title: Buick Century

text: Buick Centuries were used in the 1975 and 1976 Indianapolis Motor Speedway as pace cars. Buick introduced a 1975 Buick Century "Free Spirit" edition replica based on the Indy Pace Car for the public with patriotic graphic decals and the Buick Hawk on the hood. This 1975 vehicle had a transmission shifter on the floor with bucket seats and "Hurst Hatch" T-tops installed. The white exterior and blue/white interior were based on the 1975 two-door sheet metal. The engine was a 350 V8, as opposed to the 455 V8 used on the actual Indy 500 Pace Car. Alternatively, in 1976, Buick introduced the "Free Spirit" edition of the Indy Pace Car; it was downsized to the 1976 Special facelift sheet metal with a 231 V6. The original Indy Pace Car had the turbocharged 231 V6. The replica featured a silver, black, and red paint with a black interior. The vehicle included a positive-traction differential.


title: Buick Century

text: GM downsized its intermediate line, reducing wheelbase by and curb weight by nearly half a ton. The Century was initially offered as an "aeroback" fastback two-door coupe and a fastback four-door sedan along with a station wagon model (sharing bodies with the Oldsmobile Cutlass Salon). The car was over a foot shorter, several inches narrower, and several hundred pounds lighter than its predecessor. Big-block engines were discontinued and the new base powerplant was Buick's new V6 introduced specifically for the Century and Regal. The V6 and the Chevrolet 305 V8 were options. The Pontiac and replaced the Chevrolet engine for 1979.


title: Buick Century

text: One of the more rare models of this time was the 1979 to 1980 Century Turbo Coupe, powered by a turbocharged version of the 3.8 L V6, which offered V8-like performance with more reasonable fuel consumption and reduced emissions. The Turbo Coupe was not nearly as popular as the similar Regal Turbo Sport Coupe of the time, and total production is estimated to be less than 2,500.


title: Buick Century

text: The two fastback models (along with the Oldsmobile Cutlass Salon) proved unpopular. For 1980, the fastback four-door sedan was dropped in favor of a conventional notchback four-door sedan. After 1980, the Century fastback coupe was discontinued. With the introduction of the new front-wheel drive Century in 1982, the existing notchback sedan and wagon models were transferred to the Regal line.


title: Buick Century

text: In January 1982, another downsized Century arrived, this time on the front-wheel drive A platform, in coupe and sedan forms. In October 1983, a station wagon was added to the lineup to replace the discontinued Regal wagon. The 1984 model year also had an Olympic version of the Buick Century, commemorating the 1984 games in Los Angeles, California. In 1985, all 1986 versions were "freshened" with a new, more angular front fascia. Wheelbase was , with overall length. Both four-cylinder gasoline units and diesel V6 engines were offered in this generation, although neither became popular. Performance versions of several Buick models, including the Century coupe, were marketed in the mid-1980s under the T-Type name. With Buick's 181 cu in (3.0 L) V6 producing , the Century T-Type's performance was modest, but the Buick 3.8 V6 SFI engine, producing , offered performance in this comparatively lightweight vehicle.


title: Buick Century

text: For 1985 and 1986, Hess & Eisenhardt/Car Craft of Lima, Ohio converted 124 finished Buick Century coupes into coachbuilt convertibles. Although these convertibles were sold as new cars through Buick dealerships, these conversions were not factory authorized. In 1986, the engine distributor was replaced by a coil-pack ignition system that proved to be far more reliable than the system that it replaced. The Venezuelan-built models were sold as the "Chevrolet Century" in South America and the Caribbean. In Mexico, it was sold as the Century Limited (with no brand, although it wears the Buick logos). Introduced for 1984, it was the top model for General Motors Mexico, and it survived the import car wave from 1991 (previously new car importations were forbidden in Mexico) and continued in production until the 1996 model year. In Japan it was sold as the Buick Regal because of the Toyota Century limousine.


title: Buick Century

text: The Century received a facelift in late 1988 for the 1989 model year, gaining a new more-rounded roofline, but continuing on the A-body platform. Black plastic inserts with the Buick tri-shield emblem replaced the rear quarter windows. The front end received flush headlamps and a rounded grille, and the stand-up hood ornament was now standard. All sedan models were easily distinguished by their full-width taillights that followed a Buick tradition of big taillights. The 3300 was introduced in 1989 as a replacement for the 3800 cc engine, offering an increase of 10 horsepower, but a loss of 15 lb-ft of torque. The smaller engine featured multiport fuel injection, waste spark distributor-less ignition controlled by the ECM after startup, but had no balance shaft. An interior refresh came in 1989 for 1990 models.


title: Buick Century

text: The 1989 model had seatbelts mounted on the b-pillar, for 1990-1996 the seatbelts were mounted on the door. From 1989-1992, the Century had a black bumper and side trim, and from 1993-1996 the Century had a bodycolored trim.


title: Buick Century

text: For the 1991 model year, the Century received another slight facelift featuring a bigger radiator grille and different headlamps. The interior featured new door panels with the window switches and door lock switches relocated to a more convenient configuration found on more modern cars, where the switch location corresponds with the window location in the car body. This feature never appeared on its sibling the Oldsmobile Ciera, which retained the inline switch bank mounted flush with the door panel, the rear switch being the driver's door window. The Century windows switches were not backlit, but illuminated by a small bulb in the door panel trim above the switch bank. Other interior changes included new seat covers, and relocating the front outboard seat belts from the A-pillar into the door, functioning as "automatic" seat belts so that the belts could be buckled and the door opened and closed while still buckled. The driver and front passenger could enter and exit the vehicle while the seat belt was still fastened.


title: Buick Century

text: For 1993, the 2.5 L I4 was replaced with a new 115 hp 2.2 I4. For 1994, the slow-selling coupe model was dropped (603 sold for 1993, or 0.5% of overall Century sales), and all models received a standard driver's-side airbag. Also in 1993, the 3.3 L Buick V6 was replaced with a 3.1 L V6 with the same power rating, and power on the 2.2 L I4 was up to with the introduction of MFI. Midway through the 1994 model year, a round speedometer replaced the wide rectangular one, but the car still carried on with the original dash.


title: Buick Century

text: Despite its dated design, the Century and its sibling the Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera still sold well during the 1990s and proved both reliable and profitable to GM since their tooling costs had been monetized.


title: Buick Century

text: The Century was redesigned for the last time in December 1996. The four-door sedan was the only body style offered (the station wagon was dropped due to decreasing sales) and was still a front-wheel drive, V6-powered configuration. Plainer "Custom" and fancier "Limited" trim levels were carried over from the previous generation. The redesign moved Centurys to the W-body platform, rejoining its former Regal sibling. In this generation, the Century and Regal were nearly the same cars, distinguished only by seating configurations, trim, and engine differences. Since the Century was lower-priced than the Regal, it was also the lower-powered and plainer of the two, offering only a 3.1-liter V6. In keeping with its traditional image, the six-passenger Century came equipped with a front bench seat and column shifter, while the more performance-oriented five-passenger Regal came standard with front bucket seats and a console shifter.


title: Buick Century

text: After the 1998 discontinuation of the Skylark, the Century became Buick's entry-level car for the first time. For 2003, all trim levels were eliminated, leaving one standard model. Additionally, the "Century" nameplate on the front doors was dropped, and only seen on the vehicle's taillights.


title: Buick Century

text: Changes were relatively few over the Century's nine-year run. The all-new Buick LaCrosse replaced both the Century and Regal. A limited run of Centurys with special trim were produced for 2005 to mark the end of the name. GM rolled the last Buick Century off the Oshawa assembly line on October 25, 2004.


title: Buick Century

text: The Buick Century was produced in China as the New Century from 1998 to 2000. The engine was the 3.0 liter "LW9" V6 engine which was also used in the first-generation Buick GL8. A four-cylinder model was also available paired with a 5-speed manual gearbox. The Century was replaced by the Buick Regal due to poor sales.


title: Buick Century

text: After the discontinuation of the model in 2000, the New Century name was used as a trim level of the Buick Regal, sold until at least 2005.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: The Quran, the central religious text of Islam, contains references to more than fifty people and events also found in the Bible. While the stories told in each book are generally comparable, there are also some notable differences. Knowing that versions written in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament does predate the Quran, Christians reason the Quran as being derived directly or indirectly from the earlier materials. Muslims understand the Quran to be knowledge from an omnipotent God. As such, some Muslims believe that the earlier versions are distorted through flawed processes of transmission and interpretation over time, and consider the Quran's version to be more accurate.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: Often, stories related in the Quran tend to concentrate on the moral or spiritual significance of events rather than the details. Biblical stories come from diverse sources and authors, so their attention to detail varies individually.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: The Quran usually mentions God creating Adam from "earth" or "clay" (, although one verse suggests "dust" or "dirt" (). God is said to breathe his spirit into Adam as in the Genesis creation narrative, and also to have created him simply by saying "Be". The Quran then depicts the angels as doubting the creation of Adam, a detail not found in the Genesis accounts:


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: When your Lord said to the angels, "I am indeed going to set a viceroy on the earth," they said, "Will You set in it someone who will cause corruption in it and shed blood, while we celebrate Your praise and proclaim Your sanctity?" He said, "Indeed, I know what you do not know."


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: While not found in Genesis, the Quranic account is linked to a Jewish exegesis of Psalm 8, which wonders why God cares for human beings despite their cosmic insignificance. Some Jewish interpreters have understood the question as one being asked by the angels when God created Adam. This led to a tradition in the Babylonian Talmud in which the angels object to the evils that humans will commit in the future, which may be the source of the Quranic narrative.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: The Quranic narrative continues that God "taught Adam the Names, all of them," and that Adam presented the names to the angels, whereas Genesis has Adam himself naming the animals. The difference highlights the Quranic emphasis on both God's absolute knowledge, and the superiority of humanity to the angels implied earlier.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: God then commands the angels to bow down to Adam, but Iblis refuses, saying that he is better than Adam because he was created from fire and Adam from clay. The submission of the angels to Adam is another detail not mentioned in Genesis but important in Syriac Christian texts such as the "Cave of Treasures", where it reflects a Christian notion of Adam as being a primordial analogue of Jesus. In the "Cave of Treasures", Satan refuses God's order to bow before Adam "since I am fire and spirit, not that I worship something that is made of dirt", using almost the same words as in the Quran.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: The creation of Eve is not specified in the Quran, but several verses imply the traditional Genesis account by stating that God "created you [humanity] from a single soul, and created its mate from it".


