text:
versión On-line ISSN 2305-445X
Scriptura vol.116 Stellenbosch 2017
http://dx.doi.org/10.7833/116-2-1318
Read as/with the perpetrator: Manasseh's vulnerability in 2 Kings 21:1-18 and 2 Chronicles 33:1-20
Gerrie F. Snyman
University of South Africa
This essay explores Manasseh's vulnerability in both narratives in terms of the current reader's own vulnerability. In 2 Kings 21:1-18 Manasseh appears to remain invulnerable over-against the inhabitants of Jerusalem's vulnerability. In 2 Chronicles 33:1-20 Manasseh is turned fragile in captivity and physically rendered vulnerable. The essay is divided into three sections. It starts with a theoretical basis for the argument of vulnerability, following Levinas' ethical moment, discussing the notion of vulnerability as a negative state, and constructing vulnerability as possibility on the basis of Erinn Gilson's book, The Ethics of Vulnerability. A Feminist Analysis of Social Life and Practice. In the second part Manasseh's story in 2 Kings 21:1-18 and 2 Chronicles 33:1-20 is analyzed and in the last part the author connects the notion of vulnerability to these two stories.
Key words: Vulnerability; Manasseh; Persian Period; Contextual Study; Exile
It is common knowledge that in the Book of Kings Manasseh receives no redemption, whereas the Book of Chronicles provides redemption in the form of building projects and religious reforms. The question is on what basis redemption is provided. I will argue that redemption happened the moment Manasseh rendered himself vulnerable. It seems vulnerability only appears in the face of calamity: publicly humiliated by being caught by hooks, chained in bronze fetters and deported to Babylon, Manasseh faced a miserable life as prisoner of the Assyrians.
The Judeo-Christian tradition sees the human being as the bearer of dignity and rights. Human dignity is based on the notion of being created in the image of the deity. Creation in the image of the deity results in human vulnerability that is positioned against divine invulnerability. It is as if "every entity in the world is vulnerable except for God."1 Joseph Tham argues and asks, "Clearly there is a tendency in the Bible to see imperfection or disease as the result of sin. Nevertheless, is absolute perfection the ideal to strive for? Isn't imperfection a fact of life?"2 To Tham, imperfection is part of the vulnerable condition of the human being. It is 'built into' human nature and it would be hubris to ignore it.
As a white male South African biblical scholar, the current socio-political context requires me to acknowledge openly my racist and patriarchal upbringing and subsequent privileges in perpetrator culture. The critique of white patriarchy is very public, its effects no longer masked because of the de-colonial project. Thus, in any reading of the biblical text, I am publicly obliged to render myself vulnerable in order to face those aspects of oppression that would previously have been masked. Manasseh's hooks and fetters have become my silence and introspection in a process of embarrassment and internalising the critique.
What good comes from reading as/with a perpetrator? Usually, once indicated, a perpetrator is removed from the scene, sometimes very publicly. I have found that reading the biblical text as/with a perpetrator renders one extremely vulnerable. To make it beneficial it needs to be turned into an instance from which change can occur - a redemptive moment.
Hendrik Bosman recently asked the following concluding question in an essay on Old Testament Scholarship in South Africa since 1994:
How can 'organic intellectuals' maintain a self-critical awareness of the inevitable and pervasive influence of power, and be able to produce 'theological honey' that can challenge and nurture a society in need of making sense of its precarious existence? OT scholars in South Africa must face up to the challenge and the responsibility of producing 'theological honey' - time will tell whether we were able to do so.3
What theological honey is there in discussing perpetrators within the context of South African whiteness? This celebratory essay to honour his scholarship and role as lecturer in Old Testament Studies wants to explore Bosnian's question in looking at Manasseh as perpetrator. Although not explored here the context of this question is ominously present in current South African public discourse: the role of whiteness in the perpetration of racism.4The critique of whiteness is very public, its effects no longer masked because of the decolonial project.5 The latter project requires from whiteness an acknowledgement of its role in perpetrating various kinds of oppression. Such recognition renders one vulnerable in its effects but in its provision of possibilities, it suggests a change in epistemology, something Bosman refers to in the above-mentioned article.6
This essay wishes to explore Manasseh's vulnerability in both narratives in terms of the current reader's own vulnerability. But before being able to start with that exploration, it is necessary to look at the theoretical basis for the argument of vulnerability as well as the presentation of Manasseh in 2 Kings 21:1-18 and 2 Chronicles 33:1-20.
The Basis for Vulnerability
My understanding of vulnerability is shaped by (a) a particular reading of Cain in Genesis 4 with the help of what Levinas called 'the ethical moment,'7 (b) the notion of vulnerability as a negative state, and (c) Erinn Gilson's book The Ethics of Vulnerability. A Feminist Analysis of Social Life and Practice, which sees vulnerability as a human condition.
Levinas' Ethical Moment
On the basis of the 6th commandment Levinas formulated his idea of the ethical moment as a face-to-face meeting between two human beings in which each one, reciprocally and metaphorically, become for the other someone without anything, someone without any relations or kinship, someone without family, parents, siblings, children, friends or colleagues. Each one confronts the other in his or her destituteness and proverbial nakedness. Both face each other, crying out not to be killed by the other. The face demands from the other a radical obligation to not destroy or violate the other.
The face, and more specifically, the eyes are central to the ethical moment. With reference to Cain in Genesis 4, Levinas argues as follows:
The face ... is inviolable; those eyes, which are absolutely without protection, the most naked part of the human body, none the less offer an absolute resistance to possession, an absolute resistance in which the temptation to murder is inscribed: the temptation of absolute negation... For in reality, murder is possible, but it is possible only when one has not looked the Other in the face. The impossibility of killing is not real, but moral.8
Abel's voice from his blood in the soil activates the ethical function in the story. Levinas utilises the vocal as well as the visual to call the self to account for the other. Abel's eye did not prevent his murder, but his voice persecutes Cain from beyond the grave as if it is the deity's eye following Cain. Ultimately, the destitution in the face of the other cries out for justice and designates responsibility. But Cain cannot see it, as his own face, or countenance, has fallen: "The fall of the face, in some sense, is the negation of the face, an event of psychological death which indeed leads to Cain's inability to face the other and recognise him, and issues, as though inevitably, in the latter's [Abel] murder."9 Cain and Abel's story is one of failure in an ethical sense, argues Ben-Naftali.10
From the interaction of two faces meeting each other, it follows that the one cannot do without the other. To be human is to be recognised as such by the other. It is reciprocal. James Perkinson takes it to its consequences:
To achieve a genuinely human dignity of spirit, each consciousness must risk itself to the point of becoming a threat to the other. It must face into the other's fierce gaze, give birth to desire and plunge into what lies beyond life, risk death and meet the other's (reciprocal) resistance with utmost struggle... To become a reality in-itself-for-itself, human 'being' must pass through the phase of serving negative notice to its other: "Here I stake life itself; I refuse to remain immediately, 'naturally' within myself."11
With the colonial and apartheid legacy, however, the gaze was never reciprocal. The black gaze only met indifference at best, negation at worst.12 Subsequently, a different black gaze developed through the anti-apartheid struggle - one with a particular black consciousness that would become a face of terror for whites. Whiteness was outed, in Perkinson's words: "[w]hite people were finally, briefly, made to look in the mirror of race and confront a gaze that looked back, but did not look alike."13 It is a gaze that is no longer captive to the white gaze. To the contrary, it forces the gaze of the (white) other to become consciously aware of its own body as human; the black gaze becomes its pedagogue.14 The vulnerability of the black other needs to be recognised by the white gaze in order for whiteness itself to realise its own vulnerability. The imperative to come to consciousness of oneself as white is founded upon a "daring to look into black eyes and not deny the reflection," even when it proves to be embarrassing by having been found out by one's most frightening other.15
Vulnerability as a Negative State
Vulnerability reveals itself in the ethical moment created by the meeting of two faces, of two pairs of eyes looking at each other, reciprocally exclaiming, "Do not kill me!" Within a paradigm of subordination, at least one pair of eyes negates the other, exploiting the latter's vulnerability. It is in this context that the need for recognising the vulnerability of the other arises. Hence the need for Article 8 in the 2005 UNESCO Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights.16 However, it is a vulnerability in negative terms according to which certain individuals and groups of people are in need of special protection - those who are exposed to the possibility of being misused or abused, physically or emotionally attacked or harmed. They are in need of special care or protection because of their age, disability or specific risk to be harmed or abused. However, this rather negative definition is shaped for the biological sciences. It cannot deal with justice in the same way social or cultural vulnerability can.17
Thinking of vulnerability in this way creates an association between vulnerability and affliction, suffering, harm, or injury. The South African OED defines vulnerability in this way. Understandably, no one wants to be in a position of such vulnerability. It is associated with weakness, powerlessness, and subsequent exploitation. Anyone will want to avoid such vulnerability, since it signals weakness and lack of mastery and control. Vulnerability does not equal well-being. It is something to overcome.18
The purveyors of vulnerability in bioethics acknowledge the limits of the definition.19The UNESCO definition sees a vulnerable person as a failed autonomous subject in terms of a particular Western paradigm. What is not clear are the social, political, economic, and religious dimensions that also causes vulnerability. In other words, vulnerability is not merely a deficit of autonomy. Of particular concern is the production of vulnerability itself.20 Vulnerability as a deficit of autonomy assigns to the vulnerable inferiority, weakness and dependency. The antidote is capability, strength, autonomy, and well-being. In other words, vulnerability is not a human condition. It constitutes an abnormality that only someone strong - an admirable invulnerable saviour - can fix. Accordingly, since the vulnerable lacks agency to overcome vulnerability, the vulnerable needs to open up towards patronising attitudes of paternalism with subsequent affirmation of inequity and hierarchy.21As a fixed negative state, vulnerability is stigmatising and oppressive. It symbolises powerlessness, which no one would want to acknowledge. Acknowledgement would be tantamount to a recognition of weakness and lack of control, that is, autonomy.
Understanding vulnerability as a negative position necessarily sets one on the road towards invulnerability. Erinn Gilson refers to an epistemology of ignorance that wilfully cultivates invulnerability as ignorance of vulnerability. This ignorance props up a subjectivity of a self-sufficient master subject that maintains itself as independent and invulnerable.22 To be confronted with vulnerability is deeply uncomfortable and uneasy; to ignore it aims to maintain a strong and competent masterful subjectivity. Gilson argues that invulnerability is constitutive of the master model of subjectivity with which Western science is practiced - it is constitutive of the cultural identity of those who occupy positions of privilege and who participate in domination by values such as detachment, self-containment, self-mastery, and control.23
The link between vulnerability and autonomy put on the table in the medical science in the nineties of the previous century was indicative for the development of the 2005 UNESCO Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights. Ten Have, who was deeply involved in the construction of this declaration, later acknowledged that vulnerability is less the result of lack of respect for personal autonomy than the result of a lack of justice, equality and solidarity.24 In fact, Ten Have sees it as part of the 'inherently fragile' human condition in need of protection, yet creating an openness to the world because "[w]e cannot come into being, flourish and survive if our existence is not connected to the existence of others."25
Vulnerability as a Shared Human Condition
The basic premise of a hermeneutic of vulnerability is that vulnerability is a basic human condition. It is not marginal but fundamental, unavoidable, and inherent to our being human - physically, corporeally, and socially.26 The negative and popular view of vulnerability associates vulnerability with harm, injury and weakness. However, vulnerability is not the harming itself, but only the susceptibility to harm or the ability to be wounded.27 Vulnerability makes harming possible. In other words, vulnerability is a potential condition that enables certain capacities.
As a basic common human condition, vulnerability is shared between human beings. It is not a category set apart from those deemed invulnerable.28 Of course, ontological vulnerability is attributed to human beings, but not everybody may experience themselves as vulnerable. In contrast, vulnerability as experience is situational because of race, gender, class, sexuality, disability, nationality, etc.29 The problem is that as soon as it is designated as a property that pertains to certain groups of people rather than an experience or condition, vulnerability becomes viewed in a negative light.
As a shared common condition, vulnerability entails the exposure of our bodies to the gaze and touch of others whilst the bodies of others are similarly exposed to our scrutiny and physical contact. The shared and common nature creates a (political) community in which one has no choice but to participate, because one always stands in relation to others.30 The relation with other creates vulnerability, and because of it, violence.31
Our being exposed to others as well as our experiencing the exposure of the other to us are premised upon violence: the latter makes one aware of vulnerability. Violence shows how one is vulnerable in relation to the other in terms of being formed in violence and/or in terms of violence with which one conducts oneself.
Nonetheless, the link between vulnerability and violence leaves the impression of a reductively negative understanding of vulnerability as weakness, harm and injury. This kind of violence is a destructive violence dividing a community into victims and per-petrators.32 In this instance vulnerability can only pertain to one party in a relationship -vulnerable sufferers over-against invulnerable perpetrators.33 The latter can indeed be vulnerable, but when the norms that enable the recognition of vulnerability are regulated by dehumanising frameworks, the vulnerability of a perpetrator will be imperceptible and un-recognisable.34 A prisoner, for example, is not regarded as vulnerable, but dangerous, and thus does not deserve response when harmed in the prison system. The perpetrator is not seen as in need of protection. Vulnerability, understood in this way, ascribes to a dualist conception in terms of who merits and who does not merit vulnerability. It presumes a hierarchical and inequitable distribution of vulnerability that "generate [s] patronising, oppresssive, paternalistic and controlling, and stigmatising and exclusionary dispositions and treatments of others."35
