Esau, Son of Isaac and Grandson of Abraham: The Model of a Faithful Son

The story of Esau and Jacob, the two powerful sons of Isaac and Rebekah is one of the several conflicting families noted in the book of Genesis. Jacob, whose other name is Israel, is the father of the twelve tribes and thus the founder of the Jewish people. Rebekah may be the most pow- erful of the matriarchs; the one God talks to directly about her role in the covenant. The reconciliation of the brothers is one of the more powerful descriptions in the Bible

Chronicles as Revisionist Religious History

Chronicles takes history and reconstructs it to make it more acceptable in terms of its time and place. The Chronicler writes a form of revisionist religious history, to revitalize, reinvigorate, and renew Judaism for the returning exiles from Babylon and their descendants. Chronicles is selective history. The Chronicler understands that Moses created the nation of Israel from a group of slaves, and that David created a dynastic monarchic system of government. By the time Chronicles is written, that system was gone and what replaces it is a religion based on the Temple, the cultus and the attendant Levitical personnel

The nonperturbative functional renormalization group and its applications

The renormalization group plays an essential role in many areas of physics, both conceptually and as a practical tool to determine the long-distance low-energy properties of many systems on the one hand and on the other hand search for viable ultraviolet completions in fundamental physics. It provides us with a natural framework to study theoretical models where degrees of freedom are correlated over long distances and that may exhibit very distinct behavior on different energy scales. The nonperturbative functional renormalization-group (FRG) approach is a modern implementation of Wilson's RG, which allows one to set up nonperturbative approximation schemes that go beyond the standard perturbative RG approaches. The FRG is based on an exact functional flow equation of a coarse-grained effective action (or Gibbs free energy in the language of statistical mechanics). We review the main approximation schemes that are commonly used to solve this flow equation and discuss applications in equilibrium and out-of-equilibrium statistical physics, quantum many-particle systems, high-energy physics and quantum gravity.Comment: v2) Review article, 93 pages + bibliography, 35 figure

Zipporah and the Brit Milah: A Woman Circumciser

What is the relationship between God, Moses, Zipporah, and Jethro her Pagan Priest father and the demonic attack on Moses or his son/sons in the immediate aftermath of the mission to liberate the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt? Why would God want to kill him? Is an identity crisis (Egyptian/Hebrew, Hebrew/Arabic, monotheistic God/Paganism) involved and if so how does the violence of blood correct the problem. What is the real role of Zipporah and who is the Bridegroom of Blood

Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar as a Blended Family: Problems, Partings, and Possibilities

Blended families are families where after divorce or death, and then through remarriage, at least one parent and one child (children) are not biologically connected. One prime example found in Genesis, are the lives and interactions of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, and then the additional personages of Ishmael and Isaac. This article considers this ancient blended family through the lens of the norms of relationships between spouses (partners), and child(ren) within family life in the twenty-first century. What was accepted, and acceptable in the ancient world, the cultural mores and customs of that age are not the standards and models of our time. That disjunction notwithstanding, the past informs the present. Dividing into three parts, Problems, Partings, and Possibilities, this article analyzes that ancient blended family through biblical, midrashic, and contemporary teachings

Localization of a Gene for Molybdenum Cofactor Deficiency, on the Short Arm of Chromosome 6, by Homozygosity Mapping

SummaryMolybdenum cofactor deficiency (MoCoD) is a fatal disorder manifesting, shortly after birth, with profound neurological abnormalities, mental retardation, and severe seizures unresponsive to any therapy. The disease is a monogenic, autosomal recessive disorder, and the existence of at least two complementation groups suggests genetic heterogeneity. In humans, MoCoD leads to the combined deficient activities of sulfite oxidase, xanthine dehydrogenase, and aldehyde oxidase. By using homozygosity mapping and two consanguineous affected kindreds of Israeli-Arab origin, including five patients, we demonstrated linkage of a MoCoD gene to an 8-cM region on chromosome 6p21.3, between markers D6S1641 and D6S1672. Linkage analysis generated the highest combined LOD-score value, 3.6, at a recombination fraction of 0, with marker D6S1575. These results now can be used to perform prenatal diagnosis with microsatellite markers. They also provide the only tool for carrier detection of this fatal disorder

Response assessment in medulloblastoma and leptomeningeal seeding tumors: recommendations from the Response Assessment in Pediatric Neuro-Oncology committee.

Lack of standard response criteria in clinical trials for medulloblastoma and other seeding tumors complicates assessment of therapeutic efficacy and comparisons across studies. An international working group was established to develop consensus recommendations for response assessment. The aim is that these recommendations be prospectively evaluated in clinical trials, with the goal of achieving more reliable risk stratification and uniformity across clinical trials. Current practices and literature review were performed to identify major confounding issues and justify subsequently developed recommendations; in areas lacking scientific investigations, recommendations were based on experience of committee members and consensus was reached after discussion. Recommendations apply to both adult and pediatric patients with medulloblastoma and other seeding tumors. Response should be assessed using MR imaging (brain and spine), CSF cytology, and neurologic examination. Clinical imaging standards with minimum mandatory sequence acquisition that optimizes detection of leptomeningeal metastases are defined. We recommend central review prior to inclusion in treatment cohorts to ensure appropriate risk stratification and cohort inclusion. Consensus recommendations and response definitions for patients with medulloblastomas and other seeding tumors have been established; as with other Response Assessment in Neuro-Oncology recommendations, these need to now be prospectively validated in clinical trials