Duncan Macleod on faith and culture
Bodog Entertainment has released a steamy viral video featuring the fantasies of the young male viewers in Bodog’s sights: boobs and football. A young man sits in his bedroom, reading a magazine. His bedroom door rattles, opening to allow the entry of a scantily clad young woman. She walks straight up to his bed, forcing him on to his back. As she removes her top he stares in wonder at the fantasy foobs… The tagline: “There’s a fantasy for everyone”.
“Reconciliation is a story about all of us and it’s a lot bigger than they say.” That’s the tagline in a nationwide advertising campaign promoting a conversation on the importance of reconciliation between indigenous and other Australians. “Too Big a Story” marks the 40th anniversary of the 1967 referendum, which saw Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians counted in the national census of the population, for the first time.
Continue reading “Reconciliation Too Big A Story for Australia”
Panadol Extra was promoted in Singapore with this set of print advertisements suggesting situations of extreme stress: a smashed motorbike, a ruined drum, and a guitar smashed into a front-loading washing machine.
Fernet 1882, a new brand of amaro produced by Porta Hermanos, is associated with a series of quirky TV ads in Argentina. This recent advertisement promotes Fernet 1882 with a male choir responding to the flow of the liquor. As the choir assembles, the numerals for 1882 appear one at a time on the screen. With a series of one-syllable words the men launch into a celebration of their favourite drink. Up in the control box a technician turns taps to direct the flow of foam from the heads of the back row, creating an effect to the Mentos/Diet Coke experiements. The spot finishes with fireworks.
Queensland University of Technology, (QUT) in Brisbane, is appealing to a sense of adventure and exploration in young adults with ‘Go There’, a TV ad designed for Gen Y launched in July 2007. Students, staff and alumni kick a small ‘earth ball’ around the world, finding themselves in locations such as England, Egypt, India (Taj Mahal), the United States (Cape Canaveral), and Africa.
Dan Brown, in The Da Vinci Code, has Robert Langdon telling Sophie Neveu that early Judaism involved ritualistic sex performed in the temple.
“Early Jews believed that the Holy of Holies in Solomon’s Temple housed not only God but also His powerful female equal, Shekinah. Men seeking spiritual wholeness came to the Temple to visit priestesses – or hierodules – with whom they made love and experienced the divine through physical union. The Jewish tetragrammaton YHWH – the sacred name of God – in fact derived from Jehovah, an androgynous physical union between the masculine Jah and the pre-Hebraic name for Eve, Havah.”
Nice bit of fiction. Of course it doesn’t link with the evidence available to us.
1. The early days of Judaism began after the destruction of the temple. Up to that point the followers of YWHW were known as Israelites.
2. The idea of God having a female equal would never have caught on in the strongly monotheistic Judaism.
3. The practice of sex in the temple of YHWH is never described in the Hebrew scriptures.
4. The Hebrew word, שכינה¸.transliterated as ‘Shekinah’, refers to settling, being present. While the word has feminine qualities, there is no sense of it being expressed in a feminine deity.
5. The word ‘Jehovah’ is a European translation of י ה ו ה (YHWH), providing vowels where the Hebrew language did not. It was not used until the fifteenth century BCE.
6. YHWH is more likely to be associated with ‘YH’ (god) and a root referring to being.
7. The practice of visiting hierodules or temple prostitutes is associated with many ancient civilisations, including ancient Greece and Anatolia. It was likely to be common in Canaan and Babylon – a temptation faced by Hebrews living in those places. The prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel 43:7-9) condemns the practice.