Over-against this reductively negative view of vulnerability, Erinn Gilson proposes a concept of epistemic vulnerability.36 Epistemic vulnerability can be summarised by the terms openness and affectivity. It is an openness to not knowing, to be wrong yet not re-framing from interaction in which one's ideas, beliefs and feelings are put to the test. Epistemic vulnerability enables one to learn in a context where one is unknowing and foreign, a context where one is not in power. Openness to new ideas entails the dispelling of wilful ignorance and altering unconscious beliefs and habits that are ingrained into our bodies. It entails an openness to the ambivalence of our bodily and emotional responses, to enable knowledge to sink into our bodies. Openness to alter beliefs and habits also entails an openness to altering oneself as well as the concept one has of the self. In other words, the change that takes place, should affect what one does, how one thinks about and defines oneself. Gilson defines it as follows:
If epistemic vulnerability is defined by openness to changes in the self in light of coming to perceive what one does not know and has prevented oneself from knowing, then it entails a different perspective on change, permanence, history and the formation of the self. In allowing the self to change, one likewise allows change in what one knows, how one knows, and in relation to whom and what one knows. Thus, epistemic vulnerability entails rejecting the closure of the self that defines invulnerability. Instead, one begins to comprehend oneself as a being who has come into being and is continually evolving, one positions oneself as one who has been and will continue to be affected by others; one perceives oneself as vulnerable and conceives this vulnerability as the condition of one's knowledge since it is only by being affected by others that one knows and is.37
Vulnerability and Oppression
Levinas' ethical moment in which the naked face of the other plays a crucial role, creates vulnerability. It is then in terms of vulnerability that an ethical responsibility is called forth: "The Other, a stranger who shares my humanity, exacts from me a certain responsibility to respect his dignity once I am aware of our interconnectedness."38 Vulnerability and ethical responsibility are fairly commonly constructed in different religions under the names of "agape or charity, neighbourly love, solidarity, visheshdharma, ren, karunä or compassion, and mercy or hesed."39
From the discussion so far it is clear that vulnerability can be interpreted in two ways: a reductively negative understanding that sees it as weakness, harm and injury, in line with the common perception of vulnerability as expressed in dictionaries; and as a common condition of humanity that makes wounding possible. In this sense, vulnerability is a potential that requires an openness to affect and be affected, the ability to be harmed and experience loss, and the ability to transform oneself and change deep-seated habits.
It is with the latter understanding of vulnerability that I renew my proposal for a her-meneutic of vulnerability in order to take seriously that ethical obligation the naked face of the Other imposes on me.40 Such an obligation is especially imperative in the current South African post-apartheid context in which whiteness is forced to face the consequences of apartheid in particular and the entire population the aftershocks of colonialism in general. A hermeneutics of vulnerability enables one to unmask the privileged positions apartheid and colonialism have allocated to a certain group at the expense of other groups.
Recognising vulnerability is a helpful step in dismantling the after-effects of apartheid. However, from a position of privilege and sovereignty, a common reaction still seems to be one of disavowal and avoidance of vulnerability.41 In this context, vulnerability is seen as an impediment and limitation that needs to be repudiated and ignored; a quality one would rather project onto others. A failure to recognise vulnerability facilitates the flourishing of oppressive social, economic and political relations, or, conversely, to undo oppressive relations it is necessary to recognise vulnerability.42
In other words, an assured ignorance of vulnerability is cultivated in order to achieve a sense of invulnerability in terms of a self-sufficient sovereign subjectivity. Cultivated willfully or subconsciously, invulnerability produces and maintains ignorance.43 Willful ignorance of the after-effects of apartheid and the lingering residues of racialised thinking enables the persistence of white privilege and racism. It is more than not caring to know. Willful ignorance is continuously produced in the choices people make and their actions.44Knowledge of vulnerability produce extreme discomfort and unease, needing to be repudiated in order for the sovereign self-sufficient master subject to remain in a position of power and privilege.
Moreover, vulnerability is rather objectionable when the power remains asymmetrical with the privileged not only in possession of what the vulnerable needs, but also in control of the access to that which the vulnerable needs.45 Thus, the vulnerable is forced to seek the help of the self-sufficient invulnerable as the saviour.
Manasseh in 2 King 21:1-18 and 2 Chronicles 33: 1-20
Manasseh's Villainy in both Narratives
In the story of Manasseh in 2 Kings 21:1-18 the kingdom of Judah is rendered extremely vulnerable because of the actions of Manasseh as king. Manasseh receives the blame for the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. Both 2 Kings 21:1-8 and 2 Chronicles 33:1-8 participate in the vilification of Manasseh. The sins attributed to Manasseh indicate key aspects of Deuteronomistic law.46
2 Kings 21:2/2 Chronicles 33:2: The deity regarded Manasseh as evil since he followed the abominable practices of the nations that YHWH drove out before Israel
Deut 12:29-30: Israel is warned against the abominable practices of the nations they are about to drive out of Canaan and ordered not to inquire about worshipping them in order to imitate these abhorrent practices (see Deut 18:9).
2 Kings 21:3, 7/2 Chronicles 33:3:
Manasseh is accused of returning the high places and erecting high sacred poles for Asherah.
Deut 12:2-4: The people are admonished to destroy all the high places in the hills and mountains as well as under the trees.
Deut. 16:21 prohibits the planting of any tree with the aim of making it a sacred pole for Ashera.
2 Kings 21:3, 5/2 Chronicles 33:3, 5, 7: Manasseh erected altars for Baal and the host of heaven in the two courts of the temple.
Deut. 17:3: Any man or woman found to have worshipped other gods, such as sun, moon or host of heaven, will be stoned to death.
2 Kings 21:6 2 Chronicles 33:6: Manasseh is accused of sacrificing by fire his children for Moloch and practicing divination by visiting mediums and wizards and practising soothsaying and augury.
Deut 18:9-14 polemicises the abhorrent practices of the nations Israel drove out of Canaan: passing children through fire, practices of divination, soothsaying, augury, sorcery, consulting ghosts, and seeking oracles from the dead.
2 Kings 21:16 (no parallel in 2 Chronicles 33): Manasseh shed so much innocent blood that it filled Jerusalem.
Deut 19:10 prohibits the shedding of innocent blood on caution of bloodguilt.
Both the Deuternomist and the Chronicler provide negative portrayals of Manasseh that can be labelled with the term 'blackballing.'47 In Kings Manasseh is not regarded among the successful kings of Judah.48 He is marked as Judah's Ahab in 2 Kings 21:3 for making a sacred pole and an altar for Baal similar to Ahab. Ahab was the epitome of depravity in the Northern Kingdom. Manasseh is not the only king in Judah committing various idolatrous evils, but his shedding of innocent blood (2 Kings 21:16) placed him at the pinnacle of those who committed cult crimes with regard to the laws laid down in the Deuteronomistic history.49
Manasseh's Wickedness in 2 Kings 21:1-18
Judah's eventual exile is blamed on Manasseh's wickedness and transgression of Deutero-nomistic law. He is constructed as a scapegoat and villain in order to provide a comforting explanation for an audience struggling with exile and catastrophe.50 Yet Manasseh is distanced from Judah in being closely associated with aspects of the Northern Kingdom. The latter was destroyed because of their following of the cults of the foreign nations -their extreme foreignness remaining a focus in the Manasseh narrative.51 Manasseh is associated with these "abominable practices of the nations that Yhwh drove out when they entered the Promised Land" (2 Kings 21:2). In fact, he was even worse than these nations in that he saw to it that Judah worshipped these idols (v. 11).
His following of the foreign cults strengthens the comparison in v. 3 with king Ahab and the analogy with Jerobeam, the foremost villainous king of the Northern Kingdom. Manasseh and the latter are compared to the Amorites (2 Kings 21:10 and 1 Kings 21:26). The reference to Ahab depicts Manasseh in ways even worse than Ahab himself. 52Manasseh parallels Jeroboam who is also accused of causing the people to sin (1 Kings 14:16). Manasseh's wickedness has the same consequences Jerobeam's evil initially had for Israel. It is as if these three kings are in competition of being portrayed as the most evil: "Manasseh appears to have been depicted as akin to the worst monarchs, especially Israelite ones, and as the opposite of the best kings."53 Nonetheless, his wickedness completely outweighs Josiah's piety and cultic reforms (2 Kings 23:4-24).54 In fact, Manasseh's wickedness had an impact on Josiah's role in Deuteronomistic history: although apparently repairing the damage Manasseh did, his cultic reforms failed to thwart the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem, that resulted into the exile. "Manasseh's sin has doomed the reform to futility from the start."55
Not only is Manasseh linked to the Northern Kingdom by Ahab (2 Kings 21:3) and Jerobeam (2 Kings 21:11), his name is also of Northern Kingdom origin (1 Kings 3:13).56 It seems the name's presence in the biblical texts functions in terms of an anti-Manasseh polemic: "His vilification in Kings is prompted by his name: in sharing a name associated with the Northern Kingdom, Manasseh is singled out as a religious deviant in the eyes of the Kings Writer."57 In other words, it is as if the narrative in listing all Manasseh's crimes and linking Manasseh to the Northern Kingdom, asks the reader what they expect from such a man. Nevertheless, two things happen in the process: a king whose reign was 55 years long, and in terms of Deuteronomistic theology a successful king, is completely vilified and attributed the exile of a kingdom, whilst the inhabitants of the kingdom abscond their own responsibility.
Manasseh's Wickedness and Vulnerability in 2 Chronicles 33:1-20 2 Chronicles 33:1-9 more or less replicates 2 Kings 21:1-9, except that Ahab is not mentioned in the Chronicles version. Verses 10-17 tell the story quite differently from the Kings' version, perhaps with more of a recitation of generic impieties and without reference to Manasseh's slaughter of innocent people in Jerusalem.58 Here Manasseh is said to have failed to listen to Yhwh and the latter sent the Assyrians to humiliate him publicly in taking Manasseh captive in manacles and in binding him in fetters in order to take him to Babylon.59 In Babylon Manasseh experienced conversion60 and he was sent back to Jerusalem where he induced religious reforms and initiated large building projects, as evidence that his reign was successful and long. The building of the wall, alluding to Nehemiah's own wall building project, suggests a presentation of Jerusalem as the central administrative location for the province - Jerusalem is mentioned five times in the Manasseh narrative.61
How does one explain the repentance of Manasseh in the Chronicles narrative? His repentance appears to be indicative of vulnerability and subsequent change in thinking and behaviour. Readers offered various explanations. One suggested that his long reign was incompatible with the image of a scapegoat and it became theologically necessary to have him end his reign successfully.62 Another argued that the Chronicler had a choice of either explaining the long reign or change the length of the reign. He chose the former in linking the reign to Manasseh's repentance.63 However, for what did Manasseh repent? The Deute-ronomistic history suggested cultic abominations, a problem even in the Persian Period. Manasseh's Ba'als, Asherah's and host of heavens became those deities that were not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: in the Diaspora the Jews were confronted with worshipping foreign deities and in Yehud, those who settled there under the migration policies of the Empire brought with them their own cult. Manasseh symbolised those Jews who accepted these foreign cults.64
Whereas the Kingdom of Judah experienced the consequences of Manasseh's apostasy a few generations later, retribution is immediate and personal in the book of Chronicles. Retribution is constructed in terms of the Assyrian Empire striking Judah. Theologically, Assyria became the rod of Yahweh's anger and the club of his fury (Is. 10:5).65 Manasseh's capture is public and meant to be humiliating, although Japhet thinks that his capture is "a relatively mild reaction and quite disproportionate to the gravity of his evil when compared to someone like Jehoram's bowel disease (2 Chronicles 21:18)."66
While in captivity Manasseh repents and prays to YHWH, who hears his pleas and forgives him by sending him back to Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 33:13). The appropriate response to his vulnerability is humility and prayer: Manasseh humbles himself before the deity and prays. The deity, in turn, in receiving his prayer and hearing his plea, restores him. Handy argues that the trope of repentance before a merciful deity stands central to Persian and Hellenistic literature and strands of the Jewish tradition can be noticed within the rabbinic tradition and the early Christian tradition.67 The prayer of repentance seemed to be of considerable importance. The Chronicler refers to it twice whereas in the Hasmonean period an apocryphal text was produced to fill in the contents of Manasseh's prayer.68 The prayer presents a Manasseh devoid of any evil, "a penitent and pious Manasseh,"69 yet somehow in the collective archive Manasseh failed to shed evidence of total wickedness.
Manasseh backs his repentance with a building project, a military strategy, and spiritual renewal. He builds a wall around Jerusalem and staffs the fortified cities with military commanders. Both projects allude to a strengthening of the power to resist.70 On religious level, he negates the cultic changes he brought about earlier except the high places. Moreover, in Chronicles no reference is made to child sacrifice, witchery, soothsaying or augury. It is as if something needed to be left for Josiah to do in Chronicles!71Nonetheless, his reforms encapsulates the reforms of Josiah in Kings and the reader is left with an image of a monotheistic temple of YHWH with the high places also consecrated to the one single deity called YHWH.72
Two Traditions of Manasseh's Story
It is clear that the story of Manasseh in Kings as well as Chronicles presents the reader with two traditions that developed consecutively and provided an impetus within the history of reception of Manasseh to two different readings. Handy summarises it well:
During the period of Persian and Hellenistic rule there were two diametrically opposed trajectories regarding Manasseh that begin in the Persian period and carried on into early Judaism and Christianity. One leads straight from the book of Kings, intensifying the wickedness of Manasseh until he is presented as the tool of Satan, if not the embodiment of evil itself. In this trajectory Manasseh exemplifies the danger of Judeans/Jews who go after foreign cultures and harm Jewish practice. The other trajectory builds on the Chronicler's addition of Manasseh's prayer and repentance. Here Manasseh becomes the very embodiment of the penitent, producing a vision not only of a converted king but also of an all-merciful deity who provides a way to make amends for evil behaviour. Both extreme views of Manasseh are elaborations of the memory first encoded in Kings. The wonderful, temple-restoring, good king Manasseh developed in Yehud under Persian imperial rule. The Manasseh of irredeemable evil, incorporating the entire notion of Satan as the embodiment of evil, seems, as a working hypothesis, to have originated during the Hasmonean wars and rule. Remembering Manasseh as having abandoned the true faith, cult, and people of Israel, the authors could then equate those of their day who they felt followed in his footsteps with this national exemplar of wickedness.73
