title: Giant Bicycles

text: In 2003, the Total Compact Road (TCR) frame was offered in carbon fiber construction and marketed as the TCR Composite range. In 2006, Giant added a higher-grade carbon fiber frame marketed as the TCR Advanced frame, which was characterized by an integrated seat post (ISP). These frames were most notably raced at the Tour de France by T-Mobile's professional team. Using this design, the seat post on the new frame must be cut precisely to fit the owner by a trained Giant dealer. The TCR Advanced SL frames with ISP continued to be raced internationally, most notably by the Rabobank team (2009-2013), Team Giant-Shimano (2014), Giant-Alpecin (2015–2016) and Team Sunweb (2017-2018).


title: Giant Bicycles

text: In terms of other innovations, Giant also introduced its Maestro suspension in 2006. Maestro Suspension, according to Giant, is designed to deliver an efficient rear suspension power transfer. Maestro utilizes a setup of four pivot points and two linkages to create a floating pivot point that is designed to reduce pedal bob and enables the rear wheel to travel vertically.


title: Giant Bicycles

text: E-Bikes have become an increasingly popular type of bike of late. They now come in many different offerings, just like Giant offers with their normal bikes. The main three types are sorted into categories which are: Electric Road Bikes, Electric Mountain Bikes, Electric Adventure Bikes.


title: Giant Bicycles

text: Giant's first foray into professional road cycling was with the defunct Spanish Team ONCE directed by Manolo Saiz using Giant TCR frames in custom sizes for each individual rider. Laurent Jalabert was one of the most notable cyclists in the ONCE Team.


title: Giant Bicycles

text: In road cycling, Giant celebrated multiple achievements as the bike supplier of UCI WorldTeam Team Sunweb (both men and women), which competes in the highest level of road cycling. They are most noted for when both men and women teams won the Team Time Trial event at the 2017 UCI World Championships in Bergen, Norway. Notable riders include Tom Dumoulin, winner of the pink jersey in the 2017 Giro d'Italia; Warren Barguil, winner of the polka-dot jersey in the 2017 Tour de France, and Michael Mathews, winner of the green jersey in the 2017 Tour de France.


title: Giant Bicycles

text: Giant also sponsors many individual teams and athletes who range from ex-pros to current world champions.


title: Giant Bicycles

text: Kristian Blummenfelt is arguably Giant's most popular sponsored athlete, as he is currently one of the best triathletes in the world. He recently won an Olympic gold medal in Tokyo this summer as well as holds the records in the 70.3 and the 140.6 distances.


title: Giant Bicycles

text: Hector Leonardo Paez is another well known sponsored athlete, as he is a previous world champion XC mountain bike champion.


title: Giant Bicycles

text: Rahsaan Bahati is a former 10-time U.S. National Road Champion as well as the founder of the Bahati Foundation which works to build strong communities by providing underserved youth with bicycles.


title: Giant Bicycles

text: Some of the teams that Giant sponsor include: The Giant Off-Road Factory Team, The Black Foxes, and Team Onyx. Team Onyx is an all-black expedition racing team who have appeared on the show while competing in an Eco-Challenge.


title: Demoscene

text: The demoscene is an international computer art subculture focused on producing demos: self-contained, sometimes extremely small, computer programs that produce audiovisual presentations. The purpose of a demo is to show off programming, visual art, and musical skills. Demos and other demoscene productions (graphics, music, videos, games) are shared at festivals known as demoparties, voted on by those who attend and released online.


title: Demoscene

text: The scene started with the home computer revolution of the early 1980s, and the subsequent advent of software cracking. Crackers altered the code of video games to remove copy protection, claiming credit by adding introduction screens of their own ("cracktros"). They soon started competing for the best visual presentation of these additions. Through the making of intros and stand-alone demos, a new community eventually evolved, independent of the gaming and software sharing scenes.


title: Demoscene

text: Demoscene productions can be made with the latest consumer technology or with vintage home computers and consoles. Often terms "newschool" and "oldskool" are vaguely used to describe products for newer and older computers. In the oldskool department techniques of the past like ASCII/ANSI art, pixel graphics, chipmusic are constantly being used.


title: Demoscene

text: Demos are informally classified into several categories, the most important being the division between freeform demos and size-restricted intros, a difference visible in the competitions of nearly any demo party. The most typical competition categories for intros are the 64k intro and the 4K intro, where the size of the executable file is restricted to 65536 and 4096 bytes, respectively. In other competitions the choice of platform is restricted; only 8-bit computers like the Atari 800 or Commodore 64, or the 16-bit Amiga or Atari ST. Such restrictions provide a challenge for coders, musicians, and graphics artists, to make a device do more than was intended in its original design.


title: Demoscene

text: The earliest computer programs that have some resemblance to demos and demo effects can be found among the so-called display hacks. Display hacks predate the demoscene by several decades, with the earliest examples dating back to the early 1950s.


title: Demoscene

text: Demos in the demoscene sense began as software crackers' "signatures", that is, crack screens and crack intros attached to software whose copy protection was removed. The first crack screens appeared on the Apple II in the early 1980s, and they were often nothing but plain text screens crediting the cracker or their group. Gradually, these static screens evolved into increasingly impressive-looking introductions containing animated effects and music. Eventually, many cracker groups started to release intro-like programs separately, without being attached to unlicensed software. These programs were initially known by various names, such as "letters" or "messages", but they later came to be known as "demos".


title: Demoscene

text: In 1980, Atari, Inc. began using a looping demo with visual effects and music to show the features of the Atari 400/800 computers in stores. At the 1985 Consumer Electronics Show, Atari showed a demoscene-style demo for its latest 8-bit computers that alternated between a 3D walking robot and a flying spaceship, each with its own music, and animating larger objects than typically seen on those systems; the two sections were separated by the Atari logo. The program was released to the public. Also in 1985, a large, spinning, checkered ball—casting a translucent shadow—was the signature demo of what the hardware was capable of when Commodore's Amiga was announced.


title: Demoscene

text: Simple demo-like music collections were put together on the C64 in 1985 by Charles Deenen, inspired by crack intros, using music taken from games and adding some homemade color graphics. In the following year the movement now known as the demoscene was born. The Dutch groups 1001 Crew and The Judges, both Commodore 64-based, are often mentioned among the earliest demo groups. While competing with each other in 1986, they both produced pure demos with original graphics and music involving more than just casual work, and used extensive hardware trickery. At the same time demos from others, such as Antony Crowther, had started circulating on Compunet in the United Kingdom.


title: Demoscene

text: The demoscene is mainly a European phenomenon. It is a competition-oriented subculture, with groups and individual artists competing against each other in technical and artistic excellence. Those who achieve excellence are dubbed "elite", while those who do not follow the demoscene's implicit rules are called "lamers"; such rules emphasize creativity over "ripping" (or else using with permission) the works of others, having good contacts within the scene, and showing effort rather than asking for help. Both this competitiveness and the sense of cooperation among demosceners have led to comparisons with the earlier hacker culture in academic computing. The demoscene is a closed subculture, which seeks and receives little mainstream public interest. , the size of the scene was estimated at some 10,000.


title: Demoscene

text: In the early days, competition came in the form of setting records, like the number of "bobs" (blitter objects) on the screen per frame, or the number of DYCP (Different Y Character Position) scrollers on a C64. These days, there are organized competitions, or compos, held at demoparties, although there have been some online competitions. It has also been common for diskmags to have voting-based charts which provide ranking lists for the best coders, graphicians, musicians, demos and other things.


title: Demoscene

text: In 2020, Finland added its demoscene to its national UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage. It is the first digital subculture to be put on an intangible cultural heritage list.


title: Demoscene

text: In 2021, Germany and Poland also added its demoscene to its national UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage.


title: Demoscene

text: Demosceners typically organize in small groups, centered around a coder (programmer), a musician, a graphician (graphics designer) and a swapper (who spread own and others' creations by mail).


title: Demoscene

text: Groups always have names, and similarly the individual members pick a handle by which they will be addressed in the large community. While the practice of using handles rather than real names is a borrowing from the cracker/warez culture, where it serves to hide the identity of the cracker from law enforcement, in the demoscene (oriented toward legal activities) it mostly serves as a manner of self-expression. Group members tend to self-identify with the group, often extending their handle with their group's name, following the patterns ""Handle" of "Group"" or ""Handle"/"Group"".


title: Demoscene

text: A demoparty is an event where demosceners and other computer enthusiasts gather to take part in competitions, nicknamed "compos", where they present demos (short audio-visual presentations of computer art) and other works such as digital art and music. A typical demoparty is a non-stop event spanning a weekend, providing the visitors a lot of time to socialize. The competing works, at least those in the most important competitions, are usually shown at night, using a video projector and loudspeakers. The most important competition is usually the demo compo.


title: Demoscene

text: The visitors of a demoparty often bring their own computers to compete and show their works. To this end, most parties provide a large hall with tables, electricity and usually a local area network connected to the Internet. In this respect, many demoparties resemble LAN parties, and many of the largest events also gather gamers and other computer enthusiasts in addition to demosceners. A major difference between a real demoparty and a LAN party is that demosceners typically spend more time socializing (often outside the actual party hall) than in front of their computers.


title: Demoscene

text: A 64K intro is a demo with an executable file size limit of 64 kibibytes, or 65,536 bytes. This is a traditional limit inherited from the maximum size of a COM file. File size reduction techniques include procedural generation, sound synthesis, and executable compression. Demos traditionally were limited by RAM size, or later by storage size. By the early 1990s, demo sizes grew, so categories were created for limited sizes that forced developers to not simply stream data from storage.


