Gilgamesh and the Bible - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 3 Words: 773 Downloads: 9 Date added: 2019/06/24 Category History Essay Level High school Topics: Gilgamesh Essay Did you like this example? While reading Gilgamesh, I was struck by the similarities between the story being told and that of the stories compiled within the Bible. The correlations between the two made me question whether or not Gilgamesh somehow influenced the creation of certain narratives within the religion I practice today. It is interesting to read something that potentially helped fashion Christianity into what it has become over the centuries. I can see the influence of Gilgamesh in quite a few places in the Bible, including but not limited to, the creation of Adam, the corruption of Adam, and the great flood. When I was little, the first story I remember being told in church centered around Adam and Eve, specifically their creation. I never questioned the validity of the story, nor did I ponder its origins. To me, if it was in the Bible, then it must be true. While reading Gilgamesh, it was almost like I was transported back into my old Sunday school class. Enkidu, Gilgameshs best friend, is created by the goddess Aruru. She moistened her hands, she pinched off some clay, she threw it into the wilderness, kneaded it, shaped it to her idea, and fashioned a man (Mitchell 74). In the Bible, God creates Adam, who is the first man on Earth. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (Bible 2). Both of these powerful beings create a man from an idea and use nature to mold him into formation. To top it all off, both of these deities thrust their newly formed, pure, and ignorant beings into places that can easily be described as paradis e on Earth. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Gilgamesh and the Bible" essay for you Create order In addition to the creation of Adam, the Bible seems to also mimic the corruption of Enkidu when it details the deception that leads to Adam and Eves enlightenment. In the garden, Adam and Eve live a simple life devoid of the knowledge of sin. The couples ignorance of sin is represented by their nakedness. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed (Bible 3). In Gilgamesh, Enkidu roamed all over the wilderness, naked, far from the cities of men (Mitchell 75). His innocence is also represented in his nakedness. Adam is corrupted when he listens to his wife, Eve, and eats from the tree of knowledge. Enkidu is corrupted when he has sexual intercourse with a priestess named Ishtar. The characters are stripped of their innocence after being tempted and deceived by females. Furthermore, both females actions are being manipulated in different ways by other characters. Despite the reasoning behind the deceptions, Enkidu and Adam can never reclaim what they have lost . Enkidu is no longer accepted by the animals that raised him and Adam is cast out of the garden. Finally, perhaps the most glaring similarity between the Bible and Gilgamesh is that of a world-wide flood. In the Bible, there is a flood that lasts for forty days and forty nights and wipes out all life on Earth. And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man (Bible 9). In Gilgamesh, a similar flood occurs and eradicates practically all of civilization. There was no life at all. The human race had turned into clay (Mitchell 187). Characters in both stories avoid dying by building a large ship. In addition to this, both characters build such a vessel because they were instructed how to by a higher power at play. In conclusion, there are many similarities between the Bible and Gilgamesh. The stories show how Gods create life and also interfere in it. Examining whether or not Gilgamesh did influence the creation of the Bible is a lofty feat that I wish I could delve deeper into. Gilgamesh is described as, the oldest story in the world, a thousand years older than the Iliad or the Bible (Mitchell 1). Its influence is spread throughout the stories we hear and tell ourselves, even today. Whether we talk about the creation of Adam and Eve or watch a film with Chris Evans depicting Captain America, themes from Gilgamesh are present within the narratives. However, if Gilgamesh existed thousands of years ago, is it not safe to wager that other stories also existed? Is it plausible that other stories remain hidden, waiting to be unearthed? Reading this story not only helped me see the similarities between this enticing tale and the Bible, but it also helped me see connections between this ancient text and that of the modern world.

