1.
Summit
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A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. Mathematically, a summit is a maximum in elevation. The topographic terms acme, apex, peak, and zenith are synonymous, the UIAA definition is that a summit is independent if it has a prominence of 30 metres or more, it is a mountain if it has a prominence of at least 300 metres. This can be summarised as follows, A pyramidal peak is an exaggerated form produced by ice erosion of a mountain top, Summit may also refer to the highest point along a line, trail, or route. In many parts of the western United States, the term refers to the highest point along a road, highway. For example, the highest point along Interstate 80 in California is referred to as Donner Summit while the highest point on Interstate 5 is Siskiyou Mountain Summit, geoid Hill List of highest mountains Maxima and minima Nadir Summit accordance Peak finder
2.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
3.
Lower Galilee
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The Lower Galilee, is a region within the Northern District of Israel. The Lower Galilee is the part of the Galilee. Its called Lower since it is less mountainous than the Upper Galilee, the peaks of the Lower Galilee rise to 500 meters above sea level. The tallest peaks are Mount Kamon at the part of the Lower Galilee. Although the landscape of the Lower Galilee is less dramatic than that of the Upper Galilee, it is greener, more peaceful, the Lower Galilee is more accessible to the majority of Israelis. Much of the farms of Israel originates in the Lower Galilee, especially in the Jezreel Valley. Brown Terra Rossa - the Lower Galilee region also have areas which consists of this type of soil which has high amounts of minerals. The Terra Rossa is the basis for the development of forests in the Galilee because it has an amount of mineral needed for the trees to grow. The basalt areas also comprise very fertile soil, in 1932 the first Well drilling was done in the Yavneel Valley which supplied irrigation water to Yavneel. After several local Well drilling attempts made during those years failed water pipelines were laid from the Sea of Galilee to all villages in the Lower Galilee, Galilee Northern District Lower Galilee Regional Council Upper Galilee
4.
Israel
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Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in the Middle East, on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Red Sea. The country contains geographically diverse features within its small area. Israels economy and technology center is Tel Aviv, while its seat of government and proclaimed capital is Jerusalem, in 1947, the United Nations adopted a Partition Plan for Mandatory Palestine recommending the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states and an internationalized Jerusalem. The plan was accepted by the Jewish Agency for Palestine, next year, the Jewish Agency declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel. Israel has since fought several wars with neighboring Arab states, in the course of which it has occupied territories including the West Bank, Golan Heights and it extended its laws to the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, but not the West Bank. Israels occupation of the Palestinian territories is the worlds longest military occupation in modern times, efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have not resulted in peace. However, peace treaties between Israel and both Egypt and Jordan have successfully been signed, the population of Israel, as defined by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, was estimated in 2017 to be 8,671,100 people. It is the worlds only Jewish-majority state, with 74. 8% being designated as Jewish, the countrys second largest group of citizens are Arabs, at 20. 8%. The great majority of Israeli Arabs are Sunni Muslims, including significant numbers of semi-settled Negev Bedouins, other minorities include Arameans, Armenians, Assyrians, Black Hebrew Israelites, Circassians, Maronites and Samaritans. Israel also hosts a significant population of foreign workers and asylum seekers from Africa and Asia, including illegal migrants from Sudan, Eritrea. In its Basic Laws, Israel defines itself as a Jewish, Israel is a representative democracy with a parliamentary system, proportional representation and universal suffrage. The prime minister is head of government and the Knesset is the legislature, Israel is a developed country and an OECD member, with the 35th-largest economy in the world by nominal gross domestic product as of 2016. The country benefits from a skilled workforce and is among the most educated countries in the world with one of the highest percentage of its citizens holding a tertiary education degree. The country has the highest standard of living in the Middle East and the third highest in Asia, in the early weeks of independence, the government chose the term Israeli to denote a citizen of Israel, with the formal announcement made by Minister of Foreign Affairs Moshe Sharett. The names Land of Israel and Children of Israel have historically used to refer to the biblical Kingdom of Israel. The name Israel in these phrases refers to the patriarch Jacob who, jacobs twelve sons became the ancestors of the Israelites, also known as the Twelve Tribes of Israel or Children of Israel. The earliest known artifact to mention the word Israel as a collective is the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt. The area is known as the Holy Land, being holy for all Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity, Islam
5.
