Word: magie
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...keeping with his view of Joseph and Mary as year-round residents, Matthew has the Magi visit a "house." Luke introduces the manger as part of his view of them as involuntary short-timers. The English word manger, like the original Greek word phatne in Luke, is even more modest than our usual understanding of it. It means not a stable but simply a feeding trough or at best a stall. Either word would be consistent with the kind of rural poverty that has inspired poor people and their champions throughout the history of Christianity. Today's crčche scenes...
...heart. Yet they have been questioned by liberal scholars for years. Though often believers themselves, these scriptural experts have challenged nearly everything in the Nativity story: the angels, the star, even the wise men. As recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, the only one to mention them, the Magi are not the familiar three kings of Christmas legend (later piety gave them names, ages, races and crowns), but rather an unspecified number of astrologers, perhaps from Babylon. Even in that guise, some critics suggest, their existence is questionable, possibly merely a preaching device used by the evangelist to suggest...
Inside, the carols sound improbably beautiful; I have never been able to understand how a bunch of people without much musical talent individually can sound so good singing together. By some trick of the lighting or of my imagination, everyone looks as beatifically illuminated as the delighted magi in Renaissance paintings. Through the north-facing windows you can see Christmas lights twinkling on the blue spruce across the street that in the daytime shades the plaque commemorating the young men my village has lost in every war since the Revolution. And although I haven’t gone...
Capodilista had already noted the great care Giotto devoted to even the finest details, such as the fair hair covering Christ's torso in the Crucifixion, the camels' whiskers in the Adoration of the Magi, the weaving of the tablecloth in the Marriage at Cana. "These details could not be seen from the ground without binoculars," she says, "but somehow you can guess they are there. Such touches are among the joys of working on Giotto, but they are also a reason to fear making a mistake." Giotto's storyboard of man's redemption is a profound religious drama...
...It’s so hard to grade Harvard students,” one of my tutorial leaders commented in passing, feeling the pressure to grade us on a curve. “They’re all so smart.” And yet MAGI wants to lower student grades. This brings up a pivotal question in higher education: should college students receive the grades they deserve on a real scale, or grades decided by a bell curve and the competition of their fellow students...