Abomination

In general, an abomination is something disgusting, hateful, or extremely unpleasant. The word can be used seriously ("that sort of heinous crime is an abomination") or humourously ("the serial comma is an abomination").

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Abomination in the Biblical sense of the word refers to:

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• Every shepherd was "an abomination" unto the Egyptians (Gen. 46:34). This aversion to shepherds, such as the Hebrews, arose probably from the fact that Upper and Lower Egypt had formerly been held in oppressive subjection by the Hyksos (a tribe of nomad shepherds), who had only recently been expelled, and partly also perhaps from this other fact that the people of Egypt detested the nomadic habits of these wandering shepherds.
• Pharaoh was so moved by the fourth plague, that while he refused the demand of Moses, he offered a compromise, granting to the Israelites permission to hold their festival and offer their sacrifices in Egypt. This permission could not be accepted, because Moses said they would have to sacrifice "the abomination of the Egyptians" (Ex. 8:26); i.e., the cow or ox, which all the Egyptians held as sacred, and which they regarded it as sacrilegious to kill.
• Daniel (11:31), in that section of his prophecies which is generally interpreted as referring to the fearful calamities that were to fall on the Jews in the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, says, "And they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate."
• In his campaign of Hellenization, Antiochus caused an altar to be erected on the altar of burnt-offering of the Second Temple, on which sacrifices were offered to Jupiter Olympus. (Comp. 1 Maccabees 1:57). Following the wording of Daniel 9:27, this was the abomination of desolation of Jerusalem. In Matt. 24:15), the reference is probably to the image-crowned standards which the Romans set up at the east gate of the temple (A.D. 70), and to which they paid idolatrous honours. "Almost the entire religion of the Roman camp consisted in worshipping the ensign, swearing by the ensign, and in preferring the ensign before all other gods." These ensigns were an "abomination" to the Jews, the "abomination of desolation."
• This word is also used symbolically of sin in general (Isa. 66:3); an idol (44:19).
• Some Protestant groups apply the word to the ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church. Some of the Catholic Traditionalists who have broken away from the mainstream church have also been known to refer to the post-Vatican II mass and other ceremonies as "abominations".

From Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897)

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It may also refer to the abomination in the Dune series written by Frank Herbert. In these novels, one who is preborn is a fetus exposed to the spice agony, gaining to all their ancestral memories before birth. The preborn's exposure makes them vulnerable to being possessed by one of their ancestors, as they have no solid personality to withstand the tides of ancestors. An abomination has become possessed by one of their ancestor's memory-selves.

Related Topics:
Dune - Frank Herbert - Fetus - Spice agony

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In the original Dune novel, the unborn child of Lady Jessica Atreides, Alia, becomes preborn when Jessica undergoes the spice agony in an attempt to become Reverend Mother of Sietch Tabr. Later in Alia's life (in the novels Dune Messiah and Children of Dune), Alia becomes possessed by the ancestral presence of her maternal grandfather, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen.

Related Topics:
Reverend Mother - Dune Messiah - Children of Dune - Baron Vladimir Harkonnen

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