1.
Israel Museum
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The Israel Museum was founded in 1965 as Israels national museum. It is situated on a hill in the Givat Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem, near the Bible Lands Museum, the Knesset, the Israeli Supreme Court, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. An urn-shaped building on the grounds of the museum, the Shrine of the Book, houses the Dead Sea Scrolls and it is one of the largest museums in the region. Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek was the spirit behind the establishment of the Israel Museum, one of the leading art. Since its establishment in 1965, the Museum has built up a collection of nearly 500,000 objects, James S. Snyder, former Deputy Director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, was appointed director of the museum in 1997. From 1965, the museum was housed in a series of buildings designed by the Russian-born Israeli architect Alfred Mansfeld. A $100-million campaign to renovate the museum and double its space was completed in July 2010. The wings for archaeology, the arts, and Jewish art and life were completely rebuilt. The passageways that connect between the buildings and five new pavilions were designed by James Carpenter, the museum covers nearly 50,000 sq. meters and attracts 800,000 visitors a year, including 100,000 children who visit and attend classes in its Youth Wing. This narrative is supplemented by thematic groupings highlighting aspects of ancient Israeli archaeology that are unique to the history, among them Hebrew writing, glass. A special gallery at the entrance to the wing showcases new findings, the Shrine of the Book houses the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest biblical manuscripts in the world, as well as rare early medieval biblical manuscripts. The scrolls were discovered in 1947–56 in 11 caves in and around the Wadi Qumran, the building consists of a white dome over a building located two-thirds below the ground. The dome is reflected in a pool of water that surrounds it, across from the white dome is a black basalt wall. The interior of the shrine was designed to depict the environment in which the scrolls were found, there is also a permanent display on life in the Qumran, where the scrolls were written. The entire structure was designed to resemble a pot in which the scrolls were found, the shrine was designed by Armand Bartos and Frederick Kiesler, and was opened in 1965. As the fragility of the scrolls makes it impossible to display all on a continuous basis, after a scroll has been exhibited for 3–6 months, it is removed from its showcase and placed temporarily in a special storeroom, where it rests from exposure. The museum also holds other rare ancient manuscripts and displays the Aleppo Codex, originally constructed on the grounds of Jerusalem’s Holyland Hotel, the model, which includes a replica of Herods Temple, is now a permanent feature of the museums 20-acre campus. The Israel Museum holds a collection of paintings representing a wide range of periods, styles, subjects
2.
Jerusalem
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Jerusalem is a city located on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is considered a city in the three major Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, the part of Jerusalem called the City of David was settled in the 4th millennium BCE. In 1538, walls were built around Jerusalem under Suleiman the Magnificent, today those walls define the Old City, which has been traditionally divided into four quarters—known since the early 19th century as the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Quarters. The Old City became a World Heritage Site in 1981, and is on the List of World Heritage in Danger, Modern Jerusalem has grown far beyond the Old Citys boundaries. These foundational events, straddling the dawn of the 1st millennium BCE, the sobriquet of holy city was probably attached to Jerusalem in post-exilic times. The holiness of Jerusalem in Christianity, conserved in the Septuagint which Christians adopted as their own authority, was reinforced by the New Testament account of Jesuss crucifixion there, in Sunni Islam, Jerusalem is the third-holiest city, after Mecca and Medina. As a result, despite having an area of only 0, outside the Old City stands the Garden Tomb. Today, the status of Jerusalem remains one of the issues in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, West Jerusalem was among the captured and later annexed by Israel while East Jerusalem, including the Old City, was captured. Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War and subsequently annexed it into Jerusalem, one of Israels Basic Laws, the 1980 Jerusalem Law, refers to Jerusalem as the countrys undivided capital. All branches of the Israeli government are located in Jerusalem, including the Knesset, the residences of the Prime Minister and President, the international community does not recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital, and the city hosts no foreign embassies. Jerusalem is also home to some non-governmental Israeli institutions of importance, such as the Hebrew University. In 2011, Jerusalem had a population of 801,000, of which Jews comprised 497,000, Muslims 281,000, a city called Rušalim in the Execration texts of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt is widely, but not universally, identified as Jerusalem. Jerusalem is called Urušalim in the Amarna letters of Abdi-Heba, the name Jerusalem is variously etymologized to mean foundation of the god Shalem, the god Shalem was thus the original tutelary deity of the Bronze Age city. The form Yerushalem or Yerushalayim first appears in the Bible, in the Book of Joshua, according to a Midrash, the name is a combination of Yhwh Yireh and the town Shalem. The earliest extra-biblical Hebrew writing of the word Jerusalem is dated to the sixth or seventh century BCE and was discovered in Khirbet Beit Lei near Beit Guvrin in 1961. The inscription states, I am Yahweh thy God, I will accept the cities of Judah and I will redeem Jerusalem, or as other scholars suggest, the mountains of Judah belong to him, to the God of Jerusalem
3.
Abgar V
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Abgar V the Black or Abgarus V of Edessa was a historical ruler of the kingdom of Osroene, holding his capital at Edessa. Professor Robert Eisenman suggests that Queen Helena was the sister-wife of King Abgar V who was given the lands of Adiabene by her brother-husband, the king. Professor Eisenman derived this association from Moses of Chorene mentioning the same relief to Judaea as does Flavius Josephus, The chief of King Abgar’s wives. Helena went away to Jerusalem in the time of Claudius, during the famine which Agabus had predicted, spending all her treasures she bought an immense amount of grain in Egypt, which she distributed to the poor, to which Josephus bears witness. Her famous mausoleum stands before the gate at Jerusalem to this very day, the conflation of King Abgarus V and King Monobaz I would mean that the sons of Abgarus V were Monobazus II and Izates bar Monobaz. Professor Eisenman goes on to equate King Abgarus V with the Agabus in Acts of the Apostles, by necessity Eisenman then equates the biblical Antioch Orontes with Antioch Edessa, indicating that Saul-Paul and Barnabas went to Edessa. Abgar V is reported to be one of the first Christian kings in history, having converted to the faith by Thaddeus of Edessa. The church historian Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea records that the Edessan archives contained a copy of a correspondence exchanged between Abgar of Edessa and Jesus, the correspondence consisted of Abgars letter and the answer dictated by Jesus. On August 15,944, the Church of Saint Mary of Blachernae in Constantinople received the letter, both relics were then moved to the Church of the Virgin of the Pharos. Of this correspondence, there not only a Syriac text. A curious growth has arisen from this event, with scholars disputing whether Abgar suffered from gout or from leprosy, whether the correspondence was on parchment or papyrus, and so forth. The text of the letter was, Abgar, ruler of Edessa, to Jesus the good physician who has appeared in the country of Jerusalem, I have heard the reports of you and of your cures as performed by you without medicines or herbs. I have therefore written to you to ask you if you would take the trouble to come to me, for I have heard that the Jews are murmuring against you and are plotting to injure you. But I have a small yet noble city which is great enough for us both. Jesus gave the messenger the reply to return to Abgar, Blessed are you who hast believed in me without having seen me. For it is written concerning me, that they who have seen me will not believe in me, but after I have been taken up I will send to you one of my disciples, that he may heal your disease and give life to you and yours. Egeria wrote of the letter in her account of her pilgrimage in Edessa and she read the letter during her stay, and remarked that the copy in Edessa was fuller than the copies in her home. In addition to the importance it attained in the apocryphal cycle, the Syriac liturgies commemorate the correspondence of Abgar during Lent
4.
Judaism
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Judaism encompasses the religion, philosophy, culture and way of life of the Jewish people. Judaism is an ancient monotheistic Abrahamic religion, with the Torah as its text, and supplemental oral tradition represented by later texts such as the Midrash. Judaism is considered by religious Jews to be the expression of the relationship that God established with the Children of Israel. With between 14.5 and 17.4 million adherents worldwide, Judaism is the tenth-largest religion in the world, Judaism includes a wide corpus of texts, practices, theological positions, and forms of organization. Modern branches of Judaism such as Humanistic Judaism may be nontheistic, today, the largest Jewish religious movements are Orthodox Judaism, Conservative Judaism and Reform Judaism. Major sources of difference between groups are their approaches to Jewish law, the authority of the Rabbinic tradition. Orthodox Judaism maintains that the Torah and Jewish law are divine in origin, eternal and unalterable, Conservative and Reform Judaism are more liberal, with Conservative Judaism generally promoting a more traditional interpretation of Judaisms requirements than Reform Judaism. A typical Reform position is that Jewish law should be viewed as a set of guidelines rather than as a set of restrictions and obligations whose observance is required of all Jews. Historically, special courts enforced Jewish law, today, these still exist. Authority on theological and legal matters is not vested in any one person or organization, the history of Judaism spans more than 3,000 years. Judaism has its roots as a religion in the Middle East during the Bronze Age. Judaism is considered one of the oldest monotheistic religions, the Hebrews and Israelites were already referred to as Jews in later books of the Tanakh such as the Book of Esther, with the term Jews replacing the title Children of Israel. Judaisms texts, traditions and values strongly influenced later Abrahamic religions, including Christianity, Islam, many aspects of Judaism have also directly or indirectly influenced secular Western ethics and civil law. Jews are a group and include those born Jewish and converts to Judaism. In 2015, the world Jewish population was estimated at about 14.3 million, Judaism thus begins with ethical monotheism, the belief that God is one and is concerned with the actions of humankind. According to the Tanakh, God promised Abraham to make of his offspring a great nation, many generations later, he commanded the nation of Israel to love and worship only one God, that is, the Jewish nation is to reciprocate Gods concern for the world. He also commanded the Jewish people to one another, that is. These commandments are but two of a corpus of commandments and laws that constitute this covenant, which is the substance of Judaism
5.
Ashurism
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Ashurism was the first religion of the Ashurite people. The religion had myriad gods and goddesses, which can be found in any of the old religions, as each god, in Ashurism it was the god Ashur that was the ultimate worship, thus by nature, constituting the religion as Monolatrism. All the other gods were seen as aspects of the chief god Ashur who was the totality of the gods, Ashur derives from the Sumerian god AN. SHAR, an meaning heaven and shar literally meaning whole. It was during the Sargonid era that the name Ashur was written as AN. SHAR, Ashur is symbolized as a deity in a winged and emanating sun disk. Ashur thus represents, from the derivative AN. SHAR, whole heaven or spirit, the consort of Ashur was Ishtar or Inanna, which since Ashur derived from AN. SHAR, thus Ishtar would be derived from KI. SHAR, which means whole Earth or matter. To the Ashurites Ishtar/Inanna represented the goddess of love, the feminine, and the consort of Ashur. Ashurism was a part of the Ancient Semitic religions and also closely paralleled the Proto-Indo European religion, in Zoroastrianism Ashur is equated with Ahura Mazda. The Ashurites greatly influenced the art in the Achaemenid Empire and both Ahura Mazda and Ashur were equated as the totality of the deities with almost exact iconography
6.
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
7.
Assyrian people
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Assyrian people, or Syriacs, are an ethnic group indigenous to the Middle East. Some of them self-identify as Chaldeans, or as Arameans and they speak modern Aramaic, whose subdivisions include Northeastern, Central, and Western Neo-Aramaic, as well as another language, dependent on the country of residence. The Assyrians are typically Syriac-speaking Christians who claim descent from Assyria, one of the oldest civilizations in the world, the areas that form the Assyrian homeland are parts of present-day northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran and northeastern Syria. The majority have migrated to regions of the world, including North America, the Levant, Australia, Europe, Russia. Assyrians are predominantly Christian, mostly adhering to the East and West Syrian liturgical rites of Christianity, whereas the churches of the West Syrian rite, the Syriac Orthodox Church and Syriac Catholic Church, mostly speak the Central and Western branches. According to a 2013 report by a Chaldean Syriac Assyrian Popular Council official, in prehistoric times, the region that was to become known as Assyria was home to Neanderthals such as the remains of those which have been found at the Shanidar Cave. The earliest Neolithic sites in Assyria belonged to the Jarmo culture c.7100 BC and Tell Hassuna, the history of Assyria begins with the formation of the city of Assur perhaps as early as the 25th century BC. The Assyrian king list records kings dating from the 25th century BC onwards, the earliest being Tudiya, who was a contemporary of Ibrium of Ebla. However, many of early kings would have been local rulers. In the traditions of the Assyrian Church of the East, they are descended from Abrahams grandson, however, there is no historical basis for the biblical assertion whatsoever, there is no mention in Assyrian records. The Assyrian people, after the fall of their empire, fell under foreign domination ever since, the Persian Empire was founded, which consumed the entire Neo-Babylonian or Chaldean Empire in 539 BC. Assyrians became front line soldiers for the Persian Empire under Xerxes I, the Assyrian army accounted for three legions of the Roman army, defending the Parthian border. In the 1st century, it was the Assyrian army that enabled Vespasians coup, from the later 2nd century, the Roman Senate included several notable Assyrians, including Tiberius Claudius Pompeianus and Avidius Cassius. From the 1st century BC, Assyria was the theatre of the protracted Roman–Persian Wars and it would become a Roman province from 116 to 363 AD. Despite the influx of foreign elements, the presence of Assyrians is confirmed by the worship of the god Ashur, the Greeks, Parthians, and Romans had a rather low-level of integration with the local population in Mesopotamia, which allowed their cultures to survive. The Assyrians were Christianized in the first to third centuries in Roman Syria, the population of the Sasanian province of Asōristān was a mixed one, composed of Assyrians, Arameans in the far south and the western deserts, and Persians. The Greek element in the cities, still strong during the Parthian Empire, the majority of the population were Eastern Aramaic speakers. Along with the Arameans, Armenians, Greeks, and Nabataeans, the Council of Seleucia of ca.325 dealt with jurisdictional conflicts among the leading bishops
8.
Adiabene
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Adiabene was an ancient kingdom in Assyria, with its capital at Arbela. Adiabenian rulers converted to Judaism from paganism in the 1st century, according to the Talmud, both Helena and Monobaz donated large funds for the Temple of Jerusalem. After 115 CE, there are no traces of Jewish royalties in Adiabne. Adiabene occupied a district in Assyria between the Upper Zab and the Lower Zab, though Ammianus speaks of Nineveh, Ecbatana, although nominally a dependency of the Parthian Empire, for some centuries, beginning with the 1st century BCE, it was independent. By the late 1st century CE, its borders extended as far as Nisibis, in the Talmudic writings the name occurs as חדייב, חדייף and הדייב, which is parallel to its Syriac form Hadyab or Hedayab. Its chief city was Arbela, where Mar Uqba had a school, or the neighboring Hazzah, in Kiddushin 72a the Biblical Habor is identified with Adiabene, but in Yerushalmi Megillah i. In the Targum to Jeremiah li,27, Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz are paraphrased by Kordu, Harmini, and Hadayab, i. e. Corduene, Armenia, and Adiabene, while in Ezekiel xxvii. 23 Harran, Caneh, and Eden are interpreted by the Aramaic translator as Harwan, Nisibis, Adiabene had a mixed population, while the Syriac language was dominant. According to Pliny, four tribes inhabited the region of Adiabene, Orontes, Alani, the account of Josephus Antiquities of the Jews shows that there was a substantial Jewish population in the kingdom, which led to the establishment of a prominent rabbinic academy in Arbela. During the Sassanid era, Persians came to the fore politically, the difficult mixing of cultures can be seen in the story of the martyrdom of Mahanuš, a prominent Iranian Zoroastrian who converted to Christianity. In later times Adiabene became an archbishopric, with the seat of the metropolitan at Arbela and it has been suggested that the royal house of Adiabene, after fleeing Trajans invasion, established the later Amatuni dynasty which ruled the area between the lakes Urmia and Van. Adiabene was a district in Mesopotamia between upper and lower Zab and was a part of the Neo Assyrian Empire and inhabited by Assyrians even after the fall of Nineveh and it was an integral part of Achaemenid Assyria and Sassanid Assyria. The region was made a part of the Roman province of Assyria after the invasion by Trajan in 116. The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus states that the inhabitants of Adiabene were Assyrians, in ancient times Adiabene was an integral part of Assyria. Under the Achaemenid Persian kings, Adiabene seems for a time to have been a state of the Persian Empire. At times the throne of Adiabene was held by a member of the Achaemenid house, Ardashir III, the Ten Thousand, an army of Greek mercenaries, retreated through Adiabene on their march to the Black Sea after the Battle of Cunaxa. According to Jewish tradition, Hellena, the Queen of Adiabne converted to Judaism from paganism in the 1st century, Queen Helenas sarcophagus was discovered in 1863. According to Josephus the queen converted to Judaism together with her son Monobaz II, another tradition has it that she met a Jewish jewelry merchant in Adiabene by the name of Hanania or Eliezer, who told her about the people of Israel and persuaded her to join them
9.
Edessa
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Edessa was a city in Upper Mesopotamia, founded on an earlier site by Seleucus I Nicator ca.302 BC. It was also known as Antiochia on the Callirhoe from the 2nd century BC and it was the capital of the semi-independent kingdom of Osroene from c.132 BC and fell under direct Roman rule in ca. It became an important early centre of Syriac Christianity and it fell to the Muslim conquest in 639, was briefly re-taken by Byzantium in 1031, and became the center of the Crusader state of the County of Edessa during 1098–1144. It fell to the Turkic Zengid dynasty in 1144 and was absorbed by the Ottoman Empire in 1517. The modern name of the city is Şanlıurfa, in Turkeys Southeast Anatolia Region, the earliest name of the city was Adma recorded Assyrian cuneiform sources in the 7th century BC. It was renamed Callirrhoe or Antiochia on the Callirhoe in the 2nd century BC and it was named Justinopolis in the early 6th century. According to Jewish and Muslim tradition, it is Ur Kasdim, in the second half of the 2nd century BC, as the Seleucid monarchy disintegrated in the wars with Parthia, Edessa became the capital of the Abgar dynasty, who founded the Kingdom of Osroene. This kingdom was established by Nabataean or Arab tribes from North Arabia, and lasted four centuries, under twenty-eight rulers. Edessa was at first more or less under the protectorate of the Parthians, then of Tigranes of Armenia, Edessa was Armenian Mesopotamias capital city, from 212 to 214 the kingdom was a Roman province. The emperor Caracalla was assassinated on the road from Edessa to Carrhae by one of his guards in 217, Edessa became one of the frontier cities of the province of Osroene and lay close to the border of Sassanid Persia. The Battle of Edessa took place between the armies of the Roman Empire under the command of Emperor Valerianus and Sassanid forces under Shahanshah Shapur I in 260. The Roman army was defeated and captured in its entirety by the Persian forces, including Valerian himself, the literary language of the tribes that had founded this kingdom was Aramaic, from which Syriac developed. The precise date of the introduction of Christianity into Edessa is not known, however, there is no doubt that even before AD190 Christianity had spread vigorously within Edessa and its surroundings and that shortly after the royal house joined the church. Yet various sources confirm that the Abgar who embraced the Christian faith was Abgar IX, under him Christianity became the official religion of the kingdom. As for Addai, he was one of the seventy-two disciples as the legend asserts. He was succeeded by Aggai, then by Palout who was ordained about 200 by Serapion of Antioch, a Christian council was held at Edessa as early as 197. In 201 the city was devastated by a flood. In 232 the relics of the apostle Thomas were brought from Mylapore, India, under Roman domination many martyrs suffered at Edessa, Sts
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Gottheil, Richard; Seligsohn, M. (1901–1906). "Helena". In Singer, Isidore; et al. Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company., which cites: