text:
Spark (Transformers)
Spark/AllSpark | |
File:Allspark.jpg Detailed view of the Allspark, from the Transformers: Movie Adaptation #4, art by Alex Milne | |
Plot element from the Transformers franchise | |
Publisher | Transformers |
First appearance |
Created by | Bob Budiansky Robert N. Skir |
Genre | Science fiction |
In-story information | |
Type | A "soul" of a Transformer, a round sphere of energy, a cube-shaped object with shape-shifting abilities, a container holding a glowing mass of energy within or the "afterlife" of the Transformers. |
Function | Creates life from raw materials or technology, the source of life for a Transformer, or, kills them, and possibly raises them from the dead |
Within the narrative of the fictional Transformers universe, a spark is usually the "soul" of a Transformer. Likewise, the AllSpark is an ancient artifact or object capable of creating new Transformer life by bestowing machinery with sparks. The term "AllSpark" was created by writer Robert N. Skir, who responded to a fan question about the TV series Beast Machines July 21, 1999, web page.[1] Skir explained that the Beast Machines entity called The Oracle was actually the AllSpark, consisting of "the spark of every transformer who has ever lived, or ever will live". In a November 6, 1999, web page, Skir clarified that the Matrix was something called the AllSpark and was "made up of every Spark that ever was, and every Spark that ever will be".[2]
In the Beast Machines television series, the term "Allspark" was used for the Transformers' afterlife. Although the concept of the Transformers afterlife was briefly touched upon in the original series and Beast Wars series, it was not until Beast Machines that the concept was explored further. The Autobot Matrix of Leadership, as seen in the original series, was not merely a receptacle for the consciousness of deceased Autobot leaders; it was a gateway that led to the AllSpark, from which all current and future Transformers' sparks came. Possessing a sentience, the Allspark had sent Sparks out into the world to live. When any Transformers, good or evil, were destroyed, their Spark would return to the AllSpark and share with it all that it had experienced, thereby adding to the timeless fountain of knowledge and wisdom. The facility on Cybertron, which produces Maximal protoforms, was named after the aforementioned Matrix, and was analogous to human's Heaven. A similar Predacon facility also exists, named the Pit, and was analogous to Hell. The Pit was also known as the Utopeus until the late-season addition of the character Utopeus Prime.
In the Transformers 2007 live action film, the "AllSpark" is a cube-shaped artifact adorned with glyphs and designs which is capable of granting independent life to normal electronic and mechanical objects and is the source of life for all Transformers. The AllSpark was prominently featured in the concurrently released 2007 Transformers Animated series, where it shares a similar history and capabilities with its 2007 film counterpart, but resembles the Autobot Matrix of Leadership.[3] IGN described the AllSpark saving the day as one of the worst moments of the Transformers movie.[4]
Conceptual history[edit]
The concept of The Allspark as it now exists has evolved and coalesced over the course of almost all Transformer fiction since the line began, and this article will cover its history to minimize confusion. Most often, a spark is best described as the "soul" of a Transformer – while they have programmable computer minds that house their personality, the Spark is that indefinable, indescribable energy that makes them truly alive, more than mere machines.
The very beginnings of the concept of the Allspark arose with the Generation 1 cartoon, which introduced the Autobot Matrix of Leadership in The Transformers: The Movie. The Matrix was a powerful, ancient talisman, revealed in the episode "Five Faces of Darkness, Part 4" to be a vessel containing the life essences of its previous bearers, who stood sentinel over the accumulated "Wisdom of the Ages" within the Matrix, and guided Rodimus Prime through its depths when he sent his own life-force into the Matrix in search of answers about the Transformers' past. In a curious error, the ancient Autobot Alpha Trion was shown to exist within the Matrix in "The Return of Optimus Prime, Part 2", but also within the mega-computer Vector Sigma, with which he had previously merged, in "The Rebirth, Part 2". Vector Sigma had been shown to be responsible for giving Transformers life in previous episodes.
While the Generation 1 Marvel Comics' had debuted its version of the Matrix, the "Creation Matrix", before the cartoon under writer Bob Budiansky, it was not until after the cartoon introduced these concepts that writer Simon Furman expanded on the nature of the comic's Matrix. Furman revealed it to be a vessel containing the essence and power of the Transformers' creator and God Primus, in addition to explaining that all Transformer life-forces are fragments of Primus' own. It was the Beast Wars cartoon that took understanding of Transformer life to the next level when it established the concept of sparks, the pulsating balls of energy that were all at once a Transformer's heart, mind and soul. Sparks, it was explained, came from "the Matrix", and would return to this realm when they died. Piggybacking on a trail left when Optimus Primal died in a transwarp explosion, Rhinox was even able to enter this "Matrix" and recover Primal's spark. Additionally, the Transformers could often be heard swearing "by the Matrix", indicating its reverential place in their belief system.
Beast Wars writers Bob Forward and Larry DiTillio did not have the precise concept of the Matrix as they had employed it fleshed out, envisioning it variously as a mysterious facility on Cybertron, from which Maximal protoforms emerged, or as the nebula that was home to the cartoon's enigmatic aliens, the Vok, thus making those creatures responsible for Transformer life in the Beast Era. The latter idea was never used (and has since been pushed well out of the realm of possibility by subsequent fiction) while the former would later be officialized over a decade later in the Transformers Collectors' Club story "The Razor's Edge". Regardless, it was Beast Wars own sequel series Beast Machines that was first to expand on what this "Matrix" truly was, forging it into the central concept of its own storyline. What Beast Wars had called the "Matrix", Beast Machines called the "Allspark", establishing it to be the realm from which all Transformer sparks "that ever lived, or ever will live" come from, cementing the vast majority of the details covered in the top section of this article.
A vague reference to the Allspark was later made in Transformers: Robots in Disguise, when Vector Sigma was dubbed "the Allspark" in "Ultra Magnus: Forced Fusion!", the first linking of the Beast Era's handling of Transformer life to the Generation 1 cartoon. Later still, in Dreamwave Productions' More Than Meets The Eye guidebook, the concepts of the Beast Era were brought together with the Generation 1 Marvel comic's concept of Primus, to first form the idea of the Allspark as it has been known since. And the end of this tale, then, we are able to return to that original error from the Generation 1 cartoon regarding Alpha Trion, and retroactively gloss it away by understanding that he was not within either the Matrix or Vector Sigma, but within the Allspark, which was merely being accessed by these two items. With the concept firmly in place, the Allspark was not particularly touched upon in fiction for the immediate future, with the entire Unicron Trilogy going by with only an occasional name-drop, such as characters swearing by "the Allspark of Cybertron", or, in the episode "Trap", Starscream referring to death as being sent to "meet the Allspark". In 2006, the bio of the e-Hobby exclusive "Laser" Ultra Magnus figure touched upon the Allspark again, taking a moment to explain why the Autobot leaders from the Generation 1 cartoon had appeared as individuals within the Allspark when Beast Machines had established this should not be the case: those who had held the Matrix of Leadership were exempt from this rule, and retained their individuality within the Allspark.
It was not until the advent of the Transformers 2007 live action film that the idea of the Allspark was thrust back into the fore, as its name was given to the legendary object that drove the film's plot, the huge cube that was the source of Transformer life in this continuity. Takara's World of the Transformers website then created the idea of the "God item", grouping Vector Sigma, the Matrix and the movie's AllSpark together as items capable of bestowing Transformer life, and by logical extension, connections to the Allspark realm. Transformers Animated followed the live-action movie's lead, featuring a physical AllSpark object responsible for bestowing Transformer life, which was identified as another sacred implement by the guidebook Transformers Animated: The AllSpark Almanac II. To spare confusion, when the afterlife is discussed in the Animated cartoon, it is referred to not as the "Allspark", but as "the Well of All Sparks", after a location introduced in Dreamwave's comic which was itself another connection to the Allspark realm. By this count, then, the Allspark is known by three different names, each of which is in turn also the name of one of the objects used to access it.
In the Transformers: Prime universe, the Allspark, along with Vector Sigma, the Matrix of Leadership, and the Well of All Sparks, are portrayed as separate entities. The Allspark is referred to as an "afterlife", where a fallen Cybertronian spark departs to after its body has died, often referred to as "becoming one with the Allspark". Primus used the Well of All Sparks to create the original thirteen Primes. Not much information is presented in this continuity about the Well of All Sparks, except that it is wholly separate from the Allspark. It would stand to reason that if a Spark departs to the Allspark in death, the source of any and all Sparks, their birthplace, would be the Well of All Sparks, though this has not yet been confirmed in the series. The Matrix of Leadership is a device that is bestowed upon a Cybertronian, by the Counsel of the Primes (who are not Primes themselves), whom they deem worthy to carry the title of Prime. In fact, the Counsel's denial of Megatron's demand for the Matrix is what started the Great War, and the schism between Autobot and Decepticon. The Matrix itself, is stored within the Prime's body. In dire situations, the Prime may call upon the power of the Matrix, as Optimus did to contain Unicron. However, in doing this, the Matrix reverts the Prime to their pre-Prime state, as the Matrix acts as the vessel of the "Wisdom of the Primes". If the Matrix is the vessel of the Wisdom of the Primes, to be carried by the Prime, then Vector Sigma would be the backup drive of the Matrix. Should the Matrix be emptied of its power, it can be reloaded by Vector Sigma, through the use of the Key to Vector Sigma. However, the Key is only granted to the current Prime, or one chosen by a Prime. The key scans the current owner's bio-signature, and will only function if in the possession of that life form.
In 2019, Hasbro Studios has renamed its name as "Allspark" with its subsidaries named Allspark Pictures and Allspark Animation.[5]
Animated series[edit]
The original 1984 animated series, was more prominent for introducing "Energon cubes", which are energy storing devices created by the Autobots and Decepticons on Earth.[6][7] For all practical purposes, energon functions as fuel or "food" for the Transformers; in some episodes, Decepticons are depicted as literally drinking from Energon cubes. In the 1986 film The Transformers: The Movie, Optimus Prime sends a shuttle from Cybertron Moonbase One to Earth to collect Energon cubes for an assault on the Decepticon forces on Cybertron. Energon is later established in Transformers: Prime to be the life-blood of Primus, but here, it was simply depicted as being artficially created by Decepticons using fuels from Earth and converting it to a purple liquid.
It was the 1993s Beast Wars animated series which truly introduced "the Spark" as it is now known today. All Cybertronians have a Spark, regardless of their heritage of allegiance - rendered as a glowing sphere of incandescent life, a spark dies or "extinguishes" when the body that houses it suffers fatal damage. Should a Spark be threatened in this way, Transformers are equipped with emergency protocols that shunt them into Stasis Lock, a state of still-living involuntary deactivation, in order to prevent further damage and to allow repairs, thereby safeguarding the Spark. This function can be overridden as was the case with the death of the Maximal known as Dinobot. Rhinox first explains the concept of a Spark when operating on the "Protoform" ("basic frames" of a Cybertronian placed in stasis until a suitable form can be found) that would become Airazor. He describes the existence of such an item by explaining: "When a Spark goes online, there is great joy. When one is extinguished, the universe weeps." Although the term was never used in the original cartoon and comic, Beast Wars established that these older-era characters all too had Sparks (or their historical equivalent, nomenclature aside), a perfect example of this being the immortal spark of Starscream (Starscream's immortality coming from a mutation in his spark), which the Maximals tried to duplicate, only to end up creating the murderous Protoform X.
Sparks as shown in Beast Wars normally appear as a sphere of an ever-changing pattern of "electricity" – like blue lines with a pulsating center composed of smaller red spheres. Several of the Maximals are shown with different colored sparks such as yellow, white, red, purple (possibly expressing their individuality and/or a special connection to the Matrix/Allspark). Megatron had a blue spark but after he spends centuries trying to purge the organic elements from his body, Beast Machines shows that his spark has become a violent shade of red. The sequel series, Beast Machines explored the concept on a much deeper level. Sparks, it explained, are fragments of the Matrix," the "well of all sparks" that currently exist, have existed, or ever will exist. Sparks leave the Matrix upon the birth of new Transformer life so that they may learn, grow, love and truly experience life, and then, with the passing of the Transformer, the Spark returns to the Matrix, assimilated back into it to share all the knowledge it has gained with the whole but their individuality is not extinguished.[8]
In knowing this, it can be taken that the object known as the Autobot Matrix of Leadership, long stated to hold the wisdom of the ages, is a gateway to this realm, where the amassed knowledge it contains can be consulted (where the sparks of those who have formerly held the Matrix retain their individuality and can be communed with). Similarly, this link explains the object's ability to create new Transformer life in the Marvel Comics, via the transferral of a Spark from the Matrix. Vector Sigma, was also revealed to possess a connection to the All spark, thereby explaining its ability to bestow life. Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo, a pair of Japanese exclusive series based on Beast Wars, included the Spark concept and introduced a variation: Angolmois Energy, which would prove to be the life force "Spark" of Unicron himself, dispersed by his defeat in The Transformers Movie. This energy empowered Predacon leader Galvatron, and later revived Unicron in Galvatron's lifeless body before taking possession of Vector Sigma and turning Cybertron into Unicron's new body. Fortunately, the heroes of the two series joined forces to expel Unicron once again.
Beast Wars: The Ascending featured Angolmois Energy as well, serving as a sort of drug for Transformers that increased strength and aggression. As in Neo, Unicron's minions attempted to resurrect Unicron by gathering Angolmois Energy, this time using the Predacon Shokaract as a vessel. However, Shokaract later rebelled upon learning what his fate would be and destroyed himself, while Unicron's minions perished at the hands of Angolmois-infected Maximal Razorbeast.
Nearly all Transformers series after Beast Wars have made use of the term "Spark" (though usually just in passing mention, often the result of dubbing). Of all the new continuity elements introduced by Beast Wars and Beast Machines, the Spark is unarguably the one concept which has been embraced the strongest by the fandom, with the vast majority of fans happily retroactively using it in reference to the older stories. The first series was Transformers: Robots in Disguise, the first reboot for the franchise, in which the Allspark was briefly mentioned. As revealed in "Ultra Magnus: Forced Fusion!", Optimus Prime was chosen by Vector Sigma, also called "the Allspark", to carry the Matrix of Leadership and lead the Autobots.
Armada and Energon both showed a few Transformers sparks (as orbs of light) transferred to new bodies after their old bodies were too badly damaged to be repaired or destroyed completely. Primus and Unicron's sparks were also shown in Energon, Primus as a very large glowing orb and Unicron as a small black/green orb. One can suppose that a Transformer himself can send his own spark away sometimes or even use it as a kind of weapon. Transformers: Energon also shows both the Autobots and Decepticons having made an alliances with the humans to find Energon, a fuel source which can be mined on Earth, Mars, and the Moon. In Cybertron, the cyber planet keys are said to be fragments of the spark of Primus, divided and sent to the four corners of the universe to share the wisdom of Primus. The four master keys (colored gold in the toy line) need to be gathered and inserted into the Omega Lock to awaken the spark of Primus and transform the planet Cybertron. In the toy line the Omega Lock is needed to completely transform Primus, however it does not require the insertion of any of the cyber planet keys. At the end of the Cybertron series, it was decided that the unified planets should join together and bring the once again divided keys to other destinations in the universe to spread the knowledge of Primus even further. Hence, again putting Primus into stasis lock within a reformatted, renewed Cybertron.
In Transformers Animated, the AllSpark plays a similar role to its 2007 film counterpart. It is the source of all Transformers' life (In the episode "Blast From the Past", Ratchet states that the Cybertronian race is over 10 billion solar cycles (years) old). Megatron states he shall use its power as an ultimate weapon to crush the Autobots. In order to end the Great War (shown in the series debut as 'historical' clips from the 1984 G1 series), the Autobots cast the AllSpark into a space bridge network gate to a random destination somewhere in the galaxy, thereby preventing the Decepticons from getting it. This ends the war, and finally allows the Autobots to drive the Decepticons off of Cybertron and into exile. Unlike the live-action film, it is in the shape of a round sphere, rather than a square cube. By the series finale, when the Lugnut Supremes are reprogramed by Starscream to activate their self-destruct protocols, Prowl and Jazz used Processor Over Matter to reassemble the AllSpark, hoping to use its power to contain the explosion. However, they would only be able to make it half way, as Prowl decides to use his own spark to complete it, sacrificing himself and dying in the process. The completed AllSpark is later seen around Optimus' neck, in a container resembling that of the Matrix of Leadership. In addition, Starscream mentions "The Well of All Sparks" in one episode, implying that the afterlife from Beast Machines still exists in this continuity.
In Transformers: Prime, the Autobots and the Decepticons are in a race to retrieve deposits of Energon from Earth. Energon is used as a power source and as ammunition. Energon is also revealed to be unsafe for humans. Energon itself is made from the essence of Primus. It is also revealed that the reason the Energon deposits are on Earth in the first place is because they were hidden away on Earth and other planets during the war between the Autobots and the Decepticons on Cybertron. There are several other varieties of Energon introduced throughout the series. One type called Tox-En debuted in "Toxicity". It is a poisonous version of Energon, for which prolonged exposure is lethal to all Cybertronians. Megatron once used a refined version to decimate an army of Autobots. A container that was filled with Tox-En was among the artifacts from the Vault of Iacon, which was found somewhere in the Equator. Another type of Energon called Red Energon debuted in "New Recruit". It is a type of Energon which can give the user hyper-speed. After being dug up by humans, Starscream managed to claim a sample of Red Energon during a fight against the Autobots.
A darker version of Energon called Dark Energon (also known as the Blood of Unicron) is also known to exist. Megatron is the only major user of Dark Energon, though Starscream once embedded a shard in his own Spark and used it to reanimate Skyquake. The power can bring dead Cybertronians back to life as zombie-like Terrorcons. It is revealed at the end of season one that Earth's core is really made of Dark Energon because Unicron was at the center of the Earth. Dark Energon is the lifeforce of Unicron and produced by his Anti-Spark, the dark counterpart to the AllSpark.
In "T.M.I." and "Stronger, Faster", it was at one point indicated that a synthetic version of Energon existed. The formula for creating Synthetic Energon was partially recovered, and an attempt to produce it was made by Ratchet. However, it proved to have detrimental effects on his mental state even while it enhanced his physical capabilities. Knock Out managed to replicate it in "Thirst" where he tested it on Cylas, whose mental stability decreased. In "Evolution" and "Minus One" the Decepticons discovered that after being mixed with CNA of the Predacons, the Synthetic Energon formed pure cyber matter, the same material that was used to create the Darkmount fortress. Megatron decided to use this information to rebuild the Omega Lock and in order to stabilize the Synthetic Energon formula he decided to capture Ratchet and force him to complete the formula. This cyber matter was used by the Autobots in the series finale, after taking control of the Nemesis, to restore Cybertron.
The Allspark itself appears in Transformers Prime Beast Hunters: Predacons Rising, and is the source from which all Cybertronian life is generated. During the war for Cybertron, Alpha Trion created an indestructible container to hold the Allspark, which was a vessel of pure energy, and was sent by Optimus to the deadliest star system imaginable: Theta Scorpia, to protect it from Megatron. Optimus Prime ends up retrieving it from the star system and bringing it back to Cybertron. When Unicron attempts to destroy it, Optimus uses the empty container to capture Unicron's energy form, freeing Megatron (whom he had possessed) from his evil and defeating the dark god once and for all. Optimus then explains to his comrades that he placed the Allspark within the Matrix of Leadership and must sacrifice himself to restore it to Cybertron's ability to create life as his own Spark is now merged with it. After a fond farewell, Optimus flies into the planet's core and becomes one with Primus and the Allspark, allowing it to restart life on Cybertron. Among the new sparks it releases, Optimus' spark is seen one last time as he tells them not to mourn him, calling it merely another transformation.
The Allspark would reappear in the stand-alone sequel series, Transformers: Robots in Disguise, set five years after the events of Predacons Rising. Years after Unicron's final defeat, when Megatronus was freed and brought to Earth, he used a spark-merging staff to extract the anti-spark remnant from beneath the Earth; intending to use the staff to merge the anti-spark and the Allspark together so as to destroy both Earth and Cybertron. However, when the staff was broken before it could fully draw in the Allspark, the anti-spark remnant returned to the Earth's core and the Allspark returned to Cybertron.
In comic books[edit]
Throughout the original Marvel Comics Transformers series, there were references to similar concepts such as the "spark of life" or "life spark", while the animated series spoke of "cybernetic personalities" as the source of a Transformer's life, bestowed by the mega-computer Vector Sigma, and a central life-source called a "laser core".
When Dorling Kindersley published Transformers: The Ultimate Guide, the concept of Primus and Unicron as brother heralds created by an extra-dimensional entity, called the "AllSpark", as per the Armada trading card, was again referenced. Additionally, however, the book claimed that there was one, singular Unicron and Primus across all dimensions, retroactively adding these elements to the original Marvel Comic origin. This revised origin concept is now treated as the official take on the character by Hasbro, and has formed the core of the story in the Transformers: Cybertron comic book exclusive to the Transformers Collectors Club.
According to The Transformers Beast Wars Sourcebook energon cubes were invented during the "golden age" of Cybertron.[9] Protoforms were a major plot point in the Beast Wars cartoon, appearing in multiple episodes.[10][11][12] The plot of the 2006 IDW Publications mini-series Beast Wars: The Gathering centers around the fate of the protoforms not recovered in the cartoon. At the conclusion of the series, all the protoforms are accounted for.[13]
In the revised Generation 1-based storyline, Sparks once arose naturally from hot spots dotting Cybertron and its moons, ignited by energy pulses from Vector Sigma. These sparks would be harvested, nurtured, and matured before being placed into a body. But Vector Sigma's pulses had grown increasingly less frequent by Nova Prime's era, so to bolster the Cybertronian population, he instituted a process called spark splicing, which used the energy of existing sparks to ignite new ones. The Fecund Moon That, however, was a cover story for what Nova was really doing: harvesting the Matrix of Leadership to create thousands of new sparks daily.
A very small number of naturally occurring sparks are Point One Percenters, glowing green instead of the normal blue. Those who possess these sparks are usually a tier above regular Cybertronians, and include such prominent figures as Optimus Prime and Shockwave. The spark is part of Rossum's Trinity with the brain module and the transformation cog. The Chaos of Warm Things The light from a spark provides the natural color of a Transformer's optics. There appears to be at least eight known sparktypes in Cybertronians. Twenty Plus One It is possible for a healthy Cybertronian to "jumpstart" the faltering spark of another with the same type, in a similar manner to blood transfusion.
Kup's sparkhousing was unstable due to age and radiation poisoning. He finally experienced sparkcore stabilizer failure, which threatened to blow him up. Trailbreaker saved him by extending a forcefield around the crashing spark. Later, Kup recovered in a CR chamber, fitted with a placeholder powercore to maintain his spark. The Autobots kept some prisoners at Garrus-9 in spark stasis, which entailed actually removing the sparks from their casings, separating the spark from the body. This process was not possible for Monstructor since the Autobots couldn't break through the destructive programming far enough to rehabilitate/reform the sparks (as per Optimus Prime's orders), and as such, haven't pulled the sparks from the frames. Arcee found this limbo peaceful, but was later reunited with her body. To control her behavior, a "g-force crush" device was installed on or in her spark casing and could be operated via remote control.
The "Shattered Glass" storyline seems to be much more of a departure from the "regular" realities in the multiverse. In this "mirror universe", the Autobots are evil and the Decepticons are good. The semi-mystical ball of energy that gives the resident Transformers their lifeforce is an electron-charged "Ember". Aside from the polarity, there's no other difference noted from the positron-charged Spark that Cliffjumper brings into that universe.
In the film series[edit]
In the 2007 Transformers live-action film, the AllSpark (spelled as two words in the movie) is able to bring mechanical and electronic objects to life, essentially turning mundane objects, as long as they are electronic or mechanical, into Transformers. The Autobots and the Decepticons seek the AllSpark throughout the film. The Autobots intend to use the AllSpark in an attempt to rebuild Cybertron and end the war, while the Decepticons desire to create an army of robot soldiers to conquer the universe. The movie's AllSpark is a combination of the Creation Matrix and the Underbase from the US Marvel Comics series, and Vector Sigma from the animated series.
The AllSpark takes the shape of a gigantic metal cube with Cybertronian runes carved into it, but is converted by Bumblebee into a smaller form that a human can carry in his hands (described as football-sized in the Alan Dean Foster novelization). During the conversion, the AllSpark is shown to be composed of numerous smaller cubes, which fold inward upon each other to shrink the whole. In the novelization and early movie scripts, the AllSpark is referred to as "the Energon Cube". It is also referred to as "the Cube" several times in the film itself.
In the prequel comic book, the AllSpark is described as being of unknown origins, and the reason of existence of the alien race and its planet Cybertron. It is also described as a sacrosanct object that gave them life, sustenance, and kept their society in complete equality and peace. Optimus Prime is shown sending the AllSpark away from Cybertron to prevent the Decepticons from controlling it. The comic book shows, and Megatron alludes to, a wormhole in orbit that the AllSpark is heading towards and then travels through. If it is assumed that the wormhole deposits the Allspark not only spatially but also chronologically (four million years in the past) along with Megatron, this could explain why the Allspark has been on Earth for four million years while the Dynasty of Primes in Revenge of the Fallen do not appear until 17,000 BC.
The prolonged absence of the AllSpark causes Cybertron to die, and forces both sides of the conflict to search the galaxy for it. The AllSpark is revealed to have landed on Earth, in the future site of the Hoover Dam. The AllSpark and Megatron are later hidden inside the Dam by a (fictional) Men in Black-like Federal agency called "Sector 7". In the prequel novelization and film, it is revealed that the Autobots and Decepticons have been seeking the AllSpark for millennia, following transmission signals released by the AllSpark once every thousand years. The Autobots seek it to rebuild Cybertron; when they have become desperate, however, Optimus decides to destroy it rather than let it fall into Megatron's hands. Optimus believes that a new home world can simply be rebuilt by means of the AllSpark once Megatron is no longer a threat. The Decepticons are looking for the AllSpark and Megatron, intending to dominate all life with the use of one and under the leadership of the other.
During the battle between Optimus and Megatron, the AllSpark is ultimately driven into Megatron's chest by Sam Witwicky, destroying both the Decepticon leader and the AllSpark. A shard of the AllSpark remains, which is claimed by Optimus Prime before handing it over to the U.S. government for safekeeping on their behalf.
Two years later, however, Ravage steals the shard and gives it to the Constructicons so they can revive Megatron with it. Megatron's master, the Fallen, reveals that the Cube was essentially a vessel, and that its power and knowledge, thought lost with its destruction, can never be destroyed, only transformed, therefore, there was a chance to retrieve it.
The second film also reveals another smaller AllSpark shard that was on Sam's jacket the day he killed Megatron, which transfers the knowledge of the location of the Matrix of Leadership in the form of visions of Cybertronian symbols directly into Sam's mind. Sam entrusts the shard to his then-girlfriend Mikaela Banes, who places it within her father's auto garage. The shard is then later used to reactivate the ancient Seeker Jetfire, who assists the Autobots and their human allies in locating the Matrix of Leadership.
In the film, the Fallen had created a device called the Energon harvester, which collected Energon by destroying a sun. In Transformers: The Reign of Starscream (the comic book sequel to the first film), Starscream uses the knowledge gained by Frenzy while inside the Hoover Dam complex from Sector 7 to build a new cube. He then sacrifices several transformer (three or four Autobots and one Decepticon) "traitors" in order to use their sparks to jump-start the cube. Various Autobots are shown throughout the comic as working on the cube - including, at one point, using a hammer and chisel to engrave new glyphs on the new AllSpark. Other than this engraving and activating process, little is shown of the construction of the AllSpark.
Effects and abilities[edit]
In the film, exposure to the AllSpark can repair Transformers (as shown when it heals Frenzy during the film) and convert Earthly machines into feral Cybertronians. A Nokia N93i cell phone, a Mountain Dew vending machine (named "Dispensor" in the Robot Heroes toy line), the airbag compartment in a sport utility vehicle's steering wheel, and an Xbox 360 are all shown being converted in this way. The cell phone robot is destroyed following the demonstration, but the fates of the other feral Transformers remain unknown and it is presumed they have been dealt with. In Revenge of the Fallen, even as a sliver of its former self, the AllSpark's power is potent, as it brings all of the appliances from Sam's kitchen to life - one of which was a pyromaniac toaster bot, named Ejector in the toy line, among others.
