I have set my king on Zion. Three thoughts on the consequences
Jesus is our God and king He lived and died new life to bring He shall return judgement to bring When the trumpet loud shall ring
Jesus lives and is our king He who died and rose now reigns He’ll come again judgement to bring Upon us all as he ordains
Jesus lives! He is the king Who gave himself for sin to die. He shall return judgement to bring Be ready now, the end is nigh!
Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, “Let us break their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us.” He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision. Then he shall speak to them in his wrath, and distress them in his deep displeasure: “Yet I have set my King on my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: The Lord has said to me, ‘You are my son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession.You shall break them with a rod of iron; you shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.’ ” Now therefore, be wise, O kings; be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in him. ↩︎
Supercomputer may be a slight exaggeration, as when quantum computers do get off the ground, those things that presently claim the name of super-computer, and occupy more space than the earliest ideas of what a home computer would require, will be seen to be what they are, mere toys and playthings to amuse the mind. Such a comparison however does not denigrate the beauty and versatility of the astrolabe as an instrument of it time, any more than the more modern calculators the abacus.
The article however itself referenced a place by a relatively modern name giving the impression that its ancient name is a more modern name thereby suggesting perhaps a slight rewriting of history. Coco however hoped that the reference was merely a mistake on the part of the writer of the article perhaps out of ignorance and therefore wrote to the publisher in the following terms:
It was an interesting article about the astrolabe that is about to be sold at Sotheby’s and about astrolabes in general, but your writer appears not to have been aware that Spain was known as Spain before it ever became Andalusia after the incursion of the Vandals. Your writer refers to the land as “al-Andalus (in present-day Spain)”. The Romans used the name Hispania and the Greeks Spania long before the Vandals had any involvement.
It is also curious to note that the name, which is not an English name, appears in a list “Iraq, Iran, North Africa and al-Andalus”. Surely this is inappropriate? Andalusia or Iberia may have made sense, but to use a non-English name is no more correct in an English language article than to use Abertawe (or to use Swansea in a Welsh language article) even though the English or Welsh reader may know the location to which reference has been made it displays a contempt for the language in which the article has been written.
There is a tendency – often attributed to the victors in warfare – to present a one-sided view of history. This is exhibited in our day by the propensity to find opportunities to rewrite history. I hope that this was not such an abuse of the article but merely a mistake on the part of your write and would like forward to reading a correction. If it were not a mistake but deliberate then one might ask whether there is a contempt not merely for the language in which the article has been written but also for the reconquest of Andalusia.
The paragraph in which the mistake was made reads:
Astrolabes were first developed in ancient Greece in the 2nd Century BCE and spread to the Islamic world by the 8th Century. Over the following centuries, centres of production flourished across Iraq, Iran, North Africa and al-Andalus (in present-day Spain).
Nikhil Inamdar
You, dear Reader, may also note another anachronism in the paragraph. Whilst astrolabes were indeed developed in Greece the Islamic world did not exist before the seventh century AD. According to Islamic tradition its founder died in 632 AD. The incursion into Spain began only during the eighth century. The spreading of the knowledge of astrolabe into the parts of the world that would come to be dominated by Islam would then have taken place whilst those parts of the world, Iran, Iraq and North Africa would have been dominated by, at least nominally, Christian peoples, so that the Muslim world merely inherited the knowledge of the people its leaders had conquered.
Coco therefore reaches a tentative conclusion that there is an attempt to rewrite the history, or if not to rewrite it to sow into the minds of the readers of the article enough to cause them to doubt what any good scholar should know.
Finally, Coco would be glad of further good quality information that you, dear Reader, may have upon the subjects addressed in this article, if you would comment appropriately below.
Ilse Weber (1903-1944) was an Austro-Czech composer who wrote this song during her time in Theresienstadt before she left for Auschwitz where she was murdered in the gas chamber with her young son.
Ich wandre durch Theresienstadt, das Herz so schwer wie Blei. Bis jäh mein’ Weg ein Ende hat, Bis jäh mein’ Weg ein Ende hat, dort knapp an der Bastei. dort knapp an der Bastei.
Dort bleib ich auf der Brücke stehn und schau ins Tal hinaus: ich möcht so gerne weiter gehn, ich möcht so gerne weiter gehn, ich möcht so gern nach Haus! ich möcht so gern nach Haus!
Nach Haus! du wunderbares Wort, du machst das Herz mir schwer. Man nahm mir mein Zuhause fort, Man nahm mir mein Zuhause fort, nun hab ich keines mehr. nun hab ich keines mehr.
Ich wende mich betrübt und matt, so schwer wird mir dabei: Theresienstadt, Theresienstadt, wann wohl das Leid ein Ende hat, wann sind wir wieder frei? wann sind wir wieder frei?
Whilst wandering through Theresienstadt My heart as heavy as lead My way came to a sudden end My way came to a sudden end Just by the bastion gate. Just by the bastion gate.
I linger there upon the bridge To look out on the vale I long to walk on further then I long to walk on further then I long to go back home! I long to go back home!
My home – those words are wonderful! They cause my heart to groan. They snatched my home away from me. They snatched my home away from me. I have nowhere to go. I have nowhere to go.
Weary I wend my way distressed Painful is life for me. Theresienstadt! Theresienstadt! When truly shall our sorrow end? When shall we be set free? When shall we be set free?
