1.
Jordan
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Jordan, officially The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is an Arab kingdom in Western Asia, on the East Bank of the Jordan River. Jordan is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the east and south, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north, Israel, Palestine and the Dead Sea to the west, Jordan is strategically located at the crossroads of Asia, Africa and Europe. The capital, Amman, is Jordans most populous city as well as the countrys economic, what is now Jordan has been inhabited by humans since the Paleolithic period. Three stable kingdoms emerged there at the end of the Bronze Age, Ammon, Moab, later rulers include the Nabataean Kingdom, the Roman Empire, and the Ottoman Empire. After the Great Arab Revolt against the Ottomans in 1916 during World War I, the Emirate of Transjordan was established in 1921 by the then Emir Abdullah I and became a British protectorate. In 1946, Jordan became an independent state known as The Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan. Jordan captured the West Bank, which it later lost in 1967, during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Jordan is a founding member of the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and is one of two Arab states to have signed a peace treaty with Israel. The country is a monarchy, but the king holds wide executive and legislative powers. Jordan is a relatively-small, semi-arid, almost-landlocked country with a population numbering at 9.5 million, Sunni Islam, practiced by around 92% of the population, is the dominant religion in Jordan. It coexists with an indigenous Christian minority, Jordan is considered to be among the safest of Arab countries in the Middle East, and has avoided long-term terrorism and instability. The kingdom is also a refuge to thousands of Iraqi Christians fleeing the Islamic State, while Jordan continues to accept refugees, the recent large influx from Syria placed substantial strain on national resources and infrastructure. Jordan is classified as a country of high human development with a middle income economy. The Jordanian economy, one of the smallest economies in the region, is attractive to foreign investors based upon a skilled workforce, the country is a major tourist destination, and also attracts medical tourism due to its well developed health sector. Nonetheless, a lack of resources, large flow of refugees. Jordan is named after the Jordan River, where Jesus is said to have been baptized, the origin of the rivers name is debated, but the most common explanation is that it derives from the word yarad, found in Hebrew, Aramaic, and other Semitic languages. Others regard the name as having an Indo-Aryan origin, combining the words yor and don, another theory is that it is from the Arabic root word wrd, as in people coming to a major source of water. The name Jordan appears in an ancient Egyptian papyrus called Papyrus Anastasi I, the lands of modern-day Jordan were historically called Transjordan, meaning beyond the Jordan River. The name was Arabized into Al-Urdunn during the Muslim conquest of the Levant, during crusader rule, it was called Oultrejordain
2.
Arabic
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Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested
3.
Hebrew language
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Hebrew is a language native to Israel, spoken by over 9 million people worldwide, of whom over 5 million are in Israel. Historically, it is regarded as the language of the Israelites and their ancestors, the earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date from the 10th century BCE. Hebrew belongs to the West Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family, Hebrew is the only living Canaanite language left, and the only truly successful example of a revived dead language. Hebrew had ceased to be a spoken language somewhere between 200 and 400 CE, declining since the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt. Aramaic and to a lesser extent Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among elites and it survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy, rabbinic literature, intra-Jewish commerce, and poetry. Then, in the 19th century, it was revived as a spoken and literary language, and, according to Ethnologue, had become, as of 1998, the language of 5 million people worldwide. After Israel, the United States has the second largest Hebrew-speaking population, with 220,000 fluent speakers, Modern Hebrew is one of the two official languages of the State of Israel, while premodern Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world today. Ancient Hebrew is also the tongue of the Samaritans, while modern Hebrew or Arabic is their vernacular. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Leshon Hakodesh, the modern word Hebrew is derived from the word Ivri, one of several names for the Israelite people. It is traditionally understood to be a based on the name of Abrahams ancestor, Eber. This name is based upon the root ʕ-b-r meaning to cross over. Interpretations of the term ʕibrim link it to this verb, cross over, in the Bible, the Hebrew language is called Yәhudit because Judah was the surviving kingdom at the time of the quotation. In Isaiah 19,18 it is called the Language of Canaan, Hebrew belongs to the Canaanite group of languages. In turn, the Canaanite languages are a branch of the Northwest Semitic family of languages, according to Avraham ben-Yosef, Hebrew flourished as a spoken language in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah during about 1200 to 586 BCE. Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew was a vernacular in ancient times following the Babylonian exile. In July 2008 Israeli archaeologist Yossi Garfinkel discovered a ceramic shard at Khirbet Qeiyafa which he claimed may be the earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, dating around 3000 years ago. The Gezer calendar also dates back to the 10th century BCE at the beginning of the Monarchic Period, classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew, the calendar presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that through the Greeks, the Gezer calendar is written without any vowels, and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places where later Hebrew spelling requires it
4.
Bible
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The Bible is a collection of sacred texts or scriptures that Jews and Christians consider to be a product of divine inspiration and a record of the relationship between God and humans. Many different authors contributed to the Bible, what is regarded as canonical text differs depending on traditions and groups, a number of Bible canons have evolved, with overlapping and diverging contents. The Christian Old Testament overlaps with the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Septuagint, the New Testament is a collection of writings by early Christians, believed to be mostly Jewish disciples of Christ, written in first-century Koine Greek. These early Christian Greek writings consist of narratives, letters, among Christian denominations there is some disagreement about the contents of the canon, primarily the Apocrypha, a list of works that are regarded with varying levels of respect. Attitudes towards the Bible also differ amongst Christian groups and this concept arose during the Protestant Reformation, and many denominations today support the use of the Bible as the only source of Christian teaching. With estimated total sales of over 5 billion copies, the Bible is widely considered to be the book of all time. It has estimated sales of 100 million copies, and has been a major influence on literature and history, especially in the West. The English word Bible is from the Latin biblia, from the word in Medieval Latin and Late Latin. Medieval Latin biblia is short for biblia sacra holy book, while biblia in Greek and it gradually came to be regarded as a feminine singular noun in medieval Latin, and so the word was loaned as a singular into the vernaculars of Western Europe. Latin biblia sacra holy books translates Greek τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια ta biblia ta hagia, the word βιβλίον itself had the literal meaning of paper or scroll and came to be used as the ordinary word for book. It is the diminutive of βύβλος byblos, Egyptian papyrus, possibly so called from the name of the Phoenician sea port Byblos from whence Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece, the Greek ta biblia was an expression Hellenistic Jews used to describe their sacred books. Christian use of the term can be traced to c.223 CE, bruce notes that Chrysostom appears to be the first writer to use the Greek phrase ta biblia to describe both the Old and New Testaments together. The division of the Hebrew Bible into verses is based on the sof passuk cantillation mark used by the 10th-century Masoretes to record the verse divisions used in oral traditions. The oldest extant copy of a complete Bible is an early 4th-century parchment book preserved in the Vatican Library, the oldest copy of the Tanakh in Hebrew and Aramaic dates from the 10th century CE. The oldest copy of a complete Latin Bible is the Codex Amiatinus and he states that it is not a magical book, nor was it literally written by God and passed to mankind. In Christian Bibles, the New Testament Gospels were derived from traditions in the second half of the first century CE. Riches says that, Scholars have attempted to reconstruct something of the history of the oral traditions behind the Gospels, the period of transmission is short, less than 40 years passed between the death of Jesus and the writing of Marks Gospel. This means that there was time for oral traditions to assume fixed form
5.
Transjordan in the Bible
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The Transjordan is an area of land in the Southern Levant lying east of the Jordan River. The prefix trans- is Latin and means across or beyond, so Transjordan refers to the land on the side of the Jordan River. The equivalent Latin term for the west side is the Cisjordan - literally, the term used in Hebrew for the Transjordan is עבר הירדן, beyond the Jordan, occurring, for example, in Joshua. It was therefore used by people on the west side of the Jordan, per the Septuagint, the Hebrew, בעבר הירדן מזרח השמש , translit. Beyond the Jordan towards the sunrise is translated to Ancient Greek, πέραν τοῦ Ιορδάνου, péran toú Jordánou, beyond the Jordan, which was then translated to Latin, trans Iordanen, lit. Beyond the Jordan in the Vulgate Bible, however some authors give the Hebrew, עבר הירדן, translit. Beyond the Jordan, as the basis for Transjordan, which is also the modern Hebrew usage, whereas the term East as in towards the sunrise is used in Arabic, شرق الأردن, translit. The Book of Numbers tells how the tribes of Reuben and Gad came to Moses to ask if they could settle in the Transjordan. Moses is dubious, but the two promise to join in the conquest of the land, and so Moses grants them this region to live in. The half tribe of Manasseh are not mentioned until verse 33, David Jobling suggests that this is because Manasseh settled in land which previously belonged to Og, north of the Jabbok, while Reuben and Gad settled Sihons land, which lay south of the Jabbok. Since Ogs territory was not on the route to Canaan, it was more part of the Promised Land. In the Book of Joshua, Joshua affirms Moses decision, in Joshua 22, the Transjordanian tribes return, and build a massive altar by the Jordan. In response to this, the Transjordanian tribes say that the altar is not for offerings, the western tribes are satisfied, and return home. Assis argues that the dimensions of the altar suggest that it was not meant for sacrificial use. Some of these traditions provide only a picture of Israelite possessions east of the Jordan. Num 21. 21–35, for example, says only that the land the people occupied extended from Wadi Arnon to Wadi Jabbok, there is some ambiguity about the status of the Transjordan in the mind of the biblical writers. Horst Seebass argues that in Numbers one finds awareness of Transjordan as being holy to YHWH and he argues for this on the basis of the presence of the cities of refuge there, and because land taken in a holy war is always holy. Richard Hess, on the hand, asserts that the Transjordanian tribes were not in the land of promise
6.
