The Disingenuousness of the Jesus Legend in Popular Media

In America today, a major source of contention among theologians involves the Resurrection, a controversy that has ensued since historical times (1 Cor 15: 12-19 [KJV]). This essay will seek to develop a plausible response to the legend theory, a prevalent inconspicuous attack on the resurrection of Jesus and thus the foundation of Christianity, by addressing the question “Is Jesus like Santa Clause?” Thereby, providing evidence, which reveals the disingenuousness of the Jesus legend as portrayed in popular media by investigating the reality of the historical Jesus. In doing so, an examination of the miracle-claim will be presented through an a posteriori critique of the Resurrection. Pursuing to demonstrate credible witness to the resurrection of Jesus that supports the historicity of the miracle-claim and thus invalidates the legend theory and provide an appropriate response to the facade that Jesus is like Santa Clause as portrayed in popular media

Mice, scats and burials: unusual concentrations of microfauna found in human burials at the Neolithic site of Catalhoyuk, Central Anatolia

Three human burials were found at Çatalhöyük that contained large microfaunal assemblages. Taphonomic analysis demonstrated that many of these elements had passed through the digestive tract of a small carnivore, indicating that the microfauna entered the burials in carnivore scats rather than as carcasses. One of the burials in particular (F. 513) contained an enormous quantity of microfauna which was concentrated over the torso of the body. It is concluded that the scats were deliberately placed in the burials by the human inhabitants of the site as part of ritualistic practice. Furthermore, it is suggested that small carnivores were encouraged to enter Çatalhöyük in order to control house mice, and other small mammal, numbers

“I Never Thought I Could Accomplish Something Like This”: The Success and Struggle of Teaching College Courses in Jail

In this article, we discuss the challenges and potential benefits of teaching in the “revolving-door” of the criminal justice system: county jails. Massachusetts jails hold pre-trial offenders as well as those serving sentences of up to 2.5 years. Over four semesters, we have learned that flexibility and creativity are necessary to navigate the challenges this heterogeneous population presents, not the least of which is a class in constant flux. In spite of many challenges of teaching in a jail, the classes we teach give students a recovered or newfound belief in their own self-worth and ability, opportunities for intellectual engagement, and encouragement to pursue a positive future. In addition, many of the incarcerated students are local and, when released, are likely to return to these same communities; the potential for successful partnership with nearby colleges to assist with reentry should not be overlooked

Pattern-avoiding alternating words

A word $w=w_1w_2\cdots w_n$ is alternating if either $w_1w_3\cdots$ (when the word is up-down) or $w_1>w_2w_4<\cdots$ (when the word is down-up). In this paper, we initiate the study of (pattern-avoiding) alternating words. We enumerate up-down (equivalently, down-up) words via finding a bijection with order ideals of a certain poset. Further, we show that the number of 123-avoiding up-down words of even length is given by the Narayana numbers, which is also the case, shown by us bijectively, with 132-avoiding up-down words of even length. We also give formulas for enumerating all other cases of avoidance of a permutation pattern of length 3 on alternating words

Mental health nurses’ attitudes, behaviour, experience and knowledge regarding adults with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder:systematic, integrative literature review

Aims and objectives To establish whether mental health nurses responses to people with borderline personality disorder are problematic and, if so, to inform solutions to support change. Background There is some evidence that people diagnosed with borderline personality disorder are unpopular among mental health nurses who respond to them in ways which could be counter-therapeutic. Interventions to improve nurses’ attitudes have had limited success. Design Systematic, integrative literature review. Methods Computerised databases were searched from inception to April 2015 for papers describing primary research focused on mental health nurses’ attitudes, behaviour, experience, and knowledge regarding adults diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Analysis of qualitative studies employed metasynthesis; analysis of quantitative studies was informed by the theory of planned behaviour. Results Forty studies were included. Only one used direct observation of clinical practice. Nurses’ knowledge and experiences vary widely. They find the group very challenging to work with, report having many training needs, and, objectively, their attitudes are poorer than other professionals’ and poorer than towards other diagnostic groups. Nurses say they need a coherent therapeutic framework to guide their practice, and their experience of caregiving seems improved where this exists. Conclusions Mental health nurses’ responses to people with borderline personality disorder are sometimes counter-therapeutic. As interventions to change them have had limited success there is a need for fresh thinking. Observational research to better understand the link between attitudes and clinical practice is required. Evidence-based education about borderline personality disorder is necessary, but developing nurses to lead in the design, implementation and teaching of coherent therapeutic frameworks may have greater benefits. Relevance to clinical practice There should be greater focus on development and implementation of a team-wide approach, with nurses as equal partners, when working with patients with borderline personality disorder

An investigation into the archaeological application of carbon stable isotope analysis used to establish crop water availability: solutions and ways forward

Carbon stable isotope analysis of charred cereal remains is a relatively new method employed by archaeological scientists to investigate ancient climate and irrigation regimes. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of environmental variables on carbon isotope discrimination (D) in multiple environments to develop the technique and its archaeological application, using crops grown at three experimental stations in Jordan. There are two key results: (1) as expected, there was a strong positive relationship between water availability and D; (2) site, not water input, was the most important factor in determining D. Future work should concentrate on establishing ways of correcting D for the influence of site specific environmental variables and on assessing how well carbon isotope discrimination values are preserved within the archaeological record

Irrigation and phytolith formation:an experimental study

It has been proposed that phytoliths from archaeological sites can be indicators of water availability and hence inform about past agricultural practices (Rosen and Weiner, 1994; Madella et al., 2009). Rosen and Weiner (1994) found that the number of conjoined phytoliths fromcereal husks increased with irrigationwhile Madella et al. (2009) demonstrated that the ratio of long-celled phytoliths to short-celled phytoliths increased with irrigation. In order to further explore these hypotheses, wheat and barley were experimentally grown from 2005 to 2008 in three different crop growing stations in Jordan. Four different irrigation regimes were initially employed: 0% (rainfall only), 80%, 100%and 120% of the optimum crop water requirements, with a 40% plot being added in the second and third growing seasons. Each plot measured 5 m � 5 m and a drip irrigation system was used. Environmental variables were measured on a daily basis, and soil and water samples were taken and analysed at the University of Reading. Phytoliths from the husks of these experimentally grown plants were extracted using the dry ashing method. Results demonstrate that although the number of conjoined cells increases with irrigation, there were considerable intersite and inter-year differences suggesting that environmental variables other than water availability affect phytolith uptake and deposition. Furthermore, analytical experiments demonstrated that conjoined phytoliths are subject to change or breakage by external factors, making this methodology problematic to apply to archaeological phytolith assemblages that have an unknown taphonomic history. The ratio of long cells to short cells also responded to increased irrigation, and these forms are not subject to break up as are conjoined forms. Our results from the modern samples of durum wheat and six-row barley show that if an assemblage of single-celled phytoliths consists of over 60% dendritic long cells then this strongly suggests that the crop received optimum levels of water. Further research is needed to determine if this finding is consistent in phytolith samples from the leaves and stems, as suggested byMadella et al. (2009), and in other species of cereals. If this is the case then phytoliths are a valuble tool for assessing the level of past water availability and, potentially, past irrigation