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
6.
Modern Hebrew
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Modern Hebrew or Israeli Hebrew, generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew, is the standard form of the Hebrew language spoken today. It was revived as a language in the 19th and 20th centuries and is one of the two official languages of Israel, along with Modern Standard Arabic. Modern Hebrew is spoken by about nine people, counting native, fluent. The organization that directs the development of the Modern Hebrew language. The most common term for the language is Modern Hebrew. Most people refer to it simply as Hebrew, the term Modern Hebrew has been described as somewhat problematic as it implies unambiguous periodization from Biblical Hebrew. Rosén supported the now widely used term Israeli Hebrew on the basis that it represented the nature of Hebrew. In 2006, Israeli linguist Ghilad Zuckermann proposed the term Israeli to represent the origins of the language. Jewish contemporary sources describe Hebrew flourishing as a language in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew remained a spoken vernacular following the Babylonian captivity, Hebrew died out as a vernacular language somewhere between 200 and 400 CE, declining after the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–136 CE, which devastated the population of Judea. After the exile Hebrew became restricted to liturgical use, the revival of the Hebrew language was led by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Modern Hebrew used Biblical Hebrew morphemes, Mishnaic spelling, and Sephardic pronunciation, idioms and calques were made from Yiddish. Ben-Yehuda used a stock of 8,000 words from the Bible and 20,000 words from rabbinical commentaries and codified and planned the new language, some words he invented, such as ḥatzilīm for eggplants and ḥashmal for electricity. Sometimes, old Hebrew words took on different meanings altogether, for example, the Hebrew word kǝvīš, which now denotes a street or a road, is actually an Aramaic adjective meaning trodden down, blazoned, rather than a common noun. It was originally used to describe a blazoned trail, for a simple comparison between the Sephardic version of Mishnaic Hebrew and the Yemenite version of the same, see Yemenite Hebrew. Modern Hebrew is classified as an Afroasiatic language of the Semitic family, although it has been influenced by non-Semitic languages, Modern Hebrew retains its Semitic character in its morphology and in much of its syntax. A minority of scholars argue that the language had been so influenced by various substrate languages that it is genealogically a hybrid with Indo-European. These theories have not been met with acceptance, and Modern Hebrew continues to be considered a Semitic language by most experts
7.
Tiberian vocalization
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The system soon became used to vocalize other Hebrew texts as well. The Tiberian vocalization marks vowels and stress, makes fine distinctions of consonant quality and length, the sin dot distinguishes between the two values of ש. A dagesh indicates a consonant is geminate or unspirantized, and a raphe indicates spirantization, the mappiq indicates that ה is consonantal, not silent, in syllable-coda position. Each of the vowel phonemes could be lengthened, occasionally. The ultrashort vowels are more complicated. There were two graphemes corresponding to the vowel /ă/, attested by alternations in manuscripts like ארֲריך~ארְריך, ואשמֳעָה~ואשמְעָה. . In addition, one of the graphemes could also be silent, Shva was used both to indicate lack of a vowel and as another symbol to represent the phoneme /ă/, the latter also represented by hataf patah. The phoneme /ă/ had a number of allophones, /ă/ had to be written with shva rather than hataf patah when it was not pronounced as, before a laryngeal-pharyngeal, mobile šwa was pronounced as an ultrashort copy of the following vowel and as preceding /j/. Using ḥataf vowels was mandatory under gutturals but optional under other letters, קָ֫מֶץ also denotes a slighter, as שׁוּרֶק and קִבּוּץ a firmer, compression or contraction of the mouth. Segôl takes its name from its form, so שָׁלֹשׁ נְקֻדּוֹת is another name for Qibbúṣ. Moreover the names were mostly so formed, that the sound of each vowel is heard in the first syllable, in order to carry this out consistently some even write Sägôl, Qomeṣ-ḥatûf, cantillation signs mark stress and punctuation. Metheg may mark secondary stress, and maqqaf conjoins words into one stress unit, babylonian vocalization Palestinian vocalization Niqqud Cardinal vowels Blau, Joshua. Phonology and Morphology of Biblical Hebrew, a History of the Hebrew Language
8.
