The Voice of the Singers at the Watering Places: Victory Songs as a Celebration of Recreation

Victory songs were sung by women to welcome home the men from victorious war. Some prophetic variants appeared from these songs that had a theology of salvation and recreation. Beside the message of the songs, the context of these songs also show that recreation was a major theme of these musical compositions. Warfare was about the expansion of creation from an ordered center in the Ancient Near East. For Israel the center was Yahweh’s presence with Israel being a new Eden. Recreation of the chaotic lands around Israel required that Israel went to war to subdue those lands and people. The songs were sung at cultic sites instruments that were associated with creation and fertility. The association of recreation and victory is found throughout the Old Testament, apocrypha, and into the New Testament and highlights the relationship of humans to the Divine Warrior who saves and recreates His people. When the Divine Warrior defeats His enemies and saves His people the only proper response is praise

The end of mass homeownership? Changes in labour markets and housing tenure opportunities across Europe

With continued economic growth and expanding mortgage markets, until recently the pattern across advanced economies was of growing homeownership sectors. The Great Financial Crisis (GFC) has however, undercut this growth resulting in the contraction of homeownership access in many countries and the revival of private renting. This paper argues that these tenure changes are not solely a consequence of the GFC, and therefore, reversible once long-term growth returns. Rather, they are the consequences of more fundamental changes especially in labour markets. The very financialisation that fuelled the growth of homeownership has also led to a hollowing out of well-paid, secure jobs—exactly those that fit best with the taking of housing loans. We examine longer-term declines in labour market security across Europe from before the GFC, identifying an underlying correlation between deteriorated labour market conditions and homeownership access for young adults. While variations exist across European countries, there is evidence of common trends. We argue that the GFC both accelerated pre-existing labour insecurity dynamics and brought an end to offsetting such dynamics through the expansion of credit access with the likelihood of a return to an era of widespread homeownership growth starkly decreased