Parable of the Good Samaritan
The parable of the Good Samaritan is a parable told by Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. It is about a traveller, stripped of clothing and left half dead alongside the road. First a priest and a Levite comes by, but both avoid the man. A Samaritan happens upon the traveller. Samaritans and Jews despised each other. Jesus is described as telling the parable in response to the question from a lawyer, "And, my neighbour?". In response, Jesus tells the parable, the conclusion of, that the neighbour figure in the parable is the man who shows mercy to the injured man—that is, the Samaritan; some Christians, such as Augustine, have interpreted the parable allegorically, with the Samaritan representing Jesus Christ, who saves the sinful soul. Others, discount this allegory as unrelated to the parable's original meaning and see the parable as exemplifying the ethics of Jesus; the parable has inspired painting, satire, poetry and film. The phrase "good Samaritan", meaning someone who helps a stranger, derives from this parable, many hospitals and charitable organizations are named after the Good Samaritan.
In the Gospel of Luke, the parable is introduced by a question, known as the Great Commandment: Behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested him, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" He said to him, "What is written in the law? How do you read it?" He answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind. He said to him, "You have answered correctly. Do this, you will live." But he, desiring to justify himself, asked Jesus, "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus replies with a story: Jesus answered, "A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, he fell among robbers, who both stripped him and beat him, departed, leaving him half dead. By chance a certain priest was going down that way; when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. In the same way a Levite when he came to the place, saw him, passed by on the other side, but a certain Samaritan, as he travelled, came. When he saw him, he was moved with compassion, came to him, bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine.
He set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the host, said to him,'Take care of him. Whatever you spend beyond that, I will repay you when I return.' Now which of these three do you think seemed to be a neighbor to him who fell among the robbers?" He said, "He who showed mercy on him." Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise." In the time of Jesus, the road from Jerusalem to Jericho was notorious for its danger and difficulty, was known as the "Way of Blood" because "of the blood, shed there by robbers". Martin Luther King, Jr. in his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech, on the day before his death, described the road as follows: As soon as we got on that road I said to my wife, "I can see why Jesus used this as the setting for his parable." It's a winding, meandering road... In the days of Jesus it came to be known as the "Bloody Pass." And you know, it's possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around.
Or it's possible that they felt that the man on the ground was faking, he was acting like he had been robbed and hurt in order to seize them over there, lure them there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first question that the priest asked, the first question that the Levite asked was, "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" Jesus' target audience, the Jews, hated Samaritans to such a degree that they destroyed the Samaritans' temple on Mount Gerizim. Due to this hatred, some think that the Lawyer's phrase "The one who had mercy on him" may indicate a reluctance to name the Samaritan. Or, on another, more positive note, it may indicate that the lawyer has recognized that both his questions have been answered and now concludes by expressing that anyone behaving thus is a "neighbor" eligible to inherit eternal life; the Samaritans in turn hated the Jews. Tensions were high in the early decades of the 1st century because Samaritans had desecrated the Jewish Temple at Passover with human bones.
As the story reached those who were unaware of the oppression of the Samaritans, this aspect of the parable became less and less discernible: fewer and fewer people heard of them in any context other than as a description. Today, the story is recast in a more modern setting where the people are ones in equivalent social groups known not to interact comfortably. Thus, cast appropriately, the parable regains its message to modern listeners: namely, that an individual of a social group they disapprove of can exhibit moral behavior, superior to individuals of the groups they approve. Christians have used it as an example of Christianity's opposition to racial and sectarian prejudice. For example, anti-slavery campaigner William Jay described clergy who ignored slavery as "following the example of the priest and Levite". Martin Luther King, Jr. in his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech, described the Samaritan as "a man of another race". Sundee Tucker Frazier saw the Samaritan more as an example of a "mixed-race" person.
