Partita No. 1 : Work information
- Work name
- Partita No. 1
- Work number
- BWV 1002
- B minor
- 1720-01-01 02:00:00
- Adam Abeshouse
- Adam Abeshouse
- Recording date
- 1994-09-29 00:00:00
Johann Sebastian Bach
One of the greatest composers in history, Johann Sebastian Bach (father of C.P.E, J. C. and W. F. Bach) was by far the most significant member of the Bach dynasty of musicians.
He outshone his forebears and contemporaries, but did not always receive the respect he deserved in his own lifetime. After a brief engagement as a violinist in the court of Weimar, Bach became organist at the Neukirche in Arnstadt. In June 1707 he moved to St. Blasius, Mühlhausen, and married his cousin Maria Barbara Bach. In 1708 he was appointed court organist in Weimar where he composed most of his works for organ. In 1717, he was appointed Court Kapellmeister to the young Prince Leopold at Cöthen, but was refused permission to leave Weimar. The Duke only allowed Bach to go after holding him prisoner for nearly a month.
While at Weimar, Bach wrote his violin concertos and the six Brandenburg Concertos, as well as several suites, sonatas and keyboard works, including several, such as the Inventions and Book I of the 48 Preludes and Fugues (The Well-tempered Clavier). In 1720 Maria Barbara died, and the next year Bach married Anna Magdalena Wilcke. Bach resigned the post in Weimar in 1723 to become cantor at St. Thomas’ School in Leipzig where he was responsible for music in the four main churches of the city. Here he wrote the Magnificat and the St. John and St. Matthew Passions, as well as a large quantity of other church music. In Leipzig he eventually took charge of the University “Collegium Musicum” and occupied himself with the collection and publication of many of his earlier compositions.
Over the years that followed, Bach’s interest in composing church music declined somewhat, and he took to writing more keyboard music and cantatas. As his eyesight began to fail, he underwent operations to try and correct the problem, and these may have weakened him in his old age. He died at age 65, having fathered a total of 20 children with his two wives. Despite widespread neglect for almost a century after his death, Bach is now regarded as one of the greatest of all composers and is still an inexhaustible source of inspiration for musicians. Bach’s compositions are catalogued by means of the prefix BWV (Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis) and a numbering system which is generally accepted for convenience of reference.
The crowning achievement of J S Bach's instrumental writing, the set of solo Sonatas and Partitas are the ultimate test of musicianship and technique for the violinist. Composed in 1720 at Cothen, the set alternates Italian sonatas and French suites or partitas.
Bach's complete knowledge and mastery of the instrument allowed him to make full use of the violin's expressive range. For example, by asking the violinist to play on multiple strings at once, or play arpeggiated chords rapidly, Bach creates such complex harmonies that it's sometimes difficult to believe only one instrument is playing!
Although the sonatas follow the same formal pattern, all three partitas are constructed differently, though all are suites of dance movements. Partita No. 1 consists of four pairs of movements, the second of each pair varying the first. Displaying some virtuosic passagework, especially in the Doubles, the movements retain their dance characteristics and exhibit a bewitching formal beauty.


The 16th annual Great Backyard Bird Count takes place the weekend of Friday, Feb. 15, through Monday, Feb. 18.
This activity engages citizen scientist volunteers to count birds in specific locations all across the United States and Canada on the third weekend of February each year. In 2012, this effort recorded 104,151 separate checklists, including 2,046 from Tennessee. Shelby County contributed more than 10 percent of the total, 256. And Memphis recorded 93 species, tops in the state.
The 2013 Great Backyard Bird Count, a joint project of the Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society, will incorporate two major changes. First, it will go global. Checklists can be submitted from anywhere in the world. Second, Great Backyard Bird Count data will be merged with eBird, the National Audubon Society and Cornell University's worldwide database of bird sightings. This will require participants to create an eBird account. To do so, go to BirdCount.org.
The bird count is fun and free. Just count all of the birds that you see and hear in one place (your yard, a park, schoolyard, your office) for at least 15 minutes any or every day Feb. 15-18. The information that you and thousands of others provide will help scientists to learn more about what is happening in our environment. To protect, we first must know.
The entire month of February is Backyard Bird Month at the Memphis Botanic Garden. The garden is sponsoring a contest of bird photographs taken in its Nature Garden during the month. On Feb. 16, Dick Preston and other members of the Memphis
Chapter of the Tennessee Ornithology Society will host a bird identification workshop at the Botanic Garden as part of the Great Backyard Bird Count weekend.
There will be a free "Lunch and Learn" brown bag lunch followed by a guided bird walk in the nature garden. Afterward, data collected during the bird walk will be entered into the bird count database.
The Botanic Garden will host "Celebrate Urban Birds Day" from 2 to 4 p.m. Feb. 23. There will be crafts and games, and members of the local Ornithology Society will lead a bird walk. For more information, contact Charity Novick at 901-636-4119, or go to memphisbotanicgarden.com.
The 113th annual Christmas Bird Count was held at selected locations all around the globe between Dec. 15, 2012, and Jan. 5, 2013. The Memphis count on Dec. 17 had 34 observers who located 92 species. The Wapanocca (Ark.)/Shelby Forest (Tenn.) count on Dec. 29 had 24 observers locating 91 species, and the count at Arkabutla Lake on Jan. 5 enlisted 20 observers who found 110 species, a record for that count.
The greatest surprise of any local Christmas Bird Count came on the Wapanocca/Shelby Forest count when an ash-throated flycatcher was discovered in Shelby Forest State Park. Ash-throated flycatcher is a Western species rarely seen east of the Great Plains and an apparent first record for Shelby County.
Van Harris is a former president of the Memphis Chapter of the Tennessee Ornithology Society, a member of the Mississippi Ornithology Society and the Mississippi chapter of the National Audubon Society. Address questions to email@example.com.


Nazis secretly developed plot to drop radioactive bomb on New York from supersonic space rocket
- Hermann Goering was tasked with overcoming long-range bombing problem
- Much of the research would later pave the way for modern space travel
Nazi chief Hermann Goering plotted to attack New York in a bizarre plot involving a manned space rocket dropping a dirty bomb over the Manhattan skyline.
Vying for Hitler's attention, the head of the German air-force, Hermann Goering, set up a lab and a team of leading scientists to explore the possibility of the radioactive attack on American soil.
Goering read the work of maverick Austrian engineer, Eugen Saenger and particularly his belief that a space plane could be built.
New York: The Nazis wanted to attack the U.S. but they lacked long-range bombers capable of covering the distance. They explored a rocked-propelled spacecraft as a way to reach and bomb New York (pictured)
The head of the Luftwaffe commissioned him and other leading physicists to explore the plane, which he then wanted to arm with a radioactive bomb capable of doing untold damage to America's most populous city.
Leading historians told the Daily Express that Goering may have been gullible for believing the far-fetched plan would work, but much of the research which went into the project paved the way for modern space travel research and the space shuttle program.
'Saenger would greatly influence post-war thinking about space travel in the United States,' Dr David Baker, a space historian, told the British newspaper.
'A whole series of highly classified space-plane concepts were developed based on his theories.'
Silverbird: Eugen Saenger (left) devised plans for the aircraft known as the Silverbird (right) that could reach America via space. Goering wanted the craft to be capable of dropping a 'dirty bomb' on New York
'His work certainly had an influence on aspects of the Space Shuttle programme.'
Goering believed the rocket plan would enable the Third Reich to overcome the issue of flying across the Atlantic and ultimately avenge America's entry into the war.
Saenger completed a 900-page plan and called the craft the Silverbird.
He believed it would be able to clear the lower reaches of space after being fired with rocket engines.
Anti-American: The Nazis sought a way to punish the U.S. for entering World War Two. One of the schemes they looked at was a plane which would reach America via space in order to bomb New York
It was expected to reach 13,000 miles per hour, would have a 100-tonne thrust motor and would reach more than 80 miles above earth.
'The plan was to wrap the bomb with radioactive sand and have it explode
high above New York casting a radioactive cloud over the city,” aviation historian David Myhra
'It was a kind of prototype dirty bomb.'
Losing control: Goering was particularly keen to promote his airforce and saw the plot to bomb New York as an ideal way to win Hitler's favor
'The standard aircraft of the day could not fly from Europe to the US
because they could not carry enough fuel.'
'But by reaching sub-orbital altitude the Silverbird’s fuel life would be extended allowing it to bomb anywhere in the world.'
'It was wild science fiction'
'But Saenger had worked out all the mathematics. He was certain it would work.'
