From the Paper
"This research discusses Gideon and the Altar of Baal, part of the Book of Judges in the Old Testament. Baal was already worshipped in Canaan as the god of agriculture by the time the Israelites arrived. Many of them began worshipping Baal, also. However, when Gideon led them into victorious battle against the Midianite oppressors and destroyed the altar of Baal, the Israelites gave up Baal and supported Gideon, who became king.

When God called Gideon to deliver the Israelites from the Midianites His initial address was both ironic and indicative of future enabling: "the Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour." At the time, Gideon was cowering in fear, threshing the wheat at the base of a hill by a winepress instead of at the top of hill where the wind would be available to blow the chaff away. Gideon was not a mighty man at the time, nor was he valorous."

Abstract
This paper discusses how Bertolt Brecht is justifiably famous as one of the greatest political dramatists and whose self-contradictory Marxist didactics have made him the subject of a love-hate relationship on both sides of the Marxist divide. It explores how a detailed scrutiny of his earliest works betrays a startling cognizance of his future developments and how, despite the fact that much of his later work was a direct response to world events, one finds that their nature, and, to some degree, the events that inspired them, can be found foretold in the umbra of his origins. In particular, it looks at how the metaphors and mythologies of Brecht's first play, "Baal", both predict, foreshadow, and, to some degree, determine the political atmosphere and ramifications of his future life and body of work.

From the Paper
"BAAL has also been heralded by many as a nigh-prophetic work in terms of its discussion of the logical extensions of decadence, of revolution, and of the artistic individual within the proletariat mass. This play addresses issues that would not be entirely raised until after the 2nd World War and not fully understood until well into the Cold Wars. Some insight into the way in which Brecht's earliest work addresses issues budding at the time of his death can be seen by comparing the original BAAL to a latter-day reworking of the play called The Dream Engine (a radical anarchist piece released at Amherst College in 1969 and heralded by some as the first true rock opera)."

Tags:marxism, god

Abstract
This paper does not refute the more commonly accepted notions of Near Eastern religious faith as generated by the Hebrew Bible, but, rather, attempts to provide a greater understanding of the ancient Hebrews rejection of the concept of investing "idols" or statues with theological significance. The author points out that this rejection came not from the profound differences between the Israeli religion of the ancient Near East and its neighbors, but from the great similarities between the different cultic practices of Israel, Egypt, and Canaan. The paper reveals that the Israeli religion replaced the sacred space of the idolized body with the body of the temple, and replaced the ritual rhythms of investing the material substance of idols with the sacred space and temporal, seasonal rituals of sacrifice, and the sacrifice of animal, rather than human, offerings.

Table of Contents
Idolatry in the Ancient Near East a Non-Exodus Perspective
Near Eastern Religion "Idolatry" a Historically Rehabilitative Retrospective
Introduction
A Critical Perspective
Israeli Religion
Some Answers
A Rejection of the Familiar and the Past A New Judaism
A Final Caution

From the Paper
"It is also noteworthy that in ancient Israel, the temple itself was constructed in a highly schematized fashion, reflecting the importance of practice. "Just as the world was created in seven days, so also the Temple was created over seven years. These cycles of seven obviously serve to correlate Temple building with the construction of the world," and the observing of the rhythms of the Sabbath through a temporal, seven-day weekly structure of accessing the divine through time, rather than through material practices. Rituals and sacrifices pertaining to the material substances of the temple, moreover, were to "help concretize the manner in which the deity is truly present in the human community.""

Tags:hebrew, rejection, similarities, temple, animal

From the Paper
"The purpose of this research is to provide an analysis of Hasidism, the Jewish "revivalist movement" of the 18th century.

The research will include analysis of the opponents of the Hasidic movement, including the Mitnagdim.

As Gershom G. Scholem immediately makes clear in his Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism that the "Polish and Ukranian Hasidism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had nothing to do with medieval Hasidism in Germany. The new Hasidism was founded shortly before the middle of the eighteenth century by that famous saint and mystic Israel Baal Shem ("Master of the Holy Name") who died in 1760 . . . "

Abstract
This paper explains that the "Book of Judges" occurs between the death of Joshua and the commencement of the monarchy. The author points out that, in this portion, the reader witnesses the Israelites cyclical relationship with God: "sin-oppression-deliverance". The paper relates that 'Judges 6' tells the story of how God chose Gideon to lead the Israelites and Gideon's response to that command. The author suggests that the role of the narrator in this story is as an all knowing third person narrator who is always aware of how things actually are. The paper concludes that 'Judges 6' applies to the modern believer because he often has the same questions that Gideon had. The author underscores that Christians often wonder, like Gideon did, will God take care of me?