Klyne Snodgrass wrote: "On the basis of this parable we must deal with our own racism but must seek justice for, offer assistance to, those in need, regardless of the group to which they belong."Samaritans appear elsewhere in the Gospels and Book of Acts. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus heals ten lepers and onl
Israeli settlement
Israeli settlements are civilian communities inhabited by Israeli citizens exclusively of Jewish ethnicity, built predominantly on lands within the Palestinian territories, which Israel has militarily occupied since the 1967 Six-Day War, on lands considered Syrian territory militarily occupied by Israel since the 1967 war. Such settlements within Palestinian territories exist in Area C of the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, within Syrian territory in the Golan Heights. Following the 1967 war, Israeli settlements existed within Egyptian territory in the Sinai Peninsula, within the Palestinian territory of the Gaza Strip. Israel dismantled 18 settlements in the Sinai Peninsula in 1982, while in 2005 all 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip were dismantled, but only four in the West Bank. In the West Bank, Israel continues to expand its remaining settlements as well as settling new areas, despite pressure from the international community to desist. According to the Israeli investigative reporter Uri Blau, settlements received funding by private tax-exempt U.
S. NGOs of $220 million for 2009–2013, suggesting that the U. S. is indirectly subsidizing their creation. The international community considers the settlements in occupied territory to be illegal, the United Nations has upheld the view that Israel's construction of settlements constitutes a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention; the Israeli-occupied area known as East Jerusalem and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights are considered settlements by the international community, though Israel has applied its civil law to both territories and does not consider its developments there to be settlements. The International Court of Justice says these purportedly annexed settlements are illegal in a 2004 advisory opinion. In April 2012, UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon, in response to moves by Israel to legalise Israeli outposts, reiterated that all settlement activity is illegal, "runs contrary to Israel's obligations under the Road Map and repeated Quartet calls for the parties to refrain from provocations."
Similar criticism was advanced by the EU and the US. Israel disputes the position of the international community and the legal arguments that were used to declare the settlements illegal. In December 2016 United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 confirmed the illegality of the settlement enterprise and renders Israeli citizens involved with settling the West Bank vulnerable to lawsuits throughout the world; the presence and ongoing expansion of existing settlements by Israel and the construction of settlement outposts is criticized as an obstacle to the Israeli–Palestinian peace process by the Palestinians, third parties such as the OIC, the United Nations, the United Kingdom, the European Union, the United States have echoed those criticisms. Settlement has an economic dimension, much of it driven by the lower costs of housing for Israeli citizens living in Israeli settlements compared to the cost of housing and living in Israel proper. Government spending per citizen in the settlements is double that spent per Israeli citizen in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, while government spending for settlers in isolated Israeli settlements is three times the Israeli national average.
Most of the spending goes to the security of the Israeli citizens living there. On 30 June 2014, according to the Yesha Council, 382,031 Israeli citizens lived in the 121 recognised Israeli settlements in the West Bank. A number of Palestinian non-Israeli citizens reside in Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem, over 300,000 Israeli citizens lived in settlements in East Jerusalem, over 20,000 Israeli citizens lived in settlements in the Golan Heights. In January 2015 the Israeli Interior Ministry gave figures of 389,250 Israeli citizens living in the West Bank and a further 375,000 Israeli citizens living in East Jerusalem. Settlements range in character from farming communities and frontier villages to urban suburbs and neighborhoods; the four largest settlements, Modi'in Illit, Ma'ale Adumim, Beitar Illit and Ariel, have achieved city status. Ariel has 18,000 residents; the 1967 Six-Day War left Israel in control of the entire West Bank of the Jordan River, including parts of Jerusalem. The entire Sinai Peninsula up to the Suez Canal, the Gaza strip.
Most of the Golan Heights, since 1981, administered under the Golan Heights Law. As early as 1967, Israeli settlement policy was started by the Labor government of Levi Eshkol; the basis for Israeli settlement in the West Bank became the Allon Plan, named after its inventor Yigal Allon. It implied Israeli annexation of major parts of the Israeli-occupied territories East Jerusalem, Gush Etzion and the Jordan Valley; the settlement policy of the government of Yitzhak Rabin, was derived from the Allon Plan. The first settlement was Kfar Etzion, in the southern West Bank, although that location was outside the Allon Plan. Many settlements began as Nahal settlements, they were established as military outposts and expanded and populated with civilian inhabitants. According to a secret document dating to 1970, obtained by Haaretz, the settlement of Kiryat Arba was established by confiscating land by military order and falsely representing the project as being for military use while in reality, Kiryat Arba was planned for settler use.