Jordan River
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The Jordan River is a 251-kilometre -long river in the Middle East that flows roughly north to south through the Sea of Galilee and on to the Dead Sea. Israel and the West Bank border the river to the west, while the Golan Heights, both Jordan and the West Bank take their names from the river. The Jordan River has a course and a lower one. In this sense, the Jordan Valley may be separated into upper, central, over its upper course, the river drops rapidly in a 75-kilometre run to the once large and swampy Lake Hula, which is slightly above sea level. Exiting the now much diminished lake, it goes through an even steeper drop over the 25 kilometres down to the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan deposits much of the silt it is carrying within the lake, which it leaves again near its southern tip. At that point the river is situated about 210 metres below sea level, two major tributaries enter from the east during this last section, the Yarmouk River and Zarqa River. Its section north of the Sea of Galilee is within the boundaries of Israel, south of the lake, it forms the border between the Kingdom of Jordan, and Israel. The streams coming together to create the River Jordan in its basin are, west to east, Iyyon. Hasbani, a stream flows from Mount Lebanon. Dan, a stream whose source is also at the base of Mount Hermon, Banias, a stream arising from a spring at Banias at the foot of Mount Hermon. The full text of W. F. Lynchs 1849 book Narrative of the United States Expedition to the River Jordan, in 1964, Israel began operating a pumping station that diverts water from the Sea of Galilee to the National Water Carrier. Also in 1964, Jordan constructed a channel that diverted water from the Yarmouk River, another tributary of the Jordan River to the East Ghor Canal. Syria has also built reservoirs that catch the Yarmouks waters, environmentalists blame Israel, Jordan and Syria for extensive damage to the Jordan River ecosystem. In modern times, the waters are 70% to 90% used for human purposes, because of this and the high evaporation rate of the Dead Sea, as well as industrial extraction of salts through evaporation ponds, the sea is shrinking. All the shallow waters of the end of the sea have been drained in modern times and are now salt flats. A small section of the northernmost portion of the Lower Jordan, 3-kilometre below the Sea of Galilee, has been kept pristine for baptism and local tourism. Most polluted is the 100-kilometre downstream stretch—a meandering stream from above the confluence with the Yarmouk to the Dead Sea, environmentalists say the practice of letting sewage and brackish water flow into the river has almost destroyed its ecosystem. Rescuing the Jordan could take decades, according to environmentalists, the same environmentalist organization had said in a report that the Jordan River could dry up by 2011 unless the decay is stopped
7.
Tribe of Reuben
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According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Reuben was one of the twelve tribes of Israel. From after the conquest of the land under Joshua until the formation of the first Kingdom of Israel in c.1050 BC, no central government existed, and in times of crisis the people were led by ad hoc leaders known as Judges. According to the Book of Chronicles, Adina and thirty Reubenites aided David as members of his mighty warriors in conquering the City of David. However, on the accession of Rehoboam, Davids grandson, in c.930 BC the northern tribes split from the House of David to reform a Kingdom of Israel as the Northern Kingdom. Reuben was a member of the kingdom until the kingdom was conquered by Assyria in c.723 BC, from that time, the Tribe of Reuben has been counted as one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. According to Kenneth Kitchen, following the completion of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelite tribes after about 1200 BC, however, almost all scholars have abandoned the idea that Joshua carried out a conquest of Canaan similar to that described in the Book of Joshua. In the case of the Tribes of Reuben, Gad and Menasheh, Moses allocated land to them on the side of the Jordan River. On that basis, some have suggested that the territory of Reuben was an enclave in the territory of Gad. According to the Torah, the tribe consisted of descendants of Reuben, the first son of Jacob, however, Peakes commentary viewed this as a postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation. The territory of Reuben encapsulated the territory of the kingdom of Sihon. As part of the Kingdom of Israel, the territory of Reuben was conquered by the Assyrians, and the tribe exiled, Israel The Making of the Pentateuch This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Easton, Matthew George
8.
Tribe of Gad
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According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Gad was one of the tribes of Israel who, after the Exodus from Egypt, settled on the eastern side of the Jordan River. From after the conquest of the land by Joshua until the formation of the first Kingdom of Israel in c.1050 BC, no central government existed, and in times of crisis the people were led by ad hoc leaders known as Judges. However, on the accession of Rehoboam, Davids grandson, in c.930 BC the northern tribes split from the House of David to reform a Kingdom of Israel as the Northern Kingdom. Gad was a member of the kingdom until the kingdom was conquered by Assyria in c.723 BC, from that time then, the Tribe of Gad has been counted as one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Following the completion of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelite tribes after about 1200 BCE, however, in the case of the Tribes of Gad, Reuben and Menasheh, Moses allocated land to them on the eastern side of the Jordan River and the Dead Sea. The Tribe of Gad was allocated a region to the east of the River Jordan, according to the Torah, the tribe were descendants of Gad the seventh son of Jacob, from whom it took its name. However, some Biblical scholars view this also as a postdiction, furthermore, the Moabite Stone seemingly differentiates between the kingdom of Israel and the tribe of Gad, presenting Gad as predating Israel in the lands east of the Jordan. These details seems to indicate that Gad was originally a nomadic tribe. Though initially forming part of the Kingdom of Israel, from the biblical account it appears that under Uzziah and Jotham the tribe of Gad joined with the kingdom of Judah instead. The manner of the led to the further history of the tribe being lost
9.
Tribe of Manasseh
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According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Manasseh was one of the Tribes of Israel. Together with the Tribe of Ephraim, Manasseh also formed the House of Joseph, no central government existed, and in times of crisis the people were led by ad hoc leaders known as Judges. However, on the accession of Rehoboam, Davids grandson, in c.930 BC the northern tribes split from the House of David to reform a Kingdom of Israel as the Northern Kingdom. Manasseh was a member of the kingdom until the kingdom was conquered by Assyria in c.723 BC, from that time, the Tribe of Manasseh has been counted as one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, though some groups claim descent from the tribe. The Bible records that following the completion of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelite tribes, according to biblical scholar Kenneth Kitchen, this conquest should be dated slightly after 1200 BCE. However, the consensus of scholars is that the conquest of Joshua as described in the Book of Joshua never occurred. In c.732 BCE, Pekah, king of Israel allied with Rezin, king of Aram, ahaz, king of Judah, appealed to Tiglath-Pileser III, the king of Assyria, for help. The population of these territories were taken captive and resettled in Assyria, the diminished kingdom of Israel was again invaded by Assyria in 723 BCE and the rest of the population deported. The riverine gulch, naḥal Ḳanah, divided Ephraims territory in the south from Manassehs territory in the north, the modern Israeli town of Karnei Shomron is built near this gulch, which runs in an easterly-westerly direction. According to the Torah, the tribe consisted of descendants of Manasseh, here the blessing of the first son was conferred by a grandfather rather than by the father, despite prevailing custom. From this it is regarded that originally Ephraim and Manasseh were considered one tribe - that of Joseph. As part of the Kingdom of Israel, the territory of Manasseh was conquered by the Assyrians, and the tribe exiled, however, several modern day groups claim descent, with varying levels of academic and rabbinical support. The Samaritans claim that some of their adherents are descended from this tribe, from 2006 to 2012 Richard Hewitt presented several essays at academic conferences in Kyrgyzstan linking the Kyrgyz hero Manas son of Jakyp to biblical Manasseh son of Jacob. Hewitt also visited Dr. Milui Lenthang Khuplam of the Kuki-Chin-Mizo, additionally, Manasseh is absent from the poem, in the Elohist texts Manasseh is also frequently absent, while Machir is mentioned. Additionally Machir is described as settling on the east of the Jordan, critical scholars argue that the two halves had different origins noting that in the Book of Chronicles that the western half tribe and eastern half tribe historically had separate tribal rulers. Joseph This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Easton
10.
Aramaic
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Aramaic is a language or group of languages belonging to the Semitic subfamily of the Afroasiatic language family. More specifically, it is part of the Northwest Semitic group, the Aramaic alphabet was widely adopted for other languages and is ancestral to the Hebrew, Syriac and Arabic alphabets. During its approximately 3000 years of history, Aramaic has served variously as a language of administration of empires, therefore, there is not one singular, static Aramaic language, each time and place rather has had its own variation. The Aramaic languages are now considered endangered, Aram is used as a proper name of several people in the Torah including descendants of Shem, Nahor, and Jacob. Ancient Aram, bordering northern Israel and now called Syria, is considered the epicenter of Aramaic. The language is often considered to have originated within Assyria. Interestingly, the Christian New Testament, for which the constituent texts are written in Koine Greek. The Hellenized Jewish community of Alexandria instead translated Aramaic to the Syrian tongue, a related language, Mlahsô, has recently become extinct. Mandaeans living in the Khuzestan Province of Iran and scattered throughout Iraq and it is quite distinct from any other Aramaic variety. Central Neo-Aramaic consists of Turoyo and the recently extinct Mlahsô, very little remains of Western Aramaic. All these speakers of Modern Western Aramaic are fluent in Arabic, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic and Samaritan Aramaic are preserved in liturgical and literary usage. Each dialect of Aramaic has its own pronunciation, and it would not be feasible here to go into all these properties. Aramaic has a palette of 25 to 40 distinct phonemes. The open vowel is an open near-front unrounded vowel and it usually has a back counterpart, and a front counterpart. There is much correspondence between these vowels between dialects, there is some evidence that Middle Babylonian dialects did not distinguish between the short a and short e. In West Syriac dialects, and possibly Middle Galilean, the long a became the o sound, the open e and back a are often indicated in writing by the use of the letters א alaph or ה he. The close front vowel is the long i and it has a slightly more open counterpart, the long e, as in the final vowel of café. Both of these have shorter counterparts, which tend to be pronounced more open
11.
