Symbolic Forest

About time I finished off writing about SOAS Modern Jewish Studies professor Tudor Parfitt, and his rather dodgy theory, shown on TV in his documentary The Quest For The Lost Ark, that the Biblical Ark Of The Covenant was not the ark that is biblically described, but was in fact a drum; that it was taken to Africa, survived in the possession of a Jewish tribe there, and that its final version is now in storage in an Harare museum. Which might make more sense if you read the previous posts I’ve written about it: part one, and part two.

Read more...

Keyword noise: Africa, Ancient Britain, archaeology, ark, Ark Of The Covenant, The Bible, Biblical, British archaeology, British prehistory, Caitlin lectures you, change, Channel 4, cultural change, culture, Deuteronomy, diffusion, diffusionism, Exodus, Harare, history, Jewish, Judaism, Lemba, Moses, Old Testament, prehistory, Scotland, Scottish archaeology, television, telly, theory, Tudor Parfitt, tv, Zimbabwe.

In our attempt to make sure we didn’t do anything too romantic on Saturday, we stayed in and watched an archaeology documentary on the telly. Or, at least, it said it was an archaeology documentary. It quickly veered off towards pseudoarchaeology, and stayed there.

Read more...

Keyword noise: Africa, archaeology, ark, Ark Of The Covenant, The Bible, Biblical, Caitlin lectures you, Channel 4, documentary, drum, Egypt, Harare, Israel, Israelites, Jerusalem, Judaism, Lemba, Moses, Old Testament, relic, religion, reliquary, ritual, television, telly, Temple, Torah, Tudor Parfitt, tv, Zimbabwe.

We’re stuck.

Read more...

Keyword noise: childrens tv, costume drama, fantasy, help needed, ITV, Keith Waterhouse, Lilliput, Lilliputians, period drama, television, telly, The Return Of The Antelope, tv, Victorian, Willis Hall, Yorkshire TV.

Today, author Mario Reading is in the news. Lucky for Mario Reading, because it gives him a chance to plug advertise his new book, a new translation and interpretation of Nostradamus. It’s the book, in fact, that’s newsworthy. It claims that in a couple of years’ time, someone will try to assassinate George Bush, and if they are successful he will be succeeded by his brother, who will take revenge with terrible results. Reading’s American distributors are rather upset about the prophecy – you’d think he would have seen the fuss coming.^*

Read more...

Keyword noise: books, future, George W Bush, literature, Mario Reading, marketing, news, Nostradamus, prediction, prophecy, prophet, psychic, publicity, reading, television, telly, tv.