There is a strong tradition of regarding Manasseh in a negative light.74 In I Enoch Manasseh is compared to the blind straying bellwether who abandoned his flock of sheep to beasts of prey. In the Martyrdom of Isaiah (Chapter 5) Manasseh becomes demonic by his participation in sawing Isaiah into two. In 2 Baruch Manasseh is associated with apocalyptic imagery of destruction.
The portrayal of Manasseh in Rabbinical literature is quite ambivalent. The Talmud singles out Jerobeam, Ahab and Manasseh as those kings whose evilness caused them to forfeit their share in the world to come.75 But Rabbi Johanan (b. Sanh. 103a) argues that anyone who accepts this line of thought, weakens the power of repentance. The Talmud introduced Manasseh as a Torah-scholar who interpreted Leviticus in 35 different ways.76In b. San 102b he is not allowed to be judged since Yahweh already judged him. The Assyrian records portray Manasseh positively as a loyal vassal (Prism B and Prism C).77
In line with his association with the Northern Kingdom, the negative interpretation of his name received further impetus in the interpretative history. His name became suggestive of forgetfulness: he forgot God and his father Hezekiah. In fact, he is described as poking fun at his pious father when he was brought to the synagogue in his youth. He is also said to have violated his sister. His role as scapegoat is enhanced by incest and even parricide, such as the killing of his grandfather Isaiah.78 Idolatry, incest, shedding of blood and release of land indicates the causes for the exile. In the Kings version, Manasseh is linked to two of the four and in the post-biblical literature, three of the four seem to play a role.79
In the Pseudepigrapha he is depicted as being under the influence of Satan who led him to be the cause of Jerusalem's apostasy. Nevertheless, he is thought here as in the Talmud to have been a great scholar of the Torah despite his ridicule of it. The greater the scholar, the greater the evil inclination, the rabbis argued! His repentance reported in Chronicles did not go unnoticed in some rabbinical writings. His repentance redeemed him from losing out on his share of the world to come.80 Josephus, whose Antiquities was intended for non-Jews, looks at Manasseh's transgressions as an internal affair and does not link it to the pagan religions surrounding Judah at that stage. He regards these transgressions as lawlessness that eventually brought down the Kingdom of Judah. In addition, he credits the origin of such lawlessness to Jerobeam.81
One scholar made an important observation regarding the scholarly interest in Manasseh: most authors usually side with the biblical heroes, like David, Solomon, Hezekiah, or Josiah. Villains, such as Manasseh, do not attract a lot of interest.82 When he does, scholarship seems to add to his vilification. For example, he is blamed for the introduction of foreign cults (despite evidence that the cult in those days differed very little from surrounding cultures or that his worshipping constituted a syncretistic cult enhanced by Assyrian beliefs). He is sometimes even accused of cult crimes not found in the biblical text. In his deviation, a personal and intentional villainy is assumed in his rejection of his father's reforms.83 One contextual study suggests an analogy between the two kinds of presentation of Manasseh and what is happening in an African context.84 The Assyrian praise for Manasseh, for example, is echoed by Western praise for African leadership that promotes and protects Western economic interests, whilst leadership that questions and pro-blematises such approaches is portrayed as bad leadership in the eyes of the West.
Vulnerabilty
Starting with Levinas' ethical moment and the face-to-face dialectic with the other, reading the story of Manasseh in both Kings and Chronicles leads one to realise that the reader never really sees the face of Manasseh. He is very much a cardboard character because the narrative is manipulated to achieve other ends.
In 2 Kings 21 Manasseh's reign is long (and apparently successful if one compares it with that of Solomon). He does not suffer the consequences of his wrongdoing. The people of Jerusalem suffer. Subsequently, one tends to see vulnerability in a negative light: infliction of harm and punishment upon Jerusalem.
In 2 Chronicles 33, Manasseh is the one who suffers. On a different level, Manasseh as king represents autonomy, i.e. invulnerability. Yet one wonders whether his openness to other ways of worshipping does not constitute vulnerability as potential on his side, with the deity as the invulnerable opposite other. In his story, this openness tends to be harmful to the deity, who lashes out, rendering the king vulnerable. The more historical question one would ask is whether Manasseh's behaviour as king and his openness to other forms of religions were not valid for his time when YHWH was still the chief deity and the other deities part of the pantheon.
It is clear that the story in Kings searches for an explanation for the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of Judah. It finds reason in the deeds of one person, Manasseh.85However, in terms of the depiction of the kings of the Northern Kingdom, the actions of the whole kingdom resulted in divine destruction of the entire kingdom.86 In Judah's case, it is the misdeeds of a single king, Manasseh (who misleads Judah), which constitutes the cause for the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple. A particular problem arises: the divine promise of the Davidic House's eternal presence on the throne is nullified by the deeds of a single king: "Nevertheless, the question of the Deity's culpability in reneging on the promise to the house of David and in holding the entire nation responsible for the action of one man remains."87
Römer is of the opinion that Manasseh was a loyal vassal and it was quite possible that he merely reinforced the cultic symbols to relate with Assyrian culture and politics.88Buchner suggests that Manasseh steered a safe course between placating his Assyrian masters on the one hand and serving the religious needs of his population on the other, by maintaining the YHWH cult as the official cult, but resuscitating within it bolder expressions of folk religion, which included veneration of the goddess and now also Assyrian astral deities, who were visibly portrayed as part of YHWH court.89
Another possibility is that the catastrophic situation that saw the demise of the monarchy and the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem is parallel to the defeat of YHWH as national deity or him actively abandoning his elected favourite, Israel. Within Judah itself, or rather, within the exiled powerful elite, (Römer refers to them as 'mandarin,'90), the scribes and administrators, sought to explain the loss of power and exile in terms of a deity who provoked the Babylonian invasion to punish his elected people:
L'exil et la déportation sont le theme global de cette histoire qui relie les diverses traditions et periods pour aboutir a la fin de la monarchie, la destruction de Jerusalem et la perte du pays, évênements qui, selon les deutéronomistes, résultes de la colêre de Yhwh contre son people et ses chefs. Juda et Jerusalem ne peuvent échapper a l'attaque babylonienne parce que c'est Yhwh lui-même qui a envoyé cette armée pour annihiler Juda et Jérusalem.91
To Römer it is not a question of Babylonian deities conquering the national god of Judah, but a question of divine wrath as agent in afflicting Judah. And if YHWH used the Babylonian deities in this way, it means he controls them too, preparing the way for monotheism to be finalised within the Deuteronomistic history92 and Deuteronomy itself (Deut 4:39):
C'est une maniêre remarquable de maintenir l'ancienne idée de Yhwh comme dieu national ou tutélaire, tout en affirmant qu'il est le seul vrai dieu93
The composite nature of the biblical text in overlaying traditions on top of one another presents readers with two contradictory and sometimes mutually exclusive portrayals of the deity YHWH: YHWH as the only and universal deity and YHWH as one amongst many, albeit the head of the divine council or of the other deities.94 These discordant incongruous views about YHWH are deliberately constructed:
A nascent, monotheistic community in the Persian province of Beyond the River would have had a vested interest in both approaches - one more subtle and the other more direct, to critique old orthodoxy and orthopraxy of the monarchic era that still existed in Yehud. They wished to rebuff the understanding of Yahweh as the head of a pantheon, replacing it with a monotheistic Yahwism that allowed for angelic, messenger-type beings.95
The new view would have entailed economic benefits to the priestly scribal class in pushing for a new ideology, yet not alienating those who pay taxes and make voluntary sacrifices in the temple. Yet, the new view made it clear that the ways of the past, worshipping Yhwh as part of a pantheon, led to the catastrophe of the exile and the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem. The Exile becomes the result of the religiosity and behaviour of the past.96 If this is true, the context of the authors of these texts was still very precarious because of the corrupt ways of the past:
The [new form of Yahwism] was essentially used to state more openly and directly that the old position, though still around, where Yahweh was the head of a pantheon, was a bad one. Look what happened - Yahweh allowed us and our ancestors to suffer and be subjugated and taken into captivity because of our apostasy in worshipping him incorrectly.97
An unintended consequence of the development into monotheism is that the deity is made invulnerable and defended against other deities. Noncompliance by human beings makes the latter extremely vulnerable and the object of harm and injury by the deity.
By the time Kings wrote the story, monotheism started to set in and the story was constructed in that way, resulting in the depiction of Manasseh as idolatrous. Philip Davies draws a link between the political development of the monarchy from a national institution to an imperial one and the religious development towards monotheism in the Persian Period.98 Following his remarks on the development of monotheism,99 it is clear that autonomy parallelled invulnerability. The monarchy emerged as an autonomous locus of power with the ability to impose taxes, engage in war and require personal loyalty, which encouraged a parallel religious development with a centralised cult. The kingship on earth reflected the divine kingship in heaven. The monarch as well as the deity became invulnerable, i.e. any effort to render them vulnerable was met with negative sanction. Both lived in a designated area with designated personnel to serve them. The emergence of empire allowed for the construction of a dynastic deity that overshadowed the local or nationalistic deities of the vassal-kings and their states, sometimes causing a tension in loyalty towards either of the deities. Monarchic theism became imperial theism. In Chronicles, in the last verses of the book, the deity becomes imperial in its support for the new imperial ruler.
Does monotheism in the story not create a reductively negative view of vulnerability? In terms of invulnerability, Gilson talks of a self-sufficient or autonomous master subject who remains independent and invulnerable. Gilson links such a model to a particular epistemology that has become constitutive to the practice of science as well as top positions of privilege and control in the West. In other words, in order to stay invulnerable, vulnerability has to be ignored. It is a god-like position and currently associated with whiteness and white privilege. In Manasseh's story, the deity is thought to be invulnerable and worshipping other deities harms that invulnerability. Such harm has consequences, according to the Kings story within a Deuteronomistic framework. The divine response is one of violence.
In the Kings narrative, Manasseh can be seen imitating this violence. He is said to have shed so much blood that it filled Jerusalem from end to end (2 Kings 21:16). He caused harm and rendered his people vulnerable. Yet, these very vulnerable people later pay the price for Manasseh's act of invulnerability as his punishment - Manasseh renders the deity vulnerable in his openness towards others and because of his position as invulnerable king, his subjects are rendered vulnerable a few years after he has died. In Kings the subject people do not merit vulnerability. There seems to be an inequitable distribution of vulnerability generated by a power structure that was patronising and oppressive. The Kings version of Manasseh's story presents the reader with a cause and effect scheme: actions have consequences. Vulnerability is largely perceived negatively. 2 Chronicles 33 repeats the cause and effect scheme, but it adds affect: Manasseh repents and become vulnerable. This vulnerability allows him to be open to change, albeit then a change forced by an invulnerable monotheistic god. Although the deity tolerated Manasseh, the exile and the destruction of the temple did not change. It still happened, though for other reasons in Chronicles.
Perpetrators are not always dealt with kindly in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, but in contrast to the negative portrayal in 2 Kings 21:1-18, Manasseh receives a better hearing in 2 Chronicles 33:1-20. There are obvious historical reasons in the respective worlds of text production of these different portrayals, but playing the role of perpetrator is never easy. For this reason, Manasseh's role in Chronicles is somewhat symbolical for the kind of perpetratorhood I need to deal with as reader in the current South African context. The ethical moment refers to the gaze of the eyes. In the Kings narrative, Manasseh does not look anyone in the eye. He is simply depicted in all his evilness. Then, he is not a rounded character in that representation. On a different level, I could ascribe a certain vulnerability to him in that he allows for the veneration of other deities. In terms of the power configuration, he was wise to do it as his long reign indicates. In Chronicles, he comes to consciousness of his wrongdoing and becomes vulnerable in captivity. Vulnerability allows him to return and change the epistemology.
A central focus in both stories is the role played out by the deity and Manasseh's response to that role. The stories suggest royal subordination to divine power. In Kings, the conflict is between Yahweh and the king, a monotheistic deity and royal power that were in need of being curtailed. In Chronicles, the story is about the subordinate king recognising the power of the single deity.
In both these cases vulnerability is characterised negatively as harm, injury, and death (or murder). It is a vulnerability one would want to overcome. The issue of autonomy of the king as well as the deity exacerbates vulnerability as harm or injury. Both narratives want the king to be subordinate to divine power, but it fails to happen. The story thus needed a saviour to make it happen. In Chronicles, that saviour is explicitly YHWH who sends the Assyrian army to take Manasseh captive in order to render him vulnerable. In the Kings narrative, Manasseh seems to uphold his invulnerability, only to render his subjects utterly vulnerable a few years on in the face of renewed captivity. Ironically, vulnerability is effected by an invulnerable monotheistic deity.
Because Manasseh never repented in the Kings narrative, one can surmise he remained ignorant of vulnerability. In Chronicles, Manasseh is confronted with it directly when he is turned fragile in captivity. Moreover, his body is violated with manacles and fetters, a public humiliation. Manasseh became physically vulnerable, a position from which he repented and which brought about changes. He experienced vulnerability in a particular situation: captivity, or prison where his autonomy became severely curtailed. As prisoner Manasseh seems to have experienced an epistemic vulnerability, especially an openness to being wrong. It is this kind of vulnerability that enables me from a position of whiteness to negotiate the apartheid past in a post-apartheid world.
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Kelly, Brian. "Manasseh in the Books of Kings and Chronicles (2 Kings 21:1-18; 2 Chron 33;1-20)." Pages 131-46 in Windows into Old Testament History. Evidence, Argument, and the Crisis of "Biblical Israel." Edited by V. Philips Long, David W Baker, and Gordon J. Wenham. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002. [ Links ]