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Narrative Study
Israel is Oppressed by Midian (Judges 6:1-10)
Characterization
Plot
Setting
Literary Techniques
Gideon is Visited (Judges 6:11-27)
Characterization
Plot
Setting
Literary Techniques
The Altar of Baal Destroyed (Judges 6:28-35)
Characterization
Plot
Setting
Literary Techniques
Sign of the Fleece (Judges 6:36-40)
Characterization
Plot
Setting
Literary Techniques
Theological Application and Reflection
Conclusion

From the Paper
"When the Lord provided Israel with Canaan, the Israelites were commanded to take over the entire land. After the Israelites had gained a certain amount of land, they discontinued their conquest and allowed the rest of the surrounding areas to continue living on their land, which was contrary to the Lord's instruction. Not only did they not kill all the Canaanites, but they entered into alliances with them and began to intermarry. Canaanite idolatry had also infiltrated the Jewish people."

Tags:gideon, narrator, alliances, sin-oppression-deliverance, complexity

Abstract
This paper reviews Maurice Friedman's discussion and analysis of Hasidism in the text, "Religion and Psychology: A Dialogical Approach".
The paper reports that the author looks into the religious beliefs and practices that characterize Hasidism as a mystical religion.

From the Paper
"Looking into Hasidism from a psychological, specifically psychoanalytical, point of view, it provides a good example of how the individual makes sense of his/her realities as a Hasid. Unlike other religions, Hasidism and its practices and traditions does not bring forth problems of self-deprivation in order to achieve the state of otherworldliness, since it already advocates for the individual's establishment of being in sync with the material world. However, Hasidism is unique in that it tries to balance both the individual's needs and community's requirements in the practice of Hasidist religious experiences."

Tags:animate, God, inanimate, objects, psychoanalysis, Baal, Shem, Tov

Abstract
This paper looks at the biblical character of Jezebel and how the pattern of events and what they reveal about Jezebel's motives, are relevant to modern perceptions of the biblical portrayal of women. It examines how the name Jezebel is embedded in popular imagination as symbolic of a brazen, vulgar, scheming and/or impudent woman and how the power of the name and symbol are such that the context in which that image emerges may be altogether overlooked. It is a commonplace of Judeo-Christian culture that Jezebel was evil, perpetrated the murder of the prophet Elijah and suffered a horrible death. It looks at the different references to her throughout the Bible and how overall, the fate of Jezebel functions as a more general warning against behavior that has the effect of putting the jealous God in the background rather than the foreground of experience.

From the Paper
"According to Snaith (7), the overriding project of the Kings texts was religious, specifically to give an account of the extent to which the kings and kingdoms of Israel and Judah conformed (or did not) to the moral and behavioral guidelines for the people of Israel established by Mosaic law, articulated in some detail in Deuteronomy. The Kings and 2 Chronicles books explain the derogation of Jewish religious and moral practices, in particular their retreat to polytheistic idolatry, but also, as Snaith says, the very decision of the Jews to divide the kingdom of God's people into two kingdoms (Snaith 11). The fact that the texts return repeatedly to the importance of the relationship between the chosen people and their one God who chose them demonstrates that the moral and monotheistic content of human experience, not the sociopolitical content of royal administration, is the agenda of the recorders of kingdom activity."

Tags:god, elijah, prophet, baal, ahab

Abstract
"The Last of the Just" by Andre Schwarz-Bart, focuses on an old Hebrew legend of a group of men destined by God to be the culmination of the hearts of all mankind. The account traces the existence of the 'Lamed-Vov' through the male offspring of the Levy family, beginning in the twelfth century - with each of the chosen living and dying their destined martyr's death. The paper shows how the book travels down in time through the successive generation to the generation of the Second World War, ending with the intimate and extensive life of Ernie a Jew, the Last of the Just, who lives through the ghetto and dies in the Auschwitz gas chambers. The paper discusses the author's ability to convey the emotions and feelings of anti-Semitism from each generation, culminating in the most horrific act of all, the Holocaust.

From the Paper
"This document does better than almost no other I have read tracing the history of anti-Semitism through the past two thousand years. With the life and death of each Just Man lived a generation of sorrow and a multiplication of the suffering heart of all humanity. The special attention that Schwarz-Bart plays to the modern, and the repetitive cycle of horror makes clear that the message of this text is one of horror, hope and, of course, a warning. Schwarz-Bart has given a very personal narrative that brings to light the humanity of those Jews who have died in the last two thousand years for the simple reason of just being Jews."

Tags:Baal, Shem, Mordecai