Koine Greek
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It was based mainly on Attic and related Ionic speech forms, with various admixtures brought about through dialect levelling with other varieties. Koine Greek displayed a wide spectrum of different styles, ranging from more conservative literary forms to the vernaculars of the time. As the dominant language of the Byzantine Empire, it developed further into Medieval Greek, Koine Greek remained the court language of the Byzantine Empire until its dissolution in 1453, while Medieval and eventually Modern Greek were the everyday language. Literary Koine was the medium of much of post-classical Greek literary and scholarly writing, such as the works of Plutarch, Koine is also the language of the Christian New Testament, of the Septuagint, and of most early Christian theological writing by the Church Fathers. In this context, Koine Greek is also known as Biblical, New Testament and it continues to be used as the liturgical language of services in the Greek Orthodox Church. The word koinē is the Greek word for common, and is understood as referring to the common dialect. The word is pronounced /kɔɪˈneɪ/, /ˈkɔɪneɪ/ or /kiːˈniː/ in US English, the pronunciation of the word in Koine gradually changed from Greek pronunciation, to Greek pronunciation. Its pronunciation in Modern Greek is, the term was applied in several different senses by ancient scholars. Others chose to refer to Koine as the Alexandrian dialect or the dialect of Alexandria, the former was often used by modern classicists. Koine Greek arose as a dialect within the armies of Alexander the Great. Under the leadership of Macedon, their newly formed common variety was spoken from the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt to the Seleucid Empire of Mesopotamia and it replaced existing ancient Greek dialects with an everyday form that people anywhere could understand. The passage into the period, known as Medieval Greek. The post-Classical period of Greek thus refers to the creation and evolution of Koine Greek throughout the entire Hellenistic, the linguistic roots of the Common Greek dialect had been unclear since ancient times. During the Hellenistic period, most scholars thought of Koine as the result of the mixture of the four main Ancient Greek dialects, ἡ ἐκ τῶν τεττάρων συνεστῶσα. The view accepted by most scholars today was given by the Greek linguist Georgios Hatzidakis, who showed that, despite the composition of the Four, the stable nucleus of Koine Greek is Attic. In other words, Koine Greek can be regarded as Attic with the admixture of elements especially from Ionic, the degree of importance of the non-Attic linguistic elements on Koine can vary depending on the region of the Hellenistic World. The literary Koine of the Hellenistic age resembles Attic in such a degree that it is mentioned as Common Attic. Koine Greek was therefore considered a form of Greek which was not worthy of attention
9.
Jezreel Valley
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For the ancient city, see Jezreel For the kibbutz, see Yizreel. The Jezreel Valley, is a fertile plain and inland valley south of the Lower Galilee region in Israel. The Samarian highlands and Mount Gilboa border the valley from the south and to the north lie the Israeli cities Afula, to the west is the Mount Carmel range, and to the east is the Jordan Valley. The Jezreel Valley takes its name from the ancient city of Jezreel which was located on a low hill overlooking the edge of the valley. The word Jezreel comes from the Hebrew, and means God sows or El sows, the area has been known as the Plain of Esdraelon. The valley perhaps once acted as the channel by which the Dead Sea, located southeast of the valley, connected to the Mediterranean Sea. About two million years ago, as the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan Rift Valley rose, this connection was lost, and periodic floods from the Mediterranean Sea ceased. This resulted in the Dead Sea no longer having a connection to the ocean, biblical cities in the Jezreel Valley include Jezreel, Megiddo, Beit Shean Shimron and Afula. Archaeological excavations have indicated near continuous settlement from the Ghassulian culture of the Chalcolithic Age to the Ayyubid periods of the 11–13th centuries. Due to the terrain, Egyptian chariots were only able to travel from Egypt as far as the Jezreel valley. In Christian eschatology, the part of the valley on which the Battle of Megiddo was fought is believed to be the site of the penultimate battle between good and evil, known as Armageddon. According to 2Kings 9, 1–10, after Jehu kills King Jehoram, he confronts Jezebel in Jezreel and they comply, tossing her out the window and leaving her in the street to be eaten by dogs. Only Jezebels skull, feet, and hands remained, in the early 1900, the Ottomans constructed the Jezreel Valley railway which ran along the entire length of the valley. In the 1870s, the Sursock family of Beirut purchased the land from the Ottoman government for approximately £20,000. Between 1912 and 1925 the Sursock family sold their 80,000 acres of land in the Vale of Jezreel to the American Zion Commonwealth for about nearly three-quarters of a million pounds. The land was purchased by the Jewish organization as part of an effort to resettle Jews who inhabited the land, as well as others who came from distant lands and the Jewish National Fund. After the land was sold to the American Zion Commonwealth, some of the Arab farmers who lived in villages and had been working for the absentee landowners were evicted. This was a feeling among the Jewish residents, part of a socialist ideology of the Yishuv
10.
