Long time

Wow, its been a while. I keep starting posts and not finishing them. Lets catch you up: school started! i love to learn! Also, I went to the gogol bordello concert this summer and it was awesome. I havent been able to put up all the pictures from that night because they were on my phone and i emailed them to myself and google wont let me download them from my email and keeps kicking me out due to suspicious activity, because apparently its not suspicious to have emails with lots of pictures, its just suspicious to try to save them to your computer. go figure. well, at the gogol bordello concert, i also met the band Deleon. They are a lot of fun and sing in Hebrew and english (and a form of Hebrew mixed with Spanish, but I dont remember what its called now) Well, im going to go see them again in a couple of weeks, which should be awesome. They are opening for Os Mutantes, a brazilian band from the 70's.
Here is a video for a really fun Deleon song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYFrpLckWf0&feature=video_response

Also, Victor and I went to Deleon springs (a coincidence, I assure you) the mythical fountain of youth, found by Ponce de leon! We dipped our feet in the fountain of youth and then had pancakes. When I have my vacation next month, I am going to take my dad there so we can boat in the river. Maybe we'll see manatees!

So, I'm in an art history class right now and learning a lot about art from the ancient middle east, egypt and greece. It is a lot of fun, especially when mixed in with my Biblical studies. For example, my teacher told us about the "Victory stele of Naram-Sin".



This is an example of Akkadian art. (And in fact, the only example our teacher is having us study, though there are really intricate statues and other types of art from the Akkadian culture) This culture dominated the Mesopotamian region at one point in time. Our teacher explained that their language seemed to be a form of Hebrew, a Semitic like language. This really interested me and I figured that if this culture really used a Hebrew-like language, they must be in the Bible somewhere. In addition to this question, I often found myself confused at the definition of Hebrew, Semite, and Isrealite. I know that "Isrealites" are the descendants of "Isreal" (or Jacob) who had 12 sons, the 12 tribes of Isreal. But I also knew that in the story of one of those sons, Joseph (coat of many colors Joseph)when he lives in Egypt, it says in the Bible that the Hebrews were detestable to the Egyptians and would not eat in the same room with them. So my question was then, if the term "Isrealite" had not come about then, but the word Hebrew was used, what was the difference? I had always heard "Hebrew" and "Isrealite" used almost interchangeable when studying about the Bible. So, in my search for a Biblical Akkadian culture, I also wanted to find the answer to this. In Genesis 10, it explains that Noah had three sons, Ham, Japeth and Shem. The descendants of Shem are Semites. (In case you didnt know, Abraham is a descendant of Shem, and he himself is the ancester of Isreal) It also explains that some of the descendants of Ham occupied Akkad! So I found Akkadians in the bible! I was super excited! Although, they are not technically Semites, they are related. So that is my lesson for you today! I hope it is not too rambling, but I love to make these kind of connections. Even when you spend your whole life learning bible stories, sometimes they don't make sense if you don't understand how they are connected.