The Biota and Logistics of Noah\u27s Ark

This report investigates the identity and housing of approximately 16,000 animals on Noah\u27s Ark. An evaluation of the housing, feeding, and watering requirements of these animals demonstrate the feasibility of the Ark account

Mustang Daily, September 19, 1974

Student newspaper of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA.https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/studentnewspaper/3192/thumbnail.jp

Exploring Bible History

Excerpt: You are about to embark on what I trust will be for you an interesting and informative journey as we begin to explore Bible History. Understanding Bible history, while at first may seem to be an enormous undertaking, is really within the grasp of most students of the Bible. The history itself falls readily into eight historic periods..

The Architecture of Joseph Michael Gandy (1771-1843) and Sir John Soane (1753-1837): An Exploration Into the Masonic and Occult Imagination of the Late Enlightenment

In examining select works of English architects Joseph Michael Gandy and Sir John Soane, this dissertation is intended to bring to light several important parallels between architectural theory and freemasonry during the late Enlightenment. Both architects developed architectural theories regarding the universal origins of architecture in an attempt to establish order as well as transcend the emerging historicism of the early nineteenth century. There are strong parallels between Soane\u27s use of architectural narrative and his discussion of architectural \u27model\u27 in relation to Gandy\u27s understanding of \u27trans-historical\u27 architecture. The primary textual sources discussed in this thesis include Soane\u27s Lectures on Architecture, delivered at the Royal Academy from 1809 to 1836, and Gandy\u27s unpublished treatise entitled the Art, Philosophy, and Science of Architecture, circa 1826. Soane\u27s Museum at Lincoln\u27s Inn Fields provides a three dimensional encyclopedia that is an embodiment of architectural vision and memory. I propose Soane\u27s Museum as parallel to Gandy\u27s architectural watercolor drawings, particularly his final series executed for Comparative Architecture from 1836 to 1838. While these works remain distinct, they are complementary examples of visual representation which rely upon architectural narrative through emblem and symbol. Another correspondence between Soane and Gandy involves Soane\u27s role as a Masonic architect and Gandy\u27s role as an occult visionary. As the result of a planned reconciliation between two groups in freemasonry - the \u27Antients\u27 and the Moderns - Soane became the Grand Superintendent of Works for the United Grand Lodge of England in 1813. This led to Soane and Gandy\u27s shared visions for London\u27s Freemasons\u27 Hall, designed and built between 1813-30 (and subsequently demolished in 1863). I argue that this is the architectural project through which Soane and Gandy\u27s common interest in universal symbolism was made manifest, as evidenced by the design and presentation drawings held at the Soane Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. In each of these collaborative works of architecture, Soane and Gandy displayed \u27Masonic and occult imagination.\u2

Direction of the Musical: Children of Eden

This project consists of the selection, background research and documentation, casting, direction,vocal coaching, and post-production analysis of Weber High School\u27s production of Stephen Schwartz\u27s Children of Eden. Documentation included research and analysis of the play, its music, and an evaluation of the musical as a production vehicle for the department of Theatre Arts at Central Washington University. The analysis also includes a discussion as to the non-traditional directorial vision of this production

‘Lo, he merys. Lo, he laghys’: Humour, Laughter, and Audience Response in the York and Towneley Plays.

Humour is generally regarded as a means to entertain, but it should not always be considered superficial. This thesis explores the use of humour in the ‘mystery plays’ of the York Corpus Christi Cycle and the Towneley MS, moving away from a consideration of the use of humor as little more than an aesthetic embellishment on otherwise serious biblical dramas, towards an appreciation of the range of meanings located in comic forms. Rather than merely functioning as a pleasing distraction, the humour of these plays was rooted in devotional trends and broader lay concerns of Yorkshire and north-east England in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Its analysis offers fruitful insights into the complex and competing discourses of contemporary lay society, and how a varied demographic of spectators considered their relationship with God. Drawing on established critical approaches and utilising theories from the field of Humour Studies, the following work argues that comic forms were utilised as a way to prompt a cognitive process in spectators, playing on incongruities between the biblical narrative and elements of contemporary life brought into performances. Rather than timeless evocations of biblical history, these plays were defined by their contemporaneity. The surviving play-texts encode tensions through their use of humour, drawing attention to apparent inconsistencies between the biblical and the contemporary, rather than masking them. By this means, those experiencing the dramas were motivated to consider the relationship between their own lives and the arc – or cycle – of biblical history. The first chapter considers the ‘lost’ York Funeral of the Virgin pageant, which prompted the only record of laughter as a response to the cycle: though not for the reasons producers might have hoped. A new speculative context is offered for the play, reflecting the sense in which narratives beyond performances could inform audience response. A similar approach is presented in the second chapter on the Noah plays of York and Towneley; it reassesses the much-discussed comic relationship of the patriarch and his wife. Chapter three looks to plays associated with the ‘shepherds’, considering the humour of the plays as a reflection of specific devotional and commercial interests vested in the region where they were produced. In chapter five the comically-inflected performances of Herod and the tyrants are reconsidered, within a discursive context of temptation and superficiality. Finally, chapters six and seven look to the use of humour in plays involving Joseph, Mary and Christ, where comic elements mediate between the ‘earthly’ and the divine

Theories of the Earth from Descartes to Cuvier: Natural order and historical contingency in a contested textual tradition.

Parts I and II together suggest that the language of biblical idiom fostered the expression of historical sensibilities in the tradition, although such idiom was never an essential characteristic of Theories of the Earth. Hexameral idiom facilitated the interpretation of Earth history as an ordered succession of events (prehuman, sometimes historically-contingent, not necessarily ancient) on the basis of the coordinated reading of a variety of kinds of empirical evidence. This supports a modest form of Roger's Relevance Thesis, consistent with other studies emphasizing the significance of historical scholarship, mineralogy, and paleontology for the development of historical sensibilities.Part I explores the character of Theories of the Earth as a contested textual tradition. A textual tradition is delineated by internal and external textual criteria rather than defined as a mentality or metaphysical world-view. As a textual tradition Theories of the Earth were contingently established with Descartes and the controversies over Burnet and sustained through the generation of Cuvier, rather than being the inexorable expression of post-Copernican cosmology, of a metaphysical world-view, or of a pre-geological genre of non-empirical speculation. Theories of the Earth were a contested textual tradition in which experts representing diverse technical traditions participated rather than a unified, conceptually-continuous, intrinsically-coherent research program.Part II sketches a rough portrait of Theories of the Earth based upon a "reading" of their visual representations of the globe. Chapter 4 argues that in addition to being of interest in their own right, global illustrations provide a suitable subject for analysis in the terms of textual traditions. At the same time they serve as a more representative sample of what Theories of the Earth were about than would a survey of alleged key concepts. Chapter 5 provides a systematic reading of the illustrations involved in the establishment of the contested textual tradition. Chapter 6 surveys snapshots of various technical transformations of the tradition.Jacques Roger argued that Theories of the Earth contributed to the development of historical sensibilities in natural science. This dissertation establishes the need to positively reassess a modest form of his "Relevance Thesis.