Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code is a world renowned novel known for its controversial depiction of the Catholic church and the use of secret societies to tell his fictitious tale of finding one of the world’s most famous artifacts. A devout Monk, Silas, of Opus Dei (a secret Catholic Society) is sent by an unknown Teacher to find the hidden location of the famous Holy Grail in Paris. After confirming the location with 3 members of the Priory of Sion (keepers of the Holy Grail), Silas shoots Jacques Sauniere, the master of the secret society. Unbeknownst to him, all the members, including Sauniere, had given him a false location.…
His face and hands are hidden, but the wounds from crucifixion on his feet reveal his identity. This is Jesus Christ in his worst trying to cling on…
Christ is surrounded by a man, eagle, ox, and a lion, symbolizing Matthew, John, Luke, and Mark, the four gospel writers. (St. Louis Art Museum. “Lancet Redemption Window”) The “Lancet…
The crowded setting around Jesus suggests all those who believed in Christ, and followed Him. This whole scene shows the Savior’s willingness to serve, and do His father’s will, and to show man the glories of His father. Bloch simply wanted to make a beautiful story come to life in a sense. I believe the message of this artwork is simple, it beckons for us to come unto Christ, follow Him, and be healed. This painting shows Christ’s compassion, and His power, and leaves the viewer feeling hope, and feeling reassured that all things are possible through Him.…
This symbol represents the power of the divine to allow human reason to bring man to recognize his sin and turn from error. The men now…
The Cross and the Lynching Tree, by James Cone is a masterful telling of the spiritual symbols important to many African Americans, not only surrounding their faith journey, but in their daily lives as well. Amidst the terror of systematic racism and violence, Cone still seems to find hope for his people vis a vie the lynching tree. In the aforementioned quote, Cone is saying that the cross can represent power for African Americans. That although it represents torcher, pain, and death, it is also represents an element of liberation.…
I learned a great deal about the nature of my faith from this semester due to my study of the Gospel of John. The stories in the gospel are so important for modern Christianity because the obstacles to a strong faith were generally the same in the time of Jesus as they are now. The most evident issue to me is the need for people to see the work of God with their own eyes. Therefore, their faith is contingent upon them being able to see the works of God which defeats the whole purpose of Faith. There are two books within the Gospel of John that display this issue and many others.…
“The Great Commandment” On October 12, 2014, I attended the morning service at Beulah Baptist Church in Statesville, North Carolina. The service normally starts around 10:30 a.m. and ends a little after twelve o’clock. On that particular day, the service was divided into three parts: a baptism, the praise and worship service and finally the sermon. Dr. Coite Sherrill conducted the worship service and my pastor, Dr. Allen Roberts, delivered the sermon.…
In “The Birth-Mark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the main character- Aylmer- attempts to remove his wife’s birth-mark through his scientific experiments. His wife, Georgiana first saw the birth-mark as beautiful, but Aylmer convinced his wife that it was horrid and must be immediately removed. Aylmer and the assistant working in his laboratory attempt to rid Georgiana of her birth-mark. Eventually, Aylmer’s work becomes a success as it rids Georgiana of her birth-mark, but she dies because of the concoction. The laboratory is a major setting of the story that represents important ideas from the text as a symbol.…
Aylmer is obsessed about the birthmark. He is a man obsessed with attaining divine perfection, he becomes unreasonably fixated on his wife's one apparent imperfection, going so far as unconsciously wanting to kill her just to dispose of it. For him, it symbolizes mortality and sin and comes to tower over Georgiana’s beauty in his mind. He can think of nothing else. The birthmark is on the left cheek in the shape of a human hand.…
The Dead Kennedys were one of the United States’s most influential hardcore punk bands, and were composed of Jello Biafra (Eric Reed Boucher) on vocals, East Bay Ray (Raymond Pepperell) on guitar, Klaus Flouride (Geoffrey Lyall) on bass, Ted (Bruce Slesinge) on drums, and finally 6025 (Carlos Cadona) on rhythm guitar. Not only were they influential in their style, but they caused stirs by the extreme and controversial nature of their political statements. The band formed in San Francisco in 1978; the city was a breeding ground for provocative art at the time as it was a hub for hippies, radicals, outcasts, and the drugs they brought with them.…
“The Birth-Mark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a story sets itself apart from the many others already read during this semester. Most of the short stories read in this class have had an ironic ending the reader wouldn’t expect. The use of foreshadowing and strange amount of predictability in this short story are what set it apart from others and is what grabbed my attention. Hawthorne uses symbolism that goes even deeper than what can be read in the story itself. Symbolism, foreshadowing, and character build up all tie into the plot, which altogether leads the reader to the overall theme of the story.…
Water, one of the highest of holy rebirth references in existence. In The Road by Cormac McCarthy the two characters, the boy and the man, take a long journey, including a struggle of death versus life shown through the use of symbols to represent both sides of the struggle. One of the heaviest symbols in the novel is McCarthy's use of biblical references in many forms to portray feelings of hope and rebirth/resurrection, while also showing filth and irony in that of the water in the new yet extinct world. McCarthy presents the symbol of water in a very Biblical rich manor. “One day Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee, and John baptized him in the Jordan River.…
The Eucharist is like food for the soul. Much like normal foods and drinks, the Body and blood of Christ keeps us from getting hungry and thirsty. This advertisement that I have created uses many colours symbols and words which will persuade the people of Liverpool to recognise the Catholic Eucharist as an essential part of everyday life. The colours used in my advertisement vary in range of black to white, but only a few are essential in this advertisement. These include Amber, Purple, White and Black.…
The Gospel of Matthew 1. Who was Matthew, and why was he qualified to write a book in the Bible? 1. Matthew was a tax collector who became a disciple of Jesus (Strauss, 2011, p. 5531). It is believed that he wrote the book of Matthew. He was more than qualified to write a book in the Bible because “as a tax collector, Matthew no doubt would have been proficient in both Aramaic and Greek” and would have been highly organized.…