How Monarchs Know When to Migrate

The monarch butterfly is a true miracle of nature. Its the only butterfly species known to complete a round-trip migration of up to 3,000 miles each year. Each fall, millions of monarchs make their way to the mountains of central Mexico, where they spend the winter hunkered down in the oyamel fir forests. Just how do the monarchs know when its time to migrate? Differences Between Summer Monarchs and Fall Monarchs Before we tackle the question of what makes a monarch migrate in the fall, we need to understand the difference between a spring or summer monarch and a migrant monarch. A typical monarch lives just a few weeks. Spring and summer monarchs have functional reproductive organs soon after emergence, allowing them to mate and reproduce within the constraints of a short lifespan. Theyre solitary butterflies that spend their brief days and nights alone, with the exception of the time spent mating. The fall migrants, however, go into a state of reproductive diapause. Their reproductive organs arent fully developed after emergence, and wont be until the following spring. Rather than mating, these monarchs put their energy into preparing for the arduous flight south. They become more gregarious, roosting in trees together overnight. The fall monarchs, also known as the Methuselah generation for their extended lifespan, need lots of nectar to make their journey and survive the long winter. 3 Environmental Cues Tell Monarchs to Migrate So the real question is what triggers these physiological and behavioral changes in the fall monarchs? Three environmental factors influence these changes in the migrant generation of monarchs: the length of daylight, the fluctuation of temperatures, and the quality of milkweed plants. In combination, these three environmental triggers tell monarchs its time to take to the skies. As summer ends and fall begins, days grow gradually shorter. This steady change in the length of daylight helps to trigger reproductive diapause in late-season monarchs. Its not just that the days are shorter, its that they keep getting shorter. Research at the University of Minnesota showed that monarchs subjected to a constant but short amount of daylight would not go into reproductive diapause. The daylight hours had to vary over time to cause the physiological change that makes a monarch migrate. Fluctuating temperatures also signal the change of seasons. Although daytime temperatures may still be warm, late summer nights become noticeably cooler. Monarchs use this cue to migrate as well. University of Minnesota scientists determined that monarchs reared in a climate of fluctuating temperatures were more likely to go into diapause than those reared at a constant temperature. Late season monarchs that experience changing temperatures will suspend reproductive activity in preparation for migration. Finally, monarch reproduction depends on an adequate supply of healthy host plants, milkweed. By late August or September, the milkweed plants begin to yellow and dehydrate and are often covered with sooty mold from aphids. Lacking nutritious foliage for their offspring, these adult monarchs will delay reproduction and begin migration.

Idling Engine Ban Free Essays

1. To what extent do you agree with the idling engine ban? A few years ago, the Environmental Protection Department proposed to legislate the idling engine ban, under which all vehicles must switch off their engines. I totally disagree with the idling engine ban, for I think that this policy not only cannot bring benefits to pedestrians in air quality, but instead brings harm to drivers and passengers. We will write a custom essay sample on Idling Engine Ban or any similar topic only for you Order Now To start with, the idling engine ban brings inconvenience to drivers. As the idling engine ban proposes that a driver has to switch off their idle engines immediately, drivers had to switch of their engines even if they had to wait in a place for as short as 3 minutes. This abrupt switching off and on of the engine is not only bothersome to drivers, but may lead to a shorter lifespan of motor vehicles. Apart from the harm to the driver, a problem of poor ventilation is caused by the idling engine ban, which affects both drivers and passengers. As stated by the government, vehicles are the second largest local source of air pollutants. In the middle of the road where traffic is intense, if a driver has to switch off the air conditioner and open the windows, the driver and the passengers will breathe in harmful gases which will affect their health in the long term. Also, when the temperature reaches above 30 degrees in summer, drivers and passengers have a high chance of suffering from heat strokes if the air conditioner is turned off. To maintain a driver’s good condition of health is crucial when driving, therefore the idling engine ban is not feasible. Moreover, from the government’s perspective, it is difficult for the idling engine ban to be implemented. Firstly, a fine of $320 may not be severe enough to stop drivers from switching on their idling engines. Secondly, as there are many exemptions to the ban, the police will not be able to identify violating vehicles effectively. The usefulness of the ban would be greatly decreased. The government stated that the idling engine ban can reduce air pollution in Hong Kong as vehicles are a main pollutant. I agree that the ban can improve the health of Hong Kong citizens and pedestrians in particular, though only in a small extent. However, statistics show that emissions produced when vehicles are idle are only a small part of gas emitted by vehicles. In fact, running vehicles produce a major part of pollutants. Thus, I think that the idling engine ban is not significant enough; the government should consider alternatives to tackle the major problem of the increasing number of private cars to reduce air pollution. To conclude, the idling engine ban would cause inconvenience to drivers and affect the health of drivers and pedestrians. It would be difficult to implement and ineffective to reduce air pollution. Therefore, I totally disagree with the idling engine ban as it brings harmful effects to all stakeholders. 