The Illustrated Primer

Category: History

Murder, She Wrote?

“I had information yesterday that compelled me to write you. If you want to cure him or save him a slow death, then you better have him taken away from home immediately…”

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Literary Devices in the Book of Isaiah

Many of the book’s passages such 9:5-6 form the foundation of the messianic movements and eschatological theology in Judaism and Christianity. For many years, I had been reading the book contextually, but have just recently started parsing it for structure. Here are a few interesting stylistic and literary devices.

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So How Tall is the Staff of Ra?

We were going over some Indiana Jones trivia during dinner recently and one of the questions that came up had to do with an item that appeared in the Raiders of the Lost Ark called the “Head of the Staff of Ra”. The discussion must have triggered some long lost memory in my brain because I suddenly remembered that object—which ithe s a sort of a medallion—had an inscription on it.

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Descend, ye Cedars, Haste ye Pines

Bach and Handel share some interesting history. They were born only 4 weeks apart (Bach 31 March 1685 – Handel 23 February 1685), grew up 60 miles from each other, used the same snake oil salesman eye surgeon (John Taylor), and even passed on the opportunity to marry Buxtehude’s daughter Anna Margreta.

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Only the Racially Pure Need Apply

On February 20, 1939, over 20,000 American supporters of the Nazi party packed Madison Square Garden in New York City. They anxiously awaited the appearance of Fritz Julius Kuhn, the newly anointed American Führer of the German-American Bund. The event took place two days before George Washington’s birthday and a 30-foot-high portrait of the first president (who was described by Fritz as the first Fascist) hung behind the podium along with Nazi flags and swastikas.

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