Just like the first film, they are seen forming instantaneously and immediately upon contact with the AllSpark's power and then furiously attacking the things nearest to them, armed with a full arsenal of diverse weapons. The kitchen robots, as well as Sam's room, are destroyed by Bumblebee. The energy output of the AllSpark is cited in the prequel comic as having a greater power output than the entire city of Chicago at its time of discovery. According to the comic, the Three Mile Island accident was caused by a failed attempt to extract energy from the AllSpark. On the basis of the second film, it must also be assumed that the AllSpark has a finite maximum power output, about equal to that of a star. In Transformers: The Game, the Autobot Campaign and the Decepticon campaign will determine the fate of the AllSpark. If the player completes the Autobot Campaign, Optimus Prime will use the AllSpark to kill Megatron. If the player completes the Decepticon Campaign, Megatron will become one with the AllSpark and use its power to turn Earth into his own empire by converting all machines into his Decepticon army.
Energon cubes are used in the 1985 book and audio story Megatron's Fight For Power by John Grant as well as the 1986 Find Your Fate Junior book Autobot Alert! by Judith Bauer Stamper.[14]
In Transformers: Exodus, "Protoforms" are used to describe the robot modes of Transformer's, while the AllSpark resides in the "Well of All Sparks" on Cybertron, where it carried out the will of Primus by creating every Cybertronian life. When the Autobot/Decepticon war erupted, however, the AllSpark briefly ceased to produce life in a seeming act of divine rebellion, only to apparently change its mind and create one final generation — including Bumblebee—who entirely joined the Autobots. As the Decepticons besieged Iacon, Optimus Prime made the decision to eject the AllSpark into space. After the war had drained Cybertron of energon, forcing the Autobots and Decepticons to depart the planet, the Autobot Ark emerged from the space bridge to an unknown spiral galaxy, and detected the energy of the AllSpark nearby.
In Transformers: Retribution, Dark Energon is trafficked by various Cybertronian gangs due to the scarcity of natural Energon.
Video games[edit]
In the 1986 video game The Transformers the player must collect four pieces of the Energon cube to complete the game. Energon cubes unlock hidden content in the 2007 PlayStation 3 video game Transformers: The Game.[15] Energon cubes are collectible in the 2009 DS video game Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, in both the Autobot and Decepticon versions. Energon cubes appear in the 2010 video game Transformers: War for Cybertron as items used to power-up players.[16]
In Transformers: The Game, the Autobot Campaign and the Decepticon campaign will determine the fate of the AllSpark. If the player completes the Autobot Campaign, Optimus Prime will use the AllSpark to kill Megatron. If the player completes the Decepticon Campaign, Megatron will become one with the AllSpark and use its power to turn Earth into his own empire by converting all machines into his Decepticon army. In addition, the AllSpark creates small bug-like transformers called "Energon Drones" whenever Energy is expelled from the AllSpark.
The Generation 1 Insectron Clone Army multi-pack set released in 2004 featured energon cubes. All three toys were packaged together. The Insecticon Clones, Shothole, Zaptrap and Salvo, are Ehobby exclusive recolors of Kickback, Shrapnel and Bombshell, respectively and all three toys come with three little purple plastic energon cubes. Energon cubes were also featured in the Monopoly: The Transformers Collector's Edition board game, in which the energon cubes replace the houses.[17]
Two entire lines of toys were marketed after the release of the film in late 2007, which played on the idea that the AllSpark granted life to human machines after being exposed to its mysterious power. The first was AllSpark Power. While the majority of the transformable toys were merely repaints (ex: Autobot Cliffjumper), several new designs were introduced based on vehicles- but not characters- that appeared directly in the film (ex: Autobot Landmine). The AllSpark Power line is recognized by neon blue plastic and paint applications being added to the toys; some select repaint toys have slightly different parts such as visors covering their faces. The neon-blue coloring is to denote that they have the power of the AllSpark flowing through them. The Japanese versions of these figures included miniature AllSpark cubes that can be held by most Transformers figures.
The second line was Real Gear Robots.[18] A completely original line of transformable toys shaped like common modern-day electronic items; cell phones, portable multimedia players, digital video camera, video game controllers, etc. However, none of them are functional like their real electronic counterparts. There were seven original toy designs released, with later ones being repaints. None of these toys carry hand-held weapons, and are advertised merely as spies for their respective faction (Autobot or Decepticon). While none of the Real Gear Robots appear in the film, some of them are homages to earlier Transformers characters, the most notable being a portable media player (Decepticon Booster X10) being colored and shaped similarly to the animal robot character Laserbeak, who acted as a spy/partner for the larger Soundwave.
A company called TFClub has manufactured an unofficial replica of the AllSpark. The cube is molded in translucent green and fits on a base that lights it up when plugged into a USB-based power source.[19]
See also[edit]
- ↑ "Transformers: Beast Machines Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) (1999-07-21)". Retrieved 2007-08-01.
- ↑ "Transformers: Beast Machines Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) (1999-11-06)". Retrieved 2007-08-01.
- ↑ Transformers: more than meets the ear. Japan Times; September 19, 2007
- ↑ http://movies.ign.com/articles/117/1177006p1.html
- ↑ "MIPTV Spotlight: Allspark (formerly Hasbro Studios)". TVKIDS. World Screen. November 16, 2019. Retrieved March 29, 2019.
- ↑ Bellomo, Mark (2010). Totally Tubular '80s. Krause Publications. p. 115. ISBN 1-4402-1282-1. Search this book on
- ↑ Transformers and Philosophy by John R. Shook, Liz Stillwaggon Swan, 2009
- ↑ Transformers: the fantasy, the fun, the future, Erin Brereton - 2006
- ↑ The Transformers Beast Wars Sourcebook, page 194 by Don Figueroa, Simon Furman, Ben Yee, 2008
- ↑ Episode 7, Fallen Comrades, air date September 30, 1996
- ↑ Episode 28, Coming of the Fuzors, Part 1, air date November 2, 1997
- ↑ Episode 36, Transmutate, air date March 10, 1998
- ↑ Beast Wars: The Gathering #1-4 (February - May 2006)
- ↑ Autobot Alert! by Judith Bauer Stamper - 1986
- ↑ http://ps3.gamespy.com/playstation-3/transformers-2007/795990p2.html
- ↑ Autobots stand tall! New Straits Times; August 23, 2010; by Bruno Dieter Chan
- ↑ http://www.brandedinthe80s.com/transformers-monopoly-or-how-i-never-want-to-type-the-word-monopoly-ever-again- Transformers Monopoly, or how I never want to type the word Monopoly ever again...
- ↑ Real Gear | CollectionDX
- ↑ TFSource.com - TFC-002R Illuminated Spark Cube with USB Base
External links[edit]
This article "Spark (Transformers)" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Spark (Transformers). Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.


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Chevy Chase harsh on sitcoms, unimpressed by Louis C.K.
Chevy Chase has had a lot of disparaging words to say lately. Following his feud with Dan Harmon, the creator of Community, Chase hasn't been able to say many praiseworthy things about the show. In fact, it seems like it's very difficult to impress him anymore – at least in the comedy realm.
Sadly, the Saturday Night Live veteran and star of National Lampoon's Vacation and Fletch continues the trend with some choice conversation topics including a negative opinion of sitcoms (in general), his lack of interest in Community, and even touches on a few projects he regrets passing on in his career.
Huffington Post UK (via THR) spoke with Chase, and the most prominent topic is, as expected, Community. After all, it's the only project he's currently working on, and more often than not, despite the show's passionate fanbase, the actor continues to have disparaging things to say about the show. This time was no different as Chase didn't just complain about the time commitment, he outright insulted the TV sitcom medium:
"The hours are hideous, and it's still a sitcom on television, which is probably the lowest form of television. That's my feeling about it. I think the reason I have stuck around is because I love these kids, the cast — they are very good. It's not like I am working with the great innovators of all time."
Those are some harsh words for an actor who (arguably) didn't have much going on before the comedy series came along. It's one thing to not be a fan of where the series you're starring in is headed, but it's another to completely call-out sitcoms as a whole. At least he has respect for the people that he appears on screen with in each episode.
All right, so sitcoms aren't necessarily Chase's cup of tea. That's fine. But what about the realm of stand-up comedy? That arena is something that Chase might be more open to talking about with kinder words. In the interview, Chase was asked about one of the most popular and respected comedians working today: Louis C.K. His response was lukewarm:
"Yes, I've seen Louis C.K. I wouldn't in any way make a degrading remark about Louis C.K., but the question is do I think anyone is funny? And the answer is not too many people. He might fit right in there."
As many readers know, Chase was a staple on Saturday Night Live decades ago, and is responsible for a number of fan-favorite skits. So the actor has to think some things are funny, right? If he's not impressed by someone like Louis C.K., then who would Mr. Chase like to work with in the future? That honor goes to comedy veteran Albert Brooks, and Chase would love to do a movie with the Drive star (who will next be seen in This is 40 from Judd Apatow). Chase says:
"I don't know how or what type of movie or how that would go, but I always enjoy him because I think he's got a wide perspective on human behavior that a lot of other comedians don't have, and quite frankly, there aren't too many comedians who make me laugh."
At least Chase has an idea of his future after the seemingly inevitable cancellation of Community, but what about his past? Chase has plenty of projects that regrets turning down. Though, most of those regrets seem to stem from missing out on big paychecks – not the enjoyment of making a great film:
"I turned down Forrest Gump, I turned down American Gigolo, there are many films — like Ghostbusters — that I turned down … the first one I did was Foul Play with Goldie Hawn, but I turned down Animal House — I turned that down. So all those I regret only because they made huge amounts of money and I would be very wealthy, but I don't regret working with Goldie, I don't regret the projects that I did do."