2. What can individuals, private organizations and the government do to ease the costs you have identified in Q1? In Q1, I have identified the costs of the idling engine ban as inconvenience to drivers, poor ventilation during hot weather, difficult implementation and insignificance in reducing air pollution. Firstly, if the idling engine ban was implemented, individual drivers can develop more self-discipline and abide to the laws so that gas emissions will decrease. They can also report on cases of violating the ban. The effectiveness of the ban would increase and implementation of the ban would be more successful. Individuals can also ride on public vehicles more often, so that the major source of air pollutants would be cut down. Secondly, private organizations such as environmental organizations can tell Hong Kong citizens the benefits of the idling engine ban through large-scale functions or advertisements, so that more drivers will see the meaning behind the ban and will not complain that it is inconvenient. They will obey the ban more strictly. Thirdly, the government can ease the poor ventilation during hot weather by changing the ban to allow exemption of all vehicles from switching off the idle engine when the temperature is over 30 degrees. Also, the government can increase the fine so that drivers would not violate the ban easily and it would be easier to implement the ban. How to cite Idling Engine Ban, Papers

Post ERP Implementation Issues - Free Sample Assignment Solution

Question: What are the different issues can emerge in post-implementation phase of ERP implementation? How these issues can be rectified and avoided in future implementation/s? Answer: Introduction In case of traditional information systems used in businesses, those systems are based on different sets of programs and data repositories. Usually such systems support only one business process among many. These information systems are isolated and there are difficulties in sharing information among more than one such information systems that are running for different business processes within an organization. The maintenance cost of such information systems are very high and the output from such systems in terms of efficiency is very poor. So, industries and business started to shift towards an integrated solution that will be able to integrate different business processes of an organization into a single information system, will deliver a uniform platform to the users, the business processes will be faster and more efficient. Such information systems are called enterprise resource planning systems or ERP systems. These systems offer wide range of cross functional information syste m packages and integration of different business processes. There are several modules in an ERP system. These modules are used for gathering data from various business processes. There are common keys that integrates the modules with each other. There are databases with the ERP system where these modules can store data. The database is a centralized database and connected to all modules. Thus data from all business processes are accessible to one another and stored in a single place. As a result, data flows through the ERP system and business processes seamlessly. It helps to achieve higher performance by the system.(Harwood, 2003) More and more organizations worldwide are implementing ERP systems for their business. But utilization of full power of the ERP systems is not true for all. There are several success stories or ERP implementation and there are failures also. Mere implementation of ERP is not a successful ERP implementation. So, the business processes also suffers from failures of ERP implementations. There are significant losses also. In this report, there will be discussion on post ERP implantation issues faced by organization and the consequences of that. There will be discussion on avoidance and rectification of those issues in future ERP implementation also. (Gattiker Goodhue, 2005) Post ERP Implementation Issues Post implementation phase of ERP systems in organizations have become a serious issue as there are significant effort and cost associated with this phase. Most of the issues with post ERP implementation are related to project management issues, organizational structure and behavior, human factors etc. Post implementation phase of ERPs is more important as there are several issues and factors to consider. In this phase the system is put into the working environment and the actual end users are given exposure to the system. End users learns to use the system, systems go through dynamic workloads and their performance limits are cross checked in real life scenarios. There may be shockwaves to destroy the environment and the implementation. There may be programming errors but those can be revealed through extensive and rigorous integration and acceptance testing processes. Still, from post implementation phase there may be a long list of bugs found in the ERP system. Thus the process