title: Demoscene

text: fr-08, a 64k PC demo by Farbrausch released at The Party 2000 in Aars has since been claimed to mark a watershed moment in the popularity of the category. Others include Chaos Theory by Conspiracy (2006), Gaia Machina by Approximate (2012), F — Felix's Workshop by Ctrl-Alt-Test (2012) Fermi paradox by Mercury (2016), and Darkness Lay Your Eyes Upon Me by Conspiracy (2016).


title: Demoscene

text: Although demos are still a more or less obscure form of art even in the traditionally active demoscene countries, the scene has influenced areas such as computer games industry and new media art.


title: Demoscene

text: Many European game programmers, artists, and musicians have come from the demoscene, often cultivating the learned techniques, practices and philosophies in their work. For example, the Finnish company Remedy Entertainment, known for the Max Payne series of games, was founded by the PC group Future Crew, and most of its employees are former or active Finnish demosceners.


title: Demoscene

text: Sometimes demos even provide direct influence even to game developers that have no demoscene affiliation: for instance, Will Wright names demoscene as a major influence on the Maxis game Spore, which is largely based on procedural content generation. Similarly, at QuakeCon in 2011, John Carmack noted that he "thinks highly" of people who do 64k intros, as an example of artificial limitations encouraging creative programming. Jerry Holkins from Penny Arcade claimed to have an "abiding love" for the demoscene, and noted that it is "stuff worth knowing".


title: Demoscene

text: Certain forms of computer art have a strong affiliation with the demoscene. Tracker music, for example, originated in the Amiga game industry but was soon heavily dominated by demoscene musicians; producer Adam Fielding claims to have tracker/demoscene roots. Currently, there is a major tracking scene separate from the actual demoscene. A form of static computer graphics where demosceners have traditionally excelled is pixel art; see "artscene" for more information on the related subculture. Origins of creative coding tools like Shadertoy and Three.js can be directly traced back to the scene.


title: Demoscene

text: Over the years, desktop computer hardware capabilities have improved by orders of magnitude, and so for most programmers, tight hardware restrictions are no longer a common issue. Nevertheless, demosceners continue to study and experiment with creating impressive effects on limited hardware. Since handheld consoles and cellular phones have comparable processing power or capabilities to the desktop platforms of old (such as low resolution screens which require pixel-art, or very limited storage and memory for music replay), many demosceners have been able to apply their niche skills to develop games for these platforms, and earn a living doing so. One particular example is Angry Birds, whose lead designer Jaakko Iisalo was an active and well-known demoscener in the 90s. Unity Technologies is another notable example, its technical leads on iPhone, Android and Nintendo Switch platforms Renaldas Zioma and Erik Hemming are authors of Suicide Barbie demo for Playstation Portable console released in 2007.


title: Demoscene

text: Some attempts have been made to increase the familiarity of demos as an art form. For example, there have been demo shows, demo galleries and demoscene-related books, sometimes even TV programs introducing the subculture and its works.


title: Demoscene

text: 4players.de reported that "numerous" demo and intro programmers, artists, and musicians were employed in the games industry by 2007. Video game companies with demoscene members on staff included Digital Illusions, Starbreeze, Ascaron, 49Games, Remedy, Techland, Lionhead Studios, Bugbear, Digital Reality, Guerrilla Games and Akella.


title: Demoscene

text: The Tracker music which is part of Demoscene culture could be found in many Video games of the late 1990s and early 2000s, such as the "Unreal", "Unreal Tournament", "Deus Ex", "", "", "Jazz Jackrabbit" and "Uplink".


title: Kelly Gissendaner

text: Kelly Renée Gissendaner (née Brookshire; March 8, 1968 – September 30, 2015) was an American woman who was executed by the U.S. state of Georgia. Gissendaner had been convicted of orchestrating the murder of her husband, Douglas Gissendaner (December 14, 1966 – February 7, 1997). At the time of the murder, Gissendaner was 28, and her husband was 30. After her conviction, and until her execution, Gissendaner was the only woman on death row in Georgia.


title: Kelly Gissendaner

text: According to sworn affidavits by friends and family members, she was molested by her stepfather and other men during her childhood and adolescence. During her senior year of high school, she claimed to have been date raped. Nine months later, her first son was born. In 1987, at the age of 19, Kelly Gissendaner married her first husband Jeff Banks. They stayed together for six months.


title: Kelly Gissendaner

text: Kelly married Douglas Gissendaner for the first time on September 2, 1989. They had a baby together, lost their jobs, and moved in with Kelly's mother. Douglas joined the Army and they were sent to Germany. Kelly became pregnant by another man who later died of cancer. She and Douglas were divorced in 1993. In May 1995, she remarried Douglas. In December 1996, the couple bought a house together in Auburn, Georgia.


title: Kelly Gissendaner

text: Kelly, in addition to her daughter with Douglas, had two sons. Douglas was the stepfather to her sons.


title: Kelly Gissendaner

text: On February 7, 1997, Gregory Bruce Owen (born March 17, 1971) hid near the couple's home in Auburn. When Douglas arrived, Owen forced Douglas into his car at knifepoint and drove him to a wooded area in Gwinnett County near Harbins Park. After striking Douglas in the head with a nightstick, Owen stabbed Douglas in the neck and back multiple times. When Kelly arrived at the scene moments later, the two set fire to her husband's car and hid the body in the woods.


title: Kelly Gissendaner

text: Before trial, prosecutors offered both Owen and Gissendaner a plea deal of life in prison and no chance of parole for twenty-five years. Gissendaner, however, rejected the plea deal.


title: Kelly Gissendaner

text: Gissendaner was convicted of orchestrating her husband's murder and sentenced to death in 1998, after Owen testified against her in a plea agreement in which he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Owen told a jury that Gissendaner had first approached him about "a way to get rid of" her husband three months before the murder. He further testified that Gissendaner thought murder was the only way to get Douglas out of her life and still get the house and a payoff from his life insurance policy. During the trial, Gissendaner was discovered to have threatened witnesses and also plotted to pay a witness to commit perjury.


title: Kelly Gissendaner

text: After being sentenced to death, Gissendaner resided in Metro State Prison until it was closed in 2011. She was then transferred to Arrendale State Prison. While in prison, Gissendaner had a conversion to Christianity. During her time in prison, Gissendaner ministered to other women living in prison with her.


title: Kelly Gissendaner

text: A group of women who were incarcerated with Gissendaner formed a group called the "Struggle Sisters" after they were released from prison. Gissendaner had spoken to the women through an air vent and prevented some from committing suicide, while other women tell of how Gissendaner's words encouraged them to turn their lives around. The women released a video detailing the impact Gissendaner had on their lives.


title: Kelly Gissendaner

text: In 2010, Gissendaner enrolled in a theology studies program for prisoners, run by a consortium of Atlanta-area divinity schools, including the divinity school at Emory University.


title: Kelly Gissendaner

text: During theology studies, she became a student of Christian thinkers like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Rowan Williams. Gissendaner developed a friendship with Jürgen Moltmann while she was in prison. Gissendaner sent Moltmann a paper which she had written on Bonhoeffer. He was impressed with her paper, and he wrote back. After that, the two became penpals exchanging letters about theology and faith. Gissendaner completed a theological degree program through Emory University.


title: Kelly Gissendaner

text: Gissendaner's execution was scheduled for February 25, 2015, when a winter storm delayed it until March 2, 2015. Her execution was further delayed when one of the execution drugs (pentobarbital) was thought to have been spoiled through improper storage, though it was later determined that the drug had merely precipitated out of solution due to colder than recommended storage conditions.


title: Kelly Gissendaner

text: Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, on behalf of Pope Francis, urged the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles to spare Gissendaner's life. Gissendaner's clemency application to the Board of Pardons included support from a number of correctional officers whom she had met while in prison. Norman S. Fletcher, the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia, urged clemency because capital punishment was not proportional to her crime. The Georgia Republican Party's general counsel and Republican Bob Barr also supported clemency.


title: Kelly Gissendaner

text: The board again declined to commute her sentence on September 29, 2015. (Georgia is one of three US states in which the governor is not empowered to grant clemency to the condemned.)


title: Kelly Gissendaner

text: Gissendaner was scheduled to be executed on September 29, 2015, but was again delayed by appeals. She was finally executed by lethal injection at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, Georgia, on September 30 at 12:21 a.m.


title: Kelly Gissendaner

text: Gissendaner cried, prayed, sang "Amazing Grace", and said, "...and I love you Sally. And I love you Susan. You let my kids know I went out singing Amazing Grace. And tell the Gissendaner family I am so sorry. That amazing man lost his life because of me and if I could take it back, if this would change it, I would have done it a long time ago. But it's not. And I just hope they can find peace. And I hope they find some happiness. God bless you."


title: Kelly Gissendaner

text: She was the first woman executed in Georgia since 1945, as well as the only woman executed in the United States in 2015.


title: Weekly Idol

text: Weekly Idol is a South Korean variety show that began in 2011 and currently airs Wednesdays at 7:30 PM KST on MBC M, and 12:00 AM KST on MBC Every1. It is one of the longest-running variety shows to air on satellite TV in Japan.


title: Weekly Idol

text: The production company behind the show, Genie Pictures was acquired by FNC Add Culture on January 15, 2018, while FNC Add Culture was acquired by SM Entertainment on May 18, 2018 and renamed SM Life Design Group.