'Post-war analysis indicated that the space-plane would have burnt up during re-entry but this could have been overcome with thermal shielding.
'The underlying concept was sound but it was many years ahead of its time.'
Goering finally dismissed the plan and the Nazis looked at other ways to bomb the U.S. but never succeeded.
Saenger fled to France and was later sent for by Josef Stalin who was also interested in the Silverbird concept.
He was never found by the Soviet Union and died in 1964.
Dr Asif Siddiqi, an
assistant professor in space history at Fordham University said: 'Saenger was the first to look into the technicalities of building a
winged, reusable sub-orbital vehicle.'
'His work was extremely far-sighted.'
Failure to launch: The Silverbird, pictured, was devised by Austrian engineer Eugen Saenger so the Nazis could bomb New York. The ambitious space rocket design wasn't developed beyond planning stage


More in Outdoors
Arguably the biggest mistake you can make is with "topping" your tree. It's considered something of a dirty word in horticulture circles. Topping means cutting a tree back so severely that only the stumps of large branches are left. It's done in an attempt to control the size of the tree. This stresses the tree because it takes away the leaves, its food sources. The tree will send out many smaller branches in an effort to produce more leaves quickly but they are not as strong as the previous branches and can break off easily in the wind. Tree topping also results in a pretty unattractive tree.
The way to properly bring a tree down in height is to make your cuts at a joint. A joint is the place where either a leaf or a branch grows out from the stem. Cut down the tallest branches at a joint, which will reduce the height significantly, instead of leaving a bunch of stubs. This way, the tree will be able to heal itself, growing a new branch in that spot.
If you have a dense tree that's completely blocking a view, you may want to thin it out. This involves removing entire branches that are too overgrown by making the proper cuts at a joint. This will allow you to see through the tree by taking some of the heaviness out of the canopy.
It's always a good idea to have a pruning partner whenever you prune, but this especially helps when thinning.
Before you cut, have someone stand back and look at the tree to make sure you're not chopping off an important part of the tree or taking so much as to ruin the shape.
You don't want to turn your pruning tools into weapons, so you better know how to use them. Pruners and pruning saws should always be sharp and disinfected when you use them. This will help you to make a smooth, clean cut and the tree will be able to recover faster from it.
For branches larger than 1-1/2" in diameter, you'll want to use a special technique called the "1,2,3 Method." This will protect the bark on your tree by preventing the branch from splitting. If you just started cutting downward on a larger branch, the weight of that branch would bring it down faster than you can cut. This would cause the branch to split and the bark would tear, making it harder for the tree to recover and more susceptible to pests or disease. Here is how this method is done:
Cut #1: Make an undercut about 1' from the trunk, which means cutting on the underside of the branch. Stop cutting when you've gone one third of the way through the branch.
Cut #2: Move about 3" past the undercut, toward the end of the branch, and start cutting. The weight of the branch will still take it down and the trunk may split but it won't split past your undercut.
Cut #3: Finish it off by cutting off the stub at the joint.
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Engineer your first step to a four-year degree at Edmonds Community College
Engineers Make a Difference
Engineering is the art of applying scientific and mathematical principles, experience, judgment, and common sense to make things that benefit people. Engineers solve problems. They improve and develop products to meet consumer and societal needs. They find ways for existing products to work better, last longer, operate more safely and cost less.
They also look for innovative solutions to global problems. Engineers design bridges and important medical equipment as well as processes for cleaning up toxic spills and systems for mass transit.
It's a Fact
Engineering professions requiring a four-year degree are among the highest paying jobs in Washington State according to the office of Labor Market and Economic Analysis. Source: www.workforceexplorer.com


Information for Students
Welcome to the Flint Regional Science Fair! We look forward to seeing you at the Fair in March.
Taking part in a science fair is fun, educational, and rewarding. This part of our web site provides information and links that can help you get started, conduct your research and enter the Flint Regional Science Fair.
The FASF is held every Spring. This means you should begin planning in the Fall and Winter prior to the Fair to ensure you pick a good research topic, and have plenty of time to do a good job and present a quality project.
Parents, teachers, and mentors are important helpers to identify projects, collect the resources required for your project, and track your progress. Ask your parents and your teachers for assistance. They are your best bet for one-on-one direction and support in your Science Fair experience.
Elementary Division and Junior Division projects follow simpler rules than Senior Division projects.
More Web Student Science Resources
Questions? Email firstname.lastname@example.org.


Book Authors: Warren G. Bennis, Robert J. Thomas
Book Review by : Anil Kumar Kartham
Faculty Associate, ICMR (IBS Center for Management Research)
DLeadership, cross-generational leadership, wisdom, skill, Era, Changing the world, organization, how people become leaders, Crucible, Individual factors, IQ, self-grooming, Adaptive capacity, leadership competencies
The theory of leadership attempts to describe the process of leadership making. Era is an important aspect of their theory of leadership. Thus, it is relevant to ask how is "Era" different in case of geeks and geezers? At the age of 25-30,
geeks are more ambitious and have larger goals compared to geezers at the same age. They dream of "Changing the world" and "making history." The Geezers on the other hand, were concerned more about making a living. The Geeks seek to balance their lives by giving enough importance to both work and family. The Geezers hardly bothered about balance at this age. The Geezers worshiped heros. They chiseled their image of successful leader based on these heroes. The Geeks had none of that sort. Their parents or teachers or even their friends were their heroes. The authors point to "Era" as the creator of these differences.
This doesn't mean they had no commitment to their jobs. They were dedicated as long as they were with the company. And they were ready to leave whenever they found greener pastures. The loyalty described by Whyte in Organization Man lost favor in 1980s. The geeks valued "Balanced life" more than the geezers did. They were persistent in maintaining the balance. The following quote of a geek makes it clear: If I can't do it with balance, then I don't want to do it. Or I'm not buying into your model of success. They were not shy in acquiring wealth, unlike the geezers. They did not see money as evil. Rather the love of it as evil.
The geeks and the geezers are not as dissimilar as they appear on the surface. They are made of the same stuff and in the same process. They are similar in their learning. Both groups of leaders are highly enthusiastic about learning. And they yearn and struggle to go beyond limits: individual limits such as strength or learning ability or institutional limits such as racial and/or sexual discrimination. More important similarity, the authors say they uncovered, is a sort of common experience that transformed both groups of leaders. This common experience is the basis on which the authors have built their story on "how people become leaders."
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A spice commonly used in Indian foods could also double as a powerful weapon to fight against cancer, diabetes, and inflammation. If recent studies on the spice’s effect to continue producing promising results are any indication, Dr. Saraswati Sukumar of Johns Hopkins University hopes curcumin, which gives turmeric its yellow color, will help people fight off or prevent diseases such as diabetes and cancer.
In an interview with India-West, Sukumar explained how she and a colleague, Dr. Anirban Maitra, are paying close attention to promising clinical trials of curcumin.
Curcumin is the extract of turmeric and may soon be used in pill form. The spice is commonly integrated into many Indian dishes. Sukumar will be giving a presentation Jan. 24 in West Palm Beach, Florida, about the positive health benefits of curcumin. While more clinical trials are still needed to further understand how the common spice is beneficial to the human body, Sukumar believes a curcumin pill currently in experimental format could have a dramatic impact in fighting certain diet-induced diseases that are becoming more commonplace.
“The talk I am going to be giving in Palm Beach, Florida, really covers the field to let people know what’s involved with this, what does curcumin do, what are the positive effects, so on and so forth,” Sukumar told India-West in a telephone interview earlier this week.
In addition to being a strong weapon against diabetes and inflammation, steady consumption of curcumin can also counteract skin damage that result from cancer-based radiation treatment.
“It has very strong anti-inflammatory activity,” Sukumar told India-West of curcumin’s health benefits. “Is that the only activity that’s really causing it to be this effective? We don’t think so. We think it has effects on multiple other pathways that are just beginning to be understood.”
With an estimated 26 million people diagnosed with diabetes, Sukumar said curcumin can also be a great benefit in fighting the metabolic disease.
Sukumar explained how an experiment where mice with obesity-induced diabetes were given doses of curcumin and experienced glucose levels returning to near normal levels within 20 days, thanks to an increased production of “good fat” hormones.
When a follow-up clinical trial was performed in a double-blind study with pre-diabetic patients, Sukumar cited that none of the 119 subjects who were given curcumin developed the disease. However, 19 out 116 pre-diabetic patients in that same trial who were given a placebo did develop the disease.