of post implementation needs monitoring and long term support. It is an ongoing process that need finer tuning and improvement of the ERP system. Audit of ERP system in such cases is very challenging but a way to open up the root causes behind the scenarios. (Hustad Olsen, 2011) It reveals a unique learning curve from the reviews of post ERP implementation phases. However there is a huge challenge in this learning curve in the context of ERP implementation. The learning process for ERP implementation should be very prompt and well. Otherwise the ERP systems are actually complex systems. There are chances that end users may get afraid of using such systems and they may not feel comfortable with such systems. It can be monitored that how users are using the system. The monitoring process should be detailed process. The management should find out who are facing difficulties with the ERP systems and should act accordingly. A mere training on use of ERP systems for end users is not enough. End users tends to keep using the simpler features of the system and avoid complex ones deliberately. It may dampen the performance of the system and the business process. Such cases can be monitored through the monitoring system. ERP systems contains various tools and templates for generating reports etc. also there are automating tools. But in reality it has been seen that sometimes end users keep using modules like calendars, available report templates etc. and avoids use of automated tools, customizable report generation tools etc. But if such tools are there in the system then it has some use. Thus these tools should be utilized properly otherwise the objective of the ERP implementation will not be full filled. The process of making end users accustomed with some ERP system is time consuming process. The primary barrier is resistance and unwillingness to learn. This is true in many of the ERP failure cases. But when the users get accustomed to the system and understand the real power of the ERP systems. This is the set time in the post implementation phase when the end users are enthusiastically learns and use the ERP system. But here is another factor to consider. As people enthusiastically use the system so, the system will go through heavy usage and it should cope up with the workload and function in the best possible way all the time. But bugs start to come up during this phase. And so comes the aftershock. There are some bug reports that are very trivial and maintenance group can easily handle those. Some of the bugs creeps in from tricky usage of the system by users. (Albadri, 2012) Outcomes of the Aftershock The outcomes of the aftershock may be devastating. Because during this phase, the project has been finished and it is very unlikely that there will be enough technical and managerial support other than the maintenance support. Thus in some cases, the whole system becomes unusable due to lack of proper support. In worst cases, the developers are accused for developing some unusable system. However, elimination of the issues in post implementation phases of ERP, is not possible. Even if the development process includes rigorous testing and involvement of group of end users, still there are chances that bugs will be there in the system and will come out during post implementation phase. The reason it, it is impossible to test each and every possible cases that may generate bugs in a software or a system. There will be chances that under some particular circumstances, for some particular values some bug comes out. So, this is very unlikely to understand during testing process. Also, during testing some trained user will use the system not the real end users. Sometimes ERP systems are enhanced after getting the aftershock. In most of the cases these enhancement are not done following the same methodologies followed in the ERP development process or implementation process. Some enhancement require code fixings and it needs to go through system analysis, planning and development phase. But in case of enhancement, the path is not followed. Thus there are high chances that modules and the integrity among the modules may get affected. Lack of Proper Change Control Process ERP systems are more than just some information systems. It needs to understand the business processes as well as the ERP systems. Vendors provide some prototype of ERP systems that are customized along with the business process requirements. Sometimes the ERP system modules are customized along with the business process. There are high chances that there may be issues in integration of the modules in the ERP system, if there is heavy customization of the ERP modules. It may bring more chances of bugs in the post ERP implementation phase. On the other hand, sometimes, the business processes are reengineered according to the ERP system. This is really tricky. Changing a business process requires extensive change control management. A business process is more than information and IT systems. There are people involved in the business process. It is about the structure and culture of the organization, thus change control is very necessary. Lack of change control in such scenarios can create problems during post ERP implementation phase. (Musaji, 2005) Top management issues ERP projects are initiated by the top management of some organization. But studies have shown that there is lack of support from them during the post implementation phase of ERP systems. This issue is very serious as, managerial participation is very much required during development, implementation and post implementation phases. In spite