Given all of the frustrations that he seems to have, a strong case could probably be made for Chase regretting his choice to do Community. Meanwhile, it's hard to imagine the Ghostbusters 3 writers would have been able to please Chase's high bar for comedy. Then again, if his concern is a paycheck (as he seems to indicate), maybe he'd do the sequel in a heartbeat.
Frankly, hearing some of Chase's comments is hard. Audiences have a lot of respect for the man who started with such a lucrative comedy career, but he doesn't seem to really enjoy his place in the business anymore. Hopefully his next project is more akin to his comedic tastes so the actor and his fans can both be happy.
Ethan Anderton blogs at Screen Rant.

subset: commoncrawl


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Time lapse videos have always fascinated me, particularly the ones showing traffic (like this one). These types of videos give the impression of incredible speed, even if the cars aren't going that fast. To capture the essence of a time lapse video in one still photo is easier than you think; generally all you need is a decent camera, a tripod, and some traffic. But it's also almost impossible to know exactly what you're going to get. With long exposures you generally have to open the shutter and then figure out what photo you took. To get an interesting photo that's more than just lines, you have to get lucky.
Take Kevin's photo above. First there is the standard white/yellow colored headlights from oncoming traffic, giving the sense of movement. But what is that blur of multi-color in the middle? It's a bus, with it's front displays causing that play of light. Notice how the greenish-yellow coloring slowly fades as the position of the bus changes, relative to the camera. It's the same with the red highlight lights, where they suddenly come into existence and just as suddenly stop. I can bet Kevin didn't know exactly what he was going to get when that bus showed up along Pennsylvania Ave, but I'm also sure he wanted it in this shot.


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January 20 is a day of remembrance in Latvia, for an event in more recent memory than others – in this case, the time of the barricades, and subsequently, the end of the Soviet Union.
Latvia had already declared independence from the Soviet Union, but there was still fear that the Soviet Union might try to retake the country by force. At the beginning of January 1991, they started to try and do just that.
This is when the barricades were built, across Rīga and in other parts of the country as well. While the barricades took place over a period of days, January 20 is chosen as the remembrance day because it was on this night in 1991 that five people were killed during attacks by Soviet forces, including filmmakers Andris Slapiņš and Gvido Zvaigzne. You can visit the website for the 1991 Barricades Museum here.
Let us all remember those who gave their lives for the cause of freedom. Let us honour their sacrifice, and never take our freedom for granted.


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4 new Stadium records:
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52°16' / 19°52'
Translation of Kiernozia chapter from
Pinkas Hakehillot Polin
Published by Yad Vashem
Published in Jerusalem
Project Coordinator and Translator
Morris Gradel z"l
Our sincere appreciation to Yad Vashem
for permission to put this material on the JewishGen web site.
This is a translation from: Pinkas Hakehillot Polin:
Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities, Poland, Volume IV, page 415, published by Yad Vashem, Jerusalem
JewishGen, Inc. makes no representations regarding the accuracy of
the translation. The reader may wish to refer to the original material
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{page 415}
(District: Lovicz; Province: Warsaw)
Year | Total population | Jews |
1808 | 162 | 48 |
1827 | 417 | 123 |
1860 | 352 | 156 |
1897 | 536 | 222 |
1921 | 726 | 284 |
No details are available on the origins of the village of Kiernozia (K). It existed as early as the 15th century as part of the estate of the noble family Szarpski. In the 60s of the 19th century it was owned by members of the Lasutski family. K's position astride the road from Lovicz to Plotsk influenced its development. It was a centre of trade and industry for local agriculture, and fixed market days came to be established. In 1784 King Stanislaw August Poniatowski ganted the district governor permission to hold six additional annual fairs. In 1807 the village was incorporated into the Principality of Warsaw, and from 1815 until World War I was part of Congress Poland. During this latter war K was occupied by units of the German army from 1915 until they retreated in 1918.
We have no data available on the beginnings of Jewish settlement in K. Jewish habitation is not mentioned before the early 19th century. The Jews lived from small trade and handicrafts. According to partial statistics from the 1870s Jews owned 8 shops and 11 workshops. In the period between the two world wars Jews were also occupied in the same fields. There was an organised Jewish community in the latter half of the 19th century. A synagogue and religious school existed, but there was no cemetery, and the Jews of K buried their dead in the cemetery at Lowicz. The rabbi of that period was Avraham Noah Neumann. Between the two wars the rabbi was Moshe Bezalel Frankel (who perished in the holocaust). Many of the Jews of K, and the young people in particular, leaned towards Zionism. There was a branch of Beitar with some 40 members.
Jewish children went to the traditional cheder and to the municipal Polish school.
On the outbreak of war in 1939 and the approach of the German army, many Jews left their homes and fled eastwards. On September 16th K was bombed by German planes - the synagogue was destroyed and 20 Jews killed or wounded. The village was occupied two days later. That same day the Jews who had remained in K were rounded up and sent to Zychlin, 17 kms. away. The deportees were kept under open sky and without food the whole night, and then sent to forced labour camps. A few days later these Jews returned to K and found their houses looted.
In March 1940 the Germans set up a ghetto, enclosed by a fence, in two streets inhabited by Poles, who were removed from their houses and the Jews herded into them instead. Each day the Germans took males aged 15 to 60 for forced labour. On July 1st 1940 the Germans pressed into the ghetto some 240 Jews from surrounding villages. In December of that year there were about 650 Jews in the ghetto. In March 1941 the Germans dismantled the ghetto and the Jews of K were sent to the Warsaw ghetto, where they shared the fate of its inhabitants.
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Copyright © 1999-2024 by JewishGen, Inc.
Updated 26 Nov 2006 by LA


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- Preparing a Disaster Supply Kit
Preparing a Disaster Supply Kit
Having a disaster supply kit ready to take with you at a moment's notice ensures that you will have necessary supplies no matter how fast you may need to evacuate. Pack supplies in duffel bags or backpacks and keep them in a designated place. Your kit will also come in handy if you must take shelter in your home. This list will help ensure that your disaster supply kit includes all the essentials.
- Pack at least one gallon per person per day for at least three days
- Store water in tightly sealed, non-breakable plastic, fiberglass or enamel-lined metal containers
- Change your water every six months
- Pack enough food to last each family member at least three days
- Include canned and boxed foods because they require little preparation and stay good for long periods of time
- Remember to bring a manual can opener or to buy food in self-opening cans
- Pack foods in sealed metal or plastic containers
- Replace foods every six months
- Include foods for infants and family members with special diets
Tools and Equipment
- Battery-powered radio
- Flashlights
- Spare batteries
- Re-sealable plastic bags
- Washcloths and towels
- Paper cups and plates and plastic utensils
- Toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo, deodorant and other toiletries
- Heavy-duty plastic garbage bags
- Change of clothing and an extra pair of shoes and socks for each person
- Blankets or a sleeping bag for each person
Personal Items
- Personal identification
- Copies of birth and marriage certificates, inventory of household goods, bank account numbers and other important documents
- Maps
- Extra car and house keys
- Prescription medications
First Aid Kit Essentials
- Adhesive Bandages
- Antacid
- Antibiotic ointment
- Anti-diarrheamedication
- Antiseptic
- Aspirin and non-aspirin pain reliever
- Cleansing agents (isopropyl alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, soap, germicide)
- Cotton balls
- First aid manual
- Gauze pads and roll
- Latex gloves
- Laxative
- Moist towelettes
- Needle and safety pins
- Petroleum jelly
- Scissors
- Sunscreen
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- Tongue depressors
- Triangular bandages
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5. The Gospel Traditions: Melt in your mouth?
With this article (Part Five) we turn a corner away from archaeology and non-Christian written references to Gospel persons (the last three articles). Now we discuss the preservation of Jesus' ministry -- his words and activity -- after his crucifixion (and resurrection) and up to the time when the Gospels were written.
This article (and the next three) explores a subject that most Gospel readers take for granted or overlook (I certainly did).
The disciples were keeping careful track of what Jesus was saying and doing during his ministry, but for simplicity, here is the gap that the next three articles will cover:
Jesus' ministry | | Written Gospels
Those little vertical bars do not signify hard, fixed barriers. Rather, they simply work well from an ordinary keyboard! The disciples were transmitting and handing on the teachings and deeds of Jesus during his ministry -- recall their first mission without him in Matthew 10, Mark 6, and Luke 9 and 10. Jesus was training them to go out on their own. Eventually, some of his teachings and deeds were written down in the Biblical Gospels.
So the questions are -- How was the ministry of Jesus passed on for a few decades until they were written in the Gospels we have now? What was this process like during that timeframe? Was the process stable and reliable or fluid and haphazard?
Scholarship and journalism that tear down Scripture can be found everywhere in the popular media. The stage between the ministry of Jesus and the written Gospels has been attacked in scholarship since about 1920. Certain scholars claim that much of what Jesus said and did was invented by the later church for its own needs; perhaps a kernel was preserved reliably. This claim has permeated many seminaries and churches. Some who crave the media spotlight gleefully reinforce it. On the other side, more recent scholarship balances out – overturns? – hyper-skeptical starting points. We need to keep up with the new scholarship.
Knowledge is the best antidote to confusion that comes from assaults on the Gospels by the media and certain schools of scholarship.
So the goal of this article (and the entire series) is to summarize and to bring onto the web the best of scholarship that supports the historical reliability of the Gospels. Two very important scholars indeed are highlighted in this article, Birger Gerhardsson and Kenneth Bailey.