The method of confiscating land
Jericho
Jericho is a city in the Palestinian Territories and is located near the Jordan River in the West Bank. It is the administrative seat of the Jericho Governorate, is governed by the Fatah faction of the Palestinian National Authority. In 2007, it had a population of 18,346; the city was occupied by Jordan from 1949 to 1967, has been held under Israeli occupation since 1967. It is believed to be one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world and the city with the oldest known protective wall in the world, it was thought to have the oldest stone tower in the world as well, but excavations at Tell Qaramel in Syria have discovered stone towers that are older. Archaeologists have unearthed the remains of more than 20 successive settlements in Jericho, the first of which dates back 11,000 years to the beginning of the Holocene epoch of the Earth's history. Copious springs in and around the city have attracted human habitation for thousands of years. Jericho is described in the Hebrew Bible as the "city of palm trees".
Jericho's name in Hebrew, Yeriẖo, is thought to derive from the Canaanite word reaẖ, but other theories hold that it originates in the Canaanite word for "moon" or the name of the lunar deity Yarikh for whom the city was an early centre of worship. Jericho's Arabic name, ʼArīḥā, means "fragrant" and has its roots in Canaanite Reaẖ; the first excavations of the site were made by Charles Warren in 1868. Ernst Sellin and Carl Watzinger excavated Tell es-Sultan and Tulul Abu el-'Alayiq between 1907 and 1909, in 1911, John Garstang excavated between 1930 and 1936. Extensive investigations using more modern techniques were made by Kathleen Kenyon between 1952 and 1958. Lorenzo Nigro and Nicolò Marchetti conducted excavations in 1997–2000. Since 2009 the Italian-Palestinian archaeological project of excavation and restoration was resumed by Rome "La Sapienza" University and Palestinian MOTA-DACH under the direction of Lorenzo Nigro and Hamdan Taha, Jehad Yasine since 2015; the Italian-Palestinian Expedition carried out 13 seasons in 20 years, with some major discoveries, like Tower A1 in the Middle Bronze Age southern Lower Town and Palace G on the eastern flanks of the Spring Hill overlooking the Spring of'Ain es-Sultan dating from Early Bronze III.
The earliest settlement was located at the present-day Tell es-Sultan, a couple of kilometers from the current city. In both Arabic and Hebrew, tell means "mound" – consecutive layers of habitation built up a mound over time, as is common for ancient settlements in the Middle East and Anatolia. Jericho is the type site for the Pre-Pottery Neolithic Pre-Pottery Neolithic B periods. Epipaleolithic construction at the site appears to predate the invention of agriculture, with the construction of Natufian culture structures beginning earlier than 9000 BCE, the beginning of the Holocene epoch in geologic history. Jericho has evidence of settlement dating back to 10,000 BCE. During the Younger Dryas period of cold and drought, permanent habitation of any one location was impossible. However, the Ein es-Sultan spring at what would become Jericho was a popular camping ground for Natufian hunter-gatherer groups, who left a scattering of crescent-shaped microlith tools behind them. Around 9600 BCE, the droughts and cold of the Younger Dryas stadial had come to an end, making it possible for Natufian groups to extend the duration of their stay leading to year-round habitation and permanent settlement.
The first permanent settlement on the site of Jericho developed near the Ein es-Sultan spring between 9,500 and 9000 BCE. As the world warmed up, a new culture based on agriculture and sedentary dwelling emerged, which archaeologists have termed "Pre-Pottery Neolithic A", its cultures lacked pottery, but featured the following: small circular dwellings burial of the dead under the floor of buildings reliance on hunting of wild game cultivation of wild or domestic cerealsAt Jericho, circular dwellings were built of clay and straw bricks left to dry in the sun, which were plastered together with a mud mortar. Each house measured about 5 metres across, was roofed with mud-smeared brush. Hearths were located outside the homes. By about 9400 BCE, the town had grown to more than 70 modest dwellings; the Pre-Sultan is sometimes called Sultanian. The site is a 40,000 square metres settlement surrounded by a massive stone wall over 3.6 metres high and 1.8 metres wide at the base, inside of which stood a stone tower, over 8.5 metres high, containing an internal staircase with 22 stone steps and placed in the centre of the west side of the tell.