Kritzinger, Klippies (J.N.J.). "Response to Pastor André Olivier of Rivers Chruch, Sandton." Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, July 1, 2016. http://www.kathradafoundation.org/tags/klippies-kritzinger. [ Links ]
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Page, Hugh. "Prayer of Manasseh." Pages 316-18 in The Africana Bible. Reading Israel's Scriptures from Africa and the African Diaspora. Edited by Hugh Page. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010. [ Links ]
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Snyman, Gerrie F. "Cain and Vulnerability: The Reception of Cain in Genesis Rabbah 22 and Targum Onkelos, Targum Neofiti and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan." Old Testament Essays 29, no. 3 (2016):601-32. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2312-3621/2016/v29n3a14. [ Links ]
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Tham, Joseph. "Lessons Learned." Pages 215-24 in Religious Perspectives on Human Vulnerability in Bioethics. Advancing Global Ethics, Vol. 2. Edited by Joseph Tham, Alberto Garcia, and Gonzalo Miranda. Dordrecht: Springer, 2014. [ Links ]
Tham, Joseph. "The Principle of Vulnerability: Meeting Ground of Six Religions." Pages 1-8 in Religious Perspectives on Human Vulnerability in Bioethics. Advancing Global Ethics, Vol. 2. Edited by Joseph Tham, Alberto Garcia, and Gonzalo Miranda. Dordrecht: Springer, 2014. Doi: 10.1007/978-94-017-8736-9 19. [ Links ]
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1 David Heyd, "Jewish Perspective on Vulnerable Groups: Women and Children," in Religious Perspectives on Human Vulnerability in Bioethics. Advancing Global Ethics, Vol. 2, ed. Joseph Tham, Alberto Garcia and Gonzalo Miranda (Dordrecht: Springer, 2014), 203.
2 Tham, "Lessons Learned," 221.
3 Bosman, Hendrik L. "Ants, Spiders or Bees . . . and Ticks? A Typology of Old Testament Scholarship in South Africa since 1994 within its African Context." Old Testament Essays 28, no. 3 (2015):652. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2312-3621/2015/v28n5a5.
4 See especially Gerrie F. Snyman, "A Hermeneutic of Vulnerability: Redeeming Cain?" Stellenbosch Theological Journal 1, no. 1 (2015b):633-65. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17570/stj.2015.v1n2.a30.
5 See Gerrie F. Snyman, "Responding to the Decolonial Turn: Epistemic Vulnerability." Missionalia 43, no. 3 (2015a):266-91. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.7832/43-3-77.
6 Bosman, "Ants, Spiders or Bees . . . and Ticks?" 643.
7 See, Snyman "A Hermeneutic of Vulnerability: Redeeming Cain?" 633-65, see also Gerrie F. Snyman, "Cain and Vulnerability: The Reception of Cain in Genesis Rabbah 22 and Targum Onkelos, Targum Neofiti and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan." Old Testament Essays 29, no. 3 (2016a):601-32; Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2312-3621/2016/v29n3a14, "Obadiah and a Hermeneutic of Vulnerability," in Obadiah, Readings: A New Biblical Commentary, ed. Bob Becking (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2016), 4563 and "Responding to the Decolonial Turn: Epistemic Vulnerability,"Missionalia 43, no. 3 (2015a):266-91. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.7832/43-3-77.
8 Emmanuel Levinas, Difficult Freedom. Essays on Judaism. Translated by Sean Hand (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), 8, 10.
9 Michal Ben-Naftali, "Abel's Look. Levinas Reads Cain," in Levinas Faces Biblical Figures, ed. Yael Lin (New York: Lexington Books, 2014), 138.
10 Ben-Naftali, "Abel's Look. Levinas Reads Cain," 138.
11 James W. Perkinson, White Theology. Outing Supremacy in Modernity (New York: Palgrave, 2004), 76.
12 Perkinson, White Theology, 77.
14 Perkinson, White Theology, 103.
15 Perkinson, White Theology, 3.
16 The public protection of vulnerable groups in medical research became necessary after a few public scandals of unethical experimentation in the USA. See Joseph Tham, "The Principle of Vulnerability: Meeting Ground of Six Religions," in Religious Perspectives on Human Vulnerability in Bioethics. Advancing Global Ethics, ed. Joseph Tham, Alberto Garcia and Gonzalo Miranda, 2:1-8 (Dordrecht: Springer, 2014). Doi: 10.1007/97894-017-8736-9 19. Article 8 of the declaration reads as follows, "In applying and advancing scientific knowledge, medical practice and associated technologies, human vulnerability should be taken into account. Individuals and groups of special vulnerability should be protected and the personal integrity of such individuals respected."
17 Joseph Tham, "Lessons Learned," in Religious Perspectives on Human Vulnerability in Bioethics. Advancing Global Ethics, ed. Joseph Tham, (Dordrecht: Springer, 2014), 215-24. Doi: 10.1007/978-94-017-8736-9 19, distinguishes between biological, social and cultural vulnerabilities. Social vulnerability arises from war, crimes, prejudices like racism, and poverty and cultural vulnerability stems from the categorization of cultural norms and traditions in such a way that groups or individuals are rendered vulnerable. These two are based on extrinsic factors whereas biological vulnerability is based on intrinsic factors.
18 Erinn Gilson, The Ethics of Vulnerability. A Feminist Analysis of Social Life and Practice. Routledge Studies in Ethics and Moral Theory 26 (London: Routledge, 2016), 32.
19 Henk ten Have, "Vulnerability as the Antidote to Neoliberalism in Bioethics / Vulnerabilidad Como Antídoto Al Neoliberalismo En Bioética," RevistaRedbioética/UNESCO 5, no. 1 (2014):87-92.
20 Ten Have, "Vulnerability as the Antidote to Neoliberalism in Bioethics," 90-1.
21 Gilson, The Ethics of Vulnerability. A Feminist Analysis, 34-35.
22 Gilson, The Ethics of Vulnerability. A Feminist Analysis, 75.
24 Ten Have, "Vulnerability as the Antidote to Neoliberalism in Bioethics," 89.
35 Gilson, The Ethics of Vulnerability. A Feminist Analysis, 129.
36 Gilson, The Ethics of Vulnerability. A Feminist Analysis, 94-6.
38 Tham, "Lessons Learned," 223.
40 My initial proposal was in the article "Empire and the Hermeneutics of Vulnerability," SHE Suppl 37 (2011):1-20. Various articles have since followed the issue of vulnerability and Decoloniality.
41 Recently, a pastor in a church in Sandton, André Olivier, tried to soften the sharp racist edges of whiteness in claiming certain innocence in his (self-) presentation of whiteness in terms of the role white people play in the country (cf. Areff, Ahmed. "Listen: Whites Took Nothing from No One - Pastor André Olivier." News24.com, June 28, 2916. http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/listen-whites-took-nothing-from-no-one-pastor-andre-olivier-20160628). The pastor's sermon exhibits a false innocence in claiming that whites are not as privileged as is commonly thought. In fact, Olivier argues they did not take anything from black people. Olivier is completely ignorant about the political history of the country. The white South African self in Olivier's sermon is very much a racialised self with racial imaginations intertwined with white anxiety and fears about people who are different. These racial imaginings about the white self is one of goodwill, which is being vilified by the racial black other, communicating a particular self-importance that denies complicity in racial oppression. The sermon was countered by a response by Klippies Kritzinger (Kritzinger, Klippies (J.N.J.). "Response to Pastor André Olivier of Rivers Church, Sandton." Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, July 1, 2016. http://www.kathradafoundation.org/tags/klippies-kritzinger) from the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, in which he argued that in as much as apartheid laws favoured white people, the sermon creates a false sense of innocence. In as much as the sermon links wealth of white people to hard work and, by implication, poverty to laziness, the sermon reveals a particular set of political, economic, and cultural assumptions within the white cultural archive. Kritzinger states, "If Pastor Olivier can acknowledge complicity in the racist policies and practices that have divided our nation and oppressed the majority of its citizens for more than 360 years, then he may be able to find the humility not to be annoyed when black fellow South Africans keep on pointing out just how broken and unhealed our society still is."
44 See Tuana, Nancy, "The Speculum of Ignorance: The Women's Health Movement and Epistemologies of Ignorance," Hypatia 21, no. 3 (2006):1-19 in Gilson, The Ethics of Vulnerability. A Feminist Analysis, 75-77.
46 Thomas Römer, L'invention deDieu. Les Livres du Nouveau Monde (Paris: Seuil, 2014), 250-1. I follow his presentation more or less.
47 Francesca Stavrakopoulou, "The Blackballing of Manasseh," in Good Kings and Bad Kings. The Kingdom of Judah in the Seventh Century BCE., ed. Lester Grabbe T & T Clark Biblical Studies (London: T & T Clark, 2007), 248-9.
48 Andrew T. Ohm, "Manasseh and the Punishment Narrative," Tyndale Bulletin 61, no. 2 (2010):249-252 sees in the Deuteronomistic version of Manasseh's story in 2 Kings 21 a punishment narrative: (i) sin description -vv. 2-3; (ii) sin development - vv. 4-8 and 16; (iii) Reminder/Prophetic intervention - vv. 10-15; (iv) Response / climax - v.9; (v) Punishment - 2 Kings 24: death of Josiah, military defeat, destruction of cult and deportation.
49 Stavrakopoulou, "The Blackballing of Manasseh," 249.
50 Stuart Lasine, "Manasseh as Villain and Scapegoat," in The New Literary Criticism and the Hebrew Bible, 163-83. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 143, eds. Cheryl Exum and David J.A. Clines Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 166.
53 Percy S.F. van Keulen, "Manasseh through the Eyes of the Deuteronomists. The Manasseh Account (2 Kings 21:1-18) and the Final Chapters of the Deuteronomistic History." (PhD, Leiden, 1995), 145: "Notwithstanding the fact that in the Book of Kings Jerobeam, like Manasseh, is presented as the king whose sin caused the downfall of his people, Ahab is undisputedly presented as a more idolatrous king than Jerobeam."
54 Van Keulen, "Manasseh through the Eyes of the Deuteronomists," 148.
55 Baruch Halpern, "Why Manasseh is Blamed for the Babylonian Exile. The Evolution of a Biblical Tradition," Vetus Testamentum XLVIII, no. 4 (1998):486, 489. Morton Smith, "The Veracity of Ezekiel, the Sins of Manasseh, and Jeremiah 44:18," Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 87, no. 1 (1975):12 sees in Manasseh's sins a reason for Josiah's death and defeat, but not the final fall of Jerusalem in 587.
58 Handy, "Rehabilitating Manasseh," (224) argues that the preservation of Manasseh's impieties in Chronicles but not his shedding of innocent blood relates to the function of the narrative: "A heretic can repent and make restitution, a murderous tyrant can repent, but his victims stay recalcitrantly dead."
59 Brian Kelly, "Manasseh in the Books of Kings and Chronicles (2 Kings 21:1-18; 2 Chron 33;1-20)," in Windows into Old Testament History. Evidence, Argument, and the Crisis of "Biblical Israel, " (eds. V. Philips Long, David W Baker and Gordon J. Wenham (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 141 finds the reference to Babylon puzzling as the Assyrian capital would have been Nineveh. Perhaps the Chronicler uses Babylon here to link the eventual exile of Judah here with Manasseh's exile as a typology of what will happen.
60 Kelly, "Manasseh in the Books of Kings and Chronicles," 142, refers to the Assyrian practice of restoring rebellious vassals to their original kingdoms, as was the case with Neco I of Egypt.
61 Handy, "Rehabilitating Manasseh," 226, argues that Manasseh became the embodiment of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, their defender and not desecrator.
62 Becker, Joachim. 2 Chronik. Die neue Echter Bibel. Kommentar zum Alten Testament mit der Einheitsübersetzung. Vol. 20. (Würzburg: Echter, 1988), 111. See also Handy, "Rehabilitating Manasseh," 227.
63 Sara Japhet, I & II Chronicles, a Commentary. Old Testament Library (London: SCM Press, 1993), 1002. Lasine (Lasine, "Manasseh as Villain and Scapegoat," 179) argues that Manasseh's crimes, his subsequent punishment, repentance and return exhibit what is known as a royal scapegoat. Like Oedipus, he is expelled from the community and he repents. Like Oedipus, he then brings blessings to the community before he dies.
64 Handy, "Rehabilitating Manasseh," 228 argues that by the late Persian period Jews who took up these foreign cultic practices were no longer regarded as Jews. Those who failed to serve Judah's god were no longer regarded as Jewish.
65 Japhet, I & II Chronicles, 1003. Handy, "Rehabilitating Manasseh," regards the idea of Manasseh having been invited to a coronation and taken as prisoner to the event as "nonsense." See Jacob M. Myers, II Chronicles. Vol. 13. The Anchor Bible (New York: Doubleday, 1965), 198-9. Myers explains the event Manasseh supposedly attended, but not the capturing with manacles, fetters, and hooks.
66 Japhet, I & II Chronicles, 1009.
67 Handy, "Rehabilitating Manasseh," 231.
68 Hugh Page, "Prayer of Manasseh," in The Africana Bible. Reading Israel's Scriptures from Africa and the African Diaspora, ed. Hugh Page (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010), 318, says the Prayer of Manasseh is a reclamation of a king who represented "the re-embrace of leaders within the community who had at one time been classified as marginal, unacceptable, or outside of the mainstream." Josephus must also have known a version of the prayer of Manasseh in his rendition of the story. See Etienne Nodet, "Priêres de Manassé (2 Chronicles 33, 1*; TSK 1.144*; 4 Q 381)," Revue Bibliques 117, no. 3 (2010):345-60 who also compares the Geniza Fragments and Qumran evidence to a Hebrew version of the prayer.
71 Japhet, I & II Chronicles,1010.
74 Lowel K. Handy, "Rehabilitating Manasseh: Remembering King Manasseh in the Persian and Hellenistic Periods. Social Memory and Imagination," in Remembering Biblical Figures in the Late Persian & Early Hellenistic Periods, eds. Diana Edelman and Ehud Ben Zvi (London: Oxford University Press, 2013), 222223.
75 Louis H. Feldman, "Josephus' Portrait of Manasseh," JSP 9 (1991):4.
76 Hanna Liss, "'The Sins of the Prophets:' Biblical Characters through Rabbinic Lenses." Lexington Theological Quarterly 37, no. 4 (2002):207.
77 Obvious Vengeyi, "King Manasseh of Judah: A Paradigm for Understanding What Lies behind Good/bad African Leadership Dichotomy," Review of Human Factor Studies 20, no. 1 (2014): 101-108 provides an indepth discussion of the two texts in Prism B and C.
78 Lasine, "Manasseh as Villain and Scapegoat," 178.
80 See Feldman, "Josephus' Portrait of Manasseh," 6-8. The angels urged God not to accept his repentance, but God replied that in not accepting him, he would be closing the door on all repentant sinners.
81 Feldman, "Josephus' Portrait of Manasseh," 10-12.
84 Vengeyi, "King Manasseh of Judah," 99-130.
85 Marvin A. Sweeney, "King Manasseh of Judah and the Problem of Theodicy in the Deuteronomistic History," in Good Kings and Bad Kings. The Kingdom of Judah in the Seventh Century BCE (T&T Clark Biblical Studies, London: T & T Clark, 2007), 266.
86 Sweeney, "King Manasseh of Judah and the Problem of Theodicy," 268.
88 Römer, L'invention de Dieu, 251.
89 Dirk Buchner, "Boshet in Jeremiah 3:24: Disenfranchisement and the Role of the Goddess in Seventh-Century Judah." Journal of Theological Studies 59, no. 2 (2008):488. William S. Morrow, "Were There Neo-Assyrian Influences in Manasseh's Temple? Comparative Evidence from Tel-Miqne/Ekron," The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 75 (2013):73 concludes on the basis of evidence in Ekron that Manasseh in all probability pursued indigenous practices without having to disturb the Assyrian cultic practices Judah incorporated as an Assyrian vassal.
91 Römer, L' invention de Dieu, 286.
94 James Anderson, "Creating Dialectical Tensions: Religious Developments in Persian-Period Yehud Reflected in Biblical Texts," in Religion in the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Emerging Judaism and Trends. Orientalische Religionen in der Antike 17 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 10-11.
95 Anderson, "Creating Dialectical Tensions," 15.
98 Philip R. Davies, "Monotheism, Empire, and the Cult(s) of Yehud in the Persian Period," in Religion in the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Emerging Judaism and Trends. Orientalische Religionen in Der Antike 17 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 26.
99 Davies, "Monotheism, Empire, and the Cult(s) of Yehud in the Persian Period," 25-29.
Department of Old and New Testament, Stellenbosch University,
Private Bag X1, Matieland, Stellenbosch, Western Cape Province, ZA, 7602,
Tel: +27 21 808 3255, Tel: +27 21 808 4889
em4@sun.ac.za