This article is designed for beginners. I hope I can keep things simple and readable, so that's why I use the Q & A format.
Here in Part Five, I do not deal with the doctrine of the Gospels' inerrancy or infallibility or inspiration, but with their historical reliability by the standards of their own times.
Before we begin, recall that Matthew, Mark, and Luke have a lot of passages in common, so they are called the synoptic Gospels (synoptic means viewed together). The authors are sometimes called synoptists. The writers of the four Gospels are also called evangelists. Slashes // mean parallel passages among them.
Hovering over the references below will bring up the NET Bible version on each of these.
Let's get introduced to the subject by getting right to the definition of a key word.
1. What is a tradition?
A good working definition in the early Christian context comes in four parts.
First, the what or the content: it encompasses both the oral teachings and the demonstrated deeds or activities of Jesus (see the fourth part of this definition).
Second, who passed on the traditions? The earliest followers cherished them and wanted to live by them and pass them on. Many of them followed Jesus from the beginning (John 15:27; Luke 1:2-3; Acts 1:21-22). Those who pass on traditions are called "transmitters," "traditioners," and "tradents" in scholarship.
Third, the significance of Jesus and the motive of the disciples are factored into the definition. They followed Jesus because, among other reasons, they saw something significant happening. Their awareness of his charismatic presence, authoritative teaching, and miracles strengthened their motive to carefully observe his deeds and attentively listen to his words and retain them. This new beginning, which would change their lives forever, was not ordinary or run-of-the-mill.
The fourth part of the definition is the how of passing on traditions, sometimes called the "traditioning" process or "transmitting." The disciples passed on stories about Jesus' words and deeds, in performance. Specifically, the disciples recounted them as narratives (stories), in a community. Indeed, his actions, such as healings, were actually done by the disciples in imitation of him and in obedience to his commands (cf. Matt. 10:1-42; 28:16-20; the entire Book of Acts).
Eventually, the oral teachings and visual deeds of Jesus were written down. It was up to the Gospel writers to sift through the traditions and to include or exclude some of them from their Gospels (John 21:25).
2. Does the New Testament mention traditions and related terms?
Yes, in many passages. We don't need to quote them, for that would take up too much space. Instead, hovering over the references below will bring up the NET Bible version on each of these.
Tradition or traditions: Matt 15:2; Mark 7:3, 5; 1 Corinthians 11:2; 2 Thessalonians 2:15; 3:6
Passing on or receiving traditions: Mark 7:4, 13; 1 Corinthians 11:23; 15:1, 3; Galatians 1:9; Philippians 4:9; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; 4:1; 2 Thessalonians 3:6
Holding to traditions: Mark 7:3, 8, 9; Matthew 15:2 ("transgress" the tradition); 2 Thessalonians 2:15, 3:6; 1 Corinthians 11:2; 15:1; 1 Timothy 5:21, 6:14, 20; 2 Timothy 1:14
"Thus Paul and the evangelists are conscious of the fact that the Jews of their time have a tradition – consisting of many traditions – which they scrupulously maintain" (Gerhardsson, Reliability, p. 15). Again Gerhardsson writes about Paul's letters: "In Paul's time, there exists a conscious, deliberate, and programmatic transmission in the early church" (p. 16, emphasis original).
3. Why is the historical context of traditions important?
The historical context is always important when we study Scripture or the process that supports Scripture, namely, the tradition process. It can be clarified, first, by looking at the Jewish environment, with a quick look at the Greco-Roman context. Then we will step out of the ancient context and touch on oral culture(s) in the Middle East in modern times. How was transmitting traditions done by them?
4. What is Jesus' historical context?
Jesus and the disciples lived in first-century Israel about four decades before the destruction of temple in AD 70. (Go here for an image of the Arch of Titus, and look for the Jewish Menorah and more sculpted on the Arch, taken as booty from Jerusalem.)
But the methods of passing on traditions (see the next Q & A) apply before and after this extremely significant event. Jesus and his disciples lived in a religious environment that treasured teachings from leaders. Their disciples passed on their teachings in ways that excel our own age; the ancients lived before camcorders and tape recorders, but the followers retained what they heard and saw, using deliberate methods. This is particularly true when disciples were following a very significant person, in their eyes.
5. How was passing on traditions done in this context?
In the Reliability of the Gospel Tradition, Birger Gerhardsson lists some of the methods by which the teachers and their disciples passed on and received oral teachings. These practices and methods are general enough to occur throughout the development of the oral traditions in Jewish laws and stories (p. 10). This last sentence means that we do not need to overemphasize the destruction of the temple in AD 70, as if these practices and methods suddenly appeared in a vacuum after that date (see the previous Q & A).
Memorization: this was essential before the art of writing became common. It was "not some sophisticated academic specialty but rather a decidedly popular means of retaining articulated knowledge" (p. 10, emphasis original).
Text and commentary: "First of all, an oral text must be, as it were, written on the student's memory; only then can exegesis begin. The principle was: First learn, then understand" (p. 10).
Brevity: teachers must not be wordy, but teach tersely and incisively (p. 10).
Poetic and didactic devices: teachers made use of them to clarify their ideas, such as "picturesque or pointed formulations" (p. 10). The teachers often used parables (meshalim in Hebrew) (p. 43). . . . "Everything suggests that devoted disciples memorized [parables and logia (pithy sayings or legal rulings)] already at the time their master taught them during his ministry in Galilee and Jerusalem" (p. 45).
Repetition: "the teachers would repeat their points word by word, several times, and the students would then reiterate those same points over and over until they knew them by heart" (p. 11). "In light of the ancient Jewish methods of teaching, it seems clear to me that Jesus presented such a saying two or more times in an effort to impress it upon the minds ('hearts') of his hearers. Among the rabbis we can see how evident it was that a teacher would repeat the texts until his pupils knew them by heart; four repetitions seem to have been common" (p. 44). See Deuteronomy 6:6-7; Joshua 1:8; and Psalm 1:1-2.
Recitation: this was not done in an ordinary way, but rhythmically and melodiously. In the ancient world, reading was normally done out loud with special intonation (p. 11).
The art of writing: the Pharisees and the teachers of the law distinguished the written Torah (first five books of the Bible) from the oral torah or traditions (the interpretations and opinions on the written Torah). The Pharisees and teachers of the law did not accept any written books containing oral torah in New Testament times, before the destruction of the temple in AD 70. But they did make "private notations of material found in the oral tradition" (emphasis original). Private notations were also taken in the schools or intellectual circles in the Hellenistic world (pp. 11-13). If I may add a comment, the larger Hellenistic world takes our study out of the Jewish context. But this strengthens the claim that at least some of the earliest followers of Jesus likely wrote things down, if only in notes, for the followers were fitting into their larger historical context. Indeed, it would be strange if they did not write things down, particularly since they believed that Jesus spoke words of the utmost importance, of life and death. All of this will be clarified in a future article (go now to Part Eight).
Struggle against lifeless knowledge: a student should enter into the study of tradition, so that he understands and is in agreement with it. He lives according to it. "A living bearer of the tradition is to be like a torch which has been lit by an older torch, in order that it might itself light others" (p. 14).
See Gerhardsson, pp. 72-74, for cautionary notes on over-applying these methods. In the next article, however, we shall see that Richard Bauckham advances or finds additional evidence to support some of Gerhardsson's conclusions (go now to Part Six).
6. What's the bottom line on Gerhardsson's study?
He writes his overall conclusion in the preface of his book:
For my part, I have become convinced that we can hear the voice of Jesus himself in the Gospels. His pronouncements and the narratives about his actions have been interpreted and clarified by his disciples, but they reach us nevertheless in reliable form. These small texts have been handed down to posterity by devoted and faithful adherents who wanted nothing other than to receive the message of their master, and that in such a way they would be able to preserve it and clarify it for others, so that they might know as much as possible about Jesus Christ, the crucified, resurrected, and living Lord of the church. (p. xxiv)
Gerhardsson also writes about the wording of Jesus, as remembered by his disciples: "Even with regard to the wording of the Jesus tradition – and here primarily that of the sayings tradition – the Gospels reflect the fact that the material has been preserved with respect and care" (p. 50).
7. What about storytelling cultures in the Middle East today?
We can move forward from the ancient world and take a quick look at cultures in the Middle East that tell stories as a means to stake out a social group's identity and to provide edification and instruction. Rev. Dr. Kenneth Bailey was formerly Theologian in Residence in the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East (Cyprus) and Research Professor of Middle Eastern NT Studies (Jerusalem). He has had extensive experience with Middle Eastern life. He says that village life has not changed much in two thousand years, except for some modern gadgets. I refer to his article "Informal Controlled Oral Traditions and the Synoptic Gospels" (see link, below).
Specifically, he observed villagers and their storytellers who gather together to tell stories and recite poetry. He lays out two main alternatives on how they preserve and tell their stories and ensure their accuracy: informal controlled oral traditions and formal controlled oral traditions. (We do not need to examine the informal uncontrolled model, which he does not apply to the Gospels.) But he applies one of the two models to the oral traditions lying behind the synoptic Gospels.
He defines informal controlled traditions, thus: "By informal we mean that there is no set teacher and no specifically identified student" (p. 6, emphasis original). The gathering is informal. But there are elders and gifted men and the socially more prominent who tend to do the reciting. The storytelling is also controlled by the seated community (p. 7). If the storyteller is going off track, he will be corrected. But the storyteller is allowed a small degree of flexibility, particularly in parables and recollections of historical peoples and events.