This tower and the older ones excavated at Tell Qaramel in Syria are the oldest to be discovered. The wall may have served as a defence against flood-water, with the tower used for ceremonial purposes; the wall and tower were built during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A period around 8000 BCE. For the tower, carbon dates published in 1981 and 1983 indicate that it was built around 8300 BCE and stayed in use until c. 7800 BCE. The wall and tower would have taken a hundred men more than a hundred days to construct, thus suggesting some kind of social organization; the town contained round mud-brick houses, yet no street planning. The identity and number of the inhabitants of Jericho during the PPNA period is still under debate, with estimates going as high as 2,000–3,000, as low as 200–300, it is known that this population had domesticated emmer whea
Public domain
The public domain consists of all the creative works to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable; the works of William Shakespeare and Beethoven, most early silent films, are in the public domain either by virtue of their having been created before copyright existed, or by their copyright term having expired. Some works are not covered by copyright, are therefore in the public domain—among them the formulae of Newtonian physics, cooking recipes, all computer software created prior to 1974. Other works are dedicated by their authors to the public domain; the term public domain is not applied to situations where the creator of a work retains residual rights, in which case use of the work is referred to as "under license" or "with permission". As rights vary by country and jurisdiction, a work may be subject to rights in one country and be in the public domain in another; some rights depend on registrations on a country-by-country basis, the absence of registration in a particular country, if required, gives rise to public-domain status for a work in that country.
The term public domain may be interchangeably used with other imprecise or undefined terms such as the "public sphere" or "commons", including concepts such as the "commons of the mind", the "intellectual commons", the "information commons". Although the term "domain" did not come into use until the mid-18th century, the concept "can be traced back to the ancient Roman Law, as a preset system included in the property right system." The Romans had a large proprietary rights system where they defined "many things that cannot be owned" as res nullius, res communes, res publicae and res universitatis. The term res nullius was defined as things not yet appropriated; the term res communes was defined as "things that could be enjoyed by mankind, such as air and ocean." The term res publicae referred to things that were shared by all citizens, the term res universitatis meant things that were owned by the municipalities of Rome. When looking at it from a historical perspective, one could say the construction of the idea of "public domain" sprouted from the concepts of res communes, res publicae, res universitatis in early Roman law.
When the first early copyright law was first established in Britain with the Statute of Anne in 1710, public domain did not appear. However, similar concepts were developed by French jurists in the 18th century. Instead of "public domain", they used terms such as publici juris or propriété publique to describe works that were not covered by copyright law; the phrase "fall in the public domain" can be traced to mid-19th century France to describe the end of copyright term. The French poet Alfred de Vigny equated the expiration of copyright with a work falling "into the sink hole of public domain" and if the public domain receives any attention from intellectual property lawyers it is still treated as little more than that, left when intellectual property rights, such as copyright and trademarks, expire or are abandoned. In this historical context Paul Torremans describes copyright as a, "little coral reef of private right jutting up from the ocean of the public domain." Copyright law differs by country, the American legal scholar Pamela Samuelson has described the public domain as being "different sizes at different times in different countries".
Definitions of the boundaries of the public domain in relation to copyright, or intellectual property more regard the public domain as a negative space. According to James Boyle this definition underlines common usage of the term public domain and equates the public domain to public property and works in copyright to private property. However, the usage of the term public domain can be more granular, including for example uses of works in copyright permitted by copyright exceptions; such a definition regards work in copyright as private property subject to fair-use rights and limitation on ownership. A conceptual definition comes from Lange, who focused on what the public domain should be: "it should be a place of sanctuary for individual creative expression, a sanctuary conferring affirmative protection against the forces of private appropriation that threatened such expression". Patterson and Lindberg described the public domain not as a "territory", but rather as a concept: "here are certain materials – the air we breathe, rain, life, thoughts, ideas, numbers – not subject to private ownership.
The materials that compose our cultural heritage must be free for all living to use no less than matter necessary for biological survival." The term public domain may be interchangeably used with other imprecise or undefined terms such as the "public sphere" or "commons", including concepts such as the "commons of the mind", the "intellectual commons", the "information commons". A public-domain book is a book with no copyright, a book, created without a license, or a book where its copyrights expired or have been forfeited. In most countries the term of protection of copyright lasts until January first, 70 years after the death of the latest living author; the longest copyright term is in Mexico, which has life plus 100 years for all deaths since July 1928. A notable exception is the United States, where every book and tale published prior to 1924 is in the public domain.