“It has an effect, indirectly, on the fat content as well as … diabetes,” the Indian American researcher told India-West, adding that the clinical trial tested patients over a nine-month period, and another follow-up study with more time passed would be needed to further validate the promising results.
Both Sukumar and Maitra hope to eventually have a water-soluble curcumin pill available on the market sometime soon. However, early clinical trials of the experimental pill have not yet yielded the desired results. In current trials, Sukumar pointed out several grams of curcumin need to be consumed in order to be effective. Whether small doses of the spices can be consumed in pill format in order to have the desired effect on the body remains to be seen.
Nevertheless, Sukumar expressed her excitement about further discovering the health benefits of turmeric and curcumin.
“I really feel extremely positive about setting out, spending energy, and telling the world about what curcumin can do. And it’s just a spice off your rack,” Sukumar said.
She added that the spice can still be used in its natural state, similar to how it is mixed into many Indian food dishes.
To incorporate curcumin into one’s lifestyle, Sukumar simply suggests obtaining large portions of turmeric.
“Get a bag of turmeric and use it lavishly in your food,” Sukumar told India-West. “It adds some flavor but it’s not going to hurt you.”
She also suggested adding turmeric to the grilling of foods such as garlic, mushrooms, and onions. It is also best combined with warm oil.
Sukumar will be speaking at an annual women’s health symposium, “A Woman’s Journey,” next week at the Palm Beach County Convention Center.


Linn, Amy. Illuminating News: What You Don't Know About Lightning Might
Come As Shock. Providence Sunday Journal. August 21, 1988.
Abstract: This article explains some common misconceptions about
lightning. For example, one misconception is that lightning never strikes
the same place twice. This is untrue. Once lightning discovers an easy target
it will likely strike again. The article also provides important safety
precautions. The safest place during a thunderstorm is inside a house away
from windows or inside a closed car.


An animal detection system with the warning lights activated resulted in 1.52 mi/h lower vehicle speeds (compared to warning lights off) for passenger cars and pick-ups.
Alerting drivers to the presence of large animals in the road at Yellowstone National Park.
The study area was on US Highway 191 inside of the Yellowstone National Park, with a posted speed limit of 55 mi/hour. The data collection period occurred over two weeks in which there was mostly no precipitation. Researchers installed three traffic counters and road tubes outside and inside of the detection area. The counters recorded the date, time, vehicle type, vehicle speed and gap (in seconds) between vehicles. When vehicles moved in platoons, only the speed of the first vehicle in a platoon was used as a data point when the signs were activated (since the following vehicles may be influenced by the speed of the first one). A sample size of 2,428 vehicles per 24 hour period was used.
The deployment of an animal detection system at Yellowstone National Park found that passenger cars, pick-ups, vans, and trucks with two units or more had lower vehicle speeds by 1.52 mi/hour with warning signs activated compared to warning signs off. Although the difference is small, it is important to note that small reductions when vehicles are traveling at high speeds have a disproportionate decrease in the probability of severe accidents.
The data also showed that the number of collisions with large animals was 58 to 67 percent lower than was expected (but could not be tested for significance due to the variability in the number of collisions and just one year of post installation collision data). Driver opinion of the system documented in interviews revealed that a majority (59 percent) would have liked to see the system stay in place. The system was removed in the fall of 2008 due to high maintenance and a lack of spare parts.
Author: M.P. Huijser, T.D. Holland, A.V. Kociolek, A.M. Barkdoll and J.D. Schwalm
Published By: Oregon Department of Transportation Research Unit and the Federal Highway Administration
Source Date: March 2009URL: http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/31000/31600/31698/Animal-Vehicle_Crash_Mitigation_Phase_2.pdf
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Meet the Other Navy Seals (and Dolphins)Cute—and creepy—photos of the US Navy program that trains marine mammals as minesweepers and underwater sentries.
You've likely heard of the Navy SEAL dog that took part in the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. Now meet the other Navy seals. Actually, they're sea lions. And dolphins.
For more than five decades, the Navy has enlisted sea lions, dolphins, and other marine mammals as an elite corps of underwater sentries, searchers, and mine-sweepers. Its Marine Mammal Program started in 1960 when weapons researchers studied a Pacific white-sided dolphin named Notty to see if she might teach them something about designing speedier torpedoes. She didn't, but the service has remained intriguiged by sea mammals' speed, stealth, sonar, and smarts. During the Vietnam War, specially trained dolphins were deployed to protect ships in Cam Ranh Bay. The Navy denies that they were dispatched to kill enemy divers as part of a "swimmer nullification program", though more recently sea lions have been trained to "attach restraint devices to swimmers." (The notion of dolphins as trained killers inspired The Day of the Dolphin, a 1973 movie starring George C. Scott.) Since the mid-1970s, the program has expanded to include beluga whales, seals, and and killer whales, though bottlenose dolphins and Californa sea lions have become its two mainstays due to their "their trainability, adaptability, and heartiness in the marine environment."
The Navy says its 100 or so marine mammals' primary missions are mine-hunting and "swimmer defense." Dolphins were first sent to the Persian Gulf in the late 1980s. In 1996, Navy dolphins assisted the Secret Service (PDF) during the Republican National Convention in their home port of San Diego, and NASA reportedly expressed interest in using sea lions to protect Space Shuttle launches (PDF). More recently, both dolphins and sea lions have been sent to the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea to help clear mines and guard ships. The Navy has hailed "swimmer defense dolphins" as "a strong deterrent against terrorist attacks" like the one on the USS Cole in 2000.
Animal-rights activists have long objected to the Navy's marine-mammal program, criticizing the use of benign sea creatures in military operations and the cramped conditions in which they are housed and transported. "Using animals for military defense is unnecessary and cruel and could very well cost lives—not save them," PETA wrote in response to a plan to use dolphins and sea lions to guard a naval base in Washington. The Navy claims that it treats its flippered conscripts humanely, noting that they are fed "higher-than-restaurant-quality fish" and travel in pools designed "to keep the animals in an environment as much like San Diego as possible." It also argues that its work has added to the scientific knowlege of these animals: "The more we know about marine mammals, the better we can protect them."


What You Should Know About Using HBO In Diabetic Wounds
- Volume 16 - Issue 5 - May 2003
- 8371 reads
- 0 comments
How HBO Can Facilitate Wound Healing
HBO consists of a patient breathing 100 percent oxygen while his or her entire body is enclosed in a pressure chamber. The topical application of oxygen is not recognized by the FDA as hyperbaric therapy and is not reimbursed by Medicare.
Oxygen is transported two ways in that it is chemically bound to the hemoglobin and physically dissolved in the plasma. When the patient breathes air at sea level, the hemoglobin is already fully saturated so increasing the amount of respired oxygen can affect only the plasma-dissolved oxygen. Breathing oxygen at an elevated atmospheric pressure produces an increase in the plasma-dissolved oxygen fraction, which is proportional to the atmospheric pressure of the respired gas.
Monoplace hyperbaric chambers are usually compressed with oxygen whereas multiplace chambers are compressed with air while the patient breathes 100 percent oxygen using a hood or aviator’s face mask. Typical treatments involve 90 minutes of oxygen breathing at 2.0 to 2.5 atmospheres absolute (ATA) with air breaks administered at 20- to 30-minute intervals in order to reduce the risk of central nervous system oxygen toxicity.
(While HBO treatment is remarkably safe, be aware that otologic and pulmonary barotrauma and central nervous system, pulmonary and ocular oxygen toxicity can occur. Central nervous system oxygen toxicity is rare, but it can manifest as seizures. Seizures are less likely to occur if there are brief periods of air breathing.)
Arterial PO2 elevations of 1500 mmHg or greater are achieved when the body is exposed to pressures of 2 to 2.5 ATA. Soft tissue and muscle PO2 levels can be elevated to about 300 mmHg. Oxygen diffusion varies in a direct linear relationship to the increased partial pressure of oxygen present in the circulating plasma caused by HBO. At pressures of 3 ATA, the diffusion radius of oxygen into the extravascular compartment is estimated to increase from 64 micons to about 247 micons at the pre-capillary arteriole.
This significant level of hyperoxygenation allows for the reversal of localized tissue hypoxia, which may be secondary to ischemia or to other local factors within the compromised tissue. Hypoxia is a biochemical barrier to normal wound healing.