This model is contrasted with a formal controlled oral tradition. The material that is passed on "is controlled in the sense that the material is memorized (and / or written), identified as 'tradition' and thus preserved intact" (p. 4). As to the persons, "in the recitation of formal controlled oral tradition there is a specifically identified teacher with a recognized title and a specifically identified student. The two of them often meet in a special building, a school or college" (p. 6, emphasis original). Here the traditions have no flexibility while being transmitted.
8. Which model does Bailey apply to the Synoptics?
He applies the informal controlled model, but he also says that there are no absolute categories (p. 10). He goes on to affirm that perhaps "the pedagogy [teaching and training] of the rabbinic schools may well lie behind some of the material" in the synoptic Gospels (p. 10). This agrees in spirit with Gerhardsson's study (see Q & A Five, above).
Richard Bauckham insightfully connects Bailey's findings with Gospel eyewitnesses in retelling and controlling the traditions, particularly in Jerusalem, not only in Israel's villages (pp. 252-62; 269-71; 298-300). See Bailey, "Middle Eastern Oral Tradition and the Synoptic Gospels" (pp. 366-67). Plus, in the next article, we shall learn how Bauckham argues, successfully, for a formal and controlled (but somewhat flexible) tradition process leading up to the written Gospels (go now to Part Six).
9. Isn't storytelling like this a lot like playing "Telephone"?
That game is intended to be humorous. A group of people whisper a few words or lines to each other, one person at a time. By the time the last person receives the phrases or words, they have been altered significantly. But this game is not even close to how oral cultures pass on their sacred stories. The cultures exert controls over the telling process, unlike Telephone. Bailey quickly dispenses with this comparison in "Middle Eastern Oral Tradition and the Synoptic Gospels." He clarifies how Western youth leaders played the game with Middle Eastern students. "To the amazement and dismay of the western guest, the story emerges almost intact at the end of the game. In such cases what is passed on is irrelevant material" (p. 366). But in the informal gatherings of villagers in the Middle East, the material is highly significant. So this means that the storytellers take extra-care in transmitting a story.
Also see Mark D. Robert's link, below, for more discussion on "Telephone" as contrasted with storytelling in the Middle East.
10. So what's the bottom line on Bailey's study?
Here are two key excerpts from a long concluding paragraph. Bailey writes:
Thus, in summary and conclusion, here we have observed a classical methodology for the preservation, control and transmission of tradition that provides, on the one hand, assurance of authenticity and, on the other hand, freedom within limits for various forms of that tradition. Furthermore, the types of material that appear in the Synoptic Gospels include primarily the same forms that we have found preserved by informal controlled oral tradition such as proverbs, parables, poems, dialogues, conflict stories and historical narratives . . .
. . . In the light of the reality described above the assumption that the early Christians were not interested in history becomes untenable. To remember the words and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth was to affirm their own unique identity. The stories had to be told and controlled or everything that made them who they were was lost. (p. 10, emphasis original)
But one problem with his study is that it is anecdotal, without a large enough sample of stories and storytellers. You may read Bailey's study online, linked below. As noted, in the next article, Bauckham will strengthen and clarify parts of Bailey's study (go now to Part Six).
11. Do you have an example of oral traditions being passed on and received?
You are invited to go to Young's Literal Translation at Bible Gateway; then type in these two references on the Last Supper: Luke 22:15-20 and 1 Corinthians 11:23-26. Recall that neither Luke nor Paul (author of 1 Corinthians) sat at the table on the night Jesus was betrayed. Also, Paul's letter was written before Luke's Gospel, so Paul probably received his tradition orally. They agree almost entirely, but they have small variations.
12. What's the bottom line for the historical reliability of the Synoptics?
In my opinion, the eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word from the beginning (Luke 1:2-3) were careful to preserve and pass on accurately the traditions about Jesus. Their smaller, briefer traditions were woven together in a skillfully crafted whole and integral storyline. Yet the transmitters were allowed some small variations or flexibility in retelling the story. But they recounted them within firm limits. It is not as if a storyteller or author could change the ending (i.e. the resurrection) of the Easter story, for example. Nor could he or she change essential elements even in a small passage or pericope (unit or section).
13. What does all of this mean to the dates of the Gospels?
The "dating game." Many scholars date the synoptic Gospels after the destruction of the temple in AD 70. More traditional scholars may agree on this, but they want to stay as close to that year as possible. And some date them, especially Mark, before then. However, the oral traditions lead us back long before the destruction of the temple in AD 70. So the "dating game," though important, takes second place, in my opinion. In the Gospels the very words (especially short sayings) and voice of Jesus have been treasured and reliably remembered and eventually recorded.
14. What does all of this mean in comparison to the Gnostic "gospels"?
No one can be confident that Jesus said or did what the Gnostic authors claim about him. Their writings are indeed imaginary inventions and fictions. Not-so-paradoxically, this is the exact accusation leveled against the Biblical Gospels, but now we can see that the accusation is wrong. It is the Gnostic texts that can stand accused. Next, the Gnostic texts come much later, with perhaps a few earlier traditions found in one or two texts, clearly derived from the Biblical Gospels. So, it is the Biblical Gospels that take us back to the authentic words and voice of Jesus, not back to the inventive imagination of the disciples.
15. What does all of this mean for the Church of all denominations?
Gospel traditions? Who knew? All of this may seem weird to web readers who take Scripture seriously. (I certainly learned new things while writing this article.) Like me, you may prefer to read the Gospels in their final form or what we have now. That preference is normal – and wise. That's what we learned in church. But the articles in this series need to get onto the web, not only for average web readers, but especially for high school and college students, for pastors and priests and Sunday school and catechism teachers and home Bible study leaders. The historical reliability of the Gospels – and therefore the Gospels themselves – has come under attack over the popular media and the worldwide web, just a click away.
Education is the best antidote to these attacks.
This article has three companion pieces in the series:
6. Reliable Transmissions: the Gospels without a breakdown?
7. What Is the 'Q Gospel'? The Gospel According to 'St. Q'?
8. Did Some Disciples Take Notes during Jesus' Ministry?
References and Further Reading
Nearly all of these entries are technical, so I again recommend Roberts' book and blog to get you started; then go on to Gerhardsson's Reliability. After that, get Bauckham's long book.
Kenneth E Bailey. "Middle Eastern Oral Tradition and the Synoptic Gospels." The Expository Times 106 (1995) 12:263-67. This is the later, shorter version
---. "Informal Controlled Oral Traditions and the Synoptic Gospels." It is online at www.biblicalstudies.org.uk. This is the earlier, longer version; read this for the more thorough analysis.
Richard Bauckham. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. Eerdmans, 2006. The antidote to skeptical starting points in scholarship over the past several decades, but the book is for the advanced.
Michael F. Bird. "In Defence of Gerhardsson." Euangelion July 13, 2007. Clicking on that link, go to his article in Westminster Theological Journal 67 (2005) 113-94.
Samuel Byrskog. Jesus the Only Teacher: Didactic Authority and Transmission in Ancient Israel, Ancient Judaism & the Matthean Community. (Coniectanea Biblica New Testament Series, No. 24). Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1994.
---. Story as History, History as Story: the Gospel Tradition in the Context of Ancient Oral History. Brill, 2000.
James D. G. Dunn. Jesus Remembered. Vol. 1. Eerdman's, 2003. Pp. 173-254, especially, pp. 205-10.
Birger Gerhardsson. Memory and Manuscript: Oral Tradition and Written Tradition in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity. Rev. ed. Eerdman's, 1998. It has a generous foreword by the Talmudic scholar Jacob Neusner. At first he did not agree with Gerhardsson, but later changed his mind. The foreword is a way to correct his earlier opinion.
---. Reliability of the Gospel Tradition. Hendrickson, 2001. See especially the first chapter. Get this second, after Roberts.
Mark D. Roberts. Can We Trust the Gospels? Crossway, 2007. See Chapter 6. Get this first.
---. "Storytelling and Early Christianity." Markdroberts.com. September 21, 2005. Read his blog; get his book, and then read Gerhardsson's Reliability.
---. "Was Oral Tradition Like Playing Telephone?" Markdroberts.com. September 22, 2005.
William O. Walker. The Relationships among the Gospels: an Interdisciplinary Dialogue. Trinity: 1978. An emailer told me that Homer and the oral epic is the best model for understanding Gospel transmission. His email assumed that I had not studied Homer, though I used to be able to read him in original Greek. I took a graduate seminar on him at UCLA, with this guy. (Homer is my favorite author in ancient Greek literature.) Anyway, a Greek oral epic poetry model is not the best way to understand Gospel transmissions; hardly any New Testament scholar today would advocate that notion. This dialogue has already taken place in 1978, with A. B. Lord, a notable Homerist, as a keynote speaker. But I concede that I have not yet looked into this book on Mark and the Homeric epics.
N. T. Wright. Jesus and the Victory of God. Augsburg Fortress, 1997. Pp. 133-37.


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The black metal documentary Until the Light Takes Us has been posted for streaming in its entirety including many hours of extra footage. The film spent most of last year playing at various theaters around the world and was recently released on DVD and Blu-Ray.
The filmmakers, Audrey Ewell and Aaron Aites, have decided to make the film available for online viewing* to give everyone an opportunity to view the film.
*Unfortunately the feature film is still not available for those in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, and German speaking countries but the extras footage is.
Watch the film and extras here: http://www.blackmetalmovie.com/moviepage.html
Visit Factory 25 to purchase the DVD and/or Blue-Ray: http://www.factorytwentyfive.com/until-the-light-takes-us/


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NEW YORK (AP) — Tears in her eyes, firefighter widow Maureen Fanning emerged Thursday from the new Sept. 11 museum deep beneath ground zero, unable to bring herself to look at all of it.