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: In the Quran, God then tells Adam and his unnamed wife to live in paradise but not to approach a certain tree, which Satan calls the "tree of immortality", whereas Genesis refers to two trees, a tree of the knowledge of good and evil which Adam and Eve must not eat from, and another tree of life. This appears to reflect Syrian Christian exegesis, in which the two trees were considered identical. The Quran continues with Satan himself tricking Adam and Eve into approaching the tree, a progression of the Christian notion in which the Serpent becomes an incarnation of Satan, a link not traditionally made in Judaism. Satan tells Adam and Eve that they will become immortal by approaching the tree, but when they do, "their nakedness [becomes] apparent to them." All three are then expelled from Paradise. There is no mention in the Quran of Eve tempting Adam. While Genesis states that Adam and Eve "realized" that they were naked, the Quran is more ambiguous, referring to Satan's desire to "expose to them what was hidden from them of their nakedness". This may reflect Syriac Christian traditions in which Adam and Eve were thought to be clothed with "glory" before eating from the tree, at which point they became naked instead of merely realizing their prior nakedness.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: According to the Quranic narrative, Adam is then forgiven by God after "receiving certain words from his Lord". While this is another detail not explicitly mentioned in Genesis, the Quranic episode again has a parallel in the "Cave of Treasures", in which God comforts Adam and says that he has "preserved him from the curse" of the land, and from the pre-Islamic apocrypha "Life of Adam and Eve", in which God promises Adam that he will eventually return to paradise.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: In the Bible, Adam and Eve have two sons: the elder Cain, who is a farmer, and the younger Abel, a shepherd. When both make sacrifices to God, God only accepts Abel's offerings. Angered, Cain kills his brother despite God's warning. He is condemned to a lifetime of wandering and fruitless toil. The Qur'an narrates a similar story relating to the sons of Adam, although the brothers are not named.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: However, a significant difference between the two versions is that while God speaks to Cain in the Bible, the brother who is accepted by God speaks to the rejected one in the Quran, saying:


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: God accepts only from the God-wary. Even if you extend your hand toward me to kill me, I will not extend my hand toward you to kill you. Indeed, I fear God, the Lord of all the worlds. I desire that you earn [the burden of] my sin and your sin, to become one of the inmates of the Fire, and such is the requital of the wrongdoers.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: A conversation between Cain and Abel is attested in one Syriac source, although this version differs significantly from the Quran in that Abel begs his brother not to kill him. A conversation between the brothers before the murder is also found in the "Targum Neofiti", an Aramaic-language Jewish annotation of the Torah.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: The rejected brother then kills the younger brother, as Cain does to Abel. In the Quran, God then sends a crow to dig the earth in which to bury the murdered brother, and the murderer regrets his deed as he looks upon the crow. While a bird digging the earth for Abel is a motif that appears in certain late extra-biblical Christian and Jewish sources, such as the "Tanhuma", the Quran is the earliest known version of the episode and may be the source of the other attestations.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: That is why We decreed for the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul, without [its being guilty of] manslaughter or corruption on the earth, is as though he had killed all mankind, and whoever saves a life is as though he had saved all mankind.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: This verse is nearly identical to a passage in the Mishnah Sanhedrin tractate, part of the Jewish Oral Torah, which also concludes that the lesson of the murder of Abel is that "whosoever destroys a single soul is regarded as though he destroyed a complete world, and whosoever saves a single soul is regarded as though he saved a complete world".


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: In both the Bible and the Quran, Noah is described as a righteous man who lived among a sinful people, who God destroyed with a flood while saving Noah, his family, and the animals by commanding him to build an Ark and store the animals in them. In both sacred books, he is said to have lived for 950 years. But unlike in Genesis, which records not a single word from Noah before he leaves the Ark, the Quranic story of the prophet focuses less on the details of the flood and more on Noah's unsuccessful attempts to warn his people, directly quoting his attempts to persuade his wicked countrymen to turn to righteousness. This emphasis on Noah as a preacher vainly attempting to save others, while not found in the Torah itself, appears in Christian sources as early as the Second Epistle of Peter and was present in Jewish and Christian sources of Late Antiquity, including the Talmud. In the context of the Quran, it emphasizes the crucial notion that Noah and other biblical figures were prototypes of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, all preaching righteousness to save their people from doom.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: Unlike the Bible, one Quranic verse implies that Noah's people rejected not only Noah but multiple prophets who warned them.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: The Bible and the Quran also diverge on the fate of Noah's family. In the Bible, all of Noah's immediate family is saved, including his three sons. But the Quran mentions a son of Noah who rejects the Ark, instead choosing to take refuge on a mountain where he is drowned. Noah asks God to save his son, but God refuses. This buttresses the recurrent Quranic emphasis on the importance of faith and righteous conduct over ties of family. The episode may also be connected to a passage in the Book of Ezekiel, which similarly stresses righteousness over blood ties by stating that "even if Noah and Daniel and Job were living there [in a sinful country]... they would be able to save neither son nor daughter, only themselves by their uprightness". But while the son of Noah who would not be saved is only hypothetical in Ezekiel, he is a real son in the Quran, traditionally identified (though not by the Quran itself) with the biblical figure of Canaan. The Quran also cites Noah's wife as "an example of the faithless" who was doomed to hellfire without further elaboration, although some Islamic exegetical traditions hold that she would call Noah a madman and was subsequently drowned in the flood. No similar reference exists in the Bible, although certain Gnostic legends entailed a hostile portrayal of Noah's wife. The Bible also records Noah being drunk on wine, and fell asleep naked, and after being found naked by his son Ham, he cursed Canaan, Ham's son. The Quranic narrative does not mention such an incident, so Muslims reject this biblical narrative.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: In the Quran, the Ark is said to rest on the hills of Mount Judi (Hud ); in the Bible, it is said to rest on the mountains of Ararat (Gen. ) The Al-Djoudi (Judi) is apparently a mountain in the biblical mountain range of Ararat. The Quran cites a particular mount in the Ararat Range, whereas the Bible just mentions the Ararat Range by name. There is a Mount Al-Djoudi in the present-day Ararat mountain range in Turkey.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: See Genesis , and , , , and . Several messengers come to Abraham on their way to destroy the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham welcomes them into his tent and provides them with food. They then promise their host that Isaac (ʾIsḥāq إسحٰق) will soon be born to Abraham's wife, Sarah (Sārah سارة). Sarah laughs at the idea because she is far too old to bear children. The Hebrew name יצחק means 'he laughs" and is one of the literary tropes in the biblical story. These literary connections are typically lost in Quranic versions of biblical stories.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: The angels rebuke her, telling her that by God's will she can bear a son. A conversation ensues in which Abraham admits that he wished God to have mercy on the people of Sodom and Gomorrah.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: In another narrative, Abraham receives a command (in his dream) from God to sacrifice his son. Abraham agrees to this and prepares to carry out the sacrifice. Before he can do so, however, God tells him to stop and gives him a replacement sacrifice. Abraham is subsequently honoured for his faithfulness to God. (As-Saaffat ; Genesis )


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: The Bible describes Abraham as in Iraq-Syria, then in Canaan, Paran, and Egypt, with his final days in Canaan and Hebron. Both Isaac and Ishmael attend Abraham's funeral.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: The Quran mentions that Abraham left his wife and Ishmael (as an infant) in the land where present-day Mecca is, while he returned to Palestine.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: According to the Bible in the Book of Genesis, after visiting Abraham, two angels go to the city of Sodom in which Abraham's nephew Lot is a foreigner. They tell him God will soon destroy the city because of the wickedness of the people. The men of the city, upon hearing that Lot is entertaining male visitors, converge upon his house and demand that the men be brought out so that they can have sex with them. Lot offers his daughters in their place, but the men insist upon raping the angels instead. After blinding the city's inhabitants, the angels tell Lot and his family to flee by night and to not look back. The following morning, God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah with a shower of fiery stones from the sky. Lot's wife looked back to see the burning city and was turned into a pillar of salt.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: The story continues further after the destruction of the twin cities, with Lot leaving Zoar (where he had fled for refuge) with his two daughters to live in a cave. Fearing that all the men were dead, the daughters decided that in order to 'preserve the seed of their father' and procreate, they must have sexual intercourse with him; they decide to get him into a drunken stupor so as to be able to 'lie with him' and obtain his seed. And so they each sleep with their father (one each on successive nights), having intoxicated him to a point wherein he could 'perceive not', and thus get impregnated by him. The Bible then continues "And the firstborn bare a son, and called his name Moab: the same is the father of the Moabites unto this day. And the younger, she also bare a son, and called his name Ben-ammi: the same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this day". The biblical story of Lot ends here.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: According to the Quran, Lot (or Lut, as he is called in the Quran) was a Prophet. He was also a nephew of Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham). A group of angels visited Ibrahim as guests and gave him glad tidings of a son "endowed with wisdom"; they told him that they had been sent by God to the "guilty people" of Sodom, to destroy them with "a shower of stones of clay (brimstone)" and deliver Lot and those who believed in him. However, Lot's wife was specifically excluded, with the angels saying "she is of those who lag behind". The Quran draws upon Lot's wife as an "example for the unbelievers", as she was married to a righteous man but refused to believe in his words; hence, she was condemned to the Hellfire; otherwise, the story of them leaving the city proceeds much as in the Bible. The story of Lot in the Quran ends after describing the destruction of the city.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: The narratives of Joseph can be found in and in the first 102 verses of Surah Yusuf (Joseph) (Quran 12:1-102)


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: In both the Bible and the Quran, Joseph has a vision of eleven stars and the sun and the moon all bowing to him which he shares with his family.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: () And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brothers, and said, "Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me."


