1.
Messiah (Handel)
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It was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742 and received its London premiere nearly a year later. After an initially modest public reception, the oratorio gained in popularity, eventually becoming one of the best-known, Handels reputation in England, where he had lived since 1712, had been established through his compositions of Italian opera. He turned to English oratorio in the 1730s in response to changes in public taste, although its structure resembles that of opera, it is not in dramatic form, there are no impersonations of characters and no direct speech. Instead, Jennenss text is a reflection on Jesus as the Messiah called Christ. The text begins in Part I with prophecies by Isaiah and others, and moves to the annunciation to the shepherds, in Part II, Handel concentrates on the Passion and ends with the Hallelujah chorus. In Part III he covers the resurrection of the dead and Christs glorification in heaven, Handel wrote Messiah for modest vocal and instrumental forces, with optional settings for many of the individual numbers. In the years after his death, the work was adapted for performance on a larger scale, with giant orchestras. In other efforts to update it, its orchestration was revised and amplified by Mozart, in the late 20th and early 21st centuries the trend has been towards reproducing a greater fidelity to Handels original intentions, although big Messiah productions continue to be mounted. A near-complete version was issued on 78 rpm discs in 1928, the composer George Frideric Handel, born in Halle, Germany in 1685, took up permanent residence in London in 1712, and became a naturalised British subject in 1727. Within a large and varied output, Handel was a vigorous champion of Italian opera. He subsequently wrote and presented more than 40 such operas in Londons theatres, by the early 1730s public taste for Italian opera was beginning to fade. The popular success of John Gay and Johann Christoph Pepuschs The Beggars Opera had heralded a spate of English-language ballad-operas that mocked the pretensions of Italian opera, with box-office receipts falling, Handels productions were increasingly reliant on private subsidies from the nobility. Such funding became harder to obtain after the launch in 1730 of the Opera of the Nobility, Handel overcame this challenge, but he spent large sums of his own money in doing so. Although prospects for Italian opera were declining, Handel remained committed to the genre, in Rome in 1707–08 he had written two Italian oratorios at a time when opera performances in the city were temporarily forbidden under papal decree. His first venture into English oratorio had been Esther, which was written, in 1732 Handel brought a revised and expanded version of Esther to the Kings Theatre, Haymarket, where members of the royal family attended a glittering premiere on 6 May. Its success encouraged Handel to write two more oratorios, All three oratorios were performed to large and appreciative audiences at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford in mid-1733. Undergraduates reportedly sold their furniture to raise the money for the five-shilling tickets, in 1735 Handel received the text for a new oratorio named Saul from its librettist Charles Jennens, a wealthy landowner with musical and literary interests. Because Handels main creative concern was still with opera, he did not write the music for Saul until 1738, the work, after opening at the Kings Theatre in January 1739 to a warm reception, was quickly followed by the less successful oratorio Israel in Egypt
2.
Religious text
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Religious texts are texts which religious traditions consider to be central to their religious practice or set of beliefs. It is not possible to create an exhaustive list of religious texts, one of the oldest known religious texts is the Kesh Temple Hymn of Ancient Sumer, a set of inscribed clay tablets which scholars typically date around 2600 BCE. For example, the content of a Protestant Bible may differ from the content of a Catholic Bible, the word canon comes from the Sumerian word meaning standard. Hierographology is the study of sacred texts, the following is an in-exhaustive list of links to specific religious texts which may be used for further, more in-depth study. The writings of Franklin Albert Jones a. k. a, some denominations also include the Apocrypha. For Protestantism, this is the 66-book canon - the Jewish Tanakh of 24 books divided differently, some denominations also include the 15 books of the Apocrypha between the Old Testament and the New Testament, for a total of 81 books. For Catholicism, this includes seven deuterocanonical books in the Old Testament for a total of 73 books, called the Canon of Trent. For the Eastern Orthodox Church, this includes the anagignoskomena, which consist of the Catholic deuterocanon, plus 3 Maccabees, Psalm 151, the Prayer of Manasseh,4 Maccabees is considered to be canonical by the Georgian Orthodox Church. Some Syriac churches accept the Letter of Baruch as scripture, christian Scientists The Bible Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. This textbook, along with the Bible, serves as the permanent impersonal pastor of the church, the Community of Christ uses the Joseph Smith Translation, which it calls the Inspired Version, as well as updated modern translations. Seventh-day Adventists The Bible The writings of Ellen White are held to a status, though not equal with the Bible. Also known as the Gospel of Mani and The Living Gospel the Treasure of Life the Pragmateia the Book of Mysteries The Book of Giants the Epistles the Psalms, the Shabuhragan The Arzhang The Kephalaia, Discourses, found in Coptic translation. Odù Ifá Jaap Verduijns Odu Ifa Collection Primary religious texts, that is, the Avesta collection, The Yasna, the Visperad, a collection of supplements to the Yasna. The Yashts, hymns in honor of the divinities, the Vendidad, describes the various forms of evil spirits and ways to confound them. Shorter texts and prayers, the Yashts the five Nyaishes, the Sirozeh, there are some 60 secondary religious texts, none of which are considered scripture. The Khordeh Avesta, Zoroastrian prayer book for lay people from the Avesta, religious full text online library Ancient texts library Internet Sacred Text Archive
3.
Samuel
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Samuel, is a leader of ancient Israel in the Books of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible. He is also known as a prophet by Christians and Muslims and his status, as viewed by rabbinical literature, is that he was the last of the Hebrew Judges and the first of the major prophets who began to prophesy inside the Land of Israel. He was thus on the cusp of two eras, according to the text of the Books of Samuel, he also anointed the first two kings of the Kingdom of Israel, Saul and David. Samuels mother was Hannah and his father was Elkanah, Elkanah lived at Ramathaim in the district of Zuph. His genealogy is found in a pedigree of the Kohathites and in that of Heman. According to the tables in Chronicles, Elkanah was a Levite - a fact not mentioned in the books of Samuel. The fact that Elkanah, a Levite, was denominated an Ephraimite is analogous to the designation of a Levite belonging to Judah, according to 1 Samuel 1, 1-28, Elkanah had two wives, Peninnah and Hannah. Peninnah had children, Hannah did not, jealous, Penninah reproached Hannah for her lack of children, causing Hannah much heartache. The relationship of Penninah and Hannah recalls that between Hagar and Sarah, Elkanah was a devout man and would periodically take his family on pilgrimage to the holy site of Shiloh. The motif of Elkanah and Hannah as devout, childless parents will reoccur with Zachariah and Elizabeth and the birth of John the Baptist, and with Joachim and Anna, on one occasion Hannah went to the sanctuary and prayed for a child. In tears, she vowed that were she granted a child, Eli, who was sitting at the foot of the doorpost in the sanctuary at Shiloh, saw her apparently mumbling to herself and thought she was drunk, but was soon assured of her motivation and sobriety. Eli was the priest of Shiloh, and one of the last Israelite Judges before the rule of kings in ancient Israel and he had assumed the leadership after Samsons death. Eli blessed her and she returned home, subsequently Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to Samuel. Hannahs exultant hymn of thanksgiving resembles in several points Marys later Magnificat, after the child was weaned, she left him in Elis care, and from time to time she would come to visit her son. According to 1 Samuel 1,20, Hannah named Samuel to commemorate her prayer to God for a child, called his name Samuel, saying, Because I have asked him of the Lord. The Hebrew root rendered as asked in the KJV is sha’al, once it is even mentioned in the form sha’ul, Saul’s name in Hebrew. Biblical historian Michael Coogan suggests that Saul’s birth narrative was transferred to Samuel by the Deuteronomist historians, however, Gordon himself did not see this hypothesis as justified by the available evidence. According to the Holman Bible Dictionary, Samuel was a name in the Ancient Near East meaning, Sumu is God but understood in Israel as The name is God, God is exalted
4.
Dura-Europos
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Dura-Europos, also spelled Dura-Europus, was a Hellenistic, Parthian and Roman border city built on an escarpment 90 metres above the right bank of the Euphrates river. It is located near the village of Salhiyé, in todays Syria, in 113 BC, Parthians conquered the city, and held it, with one brief Roman intermission, until 165 AD. Under Parthian rule, it became an important provincial administrative center, the Romans decisively captured Dura-Europos in 165 AD and greatly enlarged it as their easternmost stronghold in Mesopotamia, until it was captured by Sassanians after a siege in 256-7 AD. Its population was deported, and after it was abandoned, it was covered by sand and mud, Dura-Europos is extremely important for archaeological reasons. As it was abandoned after its conquest in 256-7 AD, nothing was built over it and its location on the edge of empires made for a co-mingling of cultural traditions, much of which was preserved under the citys ruins. Some remarkable finds have brought to light, including numerous temples, wall decorations, inscriptions, military equipment, tombs. After being severely looted by the Islamic State in the ongoing Syrian Civil War, originally a fortress, it was founded in 303 BC with the name Dura by the Seleucids on the intersection of an east-west trade route and the trade route along the Euphrates. Dura controlled the crossing on the route between his newly founded cities of Antioch and Seleucia on the Tigris. Its rebuilding as a city built after the Hippodamian model. The traditional view of Dura-Europos as a caravan city is becoming nuanced by the discoveries of locally made manufactures and traces of close ties with Palmyra. Instead, Dura Europos owed its development to its role as a regional capital, in 113 BC, the Iranian Parthians conquered Dura-Europos, and held it, with one brief intermission, until 165 AD, when it was taken by the Romans. The Parthian period was a phase of expansion at Dura Europos—an expansion favored by abandonment of the military function. In the 1st century BC, it served as a fortress of the Parthian Empire. The entirely original architecture of Dura Europos was perfected during the Parthian period and this period was characterized by a progressive evolution of Greek concepts toward new formulas in which regional traditions, particularly Babylonian ones, played an increasing role. These innovations affected both religious and domestic buildings, although Iranian influence is difficult to find in the architecture of Dura Europos, in figurative art the influence of Parthian art is evident. In 114 AD, the Emperor Trajan occupied the city for a couple of years, upon the death of Trajan in 117, Rome relinquished Mesopotamia to the Parthians. Dura was retaken by the Roman army of Lucius Verus during the Roman–Parthian War of 161–166, the townspeople however retained considerable freedom as a regional headquarters for the section of the river between the Khabur and modern Abu Kemal. As historian Ross Burns states, in exchange the military role was abandoned
5.