of verbal communication and assurance, it needs active participation of top management in decision making etc. (Ifinedo, Rapp, Ifinedo, Sundberg, 2010) Lack of support from IT professionals ERP development, implementation and post implementation is an ongoing and continuous process. IT management and professionals are needed to participate and support the entire process. That is their participation is needed in the post implementation phases also. But in reality is shows that, during the aftershock adequate support from IT professionals are unavailable. For some organization this issue becomes more severe due to the lack of experienced and skilled in house staffs. As the project development phase gets completed along with training and implementation phase, so there is also not adequate support from the consultancies that are hired for ERP development project. Untimely participation and improvement of the bugs in the ERP post implementation may sometime lead to failure of the system. Lack of budget In most of the cases, the post implementation phase is not considered as a part of the ERP development and implementation process. The top management and project sponsors do not allocate funding for coping up with issues that comes out during post implementation phases. That can lead to severe scenarios. Because, if the number of bugs increases in the system then it may need serious improvement and that requires significant costs.Lack of Training to the end users End users should be properly trained to understand the ERP system and should be able to troubleshoot in minimum and trivial cases. As they are the users who are going to use the system daily for carrying out the business processes. So, they should understand how the system works rather than mugging up what input and commands should be given. This will reduce the number of wrong attempts in working with the system and users can supports one another in some primitive cases. (Scott, 2005) But in reality training to end users are not considered very important by the management. So they provide minimal or low quality training to the end users. Measurements to Avoid Post Implementation issues There are various processes to deal with the aftershock and other post implementation issues in case of ERP implementation. (Nicolaou Bhattacharya, 2006)Some of the possible countermeasures to deal with the issues in post ERP implementation phase are, Organization should keep aside some money or funding for such adverse scenarios. The testing process should be rigorous and if possible then it should introduce the system to the actual end users. In some software development methodology like agile methodologies, it let the end users get involved into the development process. It will help to reduce the number of bugs in the final ERP implementation. There should be proper user management. This is important for the success of the ERP implementation as a whole. There should be some technical and managerial support available for the post ERP implementation phase. There should be monitoring for user interactions with the ERP implementation and monitoring of the bugs etc. Proper change control management should be planned and followed to deal with post implementation cases when there is business process reengineering. Monitoring the user acceptance of the system, how they interacts with the system etc. should be done very carefully. All required assistances should be provided in such cases. Rather than competing the project management phased with implementation, maintenances should be included. Training to the end users should be provided in a better and engaging way. People should understand the system and how it works, better understanding will lead to better utilization, faster aftershock and will reduce chances of trivial bugs from wrong use of the system. Conclusion In this report, it has discussed about the post ERP implementation scenarios, the issues and possible solutions to those issues. At first, there is a brief discussion on ERP systems, how those have become important for business and how those differ from traditional IS systems. Then the post ERP implementation scenario have been explained in details. Following to it, there is detailed discussion on the issues that comes from the post implementation phase. Finally there is a discussion on how to avoid the post ERP implementation in future. References Albadri, F. (2012). Cases on Enterprise Information Systems and Implementation Stages. IGI Global. Gattiker, T. F., Goodhue, D. L. (2005). What Happens After ERP Implementation: Understanding the Impact of Interdependence and Differentiation on Plant-Level Outcomes. Management Information Systems Quarterly. Harwood, S. (2003). ERP: The Implementation Cycle. Butterworth-Heinemann. Hustad, E., Olsen, D. H. (2011). ERP Post-implementation Issues in Small-and- Medium-Sized Enterprises . Enterprise Information Systems Communications in Computer and Information Science , 290-299. Ifinedo, P., Rapp, B., Ifinedo, A., Sundberg, K. (2010). Relationships among ERP post-implementation success constructs: An analysis at the organizational level. Computers in Human Behavior, 11361148. Musaji, Y. (2005). ERP Postimplementation Problems. Information Systems Audit and Control Association. Nicolaou, A. I., Bhattacharya, S. (2006). Organizational performance effects of ERP systems usage: The impact of post-implementation changes. International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, 1835. Scott, J. E. (2005). Post-Implementation Usability of Erp Training Manuals: The User's Perspective. Information Systems Management, 67-77.