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: (Yusuf 12:4) Behold! Joseph said to his father: "O my father! I did see eleven stars and the sun and the moon: I saw them prostrate themselves to me!"


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: Joseph's brothers became jealous that their father preferred Joseph over them, and so they form a plot to kill Joseph. However, one brother convinces them not to kill him but throw him down a well while they are alone. The brothers come to the father asking his permission to take Joseph out with them to enjoy and play with them. Jacob expresses his reservations against letting him go with them and expressing fear about a wild animal killing him while they were not careful about him. The sons assure the father of their being a mighty group against any threats to Joseph. The father eventually agrees to send Yusuf with them (in the Quran), while in the Bible, Jacob sends Joseph out of his own accord without sons trying to persuade him to let him go with them. (Yusuf 12:8–10; ) They agree. They subsequently lie to their father as to Joseph's whereabouts, covering his clothing in blood and asserting that a wild animal had attacked him. A caravan passing the well inspires the brothers to pull Joseph out of the well and to sell him as a slave to traders in the caravan. Later the traders sell him to a wealthy Egyptian. (; Yusuf 12:20-22)


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: Joseph grows up in the house of the Egyptian. When Joseph is a grown man, his master's wife tries to seduce him. Joseph resists and runs away, but is caught by other servants and reported to his master. The wife lies to her husband, saying that Joseph tried to rape her. (Yusuf 12:25; ); At this point, the two stories differ.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: In the Bible, Joseph's master (named as Potiphar) refuses to believe Joseph's denial and imprisons him.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: In the Quran, Joseph's master (who is only identified as "the Vizier") accepts the suggestion of another wise person to check Joseph's tunic. If it is torn from the front, the wise person asserts, it will prove Joseph a liar; but if it is torn from the back (as proves to be the case), Joseph will be vindicated and the master's wife proven a liar and an adulteress. The Vizier reprimands his wife and permits Joseph to remain in his household. The Vizier's wife hosts a banquet for women who had been gossiping about her and Joseph providing them with knives; Joseph is commanded to appear before the wife and her ladyfriends; they cut their hands with knives. (The Bible does not mention the banquet, and the Quran does not explain why the guests cut themselves, but a "post-Biblical Jewish tradition" describes Potiphar serving fruit to the gossips who, distracted by the handsome Joseph, cut themselves inadvertently while slicing it up.) Although the Vizier again recognizes Joseph's innocence, he orders him imprisoned nevertheless.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: In prison, Joseph meets two men. One has a dream of making wine and the other dreams of carrying a stack of bread that birds are eating. Joseph tells the first that he will serve the Pharaoh again and the second will be executed. Both things happen, precisely as Joseph foretold. Although Joseph asks the first man to bring his name and unjust imprisonment to the attention of the Pharaoh, (referred to in the Quran as only the King, not a Pharaoh) the first man quickly forgets about him once restored to the royal favour.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: () "17. Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, "In my dream, I was standing on the bank of the Nile, 18.when out of the river there came up seven cows, fat and sleek, and they grazed among the reeds. 19. After them, seven other cows came up – scrawny and very ugly and lean. I had never seen such ugly cows in all the Land of Egypt. 20. The lean, ugly cows ate up the seven fat cows that came up first. 21. But even after they ate them, no one could tell that they had done so; they looked just as ugly as before. Then I woke up." 22." In my dreams I also saw seven heads of grain, full and good, growing on a single stalk. 23. After them, seven other heads sprouted – withered and thin and scorched by the east wind. 24. The thin heads of grain swallowed up the seven good heads. I told this to the magicians, but none could explain it to me."


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: (Yusuf 12:43) The king (of Egypt) said: "I do see (in a vision) seven fat kine, whom seven lean ones devour, and seven green ears of corn and seven (others) withered. O ye chiefs! Expound to me my vision if it be that ye can interpret visions."


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: Pharaoh's cupbearer, who had been previously imprisoned with Joseph, suddenly remembers his promise and tells Pharaoh about the man who foretold his own restoration to favour. Pharaoh sent to the prison, asking Joseph to interpret his dream.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: In the Quranic account, Joseph insists that the Vizier's wife vindicate him before the king after Joseph agrees to do interpret his dream (this is not mentioned in the Bible); Pharaoh summons the Vizier's wife, who admits her lies about Joseph and proclaims his innocence. The Quran rejoins the biblical narrative, where Joseph reveals the meaning of the king's dream: Egypt will have seven years of good crops followed by seven years of famine and the famine will be worse than the abundance. The king rewarded Joseph by giving him charge over the storehouses and the entire land of Egypt.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: During the famine, Joseph's brothers came to Egypt to buy food, but the youngest was left with their father. While Joseph recognized them, they did not recognize him. He demanded that they return with the missing brother. The brothers return home and find that Joseph had hidden in their packs more than they paid for. They asked their father if they might return with the youngest brother. Reluctantly, their father allows this. They return, and after some further incidents, Joseph ultimately reveals himself to his brothers. (; Yusuf 12:90).


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: In both the Quran and the Bible, the missing brother is Benjamin, (Arabic: بن يامين) Joseph's only full blood brother. The others are half-brothers.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: The Qur'an correctly does not refer to the king of Egypt during Joseph's time as the "Pharaoh." The titular word "Pharaoh" was given to the kings of Egypt during the New Kingdom period later historically. This distinction is not found in the Bible.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: In the Bible, the narratives of Moses are in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The narratives here are mostly in and . In the Quran, the Moses narratives are in the following passages: 2.49–61, 7.103–160, 10.75–93, 17.101–104, 20.9–97, 26.10–66, 27.7–14, 28.3–46, 40.23–30, 43.46–55, 44.17–31, and 79.15–25.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: Pharaoh slew the young male children of the Israelites (Exodus 1:46), and to avoid this fate, Moses' mother cast Moses as an infant into a small ark, where God protected him. Moses was found by the household of the Pharaoh, who adopted him. Moses' sister, Miriam, had followed Moses, and she recommended that his own mother serves as a nurse to him. When Moses became an adult, he saw an Egyptian fighting with an Israelite, and he interceded and killed the Egyptian. The next day, the Israelite asked whether Moses intended to kill him as well. The Pharaoh tried to have Moses killed and Moses fled to a watering place in Midian. He met some sisters and watered their herd. When the women's father, Jethro, learned of Moses, he invited him to stay and gave him a daughter, Zipporah, to marry.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: In Midian, Moses saw a fire and approached it. God spoke to him and told him to remove his shoes. God said that he had chosen Moses. God said to throw down his staff and to stretch out his arm as signs. His staff turned into a serpent and then returned to the form of a staff. His arm became white although he was not sick. God commanded him to go to Pharaoh to deliver a message. Moses said that he could not speak well. So God provided Aaron, his brother, to help Moses speak.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: God sent Moses and Aaron to the court of Pharaoh. Pharaoh refused to listen to them. In response, Aaron threw down his staff and it became a serpent. This prompted Pharaoh's magicians also threw down their staffs, which also turned into snakes. But the snakes of Pharaoh's magicians were swallowed by Moses' serpent.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: God caused a famine. God sent plagues of locusts, frogs, blood, and destruction. God sent at least nine signs to Pharaoh, but Pharaoh ignored these signs. When he could ignore them no longer, he agreed to let the Israelites go. However, after God had allowed tranquility, Pharaoh went back on his word and refused to let the Israelites go. As punishment, God made every first-born Egyptian son die and spared every Israelite (the first Passover). Pharaoh became hysterical and demanded that Moses and the Israelites leave at once- only to pursue them with his army after their exit. Then God helped Moses lead the Israelites into a desert and across a sea. Moses struck the sea with his staff and the sea split in half exposing dry land (while creating a wall of water on each side) for the Israelites to walk through. Pharaoh and his army were catching up to the Israelites but the water returned to its original state. Pharaoh’s army drowned, but the biblical narrative is unclear whether or not Pharaoh himself drowned. ()


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: Moses left the Hebrews for forty nights. He put his brother Aaron in charge of the people (Al-Baqara 2:48) On a mountain, God gave Moses a revelation of precepts for Israel to follow. God made tablets with writing on them which Moses carried back to Israel.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: Moses asked to see God. The people saw the fire and lightning and the mountain and were afraid. While Moses was gone, the Israelites demanded to worship an idol. They used the gold from their ornaments to construct a golden calf whom they said was the god who rescued them from Egypt. Aaron does not stop them. Then Moses returned and chastised them and Aaron. Many were killed for their actions. God sent down manna and quail to eat but the Hebrews still rebelled against God, and complained about the food. Moses asked God for water and God answered him. Moses struck a stone with his staff and water came forth. The Israelites were divided into twelve tribes.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: God gave the Israelites a bountiful land, but this occurred at different times in the two scriptures. Besides that and the many additional details in the Torah, there are other differences:


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: The story of the destruction of Korah appears in in the Torah and in Al-Qasas 76–82 in the Quran. Korah was an Israelite living during the time of Moses. Because of his wickedness, God caused him to die by opening the ground and swallowing him and his home (; Al-Qasas 28:81). In the Quran, Qārūn is simply a rich man who is too arrogant. In the Torah, he leads a minor rebellion against Moses. God also kills the others who rebel with him and destroys their homes.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: In the Quran and the Bible, there are stories about smaller armies winning victory over larger ones. One story in the Quran and the Bible share strong resemblances, although they are placed at different times and attributed to different characters. The Bible story features Gideon from the Book of Judges and the Quran story features Talut (usually translated as Saul).


