolenic acid, and many other vital substances. At this point tooth decay became a normal, expected part of growing up and as one grew older gum problems, cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis and many other degenerative diseases also became quite common.

Luckily, back in the 1930's and 40's a researcher found out what had happened to our diet plan by analyzing the diets of ancient cultures still around at the time and helped to revive a number of the old methods of farming that would bring back what is lost in contemporary milk and butter production. I recently discovered a site where you can arrange "butter oil" that is a centrifuged oil derived out of raw butter from cows fed only on brand new, spring pasture grasses. It's extremely high in many vital nutritional resources like a "Activator X" actually recognized to halt the formation of dental caries and not in any way accessible modern diets but has been rather typical in primitive diets. This info is based on the research of Dr. Weston A. Price throughout the 1930's and 40's.

I recently ordered two jars and am now using the pasture-grazed butter with raw vegetables, raw range-free eggs, chlorella, rice, beans, etc.. It tastes really great. They state it's essential to have it with a particular brand of new Norwegian cod liver oil and not just any fish oil. But it might be possible for vegetarians to combine the butter oil using a synthetic vitamin D formulation, essential fatty acids, and vitamin A from spiralina, chlorella and/or a vitamin supplement, vitamins, phospholipids from lecithin, and essential fatty acids from fresh, raw sunflower oil which I tried with great success. One may also try 100\% pasture grazed raw butter occasionally available during summer and spring months from "Organic Pastures."

In case you have cavities, then the "activator X" (also called "Factor X" and works best with Norwegian cod liver oil) work synergistically with the vitamins A and D and essential fatty acids in the cod liver oil to build up a permanent barrier of enamel directly within any dental caries one might happen to have, but one must be very careful to look after the caries from any further decay with brushing after each meal using mainly the alkaline toothpastes described under the Please be advised I cannot guarantee that you Will no longer have tooth decay, but this is what I have discovered!

People who don't like the idea of using fish oil (If I could avoid it, I'd prefer never to use products that require the destruction of the beast to obtain them) you can always try utilizing olive oil only with vegetarian sources of A, D, phospholipids (found in lecithin), and essential fatty acids (found in new, cold-pressed flax seed oil) which might work just as effectively as cod liver oil for some people. An individual may try to consume more than the usual quantity of vitamin D, or around 4000 IU daily that's precisely the identical amount got from a few hours of sunshine. Needless to say, there is a well established relationship between deficiency of vitamin D along with dental caries, especially in growing children. I've heard many newly discovered facts about vitamin D and also just how essential vitamin D actually is to wellness and well-being.

Because butter oil is expensive, a not as concentrated yet less expensive supply of this remarkable substance are located in 100\% pasture grazed raw butter in "Organic Pastures." Organic Valley also produces a form of "pasture butter," but it's Pasteurized, but seems to work just in addition to long as plenty of vitamin D and/or cod liver oil is taken together with it.

Kevin: That's a great way to prepare it. Weston Price was a dentist so let's discuss teeth. And let us discuss what happens when people's teeth begin to decay. Can you rebuild those and what do you really think some of the reasons why their teeth were so great, the cultures who were eating a non-Western dietplan?

Sally: Well their teeth have been normal. I don't even like to use the word "great"; they are the way teeth are supposed to be. They were normal. A key nutrient here is vitamin K. Now Dr. Price didn't know what this vitamin was, he called it activator X, but we have now identified it pretty firmly as vitamin K and we realize that individuals who have a lot of vitamin K in their own spit do not get cavities. And vitamin K is absolutely necessary for putting calcium in the teeth and bones, calcium and phosphorus. You will need vitamin K to get that, more than merely for healthier blood. We now realize that you will need vitamin K for healthy bones and teeth.

Where can we locate vitamin K? Well we discover it in the animal fats of grass fed animals, we find it in liver, and we find it from egg yolks of grass fed chickens. Cheese is a superb source of vitamin K. And there are a few surprising sources of vitamin K. One is nato, which is a fermented soy product. Vitamin K is made by a special type of fermentation. So in Asia where they're not eating butter -- from how butter is a great source of vitamin K -- where they are not eating butter and cheese, they receive a lot of vitamin K in this distinctive fermented soy product they eat in small amounts.

And that is why we say...we really qualify our warnings concerning soy. We warn against the contemporary soy products but in Asia, from the context of their diet and the way that they prepare the soy, it's an very important component of the diet, very healthy element.

And only getting back to the tooth decay. Dr. Price had a method for treating tooth decay which functioned, that discontinued the decay and really reversed the decay, assisted tooth rebuild. And it had been a composite of high vitamin cod liver oil and high vitamin butter oil. The butter oil has been made by centrifuging butter that came from cows eating rapidly growing green grass and the oil concentrated the X variable, the vitamin K. And if he gave this to people and got them away all of the sugar and that which their teeth reconstructed themselves, the re-healed themselves. We have had a lot of people tell us they have done the exact same thing.