8 others would like to attend.
This course is designed to present advanced instruction for community orthopaedic surgeons on the management of soft tissue trauma, fractures and musculoskeletal injuries from initial evaluation and surgical technique through convalescence and rehabilitation. The target audience includes practising orthopaedic surgeons, orthopaedic residents, physician assistants and orthopaedic nurses interested in or currently caring for orthopaedic injury patients. Emphasis will be placed on fracture care in the community practice environment.
Orthopaedic surgeons, residents, physician assistants, nurse practitioners and nurses interested in or currently caring for orthopaedic injury patients.
Compare and contrast the various treatment strategies for patients with orthopaedic trauma injuries.
Define the current standards for post-injury rehabilitation after orthopaedic injury.
Recognize and assess practice risk reduction in caring for orthopaedic injury patients.
The University of Cincinnati designates this live activity for a maximum of 20.5 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credits commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.


So, have you heard of "Kei Trucks or Mini Trucks?"
Kei trucks, also known as mini trucks, are small size trucks with small engines below 660 cc. We call them "軽トラ (Kei-Tora)" here in Japan. "kei" means "light" and "tora" means "Truck". Kei truck is a type of light vehicle (see Kei Jidosha), which the Japanese government restricts by the engine size (less than 660cc) and body size (less than 3.40 X 1.48 X 2.00 m) as well as passenger number. Kei trucks are a subset of the kei family, which includes vans, passenger vehicles, as well. And in the news of late, about 40% of new vehicles sold here in Japan are light vehicles--crazy, right?
Everybody loves them, and you can see these light cars everywhere in Japan from the next door neighbor's driveway to the coffee shop down the street.
But, back on subject here, kei trucks are great! Well, mainly because they are inexpensive, have better fuel economy, are very light but still durable, and can be used for many different purposes such as business, farming, fishing, hunting, camping, construction, etc. And of course, they are easy and fun to drive! Doesn't that just sound great to you? There are many fans of kei trucks here, including me. You can find them in 4AT or 5MT, 2WD or 4WD, newer models have AC and other more luxurious features. But, kei trucks usually have 3 way fold down and removal bed sides, so they are easy to load and unload.
There are many different kei trucks in Japan, the main brands include Suzuki Carry, which is the most well-known, Daihatsu Hijet, Mitsubishi Minicab, Honda Acty, and Mazda Scrum. We have quite a few kei trucks at Autorec, and we have shipped them all over the world, from Africa to USA! People are getting to know how good these kei trucks are, and so the number of trucks we ship are increasing by the day. And, in some countries like Canada and the USA, many people buy them as toys to customize and drive off-road. When customized, these light trucks are surprisingly classy, and fun to look at.
So if you are considering purchasing kei trucks, we can ship them via RORO or by container. I wouldn't be surprised if you can fit up to 7 kei trucks into one 40ft container. Or, you can just get one via RORO to test it out. Just make sure you confirm your country's import regulations with your Customs office and registration laws with your title office before you proceed with your order. Once you confirm this on your side, you are good to go!
Just test out the waters, and I'm sure you will be the next kei truck fan.


