Uiltimate Reality Ultimate Reality What is real? What is the ultimate reality of life, and the ultimate purpose of life? This question has plagued men across centuries, cultures and continents for the duration of recorded history. From the caves of indigenous people to the elaborate churches in western civilizations, men have looked for a connection to Something larger than themselves in order to give their lives ultimate meaning and reality. In Mary

However, Edersheim also points out that Jews were more child-centered than their contemporary cultures. One example of the Jewish reverence for children is that only Jews and one other culture had prohibitions against infanticide, while other cultures openly permitted the practice. In chapter seven, Edersheim goes on to discuss the raising of Jewish children. Different ages of children had different roles and expectations. Children learned early on the protection of

However, certain elements of traditional Christian theology are centered on Mary, and the degree of emphasis that those elements receive can be very telling about Mary's actual role in the religion. For example, the connection between female chastity and religious observance seems to have been established by God's choice of a Virgin to carry his son. God did not have to choose a virgin to bear his child, but

high degree of misinformation I had received from traditional teachings about the church and the beginning of Christianity. Moreover, I was struck by the notion that most other people in the Western world receive this same degree of intentional misinformation, so much so that I have even heard people defend the idea that knowledge of the historical church is irrelevant to modern Christianity. Reading through the class material, I

At this point in the declaration, the sentiments of the church become very expressive -- "The Church... cannot forget that she received the revelation of the Old Testament through the people with whom God... concluded the Ancient Covenant;" thus, "most of the early disciples who proclaimed Christ's gospel to the world, sprang from the Jewish people." This declaration then concludes by focusing on the status of the Jewish people in

Dead Sea Scrolls According to Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, the Dead Sea Scrolls, since their discovery in the Judaean desert and their arrival at the various institutions that retain them today, have created "a contradiction. . . between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith" and have indicated "how explosive a non-partisan examination of the scrolls might be for the whole of Christian theological tradition" (xii). With this in