Many of the stories in Visions of Hell must be mediated through physical objects, creating a sequence of confirmations that links the vision to the physical world. Often, the stories layer different forms of validation, forming a web that supports the vision’s version of truth and strengthens the consequences of the vision. In St. Paul’s story, a man receives a vision from an angel about a hidden box in his…
In the Liturgical Cycle for the Anglican Church, February 6, 2022 was the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany. As 2022 is Year C in the three-year cycle, the readings for the day include Isaiah 6:1-9.
The conception of hell as a frozen wasteland may seem surprising to people, as the general assumed temperature of hell is to be extremely hot. This basis is in fact proven in the Bible in several sections. In Revelations, hell is described as a “lake of fire.” There is also the geographical reasoning that states since Christianity originated from the Middle East and Africa, which are considered arid tropical climates,…
Derrida may be understood to use the image of a mask to think about the relation between testimony and reality. A testimony is like a mask that “covers” an objective reality in that a witness’s testimony is an affirmation of their claiming to have been present in some space at some time (76). Consequently, a testimony cannot be guaranteed because once it is, its sense of reflecting a witness’s presence…
By Julia Liu, Wren McMillan, Ann Rayburn In our group discussions, we started by understanding the commonalities between different visions and thinking about why they are in common. One aspect we found across multiple visions is the aspect of retelling. The vision is not just for the visionary to keep, but to spread it to other people so they can witness it too. The visionary is in a sense only…
Image: Apocalipsis in dietsche, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Néerlandais 3, fol. 22r