In the hypoxic wound, HBO treatment allows an acute correction of the pathophysiology related to oxygen deficiency and impaired wound healing. Using HBO increases oxygen levels within the marginally vascularized periwound compartment, enhancing leukocyte bacteriocidal function. It may also potentiate some antibiotic effects. There are direct toxic effects on anaerobic bacteria and suppression of exotoxin production. It also enhances collagen synthesis and cross-linking, and other matrix deposition.
What The Clinical Evidence Reveals
Additionally, recent evidence suggests that HBO may induce specific growth factor receptors (PDGF) and stimulate growth factor (VEGF) release. There is also evidence that employing HBO may ameliorate or prevent leukocyte-mediated ischemia reperfusion injury.10-13
There have been 13 published peer-reviewed studies (including seven randomized, controlled trials) of HBO in diabetic foot wounds. A total of 606 diabetic patients received HBO with a 71 percent bipedal limb salvage rate, compared to 463 control patients who had a 53 percent bipedal limb salvage rate. All diabetic wounds were Wagner III-IV. It is interesting to compare this to the becaplermin clinical trials that involved Wager II ulcers. Control patients had healing rates of 25 percent while those receiving becaplermin had healing rates of 43 percent.
A large retrospective series of 1,144 diabetic foot ulcer patients demonstrated the effectiveness of using adjunctive HBO in modified Wagner III, IV and V (equivalent to Wagner grade II, III and V) ulcers, based on ulcer/wound improvement, healing and salvage of bipedal ambulation (see “The Impact Of HBO: What One Study Shows” above).14 Currently, CMS policy reimburses only for treatment of Wagner III and greater ulcers.


Final 7 Years
Daniel 9 states that 70 weeks are determined for Israel. 70 weeks is 490 days, 1 year 4 months 5 days. This scripture describes the destruction of Jerusalem, as well as other things. As of Daniels time, Jerusalem was not destroyed in 490 days, so 70 weeks is not really 70 weeks. The Bible states that by two or three witnesses God's Word shall be established. So with that, on the 70th week, the he whos people previously destroyed Jerusalem will confirm the covenant for "1 week" then in the midst of the week stop it. This is called the abomination of desolation. The we travel to the next witness which is Jesus in Matthew 24. He had just finished up telling his disciples that the temple will be destroyed, but then he says when you see the abomination desolation, SPOKEN OF BY DANIEL, STAND UP IN THE HOLY PLACE, then all in Judea(which is modern day West Bank) must flee, because then shall be great tribulation. Now if the temple is destroyed how can the AoD stand up in the Holy Place? that will we get to later.
Now that we know that the second half of the week there shall be great tribulation as has never been before, we can look at the scriptures describing the great tribulation to figure out whether is 3.5 days, or more. Reading Matthew 24 we find out that the great trib is the persecution of the saints. We can travel back to Daniel 7 now. verse 25 says that great words will be spoken against the most high, and the saints will be worn out for TIME, TIMES, DIVIDING OF TIME. we don't know how long that is, but there is always more than one witness. Revelation chapter 12 describes a great red dragon, whom they call the devil and satan trying to destroy a woman with a crown of 12 stars, or in other words Jerusalem, it says she flees into the wilderness for 1260 days, Matthew 24 said when ye see the abomination of desolation flee, so this matches. Revelation 13:5-6 describes this beast of the dragon previously mentioned blaspheming against God and warring with the saints for 42 months.
We got 3 scriptures that have the same description of the tribulation, so concluding that time, times, dividing of time is as well 3.5 years, we can conclude that daniels 70th week is 7 years.
Why did i say all this? well for one, some christians could be reading this. Im saying this because a major misinterpretation is that there is a 7 years tribulation, which is not true, its 3.5 years. Another reason is now im going to show a few things
-As far as Judea fleeing, Ehud Olmert, the acting prime minister of Jerusalem is standing ready to withdraw from the West Bank
-The anti-christ standing in the temple? where is the temple? In 2006 the temple society in Jerusalem finished building all the temple furniture and have started training rabbis for the sacrifices of old. They finally have a red heiffer ready for the first sacrifice whenever it happens. In late 2005 for the first time since the 5th century the San Hedrin re-emerged (the elite group of Jewish elders who put Christ to death, also of whom Paul was a part of) and had a meeting. They discussed the building of the temple. They decided, since they cannot build on the mount, then they will build it the same way Solomon built the first temple. OFFSITE. They blueprinted the temple, and it will soon be ready to move.
OH! in Revelation 11, John is asked to measure the Jerusalem, but then it says the court without the temple leave out for it is given to the gentiles for they will tread the holy city for 42 months. If there was a Jewish temple standing in Jerusalem, and the gentiles had the outter courts this would indicate a time of peace, a time when Jew and Gentile share the city on a hill. In 2000 Bill Clinton states that the sharing of the temple mount was the only way for peace in Jerusalem. Ariel Sharon created a new party called the Kadina party in which his goal was to establish the final borders of Israel, or in other words, let the palestinians have part of the Holy Land as long as we can build our temple, yada yada yada. Sharon Signed it, Abbas signed it, Bush oversaw and signed it as well, the plan called THE ROADMAP FOR PEACE.
Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.


Issue Number: 93
‘Enlightenment,’ wrote Immanuel Kant in his 1784 essay What is Enlightenment? ‘is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere aude! [Dare to know!] Have the courage to use your own understanding! That is the motto of enlightenment.’
Age Of Reason An Encyclopdedia of the Age of Enlightenment by Adam Dant. An Encyclopdedia of the Age of Enlightenment by Adam Dant.
Neither Kant nor his eighteenth-century contemporaries believed that they lived in an enlightened age. By ‘enlightenment’, they meant a process: the lessening of darkness, the dawning of light. The human mind was liberating itself from traditional authority over thought and belief. ‘Nothing is required for enlightenment except freedom,’ wrote Kant, ‘and the freedom in question is the least harmful of all, namely, the freedom to use reason publicly in all matters.’
Kant and his fellow leaders of the Enlightenment were opposed to hegemonies, whether intellectual or political. ‘On all sides I hear: do not argue!’ Kant continues. ‘The officer says, “Do not argue, drill!” The taxman says, “Do not argue, pay!” The pastor says, “Do not argue, believe!”’ But, whereas the officer and the taxman serve authorities who dislike anyone questioning the political and social status quo, the pastor is a different matter: he represents the authority that dislikes any kind of questioning, and certainly not the kind that is sceptical about received wisdom.
The project that served as a flagship for enlightenment in the eighteenth century was the Encyclopédie, edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert. A compendium of knowledge, its emphatic and rationalist war on the authority of past pieties was premised on the recognition of how obstinately they stood in the way of intellectual and social progress. In taking this stance, the Encyclopédists were following the lead of Voltaire who, with his battle-cry of Ecrasez l’infâme! (‘Wipe out the infamy’, by which he meant superstition), challenged tradition with weapons of logic and satire.
‘Have courage to free yourselves,’ Diderot exhorted his fellow men in words echoed by Kant, ‘Examine the history of all peoples in all times and you will see that we humans have always been subject to one of three codes: that of nature, that of society, and that of religion, and that we have been obliged to transgress all three in succession, because they could never be in harmony.’
In essence, the Enlightenment was a call to individuals to stand up for themselves in the light of reason. That meant understanding the world through philosophy and science, especially by applying the latter beyond physics and chemistry to the social world of politics, education and morality.
The Enlightenment had its negative aspects and consequences, no doubt, but it was motivated by a real desire for the improvement of humankind’s lot and, accordingly, represents a key moment in the progress of civilisation. One of the many results of its new ambition was a shift in portraiture: in Enlightenment painting and sculpture, individuals – be they citizens, members of families or clubs – share a place once exclusively occupied by saints and princes.
In its way, this represents the first dawning of the modern democratic spirit, and it would not have been possible without the Enlightenment’s belief in the universality of the human good and the ‘Rights of Man’.


versión impresa ISSN 0259-9422
Herv. teol. stud. v.67 n.1 Pretoria 2011
Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria, South Africa
One of the presumptions of this article is that most of the people in the nascent 'Christian' communities were ordinary people struggling with questions of living under harsh conditions in a country that was occupied by an enemy force. Another presumption is that the history of these ordinary people from antiquity needs to be heard. The article aimed, with the help of archaeology, cultural anthropology, social history of antiquity, literature of the time as well as other disciplines, to create a social context of Jesus and his disciples. The article approached the Gospels in the New Testament from the poor, the majority of people living in the 1st century Roman Empire. It gives a brief analysis of one of the poverty texts, namely Matthew 6:2534. By means of interviews, stories of villagers in Tanzania, as well as their interpretations of the Gospel texts, have been documented. The people of Kinywang'anga serve as a test case for reading the 'do not worry' exhortation in the Matthean passage.