Zarqa River
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The Zarqa River is the second largest tributary of the lower Jordan River, after the Yarmouk River. It is the third largest river in the region by annual discharge and it rises in springs near Amman, and flows through a deep and broad valley into the Jordan, at an elevation 1,090 metres lower. The river is polluted and its restoration is one of the top priorities for the Jordanian Ministry of the Environment. The Zarqa River is commonly identified with the biblical Jabbok River, geologically, the Zarqa River is about 30 million years old. At the rivers origin is Ain Ghazal, an archaeological site that dates back to the Neolithic. Archeological finds along the course of the river indicate the area was rich in flora, the Zarqa River is well known for its amber deposits that date back to the Hauterivian era of the Early Cretaceous. A remarkable flora and fauna was reported from this amber reflecting tropical paleoenvironmental conditions prevailing during the time of resin deposition, the modern Arabic name, Nahr az-Zarqa means the blue river, where nahr means river and zarqa means blue. The Zarqa River is identified with the biblical river Jabbok, the Biblical Jacob crossed the Jabbok on his way to Canaan, after leaving Harran. It leads west into the Sukkot Valley, from where one crosses over the Jordan and can easily reach Shechem, the biblical cities of Zaretan and Adam are also at the mouth of the valley. The river is first mentioned in connection with the meeting of Jacob and Esau and it was the boundary separating the territory of Reuben and Gad from that of Ammon, the latter being described as lying along the Jabbok. The territory of Sihon is described as extending from Arnon unto Jabbok, eusebius places the river between Gerasa and Philadelphia. The headwaters of the Zarqa begin just northeast of Amman, rising from a spring named Ain Ghazal, the river flows to the north before heading west. At its higher reaches, the banks are mostly steep. Near Ain Ghazal, two tributary wadis join the river, and it opens up into a shallow basin and it forms the border between the Jordanian administrative regions of Irbid and Balqa Governorate. This makes it the second largest tributary of the lower Jordan River, after the Yarmouk River, irregular floods after rain storms may increase the flow to as much as 54 million cubic meters. The median annual flow is 63.3 million cubic meters, the total basin area is 3,900 km2 the largest in Jordan. A small dam, Al-Rwyha dam, near the village of Dayr Alla, marks the end of the portion of the river. There is very little agriculture along the banks of the river in this region, when built, it was expected that the reservoir would supply water for municipal use in the Amman region
12.
Jacob
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Jacob, later given the name Israel, is regarded as a Patriarch of the Israelites. According to the Book of Genesis, Jacob was the third Hebrew progenitor with whom God made a covenant and he is the son of Isaac and Rebecca, the grandson of Abraham, Sarah and Bethuel, the nephew of Ishmael, and the younger twin brother of Esau. Jacob had twelve sons and at least one daughter, by his two wives, Leah and Rachel, and by their handmaidens Bilhah and Zilpah. Jacobs twelve sons, named in Genesis, were Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph and his only daughter mentioned in Genesis is Dinah. The twelve sons became the progenitors of the Tribes of Israel, as a result of a severe drought in Canaan, Jacob and his sons moved to Egypt at the time when his son Joseph was viceroy. Jacob is mentioned in a number of sacred scriptures, including the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, the New Testament, the Quran, hadith, Baháí scripture, and the Book of Mormon. According to the folk etymology found in Genesis 25,26, according to Jan Fokkelman, the name is a shortened version of Yaaqob-el, meaning God may protect. The Hebrew Bible says at Genesis 32, 28-29 and 35,10, etymologically, it has been suggested that the name Israel comes from the Hebrew words לִשְׂרות and אֵל. Popular English translations typically reference the face off with God, ranging from wrestles with God to God contends, some commentators say the name comes from the verb śārar, thereby making the name mean God rules or God judges, or the prince of God or El fights/struggles. The biblical account of the life of Jacob is found in the Book of Genesis, Jacob and his twin brother, Esau, were born to Isaac and Rebecca after 20 years of marriage, when Isaac was 60 years of age. Rebekah was uncomfortable during her pregnancy and went to inquire of God why she was suffering and she received the prophecy that twins were fighting in her womb and would continue to fight all their lives, even after they became two separate nations. According to Genesis 25,25, Isaac and Rebecca named the first son Hebrew, עשו, the second son they named יעקב, Jacob. The boys displayed very different natures as they matured. and Esau was a hunter, a man of the field. Moreover, the attitudes of their parents toward them also differed, And Isaac loved Esau because he did eat of his venison, Genesis 25, 29-34 tells the account of Esau selling his birthright to Jacob. This passage tells that Esau, returning famished from the fields, Jacob offered to give Esau a bowl of stew in exchange for his birthright, to which Esau agreed. As Isaac aged, he became blind and was uncertain when he would die and he requested that Esau go out to the fields with his weapons to kill some venison. Isaac then requested that Esau make savory meat for him out of the venison, according to the way he enjoyed it the most, so that he could eat it and bless Esau. It is suggested that she realized prophetically that Isaacs blessings would go to Jacob, Rebecca blessed Jacob and she quickly ordered Jacob to bring her two kid goats from their flock so that he could take Esaus place in serving Isaac and receiving his blessing
13.
Laban (Bible)
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Laban is the son of Bethuel and the brother of Rebecca as described in the Book of Genesis. As such he is brother-in-law to Isaac and both father-in-law and uncle to Jacob, Laban and his family were described as dwelling in Paddan Aram, in Mesopotamia. Twenty years later, Labans nephew Jacob was born to Isaac, when grown, Jacob comes to work for Laban. Subtracting yields an age of 77, Laban was more than 30 years older than Jacob, and employed him for 20 years. Laban promised his younger daughter Rachel to Jacob in return for seven years service, Jacob then served another seven years in exchange for the right to marry his choice, Rachel, as well. Labans flocks and fortunes increased under Jacobs skilled care, but there was further trickery between them. Six years after his service has ended, Jacob, having prospered largely by proving more cunning than his father-in-law. Laban pursued him, but they parted on good terms. Laban can be seen as symbolizing those whose concern for the welfare of their family, nominally a virtue, is taken to the point where it has lasting negative ramifications. Laban is referenced significantly in the Passover Haggadah, in the context of the answer to the traditional childs question, Why is this night different from all other nights. There may also be a play on words here, using arami in two senses – as both arami, an Aramean, and rama′i, a deceiver, since Laban cheated Jacob, in this interpretation, arami personifies the Israelite peoplesꞌs bitter enemy. The question of what the connection is between the apparently disjoint tales of Laban and Pharaoh is interpreted in several ways by rabbinical authorities, rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer explains in his Hukkat HaPesach that Laban was, in fact, the primum mobile of the entire Exile and Exodus saga. Rachel was Jacobs divinely intended wife and could hypothetically have given birth to Joseph as Jacobs firstborn with rights of primogeniture. In this counterfactual, Jacobs favoring Josephs succession as the leader of the nation of Israel would have been seen as perfectly normal and fitting. No older brothers would have cheated and jealous, and Joseph would not have been sold into slavery. Thus, there would have no need for Jacobs family to be sent to Egypt to unite with Joseph. Afterward they shall come out with great wealth, Jacob lived in the strange land of Aram, served Laban, and was afflicted by him, then he left with great wealth and returned to the Promised Land
14.
Bible translations into English
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Partial Bible translations into languages of the English people can be traced back to the late 7th century, including translations into Old and Middle English. More than 450 translations into English have been written, the New Revised Standard Version is the version most commonly preferred by biblical scholars. Although John Wycliffe is often credited with the first translation of the Bible into English, there were, in fact, the English Bible was first translated from the Latin Vulgate into Old English by a few select monks and scholars. Such translations were generally in the form of prose or as interlinear glosses, very few complete translations existed during that time. Rather, most of the books of the Bible existed separately and were read as individual texts, thus, the sense of the Bible as history that often exists today did not exist at that time. Instead, a rendering of the Bible was more common. Toward the end of the 7th century, the Venerable Bede began a translation of scripture into Old English, aldhelm translated the complete Book of Psalms and large portions of other scriptures into Old English. This is the oldest extant translation of the Gospels into the English language, the Wessex Gospels are a full translation of the four gospels into a West Saxon dialect of Old English. Produced in approximately 990, they are the first translation of all four gospels into English without the Latin text, in the 11th century, Abbot Ælfric translated much of the Old Testament into Old English. The Ormulum is in Middle English of the 12th century, like its Old English precursor from Ælfric, an Abbot of Eynsham, it includes very little Biblical text, and focuses more on personal commentary. This style was adopted by many of the original English translators, for example, the story of the Wedding at Cana is almost 800 lines long, but fewer than 40 lines are the actual translation of the text. An unusual characteristic is that the translation mimics Latin verse, and so is similar to the known and appreciated 14th-century English poem. Richard Rolle wrote an English Psalter, many religious works are attributed to Rolle, but it has been questioned how many are genuinely from his hand. Many of his works were concerned with personal devotion, and some were used by the Lollards, the 14th century theologian John Wycliffe is credited with translating what is now known as Wycliffes Bible, though it is not clear how much of the translation he himself did. This translation came out in two different versions, the earlier text is characterised by a strong adherence to the word order of Latin, and might have been difficult for the layperson to comprehend. The later text made more concessions to the grammar of English. Early Modern English Bible translations are of between about 1500 and 1800, the period of Early Modern English and this, the first major period of Bible translation into the English language, began with the introduction of the Tyndale Bible. The first complete edition of his New Testament was in 1526, Tyndale used the Greek and Hebrew texts of the New Testament and Old Testament in addition to Jeromes Latin translation
15.
Book of Judges
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The Book of Judges is the seventh book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible. Judges can be divided into three sections, a double prologue, a main body, and a double epilogue. The book opens with the Israelites in the land which God has promised to them but worshiping foreign gods instead of Yahweh, the God of Israel, and with the Canaanites still present everywhere. Chapters 1, 1–2,5 are thus a confession of failure while chapters 2, 6–3,6 are a major summary and reflection from the Deuteronomists. Once peace was regained, for a time Israel does right and receives Yahwehs blessings, only to relapse later into doing evil, Judges follows on from the Book of Joshua and opens with reference to Joshuas death. The Israelites meet, most likely at the sanctuary at Gilgal or at Shechem, the cyclic pattern set out in the prologue is readily apparent at the beginning, but as the stories progress it begins to disintegrate, mirroring the disintegration of the world of the Israelites. The stories are not presented in order, but the judges as they appear in the text are, Othniel vs. Chushan-Rishathaim, King of Aram. Some scholars have inferred that the judges were actual adjudicators, whereas the major judges were leaders. The only time a judge is said to have made legal judgments was Deborah. Despite their appearance at the end of the book, certain characters, early in the period of the judges. Judges contains a chronology of its events and it is overtly schematic and, according to biblical scholar Jeremy Hughes, shows signs of having been introduced at a later period. The basic source for Judges was a collection of connected stories about tribal heroes who saved the people in battle. A statement repeated throughout the book, In those days there was no king in Israel implies a date in the monarchy for the redaction editing) of Judges. Since the second half of the 20th century most scholars have agreed with Martin Noths thesis that the books of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings form parts of a single work. Noth believed that history was the work of a single author, living in the mid-6th century BCE. After a period of peace, the cycle recurs, further themes are also present, the sovereign freedom of Yahweh, the satirisation of foreign kings, the concept of the flawed agent and the disunity of the Israelite community. Although Judges probably had a monarchist redaction, the book contains passages and themes that represent anti-monarchist views, one of the major themes of the book is Yahwehs sovereignty and the importance of being loyal to Him and His laws above all other gods and sovereigns. Indeed, the authority of the judges comes not through prominent dynasties nor through elections or appointments, anti-monarchist theology is most apparent toward the end of the Gideon cycle in which the Israelites beg Gideon to create a dynastic monarchy over them and Gideon refuses
16.
Biblical judges
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A Biblical judge was a ruler or a military leader as well as someone who presided over legal hearings. These judges appear most often in the Book of Judges, which is named after them, kenneth Kitchen argues that following the conquest of Canaan by Joshua until the formation of the first Kingdom of Israel and Judah, the Israelite tribes formed a loose confederation. No central government existed in this confederation, in times of crisis, however, almost all scholars have abandoned the idea that Joshua carried out a conquest of Canaan similar to that described in the Book of Joshua. Likewise, there is considerable doubt among scholars that a period resembling the one described in the Book of Judges ever existed in ancient Israel. Moses was a shofet over the Israelites and appointed others to whom cases were delegated in accordance with the advice of Jethro, his Midianite father-in-law. The Book of Judges mentions twelve leaders who judged Israel, Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, Deborah, Gideon, Tola, Jair, Jephthah, Ibzan, Elon, Abdon, the First Book of Samuel mentions Eli and Samuel, as well as Joel and Abiah. The First Book of Chronicles mentions Kenaniah and his sons, the Second Book of Chronicles mentions Amariah and Zebadiah. The biblical text does not generally describe these leaders as a judge, thus, Othniel judged Israel, Tola judged Israel twenty-three years, and Jair judged Israel twenty-two years. This is most likely not the case though as if all the figures given in Judges are treated as consecutive, however, Cyrus H. Gordon argued that they were normally from among the hereditary leaders of the fighting, landed and ruling aristocracy, like the kings in Homer. The shoftim many times played the role as an official with the authority to administer justice, most shoftim acted primarily as military leaders in times of war. The leaders were thought of as being sent by God to deliver the people from a threat, after the threat had passed, shoftim were generally expected to give up their position as military leaders. In accordance with the needs of the time, their functions were primarily martial and judicial, all biblical Judges performed judicial duties and the institution of Judges was separated from the institute of King. Shophet Moses Book of Judges Book of Samuel This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Herbermann, Charles. Judges Boling, Robert G. revised by Richard D. Nelson, The Harper Collins Study Bible, Book of Judges, Harper Collins Publishers,2006 Malamat, givatayim, Israel, Rutgers University Press,1971. A Brief Introduction to the Old Testament, Oxford University Press,2009 Wolf, the Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, Judge, Abingdon Press,1962
17.
First Book of Chronicles
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In the Hebrew Bible, Chronicles is a single book, called Diḇrê Hayyāmîm, and is the final book of Ketuvim, the third and last part of the Tanakh. Chronicles was divided into two books in the Septuagint and called I and II Paralipoménōn, the English name comes from the Latin name chronikon, which was given to the text by scholar Jerome in the 5th century. Chronicles present the narrative from the first human being, Adam, through the history of ancient Judah. The Chronicles narrative begins with Adam and the story is carried forward, almost entirely by genealogical lists. The bulk of the remainder of 1 Chronicles, after an account of Saul, is concerned with the reign of David. The next long section concerns Davids son Solomon, and the part is concerned with the Kingdom of Judah with occasional references to the second kingdom of Israel. Originally a single work, Chronicles was divided into two in the Septuagint, a Greek translation produced in the immediately preceding Jesus. Within this broad structure there are signs that the author has used various devices to structure his work. The last events in Chronicles take place in the reign of Cyrus the Great, the Persian king who conquered Babylon in 539 BC and it was probably composed between 400–250 BC, with the period 350–300 BC the most likely. The latest person mentioned in Chronicles is Anani, a descendant of King Jehoiachin according to the Masoretic Text. Ananis birth would likely have been sometime between 425 and 400 BC, the Septuagint gives an additional five generations in the genealogy of Anani. For those scholars who side with the Septuagints reading, Ananis likely date of birth is a century later, Chronicles appears to be largely the work of a single individual, with some later additions and editing. The writer was probably male, probably a Levite, and probably from Jerusalem and he was well read, a skilled editor, and a sophisticated theologian. His intention was to use Israels past to convey messages to his peers. One of the most striking, although inconclusive, features of Chronicles is that its closing sentence is repeated as the opening of Ezra–Nehemiah. The last half of the 20th century saw a radical reappraisal, despite much discussion of this issue, no agreement has been reached. Recent suggestions have been that it was intended as a clarification of the history in Genesis-Kings, the message which the author wished to give to his audience was this, God is active in history, and especially the history of Israel. The faithfulness or sins of individual kings are immediately rewarded or punished by God, God calls Israel to a special relationship
18.
Moab
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Moab is the historical name for a mountainous tract of land in Jordan. The land lies alongside much of the shore of the Dead Sea. The existence of the Kingdom of Moab is attested to by numerous archaeological findings, most notably the Mesha Stele, according to the Hebrew Bible, Moab was often in conflict with its Israelite neighbours to the west. Moab occupied a plateau about 3,000 feet above the level of the Mediterranean, or 4,300 feet above the Dead Sea, the northern boundary varied, but generally is represented by a line drawn some miles above the northern extremity of the Dead Sea. In Ezekiel 25,9 the boundaries are given as being marked by Beth-jeshimoth, Baal-meon, the principal rivers of Moab mentioned in the Bible are the Arnon, the Dimon or Dibon, and the Nimrim. The limestone hills which form the almost treeless plateau are generally steep, in the spring they are covered with grass and the table-land itself produces grain. In the north are a number of long, deep ravines, the rainfall is fairly plentiful and the climate, despite the hot summer, is cooler than the area west of the Jordan river, snow falling frequently in winter and in spring. The plateau is dotted with hundreds of dolmens, menhirs, and stone circles, the land is now occupied chiefly by Bedouin, though it contains such towns as al-Karak. The country of Moab was the source of natural resources, including limestone, salt. The Moabites occupied a place along the Kings Highway, the ancient trade route connecting Egypt with Mesopotamia, Syria. Like the Edomites and Ammonites, trade along this route gave them considerable revenue, the Moabites likely settled in the Transjordanian highlands. Whether they were among the nations referred to in the Egyptian language as Shutu or Shasu is a matter of debate among scholars. According to the account, Moab and Ammon were born to Lot and Lots elder and younger daughters, respectively, in the aftermath of the destruction of Sodom. The Bible refers to both the Moabites and Ammonites as Lots sons, born of incest with his daughters and these Amorites, described in the Bible as being ruled by King Sihon, confined the Moabites to the country south of the river Arnon, which formed their northern boundary. God renewed his covenant with the Israelites at Moab before the Israelites entered the promised land, Moses died there, prevented by God from entering the promised land. He was buried in a location in Moab and the Israelites spent a period of thirty days there in mourning. According to the Book of Judges, the Israelites did not pass through the land of the Moabites, after the conquest of Canaan the relations of Moab with Israel were of a mixed character, sometimes warlike and sometimes peaceable. With the tribe of Benjamin they had at least one severe struggle, in union with their kindred the Ammonites and the Amalekites
19.
Ammon
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Ammon was an Iron Age Semitic-speaking nation occupying the east of the Jordan River, between the torrent valleys of Arnon and Jabbok, in present-day Jordan. The chief city of the country was Rabbah or Rabbath Ammon, site of the city of Amman. Milcom and Molech are named in the Hebrew Bible as the gods of Ammon, the people of this kingdom are called Children of Ammon or Ammonites. The first mention of the Ammonites in the Bible is in Genesis 19 and it is stated there that they descended from Ben-Ammi, a son of Lot through incest with his younger daughter. Bénámmî, literally son of my people. After the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the daughters of Lot had sexual relations with their father, resulting in Ammon and his brother, Moab, being conceived. The Ammonites settled to the east of the Jordan, invading the Rephaim lands east of Jordan and their territory originally comprising all from the Jordan to the wilderness, and from the River Jabbok south to the River Arnon. It was accounted a land of giants, and that formerly dwelt in it. Shortly before the Israelite Exodus, the Amorites west of Jordan, under King Sihon, invaded and occupied a portion of the territory of Moab. The Ammonites were driven from the lands near the Jordan and retreated to the mountains. The invasion of the Amorites created a wedge and separated the two kingdoms of Ammon and Moab, throughout the Bible, the Ammonites and Israelites are portrayed as mutual antagonists. During the Exodus, the Israelites were prohibited by the Ammonites from passing through their lands, the Ammonites soon allied themselves with Eglon of Moab in attacking Israel. The Ammonites maintained their claim to part of Transjordan, after it was occupied by the Israelites who obtained it from Sihon, during the days of Jephthah, the Ammonites occupied the lands east of the River Jordan and started to invade Israelite lands west of the river. Jephthah became the leader in resisting these incursions, the constant harassment of the Israelite communities east of the Jordan by the Ammonites was the impetus behind the unification of the tribes under Saul. King Nahash of Ammon lay siege to Jabesh-Gilead, eventually this led to an alliance with Saul and The Israelites, led by Saul relieved the siege and defeated the Ammonite king, eventually resulting in the formation of the Israelite Kingdom. During the reign of King David, the Ammonites humiliated Davids messengers and this eventually ended in a war and a year-long siege of Rabbah, the capital of Ammon. The war ended all the Ammonite cities being conquered and plundered. The Ammonites, Moabites and Meunim formed a coalition against Jehoshaphat of Judah, the coalition later was thrown to confusion, with the armies slaughtering one another
20.
Og
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Og according to The Torah, was an Amorite king of Bashan who, along with his army, was slain by Moses and his men at the battle of Edrei. In Arabic literature he is referred to as ‘Uj ibn Anaq, Og is introduced in the Book of Numbers. Moses speaks, The LORD said to me, Do not be afraid of him, for I have handed him over to you with his whole army, do to him what you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon. So the LORD our God also gave into our hands Og king of Bashan and we struck them down, leaving no survivors. At that time we took all his cities, there was not one of the sixty cities that we did not take from them—the whole region of Argob, destroying every city, men, women and children. But all the livestock and the plunder from their cities we carried off for ourselves,3,11 and later in the book of Numbers and Joshua, Og is called the last of the Rephaim. Rephaim is a Hebrew word for giants,3,11 declares that his bedstead of iron is nine cubits in length and four cubits in width, which is 13.5 ft by 6 ft according to the standard cubit of a man. It goes on to say that at the city of Rabbah of the Ammonites. If the giant kings bedstead was built in proportion to his size as most beds are, however, later Rabbinic tradition has it, that the length of his bedstead was measured with the cubits of Og himself. The Lord caused a swarm of ants to dig away the center of the mountain, the mountain then fell onto Ogs shoulders. As Og attempted to lift the mountain off himself, the Lord caused Ogs teeth to lengthen outward, becoming embedded into the mountain that was now surrounding his head. Moses, fulfilling the LORDs injunction not to him, seized a stick of ten cubits length. Og fell down and died upon hitting the ground and it is noteworthy that the region north of the river Jabbok, or Bashan, the land of Rephaim, contains hundreds of megalithic stone tombs dating from the 5th to 3rd millennia BC. In 1918, Gustav Dalman discovered in the neighborhood of Amman Jordan a noteworthy dolmen which matched the approximate dimensions of Ogs bed as described in the Bible. A reference to Og appears in a Phoenician inscription from Byblos published in 1974 by Wolfgang Rölling in Eine neue phoenizische Inschrift aus Byblos. It appears in a damaged 7-line funerary inscription that Rölling dates to around 500 BC, and appears to say if someone disturbs the bones of the occupant. A possible connection to Og and the Rephaim kings of Bashan can also be made with the much older Canaanite Ugaritic text KTU1.108 from the 13th century B. C, the clay tablet from Ugarit KTU1. And may Anat the power<ful> drink, the mistress of kingship, the mistress of dominion, jethro of the Bible also appears to have Midianite connections
21.
Yarmouk River
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The Yarmuk River, sometimes spelled Yarmouk, is the largest tributary of the Jordan River. It runs in Jordan, Syria, and Israel and drains much of the Hauran plateau and its main tributaries are the wadis of Allan and Ruqqad from the north, Ehreir and Zeizun from the east. Although it is narrow and shallow throughout its course, at its mouth it is nearly as wide as the Jordan, measuring thirty feet in breadth, the once celebrated Matthew Bridge used to cross the Yarmuk at its confluence with the Jordan. The Yarmukian Culture is a Pottery Neolithic culture that inhabited parts of Palestine and its type site is at Shaar HaGolan, on the river mouth. Early Bronze Age I is represented in the Golan only in the area of the river, Yarmuk forms a natural border between the plains to the north - Hauran, Bashan and Golan - and the Gilead mountains to the south. Thus it has served as boundary line between political entities. The Aramean kingdoms and the Kingdom of Israel, of the Hebrew bible, under the Assyrian and Persian empires the province of Ashteroth Karnaim laid to the north, and that of Galazu to the south. In Hellenistic times, the territory of Hippos was across from those of Gadara and Abila on the south, Abila is attested in the 14th-century BC Amarna Letters. This is possibly the case also for Geshur, assumed to have laid north of the river, other historical cities on the course of the river are Daraa, Heet, Jalin, and the archaeological sites of Tell Shihab and Khirbet ed-Duweir. The Battle of Yarmouk, where Muslim forces defeated those of the Byzantine Empire and gained control of Syria, today the lower part of the river, close to the Jordan Valley, forms part of the border between Israel and Jordan. Further upstream it forms part of the border between Syria and Jordan, the area of Al-Hamma, or Hamat Gader in the valley is held by Israel but claimed by Syria. A fork of the Hejaz Railway ran in the valley from 1905 to 1946. It was deprecated after being bombed by the Jewish Haganah in the Night of the Bridges on 16 June 1946, the hydroplant of Naharayim, on the junction with Jordan River, served Mandatory Palestine from 1932 to 1948. The Al-Wehda Dam was constructed in Jordan and Syria in the 2000s and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Singer, Isidore, et al. eds. New York, Funk & Wagnalls Company
22.
Sea of Galilee
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The Sea of Galilee, also Kinneret, Lake of Gennesaret, or Lake Tiberias, is a large freshwater lake in Israel. It is approximately 53 km in circumference, about 21 km long and its area is 166.7 km2 at its fullest, and its maximum depth is approximately 43 m. At levels between 215 metres and 209 metres below sea level, it is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth, the lake is fed partly by underground springs although its main source is the Jordan River which flows through it from north to south. The Sea of Galilee is situated in northeast Israel, between the Golan Heights and the Galilee region, in the Jordan Rift Valley, the caused by the separation of the African and Arabian Plates. Consequently, the area is subject to earthquakes, and in the past and this is evident by the abundant basalt and other igneous rocks that define the geology of the Galilee. The lake has been called by different names throughout its history, with changing fate of the towns, the lakes name also changed. This name was found in the scripts of Ugarit, in the Aqhat Epic. Kinneret was listed among the cities in Joshua 19,35. A persistent, though likely erroneous popular etymology of the name presumes that the name Kinneret may originate from the Hebrew word kinnor, the scholarly consensus though is that the origin of the name lies with the important Bronze and Iron Age city of Kinneret, excavated at Tell el-Oreimeh. However, there is no evidence that the city of Kinneret itself was not named after the body of water rather than vice versa, or for the origin of the towns name. Sea of Ginosar The Babylonian Talmud, as well as Flavius Josephus mention the sea by the name Sea of Ginosar after the fertile plain of Ginosar that lies on its western side. Ginosar is yet another name derived from Kinneret, Sea of Tiberias is also the name mentioned in Roman texts and in the Jerusalem Talmud, and was adopted into Arabic as Buhairet Tabariyya, Lake Tiberias. This is the name employed by the medieval Persian and Arab scholars Al-Baladhuri, Al-Tabari, in 1989 remains of a hunter-gatherer site were found under the water at the southern end. Remains of mud huts were found which are the oldest known buildings in the world, the Sea of Galilee lies on the ancient Via Maris, which linked Egypt with the northern empires. The Greeks, Hasmoneans, and Romans founded flourishing towns and settlements on the lake including Hippos. The first-century historian Flavius Josephus was so impressed by the area that he wrote, Josephus also reported a thriving fishing industry at this time, with 230 boats regularly working in the lake. Archaeologists discovered one such boat, nicknamed the Jesus Boat, in 1986, much of the ministry of Jesus occurred on the shores of Lake Galilee. In those days, there was a ribbon development of settlements and villages around the lake and plenty of trade
23.
Dead Sea
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The Dead Sea, is a salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east and Israel and Palestine to the west. Its surface and shores are 430.5 metres below sea level, the Dead Sea is 304 m deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world. With 34. 2% salinity, it is 9.6 times as salty as the ocean and this salinity makes for a harsh environment in which plants and animals cannot flourish, hence its name. The Dead Sea is 50 kilometres long and 15 kilometres wide at its widest point and it lies in the Jordan Rift Valley and its main tributary is the Jordan River. The Dead Sea has attracted visitors from around the Mediterranean basin for thousands of years and it was one of the worlds first health resorts, and it has been the supplier of a wide variety of products, from asphalt for Egyptian mummification to potash for fertilizers. People also use the salt and the minerals from the Dead Sea to create cosmetics, the Dead Sea water has a density of 1.24 kg/litre, which makes swimming similar to floating. The Dead Sea is receding at an alarming rate, multiple canals and pipelines were proposed to reduce its recession, which had begun causing many problems. The Red Sea–Dead Sea Water Conveyance project, carried out by Jordan, will provide water to neighboring countries, the first phase of the project is scheduled to begin in 2018 and be completed in 2021. In Hebrew, the Dead Sea is Yām ha-Melaḥ, meaning sea of salt, the Bible uses this term alongside two others, the Sea of the Arabah, and the Eastern Sea. The designation Dead Sea never appears in the Bible, in prose sometimes the term Yām ha-Māvet is used, due to the scarcity of aquatic life there. In Arabic the Dead Sea is called al-Bahr al-Mayyit, or less commonly baḥrᵘ lūṭᵃ, another historic name in Arabic was the Sea of Zoʼar, after a nearby town in biblical times. The Greeks called it Lake Asphaltites, the Dead Sea is an endorheic lake located in the Jordan Rift Valley, a geographic feature formed by the Dead Sea Transform. This left lateral-moving transform fault lies along the plate boundary between the African Plate and the Arabian Plate. It runs between the East Anatolian Fault zone in Turkey and the end of the Red Sea Rift offshore of the southern tip of Sinai. It is here that the Upper Jordan River/Sea of Galilee/Lower Jordan River water system comes to an end. The Jordan River is the major water source flowing into the Dead Sea, although there are small perennial springs under and around the Dead Sea, forming pools. The Mujib River, biblical Arnon, is one the larger sources of the Dead Sea other than the Jordan. The Wadi Mujib valley,420 m below the sea level in the southern of Jordan valley, is a biosphere reserve, other more substantial sources are Wadi Darajeh /Nahal Dragot, and Nahal Arugot
24.
Book of Hosea
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The Book of Hosea is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible. According to the order of most Hebrew Bibles, it is the first of the twelve Minor Prophets. According to the narrative, the relationship between Hosea and his unfaithful wife Gomer is comparable to the relationship between Yahweh and his unfaithful people Israel. The eventual reconciliation of Hosea and Gomer is treated as a metaphor for the eventual reconciliation between Yahweh and Israel. Hosea prophesied during a dark and melancholic era of Israels history, the apostasy of the people was rampant, having turned away from God in order to serve both the calves of Jeroboam and Baal, a Canaanite god. During Hoseas lifetime, the kings of the Northern Kingdom, their supporters. Forsaking the worship of God, they worshiped other gods, especially Baal, the Canaanite storm god, and Asherah, other sins followed, including homicide, perjury, theft, and sexual sin. Hosea declares that unless they repent of sins, God will allow their nation to be destroyed, and the people will be taken into captivity by Assyria. The prophecy of Hosea centers around Gods unending love towards a sinful Israel, in this text, Gods agony is expressed over the betrayal of Israel. The Book of Hosea contains a number of YHWH prophecies and messages for both Judah and Northern Israel and these are delivered by the prophet Hosea. Chapter 3, Account of Hoseas marriage autobiographically and this is possibly a marriage to different women Chapters 4–14, 9/14,10, Oracle judging Israel, Ephraim in particular, for not living up to the covenant. No further breakdown of ideas is clear in 4–14, 9/14,10 Following this, the prophecy is made that someday this will all be changed and this divorce seems to be the end of the covenant between God and the Northern Kingdom. However, it is probable that this was again an act, in which Hosea divorced Gomer for infidelity. He ends this prophecy with the declaration that God will one day renew the covenant, in Chapter three, at Gods command, Hosea seeks out Gomer once more. Either she has sold herself into slavery for debt, or she is with a lover who demands money in order to give her up, Chapters 4–14 spell out the allegory at length. Chapters 1–3 speaks of Hoseas family, and the issues with Gomer, Chapters 4–10 contain a series of oracles, or prophetic sermons, showing exactly why God is rejecting the Northern Kingdom. Chapter 11 is Gods lament over the necessity of giving up the Northern Kingdom, which is a part of the people of Israel. God promises not to them up entirely
25.
Absalom
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Absalom or Avshalom according to the Hebrew Bible was the third son of David, King of Israel with Maachah, daughter of Talmai, King of Geshur. 2 Samuel 14,25 describes him as the most handsome man in the kingdom, Absalom eventually rebelled against his father and was killed during the Battle of Ephraim Wood. Absalom, Davids third son, by Maacah, was born in Hebron, and moved at an early age along with the transfer of the capital to Jerusalem and he was a great favorite of his father and of the people. His charming manners, personal beauty, and insinuating ways, together with his love of pomp and royal pretensions and he lived in great style, drove in a magnificent chariot and had fifty men run before him. Little is known of Absaloms family life, but it is said that he had three sons and one daughter, whose name was also Tamar, from the language of 2 Samuel 18,18, it is inferred that his sons died at an early age. 2 Chronicles 11,20, says Absalom has another daughter, named Maacah, Absaloms sister Tamar was raped by Amnon, who was their half-brother. Amnon was also Davids eldest son, after the rape, Absalom waited two years, and then avenged Tamar by sending his servants to murder a drunken Amnon at a feast, to which Absalom had invited all the kings sons. After this murder Absalom fled to Talmai, who was the king of Geshur and it was not until three years later that Absalom was fully reinstated in his fathers favour and finally returned to Jerusalem. “If only I were the judge of the land, then all who had a suit or cause might come to me, and I would give them justice. ”He made gestures of humility by kissing those who bowed before him instead of accepting supplication. He stole the hearts of the people of Israel, after four years he declared himself king, raised a revolt at Hebron, the former capital, and slept with his fathers concubines. All Israel and Judah flocked to him, and David, attended only by the Cherethites and Pelethites and his former bodyguard, the priests Zadok and Abiathar remained in Jerusalem, and their sons Jonathan and Ahimaaz served as Davids spies. Absalom reached the capital and consulted with the renowned Ahithophel, David took refuge from Absaloms forces beyond the Jordan River. However, he took the precaution of instructing a servant, Hushai, Hushai convinced Absalom to ignore Ahithophels advice to attack his father while he was on the run, and instead to prepare his forces for a major attack. This gave David critical time to prepare his own troops for the coming battle, a fateful battle was fought in the Wood of Ephraim and Absaloms army was completely routed. Absaloms head was caught in the boughs of an oak tree as the mule he was riding ran beneath it and he was discovered there still alive by one of Davids men, who reported this to Joab, the king’s commander. Joab, accustomed to avenging himself, took this opportunity to even the score with Absalom, Absalom once had Joabs field set on fire and then made Amasa Captain of the Host instead of Joab. Killing Absalom was against David’s command, Beware that none touch the young man Absalom, Joab killed Absalom with three darts through the heart. When David heard that Absalom was killed although not how he was killed, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom
26.
Elijah
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Elijah or Elias was a prophet and a miracle worker who lived in the northern kingdom of Israel during the reign of Ahab, according to the Books of Kings in the Hebrew Bible. According to the Books of Kings Elijah defended the worship of Yahweh over that of the Canaanite deity Baal, Yahweh also performed many miracles through Elijah, including resurrection, bringing fire down from the sky, and entering Heaven alive by a whirlwind. He is also portrayed as leading a school of prophets known as the sons of the prophets, after his death, Elisha his disciple and most devoted assistant took over his role as leader of this school. References to Elijah appear in Ecclesiasticus, the New Testament, the Mishnah and Talmud, the Quran, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and Baháí writings. In Judaism, Elijahs name is invoked at the weekly Havdalah ritual that marks the end of Shabbat, and Elijah is invoked in other Jewish customs, among them the Passover Seder and the brit milah. He appears in stories and references in the Haggadah and rabbinic literature. The Christian New Testament describes how Elijah was thought, by some, Jesus makes it clear that John the Baptist is the Elijah who was promised to come in Malachi 4,5. Elijah appears with Moses during the Transfiguration of Jesus, Elijah is also a figure in various Christian folk traditions, often identified with earlier pagan thunder or sky gods. In Islam, Elijah appears in the Quran as a prophet and messenger of God, due to his importance to Muslims, Catholics and Orthodox Christians, Elijah has been venerated as the patron saint of Bosnia and Herzegovina since 1752. However, scholars today are divided as to whether the united Kingdom under Solomon ever existed, omri achieved domestic security with a marriage alliance between his son Ahab and princess Jezebel, a priestess of Baal and the daughter of the king of Sidon in Phoenicia. Under Ahabs kingship, these tensions were exacerbated, Ahab built a temple for Baal, and his wife Jezebel brought a large entourage of priests and prophets of Baal and Asherah into the country. It is in context that Elijah is introduced in 1 Kings 17,1 as Elijah the Tishbite. No background for the person of Elijah is given except for his description as being a Tishbite. His name in Hebrew means My God is Yahweh, and may be a title applied to him because of his challenge to worship of Baal, as told in the Hebrew Bible, Elijahs challenge is bold and direct. Baal was the Canaanite god responsible for rain, thunder, lightning, Elijah not only challenges Baal on behalf of his own God, Yahweh, he challenges Jezebel, her priests, Ahab and the people of Israel. After Elijahs confrontation with Ahab, God tells him to out of Israel, to a hiding place by the brook Chorath, east of the Jordan. When the brook dries up, God sends him to a living in the town of Zarephath in Phoenicia. When Elijah finds her and asks to be fed, she says that she not have sufficient food to keep her and her own son alive
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Tiglath-Pileser III
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Tiglath-Pileser III was a prominent king of Assyria in the eighth century BCE who introduced advanced civil, military, and political systems into the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Tiglath-Pileser III seized the Assyrian throne during a war and killed the royal family. He made sweeping changes to the Assyrian government, considerably improving its efficiency, the Assyrian army, already the greatest fighting force in the world since the time of Ashur-uballit I, now became Assyrias first professional standing army. In the south west, Israel, Judah, Philistia, Samarra, Moab, Edom, in the west, the Greeks of Cyprus and Aram, and the Mediterranean City States of Phoenicia/Caanan were subjugated. To the east he subjugated Persia, Media, Gutium, Mannea, Cissia and Elam, Tiglath-Pileser III discouraged revolts against Assyrian rule with the use of forced deportations of thousands of people all over the empire. He is one of the most successful commanders in world history. Formerly the governor of Kalhu and a general, the usurper Pulu assumed his Assyrian throne-name from two more-legitimate predecessors and he described himself as a son of Adad-nirari III in his inscriptions, but the accuracy of this claim remains uncertain. He seized the throne in the midst of war on 13 Ayaru,745 BCE. A mutilated brick inscription states that he is the son of Adad-nirari, however and this is quite a discrepancy for the King list places Adad-nirari III four monarchs before Tiglath-pilesers reign and depicts Ashur-nirari as both his father and immediate predecessor upon the throne. The list goes on to relate that Shalmaneser III, and Ashur-dan III were brothers, Ashur-nirari is also said to be a son of Adad-nirari, implying brotherhood with Shalmaneser III, and Ashur-dan III. The Assyrian records contain very little information concerning Adad-nirari and nothing about Shalmaneser III or Ashur-dan III, more so it was in Babylon that he was referred to as Pulu and his son as Ululayu. Pulu and both his sons taking up Assyrian names is another suggestion that they were foreigners who had usurped the crown of Assyria at the revolt of Kalhu, Assyrian power in the Near East greatly increased as the result of Tiglath-Pilesers military reforms and of his campaigns of conquest. Upon ascending the throne, he claimed to have annexed Babylonia, from Dur-galzu, the cities bylonia up to the Uqnu river wer, and subsequently placed his eunuch over them as governor. He also defeated the Medes before making war on and conquering the Neo-Hittites and he took Arpad in 740 BCE after three years of siege, annexed it as a province, and subjected Hamath to tribute. Assyrian inscriptions record in 740 BCE, the year of his reign. He also subjugated Damascus, the Arabs under Queen Zabibe, Menahem of Israel and Samals king Azriyau, in 737 and 736 BCE he turned his attention again to Iran, conquering the Medes and Persians and occupying a large part of Iran. According to the inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser many of the inhabitants were enslaved and deported to other parts of the Assyrian empire. At sieges, captives were slaughtered, and their bodies raised on stakes, in October 729 BCE, Tiglath-Pileser assumed total control of Babylon, capturing the Babylonian king Nabu-mukin-zeri and having himself crowned as King Pulu of Babylon
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Assyria
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Assyria was a major Mesopotamian East Semitic-speaking kingdom and empire of the ancient Near East and the Levant. Centered on the Tigris in Upper Mesopotamia, the Assyrians came to rule powerful empires at several times. Assyria is named after its capital, the ancient city of Aššur. In the 25th and 24th centuries BC, Assyrian kings were pastoral leaders, Assyria can also refer to the geographic region or heartland where Assyria, its empires and the Assyrian people were centered. The indigenous modern Eastern Aramaic-speaking Assyrian Christian ethnic minority in northern Iraq, north east Syria, southeast Turkey, in prehistoric times, the region that was to become known as Assyria was home to a Neanderthal culture such as has been found at the Shanidar Cave. The earliest Neolithic sites in Assyria were the Jarmo culture c.7100 BC and Tell Hassuna, during the 3rd millennium BC, a very intimate cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians and the Akkadians throughout Mesopotamia, which included widespread bilingualism. The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian, and vice versa, is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a scale, to syntactic, morphological. This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the third millennium BC as a sprachbund and it is highly likely that the city was named in honour of its patron Assyrian god with the same name. The city of Aššur, together with a number of other Assyrian cities, however it is likely that they were initially Sumerian-dominated administrative centres. In the late 26th century BC, Eannatum of Lagash, then the dominant Sumerian ruler in Mesopotamia, similarly, in c. the early 25th century BC, Lugal-Anne-Mundu the king of the Sumerian state of Adab lists Subartu as paying tribute to him. Of the early history of the kingdom of Assyria, little is known, in the Assyrian King List, the earliest king recorded was Tudiya. According to Georges Roux he would have lived in the mid 25th century BC, Tudiya was succeeded on the list by Adamu, the first known reference to the Semitic name Adam and then a further thirteen rulers. The earliest kings, such as Tudiya, who are recorded as kings who lived in tents, were independent semi-nomadic pastoralist rulers and these kings at some point became fully urbanised and founded the city state of Ashur in the mid 21st century BC. During the Akkadian Empire, the Assyrians, like all the Mesopotamian Semites, became subject to the dynasty of the city state of Akkad, the Akkadian Empire founded by Sargon the Great claimed to encompass the surrounding four quarters. Assyrian rulers were subject to Sargon and his successors, and the city of Ashur became an administrative center of the Empire. On those tablets, Assyrian traders in Burushanda implored the help of their ruler, Sargon the Great, the name Hatti itself even appears in later accounts of his grandson, Naram-Sin, campaigning in Anatolia. Assyrian and Akkadian traders spread the use of writing in the form of the Mesopotamian cuneiform script to Asia Minor, the Akkadian Empire was destroyed by economic decline and internal civil war, followed by attacks from barbarian Gutian people in 2154 BC. The rulers of Assyria during the period between c.2154 BC and 2112 BC once again fully independent, as the Gutians are only known to have administered southern Mesopotamia
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Manasseh (tribal patriarch)
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Manasseh or Menashe was, according to the Book of Genesis, the first son of Joseph and Asenath. Asenath was an Egyptian woman whom Pharaoh gave to Joseph as wife, and the daughter of Potipherah, Manasseh was born in Egypt before the arrival of the children of Israel from Canaan. Jacob, Josephs father, adopted Josephs two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, to share in Jacobs inheritance equally with Jacobs own sons and he is counted as the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Manasseh, one of the twelve Israelite tribes. Jacob also blessed Ephraim over his older brother, Manasseh had a son, Asriel, with his wife, and Machir with his Aramean concubine. Some biblical scholars view this as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation, other scholars maintain that the name is of Egyptian rather than Hebrew origin. In the Biblical account, Josephs other son is Ephraim, in the Torah, the eventual precedence of the tribe of Ephraim is argued to derive from Joseph tricking Jacob, blind and on his deathbed, into blessing Ephraim before Manessah. He gave as evidence the blessings from Jacob to Ephraim and Manasseh, and a princess of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, Ephraim Tribe of Ephraim Tribe of Manasseh This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Easton, Matthew George
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Israelites
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The Israelites were a Semitic-speaking people of the ancient Near East, who inhabited a part of Canaan during the tribal and monarchic periods. The ancient Israelites are considered to be an outgrowth of the indigenous Canaanite populations that inhabited the Southern Levant, Syria, ancient Israel. In the period of the monarchy it was only used to refer to the inhabitants of the northern kingdom. The Israelites were also known as the Hebrews and the Twelve Tribes of Israel, the Jews are named after and also descended from the southern Israelite Kingdom of Judah, particularly the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and partially Levi. The word Jews is found in 2 Kings, Chronicles, and in passages in the Book of Jeremiah, the Book of Zechariah. The Kingdom of Israel, often called the Northern Kingdom of Israel, contained all the tribes except for the tribes of Judah, following its conquest by Assyria, these ten tribes were allegedly dispersed and lost to history, and they are henceforth known as the Ten Lost Tribes. Jewish tradition holds that Samaria was so named because the mountainous terrain was used to keep Guard for incoming enemy attacks. According to Samaritan tradition, however, the Samaritan ethnonym is not derived from the region of Samaria, thus, according to Samaritan tradition, the region was named Samaria after them, not vice versa. In Modern Hebrew, the Samaritans are called Shomronim, while in Samaritan Hebrew they call themselves Shamerim, in Judaism, an Israelite is, broadly speaking, a lay member of the Jewish ethnoreligious group, as opposed to the priestly orders of Kohanim and Levites. In texts of Jewish law such as the Mishnah and Gemara, the term יהודי, meaning Jew, is rarely used, Samaritans commonly refer to themselves and to Jews collectively as Israelites, and they describe themselves as the Israelite Samaritans. The name Israel first appears in the Hebrew Bible in Genesis 32,29, the Hebrew Bible etymologizes the name as from yisra to prevail over or to struggle/wrestle with, and el, God, the divine. The name Israel first appears in non-biblical sources c.1209 BCE, the inscription is very brief and says simply, Israel is laid waste and his seed is not. The inscription refers to a people, not to an individual or a nation-state, in modern Hebrew, bnei yisrael can denote the Jewish people at any time in history, it is typically used to emphasize Jewish religious identity. From the period of the Mishna the term Yisrael acquired a narrower meaning of Jews of legitimate birth other than Levites. In modern Hebrew this contrasts with the term Yisraeli, a citizen of the modern State of Israel, the term Hebrew has Eber as an eponymous ancestor. It is used synonymously with Israelites, or as a term for historical speakers of the Hebrew language in general. Today, Jews and Samaritans both recognize each other as communities with an authentic Israelite origin, the terms Jews and Samaritans largely replaced the title Children of Israel as the commonly used ethnonym for each respective community. The name Yahweh, the god of the later Israelites, may indicate connections with the region of Mount Seir in Edom, the Canaanites were also the first people, as far as is known, to have used an alphabet
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Textual criticism
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Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants in either manuscripts or printed books. Ancient scribes made alterations when copying manuscripts by hand, given a manuscript copy, several or many copies, but not the original document, the textual critic might seek to reconstruct the original text as closely as possible. The same processes can be used to attempt to reconstruct intermediate versions, or recensions, the ultimate objective of the textual critics work is the production of a critical edition containing a scholarly curated text. There are three approaches to textual criticism, eclecticism, stemmatics, and copy-text editing. Techniques from the discipline of cladistics are currently also being used to determine the relationships between manuscripts. Textual criticism has been practiced for two thousand years. Early textual critics were concerned with preserving the works of antiquity, many ancient works, such as the Bible and the Greek tragedies, survive in hundreds of copies, and the relationship of each copy to the original may be unclear. Textual scholars have debated for centuries which sources are most closely derived from the original, hence which readings in those sources are correct. Although biblical books that are letters, like Greek plays, presumably had one original, interest in applying textual criticism to the Quran has also developed after the discovery of the Sanaa manuscripts in 1972, which possibly date back to the 7–8th centuries. However, the application of textual criticism to non-religious works does not antedate the invention of printing, while Christianity has been relatively receptive to textual criticism, application of it to the Jewish Torah and the Quran is, to the devout, taboo. The business of textual criticism is to produce a text as close as possible to the original, Maas comments further that A dictation revised by the author must be regarded as equivalent to an autograph manuscript. The lack of autograph manuscripts applies to many cultures other than Greek, in such a situation, a key objective becomes the identification of the first exemplar before any split in the tradition. That exemplar is known as the archetype, if we succeed in establishing the text of, the constitutio is considerably advanced. The textual critics ultimate objective is the production of a critical edition and this contains the text that the author has determined most closely approximates the original, and is accompanied by an apparatus criticus or critical apparatus. Before mechanical printing, literature was copied by hand, and many variations were introduced by copyists, the age of printing made the scribal profession effectively redundant. Printed editions, while less susceptible to the proliferation of variations likely to arise during manual transmission, are not immune to introducing variations from an authors autograph. Instead of a scribe miscopying his source, a compositor or a shop may read or typeset a work in a way that differs from the autograph. Since each scribe or printer commits different errors, reconstruction of the lost original is often aided by a selection of readings taken from many sources, an edited text that draws from multiple sources is said to be eclectic
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Biblical criticism
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Biblical criticism is the scholarly study and investigation of biblical writings that seeks to make discerning judgments about these writings. It will vary depending on whether the focus is on the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament. It also plays an important role in the quest for a historical Jesus and it also addresses the physical text, including the meaning of the words and the way in which they are used, its preservation, history and integrity. Biblical criticism draws upon a range of scholarly disciplines including archaeology, anthropology, folklore, linguistics, Oral Tradition studies. Biblical criticism, defined as the treatment of biblical texts as natural rather than supernatural artifacts, a division is still sometimes made between historical criticism and literary criticism. Literary criticism asks what audience the authors wrote for, their purpose. In the 18th century Jean Astruc, a French physician, set out to refute these critics, borrowing methods of textual criticism already in use to investigate Greek and Roman texts, he discovered what he believed were two distinct documents within Genesis. These, he felt, were the original written by Moses, much as the four Gospel writers had produced four separate but complementary accounts of the life. Later generations, he believed, had conflated these original documents to produce the book of Genesis, producing the inconsistencies and contradictions noted by Hobbes. The implications of higher criticism were not welcomed by many religious scholars, quite rightly employed in the case of the Sacred Books. For the fact is that truth is presented and expressed in the various types of historical writing, in prophetical and poetical texts. Reimaruss conclusions appealed to the rationalism of 18th century intellectuals, but were deeply troubling to contemporary believers, baron dHolbach - Ecce Homo -The History of Jesus of Nazareth, a Critical Inquiry, the first Life of Jesus described as a mere historical man, published anonymously in Amsterdam. George Houston translated the work into English—published in Edinburgh,1799, London,1813, the questions they addressed were, What was Jesus’s key message. How was that message related to Judaism, does that message speak to our reality today. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1948 revitalised interest in the possible contribution archaeology could make to the understanding of the New Testament, contemporary New Testament criticism continues to follow the synthesising trend set during the latter half of the 20th century. The critical methods and perspectives now to be found are numerous, Textual criticism refers to the examination of the text itself to identify its provenance or to trace its history. It takes as its basis the fact that errors crept into texts as generations of scribes reproduced each others manuscripts. For example, Josephus employed scribes to copy his Antiquities of the Jews, as the scribes copied the Antiquities, they made mistakes
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Eponym
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An eponym is a person, place, or thing for whom or for which something is named, or believed to be named. For example, Elizabeth I of England is the eponym of the Elizabethan era, recent usage, especially in the recorded-music industry, also allows eponymous to mean named after its central character or creator. In ancient Greece, the eponymous archon was the highest magistrate in classical Athens, Eponymous archons served a term of one year which took the name of that particular archon. Later historians provided yet another case of eponymy by referring to the period of Fifth-century Athens as The Age of Pericles after its most influential statesman Pericles. In Ptolemaic Egypt, the head priest of the Cult of Alexander, the Hebrew Bible explains the origins of peoples through individuals who bear their name. In most cases, the experiences and behavior of the ancestor is meant to indicate the characteristics of the people who take their name, in ancient Rome, one of the two formal ways of indicating a year was to cite the two annual consuls who served in that year. For example, the year we know as 59 BC would have described as the consulship of Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus and Gaius Julius Caesar. Under the empire, the consuls would change as often as two months, but only the two consuls at the beginning of the year would lend their names to that year. During the Christian era, itself eponymous, many households used eponymous dating by regnal years. The Roman Catholic Church, however, eventually used the Anno Domini dating scheme based on the birth of Christ on both the public and royalty. Government administrations may become referred to eponymously, such as Kennedys Camelot, British monarchs have become eponymous throughout the English-speaking world for time periods, fashions, etc. Elizabethan, Georgian, Victorian, and Edwardian are examples of these, trends Political trends or movements often become eponymous with a government leader. Examples include Jacksonian democracy, Stalinism, Maoism, Obamacare, in intellectual property law an eponym can refer to a generic trademark or brand name, a form of metonymy, such as aspirin, heroin and thermos in the United States. In geography, places and towns can also be given a name through a relationship to an important figure. Peloponnesus, for instance, was said to derive its name from the Greek hero Pelops, in historical times, new towns have often been named after their founders, discoverers, or notable individuals. In science and technology, discoveries and innovations are often named after the discoverer or a figure influential in their advance, examples are Avogadros number, the Diesel engine, meitnerium, Alzheimers disease, and the Apgar score. For a different view of the process see Stiglers law of eponymy, the term is also applied to music, usually with regard to record titles, where it is prevalent and leads to confusion. For example, Bad Companys first album was entitled Bad Company, titled a 1988 compilation album Eponymous
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Metaphor
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A metaphor is a figure of speech that refers, for rhetorical effect, to one thing by mentioning another thing. It may provide clarity or identify hidden similarities between two ideas, antithesis, hyperbole, metonymy and simile are all types of metaphor. The Philosophy of Rhetoric by rhetorician I. A. Richards describes a metaphor as having two parts, the tenor and the vehicle, the tenor is the subject to which attributes are ascribed. The vehicle is the object whose attributes are borrowed, other writers employ the general terms ground and figure to denote the tenor and the vehicle. Cognitive linguistics uses the target and source, respectively. Metaphors are most frequently compared with similes, a simile is a specific type of metaphor that uses the words like or as in comparing two objects, whereas what is commonly referred to as a metaphor states that A is B or substitutes B for A. What is usually referred to as a metaphor asserts the two objects in the comparison are identical on the point of comparison, a simile merely asserts a similarity, for this reason a common-type metaphor is generally considered more forceful than a simile. The metaphor category also contains these types, Allegory, An extended metaphor wherein a story illustrates an important attribute of the subject. Antithesis, A rhetorical contrast of ideas by means of parallel arrangements of words, clauses, or sentences Catachresis, A mixed metaphor used by design and accident. Hyperbole, Excessive exaggeration to illustrate a point Metonymy, A figure of speech using the name of one thing in reference to a different thing of which the first is associated, example, in lands belonging to the crown the word crown is metonymy for ruler or monarch. Parable, An extended metaphor narrated as an anecdote illustrating and teaching such as in Aesops fables, pun, Similar to a metaphor, a pun alludes to another term. However, the difference is that a pun is a frivolous allusion between two different things whereas a metaphor is a purposeful allusion between two different things. Metaphor, like other types of analogy, can usefully be distinguished from metonymy as one of two modes of thought. Thus, a metaphor creates new links between otherwise distinct conceptual domains, whereas a metonymy relies on the links within them. A dead metaphor is one in which the sense of an image has become absent. Examples, to grasp a concept and to gather what youve understood use physical action as a metaphor for understanding, the audience does not need to visualize the action, dead metaphors normally go unnoticed. Some people distinguish between a dead metaphor and a cliché, others use dead metaphor to denote both. A mixed metaphor is one that leaps from one identification to a second identification inconsistent with the first, e. g. Checkmate
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Aetiology
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Etiology is the study of causation, or origination. The word is derived from the Greek αἰτιολογία, aitiologia, giving a reason for, an etiological myth is a myth intended to explain a name or create a mythic history for a place or family, an origin story. In medicine, etiology refers to the many factors coming together to cause an illness and it is normally the focus of epidemiological studies. The etiology of scurvy is a good example, with scurvy, sailors going to sea often lacked fresh vegetables. Without knowing the cause, Captain James Cook suspected scurvy was caused by the lack of vegetables in the diet. It was only two centuries later, in 1926, that it was discovered that it was the lack of vitamin C in a sailors diet that was the basic cause of scurvy. From modern knowledge we can see that the sauerkraut was probably much less effective than Cook supposed, an etiological myth, or origin myth, is a myth intended to explain the origins of cult practices, natural phenomena, proper names and the like. While Delphi is actually related to the word delphus, many myths are similarly based on folk etymology. In the Aeneid, Virgil claims the descent of Augustus Caesars Julian clan from the hero Aeneas through his son Ascanius, also called Iulus. In Ovids Pyramus and Thisbe, the origin of the color of mulberries is explained, backstory Bradford Hill criteria Creation myth Just-so story Just So Stories Pathology The dictionary definition of etiology at Wiktionary
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Deborah
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Deborah was a prophet of the God of the Israelites, the fourth Judge of pre-monarchic Israel, counselor, warrior, and the wife of Lapidoth according to the Book of Judges chapters 4 and 5. Judges chapter 5 gives the story in poetic form. This passage, often called The Song of Deborah, may date to as early as the 12th century BC and is perhaps the earliest sample of Hebrew poetry, in Hebrew, her name, דְּבוֹרָה, translates as bee. She is considered a saint in the Catholic Church, the Deborah number, a dimensionless number used in rheology, is named after her. In the Book of Judges, it is stated that Deborah was a prophet, a judge of Israel and she rendered her judgments beneath a date palm tree between Ramah in Benjamin and Bethel in the land of Ephraim. Some people today refer to Deborah as the mother of Israel, as she is titled in the biblical Song of Deborah, the people of Israel had been oppressed by Jabin, the king of Canaan, whose capital was Hazor, for twenty years. At the same time she states that the Lord God of Israel will draw Sisera to the River Kishon, Barak declines to go without the prophet. Deborah consents, but declares that the glory of the victory will therefore belong to a woman, as soon as the news of the rebellion reaches Sisera he collects nine hundred chariots of iron and a host of people. Then Deborah said, according to Judges 4,14, “Go and this is the day the Lord has given Sisera into your hands. Has not the Lord gone ahead of you. ”So Barak went down Mount Tabor, as Deborah prophesied, a battle is fought, and Sisera is completely defeated. He himself escapes on foot, while his army is pursued as far as Harosheth of the Gentiles, Sisera comes to the tent of Jael, and he lies down to rest. He asks for a drink, she gives him milk, the Biblical account of Deborah ends with the statement that after the battle, there was peace in the land for 40 years. Traditional Jewish chronology places Deborahs 40 years of judging Israel from 1107 BC until her death in 1067 BC, the Dictionary of World Biography, The Ancient World claims that she might have lived in the period between 1200 BC to 1124 BC. The Song of Deborah is found in Judges 5, 2–31 and is a hymn, sung by Deborah and Barak. Biblical scholars have identified the Song as one of the oldest parts of the Bible, dating somewhere in the 12th century BC, based on its grammar. However, some scholars have argued that the songs language. The song itself differs slightly from the events described in Judges 4, the song mentions six participating tribes as opposed to the two tribes in Judges 4,6 and does not mention the role of Jabin. After the death of Joshua, the tribe of Judah led the tribe of Simeon in a campaign against the Canaanites and Perizzites, then they marched against Kiriath-Arba and defeated three more kings