title: Weekly Idol

text: Former Roo'ra member Lee Sang-min and comedians Yoo Se-yoon & Kim Shin-young were selected as the new hosts of the show's second season, which debuted on April 11, 2018. On November 21, 2018, it was announced that all 3 hosts, current producers and crew will be departing the show in January 2019, and a restructuring of the program is expected.


title: Weekly Idol

text: On December 18, 2018, it was announced that the new hosts for the third season of the show are comedians Nam Chang-hee & Jo Se-ho and 's Hwang Kwang-hee. The third season began on January 9, 2019. On February 12, 2020, it was announced that Jo Se-ho and Nam Chang-hee will leave their hosting roles, and there will be special MCs recruited to join Hwang Kwang-hee in hosting of each episode, starting from the episode on February 19 until the episode on April 15. On April 17, it was announced that Super Junior's Eunhyuk will join the fixed MC cast alongside Hwang Kwang-hee, starting from the episode on April 22.


title: Weekly Idol

text: Before "Idol of the Week", "Weekly Idol" had only one segment, "Real Chart! Idol Self-Ranking", where idols were asked to rank each other on different topics. This was later replaced by "I Wonder If You Know", where hosts, featured idols, Ilhoon (BtoB), and Bomi (Apink) guess one answer out of two choices given to them about idols, with food as a prize. This segment was replaced by "Weekly Food Tasting", where hosts, featured idols, Hayoung (Apink), Mina (AOA), and N (VIXX) complete mission to win foods they want. The following segment was "Idols are the Best", where various missions were given to the featured idols, namely Jackson (Got7), Jooheon (Monsta X), SinB (GFriend) and Dahyun (Twice).


title: Weekly Idol

text: A new segment was introduced on February 22, 2017, "Masked Idol: Your Name Is", where masked idols compete against one another: the winner gets to remove his/her mask and promote himself/herself and/or his/her group, while the rest have to attend the following week's contest alongside one new masked idol.


title: Weekly Idol

text: The main segment of the show, called "Idol of the Week" (), features idol groups as the invited guests, and usually consists of several featured corners which vary from episode to episode:


title: Weekly Idol

text: During these corners, the talk is usually held without too much formality. An annual year-closing episode, "Weekly Idol Award", started on December 31, 2011. In this episode, the hosts usually review the corners and the appearances of the guests that were featured in the latest year. In 2017, the Award show will be held outdoors.


title: Weekly Idol

text: Note: Some occasions, Jeong Hyeong-don and Defconn instead appear as the featured guests ("Hyungdon and Daejun") with their host position replaced by various guest hosts.


title: Weekly Idol

text: Following Jeong Hyeong-don's hiatus from broadcast activities beginning Episode 227, a system was introduced in which idols with whom Hyeong-don is close to would take turns co-hosting the show in his place.


title: Disodium phosphate

text: Disodium phosphate (DSP), or disodium hydrogen phosphate, or sodium phosphate dibasic, is the inorganic compound with the formula NaHPO. It is one of several sodium phosphates. The salt is known in anhydrous form as well as forms with 2, 7, 8, and 12 hydrates. All are water-soluble white powders; the anhydrous salt being hygroscopic.


title: Disodium phosphate

text: The pH of disodium hydrogen phosphate water solution is between 8.0 and 11.0, meaning it is moderately basic:


title: Disodium phosphate

text: Industrially It is prepared in a two-step process by treating dicalcium phosphate with sodium bisulfate, which precipitates calcium sulfate:


title: Disodium phosphate

text: It is used in conjunction with trisodium phosphate in foods and water softening treatment. In foods, it is used to adjust pH. Its presence prevents coagulation in the preparation of condensed milk. Similarly, it is used as an anti-caking additive in powdered products. It is used in desserts and puddings, e.g. Cream of Wheat to quicken cook time, and Jell-O Instant Pudding for thickening. In water treatment, it retards calcium scale formation. It is also found in some detergents and cleaning agents.


title: Disodium phosphate

text: Monobasic and dibasic sodium phosphate are used as a saline laxative to treat constipation or to clean the bowel before a colonoscopy.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: The New Church (or Swedenborgianism) is any of several historically related Christian denominations that developed as a new religious group, influenced by the writings of scientist and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772).


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Swedenborgian organisations acknowledge what they believe to be the universal nature of God's church: all who do good in accordance with the truth of their religion will be accepted into heaven (since God is goodness itself), and doing good joins one with God.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Swedenborg published some of his theological works anonymously; his writings promoted one universal church based on love and charity, rather than multiple churches named after their founders and based on belief or doctrine.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Although Swedenborg spoke in his works about a "New Church" that would be based on theology, he never tried to establish such an organisation. In 1768, a heresy trial began in Sweden against Swedenborg's writings and two men who promoted them; the trial questioned whether Swedenborg's theological writings were consistent with Christian doctrine. A royal ordinance in 1770 declared that his writings were "clearly mistaken" and should not be taught, but his theology was never examined.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Swedenborg's clerical supporters were ordered to stop using his teachings, and customs officials were directed to impound his books and stop their circulation in any district unless the nearest consistory granted permission. Swedenborg begged the king for grace and protection in a letter from Amsterdam; a new investigation of him stalled, and was dropped in 1778.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: At the time of Swedenborg's death, few efforts had been made to establish an organised church. On 7 May 1787, however (15 years after his death), the New Church movement was founded in England – where Swedenborg had often visited, and where he died. A number of churches had sprung up around England by 1789, and in April of that year the first General Conference of the New Church was held in Great Eastcheap, London. New Church ideas were brought to the United States by missionaries, one of whom was John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed).


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Early missionaries also travelled to parts of Africa. Swedenborg believed that the "African race" was "in greater enlightenment than others on this earth, since they are such that they think more 'interiorly', and so receive truths and acknowledge them." African enlightenment was considered a liberal concept at the time, and Swedenborgians accepted freed African converts in their homes as early as 1790. Several Swedenborgians were also abolitionists.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Occultism became increasingly popular during the 19th century (particularly in France and England), and some followers blended Swedenborg's writings with theosophy, cabala, alchemy, and divination. Swedenborg's mystical side fascinated them; they concentrated on "Heaven and Hell", which describes Swedenborg's visits to Heaven and Hell to experience (and report on) the conditions there. In structure, it was related to Dante's "Divine Comedy".


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: The U.S. church was organised in 1817 with the founding of the General Convention of the New Church (sometimes shortened to the Convention), now also known as the "Swedenborgian Church of North America". The movement in the United States strengthened until the late 19th century, and there was a New-Church Theology School in Cambridge. Controversies about doctrine and the authority of Swedenborg's writings caused a faction to split off and form the Academy of the New Church. It later became known as the General Church of the New Jerusalem – sometimes called the General Church – with its headquarters in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania (a suburb of Philadelphia). Other congregations felt doctrinally compelled to join the General Church at its inception. Two Convention congregations in Canada (one in Toronto and another in Kitchener) and two congregations from the British Conference – Michael Church in London and Colchester New Church – joined the General Church.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Membership in the New Church has always been small, and the organisations have been deeply involved in publishing.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: The New Church has two essential doctrines. The first is that there is one God, Jehovah, who incarnated as Jesus so that he may redeem mankind. The second is the obligation to live according to his commandments. "There are two essentials which constitute the church, and hence two principal things of doctrine—one, that the Lord's Human is Divine; the other, that love to the Lord and charity toward the neighbor constitute the church, and not faith separate from love and charity." These "two things, the acknowledgment of the Lord, and a life according to the precepts of the Decalogue[...] are the two essentials of the New Church."


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Adherents believe that these two doctrines bring about salvation and union with Jesus. "All things of the doctrine of the New Church have reference to these two, because they are its universals, on which all the particulars depend, and are its essentials, from which all the formalities proceed" If a person is unaware of the doctrines but has believed in one God and lived a good life, according to Swedenborg, they will learn them from angels after death.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Swedenborg argued that the Trinity was not three persons—the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—but one, "the Father being the originating divine being itself, the Son the human embodiment of that divine soul, and the Holy Spirit the outflowing activity of Jesus, or the 'Divine Human'" He wrote that the doctrine of a three-person Trinity originated during the fourth century with the adoption of the Nicene Creed to combat Arianism, but it was unknown to the Apostolic Church (indicated by the Apostles' Creed, which he believed preceded the Nicene Creed).


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: The New Church's universal principle of faith is that the "Lord from eternity, who is Jehovah, came into the world to subjugate the hells and to glorify His Human; and without this no mortal could have been saved; and those are saved who believe in Him":


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: From this doctrine, the Trinity is defined as "the three essentials of one God, and they make one as soul, body, and operation make one in man. Before the world was created this Trinity was not; but after creation, when God became incarnate, it was provided and brought about; and then in the Lord God the Redeemer and Savior Jesus Christ." As a trinity of body, soul, and spirit exists in every man, this became the Holy Trinity in Jesus. The doctrine of one God as one person distinguishes the New Church from other Christian churches, most of which define the Trinity as three eternal persons. The New Church sees Trinitarianism as illogical: "In the ideas of thought a Trinity of Divine Persons from eternity, or before the world was created, is a Trinity of Gods; and these ideas cannot be effaced by a lip-confession of one God."