text:
'Child's Play' Finishes in Second Place at Weekend Box Office
Child's Play (2019) finished second at the box office this weekend, making an estimated total of $14 million. While finishing in second is never a bad thing at the summer box office, it's not terrific when your opening total is $104 million less than the top spot (which was Toy Story 4, a much kinder and gentler breed of toy).
Many in the industry predicted a slightly higher opening for Child's Play, especially with the film currently sitting at a healthy 60% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Viewers were less impressed with the return of Chucky, as the film only scored a C+ from ticket buyers surveyed by opening night polling service, Cinemascore.
When compared to recent horror films, Child's Play under performed at the weekend box office. Both Ma and Pet Sematary had larger first weekends (with Ma earning 18 million dollars and Sematary earning $24.5 million) along with less horror competition.
The biggest problem for Child's Play however is the imminent arrival of Ed and Lorraine Warren's devil doll, Annabelle, in Annabelle Comes Home, due out Tuesday afternoon, allowing Chucky no room to breathe at the box office. Most films have at least one full week before they face head-to-head competition, so expect Child's Play to not only drop off sharply next weekend, but also throughout the week.
Be sure to check out HNN's Official Summer Preview Guide and come back early next week for a review of Annabelle Comes Home and next weekend's box office report.
Click here for more on the Child's Play franchise.
Nick joined the website in 2015. His lifelong love of comics and horror began with Universal Monsters and the Incredible Hulk. He has fond memories of going to Waldbaum's supermarket with his mother and being rewarded with a 3-pack of sealed comics. It's been all downhill from there… Since those early days, his life has been immersed in four color action and scares on the silver screen.
'Chucky' TV Series Won't Start Production Until Next Year
Horror Movies and TV Shows Thomas Tuna - September 4, 2020 0
Apparently, not even a demonic doll is immune to the horrors of COVID-19. It looks like the proposed Chucky TV series--slated to air on both Syfy and...
Mezco Reveals Details On Talking Menacing Chucky From 'Child's Play 2'
Horror Toys Rob Caprilozzi - September 2, 2020 0
Mezco revealed some images and juicy details of their new Mezco Designer Series Mega Scale Chucky figure. The figure is their first Mega Scale...
Brad Dourif To Reprise His Role In 'Chucky'
Horror Movies and TV Shows Rob Caprilozzi - July 23, 2020 0
It's finally official. Brad Dourif will reprise his role as the psychotic titular character in the upcoming Syfy and USA Network series Chucky. According to...
New Trailer Offers Sneak Peek At 'Chucky' TV Debut In 2021
Horror Movies and TV Shows Thomas Tuna - July 17, 2020 0
That knife-happy doll with an attitude is coming to the small screen and, as reported, it's bringing along "an evil too great to play...