"I just think it would be a little too overwhelming today," she said, unsure when she would return. "It's a lot to digest, to absorb. Not anytime soon."
Victims' friends and relatives, rescue workers and survivors of the terrorist attack descended into the subterranean space and revisited the tragedy as the National Sept. 11 Memorial Museum was dedicated by President Barack Obama as a symbol that says of America: "Nothing can ever break us."
The museum's artifacts range from the monumental, like two of the huge fork-shaped columns from the World Trade Center's facade, to the intimate: a wedding ring, a victim's voice mail message.
Some relatives found the exhibits both upsetting and inspiring.
Patricia Smith's visit came down to one small object: the New York Police Department shield her mother, Moira, was wearing 12 1/2 years ago when she died helping to evacuate the twin towers.
Patricia, 14, said she left feeling a new level of connection to her mother. Still, "seeing that, reading the story that goes along with it, even if I already know it, is really upsetting," she said.
David Greenberg, who lost a dozen colleagues who met for breakfast at the trade center's Windows on the World restaurant on Sept. 11, called the museum "breathtaking, awe-inspiring and emotional."
"You have your moments when there can be solitude, moments when there can be happiness, and a mixture of emotions through the entire museum," said Greenberg, who worked at an office nearby.
The museum opens to the public Wednesday, but many of those affected most directly by 9/11 could start exploring it Thursday.
Family members also paid their first visits to a repository at the museum that contains unidentified remains from the disaster.
Monica Iken never received her husband's body. "But he's here. I know he's here," Iken, a museum board member, said after leaving the repository.
Many in the audience wiped away tears during the dedication ceremony, which revisited both the horror and the heroism of Sept. 11, 2001, the day 19 al-Qaida hijackers crashed four airliners into the trade center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people were killed in an attack that plunged the U.S. into a decade of war in Afghanistan against al-Qaida's Taliban protectors.
After viewing some of the exhibits, including a mangled fire truck and a memorial wall with photos of victims, Obama retold the story of Welles Crowther, a 24-year-old World Trade Center worker who became known as "the man in the red bandanna" after he led others to safety from one of the towers. He died in the tower's collapse.
The president said the museum pays tribute to "the true spirit of 9/11 – love, compassion, sacrifice."
"Like the great wall and bedrock that embrace us today," Obama said, referring to the way an underground flood wall withstood the attack, "nothing can ever break us. Nothing can change who we are as Americans."
One of the red bandannas Crowther made a habit of carrying is in the museum. Crowther's mother, Alison, said she hoped it would inspire visitors to help other people.
"This is the true legacy of Sept. 11," she said.
Former President George W. Bush was also invited, according to the museum. But Bush spokesman Freddy Ford said he was unable to attend because of a scheduling conflict.
At the dedication ceremony, retired Fire Department Lt. Mickey Cross described being trapped for hours in the wreckage – and then joining the recovery effort after being rescued.
Kayla Bergeron remembered taking her final steps to safety, after 68 flights, on the battered staircase that now sits in the museum. "Today, when I think about those stairs, what they represent to me is resiliency," she said.
Also in the collection are the shoes Florence Jones shed on her way down one of the towers.
"I wanted my nieces and my nephew and every person that asked what happened to see them and, maybe, understand a little bit better what I felt like to be us on that day," she said.


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I just received a Time Capsule for my birthday last week. I installed it, everything went fine and I was loving it. I transferred files from my 2 Macs and my 1 Dell and all was rosy.
Then the weekend past and today I tried to access the Time Capsule from Explorer on my Dell (running Windows 7) and it doesn't see it anymore. I tried using the "Airport Base Station Agent" and when I connect through that or try to Map a Network Drive I get an error saying that "NAME OF TIME CAPSULE" cannot be found, check the spelling and try again.
In doing some digging, I discovered that my Macs are on the IP Subnet 172.16.8.xxx
and my Windows machine is on 192.168.216.xxx
. And the Subnet Mask for the Time Capsule network is 255.255.252.0
(notice the 2nd to last is 252, NOT 255) while the Windows machine is on 255.255.255.0
Actually, when I run ipconfig
the Windows Machine is even more confusing than that. The settings I listed are for the "Ethernet Adapter Local Area Connection 2" but there is also a "Wireless LAN Adapter Wireless Network Connection" which is on 255.255.252.0
with an IP of 12.9.104.xxx
To make it even stranger, I have VirtualBox running on the Windows machine running a Ubuntu server. The Ubuntu machine is set up to grab its own IP using DHCP from the network and not use the Host Machine IP. The Ubuntu VM running on the Dell has the same IP range as the Macs and the Time Capsule.
I have some ok experience with networking, though not a ton going between OS X and Windows (I usually use DropBox for file transfers).
1 Time Capsule.
2 Macs connect to Time Capsule fine.
1 Windows 7 Dell connects to Time Capsule Network, but on different IP range and cannot see anything else on the network.
1 Ubuntu VM running on the Dell connects to Time Capsule network on same IP range as Macs and can connect to Macs correctly.
I forgot the strangest part (as if the VM thing wasn't weird enough).
When I use the "Airport Utility" from Windows (which was used to set up the Time Capsule initially) it sees and connects to the Time Capsule fine on IP 172.16.8.xxx
, but when I PING that IP...no dice. It times out every single time.
What in the world do I do?


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From Hendrickson's Advertisement:
"The Codex was hand-written in Greek by fourth-century scribes, only 300 years after the time of the New Testament, making it one of the earliest and most reliable witnesses to the biblical text. It contained the Old and New Testaments in Greek, the text adopted by early Greek-speaking Christians.
The Codex was preserved for centuries at the monastery of St. Catherine's, Mount Sinai, until Constantin von Tischendorf drew worldwide attention and notoriety to it in 1844. In the years following, its pages were divided and dispersed. Now, over 160 years later, after an extraordinary and historic collaborative effort by the British Library, the National Library of Russia, St. Catherine's Monastery, Leipzig University Library, and Hendrickson Publishers, all the extant pages of Codex Sinaiticus have been brought together in print form to a worldwide audience in this handsomely bound, one-of-a kind, facsimile edition.
Drawing on the expertise of leading scholars, conservators, and curators, and painstakingly photographed using the latest high-quality digital technology and a careful imaging process, this facsimile provides a life-like view of the original pages of the Codex. The delicate beauty of this important text—its parchment, inks, and scars, all visible in incredible detail—allows the fascinating textual history of the Christian Bible to come alive in a fresh, meaningful way. The generous trim size, protective cloth covering, and slipcase make this facsimile an attractive part of any biblical scholar's library. Accompanied by a 32-page booklet, the Codex would be a stunning addition to a church, university, or seminary library, as well as to a museum or personal collection.
What texts can I find in the Codex Sinaiticus?
As it survives today, Codex Sinaiticus comprises just over 400 large leaves of prepared animal skin, each of which measures (13.6 inches) wide by 380mm (15 inches) high. On these parchment leaves is written around half of the Old Testament and Apocrypha (the Septuagint), the whole of the New Testament, and two early Christian texts not found in modern Bibles. Most of the first part of the manuscript (containing most of the so-called historical books, from Genesis to 1 Chronicles) is now missing and presumed to be lost. .
The Septuagint includes books which many Protestant Christian denominations place in the Apocrypha. Those present in the surviving part of the Septuagint in Codex Sinaiticus are 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, 1 & 4 Maccabees, Wisdom and Sirach. .
The number of the books in the New Testament in Codex Sinaiticus is the same as that in modern Bibles in the West, but the order is different. The Letter to the Hebrews is placed after Paul's Second Letter to the Thessalonians, and the Acts of the Apostles between the Pastoral and Catholic Epistles. .
The two other early Christian texts are an Epistle by an unknown writer claiming to be the Apostle Barnabas, and 'The Shepherd', written by the early second-century Roman writer, Hermas."
We tend to lust after the things we want but cannot have. Hendrickson's Advertisement tells me that there are seven hundred and ninety-nine reasons why neither I nor the theological institute I work for are likely to get our hands on this masterpiece.


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Tag Archives: Federal Deficit
Save NPR funding!
So, keeping with the mission of the CPB and the overall effort to keep a free-and-fair programming, the "deficit hawks" are going after essentially $32M in that grant. The good that NPR and the CPB does for our country – especially across the rural parts of our country – is incredibly valuable. When are the Congressional "deficit hawks" going to go after the real portion of the pie that is gauging us? Continue reading


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Find below, Dollar to Naira exchange rate for today, 28 September 2022.
Gatekeepers News has obtained the official dollar to the naira exchange rate in Nigeria today, including the Bureau De Change (BDC) rate and CBN rates.
What Is The Official Exchange Rate For Dollar To Naira Today?
The exchange rate between the Naira and the US dollar according to the data released on the FMDQ Security Exchange the official forex trading portal showed that the Naira opened at ₦434.93 per dollar on Tuesday, September 27, 2022, and closed at ₦436.33 per $1 on Tuesday, September 27, 2022.
Exchange Rate of Dollar To Naira in The Parallel Market
Even though the dollar opened in the parallel market for ₦722 per $1, the CBN does not recognise the parallel market, otherwise known as the black market. The apex bank has therefore directed anyone who requires forex to approach their bank, insisting that the I&E window is the only known exchange.
"The only exchange rate remains the I&E window, which is the market we expect everybody who wishes to procure or sell forex to get it," said the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele.
"I am sorry to say that I do not, and I do not intend to recognise any FX in the market.