West Bank
The West Bank is a landlocked territory near the Mediterranean coast of Western Asia, bordered by Jordan to the east and by the Green Line separating it and Israel on the south and north. The West Bank contains a significant section of the western Dead Sea shore; the West Bank was the name given to the territory, captured by Jordan in the aftermath of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, subsequently annexed in 1950 until 1967 when it was occupied by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War. The Oslo Accords, signed between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel, created administrative districts with varying levels of Palestinian autonomy within each area. Area C, in which Israel maintained complete civil and security control, accounts for over 60% of the territory of the West Bank; the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has a land area of 5,640 km2 plus a water area of 220 km2, consisting of the northwest quarter of the Dead Sea. As of July 2017 it has an estimated population of 2,747,943 Palestinians, 391,000 Israeli settlers, another 201,200 Israeli settlers in East Jerusalem.
The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this. The International Court of Justice advisory ruling concluded that events that came after the 1967 occupation of the West Bank by Israel, including the Jerusalem Law, Israel's peace treaty with Jordan and the Oslo Accords, did not change the status of the West Bank as occupied territory with Israel as the occupying power; the name West Bank is a translation of the Arabic term ad-Diffah I-Garbiyyah, given to the territory west of the Jordan River that fell, in 1948, under occupation and administration by Jordan, which subsequently annexed it in 1950. This annexation was considered illegal and was recognized only by Britain and Pakistan; the term was chosen to differentiate the west bank of the River Jordan from the "east bank" of this river. The neo-Latin name Cisjordan or Cis-Jordan is the usual name for the territory in the Romance languages and Hungarian.
The name West Bank, has become the standard usage for this geopolitical entity in English and some of the other Germanic languages since its creation following the Jordanian army's conquest. In English, the name Cisjordan is used to designate the entire region between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean in the historical context of the British Mandate and earlier times; the analogous Transjordan has been used to designate the region now comprising the state of Jordan, which lies to the east of the Jordan River. From 1517 through 1917, the area now known as the West Bank was under Ottoman rule as part of the provinces of Syria. At the 1920 San Remo conference, the victorious Allied powers allocated the area to the British Mandate of Palestine; the San Remo Resolution adopted on 25 April 1920 incorporated the Balfour Declaration of 1917. It and Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations were the basic documents upon which the British Mandate for Palestine was constructed. Faced with the determination of Emir Abdullah to unify Arab lands under the Hashemite banner, the British proclaimed Abdullah ruler of the three districts, known collectively as Transjordan.
Confident that his plans for the unity of the Arab nation would come to fruition, the emir established the first centralized governmental system in what is now modern Jordan on 11 April 1921. The West Bank area was conquered by Jordan during the 1948 war with the new state of Israel. In 1947, it was subsequently designated as part of a proposed Arab state by the United Nations partition plan for Palestine; the resolution recommended partition of the British Mandate into a Jewish State, an Arab State, an internationally administered enclave of Jerusalem. The resolution designated the territory described as "the hill country of Samaria and Judea" as part of the proposed Arab state, but following the 1948 Arab–Israeli War this area was captured by Transjordan. 1949 Armistice Agreements defined the interim boundary between Jordan. Following the December 1948 Jericho Conference, Transjordan annexed the area west of the Jordan River in 1950, naming it "West Bank" or "Cisjordan", designated the area east of the river as "East Bank" or "Transjordan".