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Monotheism is defined as one God who is one person; only the Lord (Jehovah) is worshiped. Worship of, and faith in, Jesus is not worshiping a created being: although he was born with a human body, the New Church holds that his soul was eternally divine. When he rose from the dead, he discarded the human body he inherited from Mary and put on a human body from the divinity within him (known in the New Church as the Divine Human).


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: According to Swedenborg, God the Father is the inner divinity which became outwardly manifest in human form known as the Son. Since adherents believe that the Lord is one with the Father, the Lord's Prayer is directed to the Lord only. In the opening "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name", "name" is everything by which God is worshiped (particularly the Son, through whom he is approached).


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: According to the New Testament, Jesus sometimes prayed to the Father and declared himself one with the Father at other times. New Church adherents believe that this was because Jesus progressed towards God during his life by gradually making his human body one with the divine.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: New Church adherents believe that faith in Jesus brings salvation. Faith in Jesus is faith in a visible God. Jesus is the image and form of the invisible God, on whom the human mind can focus. According to the New Church, God is man himself. If a person is good and follows the truth, God lives in that person (who becomes an image and likeness of him). The New Church is said to be the "crown of all churches which preceded it", since the invisible God is worshiped in human form.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: The sum of the concept of faith in the New Church is that a person who lives well believes is saved. Faith is not defined as belief alone; the New Church holds that faith without charity is not faith, and charity without faith is not charity; in this way, faith and charity are intertwined. Faith and charity become one in acts of good works or repentance. The union of faith and charity is a central tenet of the New Church; all substantial things are related to divine love and divine wisdom, and the will and understanding of each person is a receptacle of God's love and wisdom.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: According to New Church adherents, a person must learn and live by the truth; in the union between humanity and the Lord, faith becomes living and spiritual. All the precepts of how one should live are contained in the Ten Commandments. The first act of faith is repentance: self-examination, acknowledging one's sins, and turning away from evil.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: The Bible concerns God and his kingdom. The New Church has three pillars: God's divinity, the holiness of the Bible, and a life of good works. The Bible is divinely inspired; according to adherents, its spiritual sense has been revealed in the New Church through symbolic correspondence. Its literal meaning, similar to a parable, hides the inner, spiritual sense: "The truths of the sense of the letter of the Word are in part not naked truths, but are appearances of truth, and like similitudes and comparisons are taken from such things as are in nature; and thus are such as have been accommodated and adapted to the capacity of the simple and also of children."


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: The Bible cannot be properly understood without doctrine, and church doctrine should be confirmed with it. Doctrine can only be known by those who are enlightened by God, and those who are not can fall into heresy. The Bible contains divine truth; according to New Church adherents, a person joins God and his angels when reading it.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: The New Church has two primary sacraments: baptism and the Eucharist (also known as communion, or holy supper). These external rituals symbolise inner, spiritual life. Baptism signifies entrance into Christianity and reformation of the mind, where falseness is replaced by truth. Although believers should be baptised at the age of reason (to make a decision to follow Jesus), Swedenborg said that baptised infants receive a guardian angel to guide them into the Christian faith.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Marriage is a personal sacrament of the New Church, and its administration by a priest is desirable but not essential. According to Swedenborg, marriage should be administered by a priest "because marriages, considered in themselves, are spiritual, and thence holy; for they descend from the heavenly marriage of good and truth, and things conjugial correspond to the divine marriage of the Lord and the church; and hence they are from the Lord himself."


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Married love is founded in religion, since both originate from God. Without a religious foundation, a marriage can turn cold. According to the New Church, man is a form of truth and woman is a form of love; the two make one. Married love comes directly from heaven, and celibacy interferes with this. Therefore, marriage is preferable to celibacy. Marriage is considered a union of souls, and this can only exist between one man and one woman.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Contrary to mainstream Christian beliefs, Swedenborg did not condemn all sexual activity between those who were not married. While he was particularly against infidelity, Swedenborg believed that all erotic love between a man and a woman – even that which arose within unpropitious circumstances – still had the potential to develop into true conjugial love. He also believed that not all married couples necessarily experience conjugial love.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: New Church adherents believe that there was no space and time before the universe was created, and the realm with no space and time is the spiritual world. The spiritual world, which is divided between heaven and hell, is where the soul is realised. "All who die and become angels put off those two things proper to nature, which[...] are space and time; for they enter then into spiritual light, in which the objects of thought are truths, and the objects of sight are similar to the objects in the natural world, but correspondent to their thoughts." States of being replace time, and love replaces space or distance.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: New Church adherents believe that the soul is the recipient of life from God, and the body is its clothing. The beginning of life (the soul) comes from the seed of the father, and the external body comes from the mother. Since most Christians believe that Jesus was born of a virgin by the Holy Spirit, his soul was God itself and he always preexisted as Jehovah. Since souls originate from the seed of the father, New Church adherents do not believe in reincarnation.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Spirits and angels, through whom one approaches heaven or hell (depending on one's actions), are associated with a person during their life. Although communication between spirits and humans does not generally occur, it was more widespread in ancient times. Angels and spirits retain their memories and, in a mental state where communication is open, a person may experience a spirit's memory as if it were their own. This mental state (which may be achieved under hypnosis) resembles past life regression and was how some ancients came to believe in the preexistence of souls and reincarnation. However, the New Church does not consider this to be true, instead believing that one lives only once, and how one lives this life determines one's eternal destiny. At death, the soul sheds the physical body and becomes aware of the spiritual society with which one's soul was associated.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: New Church adherents do not believe in purgatory; punishment occurs only in hell. Immediately after death, one enters the spirit world (an intermediate state) and awaits judgment of whether they will enter heaven or hell. Since the evil try to appear good and the good retain false ideas, one remains in this intermediate state until they are examined. Those who are good and know the truth go immediately to heaven, and those who are evil go to hell. Otherwise, one gradually withdraws from exterior appearances and fallacies into one's interior intentions and affections in the spirit world.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: This process is complete when one acts in complete freedom without exterior restraint, and a person's character is open and manifest. "Thus hidden things are laid open and secret things are uncovered, according to the Lord's words: 'There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, and hid that shall not be known: whatsoever ye have said in the darkness, shall be heard in the light, and what ye have spoken in the ear in closets, shall be preached on the housetops' (Luke xii. 2, 3). And in another place: 'I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment' ( xii. 36)."


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: When all external restraints are removed in the spirit world, nothing remains to stop evil spirits except punishment. Since evil spirits act in accordance with their nature, they are drawn towards hell:


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: New Church adherents believe that God sends no one to heaven or hell; since hell is the internal state of evil and heaven the internal state of good, each person enters a state matching his or her internal nature. Because every spirit joins the like-minded group after death in which it feels the most comfortable according to Swedenborg, hell is believed to be a place of happiness for the spirits which delight in evilness. Each person will remain eternally in accordance with their will or love.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: New Church adherents believe that heaven proceeds from God, who is seen by the angels as the light of heaven and occasionally appears in angelic form. Jesus said that he was the light of the world, and the apostles once saw his face shining like a sun. For this reason, the ancients aligned their temples with the rising sun. In heaven, countless societies fulfill a particular purpose, each according to their love.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Since angels and demons were human, angels have a human form. There is no individual devil (or Satan): "In the whole heaven there is not one angel who was so created from the beginning, nor in hell any devil who was created an angel of light and cast down; but that all, both in heaven and in hell, are from the human race; in heaven those who lived in the world in heavenly love and faith, in hell those who lived in infernal love and faith; and that hell taken as a whole is what is called the devil and satan."


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: New Church adherents believe that the free will to choose between good and evil originates from one's spiritual equilibrium between heaven and hell. Hell influences humans to do evil, and heaven influences them to do good. This spiritual equilibrium frees humans to think rationally, which can lead to spiritual reform by acknowledging evil in oneself, ceasing to do evil and avoiding it. This choice is spiritual because every thought and action influences the soul and mind.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Good works join a person with angels, and evil joins them with evil spirits. Reform and salvation are possible with divine truth, which fights evil and falseness. When the truth is accepted and one has an evil desire, temptation (conflict) results. Although one must resist temptation, it is really a combat between God and the devil (or hell). Thus, "He who thinks that he fights from himself against the devil is enormously deceived."


