Category Archives: Ch.8) Threat Displays

Do not be stiff-necked, as your fathers were; submit to the LORD. Come to the sanctuary, which he has consecrated forever. Serve the LORD your God, so that his fierce anger will turn away from you. (2 Chronicles 30:9) “People … Continue reading →

Jesus worked miracles….Actually, what the gospels say he performed were dynameis, ‘mighty deeds,’ or semeia, ‘signs.’ – Russell Shorto (40) Primate gestures and displays are aimed at impacting individuals from a distance. “Moving” them. Not physically, emotionally. The element of … Continue reading →

For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you. (Isaiah 64:3) In the early 1960s Jane Goodall observed a low-ranking male rise to the top of a chimpanzee hierarchy. … Continue reading →

The following three posts in my “An Almighty Alpha” series may strike some as bit tedious, but a person with a scientific mind tends to keep collecting data, even when it may appear overkill. And so in “A Threatening God,” … Continue reading →

The second component to primate threat behavior is the fright-inducing ruckus itself. The actual display. As I wrote yesterday, “There is clamor and clash, there is damage done. To other people or things. See, you better stay in line, or … Continue reading →

A third component of the primate threat display is the terminal or desired outcome: signs of subordination — the bowing down and/or backing off of the lesser to the greater. Sometimes it follows after the first component, the bluff or … Continue reading →

Who knows the power of your anger? For your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you. (Psalms 90:11) To dance you need partners. To be dominant you need subordinates. If your displays are ignored, just whom … Continue reading →

They rush about, hurl sticks and rocks, drag branches, slap the ground or stamp on it, leap into the trees to sway branches violently. – Jane Goodall (6) [T]he LORD hurled large hailstones down on them from the sky, and … Continue reading →

“A threat display is a sort of bluff. Sometimes things will escalate to true violence.” – Christopher Boehm (10) In that day the Egyptians will be like women. They will shudder with fear at the uplifted hand that the LORD … Continue reading →

“Despite his paralyzed right arm, Faben learned to perform spectacular bipedal charging displays; when Figan displayed at rival males, Faben almost always joined in to help his brother. Indeed, it was Faben who helped Figan to attain the alpha position.” … Continue reading →

“An adult male [chimpanzee] sometimes suddenly charged into a group of adult males who were peacefully grooming or resting in close proximity. As a result of the charge, the other males scattered in all directions.” – Nishida, T., and Hosaka, … Continue reading →

“I will display my glory among the nations, and all the nations will see the punishment I inflict and the hand I lay upon them. (Ezekiel 39:21) An advertisement is a public announcement. In the wake of natural disasters and … Continue reading →

Big males show other tendencies for producing loud noises, such as the habit of pushing over huge dead trees as they move through the forest, thereby registering their whereabouts with loud and dramatic crashes. – Dale Peterson & Richard Wrangham … Continue reading →

Like the majority of animals, chimpanzees solve more disputes by threat than by actual fighting. – Jane Goodall (36) Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: My anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, on … Continue reading →