Another Cuneiform Tablet from Drehem in the Ur III Period

Although M. Sigrist and others spent some time in translating cuneiform texts at the Siegfried Horn Museum, there was one more unpublished Drehem tablet in the James White Library Archives and another tablet. The Adventist Heritage Center of the James White Library of Andrews University in Berrien Springs, MI, obtained this tablet from a private collector, George Barr Suhrie (1905-1985) in 1976. This text dates to the 45th year of Šulgi which is 2050/49 BCE. It is an economic text listing animals brought for various deities: En-lil; Nin-lil; by at least three individuals from Nippur to Drehem. Lugalazida was the son of the king, Ursukkal was a wine attendant and Šešdad was a temple-administrator. A large number of animals, bull, cows, sheep, ewes, kids, goats, equids, were received by Ilum-bani in 2050/2049 BCE. Two texts from the Oriental Institute of Chicago: Text 235 = A4977 and Text 417 = A2978, are dating also to Šulgi’s 45th year with the order of the items in the year formula identical to AUAHCCT 1 Reverse line 12. Biblical chronology is an exact science and according to strict biblical reckoning, with the 4th year of Solomon as 970 BCE, Jacob was born in 2080 BCE, 30 years before this tablet. The influence of the Ur III dynasty, with Šulgi deifying himself, can be seen in Jacob’s household and others with him, when he asked them to “put away the foreign gods among you, and purify yourselves, and change your garments,” Genesis 35:2. Of course this event was a decade or two after this tablet because Esau got married in 2040 BCE and Jacob left afterwards

What was the Vorlage for Hebrews 1:6?: Reconsidering Early Old Testament Texts

To find the Vorlage of Hebrews 1:6, various hermeneutic models were studied together with the texts of Targums, so-called LXX, Qumran, Josephus, and Masoretic Text surrounding this citation in Hebrews. Differences exist among Paul(the author of the Book of Hebrews here)’s rendering of the text, the ancient versions, and the original Masoretic Text. However, they are minor copulatives, prepositions, pronouns, or vocabulary substitutions. The text-analytical results of the ancient texts reveal that Paul did not cite the modern critical edition of the Septuagint in Hebrews, but he was tapping into a commonly shared midrash method that was considered the scientific writing way of the time. Different from the ancient documents with understanding beclouded by the Judaism of the intertestamental period, it is found Paul did not show discrepancy from what the original text intended to say. It is because the same Christ who was speaking to Moses or David was involved in this Epistle writing of Paul

Finding the attractor of anger: Bridging the gap between dynamic concepts and empirical data

Although it accounts for the prototypical course of emotions, the attractor concept has hardly ever been used empirically. Authors applied Empirical Differential Equations (EDE) to frequent (hourly) anger ratings to find the attractor of anger. The attractor concept, its neurological basis, and EDE are explained. The attractor of anger follows an underdamped oscillator, and is affected by the capacity to inhibit prepotent responses. Anger accelerates less fast when inhibitory control increases. Results stress the internal dynamics of emotions, and help to bridge the gap between concepts from dynamic systems theory and empirical dat

The Khwe of Namibia, foragers between game, tourism and politics

__Abstract__ In this paper we examine the plight of the Khwe Bushmen, a group of (former) hunter-gatherers in the Bwabwata National Park in Northern Namibia. The Khwe have lived for a long time in the area of Bwabwata, so are highly affected by the park’s conservation activities that altered their environment seriously. Although they were historically hardly involved in decision making on or the implementation of such activities, this was supposed to change with the rise of Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) in the 1990s. Yet, many of its aims did not materialize and the approval of the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA) in 2011 aimed at increased conservation in the area. An important element in these plans is to boost ‘green economic’ growth by increasing tourism, also involving the Khwe Bushmen. As a theoretical starting point, we use Ingold’s dwelling perspective, based on hunter-gatherer ontologies, in which the world comes into being because an organism/person is continuously interacting with his/her environment, through bodily activity. Dwelling is contrasted with building, in which (wo)man constructs the world cognitively before (s)he can live in it. We apply a third notion, namely lodging, to refer to a situation in which people live in an essentially foreign environment. We argue that today many changes in the environment of the Khwe are triggered beyond their control, instead of through their interaction with their environment. In this concept, the environment is dominant and the people have no option but to adapt to changes in their environment outside their control. Using these three notions of dwelling, building and lodging we analyse various conservation and tourism developments in the environment of the Khwe, historically as well as more recently. In so doing, we show the transformation of the cultural understanding the people have of their environment, of their interaction with it (and with the various actors and stakeholders) and with each other

