Jesus: Adoration of the shepherds

Image: Adoration of the shepherds (of newborn Jesus), details from a painting of 1600's by Guido Reni (1575-1642), an Italian painter, draughtsman and etcher of high-Baroque style.

According to the gospels of Matthew and Luke, Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea to Mary, a virgin, by a miracle of the Holy Spirit. The angel Gabriel visits Mary to tell her that she was chosen to bear the Son of God (Luke 1:26-38). An order of Caesar Augustus forced Mary and Joseph to leave their home in Nazareth and come to the house of David, the home of Joseph's ancestors, for the Census of Quirinius (Luke 2:1-5). After Jesus' birth, Mary and Joseph were forced to use a manger in place of a crib because of shortage of accommodation (Luke 2:1-7). In the meanwhile, an angel had announced Jesus' birth to shepherds who left their flocks to see the newborn Jesus. The shepherds went back and publicized what they had witnessed throughout the area (Luke 2:8-18).

According to Matthew, the ‘Wise Men’ or ‘Magi’ brought gifts to the nascent Jesus after following a star, which they believed, was a sign that the ‘King of the Jews’ was born (Mt. 2:1-12). Subsequently, King Herod heard of Jesus' birth from the Wise Men and tried to kill Jesus by massacring all the male children in Bethlehem under the age of two (Mt. 2:16-17). Joseph and Mary, along with the infant Jesus, fled to Egypt and remained there until Herod's death, whereupon they returned to Nazareth to avoid living under the authority of Herod's son and successor Archelaus (Mt. 2:19-23).

Insects mating on liatris flower

Insects make up more than two-thirds of all extant animal species, and most insect species use sex for reproduction. Many species have sexual dimorphism. Insects have diverse mating strategies. Some of them make dance-like movements, while others may use sounds and chemical substances to attract their mating partners. The photo shows insects, probably beetles mating on a liatris flower head. Liatris (common names: Blazing-star, Gay-feather or Button snakeroot) is a genus of flowering perennial plants in the Asteraceae family, found in North America and the Bahamas. Their flowers are used as a popular summer flowers for bouquets.

Romeo and Juliet, painting by Frank Dicksee

Photo: ‘Romeo and Juliet’, 1884 painting depicting love, by English Victorian painter and illustrator Sir Frank Bernard Dicksee.

English Victorian painter and illustrator Sir Frank Bernard Dicksee (1853-1928), best known for his pictures of dramatic, historical and legendary scenes, also was a noted painter of portraits of fashionable women. Many of Dicksee's paintings are considered Pre-Raphaelite in style.

Marriage of Louis XIV of France with Maria Theresa of Spain

Bhaktivedanta Manor - ISKCON Temple

Bhaktivedanta Manor, a Gaudiya Vaishnava temple in the Hertfordshire countryside of England in the village of Aldenham near Watford, is owned and run by ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness or the Hare Krishna movement). Standing in 70 acres (280,000 squire meters), it is one of the most visited Radha-Krishna temples in Europe. The late Beatles musician George Harrison gave the Manor as an offering of devotion to the founder of the Hare Krishna movement, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Prabhupada renamed the property as Bhaktivedanta Manor.

Sunset over River Ganges in Mayapur, West Bengal

Mayapur, located on the banks of the River Ganges, at the point of its confluence with the Jalangi, near Navadvip, West Bengal, India, has the Head Quarters of ISKCON. Though Mayapur is considered a holy place by a number of other Hindu traditions, it is of special significance to the followers of Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition as the birthplace of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, regarded as a special incarnation of Krishna. Mayapur is visited by over a million pilgrims annually.

Rasputin among his admirers in 1914

The Tsar referred to Rasputin as ‘our friend’ and a ‘holy man’, and Rasputin had a considerable personal and political influence on Tsarina Alexandra, who believed that God spoke to her through Rasputin. Rasputin used to speak of salvation as depending less on the clergy and the church than on seeking the spirit of God within. He claimed that yielding to temptation (for him this meant sex and alcohol) was needed to proceed to repentance and salvation. During the years of World War I, Rasputin's drunkenness, sexual promiscuity and willingness to accept bribes in return for helping petitioners who flocked to his apartment, as well as his efforts to have his critics dismissed from their posts, made him cynical. Attaining divine grace through sin was one of the central secret doctrines which Rasputin preached to and practiced with his inner circle of high society ladies.

Moai with pukao and replica eyes

Moai with pukao (the hats or topknots placed on top of some moai statues) and replica eyes on Ahu Ko Te Riku in Hanga Roa, with Chilean Navy training ship Esmeralda, off Easter Island, in the background (September 2004).

Moai at the hillside in Rano Raraku, Easter Island

Moai are huge monolithic human figures carved from rock on the Polynesian island of Easter Island, Chile. These sculptures are believed to be carved between 1250 AD and 1500 AD. Nearly moai half are still at Rano Raraku, the main moai quarry, but hundreds of such rock sculptures were transported and set on stone platforms around the island's perimeter. Moai have very large heads measuring three-fifths of their bodies. The moai are the faces of deified ancestors. The statues still gazed inland across their clan lands when Europeans first reached the island, but most moai were cast down during later conflicts between clans.

The statues' production and transportation is considered a remarkable creative, intellectual and physical feat. The tallest moai Paro was about 10 meters high and weighed 75 tons, and the heaviest erected moai was a shorter, squatter moai at Ahu Tongariki weighing 86 tons.

Rano Raraku, located on the lower slopes of Terevaka in the Rapa Nui National Park on Easter Island, is a volcanic crater. It was a quarry for about 500 years until the early eighteenth century, and supplied the stone from which about 95 per cent of the island's rock sculptures (moai) were carved. Rano Raraku, where 397 moai still remain, is a visual record of moai design vocabulary and technological innovation. Rano Raraku is in the World Heritage Site of Rapa Nui National Park and gives its name to one of the seven sections of the park.

The River Nile, view from Cairo Tower