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
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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
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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.
Zoroastrianism
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Ascribed to the teachings of the Iranian prophet Zoroaster, it exalts a deity of wisdom, Ahura Mazda, as its Supreme Being. Zoroastrianism was suppressed from the 7th century onwards following the Muslim conquest of Persia of 633-654, recent estimates place the current number of Zoroastrians at around 2.6 million, with most living in India and in Iran. Besides the Zoroastrian diaspora, the older Mithraic faith Yazdânism is still practised amongst Kurds, the religious philosophy of Zoroaster divided the early Iranian gods of Proto-Indo-Iranian tradition. The most important texts of the religion are those of the Avesta, in Zoroastrianism, the creator Ahura Mazda, through the Spenta Mainyu is an all-good father of Asha, in opposition to Druj and no evil originates from him. He and his works are evident to humanity through the six primary Amesha Spentas, Spenta Mainyu adjoined unto truth oppose the Spirits opposite, Angra Mainyu and its forces born of Akəm Manah. In Zoroastrianism, the purpose in life is to be among those who renew the world. to make the progress towards perfection. Its basic maxims include, Humata, Hukhta, Huvarshta, which mean, Good Thoughts, Good Words, there is only one path and that is the path of Truth. Do the right thing because it is the thing to do. The full name by which Zoroaster addressed the deity is, Ahura, The Lord Creator and he proclaimed that there is only one God, the singularly creative and sustaining force of the Universe. He also stated that human beings are given a right of choice, Zoroasters teachings focused on responsibility, and did not introduce a devil per se. The contesting force to Ahura Mazda was called Angra Mainyu, or angry spirit, post-Zoroastrian scripture introduced the concept of Ahriman, the Devil, which was effectively a personification of Angra Mainyu. The name Zoroaster is a Greek rendering of the name Zarathustra and he is known as Zartosht and Zardosht in Persian and Zaratosht in Gujarati. The Zoroastrian name of the religion is Mazdayasna, which combines Mazda- with the Avestan language word yasna, meaning worship, in English, an adherent of the faith is commonly called a Zoroastrian or a Zarathustrian. An older expression still used today is Behdin, meaning The best Religion | Beh < Middle Persian Weh + Din < Middle Persian dēn < Avestan Daēnā. In Zoroastrian liturgy the term is used as a title for an individual who has formally inducted into the religion in a Navjote ceremony. The term Mazdaism /ˈmæzdə. ɪzəm/ is a typical 19th century construct, taking Mazda- from the name Ahura Mazda, the March 2001 draft edition of the Oxford English Dictionary also records an alternate form, Mazdeism, perhaps derived from the French Mazdéisme, which first appeared in 1871. In older English sources, the terms Gheber and Gueber were used to refer to Zoroastrians, however, Zoroastrian philosophy is identified as having been known to Italian Renaissance Europe through an image of Zoroaster in Raphaels School of Athens by Giorgio Vasari in 1550. The Oxford English Dictionary records use of the term Zoroastrianism in 1874 in Archibald Sayces Principles of Comparative Philology, Zoroastrians believe that there is one universal, transcendent, supreme god, Ahura Mazda, or the Wise Lord
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: