Red hair glasses

Justin Alexander is three years old than I was, when I worked in Croatia.

Good luck to you, Justin.

As many wars as nations

There are always good articles in sign and sight. but this one by Adam Krzeminski is again worth mentioning.

an article of the different perspectives - experiences of the wwii accross Europe.
"Europeans will go on living with competing memories and competing myths for a long time to come. What is new is that these competing myths are no longer being fostered in confinement, but in constant dialogue between neighbours, besides which in each country as well as being fostered they are also being debunked. "

It is a good summary and I learned a lot. I especially liked his questions and his basic assumption: "History is re-encroaching, destroying the post-war myths."

Final note: I like his positive outlook - even though he does not state it clearly, he fundamentally believes in Europe.

p.s Merry, we drove past it twice but here is a picture of the Treptow memorial

recycling some thoughts

Culturekitchen has some interesting thoughts on female body and bible

My utterly unqualified comments are:

A lot of damage has been done with the bible in regards to the body. Most of it however due to early christian teaching - wanting to contrast Christianity from Gnosticism but being heavily influenced by it at the same time. (Augustine)
So, I am not sure if the old testament per se is to be blamed or subsequent dualistic interpretations. It is certainly open to this interpretation.
Judaism has a slightly different take on things I think (but don't know enough about this. )
Two other small things, In my opinion classing women as lower and excluding them from ritual and priesthood does not lead automatically to rejection of their bodies. It is about their roles in life.
and the other thing which you are indicating, but I think, cannot be repeated often enough - the second creation story (Gen2.3b - 24) is the older one, by approx. at least 300 years. (first one (Gen 1.1ff) was written in Babylon and uses Elohim as name for the creator consistently, while the second does not use Elohim at all adds ihwh and is therefore clearly demarked as written by someone else.
Thank you for bringing this up.

just to make clear. My position would not be in agreement of either ritualistic or bodily rejection of woman at all. For me the creation stories tell the story of a purposeful creation. but also that they reflect an understanding of natural science and theological thinking at the time of writing. That does not mean that they have not been superseded by subsequent interpretations especially through Jesus who very much accepted woman as they are. irrespective of social stand, body shape or what ever and breaking ground then and giving us food for thought now.