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Salvation (or condemnation) is a result of moral choices, based on intentions. Good is only considered good when evil is removed, and must be done out of love for God (not for profit or honour). Good comes only from God, who can conquer temptation (a continuous, lifelong process). Jesus came to save humanity because the spiritual equilibrium between heaven and hell had become unbalanced; more people began to choose evil, threatening the entire human race. By taking human form, God could fight hell directly; Jesus experienced temptation.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Remission of sins is their removal after repentance. The New Church differs from older Christian churches on this point. "The belief that the passion of the cross was redemption itself is a fundamental error of the church; and that error, together with the error concerning three Divine persons from eternity, has perverted the whole church, so that nothing spiritual is left in it." The crucifixion was the last temptation endured by Jesus.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: New Church adherents believe that the word of God is in the Bible, which has a symbolic, hidden spiritual meaning. Swedenborg's visions told him how (and why) the Bible is divinely inspired and are described in his multi-volume ("Heavenly Secrets"). He called its symbolic language, where passages follow each other coherently and logically, correspondence. This inner meaning was kept hidden, and was revealed when humanity was ready. This hidden meaning distinguishes the Bible from other books, and Swedenborg supports his statements with biblical passages. The books with this inner, spiritual meaning forms the New Church biblical canon.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: According to Swedenborg, the original text of the Old Testament is preserved in the Hebrew Masoretic Text, where letters were counted by the Masoretes to ensure that the text remained accurate. Like Judaism does, he divides the Old Testament into three parts: the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms. The Old Testament books with an internal spiritual sense (and, thus, divinely inspired) include:


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Swedenborg's grouping differs from Judaism's; he assigned Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings to the Law of Moses, but according to the Jewish biblical canon the Law of Moses (the Torah) refers to the first five books—Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings belong to the Prophets (Nevi'im). Elsewhere, however, Swedenborg says that Moses and Elijah represent the Law and the Prophets respectively.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: The other books of the Old Testament (which are not generally believed to be divinely inspired) include those grouped by the Jews as "Writings" (Ketuvim). The Greek Septuagint incorporated other writings into the Hebrew texts, which Martin Luther removed and placed in the Apocrypha. Although the Jews included Lamentations, Daniel and the Psalms in the Ketuvim, New Church adherents consider them divinely inspired.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: The New Church regards the words of Jesus as divinely inspired, and considers the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and the Book of Revelation as sacred scripture. The church holds the Acts of the Apostles and the epistles in esteem, similar to the Jewish regard for the Old Testament writings. Swedenborg wrote that these books were included as an act of divine providence, since books for the general public explaining Christian doctrine were needed. He believed that although Paul's letters did not contain a word-for-word symbolic correspondence, they were still divinely influenced: "Paul indeed spoke from inspiration, but not in the same way as the prophets, to whom every single word was dictated but that his inspiration was that he received an influx, according to those things which were with him, which is quite a different inspiration, and has no conjunction with heaven by correspondences."


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Swedenborg believed that sacred texts of an "Ancient Church" in the Middle East preceded Judaism, but the texts have been lost. Some, such as "The Wars of Jehovah" (mentioned in Numbers 21:14–15) and another book similar to those in the Prophets (mentioned in Numbers 21:27–30), are quoted in the Bible (see non-canonical books referenced in the Bible). Another work that Swedenborg believed belonged to the ancient church was the Book of Jasher, which is also quoted in the Bible (Joshua 10:12–13, 2 Samuel 1:17–18); according to him, this book still existed in Tartary.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: A Hebrew midrash, was published in Venice in 1625; an English translation was published in 1840. The Hebrew text was examined by the 19th-century biblical scholar George Bush (a relative of the Bush family), who later became a Swedenborgian minister. Although the New Church has no official position on this Hebrew text, Swedenborg said that the first parts of Genesis were taken from the "Ancient Word" and are found in the book of Jasher.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: The doctrines of the New Church review and assess the doctrines of earlier churches. Swedenborg believed that before the New Church can be received, the doctrines of older churches must be exposed and rejected; the New Church is so opposed to the doctrines of the older Christian churches that they cannot coexist.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: In the New Church, authority is based on divine revelation rather than creeds or church councils. All doctrine should be confirmed by scripture. The interpretation of scripture is determined by doctrine, however, and enlightenment by God should be sought when reading his words.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: The Apostles' Creed, the creed of the Apostolic Church, does not refer to a trinity: "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary: also in the Holy Spirit." This creed is in agreement with the New Church, since it does not mention an eternally-existing son.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: The Nicene and Athanasian Creeds introduced the trinity. The Nicene Creed is a modified version of the Apostles' Creed; according to the New Church, a trinity of persons is a trinity of gods. The creed also introduces the concept of a son "begotten from eternity", which the New Church considers erroneous: "the Human, by which God sent Himself into the world, is the Son of God."


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: The New Church considers the Athanasian Creed, like the Nicene, incorrect in defining a trinity of persons. However, the church believes that the Athanasian Creed can be corrected if a trinity of one person in God is understood when it speaks of a trinity of persons. The creed expresses the church's doctrine of the divine human: "That our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is both God and Man; and although He is God and Man, still there are not two, but there is one Christ. He is one, because the Divine took to itself the Human; yea, He is altogether one, for He is one Person: since as the soul and the body make one man, so God and Man is one Christ." According to the New Church, God's human nature was made divine.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: The Council of Chalcedon declared that Jesus has two natures (divine and human), which contradicts New Church doctrine. Swedenborg said that it was revealed to him in a heavenly vision that:


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Although most other churches maintain that Jesus has two natures, the New Church believes that his human nature was made divine.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: In Socinianism, Jesus' divinity is denied. Arianism is similar, believing that Jesus was a created being. Both are considered heretical by the New Church, which believes that the divine human is the means by which humanity is saved; since all those who are in heaven are in his presence, Christians who deny Jesus' divinity go to hell. However, this does not apply to those who have been born and lived outside Christianity. According to New Church revelation, many Christians are Socinian at heart and deny that Jesus is divine; this derives from a trinitarian doctrine, from dividing Christ into two natures, and from calling Jesus merely the son of Mary.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: The New Church considers Islam to have been established by divine providence to eliminate idolatry. The New Church considers it a partial (or introductory) revelation; Islam worships one God, teaches one to live well and shun evil and teaches that Jesus was a great prophet and the son of the virgin Mary, but not the son of God (as in Christianity). The Quran contains teachings from sacred scripture.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: The church believes that Islam is a religion adapted to societies that practice polygamy. Since polygamy is an opposite love from monogamous marriage, and a marriage between a husband and wife corresponds to the marriage of God and the church, spiritual matters were not revealed in Islam. It is regarded differently from Socinianism or Arianism because only Christians can profane what is holy by distorting scripture; non-Christians, such as Muslims, cannot. Muslims oppose any Trinitarian Christian church. The New Church believes that Muslims may enter heaven, but only those who reject polygamy can learn the true nature of God.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: According to Swedenborgianism, the Catholic Church has perverted scripture to obtain primacy and dominion in spiritual matters. The Council of Chalcedon declared that Jesus has a divine and human nature so that the pope could claim to be the vicar of Christ and appropriate spiritual powers to the priesthood that belong to God alone. Authority is claimed by the pope and the priesthood over that of scripture. The desire to spiritually rule others or appear pious for honour and reputation originates from self-love, which is opposite the love of God and others.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Papal primacy is claimed by the Catholic Church from an interpretation of Matthew 16:18–19, where the apostle Peter is appointed the rock on which the church will be built and given the keys to heaven. In the New Church, this passage is understood spiritually; the "rock" signifies the truth that Jesus is God, "Peter" signifies faith in God, and the "keys of the kingdom of heaven" signify the faith that allows one to enter heaven. Divine providence gave the Catholic Church spiritual dominion, since it helped spread the gospel and prevented the Christian church from being destroyed by Arianism or Socinianism.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Catholics who do not read scripture worship externally only, to prevent the scriptures from being profaned. New Church adherents believe that Catholics who have avoided idolatry, worshiped God alone and done good works can receive spiritual truth from scripture more easily.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Although the Protestant churches have broken away from the Catholic Church and rejected many of its traditions, their basic theology remains the same. Catholics and Protestants agree on the belief in the trinity, original sin, and justification by faith; the main difference is that the Protestants believe that faith alone saves, without acts of charity. The reformers separated faith from charity to separate completely from the Catholic Church.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: In the New Church, good works must be done with the acknowledgment that good originates from God and not from self. The Protestant separation of faith and good works is derived from an epistle by Paul the Apostle saying that humanity is justified by faith, without "works of the law" (Romans 3:28). New Church adherents consider this is a false interpretation, for by "works of the law" Paul meant the external rituals of Mosaic law (not the Ten Commandments or acts of charity).


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: There is no instantaneous salvation by paying lip service to a belief in Christ. A person acquires a nature according to their works, and must repent for their sins by refusing to do evil. "The faith of the former church is, that repentance, remission of sins, renewal, regeneration, sanctification, and salvation, follow of themselves the faith that is given and imputed, without any thing of man being mingled or joined with them: but the faith of the New Church teaches repentance, reformation, regeneration, and thus remission of sins, with man's cooperation. The faith of the former church teaches the imputation of Christ's merit, and the imputation embraced in the faith that is given: but the faith of the New Church teaches the imputation of good and evil, and at the same time of faith, and that this imputation is according to the Sacred Scripture, while the other is contrary to it." Some Protestant churches (including the New Church) have withdrawn from the doctrine of faith alone: "The Word is read by them, and the Lord is worshipped, and hence with them there is the greatest light; and spiritual light, which is from the Lord as the Sun, which in its essence is Divine love, proceeds and extends itself in every direction, and enlightens even those who are in the circumferences round about, and opens the faculty of understanding truths, so far as they can receive them in accordance with their religion."