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
class Solution(object):
	def invertTree(self, root):
		"""
		:type root: TreeNode
		:rtype: TreeNode
		"""
		if root == None:
			return root
		#swap left and right, from root to leaves
		root.left,root.right = root.right, root.left
		self.invertTree(root.left)
		self.invertTree(root.right)
		return root

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


What can Perth offer you during your internship?
"It's always sunny in Perth", the locals say & although set on the Swan River, there are plenty of beaches not far away. There are several festivals throughout the year to enjoy as well — The Summer Music Festival, in March The Nannup Music Festival, in May the Bunbury Jazz Festival, in October the York Jazz Festival, the Bridgetown Blues Festival in November & in February, the Perth International Arts Festival. Close by Perth, on the coast, is the port town of Freemantle, with its lovely old buildings, fabulous restaurants & cafes & great night-life or just swim in the Indian Ocean.
Recommended trips to Rottnest Island to see the cute Quokkas, Monkey Mia for the dolphins, Ningaloo Reef, the Bungle Bungles, the wine area of Margaret River, the amazing Kimberly region, beautiful Broome, Coral Bay, and historic Kalgoolie & Albany will keep you busy.


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Apilus, the gentle way to 100% permanent hair removal. Don't settle for anything less!


text:
Biografia

Stagioni 1997-2005
Attivo in gare FIS dal novembre del 1996,  ed esordì in Coppa Europa il 7 dicembre 1998 a Valloire in slalom gigante (40º). Il primo risultato importante della carriera arrivò nel febbraio del 2001, quando conquistò la medaglia di bronzo nel supergigante ai Mondiali juniores di Verbier. L'esordio in Coppa del Mondo avvenne il 9 dicembre 2001 nello slalom gigante di Val-d'Isère, in cui si piazzò 25º conquistando così i suoi primi punti nel circuito.

In Coppa Europa ottenne il primo podio il 15 febbraio 2001 a Ravascletto in slalom gigante (2º) e la prima vittoria il 15 gennaio 2002 a San Martino di Castrozza nella medesima specialità. Negli anni successivi non raccolse risultati particolarmente significativi in Coppa del Mondo, a parte due quindicesimi posti. Al suo esordio iridato, Bormio/Santa Caterina Valfurva 2005, non concluse la prova di slalom gigante.

Stagioni 2006-2009
Debuttò ai Giochi olimpici invernali a , dove si classificò 39º nel supergigante e non concluse lo slalom gigante; l'anno dopo ai Mondiali di Åre fu 22º nel supergigante e 29º nello slalom gigante.

Il 13 dicembre 2008 conquistò il suo unico podio in Coppa del Mondo: in quella data arrivò infatti terzo sulle nevi di casa di Val-d'Isère, in slalom gigante, grazie all'ottima seconda manche disputata, nella quale, partendo per primo (dopo la prima frazione era infatti 30º), sfruttò al meglio la pista  e si rese così protagonista di una grande rimonta. Ai Mondiali di quell'anno, disputati nella medesima località francese, si classificò 11º nel supergigante e 15º nello slalom gigante.

Stagioni 2010-2014
Ai XXI Giochi olimpici invernali di , sua ultima presenza olimplica, si classificò 31º nel supergigante e non concluse lo slalom gigante; l'anno dopo ai Mondiali di Garmisch-Partenkirchen vinse la medaglia d'oro nella gara a squadre (partecipando come riserva) e fu 9º nello slalom gigante. Il 22 febbraio 2012 conquisto a Sella Nevea in supergigante la sua ultima vittoria, nonché ultimo podio, in Coppa Europa.

Ai Mondiali di Schladming 2013, suo congedo iridato, colse il miglior risultato individuale in carriera, riuscendo a conquistare la medaglia d'argento iridato nel supergigante. Il 26 gennaio 2014 disputò la sua ultima gara in Coppa del Mondo, il supergigante di Kitzbühel che chiuse al 48º posto, e al termine di quella stessa stagione 2013-2014 si ritirò dalle competizioni; la sua ultima gara fu lo slalom speciale dei Campionati mondiali militari 2014, il 27 marzo a Pampeago, non completato da De Tessières.