The normative development of child and adolescent problem behavior. [IF 3.2]

The aim of this study was to identify normative developmental trajectories of parent-reported problems assessed with the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL; T. M. Achenbach, 1991) in a representative sample of 2,076 children aged 4 to 18 years from the general population. The trajectories were determined by multilevel growth curve analyses on the CBCL syndromes in a longitudinal multiple birth-cohort sample that was assessed 5 times with 2-year intervals. Most syndromes showed a linear increase or decrease with age or a curvilinear trajectory, except for thought problems. Trajectories for most syndromes differed for boys versus girls, except those for withdrawn, social problems, and thought problems. These normative developmental trajectories provide information against which developmental deviance in childhood and adolescence can be detected

Attendance and Gender Relations on Grades and Other Aspects

Three aspects prompted this study: why are females in first year university in a countryside campus performing better than males as opposed to high school where the reverse is the case? Why are there waves of performance increases semester by semester? Why is there in the second semester always an increase in performance over the first semester? For this matter the researchers took a number of participants in total over the period 2012-2016, namely 3,963 students in Freshman English at a countryside campus (Sangju) for Kyungpook National University as their target. In the year 2016, only the first semester was calculated in this research. Three aspects were considered as far as data is concerned: attendance variables, grade variables and gender. Performances were always better in the second semester over the first and females almost always outperformed the males. What also came up as secondary considerations, are questions whether the environment like nature and the role of ‘table- talk’ of parents reverberating or not the GDP of the country over the period may have had an effect on the students. It was found when the GDP went up the students’ performance took a break but when the GDP is low the students increased their focus and performed better as their grades indicated. These last aspects were just mere observations and should be carried out with further investigation elsewhere. The attendance of females was always showing better attendance results than males for Freshmen at Sangju Campus, South Korea. While the GDP dropped and rose through the years investigated, the attendance of the students did not display a serious rise and fall but remained almost unchanged

Differential predictive value of parents' and teachers' reports of children's problem behaviors: A longitudinal study

This study investigated the prediction of signs of disturbance in 946 children originally aged 4 to 11 years from the general population across a 6-year period. Parents' and teachers' ratings obtained via the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and Teacher's Report Form (TRF) were tested as predictors of (a) academic problems, (b) school behavior problems, (c) receipt of mental health services, (d) child's need for professional help, (e) suicidal behavior, and (f) police contacts. Total problem scores in the deviant range on the CBCL or TRF were significantly associated with poor outcomes 6 years later. The combination of deviant scores on both the CBCL and TRF was a powerful predictor of poor outcomes with 56% of the girls, and 36% of the boys with total problem scores in the deviant range on both instruments maladjusted 6 years later. The CBCL syndromes Attention Problems and Delinquent Behavior, and the TRF syndromes Delinquent Behavior, Somatic Complaints, and Social Problems significantly predicted poor outcomes. Teachers' reports predicted poor outcomes equally well or even somewhat better than parents' reports. It is important to include teacher information in the diagnostic assessment of children

Impact of a child with congenital anomalies on parents (ICCAP) questionnaire; a psychometric analysis

Background: The objective of this study was to validate the Impact of a Child with Congenital Anomalies on Parents (ICCAP) questionnaire. ICCAP was newly designed to assess the impact of giving birth to a child with severe anatomical congenital anomalies (CA) on parental quality of life as a result of early stress. Methods: At 6 weeks and 6 months after birth, mothers and fathers of 100 children with severe CA were asked to complete the ICCAP questionnaire and the SF36. The ICCAP questionnaire measures six domains: contact with caregivers, social network, partner relationship, state of mind, child acceptance, and fears and anxiety. Reliability (i.e. internal consistency and test-retest) and validity were tested and the ICCAP was compared to the SF-36. Results: Confirmatory factor analysis resulted in 6 six a priori constructed subscales covering different psychological and social domains of parental quality of life as a result of early stress. Reliability estimates (congeneric approach) ranged from .49 to .92. Positive correlations with SF-36 scales ranging from .34 to .77 confirmed congruent validity. Correlations between ICCAP subscales and children's biographic characteristics, primary CA, and medical care as well as parental biographic and demographic variables ranged from -.23 to .58 and thus indicated known-group validity of the instrument. Over time both mothers an