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: In the Book of Judges of the Bible, Gideon receives commands from God to take the Israelites to war against the Midianites. Gideon is reluctant, but accedes after making God prove Himself with three different tests. As they are heading to fight, God tells Gideon to send away those who are homesick or afraid of dying. Because the army is still large enough to credit its own strength for victory, God tells Gideon to observe the drinking habits of his troops at the river. God says to send those who do not drink with their hands, but lap the water directly like a dog, back to their homes. The remaining Israelites go on to victory.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: In 2:246-248 of the Quran, God chooses Talut (generally considered to be Saul) to lead the Israelites into battle against the army of Goliath. On their way, God tells Talut to warn the men that they will be tested by God, and that they must not drink from the next river in order to pass the test. Despite this warning, most of the men disobey and drink from the river. God tells Talut to leave the disobedient members behind, unless they only drank one handful so that the army will consist of only faithful members. The army then goes on to defeat General Goliath's army.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: The story appears in 1 Samuel and . The Prophet Samuel is petitioned by the Israelites for a king. God sends Samuel to appoint Saul as the king, although with the warning that kings only take from their people. At least a few people are not happy with Samuel's choice, but Saul then prophecizes and wins some victories, so the people embrace him. Later Saul falls out of God's favour and God promises to appoint someone else as king. The Philistines attack and are bolstered by the fear engendered by their champion Goliath, a giant. God sends Samuel to recruit David, who kills Goliath. David eventually goes on to become Israel's new king.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: A similar story appears in the Quran 2:246–251. The Israelites demand of their prophet to appoint a king, and so God appoints the man Talut. The people respond poorly to the selection, upset that Talut does not seem special. God gives the Ark of the Covenant back to the Israelites in order to verify His choice (this is an event that predates Saul in the Bible). Talut leads the men to battle against an army led by the General Goliath. The Israelite army is small and doubtful, but a few men trust that God can still give them victory. David then kills Goliath and becomes king of Israel. The account also bears similarity to when Gideon led an army. See the above Gideon/Talut subsection.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: The story appears in and and in verses Surah 27 20–44. The two stories have almost nothing in common. In each, the Queen of Sheba comes to visit Solomon and is impressed by his wisdom and riches. In the Bible, the visit is only diplomatic. In the Quran, the Queen becomes monotheist and peace is established in the kingdoms. Although not part of the Quran, Islamic tradition holds that the name of the Queen of Sheba is Bilqis or Balqis.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: In both the Bible and the Quran, Jonah is swallowed by a "big fish", usually inferred to be a whale. The Book of Jonah in the Bible consists of four chapters about Jonah's mission to Nineveh. Jonah is referenced three times in the Quran: in verses 139–148 of Sura 37 (As-Saaffat) (Those who set the ranks), verses 87–88 of Sura 21: al-Anbiya' (The Prophets) and verses 48–50 of Sura 68: al-Qalam (The Pen)/Nun. It is mentioned in verse 98 of Sura 10: Yunus (Jonah) and verse 86 of Sura 6: al-An'am (The Cattle).


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: In the Quran, Jonah gets frustrated by his own people and abandons them to God's mercy, however without asking permission from God and thus going against his given responsibility. In the Quran, it is also mentioned that if Jonah had not prayed inside the belly of the fish he would have stayed in there until the Judgement day. In the Bible, Jonah pays a fare to sail to Tarshish. In both stories, he boards the ship loaded with passengers, lots are cast and Jonah is thrown overboard and swallowed by a large fish (, As-Saaffat 37|142). After praying, he is cast out of the fish and washed ashore, and God causes a gourd to grow (37|146) or weeds (). In the Bible, Jonah continues into Nineveh, and the city is spared by God. In the Quran, God causes the gourd to grow to comfort Jonah after he lies on the shore in a sickly state (As-Saaffat 37|145), in the Bible the gourd plant grows up to provide shade for Jonah while he waits for Nineveh to be destroyed (). According to an Islamic tradition however, the big fish gets frightened at first, fearing it might have swallowed a holy person as it heard prayers and supplications read in a wonderful voice from her stomach, hearing which numerous sea creatures had surrounded it. But she comforts herself later since it was God's order to swallow Jonah. After two days the fish casts him out the beach of an island and he is very weak. The gastric juices with the hot sunlight burned his skin till the point he was about to scream of pain. God causes a vine to grow over him and provide him fruit and shade. He recovers and goes back to his people who had become good after he left. According to the Bible, Ninevah was a great city, with more than one hundred twenty thousand people and much livestock (). In the Quran, the number of people he was sent towards as a prophet exceeded a hundred thousand. They believed in his message and God granted them prosperity for a long time. (As-Saaffat 37|147–148). In the New Testament, Jesus refers to the Ninevites repenting at the preaching of Jonah (, ).


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: In the Bible, Haman was an Agagite noble and vizier of the empire under Persian King Ahasuerus who desires to persecute the Jews. In the Quran, Haman is an adviser and builder under a Firaun (Pharaoh) of ancient Egypt whose narrative relationship with Moses is recounted in the Quran.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: The structure which Firaun commands Haman to build is similar to the Tower of Babel in Genesis, unrelated to the narrative of Haman in the Bible. Both structures are made from burnt bricks for the purpose of ascending to the heavens.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: The story of Zechariah is told in the Gospel of Luke and and in the Quran 3.37-41 and 19.2–15. In both accounts, Zechariah and his wife reached an old age without bearing children. Zechariah is told his wife would conceive, despite her barrenness, and his name would be John. As a sign that this would happen, Zechariah becomes mute. John grows to be a devout man. Both accounts mention John's death.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: Each account also contains unique elements and differ regarding Zechariah's muteness. In the Bible, Gabriel appears to Zechariah, a priest, on the right side of the altar telling him that his wife will conceive. Zechariah questions how his wife could conceive when he is an old man and his wife is barren, and is struck mute because of his disbelief. Later, Elizabeth conceives. After Elizabeth gives birth and they went to circumcise the child, Zechariah confirms that the son's name is John and receives his speech back.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: In the Quran, God promises Zechariah a child and Zechariah similarly questions God. God replies that it is easy, just as he created Zechariah from nothing. Zechariah then asks for a sign, and God responds that he will not speak to anyone for three nights, except by gesture. This may imply he simply would not find an occasion to speak to anyone. Zechariah comes out from his prayer chamber and gestures to praise God in the morning and afternoon.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: In the Bible, in the sixth month after the conception of John the Baptist by Elizabeth, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to the Virgin Mary, at Nazareth. Mary was of the house of David, and was betrothed to Joseph, of the same royal family. And the angel had taken the figure and the form of man, came into the house and said to her: 'Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.' Mary having heard the greeting words did not speak; she was troubled in spirit, since she knew not the angel, nor the cause of his coming, nor the meaning of the salutation. And the angel continued and said: 'Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God. Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus (in – a meaning for the name is given "for he shall save his people from their sins.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: In Hebrew ישוע sounds like the Hebrew word for salvation "ישועה"). He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father, and he shall reign in the house of Jacob forever. And of his kingdom there shall be no end.' Not doubting the word of God, unlike Zachariah, but filled with fear and astonishment, she said: "How shall this be done, because I have not known a man?'


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: The angel, to remove Mary's anxiety and to assure her that her virginity would be spared, answered: 'The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.' In token of the truth of his word he made known to her the conception of John, the miraculous pregnancy of her relative now old and sterile: 'And behold, thy cousin Elizabeth; she also has conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month with her that is called barren: because no word shall be impossible with God.' Mary may not yet have fully understood the meaning of the heavenly message and how the maternity might be reconciled with her vow of virginity, but clinging to the first words of the angel and trusting to the omnipotence of God she said: 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to thy word.'


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: In Luke, Mary is betrothed to Joseph but the Quran never mentions any man. In the Quran, 'her people' have a conversation with Mary accusing her of fornication. In the Bible, no such conversation happens but Joseph knows that people are thinking this.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: "Maryam", a Quranic chapter (surah) is named for Mary and the Quran mentions Maryam by name in numerous verses (āyāt), starting with her birth.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: "Then her lord accepted her with a comely acceptance and caused her to grow with a comely growth And placed her under the care of Zakariyyā. Whenever Zakariyyā entered upon her in the sanctuary he found with her provision. He said:"


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: Jesus's ministry takes up the whole of the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) in the Bible, as well as being the focus of the subsequent books of the New Testament. Some stories common to all four Gospels include:


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: Each gospel represents a different perspective, with some different information and emphases than each of the other gospels. Christians accept all four books as part of the canon of Scripture.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: Jesus directly appears several times in the Quran: Al-Imran 35–59; An-Nisa' 156–158; Al-Ma'idah 109–120; Maryam 16–35, Al-Mu'minun 50; Az-Zukhruf 57–65; As-Saff 6 and 14. He is also indirectly referred to in other locations.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: The Quran contains few narratives from Jesus' life, but does include many brief descriptions in common with the Bible:


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: The details of Jesus's birth differ from those offered in the gospels of Matthew and Luke (see above section). Other accounts in the Quran do not exist in the Bible. Two such stories, one in which infant Jesus verbally testifies to Mary's virginity and another in which young Jesus forms and breathes life into clay birds, have counterparts in non-canonical Christian literature (see Infancy Gospels). The Quran rejects that Jesus ever expected to be interpreted as divine and that he only taught strictly tawhid.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: The Quran and the Bible have over 50 characters in common, typically in the same narratives. The Quran identifies Enoch and Ishmael as prophets, but they are never given a story. In the Bible, all these men are identified as righteous people but not prophets — except Ishmael who is blessed by God ().


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: There is also one person mentioned in the Quran, Dhul-Qarnayn, who is not mentioned in the Bible by that name but whose story is similar to stories about Alexander the Great as mentioned in other Alexander romances and legends of its time (see Alexander the Great in the Quran).


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: In the Bible, in Moses' absence, certain people who went out of Egypt with the Hebrews worship a golden calf saying "This is your God, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt." Hundreds of years later, Samaria was founded and became the capital of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. King Jeroboam, its first king, also made two golden calves and said, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt."