Jordan ruled over the West Bank from 1948 until 1967. Jordan's annexation was never formally recognized by the international community, with the exception of the United Kingdom. A two-state option, dividing Palestine, as opposed to a binary solution arose during the period of the British mandate in the area; the United Nations Partition Plan had envisaged two states, one Jewish and the other Arab/Palestinian, but in the wake of the war only one emerged at the time. King Abdullah of Jordan had been crowned King of Jerusalem by the Coptic Bishop on 15 November 1948. Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank and East Jerusalem were granted Jordanian citizenship and half of the Jordanian Parliament seats. In June 1967, the West Bank and East Jerusalem were captured by Israel as a result of the Six-Day War. With the exception of East Jerusalem and the former Israeli-Jordanian no man's land, the West Bank was not annexed by Israel but came under Israeli military control until 1982. Although th
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, as described in the New Testament. Its adherents, known as Christians, believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and savior of all people, whose coming as the Messiah was prophesied in the Old Testament. Depending on the specific denomination of Christianity, practices may include baptism, prayer, confirmation, burial rites, marriage rites and the religious education of children. Most denominations hold regular group worship services. Christianity developed during the 1st century CE as a Jewish Christian sect of Second Temple Judaism, it soon attracted Gentile God-fearers, which lead to a departure from Jewish customs, the establishment of Christianity as an independent religion. During the first centuries of its existence Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire, to Ethiopia and some parts of Asia. Constantine the Great decriminalized it via the Edict of Milan; the First Council of Nicaea established a uniform set of beliefs across the Roman Empire.
By 380, the Roman Empire designated Christianity as the state religion. The period of the first seven ecumenical councils is sometimes referred to as the Great Church, the united full communion of the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, before their schisms. Oriental Orthodoxy split after the Council of Chalcedon over differences in Christology; the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church separated in the East–West Schism over the authority of the Pope. In 1521, Protestants split from the Catholic Church in the Protestant Reformation over Papal primacy, the nature of salvation, other ecclesiological and theological disputes. Following the Age of Discovery, Christianity was spread into the Americas, sub-Saharan Africa, the rest of the world via missionary work and colonization. There are 2.3 billion Christians in the world, or 31.4% of the global population. Today, the four largest branches of Christianity are the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church and Oriental Orthodoxy.
Christianity and Christian ethics have played a prominent role in the development of Western civilization around Europe during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. In the New Testament, the names by which the disciples were known among themselves were "brethren", "the faithful", "elect", "saints" and "believers". Early Jewish Christians referred to themselves as'The Way' coming from Isaiah 40:3, "prepare the way of the Lord." According to Acts 11:26, the term "Christian" was first used in reference to Jesus's disciples in the city of Antioch, meaning "followers of Christ," by the non-Jewish inhabitants of Antioch. The earliest recorded use of the term "Christianity" was by Ignatius of Antioch, in around 100 AD. While Christians worldwide share basic convcitions, there are differences of interpretations and opinions of the Bible and sacred traditions on which Christianity is based. Concise doctrinal statements or confessions of religious beliefs are known as creeds, they began as baptismal formulae and were expanded during the Christological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries to become statements of faith.
The Apostles' Creed is the most accepted statement of the articles of Christian faith. It is used by a number of Christian denominations for both liturgical and catechetical purposes, most visibly by liturgical churches of Western Christian tradition, including the Latin Church of the Catholic Church, Lutheranism and Western Rite Orthodoxy, it is used by Presbyterians and Congregationalists. This particular creed was developed between the 9th centuries, its central doctrines are those of God the Creator. Each of the doctrines found in this creed can be traced to statements current in the apostolic period; the creed was used as a summary of Christian doctrine for baptismal candidates in the churches of Rome. Its main points include: Belief in God the Father, Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the Holy Spirit The death, descent into hell and ascension of Christ The holiness of the Church and the communion of saints Christ's second coming, the Day of Judgement and salvation of the faithful; the Nicene Creed was formulated in response to Arianism, at the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople in 325 and 381 and ratified as the universal creed of Christendom by the First Council of Ephesus in 431.
The Chalcedonian Definition, or Creed of Chalcedon, developed at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, though rejected by the Oriental Orthodox churches, taught Christ "to be acknowledged in two natures, unchangeably, inseparably": one divine and one human, that both natures, while perfect in themselves, are also united into one person. The Athanasian Creed, received in the Western Church as having the same status as the Nicene and Chalcedonian, says: "We worship one God in Trinity, Trinity in Unity. Many evangelical Protestants reject creeds as definitive statements of faith while agreeing with some or all of the substance of the creeds. Most Baptists do not use creeds "in that they have not sought to establish binding
Jerusalem
Jerusalem is a city in the Middle East, located on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the oldest cities in the world, is considered holy to the three major Abrahamic religions—Judaism and Islam. Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority claim Jerusalem as their capital, as Israel maintains its primary governmental institutions there and the State of Palestine foresees it as its seat of power. During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times and recaptured 44 times, attacked 52 times; the part of Jerusalem called the City of David shows first signs of settlement in the 4th millennium BCE, in the shape of encampments of nomadic shepherds. Jerusalem was named as "Urusalim" on ancient Egyptian tablets meaning "City of Shalem" after a Canaanite deity, during the Canaanite period. During the Israelite period, significant construction activity in Jerusalem began in the 9th century BCE, in the 8th century the city developed into the religious and administrative center of the Kingdom of Judah.
In 1538, the city walls were rebuilt for a last time around Jerusalem under Suleiman the Magnificent. Today those walls define the Old City, traditionally divided into four quarters—known since the early 19th century as the Armenian, Christian and Muslim Quarters; the Old City became a World Heritage Site in 1981, is on the List of World Heritage in Danger. Since 1860 Jerusalem has grown far beyond the Old City's boundaries. In 2015, Jerusalem had a population of some 850,000 residents, comprising 200,000 secular Jewish Israelis, 350,000 Haredi Jews and 300,000 Palestinians. In 2011, the population numbered 801,000, of which Jews comprised 497,000, Muslims 281,000, Christians 14,000 and 9,000 were not classified by religion. According to the Bible, King David conquered the city from the Jebusites and established it as the capital of the united kingdom of Israel, his son, King Solomon, commissioned the building of the First Temple. Modern scholars argue that Jews branched out of the Canaanite peoples and culture through the development of a distinct monolatrous — and monotheistic — religion centered on El/Yahweh, one of the Ancient Canaanite deities.
These foundational events, straddling the dawn of the 1st millennium BCE, assumed central symbolic importance for the Jewish people. The sobriquet of holy city was attached to Jerusalem in post-exilic times; the holiness of Jerusalem in Christianity, conserved in the Septuagint which Christians adopted as their own authority, was reinforced by the New Testament account of Jesus's crucifixion there. In Sunni Islam, Jerusalem is the third-holiest city, after Medina. In Islamic tradition, in 610 CE it became the first qibla, the focal point for Muslim prayer, Muhammad made his Night Journey there ten years ascending to heaven where he speaks to God, according to the Quran; as a result, despite having an area of only 0.9 square kilometres, the Old City is home to many sites of seminal religious importance, among them the Temple Mount with its Western Wall, Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Outside the Old City stands the Garden Tomb. Today, the status of Jerusalem remains one of the core issues in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, West Jerusalem was among the areas captured and annexed by Israel while East Jerusalem, including the Old City, was captured and annexed by Jordan. Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War and subsequently annexed it into Jerusalem, together with additional surrounding territory. One of Israel's Basic Laws, the 1980 Jerusalem Law, refers to Jerusalem as the country's undivided capital. All branches of the Israeli government are located in Jerusalem, including the Knesset, the residences of the Prime Minister and President, the Supreme Court. While the international community rejected the annexation as illegal and treats East Jerusalem as Palestinian territory occupied by Israel, Israel has a stronger claim to sovereignty over West Jerusalem. A city called Rušalim in the execration texts of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt is but not universally, identified as Jerusalem. Jerusalem is called Urušalim in the Amarna letters of Abdi-Heba.
The name "Jerusalem" is variously etymologized to mean "foundation of the god Shalem". Shalim or Shalem was the name of the god of dusk in the Canaanite religion, whose name is based on the same root S-L-M from which the Hebrew word for "peace" is derived; the name thus offered itself to etymologizations such as "The City of Peace", "Abode of Peace", "dwelling of peace", alternately "Vision of Peace" in some Christian authors. The ending -ayim indicates the dual, thus leading to the suggestion that the name Yerushalayim refers to the fact that the city sat on two hills; the form Yerushalem or Yerushalayim first appears in the Book of Joshua. According to a Midrash, the name is a combination of "Yireh" and "Shalem" the two names were un
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Easton, Matthew George (1897). . Easton's Bible Dictionary (New and revised ed.). T. Nelson and Sons.