In 1945 several men fled to Christ in the face of the enormity of their sin. Major Henry Gerecke, a Lutheran army chaplain had been appointed to the accused at Nuremberg. His work was recorded by F T Grossmith in his book The Cross and the Swastika.
When Gerecke prepared the Lord’s table, the guards walked out. He reported it in this way: ‘I shall never forget the sight of those three big men kneeling, asking that their sins be forgiven. So convincing was their bearing that the guards said to me, “Chaplain, you’ll not need us. This is holy business.” And they walked out.’ The Cross and the Swastika by F.T. Grossmith is well worth the read – you might need a box of tissues. Some sound recordings are available. There is also a BBC Radio four production, Nuremberg: The Trial of the Nazi War Criminals, which references the work of the chaplain but looks at the trial from a different perspective.
Sound recordings of Gerecke’s work are [temporarily] available here:
Chaplain Corps 5 min: Gerecke introduces himself and provides the background to his appointment
The Colonel 6 min: The work of finding the lost sheep commences
Now Coco is not a geologist, but thinks he can tell the difference between a sandy beach and a hardened sedimentary rock face. He would ask geologically minded readers, please, to come to his assistance and correct, or provide better, or even good, explanations of the data. He would also ask such readers to forgive his ignorance to use the proper geologic terminology, or jargon, for what he wishes to describe, just as Carney may be forgiven for using the correct forms of English.
Soft material is laid down by water and over the years it hardens, and further layers are deposited on top, which themselves then harden. Coco understands that the traditional explanation for sedimentary layers that are not found in horizontal layers is that the rock layers have been folded by some later folding event, perhaps the movement together of tectonic plates, or an uplifting event such as gave rise to the great mountain ranges and in particular to the Alps in which these footprints have been found, followed by abrasion.
The prevalence of cracking in the sediments may give an indication of the plasticity or otherwise of the rocks at the time of the folding event. Cracks are visible in the photograph. Are these cracks subsequent to the folding, and due to more recent weathering, or are they original?
We should consider what happened to the sediments that would have been attached to the sediments that we can now see in the mountains. Where are they? Before the folding event they would have been at one. It is said that they may have been scoured away by other events occurring after the folding, as poorly illustrated in the diagramme.
Is that what we see here? An event has occurred which lifted the sediments; a subsequent event took away part of the rock and left the edges of sedimentary layers exposed; some time later the prosauropods came skipping along to left their footprints in the now exposed layers of sedimentary rock. Does that sound a possibility, or is it another just-so story so beloved by the old agers?
We must consider that when the tracks were left, this exposed surface, however it came to be exposed, must have been soft, at least plastic, in order that footfall would leave footprints. If the sediments had been laid down over long ages, then would they have been even remotely in a condition which we could call plastic when our dear sauropods visited it? Perhaps the absence or otherwise of cracking would provide us with a clue.
What however is fairly clear is that these are not footprints left in a sandy beach (or even a muddy on, as shown in the video, of “Footage supplied by the team of scientists [to] show the scale of the footprints and a recreation of how they were formed”. Sandy beaches, as we observe, lose their evidence of the crossing of large mammals and reptiles at almost every tide. Perhaps on a windy sandy beach they may even be lost to sight before the tide arrives. And yes, Coco is aware that sauropods may have been reptiles not mammals, but as a living one has not been able to be examined in the modern era the hypotheses that they were reptiles is perhaps no better than the hypothesis that they were mammals, unless you believe the just-so stories about footprints on a sandy beach being fossilised.
All of that said, and whilst he does not believe the story provided, Coco still cannot tell you how the footprints actually came to be embedded in the rocks now exposed in the Alps. As Holmes was supposed to have said: Once you have eliminated the possible, the only explanation left is the impossible. There was a flood. The sediments were laid down, folded and abraded quickly, and were still soft when our sauropod pod arrived.
It was an amusing tale in the published by the BBC Council’s clean-up warning for St George’s crosses but also the co-incidence with an article published by the LICC that prompted Coco. We do so easily see the gnat, but fail to notice that there is a camel in our beaker of notoriously middle-class or upwardly-mobile freshly ground and brewed, steamed, iced, skinny, but extra hot, caramel latté (Coco’s judgement on that drink: ☹).
One writer comments that in Genesis 6:1–4, the reader encounters one of the most challenging passages in all of Scripture to interpret. In this article Coco seeks to challenge that thesis by pleading that a plain reading of the text is all that is required.
There are several articles available on the internet explaining who the sons of God are of whom Moses makes mention in Genesis 6. Two of these may be found here:
As one who only knows one thing about poker, that it was the second thing a cowboy did after he had entered the bar, I have heard it said that it is quite unlike any other card game. In any other game, if you don’t know how to play, you can still play. In poker, if you don’t know how to play, don’t.
That was the situation in Augsburg. It has been repeated many times since in different contexts, perhaps famously when one nation left an economic bloc it placed its cards face up on the table, and secondly more recently when a new president stretched out his arm to an old enemy – but that game is not yet over we must wait to see what the outcome is.
The following post may provoke a response from the censers(sic!), and a lockdown which is far from useless, though perhaps needless, may be imposed here, after which you shall be glad never to hear from me again.