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: New Church adherents do not believe in an end of the world. The church has passed through several ages, each ending with a spiritual Last Judgement; the last of these occurred in 1757. Judgments also occurred at the time of Noah's Flood and Jesus' crucifixion. The purpose of the judgments is to separate good from evil in the intermediate spiritual world lying between heaven and hell. As a result of the judgments, a new age (or new church) begins among the people on earth. The New Church is a result of revelation.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Four churches have preceded the New Church. The first was the "Most Ancient Church" before the flood, when contact with heaven was direct. The second was the "Ancient Church", following the flood, which was destroyed by idolatry. The third was Judaism, which began with the revelation of the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai. The fourth was Christianity, established by Jesus and his apostles, which divided into the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Catholic Church, and Protestantism.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Adherents believe that the New Church, the final phase, is a renewal of Christianity based on Jesus' Second Coming. It is the fulfilment of the prophecy of a New Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation. Swedenborg said that the New Church would be established gradually, since the false beliefs of the former churches had to be set aside.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Swedenborg stated that he had distributed his books to English bishops and nobility, who considered them well-written but of little value and advised against reading them. Some members of other Christian denominations have criticised the church's denial of a trinity and Jesus' atonement. The New Church believes that there is one God in Jesus, and some Christian theologians classify the church as a cult.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Others reject Swedenborg's visions. Walter Ralston Martin quoted a critic that Swedenborg's spiritual experiences "were admittedly of such a character, that in an ordinary man they would have sufficed to qualify him for an asylum." According to Martin, however, his theological writings were so systematic that "no one can reasonably say that Swedenborg was insane": "Swedenborg was a rationalist, and paradoxically, a mystic. He was one who absorbed the introspective and subjective philosophy of Rene Descartes, and the empiricism of John Locke, which he combined with the transcendentalism of lmmanuel Kant, thus forming a mold into which Christian theology was poured, and what would not go into the mold (selected Old Testament works, the Pauline epistles, Acts, James, Peter, Jude, etc.), he simply discarded. What emerged was a deeply speculative philosophical system of theology, couched in a redefined Christian terminology, and buttressed with mystical visions, trances, and dreams."


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: The earliest assessment of Swedenborg came from contemporary German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Swedenborg was relatively unknown until 1759, when a fire broke out in Stockholm and threatened to burn down his house and his writings. At a dinner in Gothenburg, away, he reportedly turned pale and described to the guests exactly what was happening until the fire was put out (three houses away from his house). This was investigated by Kant, who wrote "Dreams of a Spirit-Seer" criticising Swedenborg and knowledge derived from dreams and visions. Kant wrote in letters that he privately admired Swedenborg, but did not publicly admit it in fear of ridicule.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Swedenborg stated that all teachings came to him from the Lord while reading scripture in a full waking state, and although allowed to converse with angels and spirits to give an account of the afterlife all doctrinal teachings were received from Jesus alone. Religious critics disagree, saying that he received his information from evil spirits and his revelations are "among the most antibiblical and anti-Christian material ever printed." According to Martin, Swedenborg "was apparently well aware of the fact that Pauline theology, if accepted at face value, would vitiate almost en toto his own. So he began with the basic assumption that he was right, and that the apostle Paul was wrong! In some of his visions and dreams, he stated that he actually argued with Paul, Luther, Calvin, and others. And, as ego triumphed, these great thinkers all retreated before Swedenborg's new revelations. However, one factor must never be forgotten, and that is the statement that the New Testament is the criterion for measuring all subsequent revelations, and whatever is found to be contrary to it, must be and always has been, rejected by the Christian church."


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Christians emphasise that in distinguishing an evil spirit from an angel, angels must glorify Jesus and teachings must be based on scripture. New Church adherents say that Swedenborg would agree, since he said no evil spirit can utter the name of Jesus; it signifies salvation, and those in the spiritual world speak as they think. Unlike many spiritualists, Swedenborg praises Jesus as the God of heaven and earth and his doctrines are derived from scriptural references. According to Swedenborg, none of the teachings originated from an angel or spirit and the spiritual world was revealed to him so humanity would know that there is life after death: "When I think of what I am about to write and while I am writing, I enjoy a complete inspiration, for otherwise it would be my own; but now I know for certain that what I write is the living truth of God." "That the Lord manifested Himself before me His servant, and sent me to this office, and that He afterward opened the sight of my spirit, and so has admitted me into the spiritual world, and has granted to me to see the heavens and the hells, also to converse with angels and spirits, and this now continuously for many years, I testify in truth; likewise, that from the first day of that call I have not received any thing which pertains to the doctrines of that church from any angel, but from the Lord alone while I read the Word."


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Critics note that Swedenborg viewed only 36 books in the Bible as divinely inspired. According to them, masquerading as a being of light is a demonic tactic; Swedenborg's allegorical, esoteric interpretations and paranormal encounters (bordering on the occult) contradict the scriptures and make his claims spurious. This criticism ignores the fact that the majority of Swedenborg's writings are based on direct scriptural quotations with numerous cross references. As for the writings of Paul, Swedenborg clarified the distinction between the epistles of Paul with the rest of scripture in his private diary: "Paul indeed spoke from inspiration, but not in the same way as the prophets, to whom every single word was dictated but that his inspiration was that he received an influx, according to those things which were with him, which is quite a different inspiration, and has no conjunction with heaven by correspondences."


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: D. Michael Quinn suggests that Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, was influenced by Swedenborg's writings. Like Swedenborg, Mormons believe in eternal marriage. However, they require that the ritual be performed in a temple. Smith's concept of three heavens is similar to Swedenborg's view. Both Swedenborg and Smith refer to heaven as "celestial", similar to Paul's (see 2 Corinthians 12:2) description of a visit to the "third heaven". Edward Hunter (a Swedenborgian who became a member of the Church) reported that in 1839 Joseph Smith told him that he was familiar with Swedenborg's writings.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: New Thought, a spiritual movement that began in the United States during the late 19th century, promotes positive thinking and healing. Phineas Quimby, a healer who said that illness in the body originated in false beliefs, was an early proponent. Quimby healed Warren Felt Evans, a Swedenborgian minister who became a healer and published several books promoting New Thought in New Church doctrines. According to Swedenborg, there is a correspondence from heaven with all things on earth.


title: The New Church (Swedenborgian)

text: Carl Jung, founder of analytical psychology and a contemporary of Sigmund Freud, was familiar with Swedenborg's works. He cited Swedenborg's reported clairvoyance about the 1759 Stockholm fire as an example of synchronicity: "When[...] the vision arose in Swedenborg's mind of a fire in Stockholm, there was a real fire raging there at the same time, without there being any demonstrable or


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: The Miller–Rabin primality test or Rabin–Miller primality test is a probabilistic primality test: an algorithm which determines whether a given number is likely to be prime, similar to the Fermat primality test and the Solovay–Strassen primality test.


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: It is of historical significance in the search for a polynomial-time deterministic primality test. Its probabilistic variant remains widely used in practice, as one of the simplest and fastest tests known.


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: Gary L. Miller discovered the test in 1976; Miller's version of the test is deterministic, but its correctness relies on the unproven extended Riemann hypothesis. Michael O. Rabin modified it to obtain an unconditional probabilistic algorithm in 1980.


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: Similarly to the Fermat and Solovay–Strassen tests, the Miller–Rabin primality test checks whether a specific property, which is known to hold for prime values, holds for the number under testing.


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: The property is the following. For a given odd integer , let’s write as where "s" is a positive integer and "d" is an odd positive integer. Let’s consider an integer "a", called a "base", which is coprime to "n".


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: Then, "n" is said to be a strong probable prime to base "a" if one of these congruence relations holds:


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: The idea beneath this test is that when "n" is an odd prime, it passes the test because of two facts:


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: Hence, by contraposition, if "n" is not a strong probable prime to base "a", then "n" is definitely composite, and "a" is called a witness for the compositeness of "n" (sometimes misleadingly called a "strong witness").


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: However, this property is not an exact characterization of prime numbers. If "n" is composite, it may nonetheless be a strong probable prime to base "a", in which case it is called a strong pseudoprime, and "a" is a strong liar.


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: Thankfully, no composite number is a strong pseudoprime to all bases at the same time (contrary to the Fermat primality test for which Fermat pseudoprimes to all bases exist: the Carmichael numbers). However no simple way of finding a witness is known. A naïve solution is to try all possible bases, which yields an inefficient deterministic algorithm. The Miller test is a more efficient variant of this (see section "Miller test" below).


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: Another solution is to pick a base at random. This yields a fast probabilistic test. When "n" is composite, most bases are witnesses, so the test will detect "n" as composite with a reasonably high probability (see section "Accuracy" below). We can quickly reduce the probability of a false positive to an arbitrarily small rate, by combining the outcome of as many independently chosen bases as necessary to achieve the said rate. This is the Miller–Rabin test. The number of bases to try does not depend on "n". There seems to be diminishing returns in trying many bases, because if "n" is a pseudoprime to some base, then it seems more likely to be a pseudoprime to another base.


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: Note that holds trivially for , because the congruence relation is compatible with exponentiation. And holds trivially for since is odd, for the same reason. That is why random are usually chosen in the interval .


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: For testing arbitrarily large , choosing bases at random is essential, as we don't know the distribution of witnesses and strong liars among the numbers 2, 3, …, .


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: However, a pre-selected set of a few small bases guarantees the identification of all composites up to a pre-computed maximum. This maximum is generally quite large compared to the bases. This gives very fast deterministic tests for small enough "n" (see section "Testing against small sets of bases" below).


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: Suppose we wish to determine if is prime. We write as , so that we have and . We randomly select a number "a" such that , say . We proceed to compute:


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: Since , either 221 is prime, or 174 is a strong liar for 221. We try another random "a", this time choosing :


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: Hence 137 is a witness for the compositeness of 221, and 174 was in fact a strong liar. Note that this tells us nothing about the factors of 221 (which are 13 and 17). However, the example with 341 in a later section shows how these calculations can sometimes produce a factor of "n".


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: The algorithm can be written in pseudocode as follows. The parameter "k" determines the accuracy of the test. The greater the number of rounds, the more accurate the result.


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: Using repeated squaring, the running time of this algorithm is , where "n" is the number tested for primality, and "k" is the number of rounds performed; thus this is an efficient, polynomial-time algorithm. FFT-based multiplication (Harvey-Hoeven algorithm) can decrease the running time to .


