Describe how religious allegory operates within  the narrative of  Beowulf?
459917
Um...  not sure if this is helpful, but there are repeated references to God, however there are still references to fate and wyrd, remnants of the old anglo-saxon relgion.  This is important because it indicates that the culture is in a shift between the two religions and/or that the story dates from the pre-christian era, and has simply been retold for christian audiences.
161
Frankly, the answers thus far show a complete lack of understanding of basic theodicy and even the Christian Bible.  Assuming that – as a Christian – you buy into Job’s tale as at least allegorical, then there is acknowledgement that you cannot know the mind of G-d.  To attempt to do so is itself blasphemous.  To attempt know the mind of G-d is to be G-d, yet we are admonished when G-d responds to Job, not with an explanation for Job's suffering but rather with a question: Where was Job when G-d created the world?\n\nAnd it was said:\nJob 40 \n1 ¶ And Jehovah answered Job and said:\n2 Shall a reprover contend with the Almighty? He who reproves God, let him answer it.\n3 Then Job answered Jehovah and said:\n4 Behold, I am vile! What shall I answer You? I will put my hand to my mouth.\n5 Once I have spoken, but I will not answer; yea, twice, but I will go no further.\n6 ¶ And Jehovah answered Job out of the tempest and said:\n7 Now gird up your loins like a man, and I will question you; and you make Me to know.\n8 Will you also set aside My judgment; will you condemn Me so that you may be justified?\n9 And have you an arm like God; or can you thunder with a voice like His?\n10 Adorn yourself with majesty now, and with grandeur, and clothe yourself with glory and honor;\n11 pour forth the outbursts of your anger; yea, look on everyone who is proud, and bring him down low;\n12 look on everyone who is proud, and humble him, and trample the wicked in their place;\n13 hide them in the dust together; bind their faces in darkness.\n\nKnow that to contend to know G-d is to set yourself above him.\n\nA previous answer blasphemed: “G-d desires that we do not suffer, but as a result of the choices men made we have suffering.”\n\nAnd also: “But there is a plan to alleviate the suffering. And that is through redemption.”\n\nLies.  \n\nAnd “John 3:16”?!  I think that means “go Broncos.”\n\nAn alternative explanation is the easy one:  there is no G-d.  You either believe that, or you blaspheme in the attempt to understand Him.
1071716
A personal God is experienced, but a preachers God is one based on the many different experiences of the Biblical writers.  Not that any really know the complete God.\n\nIt was six men of Indostan \nTo learning much inclined, \nWho went to see the Elephant \n(Though all of them were blind), \nThat each by observation \nMight satisfy his mind \n\n\nThe First approached the Elephant, \nAnd happening to fall \nAgainst his broad and sturdy side, \nAt once began to bawl: \n“God bless me! but the Elephant \nIs very like a wall!” \n\n\nThe Second, feeling of the tusk, \nCried, “Ho! what have we here \nSo very round and smooth and sharp? \nTo me ’tis mighty clear \nThis wonder of an Elephant \nIs very like a spear!” \n\n\nThe Third approached the animal, \nAnd happening to take \nThe squirming trunk within his hands, \nThus boldly up and spake: \n“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant \nIs very like a snake!” \n\n\nThe Fourth reached out an eager hand, \nAnd felt about the knee. \n“What most this wondrous beast is like \nIs mighty plain,” quoth he; \n“ ‘Tis clear enough the Elephant \nIs very like a tree!” \n\n\nThe Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear, \nSaid: “E’en the blindest man \nCan tell what this resembles most; \nDeny the fact who can \nThis marvel of an Elephant \nIs very like a fan!” \n\n\nThe Sixth no sooner had begun \nAbout the beast to grope, \nThan, seizing on the swinging tail \nThat fell within his scope, \n“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant \nIs very like a rope!” \n\n\nAnd so these men of Indostan \nDisputed loud and long, \nEach in his own opinion \nExceeding stiff and strong, \nThough each was partly in the right, \nAnd all were in the wrong! \n\nMoral: \n\n\nSo oft in theologic wars, \nThe disputants, I ween, \nRail on in utter ignorance \nOf what each other mean, \nAnd prate about an Elephant \nNot one of them has seen!
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I believe religion is fiction.  Emotion shouldn't play a part in it.  There has never been any real evidence that there is a god, the whole point of faith makes that clear.
16573
I think you're referring to Norse mythology, which was sort of a religion.  Here's a link to give you a good bit of info.
327956
Never read "Monkey" but give me a moment to skim the summary ...\n\nOkay, see the link below for a summary and some insights into the book.  It seems to me that the story itself is an allegory for the path to spiritual enlightenment.  While Dante is mostly a passive tourist on his trip through Hell, the characters in Monkey must overcome various metaphorical obstacles in order to gain the sutras and achieve buddha-hood.\n\nThus the nature of the story itself parallels the trials a buddhist must go through to achieve nirvana.
780023
Theology is the term for the study of general religion, or mythology, depending on how its looked at.
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CS Lewis wrote it.\nIt is an allegory about the  purpose of Jesus Christ
196078
http://www.beowulf.org/pipermail/beowulf/2005-June/012974.html  you shoud find something there.