Palmarès

Mondiali
 2 medaglie:
 1 oro (gara a squadre a Garmisch-Partenkirchen 2011)
 1 argento (supergigante a Schladming 2013)

Mondiali juniores
 1 medaglia:
 1 bronzo (supergigante a Verbier 2001)

Coppa del Mondo
 Miglior piazzamento in classifica generale: 57º nel 2011
 1 podio:
 1 terzo posto

Coppa Europa
 Miglior piazzamento in classifica generale: 14º nel 2003
 18 podi:
 5 vittorie
 5 secondi posti
 8 terzi posti

Coppa Europa - vittorie

Legenda:
SG = supergigante
GS = slalom gigante

Coppa Europa - gare a squadre
 1 podio:
 1 secondo posto

Nor-Am Cup
 Miglior piazzamento in classifica generale: 73º nel 2007
 1 podio:
 1 terzo posto

South American Cup
 Miglior piazzamento in classifica generale: 10º nel 2013
 Vincitore della classifica di supergigante nel 2013
 2 podi:
 1 secondo posto
 1 terzo posto

Campionati francesi
 6 medaglie:
 2 ori (slalom gigante nel 2011; supergigante nel 2012)
 2 argenti (slalom gigante nel 2001; slalom gigante nel 2005)
 2 bronzi (slalom gigante nel 2002; slalom gigante nel 2006)

Note

Collegamenti esterni

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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When the original Urban Decay Born to Run Eyeshadow Palette was released we were immediately excited about it, which rarely happens these days for us (with makeup). This palette is filled with gorgeous neutral shades but also has pops of color, leaving you with everything you would need to create just about any makeup look. The formula on this palette is also the best Urban Decay has to offer, in our opinion. The mattes blend our beautifully, even the colored ones and the metallics are uber creamy and long lasting. Read our full review here if you're interested.
Although the palette is gorgeous and well-made our only complaint was the size. It's too large to travel with and the vast color selection can be overwhelming. So when Urban Decay released their Born to Run MINI palettes, we were so anxious to try them! We've said this before but our ideal palettes have 9 or fewer shadows. This makes for more monotone looks that you don't have to put too much thought into.
There are three palettes in the collection: Detour, Bailout, and Shortcut. They all have very unique color stories and a mix of finishes. We'll show you each below along with swatches and give you our thoughts!
I'm just going to cut to the chase here. The Detour Palette is our favorite of the three. It's filled with gorgeous everyday browns and bronzes and has two absolutely unique blue shades. Blue was the standout eyeshadow trend in 2018 and we're glad it's carrying over into the new year slightly. The shade "DETOUR" is one that I like to use on an everyday basis just thrown in the crease. It's so creamy and has subtle mustard undertones which I love. The shade 'SWITCHBACK' looks stunning as in inner corner highlight!
The Shortcut Palette is our second favorite of the three. We always forget how much we love berry tones until we wear them on the eye. For some reason, they seem to suit green eyes! Actually, if you don't want to invest in the Naked Cherry Palette this would be a great alternative! There is a great mix of pinks and berries but you also have a couple of neutral shades to make the palette more wearable. They also included one of their most popular shadows, SIN, which can double as a highlight. We love to wear the shade 'ZONE' diffused all over the lid. It's so pretty!
At first glance, you may think the Bailout Palette is purple focused, but it's actually the most neutral out of the three, with the exception of one purple shadow (VICE). This palette is really pretty if you like creams and browns. The only reason we're not 100% in love with it is that a few of the shadows are really similar. We don't think this one has as much variety as the other two. In short, it's just not as exciting as Shortcut and Bailout.
Overall we were really impressed with these little palettes and have been reaching for them more often than not! I'm only deducting a point because the formula includes talc and I'm allergic so I can't wear these shadows for more than a few hours at a time without my lids getting irritated. Hope you enjoyed this review!


text:
по-русски en Español (pronto)
1159places to visit
in the world62places to visit
in Greece21places to visit
on Rhodes
Acropolis of Lindoson Rhodes, Greece
#1of 21 places to visiton Rhodes
Adventure Rating on Rhodes
TOP-21 adventure's step-by-step
recipes & lifehacks
How to walk through the the Street of the Knights on RhodesHow to see the unique Bay of St. Paul in the shape of heart on RhodesHow to ride on a donkey on RhodesHow to see the Acropolis of Lindos on RhodesHow to take selfie with ostrich on RhodesHow to climb to the Monolithos castle on RhodesHow to see the Acropolis of Rhodes on Rhodes
21 thing to doon Rhodes
In the Acropolis of Lindos, that is as famous as the Acropolis of Athens, you can walk among ancient columns, see how the archaeologists work and touch history.
The Acropolis is located on a cliff 116 meters high. You can reach it by foot or rent a donkey. In the Acropolis of Lindos, the second largest Acropolis in Greece after the one in Athens, you will see how temples built over 2000 years ago and the fortresses of the Knights of the Order of St. John of the Middle Ages coexist in a rare symbiosis.
Acropolis is still being restored, here you can see the archaeologists at work, so during a visit, you can note how carefully they do their job.
Pearl of the Acropolis is Temple of Athena Linda. Besides the architectural attractions, you can find here an observation deck, where you can see the lagoon and the St. Paul's bay in the shape of a heart (it is believed that here landed the apostle Paul and begun to evangelise the inhabitants of Rhodes).
Things to do here 3
#2 Ride on a donkey J Carr
If you want to experience the incredible feeling, when you climb to the Acropolis, you can use donkey and reach the top of the hill :)
#3 See the unique Bay of St. Paul in the shape of heart Harper Fuller
Reach the top of the ancient Acropolis and prepare your camera to take pictures :)
#4 See the Acropolis of Lindos oddviser
Here you will be able to break away from the reality for a while and become an ancient Greek and stroll among the colonnades.
Know more things to do? Guest
Share your ideas of what to do on Rhodes with other travellers — together we'll make our travellings more interesting!
Acropolis of Lindos on the map
Location: Lindos town
from 8:30 am to 3-4:30 pm
← Rhodes#21 of 21
TOP-21places to visit
Street of the Knights of Saint John →#2 of 21
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More places to visit on Rhodes
#5 Ostrich Farm & Park
Hilarious fun for the whole family, there are farm and zoo here, where in addition to ostriches are monkeys, donkeys, kangaroos, goats and camels.
#10 Kameiros
The city, where you can find only ruins, see the ghosts of the past and take a walk to the places mentioned by Homer in his immortal poem.
#12 Prasonisi Cape
South point of the island of Rhodes, called "kiss of two seas", because it is here the Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea come together.
#16 Embona village
The island is the center of wine-making, there are small wineries and large plant here, as well as many taverns and houses in true Greek style.
#3 Filerimos mountain
On top of this mountain are a Catholic monastery, orthodox church, the path "the way to Calvary" and the beautiful panoramic area.
#6 The Valley of the Butterflies
Nature Reserve, the famous landmark of Rhodes, where on the trunks of trees you will see live butterflies Arctiidae, and the air is saturated with vanilla.
#4 Monolithos Castle
Castle merged with the hill, on which it is located. Now here are only ruins from the castle, but here you can still find a breathtaking view of the Aegean Sea.
#18 Pastida
A tiny village is located a few kilometers away from Rhodes Airport, is famous for its honey and where a unique Bee museum with apiaries and a gift shop is located.
#21 Rhodes
Rhodes is the Greece, about which so many books have been written, filmed a lot of movies, and about which all adults and children dream thanks to the Greek myths.
#17 Monastery Tsambika
At the top of a 240-meter hill saint monastery is located, where many people come to perform a ritual that helps to get rid of incurable diseases.
#2 Street of the Knights of Saint John
The centre of medieval Rhodes, a paved street, stretching from the main port of the city to the majestic Palace of the Grand Masters.
#13 Lindos town
The small town on the coast, with white houses of 16-18 centuries, two picturesque coves, ancient buildings, described by Homer and Herodotus, and Christian churches.
Photo credit © https://www.flickr.com/photos/frodeholthe/
About us | Advertising | Contact us© 2020 Oddviser


text:
NOT A PROBLEM: Rams Head Coach Said Team Might Skip Trump Visit After Super Bowl Win
By Joseph Curl
Feb 4, 2019 DailyWire.com
Talk about getting ahead of yourself.
During a press conference before the Super Bowl, Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay said the team was "undecided" on whether to accept an invitation to visit President Trump at the White House.
Now, the team won't have to bother making the decision: Only winners get invited to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Ever since Trump took office, athletes and teams have been dissing the president. And Trump's been playing them like the master troll he is. In June 2018, Trump abruptly disinvited the Philadelphia Eagles after some team players said they'd boycott the visit.
"The Philadelphia Eagles are unable to come to the White House with their full team to be celebrated tomorrow. They disagree with their President because he insists that they proudly stand for the National Anthem, hand on heart, in honor of the great men and women of our military and the people of our country," Trump said in a statement. "The Eagles wanted to send a smaller delegation, but the 1,000 fans planning to attend the event deserve better."
Trump also slapped the Eagles for disrespecting the Star-Spangled Banner.
The Philadelphia Eagles Football Team was invited to the White House. Unfortunately, only a small number of players decided to come, and we canceled the event. Staying in the Locker Room for the playing of our National Anthem is as disrespectful to our country as kneeling. Sorry!
Trump also spanked the Golden State Warriors the year before after some players, including star Stephen Curry, said they probably would not attend a White House ceremony. "Going to the White House is considered a great honor for a championship team," Trump tweeted. "Stephen Curry is hesitating, therefore invitation is withdrawn!"
But the Rams brought it all to a new level: They said they might not go to the White House before they even won their sports' top trophy. Then they got beat 13-3 by the New England Patriots in one of the most boring Super Bowls ever.
McVay, 33, did say in the press conference that "the first thing is we have to win this game. And that's going to be a great challenge for us, so that's really kind of where we're at. We're solely focused on trying to win the game against an excellent football team that's been doing as well as anybody over the last handful of years."
Regardless, McVay did inject politics into the matter by saying the team was "undecided" on whether to visit the White House if the Rams won.
#LARams HC Sean McVay said the team is currently 'undecided' on if they'll visit the White House, should they go on to win the #SuperBowl. They will decide if they are lucky enough to hoist the Lombardi Trophy. pic.twitter.com/XLzXZO9uko
— Michael J. Duarte (@michaeljduarte) January 29, 2019
Well, they weren't "lucky" enough because they simply weren't "good" enough.
Here's the thing: There's no need for athletes and their coaches (or owners, for that matter) to be political. Think back 50 years, when President Richard Nixon invited sports teams to the White House. Did they all — every player or coach or owner — agree with Nixon, support the Vietnam War? Did they for Ronald Reagan? George Bush? Barack Obama?
Of course not. But they went to the White House because the president invited them. They were civil, adult, mature. And when the president invites you to the White House, you go.
That simple.
But if you're going to diss the president, maybe it's best to do so after you win the big game. Just saying.


text:
Зелений Бір () — селище міського типу в Смолевицькому районі Мінської області Білорусі. Розташоване за 18 км від залізничної станції Жодіно (на лінії Мінськ — Орша). Населення 1 тис. чол. (2006). Утворене в 1958 як робітниче селище з селищ торфопідприємства «Смолевицьке» — Зелений Бір і Тарасик Смолевицького району Мінської області. Видобуток торфу.

Примітки

Населені пункти Смолевицького району
Селища міського типу Мінської області
Селища міського типу Білорусі


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