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: The error made by the primality test is measured by the probability that a composite number is declared probably prime. The more bases "a" are tried, the better the accuracy of the test. It can be shown that if "n" is composite, then at most of the bases "a" are strong liars for "n". As a consequence, if "n" is composite then running "k" iterations of the Miller–Rabin test will declare "n" probably prime with a probability at most 4.


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: This is an improvement over the Solovay–Strassen test, whose worst‐case error bound is 2. Moreover, the Miller–Rabin test is strictly stronger than the Solovay–Strassen test in the sense that for every composite "n", the set of strong liars for "n" is a subset of the set of Euler liars for "n", and for many "n", the subset is proper.


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: In addition, for large values of "n", the probability for a composite number to be declared probably prime is often significantly smaller than 4. For instance, for most numbers "n", this probability is bounded by 8; the proportion of numbers "n" which invalidate this upper bound vanishes as we consider larger values of "n". Hence the "average" case has a much better accuracy than 4, a fact which can be exploited for "generating" probable primes (see below). However, such improved error bounds should not be relied upon to "verify" primes whose probability distribution is not controlled, since a cryptographic adversary might send a carefully chosen pseudoprime in order to defeat the primality test.


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: The above error measure is the probability for a composite number to be declared as a strong probable prime after "k" rounds of testing; in mathematical words, it is the conditional probability


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: where "P" is the event that the number being tested is prime, and "MR" is the event that it passes the Miller–Rabin test with "k" rounds. We are often interested instead in the inverse conditional probability formula_5: the probability that a number which has been declared as a strong probable prime is in fact composite. These two probabilities are related by Bayes' law:


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: In the last equation, we simplified the expression using the fact that all prime numbers are correctly reported as strong probable primes (the test has no false negative). By dropping the left part of the denominator, we derive a simple upper bound:


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: Hence this conditional probability is related not only to the error measure discussed above — which is bounded by 4 — but also to the probability distribution of the input number. In the general case, as said earlier, this distribution is controlled by a cryptographic adversary, thus unknown, so we cannot deduce much about formula_5. However, in the case when we use the Miller–Rabin test to "generate" primes (see below), the distribution is chosen by the generator itself, so we can exploit this result.


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: The Miller–Rabin algorithm can be made deterministic by trying all possible "a" below a certain limit. Taking "n" as the limit would imply trials, hence the running time would be exponential with respect to the size of the input. To improve the running time, the challenge is then to lower the limit as much as possible while keeping the test reliable.


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: If the tested number "n" is composite, the strong liars "a" coprime to "n" are contained in a proper subgroup of the group (Z/"nZ)*, which means that if we test all "a" from a set which generates (Z/"nZ)*, one of them must lie outside the said subgroup, hence must be a witness for the compositeness of "n". Assuming the truth of the generalized Riemann hypothesis (GRH), it is known that the group is generated by its elements smaller than , which was already noted by Miller. The constant involved in the Big O notation was reduced to 2 by Eric Bach. This leads to the following deterministic primality testing algorithm, known as the Miller test:


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: The full power of the generalized Riemann hypothesis is not needed to ensure the correctness of the test: as we deal with subgroups of even index, it suffices to assume the validity of GRH for quadratic Dirichlet characters.


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: The Miller test is not used in practice. For most purposes, proper use of the probabilistic Miller–Rabin test or the Baillie–PSW primality test gives sufficient confidence while running much faster. It is also slower in practice than commonly used proof methods such as APR-CL and ECPP which give results that do not rely on unproven assumptions. For theoretical purposes requiring a deterministic polynomial time algorithm, it was superseded by the AKS primality test, which also does not rely on unproven assumptions.


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: When the number "n" to be tested is small, trying all is not necessary, as much smaller sets of potential witnesses are known to suffice. For example, Pomerance, Selfridge, Wagstaff and Jaeschke have verified that


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: Using the work of Feitsma and Galway enumerating all base 2 pseudoprimes in 2010, this was extended (see ), with the first result later shown using different methods in Jiang and Deng:


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: Sorenson and Webster verify the above and calculate precise results for these larger than 64‐bit results:


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: Other criteria of this sort, often more efficient (fewer bases required) than those shown above, exist. They give very fast deterministic primality tests for numbers in the appropriate range, without any assumptions.


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: There is a small list of potential witnesses for every possible input size (at most "b" values for "b"‐bit numbers). However, no finite set of bases is sufficient for all composite numbers. Alford, Granville, and Pomerance have shown that there exist infinitely many composite numbers "n" whose smallest compositeness witness is at least . They also argue heuristically that the smallest number "w" such that every composite number below "n" has a compositeness witness less than "w" should be of order


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: By inserting greatest common divisor calculations into the above algorithm, we can sometimes obtain a factor of "n" instead of merely determining that "n" is composite. This occurs for example when "n" is a probable prime to base "a" but not a strong probable prime to base "a".


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: From this we deduce that and are nontrivial (not necessarily prime) factors of "n" (in fact, since "n" is odd, these factors are coprime and "n" = "AB"). Hence, if factoring is a goal, these gcd calculations can be inserted into the algorithm at little additional computational cost. This leads to the following pseudocode, where the added or changed code is highlighted:


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: This is "not" a probabilistic factorization algorithm because it is only able to find factors for numbers "n" which are pseudoprime to base "a" (in other words, for numbers "n" such that ). For other numbers, the algorithm only returns “"composite"” with no further information.


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: For example, consider "n" = 341 and "a" = 2. We have . Then and . This tells us that "n" is a pseudoprime base 2, but not a strong pseudoprime base 2. By computing a gcd at this stage, we find a factor of 341: . Indeed, .


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: In order to find factors more often, the same ideas can also be applied to the square roots of −1 (or any other number).


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: This strategy can be implemented by exploiting knowledge from previous rounds of the Miller–Rabin test. In those rounds we may have identified a square root modulo "n" of −1, say "R". Then, when , we can compare the value of "x" against "R": if "x" is neither "R" nor "n"−"R", then and are nontrivial factors of "n".


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: The Miller–Rabin test can be used to generate strong probable primes, simply by drawing integers at random until one passes the test. This algorithm terminates almost surely (since at each iteration there is a chance to draw a prime number). The pseudocode for generating "b"‐bit strong probable primes (with the most significant bit set) is as follows:


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: Of course the worst-case running time is infinite, since the outer loop may never terminate, but that happens with probability zero. As per the geometric distribution, the expected number of draws is formula_9 (reusing notations from earlier).


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: As any prime number passes the test, the probability of being prime gives a coarse lower bound to the probability of passing the test. If we draw odd integers uniformly in the range [2, 2−1], then we get:


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: where π is the prime-counting function. Using an asymptotic expansion of π (an extension of the prime number theorem), we can approximate this probability when "b" grows towards infinity. We find:


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: Hence we can expect the generator to run no more Miller–Rabin tests than a number proportional to "b". Taking into account the worst-case complexity of each Miller–Rabin test (see earlier), the expected running time of the generator with inputs "b" and "k" is then bounded by (or using FFT-based multiplication).


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: Using the relation between conditional probabilities (shown in an earlier section) and the asymptotic behavior of formula_13 (shown just before), this error measure can be given a coarse upper bound:


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: Hence, for large enough "b", this error measure is less than formula_15. However, much better bounds exist.


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: Using the fact that the Miller–Rabin test itself often has an error bound much smaller than 4 (see earlier), Damgård, Landrock and Pomerance derived several error bounds for the generator, with various classes of parameters "b" and "k". These error bounds allow an implementor to choose a reasonable "k" for a desired accuracy.


title: Miller–Rabin primality test

text: One of these error bounds is 4, which holds for all "b" ≥ 2 (the authors only showed it for "b" ≥ 51, while Ronald Burthe Jr. completed the proof with the remaining values 2 ≤ "b" ≤ 50). Again this simple bound can be improved for large values of "b". For instance, another bound derived by the same authors is:


title: Vitalii Sediuk

text: Vitalii Mikolayovych Sediuk (; born 14 November 1988) is a Ukrainian self-described prankster. He was formerly a media reporter.


title: Vitalii Sediuk

text: He has physically assaulted a number of celebrities at events such as film premieres and awards ceremonies. On several of these occasions, he has gained access to otherwise restricted areas with the use of press credentials from his former employer, Ukrainian TV channel 1+1. In interviews, he has denied his conduct amounts to stalking and has stated he is not "crazy".


title: Vitalii Sediuk

text: In the aftermath of the attack, prosecutors announced they would seek an unprecedented court order banning Sediuk from any events connected with the entertainment industry in Los Angeles.


title: Vitalii Sediuk

text: Sediuk was held in the Los Angeles County Men's Central Jail after failing to post $20,000 bail, and was indicted on 30 May 2014 on charges of assault and battery. Sediuk was also charged with unlawful activity at a sporting, theatrical event, or exhibition, relating to his 2013 Oscars stunt, and prosecution for which had been deferred at the time of the incident on condition of his good behavior for three years. Sediuk pled no contest to all charges and was sentenced to 20 days of community service, $440 in court costs, and ordered to undergo psychological counseling for one year.


title: Vitalii Sediuk

text: Sediuk's attacks have generally not been well received in United States media. The "Los Angeles Times" has described his escapades as having "a sinister quality," while "The Hollywood Reporter" has labeled him "a shameless attention fiend and mischief-maker." In reporting on Sediuk's actions at the Cannes Film Festival, "The Huffington Post", while noting that Sediuk calls himself a prankster, asked "Is anyone really laughing?" Vulture has described Sediuk as "Borat without the wit or satire", while Uproxx has called Sediuk a "creep", and "The Wire" has referred to him as "a reprehensible piece of human garbage".