Reading the text with the poor
'Almost half the world over three billion people live on less than $2.50 a day' (Poverty facts and stats; Shah 2009).
'Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear' (Mt 6:25).
The New Testament was written during a time when poverty was a reality for almost everyone. Even now, after 2000 years, poverty is still present as one of the world's biggest problems. However, biblical scholarship today is done, more often than not, by those privileged with varying degrees of wealth, who do not themselves belong to any of the poorest classes of people. This fact leads to the questions: Do we understand the life of the poor enough to comprehend, for example, how they would hear the words of Jesus when he asked them not to worry about tomorrow? How did the audience, who heard this proclamation, whether in Galilee or later, elsewhere in Roman Empire, react to these words? How does a village community consisting of poor people react to these words?
Traditionally, biblical studies have concentrated on the texts. These texts were written by the literate elite and represent the view of the privileged few. Most certainly the authors of the Gospels had some education and held positions of some status in their communities, which gave them the time and the skills to be able to write these texts. The history of the early Jesus movement, that later developed into the religion called Christianity, is usually written based on these texts composed by the elite.
As a biblical scholar I, too, was taught to always keep the textual evidence at the forefront. 'Exegetes work with texts', it was said. Theories were not considered as important as the texts were. Within scholarly circles it became almost standard to analyse the texts in short pericopes, 'single units' as the smallest ones were called. This kind of working model was especially favoured in historical Jesus studies, where scholars tried to draw a believable and understandable figure of Jesus of Nazareth by ascribing these single units to Jesus or by simply leaving them out if they seemed too problematic or were clearly later than Jesus.
However, I quickly learned three important things. Firstly, there is no text without context. The single units have never been 'single units' except for the scholars working with these texts. They were not delivered as short sayings and anecdotes by anyone or to anyone. Therefore it is not possible to understand any of these sayings, anecdotes, or short stories except by reading them within their original context. Linguistic analysis of single words and their etymologies are of no value if you do not know the context. The text always belongs to a context. Besides, the results of such investigation are not very trustworthy even if one could, with convincing argumentation, present a collection of authentic words of Jesus (which is not the case).1 Nobody's message, programme or thinking can be persuasively represented just by collecting various words and anecdotes and then using them to sum up the whole:
No matter what criteria for testing the sayings are used, scholars still need to move beyond the sayings themselves to a broader context than a summary of their contents if they are to address historical questions about Jesus.
Harsh criticism of the way many Jesus scholars investigate the single sayings of Jesus is given by Richard Horsley (2008:131145), who bases his critique on the examination of the memory and the gospels as 'social memory' rather than 'containers of data'. Every text and every moment of oral proclamation and performance makes best sense within its context. Overman (1996) writes:
The whole story of Matthew is a crucial context and, in fact, an absolute necessity for understanding smaller parts or units of the Gospel. The story itself, written by the author as best we can reconstruct it, is the first place a sensible reader will look for clues and for a context that will help supply meaning to words, instruction, and stories in the Gospel. And there is little doubt that cross-cultural analogies, and stories and events from our own time, can indeed help to shed more light on the Gospel texts, their meanings, and their application.
Secondly, I learned that it is much easier to know the context of Jesus than Jesus himself. We know a great deal about the Roman Empire in 1st century Palestine. We have trustworthy information about the cultural context that Jesus and his disciples lived in. With the help of archaeology, cultural anthropology, social history of antiquity, literature of the time as well as other disciplines, we can create the social context of Jesus and his disciples. It is much more difficult to place the figure of Jesus into that context.
Thirdly, the Gospels, as we have them today, are not in their original form. Originally, they were distributed in both oral and written forms, with several different forms of each, depending on the context. The Gospels also differ from other contemporary literature because of the fact that, although authored by the elite, they do contain some traditions that have been produced by ordinary people, even poor people. This seems to me to be especially true in the Sayings Gospel Q and the Gospel of Mark and on some occasions the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Thomas. Even the theologically constructed Gospel of John contains some traditions that might have been born in rural peasant circles and the Gospel of Luke based his admittedly elite Gospel on earlier traditions found in Q and Mark. Thus, as Horsley (2008:31) writes, the Gospels 'are some of those rare historical cases of literature that represents the view from below'.
Most of the people in the nascent 'Christian' communities were ordinary people struggling with questions of living under harsh conditions in a country that was occupied by an enemy force. Their history needs to be written. Horsley (2008:2124) makes an interesting distinction between 'standard history' and 'people's history' and applies this distinction to New Testament studies. To use his terms, my study would be a 'people's history'.
In this article the focus is not on theological concepts or the rise of Christian beliefs. The focus is rather on the poor, the majority of people living in the 1st century Roman Empire. In choosing this focus I have approached the gospels from the viewpoint of the poor.
What follows is a necessarily brief analysis of one of the poverty texts that I chose for the interviews amongst people living in poverty today. A more detailed study will be forthcoming in my book on the same subject. In these interviews, I listened to the stories of the villagers as well as their interpretations of the Gospel texts and documented them on a voice recorder. Findings from this field research amongst the poor living in villages in Tanzania in the spring of 2010 will be studied further and then compared to current biblical scholarly investigations concerning the poverty texts. One example text, Matthew 6:2534, will be presented here from a contextual standpoint, that is, from the perspective of the materially poor.
The field research in Tanzanian villages
One contemporary setting to read the poverty texts within the context of poverty is Tanzania. In many places in Africa, especially in rural areas, people still live in a pre-industrial, agrarian society. In many villages, there is no electricity and virtually no motor vehicles or telephones. Some tribes still live in a gatherer society whilst some tribes are nomadic. But most of the rural people are peasants who make their living from agriculture. They have tiny fields and a small number of cattle that affords them, in normal times, a modest living for themselves and their families. Most people do not produce anything for sale and almost nobody gets a salary. Also, in recent times HIV and AIDS has struck the African continent, especially sub-Saharan Africa, more heavily than any other part of the world, making, at worst, one in every four adults HIV-positive (UNAIDS 2008).2
I chose to focus on the villages in the Iringa district in the middle of Tanzania because of my earlier contacts in the area and the support of the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission Society as well as Tumaini University. Their familiarity with village life in the district was very useful when arranging visits to local villages where people speak mainly Swahili and their own tribal languages, like Hehe, Bena or Kinga.3
The focus during the visits to the villages was twofold. Firstly, I wanted to become familiar with the social structure of the village. I asked the village chief or executive secretary the following kinds of questions:
How many people live in the village?
Do all villagers belong to the same tribe or kin?
What do villagers do for a living? What professions or occupations do they have?
How many villagers work outside of the village?
How and why, do villagers keep contact with neighbouring villages and towns?
What are the major problems in the village?4
In light of the issues regarding land ownership in the gospels it was especially interesting to learn that in Tanzania, the land was appropriated by the state in the 1960s. The older generation still remembers the time when the land was either owned by a tribe or by kin, or was free to anyone. Nowadays people pay rent for the land they want to cultivate. This data works not only as a necessary context for reading the poverty texts with the villagers, but offers a comparison to the hypothesis regarding the origins of Q, namely that it was supposed to have originated in the Galilean villages where loss of land was prevalent.
Secondly and most importantly, I discussed the poverty texts with the villagers. I call this discussion a 'reading' but the texts were not read from a book with leather covers, but rather performed in narrative style. In Tanzania the oral culture and narrative tradition is still alive and well. By telling the stories from memory I tended to get their first reactions, which may have been different had I simply read to them from the Bible. Some of the villagers were non-Christians, so they were not too closely acquainted with the stories beforehand. Even the Christians heard the stories differently compared to the way they heard them from pastors and evangelists or even in liturgical sermons. I had hoped to have a lively discussion of the poverty stories in the Gospels and that I most certainly did. Often the religious authorities (a pastor, an evangelist or some other religious leader) were present, but I politely asked them not to take part in the discussions, given that they are professionals and I wanted to hear the voices of ordinary people. They agreed to my request and were politely quiet, but I usually had to visit their home afterwards so that they did not feel left out. I also asked the people gathered at the meeting place to set aside their understanding of the story if they had already heard it and to listen as if they were hearing it for the first time in their lives. At each meeting, there were 2050 people present from both genders and all ages and approximately 1015 of them took part in any given discussion.
At this point, there are some things that I ask the reader to keep in mind before reading the following field report section. As a foreigner in mid-Tanzania, with a different way of life, I come from a completely different world than the one they inhabit. Some of them had never seen a White person before. I did not speak their language and had to rely on a translator, who belonged to one of their own tribes. As an outsider I was treated politely and perhaps regarded with some authority given that, in every situation, I was given the seat of honour directly beside the village chief or some other authorities. There is a big difference when an outsider arrives in a village and leads a discussion compared to someone that they know doing the same thing. I had to ask many questions in order to gain an understanding of village life; an understanding that I am sure was quite different from their own lived reality. An outsider usually sees things more from an overall viewpoint than insiders do.
Village life in Kinywang'anga
The village of Kinywang'anga was one of my first sites. I had initially chosen to perform the story of The Rich Man and Lazarus, Luke 16:1931, but after discussing with the village 'executive secretary',5 the text seemed inappropriate to village life. Even in terms of the Bible the story is located in a more urban setting. In Kinywang'anga, nobody had luxurious clothes and it would have been hard for them to imagine that there were any such people who could have eaten so well as the rich man in the story. The village was one of the poorest in the area. It consisted of approximately 1000 inhabitants who all made a living from their own little farms of generally 0.54 hectares. Almost all of them would be considered peasant farmers, which is how they saw themselves as well. There is one primary school with five teachers. Although the teachers received government pay, each also had a small farm with some cattle. In addition to the teachers there were two religious leaders in the village, one a Lutheran evangelist and the other an Anglican priest; each of them also had farms. There were no other professions amongst the inhabitants of the village and no one goes to work outside of the village.
People from three different tribes, the Hehe, Bena and Kinga, live in Kinywang'anga. These tribal names are also the names of the languages spoken in the village. There are no cars in the village. There is only one tractor and a few bicycles. Despite the lack of transportation, people make weekly visits to neighbouring villages to meet with relatives and friends and sometimes to try and find medical treatment. Health care poses serious problems as there is no transportation and the distance to the nearest health centre or hospital is extensive.
People in Kinywang'anga are totally dependent on the products of the earth. If there is no rain, there is no crop and they are in danger of starvation; the last time this happened was in 2000. Other catastrophes might destroy the crop as well. There were no barns or other store houses in the village which may have enabled them to keep surpluses to use during hard times or to sell as a way of providing additional income. However, the village grows sunflowers, which are pressed for their oil and sometimes sold to people travelling the main road that goes 3 kilometres out from the village. Two years ago a water pipe system was built for them, so now they have a place from which to fetch water. There is no electricity in the village.
The villagers live in traditional African clay houses with grass roofs and they are very poorly dressed. Many people had no shoes. However, the women were dressed in colourful textiles for the meeting with me, carrying babies tied on their backs. Approximately 50% of the population comprises children.6 According to the standards of the World Bank, the people in Kinywang'anga live in absolute poverty, that is, under $1.25 a day (The World Bank Group 2010).
Do not worry in Kinywang'anga (Mt 6:2534)
After learning all of this background information, I decided to change the Gospel passage to be performed to Matthew 6:2534, the Do Not Worry passage.7 I thought it was a very challenging story in the context of life in Kinywang'anga, where people sometimes have no food at all, clothing is meager and they have enjoyed the 'pure'8 water from the pipes for only a couple of years now. Most years they have enough food, but it is quite simple and not very nutritious. Most probably the situation in 1st century Galilee (or in any rural environment in the Roman Empire) would not have been any better, but it certainly could not have been much worse. In Kinywang'anga the context for this gospel passage is totally different compared to my own country of Finland as well as most Western countries and perhaps closer to the conditions experienced by those living in 1st century Galilean villages.
The meeting took place in an outside area in the shade. During the time of year that we met, the 'flowers of the field' were very beautiful and everything was green; the 'birds of the air' flew over us and sang (Mt 6:26, 28).
A lively discussion followed the performance of the text. The discussion was opened by an elderly man who said that, 'Maybe Jesus spoke these words, because he found that the people had very little faith. He wanted to teach them about faith'. I suppose that what the man meant by 'faith', was, trust in God's care, but I am not sure. Another man said, 'Jesus found people so keen on material things, that they forgot the spiritual things and God. They were concerned about food, clothes and other things, but not God'. A woman said that if someone came to say such words to her, she would think that this person has something dishonest in mind.
'It would be better if somebody would tell me a better way how I could manage my life in order to get things and not to say "Do not worry"'.
Another continued and said that such a person would be considered 'mentally disabled' by the villagers. The Lutheran evangelist interjected, saying that:
'Some worry is understandable, because we need many things, but one should not worry about things that are beyond one's ability to influence or control, for example weather. It is, however, good to plan your future'.
When I asked if they knew anyone who did not worry about tomorrow, they strongly denied knowing such a person. The same elderly man who started the discussion, said: 'Jesus knew the people and their problems and needs, so he wanted to give them a change, a new perspective, a new way of thinking'. I asked, what would happen, if they stopped worrying about daily food and drink and clothing and just trusted in God? Someone said that then life would be very bad. Another said that it is a matter of faith. If the people believed what Jesus said and stopped working they would have thought everything comes automatically, without human involvement, if they just believed. A young woman with a baby said:
'The speech of Jesus must have divided the people in two groups: others had faith and thought that "this is true, why worry", whilst the others thought "this is not possible". Faith is the main topic of Jesus' speech'.
One man said that if you trust God, you will have everything you need.
In further discussion over sodas, we found a solution together for this problematic text. If a person is worried, they soon become depressed and are not a joy to their friends and relatives. It is therefore better not to worry too much about worldly things that you cannot do anything about, but instead to rejoice with family and friends for all the good we have.
Most of the scholarly commentators of the Do Not Worry text do not discuss it in the context of the poor, although some features in the saying refer to this issue.9 For example, Jesus speaks of the grass of the field that is thrown into an oven. The poor often used grass as a fuel in the oven to cook bread, because wood was so scarce (Malina & Rohrbaugh 2003:51). Also, the figure of Gentiles as 'striving for all these things' is understandable in a context where Gentiles usually represent the rich who have better and easier lifestyles than local villagers.10
It is important to note that the religious and cultural memory of the people in Kinywang'anga is not identical with the social memory of the 1st century Galilean villagers. Key terms in the passage such as 'heavenly Father', 'Solomon in all his splendor', 'Gentiles', 'strive first for his kingdom and his righteousness', would have resonated with 1st century Jewish listeners differently from the Tanzanian poor, who would be without an important context for understanding the passage.
In Kinywang'anga it became clear to me that the Do Not Worry passage makes no sense at all in a village where people are living in ongoing poverty. The villagers tried to find a spiritual message in the saying, maybe because it was not reasonable to live a careless life, as Jesus seemed to be advising. They interpreted the saying in the light of the Kingdom of God (v. 33), which they seemed to have understood within a spiritual context.
But what about people who have already lost the basic necessities that were needed for living: the sources of food and drink (field, cattle), access to water supply (such as a well) and the possibility of making or purchasing adequate clothing? In Kinywang'anga I met one person who fit this description; he was a young man behaving strangely, dressed even more poorly than the villagers and seemingly suffering from one or more severe illness. According to the locals he was mentally ill.
During the spring of 2010 I also visited the Palestinian territories in the West Bank. Although I did not read this particular passage with the Palestinians, I discussed the Kingdom of God with them. As Muslims their understanding was also spiritual, but compared to the people in Kinywang'anga, their understanding was much more concrete. The Kingdom of God for them was 'doing God's will' and therefore not only a spiritual entity. Quite the contrary, the Palestinians, who suffered from injustice by the Israelites, understood the Kingdom of God as a movement of oppressed people who have God as their shelter when they do God's will. The Kingdom of God was equivalent to the intifada.
William R. Herzog II (2010) has written:
In the hierarchy of rural life, then, there are two thresholds at which peasants may lose their previous status, and it is at these moments that they will resist their decline most fiercely.
(Herzog II 2010:5152)
Quoting James C. Scott (1976), he concludes that:
When threatened with the loss of their land and the security of their village, they will form movements and perhaps even rebel. The same is true when peasants reach the second, more desperate threshold, 'when the subsistence guarantees within dependency collapse', and the relative stability of tenancy gives way to the perilous life of a day laborer.