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An epic is a long narrative poem written in an elevated style. It is usually based on the exploits of legendary or divine characters, and deals with events significant to an entire society. \n\nThe traditional or folk epics are based upon legend and history preserved through oral traditions. Such epics include Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and the medieval epic Beowulf. Literary epics are learned imitations of the traditional form, such as Virgil's Aeneid and Milton's Paradise Lost (1667). \n\nSome recurring features of the structure and action of classical epics have come to be viewed as epic conventions. Structurally, the epic begins with a statement of the poem's "argument" (subject matter), proceeds to an invocation to a muse or divine source of inspiration, and then jumps into the action in medias res ("in the middle of things"). Earlier events are later recounted in narrative flashbacks. \n\nOther epic conventions include the arming of the hero, extraordinary deeds of battle, a great journey (including a descent to the underworld), and the active intervention of gods or supernatural beings. \n\nBy extension, the term "epic" is also applied to novels, dramas, and films which have epic grandeur in the scale of their action or the importance of their subject to human society at large.
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A number of different gods.\n\nSee the link below for a possible overview.
256888
By 'frame' story do you mean, I assume you mean like an outline of what happens?\nWell basically somehow this English guy ends up back into the 15th Century, in King Arthur's Court. And he describes how Medieval they are.  For he is speaking is the "Queens English" were they are all talking "Old English" with 'where for art thou' language.  ONe unforgettable instance, is his meetings with Merlin.  He describes the wizard to somewhat of a con-artist, wowing the masses with simple magic tricks.  And there is 'battle of magicians' between them.  The English man predicts an eclipse (which he has known of previously) and dares Merlin to reverse his spell, which Merlin is of course unable.  The english man is then made into a kind of knight, and we see him take a wife and live out his life in this 'backward' world.  He even helps in a big battle at the end, in which he brings in battlefield tactics from the future.
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I am currently teaching 12th grade English which is British literature. There is a lot of religion thrown into the old Anglo-Saxon stories such as Beowulf. It helps the students to know the history of the period and how religion was involved. When you move on to the middle ages, religion is also involved. In reading The Canterbury Tales, you have to have some understanding of nuns, monks, priests, etc. Otherwise you miss out on something in the story. I believe that you can speak about religion in a historical context, but you should not put your religious beliefs or nonbeliefs on the students at any time.
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It is refering to a creature which is huge. Namely a dinosaur. God is telling job that none could tame such a beast.. And in the same way you cannot tame God or control him. God was using the Behemoth as an example to Job. =)\n\nBehemouth\n\n has the following attributes according to Job 40:15-24\n\n\nIt “eats grass like an ox.” \nIt “moves his tail like a cedar.” (In Hebrew, this literally reads, “he lets hang his tail like a cedar.”) \nIts “bones are like beams of bronze,\nHis ribs like bars of iron.” \n“He is the first of the ways of God.” \n“He lies under the lotus trees,\nIn a covert of reeds and marsh.” \n\n\nWe would expect behemoth to be a large land animal whose bones are like beams of bronze and so forth, so whatever a behemoth is, it is large. A key phrase is “He is the first of the ways of God.” This phrase in the original Hebrew implied that behemoth was the biggest animal created. Although an elephant or a hippopotamus are big, they are less than one-tenth the size of a Brachiosaurus, the largest (complete) dinosaur ever discovered.[1] A Brachiosaurus could therefore easily be described as “the first of the ways of God.”
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paganism?  From what I could find on the net it seems similar to Norse mythology.  \n\nThis website had some interesting information.\n\nhttp://www.englishheathenism.homestead.com/pagangods.html
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God the father, God the son, and God the Holy Spirit make up three sides of the same God.  They are different leaves of the same clover.  The best way I've had it explained is as a play. Several play actors are sitting around disgussing a script written by someone named Christian.  Many of them say the playwright doesn't exist, but then someone shows up named Christianson, claiming to be Christian writing himself into the play.  Someone comes up with the idea that Christian is active in three levels of the play.  He created it, he wrote himself in, and he is somehow within each of the actors.  Confusing yes, but I believe it is true.
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the plot:  a man gets caught up in a quest to find the "holy grail. Murder, deceit and high states adventure.\n\nThe underlying theme: The Bible is baloney and Christ was a married mortal man and not the Son of God. \n\nIn numerous places in the book scholarly looking persons with fancy degrees go into speeches about how the Bible is a bunch of bunk. To the average person they seem like powerful arguments but in reality NONE of the arguments (some could say blasphemies) about Christ hold up to the facts of History.\n\nWhats Real?\n\nThe names of places, artwork, historical figures, the names of documents like "Q" and the "gnostic gospels"\n\nWhat's false?\n\nEverything else, the conclusions and "facts" presented about the above people, documents, and artwork.\n\nThe book took great liberty with history (AKA LIED) in order to create a scenereo where the Christ of the Bible could be turned into a regular person. \n\nThe book says that a church council gave christ his deity a few hundred years after the fact; when the gospels were written well before that coucil was even a thought. The book also draws heavily on the errors and traditions within the Roman Catholic Church to attempt to discredit the bible. While the Roman Church did bring in pagan idols (re Icons, praying to saints) This does not alter the integrity of the Bible, but merely of the Church, since these things are in violation of the 10 commandments(ye shall have no other gods before me)\n\n\n(spoiler: (from book - i borrowed a copy)\nOne of the characters turns out to be a descendant of Christ, thus "proving" Dan Brown's point.\n\nAt the end, Langden (main character) bows and prays over the bones of Mary Magdaline\n\nEven most critics are giving the movie bad reviews\n\nBottom Line: \nAs a Christian, I cannot justify sending money to a person who tries deceitfully to destroy the Christ I worship.