title: Vitalii Sediuk

text: Non-American press have also given Sediuk a cool reception. The edition of "GQ" in the United Kingdom has said Sediuk confirms "why Ukrainian comedy has yet to take over the world" and the "Toronto Star" has referred to him as an "unfunny prankster".


title: Vitalii Sediuk

text: Sediuk's criminal defense attorney, Anthony Willoughby, has defended Sediuk in media reports, and insisted he is not naturally prone to violence. Christa Scherck, a self-described publicist who has previously worked with Sediuk, has echoed Willoughby's assertion that Sediuk is not normally violent, also adding that he "does not have a drug problem", and "is not a pervert", but does have, however, "real issues that need to be dealt with".


title: Shruti Sharma (actress)

text: Shruti Sharma is an Indian actress who primarily works in Hindi television. She started her career as a contestant on the reality show "India's Next Superstars" in 2018 and then made her acting debut on television in 2019 with "Gathbandhan" where she played IPS Dhanak Parekh.


title: Shruti Sharma (actress)

text: Sharma made her film debut with the Telugu film "Agent Sai Srinivasa Athreya" (2019) and made her Hindi film debut with "Pagglait" (2021). She also played the dual role of Kahani Verma and Satya Singh Verma in "Namak Issk Ka".


title: Shruti Sharma (actress)

text: Sharma entered Hindi television as a participant in "India's Next Superstars" in 2018 and emerged as the "Third Superstar". The same year she made her web debut with the YouTube web series "Blockbuster Zindagi" alongside Aakarshit Gupta. She appeared in a music video, "Main Hua Tera" alongside Avitesh Shrivastava in 2018.


title: Shruti Sharma (actress)

text: She made her acting debut in January 2019 with the television show, "Gathbandhan" where she played the role of IPS Dhanak Parekh, a police officer who marries a don opposite Abrar Qazi. The show went off-air in November 2019. Sharma made her film debut with the 2019 Telugu film "Agent Sai Srinivasa Athreya" opposite Naveen Polishetty in the role of assistant detective. It received positive reviews from the critics, and was successful at the box office.


title: Shruti Sharma (actress)

text: In 2020, Sharma played the lead role of Daivik Palak Verma Chaudhary in supernatural series "Nazar 2" opposite Sheezan Mohammed. It ended early due to the situation of Covid-19. She then played Shayari Choudhary alongside Shehzada Dhami in "Yehh Jadu Hai Jinn Ka!" the same year. In November 2020, she starred in "Namak Issk Ka" portraying the double role of Kahani Verma/Chamcham and Satya Verma opposite Aditya Ojha. The show went off-air in August 2021.


title: Shruti Sharma (actress)

text: Sharma made her Hindi film debut with Sanya Malhotra's "Pagglait" in 2021. She played the role of Nazia Zaidi. It received mixed to positive reviews.


title: Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples

text: Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples or Proto-Semitic people were people who lived throughout the ancient Near East, including the Levant, Mesopotamia, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Horn of Africa from the 3rd millennium BC until the end of antiquity.


title: Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples

text: The Proto-Semitic language was likely spoken in the 4th millennium BC, and the oldest attested forms of Semitic date to the mid-3rd millennium BC (the Early Bronze Age).


title: Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples

text: Speakers of East Semitic include the people of the Akkadian Empire, Assyria and Babylonia. Central Semitic combines the Northwest Semitic languages and Arabic. Speakers of Northwest Semitic were the Canaanites (including the Phoenicians and the Hebrews) and the Arameans. South Semitic peoples include the speakers of Modern South Arabian languages and Ethiopian Semitic languages.


title: Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples

text: There are several locations proposed as possible sites for prehistoric origins of Semitic-speaking peoples: Mesopotamia, the Levant, Eastern Mediterranean, Ethiopia the Arabian Peninsula, and North Africa. Some view that the Semitic originated in the Levant circa 3800 BC, and was later also introduced to the Horn of Africa in approximately 800 BC from the southern Arabian peninsula, and to North Africa and southern Spain with the founding of Phoenician colonies such as ancient Carthage in the ninth century BC and Cádiz in the tenth century BC. Some assign the arrival of Semitic speakers in the Horn of Africa to a much earlier date and some scholars now think that Semitic originated from an offshoot of a still earlier language in North Africa perhaps in the southeastern Sahara and it might have been the process desertization that forced its inhabitants to migrate in the fourth millennium BC some southeast into what is now Ethiopia, others northwest out of Africa into Canaan, Syria and the Mesopotamian valley


title: Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples

text: The Semitic family is a member of the larger Afroasiatic family, all of whose other five or more branches have their origin in North Africa or the Maghreb. Largely for this reason, the ancestors of Proto-Semitic speakers were originally believed by some to have first arrived in the Middle East from North Africa, possibly as part of the operation of the Saharan pump, around the late Neolithic. Diakonoff sees Semitic originating between the Nile Delta and Canaan as the northernmost branch of Afroasiatic. Blench even wonders whether the highly divergent Gurage languages indicate an origin in Ethiopia (with the rest of Ethiopic Semitic a later back migration). Identification of the hypothetical proto-Semitic region of origin is therefore dependent on the larger geographic distributions of the other language families within Afroasiatic, whose origins are also hotly debated. According to Christy G. Turner II, there is an archaeological and physical anthropological reason for a relation between the modern Semitic-speaking populations of the Levant and the Natufian culture.


title: Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples

text: In one interpretation, Proto-Semitic itself is assumed to have reached the Arabian Peninsula by approximately the 4th millennium BC, from which Semitic daughter languages continued to spread outwards. When written records began in the late fourth millennium BC, the Semitic-speaking Akkadians (Assyrians and Babylonians) were entering Mesopotamia from the deserts to the west, and were probably already present in places such as Ebla in Syria. Akkadian personal names began appearing in written records in Mesopotamia from the late 29th century BC.


title: Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples

text: The earliest positively proven historical attestation of any Semitic people comes from 30th century BC Mesopotamia entering the region originally dominated by the people of Sumer, who spoke the language isolate Sumerian.


title: Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples

text: Between the 30th and 20th centuries BC, Semitic languages were spoken over a broad area covering much of the Ancient Near East, including the Levant, Mesopotamia, Arabia and the Sinai Peninsula.


title: Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples

text: The earliest written evidence of them is found in the Fertile Crescent (Mesopotamia) c. the 30th century BC, an area encompassing Sumer, the Akkadian Empire and other civilizations of Assyria and Babylonia along the Tigris and Euphrates (modern Iraq, northeast Syria and southeast Turkey), followed by historical written evidence from the Levant, Canaan, Sinai Peninsula, southern and eastern Anatolia and the Arabian Peninsula.


title: Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples

text: The earliest known Akkadian inscription was found on a bowl at Ur, addressed to the very early pre-Sargonic king Meskiang-nunna of Ur by his queen Gan-saman, who is thought to have been from Akkad. However, some of the names appearing on the Sumerian King List as prehistoric rulers of Kish have been held to indicate a Semitic presence even before this, as early as the 30th or 29th century BC. By the mid-third millennium BC, many states and cities in Mesopotamia had come to be ruled or dominated by Akkadian-speaking Semites, including Assyria, Eshnunna, the Akkadian Empire, Kish, Isin, Ur, Uruk, Adab, Nippur, Ekallatum, Nuzi, Akshak, Eridu and Larsa. During this period (c. 27th to 26th century BC), another East Semitic-speaking people, the Eblaites, appear in the historical record from northern Syria. They founded the state of Ebla, whose Eblaite language was closely related to the Akkadian of Mesopotamia. The Akkadians, Assyrians and Eblaites were the first Semitic-speaking people to use writing, using the cuneiform script originally developed by the Sumerians c. 3500 BC, with the first writings in Akkadian dating from c. 2800 BC. The last Akkadian inscriptions date from the late first century AD, and cuneiform script in the second century AD, both in Mesopotamia.


title: Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples

text: By the late third millennium BC, East Semitic languages such as Akkadian and Eblaite, were dominant in Mesopotamia and north east Syria, while West Semitic languages, such as Amorite, Canaanite and Ugaritic, were probably spoken from Syria to the Arabian Peninsula, although Old South Arabian is considered by most people to be a South Semitic language despite the sparsity of data. The Akkadian language of Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia had become the dominant literary language of the Fertile Crescent, using the cuneiform script that was adapted from the Sumerians. The Old Assyrian Empire, Babylonian Empire and in particular the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1050 BC), facilitated the use of Akkadian as a lingua franca in many regions outside its homeland. The related, but more sparsely attested, Eblaite disappeared with the city, and Amorite is attested only from proper names in Mesopotamian records.


title: Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples

text: For the 2nd millennium, somewhat more data are available, thanks to the Egyptian Hieroglyphics derived Proto-Sinaitic alphabet. Proto-Canaanite texts from around 1500 BC yield the first undisputed attestations of a West Semitic language (although earlier testimonies are possibly preserved in Middle Bronze Age alphabets), followed by the much more extensive Ugaritic tablets of northern Syria from around 1300 BC. Incursions of nomadic Semitic Arameans and Suteans begin around this time, followed by Chaldeans in the late 10th century BC. Akkadian continued to flourish, splitting into Babylonian and Assyrian dialects.