(James C. Scott 1976:3940)
This had obviously not happened in Kinywang'anga, where most people still had the security offered by village life and their small farms. In the Palestinian territories, in contrast, the people had suffered from injustice and loss of land. The life of many Palestinians had become very difficult. In that context it is much easier to imagine how they would react to the exhortation 'Do Not Worry'. Especially young men would eagerly join any movement resisting the unjust oppressor. They could stop worrying about the questions of daily life and strive for the movement that they believed brings justice, peace and welfare.11
The context of do not worry in the gospels
In the Gospels we can find three groups where Jesus' words on not worrying about daily life could have been understood and maybe even hailed as good news. The first one is the group of landless peasants, who had quite recently lost all their property to some rich landowners, probably absentee landlords, as a result of debts they were not able to pay. Such people would have quickly fallen under the sustenance level and their future was either to become slaves, beggars, criminals, bandits or some other social outcast. These are just the kind of people who might form movements for resistance.
If the group believed that their plight triggered an eschatological turn in the immediate future, some kind of a collapse of the normal system of social stratification leading to the possibility of shared goods, they could have heard the words of Jesus as a proclamation of power. However, in the literal context of Matthew's gospel there are no clear indications that the words should be understood this way. The Do Not Worry passage is a part of the Sermon on the Mount and although the Gospel of Matthew also contains an apocalypse later in chapter 24, it would be a stretch to read the chapter 6 passage in light of this. Rather, the verbal context of Matthew leads one to think about one's relation to property rather than to the end times. Preceding Mattew 6:2534 the evangelist talks about almsgiving (6:14), prayer, including central petitions concerning daily living (6:515), fasting (6:1618),12 storing property or treasures (6:1921), envy, or the evil eye (6:2223)13 and the impossibility of serving both God and Mammon (6:24). In chapter 7, the themes change from property to one's relationships with other people.
Therefore, it seems to me that, at least in its Matthean context, Jesus' words would not have made sense as an eschatological proclamation. In the context of Q this might have been possible, but the sequence of Q (its different phases and the social context of Q) are still debated so much that it is not possible to enter into that discussion in this article.
The second possible group for whom Jesus' Do Not Worry saying would have been understandable was in a group made up of 'itinerant charismatic preachers'. The earliest followers of Jesus were supposedly people living in Galilean villages where Jesus' proclamation of the Kingdom of God was welcomed and understood as a liberating action that would soon free them from subjugation to the Roman Empire. Heavy taxation, wars, punishments and other consequences of the occupation were a tremendous burden on the peasant population. The message of the Kingdom of God was spread from village to village by Jesus' disciples, who had left their earlier lives (whether voluntarily or under pressure) and lived solely on the support of villagers who accepted the movement's message. These are the people that were sent to proclaim the Kingdom of God without carrying a purse, a bag or sandals (Lk 10:112).14
Itinerant, wandering charismatic preachers did not need to work for their living. They did not have to worry about their living in the same way that peasants who were dependent on their crops did. They adopted a lifestyle, which made them free from worries concerning agricultural production. Therefore, they were like the birds in the sky. They trusted the benevolence of the people in the villages that they visited, some of whom might have been their relatives or friends (the most popular reason for going to nearby villages and towns for Tanzanian villagers is to visit relatives and friends). However, this interpretation also fits much better in the rural context of Q and not so well into the more urban context of the Gospel of Matthew.15 Also, Matthew places the Q material concerning the itinerant preachers elsewhere in the Gospel, not in the Sermon on the Mount.
It is still important to know that Matthew, when including material from Q into his Gospel, took these texts as a larger entity of texts dealing with property and poverty and placed them in Jesus' longest speech in chapters 57.
The third group of people for whom the Do Not Worry saying makes sense can be found in the immediate context of the speech. The geographical context was naturally the city where the Gospel of Matthew was written. The majority of modern scholars locate the gospel geographically to Syria16 and suggest that it was written in Antioch, the third largest city of the Roman Empire at the time (e.g. Meier 1982:2227; Luz 1985:7374; Stambauch & Balch 1986:145; Stark 1996:147162; Brown 1997:21213; Carter 2008:21).17
Andries van Aarde (2007) writes:
The Matthean Jesus' exposure of the power of the Roman Empire (and that of the Temple authorities) does not mean that Gentiles are excluded from God's inclusive basileia or that the marginalized now included were only Israelite peasants. The 'lost sheep of the house of Israel' pertain to both Israelites and non-Israelites and include people such as:
- the economically poor who are without family support (such as those referred to in Mt 19:21),
- the socially homeless (such as a 'partriarchless' woman divorced by her husband in Mt 19:9 and the children without parents mentioned in Mt 19:1315),
- and ethnic outcasts (such as the Canaanite mother in Mt 15:2128 and the Roman centurion in Mt 8:513 and Mt 27:54).
Seen from the perspective of Israel as a covenantal family, the above group were marginalized and those were the kind of people who could be among the crowds that followed Jesus 'from Galilee and the Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from across the Jordan' (Mt 4:23). They were those who were granted God's goodness because of God's righteousness, the 'last who became the first' (Mt 20:115).
(Van Aarde 2007:423)
In light of understanding the Gospel of Matthew as proclaiming the Kingdom of God, not only as anti-Roman, but also inclusive of the marginalised people, both Israelites and non-Israelites, the Do Not Worry saying makes sense in its Matthean context and becomes more understandable from the viewpoint of the poor. The poor in the Gospel of Matthew were not ordinary Israelite peasants living in small farms, but people with no family support and no home and even from different ethnic origins. According to Matthew, they formed the audience of the Sermon on the Mount (4:2325). Jesus says to them that they should first strive for the kingdom of God and his righteousness. When these outcasts are accepted as true members of the family-like community of Jesus' followers, they do not have to worry about their future, because they will be the 'last who became the first'. The community will take care of their material needs.
Choosing Kinywang'anga as a test case for reading the Do Not Worry exhortation was challenging: I did not have any idea how the poor peasant farmers in the village would comprehend the passage. I must say that it was first a disappointment that they did not seem to understand it any better than I did. The saying made no sense in their context. However, the test case study helped me to see that most probably it was as difficult to understand in 1st century Galilean villages as in an African village nearly 2000 years later. The poor who first heard these words were not poor peasants still working in their tiny fields and worrying about daily sustenance. However, if these kind of people lose their security as a result of oppression (that is 'persecution' in the New Testament), as has happened in the West Bank, the exhortation becomes empowering for them in uniting them for struggle for their own rights.
With the example of Kinywang'anga I wanted to show the usefulness to biblical scholarship, to say nothing of the necessity, of getting to know people living in poverty and to understand their living conditions. Of course, Tanzania is not 1st century Palestine. It is, however, much closer to it than the Western world where most scholarly work on the Bible is done. For me my visits to the African villages gave me new insights into the Bible and helped me to understand how large the cultural gap is between our world and the New Testament World of the poor. Did I gain a better understanding of the poverty texts? No, quite the contrary. Unfortunately, it is not possible to present more examples here, but it is my hope that the one presented in this article makes it clear how hard it is to understand the words of Jesus or the evangelists, not to speak of applying those words to our own modern lives.