Syria
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Syrias capital and largest city is Damascus. Religious groups include Sunnis, Christians, Alawites, Druze, Mandeans, Shiites, Salafis, Sunni Arabs make up the largest religious group in Syria. Its capital Damascus and largest city Aleppo are among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, in the Islamic era, Damascus was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt. The post-independence period was tumultuous, and a number of military coups. In 1958, Syria entered a union with Egypt called the United Arab Republic. Syria was under Emergency Law from 1963 to 2011, effectively suspending most constitutional protections for citizens, Bashar al-Assad has been president since 2000 and was preceded by his father Hafez al-Assad, who was in office from 1970 to 2000. Mainstream modern academic opinion strongly favours the argument that the Greek word is related to the cognate Ἀσσυρία, Assyria, in the past, others believed that it was derived from Siryon, the name that the Sidonians gave to Mount Hermon. However, the discovery of the inscription in 2000 seems to support the theory that the term Syria derives from Assyria. The area designated by the word has changed over time, since approximately 10,000 BC, Syria was one of centers of Neolithic culture where agriculture and cattle breeding appeared for the first time in the world. The following Neolithic period is represented by houses of Mureybet culture. At the time of the pre-pottery Neolithic, people used vessels made of stone, gyps, finds of obsidian tools from Anatolia are evidences of early trade relations. Cities of Hamoukar and Emar played an important role during the late Neolithic, archaeologists have demonstrated that civilization in Syria was one of the most ancient on earth, perhaps preceded by only those of Mesopotamia. The earliest recorded indigenous civilisation in the region was the Kingdom of Ebla near present-day Idlib, gifts from Pharaohs, found during excavations, confirm Eblas contact with Egypt. One of the earliest written texts from Syria is an agreement between Vizier Ibrium of Ebla and an ambiguous kingdom called Abarsal c.2300 BC. The Northwest Semitic language of the Amorites is the earliest attested of the Canaanite languages, Mari reemerged during this period, and saw renewed prosperity until conquered by Hammurabi of Babylon. Ugarit also arose during this time, circa 1800 BC, close to modern Latakia, Ugaritic was a Semitic language loosely related to the Canaanite languages, and developed the Ugaritic alphabet. The Ugarites kingdom survived until its destruction at the hands of the marauding Indo-European Sea Peoples in the 12th century BC, Yamhad was described in the tablets of Mari as the mightiest state in the near east and as having more vassals than Hammurabi of Babylon. Yamhad imposed its authority over Alalakh, Qatna, the Hurrians states, the army of Yamhad campaigned as far away as Dēr on the border of Elam
6.
Abrahamic religions
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Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are the largest Abrahamic religions in terms of numbers of adherents. As of 2005, estimates classified 54% of the population as adherents of an Abrahamic religion, about 32% as adherents of other religions. Christianity claims 33% of the population, Islam has 21%, Judaism has 0. 2%. It has been suggested that the phrase, Abrahamic religion, may mean that all these religions come from one spiritual source. Christians refer to Abraham as a father in faith, there is an Islamic religious term, Millat Ibrahim, indicating that Islam sees itself as having practices tied to the traditions of Abraham. Jewish tradition claims descent from Abraham, and adherents follow his practices and it is the Islamic tradition that Muhammad, as an Arab, is descended from Abrahams son Ishmael. Jewish tradition also equates the descendants of Ishmael, Ishmaelites, with Arabs, as the descendants of Isaac by Jacob, who was also later known as Israel, are the Israelites. The Báb, regarded by Baháís as a predecessor to Baháulláh, was a Sayyid, or a descendant of Muhammad. Tradition also holds that Baháulláh is a descendant of Abraham through his third wife, while there is commonality among the religions, in large measure their shared ancestry is peripheral to their respective foundational beliefs and thus conceals crucial differences. For example, the common Christian beliefs of Incarnation, Trinity, there are key beliefs in both Islam and Judaism that are not shared by most of Christianity, and key beliefs of Islam, Christianity, and the Baháí Faith not shared by Judaism. Judaism regards itself as the religion of the descendants of Jacob and it has a strictly unitary view of God, and the central holy book for almost all branches is the Masoretic Text as elucidated in the Oral Torah. In the 19th century and 20th centuries Judaism developed a number of branches, of which the most significant are Orthodox, Conservative. Christianity began as a sect of Judaism in the Mediterranean Basin of the first century CE and evolved into a separate religion—Christianity—with distinctive beliefs, Jesus is the central figure of Christianity, considered by almost all denominations to be God the Son, one person of the Trinity. The Christian biblical canons are usually held to be the ultimate authority, over many centuries, Christianity divided into three main branches, dozens of significant denominations, and hundreds of smaller ones. Islam arose in the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century CE with a unitary view of God. Muslims hold the Quran to be the authority, as revealed and elucidated through the teachings and practices of a central. The Islamic faith consider all prophets and messengers from Adam through the messenger to carry the same Islamic monotheistic principles. Soon after its founding Islam split into two branches, each of which now have a number of denominations
7.
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
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Romanization of Hebrew
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Hebrew uses the Hebrew alphabet with optional vowel points. The romanization of Hebrew is the use of the Latin alphabet to transliterate Hebrew words, for example, the Hebrew name spelled יִשְׂרָאֵל in the Hebrew alphabet can be romanized as Yisrael or Yiśrāʼēl in the Latin alphabet. Romanization includes any use of the Latin alphabet to transliterate Hebrew words, usually it is to identify a Hebrew word in a non-Hebrew language that uses the Latin alphabet, such as German, Spanish, Turkish, and so on. Transliteration uses an alphabet to represent the letters and sounds of a word spelled in another alphabet, to go the other way, that is from English to Hebrew, see Hebraization of English. Both Hebraization of English and Romanization of Hebrew are forms of transliteration, where these are formalized these are known as transliteration systems, and, where only some words, not all, are transliterated, this is known as transliteration policy. Transliteration assumes two different script systems, the use of a French word in English without translation, such as bourgeois is not transliteration. The use of a Hindi word in English such as khaki is transliteration and these terms were in many cases also first transliterated into Greek and Latin before English. Different publishers have different transliteration policies, for example ArtScroll publications generally transliterate more words relative to sources such as the Jewish Encyclopedia 1911, or Jewish Publication Society texts. There are various standards or systems for Hebrew-to-English, no one system has significant common usage across all fields. Conflicting systems of transliteration often appear in the text, as certain Hebrew words tend to associate with certain traditions of transliteration. For example, For Hanukkah at the synagogue Beith Sheer Chayyim, Isaac donned his talis that Yitzchak sent him from Bet Qehila in Tsfat, Israel. Similarly, the Hebrew letter ת is transliterated as th in the word Beith, s in the word talis, the Hebrew letter ק is transliterated as c in Isaac, k in Yitzchak, and q in Qehila. Finally, the Hebrew letter צ is transliterated variously as s, tz and these inconsistencies make it impossible for the non-Hebrew-speaking reader to recognize related word forms, or even to properly pronounce the Hebrew words thus transliterated. Early romanization of Hebrew occurred with the contact between the Romans and the Jews and it was influenced by earlier transliteration into the Greek language. For example, the name of the Roman province of Iudaea was apparently derived from the Greek words Ἰούδα and these words can be seen in Chapter 1 of Esdras in the Septuagint, a Hellenistic translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek. The Greek words in turn are transliterations of the Hebrew word יהודה that we now know adapted in English as the names Judah, Judas, in the 1st century, Satire 14 of Juvenal uses the Hebraic words sabbata, Iudaicum, and Moyses, apparently adopted from the Greek. The 4th-century and 5th-century Latin translations of the Hebrew Bible romanize its proper names, the familiar Biblical names in English are derived from these romanizations. The Vulgate, of the early 5th century, is considered the first direct Latin translation of the Hebrew Bible, apart from names, another term that the Vulgate romanizes is the technical term mamzer
9.
Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
10.
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
11.
Salvation
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Salvation is being saved or protected from harm or being saved or delivered from a dire situation. In religion, salvation is stated as the saving of the soul from sin, the academic study of salvation is called soteriology. In religion, salvation is the saving of the soul from sin and it may also be called deliverance or redemption from sin and its effects. Salvation is considered to be caused either by the grace of a deity, by free will and personal efforts through prayer and asceticism, religions often emphasize the necessity of both personal effort—for example, repentance and asceticism—and divine action. In contemporary Judaism, redemption, refers to God redeeming the people of Israel from their various exiles and this includes the final redemption from the present exile. Judaism holds that adherents do not need personal salvation as Christians believe, jews do not subscribe to the doctrine of original sin. In Judaism, salvation is related to the idea of redemption. God as the spirit and Creator of the World, is the source of all salvation for humanity. So redemption or salvation depends on the individual, Judaism stresses that salvation cannot be obtained through anyone else or by just invoking a deity or believing in any outside power or influence. The Messiah is not considered as a divine or supernatural being but as a dominating human influence in an age of universal peace. When examining Jewish intellectual sources throughout history, there is clearly a spectrum of opinions regarding death versus the afterlife, possibly an over-simplification, one source says salvation can be achieved in the following manner, Live a holy and righteous life dedicated to Yahweh, the God of Creation. Fast, worship, and celebrate during the appropriate holidays, by origin and nature, Judaism is an ethnic religion. Therefore, salvation has been conceived in terms of the destiny of Israel as the elect people of Yahweh. In the biblical text of Psalms, there is a description of death, the first reference to resurrection is collective in Ezekiels vision of the dry bones, when all the Israelites in exile will be resurrected. There is a reference to individual resurrection in the Book of Daniel and it was not until the 2nd century BCE that there arose a belief in an afterlife, in which the dead would be resurrected and undergo divine judgment. Before that time, the individual had to be content that his posterity continued within the holy nation, the salvation of the individual Jew was connected to the salvation of the entire people. This belief stemmed directly from the teachings of the Torah, in the Torah, God taught his people sanctification of the individual. However, he expected them to function together and be accountable to one another
12.
Messianic Age
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In theology the Messianic Age is a future time of universal peace and brotherhood on the earth, without crime, war and poverty. Many Abrahamic religions believe that there will be such an age, in the context of Messianic Age, the earliest meaning of the word messianic is derived from notion of Yemot HaMashiach meaning the days of the messiah, that is, the Jewish Messiah. Messiah derives from Hebrew, meaning the anointed one, originally the anointed one referred to Aaron and his descendants, the Kohanim. Following the establishment of the kingdom of Saul, it could refer to a king who was anointed with holy anointing oil as part of what might be understood to be his coronation ceremony. Eschatology is an area of scholarship that deals with prophecies about the end of the current age of human civilization. The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together, and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, the infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the vipers nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, in his Mishneh Torah, Maimonides describes the Messianic Era, And at that time there will be no hunger or war, no jealousy or rivalry. For the good will be plentiful, and all available as dust. The entire occupation of the world will be only to know God, the people Israel will be of great wisdom, they will perceive the esoteric truths and comprehend their Creators wisdom as is the capacity of man. As it is written, For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of God, as the waters cover the sea. Advent of the Messianic Era According to the Talmud, the Midrash, and the ancient Kabbalistic work, the Zohar, in Orthodox Jewish belief, the Hebrew calendar dates to the time of creation, making this correspond to the year 2240 on the Gregorian calendar. The Midrash comments, Six eons for going in and coming out, for war, the seventh eon is entirely Shabbat and rest for life everlasting. There is a tradition that maintains that each of the seven days of the week. The tradition teaches that the day of the week, the Sabbath day of rest, corresponds to the seventh millennium. The seventh millennium begins with the year 6000, and is the latest time the Messiah can come. Christian eschatology includes several views of the Messianic Age, According to realized eschatology, the Messianic Era, a time of universal peace and brotherhood on the earth, without crime, war and poverty, is already here. With the Crucifixion of Jesus the Messianic Era had begun, the Book of Revelation is commonly interpreted as referring to the unveiling or revelation of Jesus as the Messiah in the apocalypse or end of the world
13.
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
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Hebrew Bible
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They are composed mainly in Biblical Hebrew, with some passages in Biblical Aramaic. The term does not comment upon the naming, numbering or ordering of books, the term Hebrew Bible is an attempt to provide specificity with respect to contents but avoid allusion to any particular interpretative tradition or theological school of thought. Hebrew Bible refers to the Jewish biblical canon, in its Latin form, Biblia Hebraica, it traditionally serves as a title for printed editions of the Masoretic Text. Many biblical studies scholars advocate use of the term Hebrew Bible as a substitute to terms with religious connotations. Hebrew Bible Old Testament without prescribing the use of either, however, he accepts that there is no reason why non-Christians should feel obliged to refer to these books as the Old Testament, apart from custom of use. Modern Christian formulations of this tension include Supersessionism, Covenant Theology, New Covenant Theology, Dispensationalism, in terms of canon, Christian usage of Old Testament does not refer to a universally agreed upon set of books but, rather, varies depending on denomination. The Hebrew Bible includes small portions in Aramaic, written and printed in Aramaic square-script, the books that constitute the Hebrew Bible developed over roughly a millennium. The oldest texts seem to come from the 11th or 10th centuries BCE and they are edited works, being collections of various sources intricately and carefully woven together. Since the 19th century, most biblical scholars have agreed that the Pentateuch consists of four sources which have been woven together and these four sources are J, D, E and P sources. They were combined to form the Pentateuch sometime in the 6th century BCE and this theory is now known as the documentary hypothesis, and has been the dominant theory for the past two hundred years. The Deuteronomist credited with the Pentateuchs book of Deuteronomy is also said to be the source of the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, several editions, all titled Biblia Hebraica, have been produced by various German publishers since 1906. Between 1906 and 1955, Rudolf Kittel published nine editions of it,1966, the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft published the renamed Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia in six editions until 1997. Since 2004 the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft has published the Biblia Hebraica Quinta, other projects include, Hebrew University Bible Project Hebrew Bible, A Critical Edition Biblical canon Books of the Bible Non-canonical books referenced in the Bible Torah Brueggemann, Walter. An introduction to the Old Testament, the canon and Christian imagination, the People of Ancient Israel, an introduction to Old Testament Literature, History, and Thought, Harper and Row,1974. Sinai and Zion, An Entry into the Jewish Bible, archived from the original on 14 March 2012. The Ancient Near East, Volume I, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press. An abridgement of Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament Noth, how the Bible Became a Book. The Old Testament, A Literary History, hebrew-English Tanakh, the Jewish Bible Complete, fully vocalized, contilated, Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible, together with the classic English translation by the Jewish Publication Society
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High Priest of Israel
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High Priest was the title of the chief religious official of Judaism from the early post-Exilic times until the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE. This tradition came to an end in the 2nd century BCE during the rule of the Hasmoneans, when the position was occupied by other priestly families. Aaron, though he is but rarely called the great priest, being simply designated as ha-kohen, was the first incumbent of the office. The succession was to be one of his sons, and was to remain in his own family. If he had no son, the office devolved upon the next of age. In the time of Eli, however, the passed to the collateral branch of Ithamar. But King Solomon is reported to have deposed the High Priest Abiathar, and to have appointed Zadok, a descendant of Eleazar, in his stead. After the Exile, the succession seems to have been, at first, in a line from father to son. Antiochus IV Epiphanes for instance, deposed Onias III in favor of Jason, Herod the Great nominated no less than six high priests, Archelaus, two. The Roman legate Quirinius and his successors exercised the right of appointment, as did Agrippa I, Herod of Chalcis, even the people occasionally elected candidates to the office. The age of eligibility for the office is not fixed in the Law, aristobulus, however, was only seventeen when appointed by Herod, but the son of Onias III was too young to succeed his father. The age a Levite entered the priesthood was 30 years of age, legitimacy of birth was essential, hence the care in the keeping of the genealogical records and the distrust of one whose mother had been captured in war. The high priest had to abstain from ritual defilement and he may marry only an Israelite virgin. In Ezekiel 44,22 this restriction is extended to all kohanim, according to Josephus, birth on foreign soil was not a disqualification, but the disqualifications of Leviticus 21,17 et seq. applied to the high priest as well as to other priests. The Torah provides for specific vestments to be worn by the priests when they are ministering in the Tabernacle, And you shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, for dignity and these garments are described in detail in Exodus 28, Exodus 39 and Leviticus 8. The high priest wore eight holy garments, of these, four were of the same type worn by all priests, and four were unique to the Kohen Gadol. That of the High Priest was embroidered, those of the priests were plain, Priestly sash, that of the High Priest was of fine linen with embroidered work in blue and purple and scarlet, those worn by the priests were of white, twined linen. It was fastened to the Ephod On the front of the turban was a golden plate inscribed with the words, the High Priest, like all priests, would minister barefoot when he was serving in the Temple
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Anointing
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Anointing is the ritual act of pouring aromatic oil over a persons head or entire body. By extension, the term is applied to related acts of sprinkling, dousing, or smearing a person or object with any perfumed oil, milk, butter. Scented oils are used as perfumes and sharing them is an act of hospitality, in present usage, anointing is typically used for ceremonial blessings such as the coronation of European monarchs. This continues an earlier Hebrew practice most famously observed in the anointings of Aaron as high priest, the concept is important to the figures of the Messiah and the Christ who appear prominently in Jewish and Christian theology and eschatology. Anointing—particularly the anointing of the sick—may also be known as unction, the present verb derives from the now obsolete adjective anoint, equivalent to anointed. The adjective is first attested in 1303, derived from Old French enoint, the past participle of enoindre, from Latin inungere and it is thus cognate with unction. The oil used in a ceremonial anointment may be called chrism, several related words such as chrismation and chrismarium derive from the same root. Anointing served and serves three purposes, it is regarded as a means of health and comfort, as a token of honor. Used in conjunction with bathing, anointment with oil closes pores and it was regarded as counteracting the influence of the sun, reducing sweating. Aromatic oils naturally masked body and other odors, and other forms of fat could be combined with perfumes. Applications of oils and fats are used as traditional medicines. The Bible records olive oil being applied to the sick and poured into wounds and it is still used in traditional Indian medicine to remove illness, bad luck, and demonic possession. For sanitary and religious reasons, the bodies of the dead are sometimes anointed, in medieval and early modern Christianity, the practice was particularly associated with protection against vampires and ghouls who might otherwise take possession of the corpse. Anointing guests with oil as a mark of hospitality and token of honor is recorded in Egypt, Greece and it was a common custom among the ancient Hebrews and continued among the Arabs into the 20th century. For about 3,000 years, Persian Zoroastrians honor their guests with rose extract while holding a mirror in front of their guests face, the guests hold their palms out, collect the rose water, and then spread the perfumed liquid upon their faces and sometimes heads. The words of rooj kori aka might be said as well, east African Arabs traditionally anointed themselves with lions fat to gain courage and provoke fear in other animals. Australian Aborigines would rub themselves with a human victims caul fat to gain his powers, in religions like Christianity where animal sacrifice is no longer practiced, it is common to consecrate the oil in a special ceremony. The most famous example of this is on the throne of Tutankhamun, anointment of the corpse with sweet-smelling oils was an important part of mummification
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Book of Isaiah
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The Book of Isaiah is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the first of the Major Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. While virtually no one today attributes the entire book, or even most of it, to one person, Isaiah 1–33 promises judgment and restoration for Judah, Jerusalem and the nations, and chapters 34–66 presume that judgment has been pronounced and restoration follows soon. It can thus be read as a meditation on the destiny of Jerusalem into. Isaiah speaks out against corrupt leaders and for the disadvantaged, Isaiah 44,6 contains the first clear statement of monotheism, I am the first and I am the last, besides me there is no god. This model of monotheism became the characteristic of post-Exilic Judaism. Isaiah was one of the most popular works among Jews in the Second Temple period, the scholarly consensus which held sway through most of the 20th century saw three separate collections of oracles in the book of Isaiah. God has a plan which will be realised on the Day of Yahweh, on that day all the nations of the world will come to Zion for instruction, but first the city must be punished and cleansed of evil. Israel is invited to join in this plan, chapters 5–12 explain the significance of the Assyrian judgment against Israel, righteous rule by the Davidic king will follow after the arrogant Assyrian monarch is brought down. The oppressor is about to fall, chapters 34–35 tell how Yahweh will return the redeemed exiles to Jerusalem. Chapters 36–39 tell of the faithfulness of king Hezekiah to Yahweh during the Assyrian siege as a model for the restored community, chapters 55–66 are an exhortation to Israel to keep the covenant. Gods eternal promise to David is now made to the people of Israel/Judah at large, the book ends by enjoining righteousness as the final stages of Gods plan come to pass, including the pilgrimage of the nations to Zion and the realisation of Yahwehs kingship. Chapters 56–66 assume an even later situation, in which the people are returned to Jerusalem. Anonymity → Isaiahs name suddenly stops being used after chapter 39, style → There is a sudden change in style and theology after chapter 40, numerous key words and phrases found in one section are not found in the other. These observations led scholars to the conclusion that the book can be divided into three sections, labeled Proto-Isaiah, Deutero-Isaiah, and Trito-Isaiah. Early modern-period scholars treated Isaiah as independent collections of sayings by three individual prophets, brought together at a later period, about 70 BCE, to form the present book. The second half of the 20th century saw a change in approach. The conquest of Jerusalem by Babylon and the exile of its elite in 586 BCE ushered in the stage in the formation of the book. Deutero-Isaiah addresses himself to the Jews in exile, offering them the hope of return, deutero-Isaiahs predictions of the imminent fall of Babylon and his glorification of Cyrus as the deliverer of Israel date his prophecies to 550–539 BCE, and probably towards the end of this period
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Cyrus the Great
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Cyrus II of Persia, commonly known as Cyrus the Great and also called Cyrus the Elder by the Greeks, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. From the Mediterranean Sea and Hellespont in the west to the Indus River in the east, under his successors, the empire eventually stretched at its maximum extent from parts of the Balkans and Eastern Europe proper in the west, to the Indus Valley in the east. His regal titles in full were The Great King, King of Persia, King of Anshan, King of Media, King of Babylon, King of Sumer and Akkad, the reign of Cyrus the Great lasted between 29 and 31 years. Cyrus built his empire by conquering first the Median Empire, then the Lydian Empire, either before or after Babylon, he led an expedition into central Asia, which resulted in major campaigns that were described as having brought into subjection every nation without exception. Cyrus did not venture into Egypt, as he died in battle. He was succeeded by his son, Cambyses II, who managed to add to the empire by conquering Egypt, Nubia, Cyrus the Great respected the customs and religions of the lands he conquered. This became a successful model for centralized administration and establishing a government working to the advantage. In fact, the administration of the empire through satraps and the principle of forming a government at Pasargadae were the works of Cyrus. Cyrus the Great is also recognized for his achievements in human rights, politics. Having originated from Persis, roughly corresponding to the modern Iranian province of Fars and this view has been criticized by some historians as a misunderstanding of the Cylinders generic nature as a traditional statement that new monarchs make at the beginning of their reign. The name Cyrus is a Latinized form derived from the Greek Κῦρος, Kỹros, the name and its meaning has been recorded in ancient inscriptions in different languages. This may also point to a relationship to the mythological first king of Persia, Jamshid. Karl Hoffmann has suggested a translation based on the meaning of an Indo-European-root to humiliate, in the Persian language and especially in Iran, Cyruss name is spelled as کوروش. In the Bible, he is known as Koresh, the Persian domination and kingdom in the Iranian plateau started by an extension of the Achaemenid dynasty, who expanded their earlier domination possibly from the 9th century BC onward. The eponymous founder of dynasty was Achaemenes. Achaemenids are descendants of Achaemenes as Darius the Great, the king of the dynasty, traces his genealogy to him. Ancient documents mention that Teispes had a son called Cyrus I, Cyrus I had a full brother whose name is recorded as Ariaramnes. In 600 BC, Cyrus I was succeeded by his son, Cambyses I, Cyrus the Great was a son of Cambyses I, who named his son after his father, Cyrus I
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Achaemenid Empire
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The Achaemenid Empire, also called the Persian Empire, was an empire based in Western Asia, founded by Cyrus the Great. The empires successes inspired similar systems in later empires and it is noted in Western history as the antagonist of the Greek city-states during the Greco-Persian Wars and for the emancipation of the Jewish exiles in Babylon. The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, was built in a Hellenistic style in the empire as well. By the 7th century BC, the Persians had settled in the portion of the Iranian Plateau in the region of Persis. From this region, Cyrus the Great advanced to defeat the Medes, Lydia, Alexander, an avid admirer of Cyrus the Great, conquered the empire in its entirety by 330 BC. Upon his death, most of the former territory came under the rule of the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Seleucid Empire. The Persian population of the central plateau reclaimed power by the second century BC under the Parthian Empire, the historical mark of the Achaemenid Empire went far beyond its territorial and military influences and included cultural, social, technological and religious influences as well. Many Athenians adopted Achaemenid customs in their lives in a reciprocal cultural exchange. The impact of Cyruss edict is mentioned in Judeo-Christian texts, the empire also set the tone for the politics, heritage and history of modern Iran. Astronomical year numbering Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details Due to the duration of their reigns, Smerdis, Xerxes II. The Persian nation contains a number of tribes as listed here, the Pasargadae, Maraphii, and Maspii, upon which all the other tribes are dependent. Of these, the Pasargadae are the most distinguished, they contain the clan of the Achaemenids from which spring the Perseid kings. Other tribes are the Panthialaei, Derusiaei, Germanii, all of which are attached to the soil, the Achaemenid Empire was created by nomadic Persians. The Achaemenid Empire was not the first Iranian empire, as by 6th century BC another group of ancient Iranian peoples had established the short lived Median Empire. The Iranian peoples had arrived in the region of what is today Iran c.1000 BC and had for a number of centuries fallen under the domination of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, based in northern Mesopotamia. However, the Medes and Persians, Cimmerians, Persians and Chaldeans played a role in the overthrow of the Assyrian empire. The term Achaemenid means of the family of the Achaemenis/Achaemenes, despite the derivation of the name, Achaemenes was himself a minor seventh-century ruler of the Anshan in southwestern Iran, and a vassal of Assyria. At some point in 550 BC, Cyrus rose in rebellion against the Medes, eventually conquering the Medes and creating the first Persian empire
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Second Temple
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The Second Temple was the Jewish Holy Temple which stood on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem during the Second Temple period, between 516 BCE and 70 CE. Jewish eschatology includes a belief that the Second Temple will be replaced by a future Third Temple, the accession of Cyrus the Great of the Persian Empire in 559 BCE made the re-establishment of the city of Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the Temple possible. According to the Bible, when the Jewish exiles returned to Jerusalem following a decree from Cyrus the Great, the events take place in the second half of the 5th century BCE. Listed together with the Book of Ezra as Ezra-Nehemiah, it represents the chapter in the historical narrative of the Hebrew Bible. The original core of the book, the memoir, may have been combined with the core of the Book of Ezra around 400 BCE. Further editing probably continued into the Hellenistic era, the book tells how Nehemiah, at the court of the king in Susa, is informed that Jerusalem is without walls and resolves to restore them. The king appoints him as governor of the province Yehud Medinata, there he rebuilds the walls, despite the opposition of Israels enemies, and reforms the community in conformity with the law of Moses. After 12 years in Jerusalem, he returns to Susa but subsequently revisits Jerusalem and he finds that the Israelites have been backsliding and taking non-Jewish wives, and he stays in Jerusalem to enforce the Law. A wide interest was felt in this movement, although it was regarded with mixed feelings by the spectators. The Samaritans made proposals for co-operation in the work, Zerubbabel and the elders, however, declined all such cooperation, feeling that the Jews must build the Temple without help. Immediately evil reports were spread regarding the Jews, according to Ezra 4,5, the Samaritans sought to frustrate their purpose and sent messengers to Ecbatana and Susa, with the result that the work was suspended. Seven years later, Cyrus the Great, who allowed the Jews to return to their homeland and rebuild the Temple, on his death, the false Smerdis, an impostor, occupied the throne for some seven or eight months, and then Darius became king. It was ready for consecration in the spring of 516 BCE, the Book of Haggai includes a prediction that the glory of the second temple would be greater than that of the first. Some of the artifacts from the Temple of Solomon are not mentioned in the sources after its destruction in 597 BCE. In the Second Temple, the Kodesh Hakodashim was separated by curtains rather than a wall as in the First Temple. Still, as in the Tabernacle, the Second Temple included, The Menorah for the Hekhal The Table of Showbread The golden altar of incense, with golden censers. According to the Mishnah, the Foundation Stone stood where the Ark used to be, the Second Temple also included many of the original vessels of gold that had been taken by the Babylonians but restored by Cyrus the Great. According to the Babylonian Talmud, however, the Temple lacked the Shekinah, the dwelling or settling divine presence of God, and the Ruach HaKodesh, judea became at that moment part of the Seleucid empire of Syria
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Davidic line
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The Davidic line refers to the tracing of lineage to King David referred to many times in the Hebrew Bible and in the New Testament. According to the Tanakh upon being chosen and becoming king, the custom was anointing with holy oil poured on the head. In Davids case, this was done by the prophet Samuel In Hebrew, the anointing is called meshicha and a king is referred to as a Moshiach or Messiah or a Melech HaMashiach meaning the anointed king. The procedure of anointment, in Davids case, is said to symbolize the descent of Gods holiness upon the king and this kingdom was eventually conquered by Assyria who exiled them, to disappear from history as The Ten Lost Tribes. Following the conquest of Judah by Babylon and the exile of its population, the highest official of Babylonian Jewry was the exilarch. Those who held the position traced their ancestry to the House of David in the male line, the position holder was regarded as a king-in-waiting. The Hasmoneans, also known as the Maccabees, were a group from the Tribe of Levi. They established their own monarchy in Judea following their revolt against the Hellenistic Seleucid dynasty, the Hasmoneans were not considered connected to the Davidic line nor to the Tribe of Judah. The Levites had always been excluded from the Israelite monarchy, so when the Maccabees assumed the throne in order to rededicate the defiled Second Temple, a cardinal rule was broken. The Messiah is often referred to as King Messiah, or, in Hebrew, מלך משיח, jewish tradition alludes to two redeemers, both of whom are called mashiach and are involved in ushering in the Messianic age, Mashiach ben David, and Mashiach ben Yosef. In general, the term Messiah unqualified refers to Mashiach ben David, in Christian interpretation the Davidic promise of a Davidic line in 2 Samuel 7 is understood in various ways, traditionally referring to the genealogies of Christ in the New Testament. The Quran mentioned the house of David once and mentioned David 16 times
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David
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David was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the second king of the United Kingdom of Israel and Judah, reigning in c. He is described as a man after Gods own heart in 1 Samuel 13,14 and Acts 13,22. The Hebrew prophets regarded him as the ancestor of the future messiah, the New Testament says he was an ancestor of Jesus. God is angered when Saul, Israels king, unlawfully offers a sacrifice and later disobeys a divine instruction to not only all of the Amalekites. Consequently, he sends the prophet Samuel to anoint David, the youngest son of Jesse of Bethlehem, God sends an evil spirit to torment Saul. Sauls courtiers recommend that he send for David, a man skillful on the lyre, wise in speech, and brave in battle. So David enters Sauls service as one of the royal armour-bearers, and plays the lyre to soothe the king, war comes between Israel and the Philistines, and the giant Goliath challenges the Israelites to send out a champion to face him in single combat. David, sent by his father to bring provisions to his brothers serving in Sauls army, refusing the kings offer of the royal armour, he kills Goliath with his sling. Saul inquires the name of the heros father. Saul sets David over his army, all Israel loves David, but his popularity causes Saul to fear him. Saul plots his death, but Sauls son Jonathan, one of those who loves David, warns him of his fathers schemes and David flees. He becomes a vassal of the Philistine king Achish of Gath, but Achishs nobles question his loyalty, Jonathan and Saul are killed, and David is anointed king over Judah. In the north, Sauls son Ish-Bosheth is anointed king of Israel, with the death of Sauls son, the elders of Israel come to Hebron and David is anointed king over all Israel. He conquers Jerusalem, previously a Jebusite stronghold, and makes it his capital. He brings the Ark of the Covenant to the city, intending to build a temple for God, Nathan also prophesies that God has made a covenant with the house of David, Your throne shall be established forever. David wins more victories over the Philistines, while the Moabites, Edomites, Amalekites, Ammonites, during a battle to conquer the Ammonite capital of Rabbah, David seduces Bathsheba and causes the death of her husband Uriah the Hittite. In response, Nathan prophesies the punishment that shall fall upon him, in fulfillment of these words Davids son Absalom rebels. The rebellion ends at the battle of the Wood of Ephraim, Absaloms forces are routed, and Absalom is caught by his long hair in the branches of a tree, and killed by Joab, contrary to Davids order. Joab was the commander of Davids army, David laments the death of his favourite son, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom
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Solomon