Sea of Galilee
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The Sea of Galilee, also Kinneret, Lake of Gennesaret, or Lake Tiberias, is a large freshwater lake in Israel. It is approximately 53 km in circumference, about 21 km long and its area is 166.7 km2 at its fullest, and its maximum depth is approximately 43 m. At levels between 215 metres and 209 metres below sea level, it is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth, the lake is fed partly by underground springs although its main source is the Jordan River which flows through it from north to south. The Sea of Galilee is situated in northeast Israel, between the Golan Heights and the Galilee region, in the Jordan Rift Valley, the caused by the separation of the African and Arabian Plates. Consequently, the area is subject to earthquakes, and in the past and this is evident by the abundant basalt and other igneous rocks that define the geology of the Galilee. The lake has been called by different names throughout its history, with changing fate of the towns, the lakes name also changed. This name was found in the scripts of Ugarit, in the Aqhat Epic. Kinneret was listed among the cities in Joshua 19,35. A persistent, though likely erroneous popular etymology of the name presumes that the name Kinneret may originate from the Hebrew word kinnor, the scholarly consensus though is that the origin of the name lies with the important Bronze and Iron Age city of Kinneret, excavated at Tell el-Oreimeh. However, there is no evidence that the city of Kinneret itself was not named after the body of water rather than vice versa, or for the origin of the towns name. Sea of Ginosar The Babylonian Talmud, as well as Flavius Josephus mention the sea by the name Sea of Ginosar after the fertile plain of Ginosar that lies on its western side. Ginosar is yet another name derived from Kinneret, Sea of Tiberias is also the name mentioned in Roman texts and in the Jerusalem Talmud, and was adopted into Arabic as Buhairet Tabariyya, Lake Tiberias. This is the name employed by the medieval Persian and Arab scholars Al-Baladhuri, Al-Tabari, in 1989 remains of a hunter-gatherer site were found under the water at the southern end. Remains of mud huts were found which are the oldest known buildings in the world, the Sea of Galilee lies on the ancient Via Maris, which linked Egypt with the northern empires. The Greeks, Hasmoneans, and Romans founded flourishing towns and settlements on the lake including Hippos. The first-century historian Flavius Josephus was so impressed by the area that he wrote, Josephus also reported a thriving fishing industry at this time, with 230 boats regularly working in the lake. Archaeologists discovered one such boat, nicknamed the Jesus Boat, in 1986, much of the ministry of Jesus occurred on the shores of Lake Galilee. In those days, there was a ribbon development of settlements and villages around the lake and plenty of trade
11.
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
12.
Book of Joshua
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The Book of Joshua is the sixth book in the Hebrew Bible and the first book of the Deuteronomistic history, the story of Israel from the conquest of Canaan to the Babylonian exile. Almost all scholars agree that the book of Joshua holds little value for early Israel. Although Rabbinic tradition holds that the book was written by Joshua, transfer of leadership to Joshua A. Joshuas instructions to the people II, entrance into and conquest of Canaan A. Entry into Canaan 1. Reconnaissance of Jericho 2, establishing a foothold at Gilgal 4. Failure and success at Ai 3, renewal of the covenant at Mount Ebal 4. Other campaigns in central Canaan 5, summary list of defeated kings III. Division of the land among the tribes A, cities of refuge and levitical cities D. Summary of conquest E. De-commissioning of the eastern tribes IV, conclusion A. Joshuas farewell address B. Methodist writer Joseph Benson suggests that Gods revelation to Joshua comes either immediately after, God commissions Joshua to take possession of the land and warns him to keep faith with the Covenant. The Israelites cross the Jordan River through the intervention of God. The conquest begins in Canaan with Jericho, followed by Ai, after which Joshua builds an altar to Yahweh at Mount Ebal, the covenant ceremony has elements of a divine land-grant ceremony, similar to ceremonies known from Mesopotamia. The narrative then switches to the south, the Gibeonites trick the Israelites into entering into an alliance with them by saying they are not Canaanites, this prevents the Israelites from exterminating them, but they are enslaved instead. An alliance of Amorite kingdoms headed by the Canaanite king of Jerusalem is defeated with Yahwehs miraculous help of stopping the sun and the moon, the enemy kings were eventually hanged on trees. With the south conquered the narrative moves to the northern campaign, a powerful multi-national coalition headed by the king of Hazor, the most important northern city, is defeated with Yahwehs help and Hazor captured and destroyed. Chapter 11, 16–23 summarises the extent of the conquest, Joshua has taken the land, almost entirely through military victories. Joshua 11,18 asserts that the conquest took a long time - the Amplified Bible, anglican churchman Charles Ellicott thinks the war seems to have lasted seven years. The land then had rest from war, the list of the 31 kings is quasi-tabular, the king of Jerusalem, one, the king of Hebron, one, the king of Jarmuth, one, the king of Lachish, one
13.
Book of Judges
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The Book of Judges is the seventh book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible. Judges can be divided into three sections, a double prologue, a main body, and a double epilogue. The book opens with the Israelites in the land which God has promised to them but worshiping foreign gods instead of Yahweh, the God of Israel, and with the Canaanites still present everywhere. Chapters 1, 1–2,5 are thus a confession of failure while chapters 2, 6–3,6 are a major summary and reflection from the Deuteronomists. Once peace was regained, for a time Israel does right and receives Yahwehs blessings, only to relapse later into doing evil, Judges follows on from the Book of Joshua and opens with reference to Joshuas death. The Israelites meet, most likely at the sanctuary at Gilgal or at Shechem, the cyclic pattern set out in the prologue is readily apparent at the beginning, but as the stories progress it begins to disintegrate, mirroring the disintegration of the world of the Israelites. The stories are not presented in order, but the judges as they appear in the text are, Othniel vs. Chushan-Rishathaim, King of Aram. Some scholars have inferred that the judges were actual adjudicators, whereas the major judges were leaders. The only time a judge is said to have made legal judgments was Deborah. Despite their appearance at the end of the book, certain characters, early in the period of the judges. Judges contains a chronology of its events and it is overtly schematic and, according to biblical scholar Jeremy Hughes, shows signs of having been introduced at a later period. The basic source for Judges was a collection of connected stories about tribal heroes who saved the people in battle. A statement repeated throughout the book, In those days there was no king in Israel implies a date in the monarchy for the redaction editing) of Judges. Since the second half of the 20th century most scholars have agreed with Martin Noths thesis that the books of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings form parts of a single work. Noth believed that history was the work of a single author, living in the mid-6th century BCE. After a period of peace, the cycle recurs, further themes are also present, the sovereign freedom of Yahweh, the satirisation of foreign kings, the concept of the flawed agent and the disunity of the Israelite community. Although Judges probably had a monarchist redaction, the book contains passages and themes that represent anti-monarchist views, one of the major themes of the book is Yahwehs sovereignty and the importance of being loyal to Him and His laws above all other gods and sovereigns. Indeed, the authority of the judges comes not through prominent dynasties nor through elections or appointments, anti-monarchist theology is most apparent toward the end of the Gideon cycle in which the Israelites beg Gideon to create a dynastic monarchy over them and Gideon refuses
14.
Battle of Mount Tabor (biblical)
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The account in the Book of Judges describes a contest for control of the Jezreel Valley. Mount Tabor commands the northwest section of the Jezreel Plain, and lies at the boundary of Naphtali, the army of the king of Hazor, under the command of the mercenary Sisera, harassed the Israelite tribes. Siseras army was stronger than any force the Israelites could field. At this time, the prophetess Deborah was judging Israel and she summoned the general Barak, telling him that God commanded him to march on Mount Tabor with an Israelite army and God promised him he would deliver them into Baraks power. Barak was hesitant and told Deborah that he would not undertake the campaign unless she accompanied him. The prophetess scolded Barak, telling him that you shall not gain the glory in the expedition on which you are setting out, however, Deborah agreed to come, and the army gathered at Kadesh, its number rising to 10,000. The Israelites marched to Mount Tabor and their movements were reported to Sisera, who hastened to the Wadi Kishon, near Mount Tabor. However, a downpour had soaked the ground in the area, the chariots were now almost useless and, when Baraks army attacked from Mount Tabor, the Canaanites faltered. Sisera, despite falling from his chariot, was among the Canaanites to escape the battle, Barak was determined not to let them get far, however, and pursued them so thoroughly that, among the Canaanites, not even one man survived. Sisera staggered into the tent of Yael, wife of Heber the Kenite, Yael hid Sisera and gave him some milk to drink and killed him shortly after by knocking a tent peg through his skull after he had fallen asleep. Thus, when Barak arrived in pursuit of Sisera, he found that Deborahs prophecy had been fulfilled
15.
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
16.
Barak
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Barak was a 12th-century BC ruler and Judge of Ancient Israel. As military commander in the biblical Book of Judges, Barak, with Deborah the prophetess, from the Tribe of Ephraim, the son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali, Baraks mother was from the Tribe of Benjamin and he was the next judge after Deborah and preceded Gideon. His story is told in the Book of Judges, Chapters 4 and 5, the story of the Hebrews defeat of the Canaanites led by Sisera, under the prophetic leadership of Deborah and the military leadership of Barak, is related in prose and repeated in poetry. Chapter 4 makes the chief enemy Jabin, king of Hazor, though a prominent part is played by his commander-in-chief, Sisera of Harosheth-ha-goiim. Deborah summoned Barak, the son of Abinoam, from his home at Kedesh in Naphtali and he agrees to on condition that Deborah should go with him. Here he was attacked, as Deborah had expected, by Sisera, whose forces were put to flight, in the battle at Mount Tabor, a cloudburst occurred, causing the river to flood, thus limiting the maneuverability of the Canaanite chariots. Sisera fled, seeking refuge in the tent of a Kenite woman, Jael gave a drink of milk to Sisera, who fell asleep from weariness, then killed him by pounding a tent peg through his head. When Barak arrived, she showed him Sisera, dead in her tent, barcas, the surname of the famous Hamilcar Barca, is the Punic equivalent of the name. The Epistle to the Hebrews 11, 32-34 praises Baraks faith which gave him victory
17.
Canaan
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Canaan was a Semitic-speaking region in the Ancient Near East during the late 2nd millennium BC. The name Canaan occurs commonly in the Hebrew Bible, in particular, the references in Genesis 10 and Numbers 34 define the Land of Canaan as extending from Lebanon southward to the Brook of Egypt and eastward to the Jordan River Valley. References to Canaan in the Bible are usually backward-looking, referring to a region that had something else. The term Canaanites serves as an ethnic catch-all term covering various indigenous populations—both settled, the Amarna Letters and other cuneiform documents use Kinaḫḫu, while other sources of the Egyptian New Kingdom mention numerous military campaigns conducted in Ka-na-na. Canaan had significant geopolitical importance in the Late Bronze Age Amarna period as the area where the spheres of interest of the Egyptian, Hittite, Mitanni and Assyrian Empires converged. Much of the knowledge about Canaan stems from archaeological excavation in this area at sites such as Tel Hazor, Tel Megiddo. The English term Canaan comes from the Hebrew כנען, via Greek Χαναάν Khanaan and it appears as KUR ki-na-ah-na in the Amarna letters, and knʿn is found on coins from Phoenicia in the last half of the 1st millennium. It first occurs in Greek in the writings of Hecataeus as Khna, scholars connect the name Canaan with knʿn, Kanaan, the general Northwest Semitic name for this region. An early explanation derives the term from the Semitic root knʿ to be low, humble, purple cloth became a renowned Canaanite export commodity which is mentioned in Exodus. The dyes may have named after their place of origin. The purple cloth of Tyre in Phoenicia was well known far, however, according to Robert Drews, Speisers proposal has generally been abandoned. The Late Bronze Age state of Ugarit is considered quintessentially Canaanite archaeologically, Jonathan Tubb states that the term ga-na-na may provide a third millennium reference to Canaanite while at the same time stating that the first certain reference is in the 18th century BC. See Ebla-Biblical controversy for further details, Mari letters A letter from Mutu-bisir to Shamshi-Adad I of the Old Assyrian Empire has been translated, It is in Rahisum that the brigands and the Canaanites are situated. It was found in 1973 in the ruins of Mari, an Assyrian outpost at that time in Syria, additional unpublished references to Kinahnum in the Mari letters refer to the same episode. Alalakh texts A reference to Ammiya being in the land of Canaan is found on the Statue of Idrimi from Alalakh in modern Syria. After a popular uprising against his rule, Idrimi was forced into exile with his mothers relatives to seek refuge in the land of Canaan, the other references in the Alalakh texts are, AT154 AT181, A list of Apiru people with their origins. All are towns, except for Canaan AT188, A list of Muskenu people with their origins, the letters are written in the official and diplomatic East Semitic Akkadian language of Assyria and Babylonia, though Canaanitish words and idioms are also in evidence. May the king ask Yanhamu about these matters, may the king ask his commissioner, who is familiar with Canaan EA151, Letter from Abimilku to the Pharaoh, The king, my lord wrote to me, write to me what you have heard from Canaan
18.
Tel Hazor
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In the Middle Bronze Age and the Israelite period, Hazor was the largest fortified city in the country and one of the most important in the Fertile Crescent. It maintained commercial ties with Babylon and Syria, and imported large quantities of tin for the bronze industry, in the Book of Joshua, Hazor is described as “the head of all those kingdoms”. The Hazor expedition headed by Yigal Yadin in the mid-1950s was the most important dig undertaken by Israel in its years of statehood. Tel Hazor is the largest archaeological site in northern Israel, featuring an upper tell of 30 acres, in 2005, the remains of Hazor were designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO as part of the Biblical Tels - Megiddo, Hazor, Beer Sheba. However, EA148 specifically reports that Hasuras king had gone over to the Habiru, in these documents, Hazor is described as an important city in Canaan. Hazor is also mentioned in the Execration texts, that pre-date the Amarna letters, and in 18th century BC documents found in Mari on the Euphrates River. According to the Book of Joshua, Hazor was the seat of Jabin, a powerful Canaanite king who led a Canaanite confederation against Joshua, but was defeated by Joshua, who burnt Hazor to the ground. According to the Book of Judges, Hazor was the seat of Jabin, the king of Canaan, whose commander, Sisera, led a Canaanite army against Barak, but was ultimately defeated. Israel Finkelstein claims that the Israelites emerged as a subculture within Canaanite society, in this view, the Book of Joshua conflates several independent battles between disparate groups over the centuries, and artificially attributes them to a single leader, Joshua. Amnon Ben-Tor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem believes that recently unearthed evidence of violent destruction by burning verifies the Biblical account, the archaeological remains suggest that after its destruction, the city of Hazor was rebuilt as a minor village within the territory of Naphtali. According to the Books of Kings, the town, along with Megiddo, some archaeologists conclude that they were constructed in the tenth century by King Solomon, others date these structures to the early 9th century BC, during the reign of the Omrides. However, Yadins dating was based on the assumption that the layer connected with the gates, archaeological remains indicate that towards the later half of the 9th century BC, when the king of Israel was Jehu, Hazor fell into the control of Aram Damascus. Some archaeologists suspect that subsequent to this conquest Hazor was rebuilt by Aram, subsequently, the town, along with the remainder of the kingdom of Israel, entered a period of great prosperity, particularly during the rule of Jeroboam II. Some archaeologists attribute the later large scale constructions at Hazor, Megiddo, despite the defences, in 732 BC Hazor was captured, its population deported, and the city was burnt to the ground. The site of Hazor is around 200 acres in area, with a city making up about 1/8 of that. The upper mound has a height of about 40 meters, initial soundings were carried out by John Garstang in 1926. Major excavations were conducted for 4 seasons from 1955 to 1958 by a Hebrew University team led by Yigael Yadin, Yadin returned to Hazor for a final season of excavation in 1968. The excavations were supported by James A. de Rothschild, and were published in a five volume set of books by the Israel Exploration Society
19.
Sisera
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Sisera was commander of the Canaanite army of King Jabin of Hazor, who is mentioned in Judges 4-5 of the Hebrew Bible. After being defeated by the forces of the Israelite tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali under the command of Barak and Deborah, Sisera was killed by Jael, who hammered a tent peg into his temple. According to the book of Judges, Sisera commanded nine hundred iron chariots and oppressed the Israelites for twenty years from Harosheth Haggoyim. After the prophetess Deborah persuaded Barak to face Sisera in battle, they, with an Israelite force of ten thousand, defeated him at the Battle of Mount Tabor on the plain of Esdraelon. Judges 5,20 says that the stars in their courses fought against Sisera, following the battle, there was peace for forty years. After losing the battle, Sisera fled to the settlement of Heber the Kenite in the plain of Zaanaim, Jael brought him into her tent with apparent hospitality and gave him milk. Siseras name has been identified as Philistine, Hittite, Hurrian. The Israeli scholar and archaeologist Adam Zertal identifies Sisera with the sea people called Shardana, Zertal and Oren Cohen proposed that the excavation at El-Ahwat between Katzir-Harish and Nahal Iron is the site of Harosheth Haggoyim, Siseras military base. According to Jewish legend, because Siseras mother cried a hundred cries when he did not return home, a hundred blasts are blown on the shofar on Rosh Hashana, the Talmud states that the descendants of Sisera studied Torah in Jerusalem and even taught children there. Also according to the Midrash, Sisera had previously conquered every country against which he had fought and his voice was so strong that, when he called loudly, the most solid wall would shake and the wildest animal would fall dead. Deborah was the one who could withstand his voice and not be stirred from her place. Siseras murder by Jael was frequently depicted in historical European art, lucas van Leyden, a Dutch engraver and painter during the Renaissance period, created a woodcut of the scene. German composer Simon Mayr wrote an oratorio on the story of Sisera for the church of San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti in Venice. In a half-hour radio drama, Butter in a Lordly Dish, Agatha Christie has her protagonist drug a lawyers coffee, after revealing her true identity, the central image of Aritha van Herks novel The Tent Peg refers to Sisera. In Anthony Trollopes novel The Last Chronicle of Barset, artist Conway Dalrymple paints the heiress Clara Van Siever as Jael driving a nail through the head of Sisera. The story of Jael and Sisera has been the subject of paintings, including those by Artemisia Gentileschi, Gregorio Lazzarini, James Northcote. In Shelby Footes Stars in Their Courses, about the Battle of Gettysburg, the Stars in Their Courses is the title of a chapter about the Battle of Gettysburg in the novel Lone Star Preacher by John Thomason. The quotation from Judges 5,20 appears at the end of the chapter, in the Law & Order episode Pro Se, the schizophrenic James Smith suffers from the delusion that he is General Sisera and various women are trying to poison him
20.
Transfiguration of Jesus
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The Transfiguration of Jesus is an event reported in the New Testament when Jesus is transfigured and becomes radiant in glory upon a mountain. The Synoptic Gospels describe it, and the Second Epistle of Peter also refers to it and it has also been hypothesized that the first chapter of the Gospel of John alludes to it. In these accounts, Jesus and three of his apostles, Peter, James, John, go to a mountain to pray, on the mountain, Jesus begins to shine with bright rays of light. Then the prophets Moses and Elijah appear next to him and he speaks with them, Jesus is then called Son by a voice in the sky, assumed to be God the Father, as in the Baptism of Jesus. Many Christian traditions, including the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, commemorate the event in the Feast of the Transfiguration, the Transfiguration is one of the miracles of Jesus in the Gospels. This miracle is unique among others that appear in the Canonical gospels, thomas Aquinas considered the Transfiguration the greatest miracle in that it complemented baptism and showed the perfection of life in Heaven. The Transfiguration is one of the five major milestones in the narrative of the life of Jesus, the others being Baptism, Crucifixion, Resurrection. In 2002, Pope John Paul II introduced the Luminous Mysteries in the Rosary, moreover, Christians consider the Transfiguration to fulfill an Old Testament messianic prophecy that Elijah would return again after his ascension. Gardner states The very last of the prophets, