A Messiah Among The Maya

Understanding the sacred belief system of the Maya has historically been complex and confusing. This study reviews the BC Maya murals found at San Bartolo, the prolific inscriptions and bi-reliefs at Palenque and the enigmatic structural design at Teotihuacan to see what they have in common. From the in-depth research performed it is determined that the esoteric aspects that connect them all is...the Judeo-Christian gospel belief system. This tome provides detailed consideration of the imagery provided in artwork and structural design used in architecture to teach the fundamental tenants of the gospel to students who visited these sites anciently. This work is destined to be seminal to major changes that are about to take place in Central American archaeology and a long overdue rewriting of Western Civilization history.

Introduction: The Golem condition -- 1. The face of destruction: Paul Wegener's World War I Golem films -- 2. The Golem cult of 1921 New York: between redemption and expulsion -- 3. Our enemies, ourselves: Israel's monsters of 1948 -- 4. Supergolem: revenge after the Holocaust -- 5. Pacifist computers and Jewish cyborgs: fighting for the future

Leslie Marmon Silko, a Laguna Pueblo Native American was raised in a culture with a strong oral tradition. She also grew up in a household where books were cherished and reading at the dinner table was not deemed rude, but instead was encouraged. In his examination of Silko's literature, the author explores the complex dynamic between the spoken story and the written word, revealing how it carries over from Silko's upbringing and plays out in her writings. Focusing on critical essays by and interviews with Silko, the author argues that Silko's storytelling is informed not so much by oral Laguna culture as by the Marmon family tradition in which writing was internalized long before her birth. In Silko's writings, this conflicted desire between the oral and the written evolves into a yearning for a paradoxical written orality that would conceivably function as a perfect, nonmediated language. The critical focus on orality in Native literature has kept the equally important tradition of Native writing from being honored. By offering close readings of stories from Storyteller and Ceremony, as well as passages from Almanac of the Dead and Gardens in the Dunes, the author shows how Silko weaves the oral and the written, the spirit and the flesh, into a new vision of Pueblo culture. As he asserts, Silko's written word, rather than obscuring or destroying her culture's oral tradition, serves instead to sharpen it.

Many people today, especially among emerging generations, don’t resonate with the church and organized Christianity. Some are leaving the church and others were never part of the church in the first place. Sometimes it’s because of misperceptions about the church. Yet often they are still spiritually open and fascinated with Jesus. This is a ministry resource book exploring six of the most common objects and misunderstandings emerging generations have about the church and Christianity. The objections come from conversations and interviews the church has had with unchurched twenty and thirty-somethings at coffee houses. Each chapter raises the objection using a conversational approach, provides the biblical answers to that objection, gives examples of how churches are addressing this objection, and concludes with follow-through projection suggestions, discussion questions, and resource listings.

Telling Maya Tales offers an experimental ethnographic portrait of the San Juan Chamula, the largest and most influential Maya community of Highland Chiapas, in the late twentieth century--the era of the Zapatistas. In this collection of essays, the author, whose field work in the area spans two generations of anthropological thought, explores several expressions of Tzotzil ethnic affirmation, ranging from oral narrative to ritual drama and political action. His work covers the current era, when the Chamula Tzotzils mingle chaotically and sometimes violently with the social and political space of modern Mexico--most recently, in the context of the Maya Zapatista movement of 1994.

A century that began with modernism sweeping across Europe is ending with a remarkable resurgence of religious beliefs and practices throughout the world. Wherever one looks today, from headlines about political turmoil in the Middle East to pop music and videos, one cannot escape the pivotal role of religious beliefs and practices in shaping selves, societies, and cultures. Following in the very successful tradition of Critical Terms for Literary Studies and Critical Terms for Art History, this book attempts to provide a revitalized, self-aware vocabulary with which this bewildering religious diversity can be accurately described and responsibly discussed. Leading scholars working in a variety of traditions demonstrate through their incisive discussions that even our most basic terms for understanding religion are not neutral but carry specific historical and conceptual freight. These essays adopt the approach that has won this book's predecessors such widespread acclaim: each provides a concise history of a critical term, explores the issues raised by the term, and puts the term to use in an analysis of a religious work, practice, or event. Moving across Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Native American and Mayan religions, contributors explore terms ranging from experience, territory, and image, to God, sacrifice, and transgression. The result is an essential reference that will reshape the field of religious studies and transform the way in which religion is understood by scholars from all disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, psychology, cultural studies, gender studies, and literary studies.

Our contemporary world is fast becoming religiously diverse in a variety of ways. Thanks to globalization and migration, to mention only two current worldwide trends, people of diverse and sometimes mutually hostile faiths are now sharing neighborhoods and encountering one another's religious traditions on a daily basis. For scholars in religious studies and theology the issue to be examined is whether religious diversity is merely the result of historical development and social interaction, or whether it is inherent in the object of belief--part of the very structure of faith and our attempts to understand and express it. The essays in this volume range from explorations of the impact of religious diversity on religious studies to examples of interfaith encounter and dialogue, and current debates on Christian theology of religion. These essays examine not only the theoretical issues posed by religious pluralism to the study of religion and Christian theology but also concrete cases in which religious pluralism has been a bone of contention. Together, they open up new vistas for further conversation on the nature and development of religious pluralism.

Victoria Bricker shows that "history" sometimes rests on mythological foundations and that "myth" can contain valid historical information. Her book, which is a highly original critique of postconquest historiography about the Maya, challenges major assumptions about the relationship between myth and history implicit in structuralist interpretations. The focus of the book is ethnic conflict, a theme that pervades Maya folklore and is also well documented historically. The book begins with the Spanish conquest of the Maya. In chapters on the postconquest history of the Maya, five ethnic conflicts are treated in depth: the Cancuc revolt of 1712, the Quisteil uprising of 1761, the Totonicapan rebellion of 1820, the Caste War of Yucatan (1847-1901), and the Chamulan uprising in 1869. Analytical chapters consider the relationship between historical events and modern folklore about ethnic conflict. Bricker demonstrates that myths and rituals emphasize structure at the expense of temporal and geographical provenience, treating events separated by centuries or thousands of miles as equivalent and interchangeable. An unexpected result of Bricker's research is the finding that many seemingly aboriginal elements in Maya folklore are actually of postconquest origin, and she shows that it is possible to determine precisely when and, more important, why they become part of myth and ritual. Furthermore, she finds that the patterning of the accretion of events in folklore over time provides clues to the function, or meaning, of myth and ritual for the Maya. Bricker has made use of many unpublished documents in Spanish, English, and Maya, as well as standard synthetic historical works. The appendices contain extensive samples of the oral traditions that are explained by her analysis.