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Solomon, also called Jedidiah, was, according to the Bible, Quran, hadith and Hidden Words a fabulously wealthy and wise king of Israel and a son of David, the previous king of Israel. The conventional dates of Solomons reign are circa 970 to 931 BC and he is described as the third king of the United Monarchy, which would break apart into the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judah shortly after his death. Following the split, his descendants ruled over Judah alone. According to the Talmud, Solomon is one of the 48 prophets, in the Quran, he is considered a major prophet, and Muslims generally refer to him by the Arabic variant Sulayman, son of David. Solomon was, according to the Quran, a king of ancient Israel as well as the son of David, the Hebrew Bible credits him as the builder of the First Temple in Jerusalem. It portrays him as great in wisdom, wealth, and power any of the previous kings of the country. His sins included idolatry, marrying foreign women, and ultimately turning away from Yahweh, Solomon is the subject of many other later references and legends, most notably in the 1st-century apocryphal work known as the Testament of Solomon. Solomon was born in Jerusalem, the second child of David and his wife Bathsheba. The first child, a son conceived adulterously during Uriahs lifetime, had died before Solomon was conceived as a punishment on account of the death of Uriah by Davids order. Solomon had three named full brothers through Bathsheba, Nathan, Shammua, and Shobab, besides six known older half-brothers through as many mothers, according to the First Book of Kings, when David was old, he could not get warm. So they sought a young woman throughout all the territory of Israel, and found Abishag the Shunammite. The young woman was very beautiful, and she was of service to the king and attended to him, while David was in this state, court factions were maneuvering for power. Solomon greatly expanded his military strength, especially the cavalry and chariot arms and he founded numerous colonies, some of which doubled as trading posts and military outposts. Trade relationships were a focus of his administration, Solomon is considered the most wealthy of the Israelite kings named in the Bible. Solomon also built the First Temple, beginning in the year of his reign. Solomon was the Biblical king most famous for his wisdom, in 1 Kings he sacrificed to God and prayed for wisdom. God personally answered his prayer, promising him great wisdom because he did not ask for self-serving rewards like long life or the death of his enemies. Perhaps the best known story of his wisdom is the Judgment of Solomon, Solomon easily resolved the dispute by commanding the child to be cut in half and shared between the two
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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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Land of Israel
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The Land of Israel is the traditional Jewish name for an area of indefinite geographical extension in the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine. The definitions of the limits of this territory vary between passages in the Hebrew Bible, with mentions in Genesis 15, Exodus 23, Numbers 34. Nine times elsewhere in the Bible, the land is referred as from Dan to Beersheba. According to the Book of Genesis, the land was first promised by God to the descendants of Abram, abrams name was later changed to Abraham, with the promise refined to pass through his son Isaac and to the Israelites, descendants of Jacob, Abrahams grandson. During the mandatory period the term Eretz Yisrael or the Land of Israel was part of the official Hebrew name of Mandatory Palestine, official Hebrew documents used the Hebrew transliteration of the word “Palestine” פלשתינה followed always by the two initial letters of Eretz Yisrael, א״י Aleph-Yod. The Land of Israel concept has been evoked by the founders of the State of Israel. It often surfaces in political debates on the status of the West Bank, Ezekiel, though generally preferring the phrase soil of Israel, employs eretz israel twice, respectively at Ezekiel 40,2 and Ezekiel 47,18. According to Anita Shapira, the term Eretz Yisrael was a term, vague as far as the exact boundaries of the territories are concerned. The Hebrew Bible provides three specific sets of borders for the Promised Land, each with a different purpose. And to their descendants after them, whilst Numbers 34, 1–15 describes the Land of Canaan which is allocated to nine, the expression Land of Israel is first used in a later book,1 Samuel 13,19. It is defined in detail in the exilic Book of Ezekiel as a land where both the tribes and the strangers in midst, can claim inheritance. The name Israel first appears in the Hebrew Bible as the name given by God to the patriarch Jacob, deriving from the name Israel, other designations that came to be associated with the Jewish people have included the Children of Israel or Israelite. The term Land of Israel occurs in one episode in the New Testament, the section in which it appears was written as a parallel to the earlier Book of Exodus. The passage describes the area as the land of the ten named ancient peoples living there. Genesis gives the border with Egypt as Nahar Mitzrayim – nahar in Hebrew denotes a river, never a wadi. Only the Red Sea and the Euphrates are mentioned to define the southern and eastern borders of the land promised to the Israelites. The Red Sea corresponding to Hebrew Yam Suf was understood in ancient times to be the Erythraean Sea, thus the entire Arabian peninsula lies within the borders described
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Third Temple
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The Third Temple, or Ezekiels Temple, is a Holy Temple architecturally described and prophesied in the Book of Ezekiel, a house of prayer for all people with a sacrificial service. It is noted by Ezekiel as an eternal edifice and permanent dwelling place of the God of Israel on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and this Temple would be the third central religious space for Jews after Solomons Temple and the rebuilt Second Temple. Although it has not been built, prospects for its completion are important in Jewish eschatology, the architecture of the temple is described in detail in Chapters 40 to 42 of Ezekiel. Maimonides qualified those chapters as complex for the reader and even for the seasoned scholar. The layout and measurements of the building are described in detail, each cherub had two faces, the face of a human being toward the palm tree on one side and the face of a lion toward the palm tree on the other. Since the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, religious Jews have expressed their desire to see the building of a Third Temple on the Temple Mount, prayer for this is a formal part of the Jewish tradition of thrice daily Amidah prayer. Though it remains unbuilt, the notion of and desire for a Third Temple is sacred in Judaism, particularly Orthodox Judaism, the prophets in the Tanakh called for its construction to be fulfilled prior to, or in tandem with, the Messianic age. The rebuilding of the Third Temple also plays a role in some interpretations of Christian eschatology. Architectural plans for the third Temple exist most notably in Chapters 40–47 of the Book of Ezekiel, Orthodox Judaism believes in the rebuilding of a Third Temple and the resumption of Korban, although there is disagreement about how rebuilding should take place. This belief is embedded in Orthodox Jewish prayer services, the generally accepted position among Orthodox Jews is that the full order of the sacrifices will be resumed upon the building of the Temple. Maimonides wrote in his philosophical treatise, A Guide for the Perplexed. However, in his Jewish legal code, the Mishneh Torah, he states that animal sacrifices will resume in the third temple, some attribute to Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook the view that animal sacrifices will not be reinstituted. These views on the Temple service are sometimes misconstrued, the morning prayer service also includes a study session of the daily Temple ritual and offerings as a reminder, including detailed study of the animal sacrifices and incense offerings. The service also contains the daily and special-occasion psalms the Levites used to sing in the Temple, translations and commentary on prayers with this language tend to discuss both meanings in Orthodox Judaism. The laws of purity are directly based, in function and terminology. A number of requirements, such as the practices of immersing in a mikveh before Yom Kippur, washing the hands in the morning, before meals. Many contemporary and seemingly unconnected rules for living are intimately linked with these Temple rituals. In August 1967, after Israels capture of the Mount, Rabbi Shlomo Goren, Rabbi Goren was also well known for his controversial positions concerning Jewish sovereignty over the Temple Mount
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World to come
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Under Christian eschatology, the phrase is found in the Nicene Creed, We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. It is also found in the King James Version of the New Testament at Matthew 12,32, Mark 10,30, Luke 18,30, Hebrews 2,5, in Hindu eschatology the current age is the Kali Yuga, a period of decline. Kalki will appear to all evil, beginning a golden age of Satya Yuga. HaOlam HaBa, or the world to come, is an important part of Jewish eschatology, the afterlife is known as Olam haBa, Gan Eden and Gehinom. According to the Talmud, any non-Jew who lives according to the Seven Laws of Noah is regarded as a Ger toshav, and is assured of a place in the world to come, the final reward of the righteous. In Zoroastrian eschatology, the world to come is the frashokereti and this is followed by a last judgment. The yazatas Airyaman and Atar will melt the metal in the hills and mountains, and the molten metal will then flow across the earth like a river. All mankind—both the living and the resurrected dead—will be required to wade through that river, the river will then flow down to hell, where it will annihilate Angra Mainyu and the last vestiges of wickedness in the universe. There have been a range of dates predicted, purportedly from different methods of calculation and this is not a rare occurrence and last happened in early 2012, passing without event. The time of arrival of Kalki has not been asserted by astrologers
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Christianity
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Christianity is a Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, who serves as the focal point for the religion. It is the worlds largest religion, with over 2.4 billion followers, or 33% of the global population, Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of humanity whose coming as the Messiah was prophesied in the Old Testament. Christian theology is summarized in creeds such as the Apostles Creed and his incarnation, earthly ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection are often referred to as the gospel, meaning good news. The term gospel also refers to accounts of Jesuss life and teaching, four of which—Matthew, Mark, Luke. Christianity is an Abrahamic religion that began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the mid-1st century, following the Age of Discovery, Christianity spread to the Americas, Australasia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the rest of the world through missionary work and colonization. Christianity has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilization, throughout its history, Christianity has weathered schisms and theological disputes that have resulted in many distinct churches and denominations. Worldwide, the three largest branches of Christianity are the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the denominations of Protestantism. There are many important differences of interpretation and opinion of the Bible, concise doctrinal statements or confessions of religious beliefs are known as creeds. They began as baptismal formulae and were expanded during the Christological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries to become statements of faith. Many evangelical Protestants reject creeds as definitive statements of faith, even agreeing with some or all of the substance of the creeds. The Baptists have been non-creedal in that they have not sought to establish binding authoritative confessions of faith on one another. Also rejecting creeds are groups with roots in the Restoration Movement, such as the Christian Church, the Evangelical Christian Church in Canada, the Apostles Creed is the most widely accepted statement of the articles of Christian faith. It is also used by Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists and this particular creed was developed between the 2nd and 9th centuries. Its central doctrines are those of the Trinity and God the Creator, each of the doctrines found in this creed can be traced to statements current in the apostolic period. The creed was used as a summary of Christian doctrine for baptismal candidates in the churches of Rome. Most Christians accept the use of creeds, and subscribe to at least one of the mentioned above. The central tenet of Christianity is the belief in Jesus as the Son of God, Christians believe that Jesus, as the Messiah, was anointed by God as savior of humanity, and hold that Jesus coming was the fulfillment of messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. The Christian concept of the Messiah differs significantly from the contemporary Jewish concept, Jesus, having become fully human, suffered the pains and temptations of a mortal man, but did not sin
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Christ (title)
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In Christianity, the Christ is a title for the saviour and redeemer who would bring salvation to the Jewish people and mankind. Christians believe that Jesus is the Jewish messiah called Christ in both the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament, Christ, used by Christians as both a name and a title, is synonymous with Jesus. The role of the Christ in Christianity originated from the concept of the messiah in Judaism. Though the conceptions of the messiah in each religion are similar, for the most part they are distinct from one due to the split of early Christianity. Jesus came to be called Jesus Christ by his followers after his crucifixion and resurrection, Christians believe that the messianic prophecies were fulfilled in his mission, death, and resurrection. The Pauline epistles, the earliest texts of the New Testament, the word Christ was originally a title, but later became part of the name Jesus Christ. It is, however, still used as a title, in the reciprocal use Christ Jesus, meaning the Messiah Jesus. The followers of Jesus became known as Christians because they believed Jesus to be the Khristós or Mashiach prophesied in the Hebrew Bible. Jesus was not, and is not, accepted in Judaism as a Jewish messiah, religious Jews still await their messiahs first coming and the Messianic prophecies of Jewish tradition to be accomplished. Religious Christians believe in the Second Coming of Christ, and they await the rest of Christian messianic prophecies to be fulfilled. Muslims accept Jesus as al-Masih, the messiah in Islam, but dont believe that the messiah is divine or the Son of God, but do believe he will come again. The area of Christian theology called Christology is primarily concerned with the nature and person of Jesus Christ as recorded in the canonical gospels, the word Christ appears in English and in most European languages. English-speakers now often use Christ as if it were a name, one part of the name Jesus Christ and its usage in Christ Jesus emphasizes its nature as a title. The spelling Christ in English became standardized in the 18th century, when, in the spirit of the Enlightenment, the spelling Christ in English is attested from the 14th century. In modern and ancient usage, even in secular terminology, Christ usually refers to Jesus, at the time of Jesus, there was no single form of Second Temple Judaism, and there were significant political, social, and religious differences among the various Jews groups. However, for centuries the Jews had used the term moshiach to refer to their expected deliverer, the Greek word messias appears only twice in the Septuagint of the promised prince. This title was used when a name was wanted for the one who was to be at once King. The New Testament states that the long-awaited messiah had come and describes this savior as the Christ
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Islam
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Islam is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion which professes that there is only one and incomparable God and that Muhammad is the last messenger of God. It is the worlds second-largest religion and the major religion in the world, with over 1.7 billion followers or 23% of the global population. Islam teaches that God is merciful, all-powerful, and unique, and He has guided mankind through revealed scriptures, natural signs, and a line of prophets sealed by Muhammad. The primary scriptures of Islam are the Quran, viewed by Muslims as the word of God. Muslims believe that Islam is the original, complete and universal version of a faith that was revealed many times before through prophets including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses. As for the Quran, Muslims consider it to be the unaltered, certain religious rites and customs are observed by the Muslims in their family and social life, while social responsibilities to parents, relatives, and neighbors have also been defined. Besides, the Quran and the sunnah of Muhammad prescribe a comprehensive body of moral guidelines for Muslims to be followed in their personal, social, political, Islam began in the early 7th century. Originating in Mecca, it spread in the Arabian Peninsula. The expansion of the Muslim world involved various caliphates and empires, traders, most Muslims are of one of two denominations, Sunni or Shia. Islam is the dominant religion in the Middle East, North Africa, sizable Muslim communities are also found in Horn of Africa, Europe, China, Russia, Mainland Southeast Asia, Philippines, Northern Borneo, Caucasus and the Americas. Converts and immigrant communities are found in almost every part of the world, Islam is a verbal noun originating from the triliteral root s-l-m which forms a large class of words mostly relating to concepts of wholeness, submission, safeness and peace. In a religious context it means voluntary submission to God, Islām is the verbal noun of Form IV of the root, and means submission or surrender. Muslim, the word for an adherent of Islam, is the active participle of the verb form. The word sometimes has connotations in its various occurrences in the Quran. In some verses, there is stress on the quality of Islam as a state, Whomsoever God desires to guide. Other verses connect Islām and dīn, Today, I have perfected your religion for you, I have completed My blessing upon you, still others describe Islam as an action of returning to God—more than just a verbal affirmation of faith. In the Hadith of Gabriel, islām is presented as one part of a triad that also includes imān, Islam was historically called Muhammadanism in Anglophone societies. This term has fallen out of use and is said to be offensive because it suggests that a human being rather than God is central to Muslims religion
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Jesus
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In Christology, the Person of Christ refers to the study of the human and divine natures of Jesus Christ as they co-exist within one person. There is no discussion in the New Testament regarding the dual nature of the Person of Christ as both divine and human. Hence, since the days of Christianity theologians have debated various approaches to the understanding of these natures. In the period following the Apostolic Age, specific beliefs such as Arianism and Docetism were criticized. On the other end of the spectrum, Docetism argued that Jesus physical body was an illusion, docetic teachings were attacked by St. Ignatius of Antioch and were eventually abandoned by proto-orthodox Christians. However, after the First Council of Nicaea in 325 the Logos, historically in the Alexandrian school of christology, Jesus Christ is the eternal Logos paradoxically humanized in history, a divine Person who became enfleshed, uniting himself to the human nature. The views of these schools can be summarized as follows, Alexandria, Antioch, Logos assumes a specific human being The First Council of Ephesus in 431 debated a number of views regarding the Person of Christ. At the same gathering the council debated the doctrines of monophysitism or miaphysitism. The council rejected Nestorianism and adopted the term hypostatic union, referring to divine, the language used in the 431 declaration was further refined at the 451 Council of Chalcedon. However, the Chalcedon creed was not accepted by all Christians, because Saint Augustine died in 430 he did not participate in the Council of Ephesus in 431 or Chalcedon in 451, but his ideas had some impact on both councils. On the other hand, the major theological figure of the Middle Ages. The Third Council of Constantinople in 680 held that both divine and human wills exist in Jesus, with the divine will having precedence, leading and guiding the human will. John Calvin maintained that there was no element in the Person of Christ which could be separated from the person of The Word. Calvin also emphasized the importance of the Work of Christ in any attempt at understanding the Person of Christ, the study of the Person of Christ continued into the 20th century, with modern theologians such as Karl Rahner and Hans von Balthasar. Balthasar argued that the union of the human and divine natures of Christ was achieved not by the absorption of human attributes, thus in his view the divine nature of Christ was not affected by the human attributes and remained forever divine
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Christian
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A Christian is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Christian derives from the Koine Greek word Christós, a translation of the Biblical Hebrew term mashiach, while there are diverse interpretations of Christianity which sometimes conflict, they are united in believing that Jesus has a unique significance. The term Christian is also used as an adjective to describe anything associated with Christianity, or in a sense all that is noble, and good. According to a 2011 Pew Research Center survey, there were 2.2 billion Christians around the world in 2010, by 2050, the Christian population is expected to exceed 3 billion. According to a 2012 Pew Research Center survey Christianity will remain the worlds largest religion in 2050, about half of all Christians worldwide are Catholic, while more than a third are Protestant. Orthodox communions comprise 12% of the worlds Christians, other Christian groups make up the remainder. Christians make up the majority of the population in 158 countries and territories,280 million Christian live as a minority. In the Greek Septuagint, christos was used to translate the Hebrew מָשִׁיחַ, in other European languages, equivalent words to Christian are likewise derived from the Greek, such as Chrétien in French and Cristiano in Spanish. The second mention of the term follows in Acts 26,28, where Herod Agrippa II replied to Paul the Apostle, Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. The third and final New Testament reference to the term is in 1 Peter 4,16, which believers, Yet if as a Christian, let him not be ashamed. The city of Antioch, where someone gave them the name Christians, had a reputation for coming up with such nicknames, in the Annals he relates that by vulgar appellation commonly called Christians and identifies Christians as Neros scapegoats for the Great Fire of Rome. Another term for Christians which appears in the New Testament is Nazarenes which is used by the Jewish lawyer Tertullus in Acts 24, the Hebrew equivalent of Nazarenes, Notzrim, occurs in the Babylonian Talmud, and is still the modern Israeli Hebrew term for Christian. A wide range of beliefs and practices is found across the world among those who call themselves Christian, denominations and sects disagree on a common definition of Christianity. Most Baptists and fundamentalists, for example, would not acknowledge Mormonism or Christian Science as Christian, in fact, the nearly 77 percent of Americans who self-identify as Christian are a diverse pluribus of Christianities that are far from any collective unity. The identification of Jesus as the Messiah is not accepted by Judaism, the term for a Christian in Hebrew is נוּצְרי, a Talmudic term originally derived from the fact that Jesus came from the Galilean village of Nazareth, today in northern Israel. Adherents of Messianic Judaism are referred to in modern Hebrew as יְהוּדִים מָשִׁיחַיים, the term Nasara rose to prominence in July 2014, after the Fall of Mosul to the terrorist organization Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The nun or ن— the first letter of Nasara—was spray-painted on the property of Christians ejected from the city, where there is a distinction, Nasrani refers to people from a Christian culture and Masihi is used by Christians themselves for those with a religious faith in Jesus. In some countries Nasrani tends to be used generically for non-Muslim Western foreigners, another Arabic word sometimes used for Christians, particularly in a political context, is Ṣalībī from ṣalīb which refers to Crusaders and has negative connotations
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Old Testament
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Its counterpart is the New Testament, the second part of the Christian Bible. The books that comprise the Old Testament canon differ between Christian Churches as well as their order and names. The most common Protestant canon comprises 39 books, the Catholic canon comprises 46 books, the 39 books in common to all the Christian canons corresponds to 24 books of the Tanakh, with some differences of order, and there are some differences in text. The additional number reflects the split of texts in the Christian Bibles into separate books, for example, Kings, Samuel and Chronicles, Ezra–Nehemiah, the books which are part of a Christian Old Testament but which are not part of the Hebrew canon are sometimes described as deuterocanonical. In general, Protestant bibles do not include books in its canon. The Old Testament consists of translations of many books by various authors produced over a period of centuries. The canon formed in stages, first the Pentateuch by around 400 BC, then the Prophets during the Hasmonean dynasty, and finally the remaining books. The Old Testament contains 39 or 46 or more books, divided, very broadly, into the Pentateuch, the books, the wisdom books. For the Orthodox canon, Septuagint titles are provided in parentheses when these differ from those editions, for the Catholic canon, the Douaic titles are provided in parentheses when these differ from those editions. Likewise, the King James Version references some of these books by the spelling when referring to them in the New Testament. The Talmud in Bava Batra 14b gives a different order for the books in Neviim and Ketuvim and this order is also cited in Mishneh Torah Hilchot Sefer Torah 7,15. The order of the books of the Torah is universal through all denominations of Judaism and they are present in a few historic Protestant versions, the German Luther Bible included such books, as did the English 1611 King James Version. Empty table cells indicate that a book is absent from that canon, several of the books in the Eastern Orthodox canon are also found in the appendix to the Latin Vulgate, formerly the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church. The books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings follow, there is a broad consensus among scholars that these originated as a single work during the Babylonian exile of the 6th century BC. The two Books of Chronicles cover much the material as the Pentateuch and Deuteronomistic history and probably date from the 4th century BC. Chronicles, and Ezra–Nehemiah, were finished during the 3rd century BC. Catholic and Orthodox Old Testaments contain two to four Books of Maccabees, written in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC and these history books make up around half the total content of the Old Testament. God is consistently depicted as the one who created or put into order the world, the Old Testament stresses the special relationship between God and his chosen people, Israel, but includes instructions for proselytes as well
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Ministry of Jesus
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The Gospel of Luke states that Jesus was about 30 years of age at the start of his ministry. A chronology of Jesus typically has the date of the start of his ministry estimated at around AD 27–29, Jesus Early Galilean ministry begins when after his Baptism, he goes back to Galilee from his time in the Judean desert. The Major Galilean ministry which begins in Matthew 8 includes the commissioning of the Twelve Apostles, the Final Galilean ministry begins after the death of John the Baptist as Jesus prepares to go to Jerusalem. In the Later Judean ministry Jesus starts his journey to Jerusalem through Judea. As Jesus travels towards Jerusalem, in the Later Perean ministry, about one third the way down from the Sea of Galilee along the River Jordan, the Final ministry in Jerusalem is sometimes called the Passion Week and begins with Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The gospels provide more details about the final ministry than the other periods, the gospel accounts place the beginning of Jesus ministry in the countryside of Roman Judea, near the River Jordan. Jesuss Baptism is generally considered the beginning of his ministry and the Last Supper with his disciples in Jerusalem as the end, however, some authors also consider the period between the Resurrection and the Ascension part of the ministry of Jesus. Luke 3,23 states that Jesus was about 30 years of age at the start of his ministry, there have been different approaches to estimating the date of the start of the ministry of Jesus. In the New Testament, the date of the Last Supper is very close to the date of the crucifixion of Jesus, scholarly estimates for the date of the crucifixion generally fall in the range AD 30-36. The three Synoptic Gospels refer to just one passover during his ministry, while the Gospel of John refers to three passovers, suggesting a period of three years. However, the Synoptic gospels do not require a ministry that lasted one year. The gospels present John the Baptists ministry as the precursor to that of Jesus, John 1,28 specifies the location where John was baptizing as Bethany beyond the Jordan. This is not the village Bethany just east of Jerusalem, but the town Bethany, first-century historian Flavius Josephus also wrote in the Antiquities of the Jews that John the Baptist was imprisoned and then killed in Machaerus on the border of Perea. Assuming that there were two incidences of Cleansing of the Temple, which was located in Jerusalem, a reference to an early Judean ministry may be John 2. The Early Galilean ministry begins when Jesus goes back to Galilee from the Judean desert, after rebuffing the temptation of Satan. In this early period, Jesus preaches around Galilee and, in Matthew 4, 18-20, his first disciples encounter him, begin to travel with him and eventually form the core of the early Church. The Gospel of John includes Marriage at Cana as the first miracle of Jesus taking place in early period of ministry. A few villages in Galilee have been suggested as the location of Cana, the return of Jesus to Galilee follows the arrest of John the Baptist
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Crucifixion of Jesus
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The crucifixion of Jesus occurred in 1st century Judea, most probably between the years 30 and 33 AD. According to the gospels, Jesus, the Christ, was arrested, tried, and sentenced by Pontius Pilate to be scourged. Jesus was stripped of his clothing and offered wine mixed with gall to drink and he was then hung between two convicted thieves and according to Marks Gospel, died some six hours later. During this time, the soldiers affixed a sign to the top of the cross stating Jesus of Nazareth and they then divided his garments among them, but cast lots for his seamless robe. After Jesus death they pierced his side with a spear to be certain that he had died, the Bible describes seven statements that Jesus made while he was on the cross, as well as several supernatural events that occurred. Collectively referred to as the Passion, Jesus suffering and redemptive death by crucifixion are the aspects of Christian theology concerning the doctrines of salvation. The baptism of Jesus and his crucifixion are considered to be two historically certain facts about Jesus, bart Ehrman states that the crucifixion of Jesus on the orders of Pontius Pilate is the most certain element about him. John Dominic Crossan states that the crucifixion of Jesus is as certain as any historical fact can be, eddy and Boyd state that it is now firmly established that there is non-Christian confirmation of the crucifixion of Jesus. Craig Blomberg states that most scholars in the third quest for the historical Jesus consider the crucifixion indisputable. Christopher M. Tuckett states that, although the reasons for the death of Jesus are hard to determine, one of the indisputable facts about him is that he was crucified. While scholars agree on the historicity of the crucifixion, they differ on the reason, geza Vermes also views the crucifixion as a historical event but provides his own explanation and background for it. John P. Meier views the crucifixion of Jesus as historical fact and states that, based on the criterion of embarrassment, Christians would not have invented the painful death of their leader. Meier states that a number of criteria, e. g. the criterion of multiple attestation. The crucified man was identified as Yehohanan ben Hagkol and probably died about 70 AD, the analyses at the Hadassah Medical School estimated that he died in his late 20s. The earliest detailed accounts of the death of Jesus are contained in the four canonical gospels, there are other, more implicit references in the New Testament epistles. In the synoptic gospels, Jesus predicts his death in three separate episodes, all four Gospels conclude with an extended narrative of Jesus arrest, trial, crucifixion, burial, and accounts of resurrection. In each Gospel these five events in the life of Jesus are treated with more detail than any other portion of that Gospels narrative. Scholars note that the reader receives an almost hour-by-hour account of what is happening, after being flogged, Jesus was mocked by Roman soldiers as the King of the Jews, clothed in a purple robe, crowned with thorns, beaten and spat on
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Resurrection of Jesus
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The resurrection of Jesus is the Christian religious belief that, after being put to death, Jesus rose again from the dead. It is the central tenet of Christian theology and part of the Nicene Creed, Paul the Apostle declared that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. Paul further asserted And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus on Easter Sunday, two days after Good Friday, the day of his crucifixion. Easters date corresponds roughly with Passover, the Jewish observance associated with the Exodus, in the New Testament all four gospels conclude with an extended narrative of Jesuss arrest, trial, crucifixion, burial, and his resurrection. In each gospel these five events in the life of Jesus are treated with more detail than any other portion of that gospels narrative. Scholars note that the reader receives an almost hour-by-hour account of what is happening, the death and resurrection of Jesus are treated as the climax of the story, the point to which everything else has been moving all the while. After his death by crucifixion, Jesus was placed in a new tomb which was discovered early Sunday morning to be empty, the New Testament does not include an account of the moment of resurrection. In the Eastern Church icons do not depict that moment, but show the myrrhbearers, the major resurrection appearances of Jesus in the canonical gospels are reported to have occurred after his death, burial and resurrection, but prior to his ascension. This was in accordance with Mosaic Law, which stated that a person hanged on a tree must not be allowed to remain there at night, but should be buried before sundown. All four gospels report that women were the ones to find the tomb of Jesus empty, according to Mark and Luke, the announcement of Jesus resurrection was first made to women. According to Mark and John, Jesus actually appeared first to Mary Magdalene alone, in the gospels, especially the synoptics, women play a central role as eyewitnesses at Jesus death, entombment, and in the discovery of the empty tomb. All three synoptics repeatedly make women the subject of verbs of seeing, clearly presenting them as eyewitnesses, after they found the empty tomb, the gospels indicate that Jesus made a series of appearances to the disciples. He was not immediately recognizable, according to Luke, E. P. Sanders concluded that although he could appear and disappear, he was not a ghost. Writing that Luke was very insistent about that, Sanders pointed out that the risen Lord could be touched and he first appeared to Mary Magdalene, but she did not recognize him at first. The first two disciples to whom he appeared, walked and talked with him for quite a while without knowing who he was and he was made known in the breaking of the bread. Beside the Sea of Galilee he encouraged Peter to serve his followers and his final appearance is reported as being forty days after the resurrection when he was carried up into heaven where he sits on the right hand of God
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Second Coming
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The Second Coming is a Christian concept regarding the future return of Jesus to Earth after his first coming and ascension to heaven about two thousand years ago. The belief is based on messianic prophecies found in the gospels and is part of most Christian eschatologies. Views about the nature of Jesus Second Coming vary among Christian denominations, most English versions of the Nicene Creed include the following statements. he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Several different terms are used to refer to the Second Coming of Christ, In the New Testament, the Greek New Testament uses the Greek term parousia twenty-four times, seventeen of them concerning Christ. The word is used six times referring to individuals and one time referring to the coming of the lawless one. The etymology of the Greek word parousia is related to para beside ousia presence, in English parousia always has a special, Christian meaning. The Bauer-Danker Lexicon provides the definition. of Christ, and nearly always of his Messianic Advent in glory to judge the world at the end of this age. The Catholic Encyclopedia article on the General judgment states, In the New Testament the second Parousia, the Saviour Himself not only foretells the event but graphically portrays its circumstances. The Apostles give a most prominent place to this doctrine in their preaching, besides the name Parusia, or Advent, the second coming is also called Epiphany, epiphaneia, or Appearance and Apocalypse, or Revelation. The time of the second coming is spoken of as that Day the day of the Lord, the day of Christ, the day of the Son of Man, and the last day. Children, it is the last hour, and just as you heard that Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared, from this we know that it is the last hour. The position associating the Second Coming with 1st century events such as the destruction of Jerusalem, some Preterists see this coming of the Son of Man in glory primarily fulfilled in Jesus death on the cross. They believe the signs are already fulfilled including the sun will be dark. Will be shaken, and then they will see, moreover, Jesus was reported to have told his disciples, Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Some, such as Jerome, interpret the phrase this generation to mean in the lifetime of the Jewish race, however, other scholars believe that if Jesus meant race he would have used genos not genea. Most English versions of the Nicene Creed in current use include the statements about Jesus. he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come
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Jesus in Islam
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The Quran and most Hadith mention Jesus to have been born a pure boy to Mary as the result of virginal conception, similar to the event of the Annunciation in Christianity. Like all prophets in Islamic thought, Jesus is also called a Muslim, in Islam, Jesus is believed to have been the precursor to Muhammad, attributing the name Ahmad to someone who would follow Jesus. Muslim tradition believes Jesus will return to earth near the Day of Judgment to restore justice, the narrative has been recounted with variations and additions by Islamic historians over the centuries. Secluded in a church, she is joined by a man named Joseph. Mary is later described as a widow, without mention of a previous husband, the account of the birth of Jesus follows the Qurans narrative, adding that the birth occurred in Bethlehem beside a palm tree with a manger. The work The Meadows of Gold by Al-Masudi, an Arab historian and geographer, al-Athir writes about how Jesus as a young boy helped to detect a thief, and about bringing a boy back to life which Jesus was accused of having killed. Al-Athir makes a point believing Marys pregnancy to have lasted not nine or eight months and his basis is that this understanding is closer to where the Quran says Mary conceived him and retired with him to a distant place. The virgin birth of Jesus is announced to Mary by the angel Gabriel while Mary is being raised in the Temple after having been pledged to God by her mother. Gabriel states she is honored over all women of all nations and has brought her glad tidings of a holy son. A hadith narrated by Abu Hurairah, one of the earliest companions of Muhammad, quotes Muhammad, a baby who is touched like that gives a cry. The only exceptions are Mary and her son, the angel declares the son is to be named Jesus, the Messiah, proclaiming he will be called a great prophet, being the Spirit of God and Word of God, who will receive al-Injīl. The angel tells Mary that Jesus will speak in infancy and, Mary, responding how she could conceive and have a child when no man had touched her, was told by the angel that God can decree what He wills, and it shall come to pass. A spirit from none other than God, So that he raise the dead. Mary, overcome by the pains of childbirth, is provided a stream of water under her feet from which she could drink, as Mary carried baby Jesus back to the temple, she was asked by the temple elders about the child. Having been commanded by Gabriel to a vow of silence, she points to the infant Jesus and the infant proclaims. Peace be upon me, the day I was born, and the day I die, and the day I am raised up alive. Jesus speaking from the cradle is mentioned as one of six miracles in the Quran, the speaking infant narrative is also found in the Syriac Infancy Gospel, a pre-Islamic sixth century work. Many moral stories and miraculous events of Jesus youth are mentioned in Qisas al-anbiya, books composed over the centuries about pre-Islamic prophets and it is generally agreed that Jesus spoke Aramaic, the common language of Judea in the first century AD and the region at-large. Tradition believes Jesus mission was to the people of Israel, his status as a prophet confirmed by numerous miracles, from this basis reflected upon all previous prophets through the lens of Muslim identity, Jesus is no more than a messenger repeating the same message of the ages
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Prophets and messengers in Islam
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Belief in Islamic prophets is one of the six articles of the Islamic faith, and specifically mentioned in the Quran. Muslims believe the first prophet was also the first human being, Many of the revelations delivered by the 48 prophets in Judaism and many prophets of Christianity are mentioned as such in the Quran but usually in altered form and with different names. For example, the Jewish Elisha is called Alyasa, Job is Ayyub, Jesus is Isa, the Torah given to Moses is called Tawrat, the Psalms given to David is the Zabur, the Gospel given to Jesus is Injil). Notwithstanding, none of the seven Jewish Prophetesses are mentioned in the Quran as prophets, each came to preach Islam at different times in history and some told of the coming of the final Islamic prophet and messenger of God, who would be named Ahmed commonly known as Muhammad. Each Islamic prophet directed a message to a different group of people, in Arabic and Hebrew, the term nabī means prophet. Forms of this noun occur 75 times in the Quran, the term nubuwwah occurs five times in the Quran. The terms rasūl and mursal denote messenger or apostle and occur more than 300 times, the term for a prophetic message, risālah, appears in the Quran in ten instances. The Syriac form of rasūl Allāh, s̲h̲eliḥeh d-allāhā, occurs frequently in the apocryphal Acts of St. Thomas, the corresponding verb for s̲h̲eliḥeh—s̲h̲alaḥ, occurs in connection with the prophets in the Hebrew Bible. The words prophet and messenger appear several times in the Old Testament, the following table shows these words in different languages, In the Hebrew Bible, the word navi occurs more commonly, and the Hebrew word malakh refers to Angels in Judaism. According to Judaism, Haggai, Zachariah, and Malachi were the last prophets, with them, the authentic period of Nevuah died, and nowadays only the Bath Kol exists. In the New Testament, however, the word becomes more frequent. Messenger may refer to Jesus, to his Apostles and to John the Baptist, but the last book of the Old Testament, the Book of Malachi, speaks of a messenger that Christian commentators interpret as a reference to the future prophet John the Baptist. In Muslim belief, every Islamic prophet preached Islam, the beliefs of charity, prayer, pilgrimage, worship of God and fasting are believed to have been taught by every prophet who has ever lived. The Quran itself calls Islam the religion of Abraham and refers to Jacob, the Quran speaks of the Islamic prophets as being the greatest human beings of all time. A prophet, in the Muslim sense of the term, is a person whom God specially chose to teach the faith of Islam, before man was created, God had specifically selected those men whom He would use as prophets. This does not, however, mean that every prophet began to prophesy from his birth, some were called to prophesy late in life, in Muhammads case at the age of 40. Others, such as John the Baptist, were called to prophesy while still at a young age, the Quran verse 4,69 lists various virtuous groups of human beings, among whom prophets occupy the highest rank. Verse 4,69 reads, All who obey Allah and the messenger are in the company of those on whom is the Grace of Allah—of the prophets, the sincere, the witnesses, and we have made the evil ones friends to those without faith
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Islamic eschatology
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Islamic eschatology is the branch of Islamic scholarship that studies Yawm al-Qiyāmah or Yawm ad-Dīn. This is believed to be the final assessment of humanity by God, consisting of the annihilation of all life, resurrection, the time of the event is not specified, although there are major and minor signs which have been foretold to happen at al-Qiyamah. Many verses of the Quran contain the motif of the impending Last Judgment, surat al-Qiyama has as its main subject the resurrection. The Great Tribulation is also described in the hadith, and commentaries of the such as al-Ghazali, Ibn Kathir, Ibn Majah, Muhammad al-Bukhari. The Day of Judgment is also known as the Day of Reckoning, the hadith describe the end time with more specificity than the Quran, describing the events of al-Qiyamah through twelve major signs. At the time of judgment, terrible corruption and chaos will rule, the Mahdi will be sent and with the help of Jesus, will battle Masih ad-Dajjal. They will triumph, liberating Islam from cruelty, and this will be followed by a time of serenity with people living true to religious values, however, there is no mention of the advent of Mahdi and Isa in one era in any of the hadith. Some Muslim scholars translate the Arabic word Imam as Mahdi to prove the advent of Mahdi, like other Abrahamic religions, Islam also teaches resurrection of the dead, a final tribulation and eternal division of the righteous and wicked. Islamic apocalyptic literature describing Armageddon is often known as fitna, malāḥim, the righteous are rewarded with pleasures of Jannah Paradise, while the unrighteous are punished in Jahannam Hell. The Day of Judgment or Resurrection, al-Qiyāmah, is one of the six articles of faith in Islam. The tribulation associated with it is described in the Quran and hadith, and commentaries of ulama like al-Ghazali, Ibn Kathir, Ibn Majah, Muhammad al-Bukhari, the Day of Judgment is also known as the Day of Reckoning, the Hour, and the Last Day. The Day of Judgment or Resurrection, al-Qiyāmah, relates to one of the six articles in Sunni Islam and seven articles in Shia Islam. There are two sources in Islamic scripture that discuss the Last Judgment, the Quran, which is viewed in Islam as infallible. Hadith are viewed with more flexibility due to the compilation of the traditions in written form. The concept has also discussed in commentaries of ulama such as al-Ghazali, Ibn Kathir. The Quran describes the Last Judgment with a number of interpretations of its verses, there are specific aspects, The time is known only to God. Those who have been dead will believe that a time has passed between birth and death. God will resurrect all, even if they have turned to stone or iron and those that have accepted false deities will suffer in the afterlife
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Mahdi
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In Islamic eschatology, the Mahdi is the prophesied redeemer of Islam who will rule for five, seven, nine, or nineteen years before the Day of Judgement and will rid the world of evil. There is no reference to the Mahdi in the Quran. According to Islamic tradition, the Mahdis tenure will coincide with the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, differences exist in the concept of the Mahdi between Shia Muslims and adherents of the Sunni tradition. For Sunnis, the Mahdi is the Muslims future leader who is yet to come, for most Shia Muslims, the Mahdi was born but disappeared and will remain hidden from humanity until he reappears to bring justice to the world, a doctrine known as the Occultation. For Twelver Shia, this hidden Imam is Muhammad al-Mahdi, the Twelfth Imam, throughout history, various individuals have claimed to be the Mahdi. The term mahdi does not occur in the Quran, but it is derived from the Arabic root h-d-y, the term al-Mahdi was employed from the beginning of Islam, but only as an honorific epithet and without any messianic significance. As an honorific it has used in some instances to describe Muhammad, as well as Abraham, al-Hussain. During the second war, after the death of Muʾawiya. In Kufa during the rebellion in 680s, Al-Mukhtar proclaimed Muhammad al-Hanafiyyah as the Mahdi in this heightened sense. Among the Umayyads, Sulayman encouraged the belief that he was the Mahdi, early discussions about the identity of al-Mahdi by religious scholars can be traced back to the time after the Second Fitna. These discussions developed in different directions and were influenced by traditions attributed to Muhammad, by the time of the Abbasid Revolution in the year 750, Mahdi was already a known concept. Evidence shows that the first Abbasid caliph As-Saffah assumed the title of the Mahdi for himself and they became known as Kaysanites, and introduced what later became two key aspects of the Shias concept of the Mahdi. The first was the notion of return of the dead, particularly of the Imams, the second was that after al-Hanafiyyahs death they believed he was, in fact, in hiding in the Razwa mountains near Medina. This later developed into the known as the Occultation. The Mahdi appeared in early Shi’ite narratives, spread widely among Shi’ite groups and became dissociated from its historical figure, during the 10th century, based on these earlier beliefs, the doctrine of Mahdism was extensively expanded by Al-Kulayni, Ibrahim al-Qummi and Ibn Babawayh. In particular, in the early 10th century, the doctrine of the Occultation, the Mahdi became synonymous with the Hidden Imam who was thought to be in occultation awaiting the time that God has ordered for his return. This return is envisaged as occurring shortly before the final Day of judgment, in fact, the concept of the hidden Imam was attributed to several Imams in turn. Some historians suggest that the term itself was introduced into Islam by southern Arabian tribes who had settled in Syria in the mid-7th century
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