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: The Quran tells the story of a calf while Moses is gone. A man called "the Samari" (in Yusuf Ali's translation) or "the Samaritan" (in Arberry's) is blamed for protagonizing their idolatry.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: A verse in Hosea 8:5–6 contains the same content as Ta-Ha 20.97 where Hosea refers to the Jeroboam calf and the Quran refers to the earlier calf. Both feature a prophet speaking to the Samaritan/Samaria promising to destroy the calf.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: In the Quran, Moses' punishment that the Samari cannot be touched is the same as the modern Samaritan's punishment where no Jew was allowed to touch them because of their idolatry. In his commentary, Yusuf Ali claims that the Samari is not a Samaritan.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: In Arabic, both the names "Mary" and "Miriam" are called "Maryam". Mary, the mother of Jesus, is the only woman to have her name mentioned in the Quran; all other women are mentioned only by relations, and their names were given later by commentators. While speaking about Mary, the mother of Jesus, the Quran also refers to her as the sister of Aaron (in verses and ), who in the Bible also had a sister Miriam. According to James K. Walker, "critics have noted that the Qur’an appears to confuse Mary … in the New Testament with Miram of the Old Testament, who … lived some 1400 years earlier".


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: However, according to Muslim interpreters, this Aaron is different from the brother of Moses. It was a tradition to give people the names of prophets and pious persons who lived before them as mentioned in the following hadeeth:


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: Mughira b. Shu'ba reported: When I came to Najran, they (the Christians of Najran) asked me: You read" O sister of Harun" (i. e. Hadrat Maryam) in the Quran, whereas Moses was born much before Jesus. When I came back to Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) I asked him about that, whereupon he said: The (people of the old age) used to give names (to their persons) after the names of Apostles and pious persons who had gone before them. (Sheik Muslim – Adaaab Book)


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: In the Books of Samuel, Hannah is grateful that God gave her a son, Samuel. She dedicated him to God by letting him live with Eli the prophet and priest.


title: Biblical and Quranic narratives

text: In the Quran, Mary's mother is grateful to God for Mary and dedicates her to God. Mary then lives in the household of Zechariah the prophet.


title: Simran filmography

text: Simran is an Indian actress and producer known for her works in Tamil films. She has also appeared in Telugu, Hindi, Malayalam and Kannada films. She is well noted for her dancing and acting skills in the Indian film industry. After her marriage, Simran took a break from acting in films and moved on to the small screen where she acted in Jaya TV's serial "Simran Thirai", which consisted of mini-serials all featuring Simran and included many popular stars such as Ramji, Raaghav, Saakshi Siva and Abitha playing supporting roles. In 2009, she started acting in the Telugu serial "Sundarakanda", telecast on Gemini TV, where she did a guest role. The serial was dubbed in Tamil as "Sundarakandam" and telecast on Polimer TV. In 2012, she hosted "Jackpot", a game show on Jaya TV which was earlier hosted by Khushbu and Nadhiya. She acted in "Agni Paravai", a serial telecast in Puthuyugam TV. She played as a main judge on the reality show "Dance Tamizha Dance", which was produced by her and her husband Mr Deepak Bagga for Zee Tamizh.


title: Simran filmography

text: Simran made a return in 2008 with "Okka Magadu", opposite Balakrishna, "John Appa Rao 40 plus" and "Seval". Her role as Suriya's wife and mother in Gautham Vasudev Menon's "Vaaranam Aayiram" was critically acclaimed and she won Filmfare and Vijay awards for the same. She starred in the Tamil films "TN-07 AL 4777" and "Ainthaam Padai" in 2009. She made a brief appearance in "Aaha Kalyanam" in 2014 and "Trisha Illana Nayanthara" in 2015. In October 2015, after the successful completion of two seasons of "Dance Tamizha Dance" in her own production, Simran and her husband set up a production studio called Simran & Sons, and launched two new film projects. In 2018, she was approached to play a negative role by Ponram opposite Siva Karthikeyan in "Seemaraja".


title: Simran filmography

text: In July 2018, Sun Pictures announced that Simran had joined the cast in their production venture "Petta" for the first time in her career to play opposite Rajinikanth, to be directed by the notable director Karthik Subbaraj.


title: Apollonius of Tyana

text: Apollonius of Tyana (; c. 3 BC – c. 97 AD) was a Greek Neopythagorean philosopher from the town of Tyana in the Roman province of Cappadocia in Anatolia. He is the subject of "Life of Apollonius of Tyana", written by Philostratus over a century after his death.


title: Apollonius of Tyana

text: Apollonius was born into a respected and wealthy Greek household. His primary biographer, Philostratus the Elder (circa 170c. 247), places him circa 3 BCc. 97 AD, however, the Roman historian Cassius Dio (c. 155 – c. 235 AD) writes that Apollonius was in his 40s or 50s in the 90s AD, from which the scholar, Maria Dzielska gives a birth year of about 40 AD.


title: Apollonius of Tyana

text: The earliest and by far the most detailed source is the "Life of Apollonius of Tyana", a lengthy, novelistic biography written by the sophist Philostratus at the request of empress Julia Domna. She died in 217 AD and he completed it after her death, probably in the 220s or 230s AD. Philostratus's account shaped the image of Apollonius for posterity. To some extent it is a valuable source because it contains data from older writings that were available to Philostratus but disappeared later on. Among these works are an excerpt (preserved by Eusebius) from "On Sacrifices", and certain alleged letters of Apollonius. The sage may have actually written some of these works, along with the no-longer extant "Biography of Pythagoras". At least two biographical sources that Philostratus used are lost: a book by the imperial secretary Maximus describing Apollonius's activities in Maximus's home city of Aegaeae in Aeolis and a biography by a certain Moiragenes. There also survives, separately from the life by Philostratus, a collection of letters of Apollonius, but at least some of these seem to be spurious.


title: Apollonius of Tyana

text: One of the essential sources Philostratus claimed to know are the “memoirs” (or “diary”) of Damis, an acolyte and companion of Apollonius. Some scholars claim that the notebooks of Damis were an invention of Philostratus, while others think it could have been a real book forged by someone else and naively used by Philostratus. Philostratus describes Apollonius as a wandering teacher of philosophy and miracle-worker who was mainly active in Greece and Asia Minor but also traveled to Italy, Spain, and North Africa, and even to Mesopotamia, India, and Ethiopia. In particular, he tells lengthy stories of Apollonius entering the city of Rome in disregard of emperor Nero's ban on philosophers, and later on being summoned, as a defendant, to the court of Domitian, where he defied the emperor in blunt terms. He had allegedly been accused of conspiring against the emperor, performing human sacrifice, and predicting a plague by means of magic. Philostratus implies that upon his death, Apollonius of Tyana underwent heavenly assumption.


title: Apollonius of Tyana

text: How much of this can be accepted as historical truth depends largely on the extent to which modern scholars trust Philostratus, and in particular on whether they believe in the reality of Damis. Some of these scholars contend that Apollonius never came to Western Europe and was virtually unknown there until the 3rd century AD, when Empress Julia Domna, who was herself from the province of Syria, decided to popularize him and his teachings in Rome. For that purpose, so these same scholars believe, she commissioned Philostratus to write the biography, in which Apollonius is exalted as a fearless sage with supernatural powers, even greater than Pythagoras. This view of Julia Domna's role in the making of the Apollonius legend gets some support from the fact that her son Caracalla worshipped him, and her grandnephew emperor Severus Alexander may have done so as well.


title: Apollonius of Tyana

text: With the exception of the Adana Inscription from 3rd or 4th century AD, little can be derived from sources other than Philostratus.


title: Apollonius of Tyana

text: The Adana Inscription has been translated by C.P. Jones as: "This man, named after Apollo, and shining forth from Tyana, extinguished the faults of men. The tomb in Tyana (received) his body, but in truth heaven received him so that he might drive out the pains of men (or: drive pains from among men)." It is thought to have been brought from Cilicia, perhaps Aegae (Cilicia). However, Miroslav Marcovich translates part of the text as: "Sure enough, Apollonius was born in Tyana, but the full truth is that he was a heaven-sent sage and healer, a new Pythagoras"


title: Apollonius of Tyana

text: As James Francis put it, "the most that can be said ... is that Apollonius appears to have been a wandering ascetic/philosopher/wonderworker of a type common to the eastern part of the early empire." What we can safely assume is that he was indeed a Pythagorean and as such, in conformity with the Pythagorean tradition, opposed animal sacrifice and lived on a frugal, strictly vegetarian diet. A minimalist view is that he spent his entire life in the cities of his native Asia Minor (Turkey) and of northern Syria, in particular his home town of Tyana, Ephesus, Aegae and Antioch, though the letters suggest wider travels, and there seems no reason to deny that, like many wandering philosophers, he at least visited Rome. As for his philosophical convictions, we have an interesting, probably authentic fragment of one of his writings ("On sacrifices"), in which he expresses his view that God, who is the most beautiful being, cannot be influenced by prayers or sacrifices and has no wish to be worshipped by humans, but can be reached by a spiritual procedure involving "nous" (intellect), because he himself is pure nous, and nous is the greatest faculty of humankind.


title: Apollonius of Tyana

text: Philostratus implies on one occasion that Apollonius had extra-sensory perception (Book VIII, Chapter XXVI). When emperor Domitian was murdered on 18 September 96 AD, Apollonius was said to have witnessed the event in Ephesus "about midday" on the day it happened in Rome, and told those present "Take heart, gentlemen, for the tyrant has been slain this day ...". Both Philostratus and renowned historian Cassius Dio report this incident, probably on the basis of an oral tradition. Both state that the philosopher welcomed the deed as praiseworthy tyrannicide.


title: Apollonius of Tyana

text: Philostratus devoted two and a half of the eight books of his "Life of Apollonius" (1.19–3.58) to the description of a journey of his hero to India. According to Philostratus' "Life", en route to the Far East, Apollonius reached Hierapolis Bambyce (Manbij) in Syria (not Nineveh, as some scholars believed), where he met Damis, a native of that city who became his lifelong companion. Pythagoras, whom the Neo-Pythagoreans regarded as an exemplary sage, was believed to have traveled to India. Hence such a feat made Apollonius look like a good Pythagorean who spared no pains in his efforts to discover the sources of oriental piety and wisdom. As some details in Philostratus’ account of the Indian adventure seem incompatible with known facts, modern scholars are inclined to dismiss the whole story as a fanciful fabrication, but not all of them rule out the possibility that the Tyanean actually did visit India. Philostratus has him meet Phraotes, the Indo-Parthian king of Taxila, a city located in northern Ancient India in what is now northern Pakistan, around 46 AD. And the description that Philostratus provides of Taxila comports with modern archaeological excavations at the ancient site.


title: Apollonius of Tyana

text: What seemed to be independent evidence showing that Apollonius was known in India has now been proven a forgery. In two Sanskrit texts quoted by Sanskritist Vidhushekhara Bhattacharya in 1943 he appears as "Apalūnya", in one of them together with Damis (called "Damīśa"), it is claimed that Apollonius and Damis were Western yogis, who later on were converted to the correct Advaita philosophy. Some have believed that these Indian sources derived their information from a Sanskrit translation of Philostratus’ work (which would have been a most uncommon and amazing occurrence), or even considered the possibility that it was really an independent confirmation of the historicity of the journey to India. Only in 1995 were the passages in the Sanskrit texts proven to be interpolations by a late 19th-century forger.


title: Apollonius of Tyana

text: Several writings and many letters have been ascribed to Apollonius, but some of them are lost; others have only been preserved in parts or fragments of disputed authenticity. Porphyry and Iamblichus refer to a biography of Pythagoras by Apollonius, which has not survived; it is also mentioned in the "Suda". Apollonius wrote a treatise, "On sacrifices", of which only a short, probably authentic fragment has come down to us.


title: Apollonius of Tyana

text: Philostratus' "Life" and the anthology assembled by Joannes Stobaeus contain purported letters of Apollonius. Some of them are cited in full, others only partially. There is also an independently transmitted collection of letters preserved in medieval manuscripts. It is difficult to determine what is authentic and what not. Some of the letters may have been forgeries or literary exercises assembled in collections which were already circulated in the 2nd century AD. It has been asserted that Philostratus himself forged a considerable part of the letters he inserted into his work; others were older forgeries available to him.


title: Apollonius of Tyana

text: In Philostratus's description of Apollonius's life and deeds, there are a number of similarities with the life and especially the claimed miracles of Jesus. In the late 3rd century Porphyry, an anti-Christian Neoplatonic philosopher, claimed in his treatise "Against the Christians" that the miracles of Jesus were not unique, and mentioned Apollonius as a non-Christian who had accomplished similar achievements. Around 300 AD, Roman authorities used the fame of Apollonius in their struggle to wipe out Christianity. Hierocles, one of the main instigators of the persecution of Christians in 303 AD, wrote a pamphlet where he argued that Apollonius exceeded Christ as a wonder-worker and yet wasn't worshipped as a god and that the cultured biographers of Apollonius were more trustworthy than the uneducated apostles. This attempt to make Apollonius a hero of the anti-Christian movement provoked sharp replies from bishop Eusebius of Caesarea and from Lactantius. Eusebius wrote an extant reply to the pamphlet of Hierocles ("Contra Hieroclem"), where he claimed that Philostratus was a fabulist and that Apollonius was a sorcerer in league with demons.


title: Apollonius of Tyana

text: Comparisons between Apollonius and Jesus became commonplace in the 17th and 18th centuries in the context of polemic about Christianity. Several advocates of Enlightenment, deism and anti-Church positions saw him as an early forerunner of their own ethical and religious ideas, a proponent of a universal, non-denominational religion compatible with reason. These comparisons continued into the 20th century.


title: Apollonius of Tyana

text: Proponents of the Christ myth theory sometimes cite Apollonius as an example of the mythic hero archetype that they allege applies to Jesus as well. However, Erkki Koskenniemi has stated that Apollonius of Tyana is not a representative of a Hellenistic divine man and that there is no evidence that Christians constructed their paradigm of Jesus based on traditions associated with him. Moreover, the Christ myth theory is considered a fringe theory in scholarship and is generally not taken seriously.


title: Apollonius of Tyana

text: In the 2nd century the satirist Lucian of Samosata was a sharp critic of Neo-Pythagoreanism. After 180 AD he wrote a pamphlet wherein he attacked Alexander of Abonoteichus, a student of one of Apollonius's students, as a charlatan and suggested that the whole school was based on fraud. From this we can infer that Apollonius really had students and that his school survived at least until Lucian's time. One of Philostratus's foremost aims was to oppose this view. Although he related various miraculous feats of Apollonius, he emphasized at the same time that his hero was not a magician but a serious philosopher and a champion of traditional Greek values.


title: Apollonius of Tyana

text: When Emperor Aurelian conducted his military campaign against the Palmyrene Empire, he captured Tyana in 272 AD. According to the "Historia Augusta" he abstained from destroying the city after having a vision of Apollonius admonishing him to spare the innocent citizens.


title: Apollonius of Tyana

text: In Late Antiquity talismans made by Apollonius appeared in several cities of the Eastern Roman Empire, as if they were sent from heaven. They were magical figures and columns erected in public places, meant to protect the cities from afflictions. The great popularity of these talismans was a challenge to the Christians. Some Byzantine authors condemned them as sorcery and the work of demons, others admitted that such magic was beneficial; none of them claimed that it didn't work.


title: Apollonius of Tyana

text: In the Western Roman Empire, Sidonius Apollinaris was a Christian admirer of Apollonius in the 5th century. He produced a Latin translation of Philostratus's "Life", which is lost.


title: Apollonius of Tyana

text: Beginning in the early 16th century, there was great interest in Apollonius in Europe, but the traditional ecclesiastical viewpoint prevailed, and until the Age of Enlightenment the Tyanean was usually treated as a demonic magician and a great enemy of the Church who collaborated with the devil and tried to overthrow Christianity.


title: Apollonius of Tyana

text: Eliphas Levi claims to have raised the shade of Apollonius of Tyana in an occult ritual in London as described in his textbook on Magic, "Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie", 1854–1856.


title: Apollonius of Tyana

text: The "Tablet of Wisdom", written by Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Baháʼí Faith, names "Balinus" (Apollonius) as a great philosopher, who "surpassed everyone else in the diffusion of arts and sciences and soared unto the loftiest heights of humility and supplication." In another text Baháʼu'lláh states that he "derived his knowledge and sciences from the Hermetic Tablets and most of the philosophers who followed him made their philosophical and scientific discoveries from his words and statements".


title: Apollonius of Tyana

text: Edward Bulwer-Lytton refers to Apollonius in "The Last Days of Pompeii" and "Zanoni" as a great master of occult power and wisdom.


title: Apollonius of Tyana

text: Apollonius of Tyana is a major character in Steven Saylor's historical novel "Empire", which depicts his confrontation with the harsh Emperor Domitian. Apollonius is shown confounding the Emperor (and many others) in quick-witted dialogue, reminiscent of Socrates. The book's plot leaves ambiguous the issue of whether Apollonius possessed true magical power or that he was able to use suggestion and other clever tricks.


title: Apollonius of Tyana

text: Avram Davidson's science fiction novel "Masters of the Maze" has Apollonius of Tyana as one of a select group of humans (and other sentient beings) who had penetrated to the center of a mysterious "Maze" traversing all of space and time. There he dwells in eternal repose, in company with the Biblical Enoch, the Chinese King Wen and Lao Tze, the 19th-century Briton Bathurst, and various other sages of the past and future, some of them Martians.


title: Apollonius of Tyana

text: In "The Circus of Dr. Lao" (1935) by Charles G. Finney, Apollonius appears in the employ of Dr. Lao's circus and brings a dead man back to life.


title: Apollonius of Tyana

text: Apollonius of Tyana is one of the 7 circus characters portrayed by Tony Randall in the 1964 film "The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao". This character does not have any philosophical context, rather he is a sideshow attraction similar to a fortune-teller who has been blessed with clairvoyance. While he always speaks the truth about the future, he is accursed with an ironic fate - nobody ever believes what he says.


title: Apollonius of Tyana

text: In television, Apollonius of Tyana was portrayed by Mel Ferrer in "The Fantastic Journey" episode entitled “Funhouse”. Apollonius was banished centuries ago to a time zone by the gods for opposing them. When the time zone travelers led by the 23rd century healer and pacifist named Varian arrive at a seemingly abandoned carnival, Apollonius intends to lure them into his funhouse of horrors so that he can possess the body of one of the travelers and escape his eternal imprisonment.


title: Element (mathematics)

text: In mathematics, an element (or member) of a set is any one of the distinct objects that belong to that set.


title: Element (mathematics)

text: Writing formula_1 means that the elements of the set are the numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4. Sets of elements of , for example formula_2, are subsets of .


title: Element (mathematics)

text: Sets can themselves be elements. For example, consider the set formula_3. The elements of are "not" 1, 2, 3, and 4. Rather, there are only three elements of , namely the numbers 1 and 2, and the set formula_4.


title: Element (mathematics)

text: The elements of a set can be anything. For example, formula_5 is the set whose elements are the colors , and .


title: Element (mathematics)

text: means that ""x" is an element of "A"". Equivalent expressions are ""x" is a member of "A"", ""x" belongs to "A"", ""x" is in "A"" and ""x" lies in "A"". The expressions ""A" includes "x"" and ""A" contains "x"" are also used to mean set membership, although some authors use them to mean instead ""x" is a subset of "A"". Logician George Boolos strongly urged that "contains" be used for membership only, and "includes" for the subset relation only.


title: Element (mathematics)

text: The symbol itself is a stylized lowercase Greek letter epsilon ("ϵ"), the first letter of the word , which means "is".


title: Element (mathematics)

text: The number of elements in a particular set is a property known as cardinality; informally, this is the size of a set. In the above examples, the cardinality of the set "A" is 4, while the cardinality of set "B" and set "C" are both 3. An infinite set is a set with an infinite number of elements, while a finite set is a set with a finite number of elements. The above examples are examples of finite sets. An example of an infinite set is the set of positive integers {1, 2, 3, 4, ...}.


title: Element (mathematics)

text: Using the sets defined above, namely "A" = {1, 2, 3, 4 }, "B" = {1, 2, {3, 4}} and "C" = {red, green, blue}, the following statements are true:


title: Element (mathematics)

text: As a relation, set membership must have a domain and a range. Conventionally the domain is called the universe denoted "U". The range is the set of subsets of "U" called the power set of "U" and denoted P("U"). Thus the relation formula_9 is a subset of "U" x P("U"). The converse relation formula_10 is a subset of P("U") x "U".


title: Lego Batman: The Videogame

text: Lego Batman: The Videogame is a 2008 action-adventure video game developed by Traveller's Tales and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, released for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Wii, Nintendo DS, Microsoft Windows, and Mac OS X. The game is based on the DC Comics character Batman, as well as the eponymous LEGO Batman toyline.


title: Lego Batman: The Videogame

text: The game is similar to earlier Lego games developed by Traveller's Tales, such as "Lego Star Wars" series and "", in that it is both a game based on a licensed property, and has environments, objects, and creatures made out of Lego. However, "Lego Batman" is the first to have an original story. The Mac OS X version of the game was released in April 2009 by Feral Interactive. The game received positive reviews, and spawned two sequels: "" and "", as well as a villains-only spin-off, "Lego DC Super-Villains".


title: Lego Batman: The Videogame

text: The core gameplay of "Lego Batman" is similar to that of previous Lego video games, such as "" and the "Lego Star Wars" series. The player controls any one of a wide assortment of characters from a third-person perspective, primarily fighting enemies, solving puzzles, and collecting Lego "studs", the game's form of currency. Using attack combinations in combat will multiply the amount of studs earned. The game is set in Gotham City, with mainly realistic environments; only interactive objects are made of Lego bricks. Occasionally, players must assemble Lego objects to proceed further in the level, cross obstacles, or unlock new suits. Players are able to fight on land, sea, and in the air, using a number of character-controlled vehicles, including the Batmobile, Batboat, and Batwing. New moves to the series first featured in "Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures" are featured in this game. New abilities introduced in this game include picking up and carrying enemies and walking on tightropes across buildings. Up to two players can play in co-operative mode, except in the PSP version which does not feature this mode.


title: Lego Batman: The Videogame

text: There are thirty levels in the game (divided into fifteen each for the heroes and the villains) as well as two secret levels, which sees the player exploring miniature versions of the Wayne Manor and Arkham Asylum to collect studs. There are many different environments in the game, usually based upon the villains' crime styles, including an ice cream factory, a botanical garden, and the Gotham sewers. The game is divided into chapters, each containing five levels. Chapters are divided equally between heroes and villains, having three chapters each. Completing a hero chapter unlocks the corresponding chapter for the villains. As in previous Lego video games, levels are unlocked for "Free Play" mode once they are completed in Story Mode. "Free Play" allows the player to replay any level they have completed, but with any characters they have unlocked so far. This permits access to special areas containing additional collectibles, where the player was unable to get to before. This is unlike Story mode, in which the player may only switch between the two characters involved in that scene.


title: Lego Batman: The Videogame

text: The level hub for the heroes, similar to the Mos Eisley cantina in "Lego Star Wars" and Barnett College in "Lego Indiana Jones", is the Batcave, where the player can purchase additional characters and view unlockables. The corresponding hub for the villains is Arkham Asylum, where players can create their own character using parts from characters already unlocked, as well as a limited array of weapons. Individual characters are able to use many unique abilities related to their comic book powers and talents. For example, the Joker is able to attack enemies and activate machines with a hand buzzer, and the Penguin can glide with his umbrella. Hush can be unlocked after finding all 25 hostages in the villain and hero levels (excluding the vehicle levels). Once the game reaches 100%, the Ra's al Ghul character can be purchased and used as a playable character, while Azrael, Huntress, Black Mask and Spoiler can be created in the character creator.


title: Lego Batman: The Videogame

text: Players are able to swap the costumes of each of the main heroes (Batman, Robin, Batgirl, and Nightwing) with many differing ones, each containing unique abilities and different color schemes. Batman starts in a classic grey suit, while he and Batgirl can wear the Glide suit that lets Batman/Batgirl fly for a short time, the Sonic suit that can break glass, the Demolition suit that lets Batman/Batgirl set down bombs and detonate them, and the Heat Protection suit that lets Batman/Batgirl survive in extremely hot temperatures. Robin and Nightwing can wear the Technology suit that can activate Tech panels, the Water suit that lets Robin/Nightwing go underwater, the Magnet suit that lets Robin/Nightwing climb up magnetic walls, and the Attract suit that can vacuum up loose Lego pieces and turn them in for bonuses. Devices providing these suits must be built with Lego bricks during Story Mode, but when the player finds those suits, they will be linked to their corresponding characters in "Free Play" mode.


title: Lego Batman: The Videogame

text: The Nintendo DS version was altered to accommodate the memory and size limitations of the DS as well as include touch screen controls. Characters' special abilities, such as Batman's grappling hook (when pulling background objects) and detonation capsules, and elements such as switches can be controlled by using the touch screen, as well as switching characters. Some characters' special abilities, attack moves, and jump moves have been changed. For example, Batman can do double-jumps in the DS version, but not in the console versions. Also, when Batman and Robin use a suit switcher pad, they cannot switch back to the previous suit. There are no cinematics, only slideshows featuring comic book-style panels.


title: Lego Batman: The Videogame

text: This version also features several more characters not available in the console versions and includes an exclusive unlockable minigame called "Villain Hunt", which is used to unlock 10 of the extra characters: Killer Moth (classic version), Man-Bat, Hugo Strange, Mr. Zsasz, Black Mask, Firefly, the Ventriloquist and Scarface, Ra's al Ghul, Hush, and the Joker (Tropical suit). Some other characters did not make it into the Story Levels, but can be unlocked in different ways than in the console versions - they include: Talia al Ghul, Azrael, Huntress, and Killer Moth (the version from the "Teen Titans" TV series).


title: Lego Batman: The Videogame

text: A mobile phone version of the game was also released by Glu. However, it plays much more like a straightforward platformer with scrolling beat 'em up elements, removing key gameplay features such as the ability to switch between characters with different abilities. The game is single-player only and players can only play as Batman. It was later released as "LEGO Batman: The Mobile Game" by Gameloft in 2011.


title: Lego Batman: The Videogame

text: "Lego Batman: The Videogame" is notable for being the first Traveller's Tales Lego game to have an original plot. Unlike previous Traveller's Tales Lego video games, it is based more on the concept of a media franchise, rather than following the plot of a particular movie or other story from it. The game features Batman and Robin fighting crime and villainy in Gotham City. Batman's most dangerous foes have all escaped from Arkham Asylum and divided themselves into three groups of five, each led by a well-known villain with plans to achieve a personal goal:


title: Lego Batman: The Videogame

text: The game features two distinct campaigns: a hero storyline, where Batman and Robin fight the villains one by one while attempting to thwart their schemes; and a villain storyline, where the player assumes the role of the villains as they attempt to carry out their plan while avoiding the GCPD. Both campaigns consist of three individual chapters (one for each villain group), which can be played in any order. The hero levels often cross over with the villain levels to create a sense of continuity. To understand the complete story of a chapter, one must play both the hero and villain levels (for example, Bane is never encountered during the hero portion of the Penguin's chapter because he had already been captured by the GCPD in a villain level).


title: Lego Batman: The Videogame

text: At the conclusion of the villain chapters, the chief villain and their top lieutenant successfully begin putting their plan into motion, while the rest of the group is captured, while the hero chapter conclusions have Batman and Robin thwarting their schemes and sending the villains back to Arkham.


title: Lego Batman: The Videogame

text: An early build for the PlayStation 2 console was shown at certain conferences (such as at Game On in London) by TT Games Publishing's Head of Production Jonathan Smith, with a small playable area featuring the same HUD as "". DC Comics had an input into the game, providing the developers with reference materials for the game's characters. During the 2009 holiday season, "Lego Batman" and "Pure" were bundled with select Xbox 360 packages as a bonus, in a double-sided box. It also releases with the "Batman" movie DVD that was bundled as a "Game + DVD Combo Pack" along with "Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe" and "".


title: Lego Batman: The Videogame

text: Though material is taken from the comics, "Lego Batman" is mainly inspired by Batman media, such as films and television series. The most heavy inspiration comes from the 1990s Burton/Schumacher film series and the DCAU.


title: Lego Batman: The Videogame

text: The game's soundtrack is Danny Elfman's score from Tim Burton's "1989 Batman" film. The Nintendo DS version of the game uses some music from "Batman Returns." Characters's vocal effects were provided by Steve Blum (as Batman, Joker, Killer Moth, Killer Croc and Two-Face), James Arnold Taylor (as Robin and Nightwing), Tom Kenny (as Riddler, Penguin, and the Police Officers), Fred Tatasciore (as Bane and Hush), Grey DeLisle (as Harley Quinn and Batgirl), Dave Wittenberg (as Scarecrow and Ra's al Ghul), Ogie Banks (as Mr. Freeze and Clayface), Vanessa Marshall (as Poison Ivy and Catwoman) with Chris Edgerly (as Mad Hatter and Man-Bat) and Keith Ferguson (as Alfred Pennyworth and James Gordon). Collette Sunderman voice directs this game.


title: Lego Batman: The Videogame

text: "Lego Batman" received generally favorable reviews from critics upon release. "IGN" gave the game a 7.7 for the Wii, PS2, PS3 and 360, and a 7.3 for PSP stating that while the game has plenty of replay value, it also retains problematic elements from the previous games in the series and does not necessarily add anything new. The DS version received an 8.0 rating. "GamesRadar" gave it an 8 out of 10, noting that Traveller's Tales was able to be more open with the license than previous games. In a review for "PC Gamer", John Walker noted that the large number of locations in Gotham as a "welcome improvement" over "". Combat is styled in the manner of the 1960s Batman series, and the game includes clever puzzles. The drawbacks mentioned include the fixed viewing perspective and the frequent respawning of opponents. "Iconic characters, such as Clayface and Robin, have been turned into village idiots," writes Ben of "Game Informer" who nevertheless later adds, "this game is filled with cool playable characters… Nightwing, Harley Quinn, Joker, Killer Croc, Bane, Catwoman, and Man-Bat only scratch the surface of the game's catalog of great characters." The Nintendo DS version was nominated for "Best Action Game of 2008 on the DS" by IGN. As of August 2010, the game has sold over 7 million copies worldwide. As of January 2012, the game has sold over 11 million copies worldwide. The Russian magazine Igromania gave the game a mixed review, stating "It's still good, but nowhere near as brilliant as ", citing the lack of jokes about the Batman movies.


title: Lego Batman: The Videogame

text: A sequel, "", was announced by Warner Bros to be in development by Traveller's Tales. Released in June 2012, the game's characters and models are inspired by the Lego DC Super Heroes sets. A third game, titled "", was released in November 2014. A spin-off, "Lego DC Super-Villains", was released in October 2018, around the time of the original game's tenth anniversary.


title: Combined Counties Football League

text: The Combined Counties Football League is a regional men's football league in south-eastern England with members in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Jersey, Kent, Middlesex, Oxfordshire, Surrey, and the western half and south-eastern quarter of Greater London, featuring a number of professional clubs. It is sponsored by Cherry Red Records and is officially known as the Cherry Red Records Combined Counties Football League.


title: Combined Counties Football League

text: It was founded in 1922 as the Surrey Senior League and was renamed in 1978 to the Combined Counties League. Initially, the league was a single division, but it consists now of 59 teams in three divisions: Premier Division North, Premier Division South and Division One. The league also has six teams competing in an Under-23 Development Division, known as the John Bennett Development Division, and eighteen Under-18 teams split across North and South divisions, known as the Tony Ford Under-18 Youth Divisions.


title: Combined Counties Football League

text: The Premier Divisions North and South are two of sixteen recognised leagues to form the ninth level of the English football league system (known as Step 5 of the National League System), and Division One is one of seventeen recognised leagues at level 10 (known as Step 6 of the National League System). The Combined Counties Football League is a feeder to the Isthmian League and the Southern League.


title: Combined Counties Football League

text: The league was renamed on 18 June 1978 when the Surrey Senior League underwent a metamorphosis to try to attract clubs from outside the county. The expanded league was initially called the Home Counties League but there was an objection to the title from the Home Counties Conference, which forced the league to change its name.


title: Combined Counties Football League

text: The league had a verbal agreement with the Surrey County Football Association to revert to a similar title to the former league – the Surrey Senior Football League. However, this name was later rejected as the Surrey County Football Association intended to reform the Surrey Senior League at a later date. It was first suggested by the FA that the league should be called the Corinthian Football League, but this was frowned upon by the Athenian Football League within which the old Corinthian Football League was incorporated. The alternative suggestion, the Combined Counties Football League, was approved for the 1979–80 season.


title: Combined Counties Football League

text: With increasing numbers for the 1981–82 season, the clubs were split into two equal divisions: the Eastern Division and the Western Division. The winners then met in a two-legged play-off final, with Ash United winning 3–0 in aggregate against Malden Town. The league reverted to a single division for the 1982–83 season.


title: Combined Counties Football League

text: The league began with nine founder-member clubs and continued to steadily grow, resulting in the league becoming a feeder to the Isthmian League in 1984 with 16–18 teams usually competing in the Combined Counties Football League. Southwick became the first team promoted to the Isthmian League from a feeder club in 1985, and Chertsey Town followed a year later.


title: Combined Counties Football League

text: In 1987, the league announced a four-year sponsorship agreement with Dan-Air worth a five figure sum. As part of the agreement, the league became known as the Dan-Air Football League and a representative team was introduced. The Dan-Air Class Elite Cup was also launched in 1989.


title: Combined Counties Football League

text: The Dan-Air Youth League was formed for the 1991–92 season and opened to youth teams from all member clubs. However, the league attracted just seven clubs for the inaugural season and reluctantly abandoned the competition after one year. With the Dan-Air sponsorship coming to an end at the end of the season, the league agreed a sponsorship deal with Parasol Professional Portrait Photography and became known as the Parasol Combined Counties Football League. The League Challenge Cup became known as the Parasol Challenge Cup, and the Dan-Air Class Elite Cup was replaced by the Frazer Freight Vase with sponsorship from Frazer Freight International.


title: Combined Counties Football League

text: Ahead of the 1997–98 season, the league received further sponsorship and subsequently became known as the Courage Combined Counties Football League. In 2002, the league reached a membership of 24 clubs – most notably with the addition of AFC Wimbledon. The introduction of AFC Wimbledon proved invaluable for the league's other clubs. With crowds of up to 4,000 spectators for their home clubs, many clubs would break their attendance records when AFC Wimbledon visited their ground which could generate substantial matchday revenue. The club's first matches in the league also required large numbers of police to control crowds, including mounted police and patrolling helicopters.


title: Combined Counties Football League

text: In 2002, the league began a three-year sponsorship agreement to become the Seagrave Haulage Combined Counties Football League, although Seagrave pulled out of the deal after one season.


title: Combined Counties Football League

text: Following the National League System Conference in July 2002, the Combined Counties Football League and the Surrey County Senior League entered into discussions. This resulted in the two leagues merging for the 2003–04 season, forming a league with 40 clubs that would operate across the fourth and fifth steps of non-league football with a Premier Division and Division One.


title: Combined Counties Football League

text: Another new sponsorship for the 2005–06 season, this time with Cherry Red Records, saw the league become known as the Cherry Red Records Combined Counties Football League.


title: Combined Counties Football League

text: In 2011, the league accepted the membership of newly-founded club Guernsey. The arrival of the team meant that clubs would fly or take a ferry over to the Channel Islands in order to fulfil their fixtures, with Guernsey covering the expenses as part of their membership. Backed by former England international Matt Le Tissier, who made a one-off appearance in the Combined Counties Football League in 2013, they won the Combined Counties Football League Division One and Combined Counties Premier Challenge Cup in their first season.


title: Combined Counties Football League

text: In May 2018, Westfield and premier division runners up, Bedfont Sports, were promoted to the Bostik (Isthmian) Football League due to The FA's decision to restructure steps 3 and 4 of the National League System. It was the first time that two teams had been promoted in one season.


title: Combined Counties Football League

text: The 2019–20 season was abandoned as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in England. The pandemic led to further disruptions in the 2020-21 season, with it starting in September, before being suspended in December and eventually curtailed in February 2021 by restrictions from COVID-19 lockdowns. The FA later announced on 12 April that the Combined Counties League would administer a new Step 5 division from 2021–22 after another scheduled NLS restructuring had a one-season postponement due to the pandemic.


title: Combined Counties Football League

text: Its rules allow up to three teams to be promoted and relegated between either Premier division and Division One; promotion is dependent on the clubs finishing in the top three of Division One each having the correct ground-grading.


title: Combined Counties Football League

text: Division One is "fed" by the county leagues at level 11, the former Step 7 of the National League System, such as the Surrey Elite Intermediate League, the Middlesex County League and the Thames Valley Premier Football League.


title: Combined Counties Football League

text: The Southern Combination Challenge Cup has been labelled "a supplementary Combined Counties League Cup" and includes some clubs in the Isthmian League and other leagues.


title: Combined Counties Football League

text: The league has had a succession of title sponsors. Cherry Red Records are the current League and Premier Challenge Cup sponsors and have been since 2005.


title: Combined Counties Football League

text: "For the 2003–04 season Division One was added formed mainly of clubs from the Surrey County Senior League."


title: Bennet family

text: The Bennet family is a fictional family created by the English novelist Jane Austen, in her 1813 novel, "Pride and Prejudice". The family consists of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, and their five daughters: Jane, Mary, Catherine, Lydia, and Elizabeth, the novel's protagonist


title: Bennet family

text: Set in the Regency era, the family belongs to the landed gentry of Hertfordshire. The complex relationships between the Bennets influence the evolution of the plot as they navigate the difficulties faced by young women in attempting to secure a good future through marriage.


title: Bennet family

text: Jane and Elizabeth show irreproachable conduct and are appreciated by their father. Their sister Mary is described as less physically attractive and displays intellectual and musical pretensions. The two youngest daughters, Lydia and Kitty (Catherine) are supervised very little by their parents and are portrayed as immature, fickle young girls.


title: Bennet family

text: The other members of the family are Mrs Bennet's brother and sister-in law (Mr and Mrs Gardiner), and her sister Mrs. Philips, and the designated heir of Mr. Bennet's estate, his distant paternal second cousin, the pompous and foolish Mr. William Collins.


title: Bennet family

text: Mr. Gardiner and Mrs. Philips contribute significantly to the progress and outcome of the story, but at a level and in a different register, reflecting their respective social belonging.


title: Bennet family

text: Collins' character serves as a link between the gentry of Hertfordshire, to which the Bennets belong, and the large property owners Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Mr. Darcy who later marries Elizabeth.


title: Bennet family

text: The Bennet couple do not assume their role as educators: the mother repeatedly makes a spectacle of herself. She is overly eager to find husbands for her daughters. This eagerness is displayed in her behaviour, and she fails to understand that this behaviour is likely to dissuade young men from marrying her daughters. The father, who seems to be an indifferent husband, makes no effort to change his wife's behaviour. He is more intent on 'enjoying the show' than in correcting her behaviour, and the behaviour of his younger daughters.


title: Bennet family

text: The narrator does not elaborate on the ancestors of Mr Bennet. This is only established for the Collinses, father and son, who are described as Mr. Bennet's 'distant' cousins.