Brown, R.E., 1997, An introduction to the New Testament, Doubleday, New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Auckland. (The Anchor Bible Reference Library). [ Links ]
Carter, W., 2008, Matthew, storyteller, interpreter, evangelist, rev. edn., second printing, Hendrickson, Peabody, Massachusetts. [ Links ]
Funk, R.W., Hoover, R.W. & the Jesus Seminar, 1993, The five gospels: What did Jesus really say? The search for the authentic words of Jesus, MacMillan, New York. [ Links ]
Hanson, K.C. & Oakman, D.E., 2008, Palestine in the time of Jesus: Social structures and social conflicts, 2nd edn., Fortress Press, Minneapolis. [ Links ]
Herzog, W., 2010, 'Why peasants responded to Jesus', in R.A. Horsley (ed.), Christian Origins. A people's history of Christianity 1, pp. 47-70, Fortress Press, Minneapolis. [ Links ]
Hoffmann, P., 1972, Studien zur Theologie der Logienquelle, Neutestamentliche Abhandlungen, Neue Folge 8., Verlag Aschendorff, Münster. [ Links ]
Horsley, R.A., 2008, Jesus in context: Power, people & performance, Fortress Press, Minneapolis. [ Links ]
Kloppenborg Verbin, J.S., 2000, Excavating Q: The history and setting of the Sayings Gospel, Fortress Press, Minneapolis. [ Links ]
Luz, U., 1985, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus 1 (Mt 17). Evangelisch-Katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament. Band I/1., Benziger Verlag, Zürich, Einsiedeln, Köln; Neukirchener Verlag des Erziehungsvereins GmbH, Neukirchen-Vluyn. [ Links ]
Malina, B., 2001, The New Testament world: Insights from cultural anthropology, 3rd edn., revised and expanded, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Kentucky. [ Links ]
Malina, B.J. & Rohrbaugh, R.L., 2003, Social-science commentary on the synoptic gospels, 2nd edn., Fortress Press, Minneapolis. [ Links ]
Meier, J.P., 1982, 'Antioch', in R. Brown & J.P. Meier (eds.), Antioch and Rome: New Testament cradles of Catholic Christianity, pp. 1186, Chapman, London. [ Links ]
Meier, J.P., 2001, A marginal Jew: Rethinking the historical Jesus. Volume three: Companions and competitors, The Anchor Bible reference library, Doubleday, New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Auckland. [ Links ]
Nolland, J., 2005, The gospel of Matthew: The new international Greek Testament commentary, Eerdmans Publishing co., Grand Rapids, Michigan and Paternoster Press, London. [ Links ]
Overman, J.A., 1996, Church and community in crisis: The gospel according to Matthew, The New Testament in context, Trinity Press International, Valley Forge, PA. [ Links ]
Sanders, E.P., 1985, Jesus and Judaism, SCM Press, London. [ Links ]
Sato, M., 1988, Q und Prophetie: Studien zur Gattungs- und Traditionsgeschichte d. Quelle Q., WUNT 2,29, Mohr, Tübingen. [ Links ]
Scott, J.C., 1976, The moral economy of the peasant: Rebellion and subsistence in southeast Asia, Yale University Press, New Haven. [ Links ]
Shah, A., 2009, Poverty facts and stats, viewed 05 April 2010 from http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats. [ Links ]
Stambauch, J.E. & Balch, D.L., 1986, The New Testament in its social environment, Library of early Christianity, Westminster Press, Philadelphia. [ Links ]
Stark, R., 1996, The rise of christianity: A sociologist reconsiders history, Princeton University Press, New Jersey. [ Links ]
UNAIDS, 2008, 'Report on the global AIDS epidemic', viewed 05 April 2010, from http://www.unaids.org/en/KnowledgeCentre/HIVData/GlobalReport/2008/2008_Global_report.asp. [ Links ]
Van Aarde, A.G., 2007, Jesus' mission to all of Israel emplotted in Matthew's story, Neotestamentica 41(2), 416436. [ Links ]
Van Tilborg, S., 1972, The Jewish leaders in Matthew, Brill, Leiden. [ Links ]
Pikku-kaari 20 B, 70420 Kuopio, Finland
Received: 23 Apr. 2010
Accepted: 16 Aug. 2010
Published: 07 June 2011
Note: Dr Sakari Häkkinen is participating as a research associate of Prof. Dr Andries G. van Aarde, Honorary Professor at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Pretoria, South Africa.
1.The work of the Jesus Seminar resulted in the publication of Funk, Hoover and the Jesus Seminar 1993. Not even this work, even though born from the co-operation of numerous biblical scholars, represents the final truth on what the historical Jesus once said. The debate still goes on.
2.According to the 2007 estimations of UNAIDS (a joint United Nations and World Health Organization program on HIV and AIDS) in the southern parts of Africa of the adult population (1549) 25% 28% were infected by HIV. In the Tanzanian area I visited, the estimation was the worst in the country, 15.7% of the adult population.
3.I am very grateful to Tumaini University for assigning two assistants, Rev. Aleck Mhanga and Rev. Yekonia Koko to me as well as for the use of a car during my stay in mid-Tanzania.
4.The data I acquired in the field has been tabulated, but is not presented here for practical reasons.
5.Kinywang'anga's village chief was not present. I was told that he might join us later (or perhaps he had something else to do). I did not meet him at all. Instead, the executive secretary gave me all the information I needed and I noticed that he also had some authority in the village and was considered to be one of the wealthiest men in the village with his herd of 25 cows. In my opinion, the 'executive secretary' in every Tanzanian village is the modern equivalent of the 'scribes' in Galilean villages. Both the executive secretaries and the Galilean scribes (and later rabbis) were responsible for the village archives and official documents. See Hanson and Oakman (2008:166167).
6.The office of the village chief was quite stark. It had a table and a chair, a wooden bench and a tiny shelf, that seemed to hold some papers and a huge cardboard box containing condoms!
7.The saying is originally from Q and thus is also in Luke 12:2234. Parts of the text can be found also in P. Oxy p. 655, which contains saying 36 of the Gospel of Thomas.
8.Visitors and foreigners in Tanzania are advised not to drink the water that comes out of these pipes.
9.For example, Meier (2001:517) takes for granted that Jesus is warning about the dangers of wealth, as if the people worrying about their daily life would seek wealth. This seemed not to have been the situation amongst the villagers in Kinywang'anga. Nolland (2005:305316) speaks about 'hard work to earn enough to purchase the cloth' and 'Jesus can assume that his hearers will share his aesthetic judgment that natural beauty outshines the most artful of human productions'.
10.This came to me when I was visiting the villages. As a foreigner, I was viewed by them as being 'rich'.
11.There were also some Muslims attending the discussion in Kinywang'anga, but they did not differ from the other villagers in terms of their attitude to work or worrying.
12.From a poor person's perspective, fasting is a very interesting phenomenon. If people were already poor and were enduring what amounted to forced fasting, Jesus' advice to put oil on their heads and to wash their faces must have sounded very strange indeed. The saying is more suited to an urban environment and possibly in a society whose members are not suffering from poverty.
13.The concept of the 'evil eye' referred to envy (Malina 2001:108133).
14.The synoptic sayings source Q was probably composed and used by Galilean villagers from several villages that formed a network consisting of twofold followers of Jesus: itinerant missionaries and settled disciples of Jesus (e.g. Hoffmann 1972:329333; Sato 1988:379380). For other scholars promoting the wandering (charismatic) missionaries and their localised allies (or leaders?), see Kloppenborg Verbin (2000:179184; deviating claims: 184196).
15.The gospel was most probably written for a community living in an urban environment. Urban locale may be suggested by 26 uses in the Gospel of 'city' compared to four of 'village' (Brown 1997:212).
16.Syria is added in Matthew 4:24 to Mark's description of Jesus' activity. Also, the early Jewish Gospel of the Nazarenes, which is related to Matthew, circulated in Syria. In Syria, the Jesus-believing Jews were called 'Nazoraioi', the Greek term used in Matthew 2:23 (Luz 1985:74; Brown 1997:212).
17.The main arguments for Antioch are (1) Ignatius of Antioch seems to have known and probably cited the Gospel of Matthew (the citation is not clearly from Matthew, however); (2) The Didache quotes Matthew and is located by most scholars in Antioch; (3) The first two chapters of the Fourth Ezra (later known as the Fifth Ezra) quoted from Matthew; (4) Antioch as a Greek-speaking city that had a relatively large Jewish population fits well with the conditions mentioned in the Jewish Gospel written to a mixed audience in Greek and; (5) The dominant influence that Matthew's gospel would have in subsequent Christianity suggests that it served as the Gospel of a major Christian church in an important city, such as Antioch. According to Brown (1997:213), the most persuasive evidence stems from the correspondence of the internal evidence. Brown argues quite convincingly that the gospel was addressed to a once strongly Jewish Christian church that had become increasingly Gentile in composition and J.P. Meier has shown how the history of Christianity in Antioch fits that situation. There were probably more Jews in Antioch than in any other place in Syria and their ceremonies attracted many Gentiles (Josephus, War 7.3.3). Also, Paul's mission to the Gentiles began in Antioch, but the community there seems to have later been led by more conservative Jews, as Paul lost the battle (described in Gl 2) and departed Antioch in the 50s. Overman (1996:1617) suggests a Galilean city (perhaps Capernaum or Sepphoris), followed by at least D. Harrington, A.J. Saldarini and A. Segal (who thinks both a Galilean environment and Antioch are possible). Galilee belonged formally to Syria. Tilborg (1972) suggests Alexandria, but Overman (1617) quite convincingly denies this possibility. Overman also provides other suggestions given by scholars on the location of the Gospel, but thinks them improbable. The earliest references to the Gospel according to Matthew by the Church Fathers imply a Palestinian location.


Climate change has already pushed the nation's wildlife into crisis, according to a report released Wednesday from the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), and further catastrophe, including widespread extinction, can only be curbed with swift action to curb the carbon pollution that has the planet sweltering.
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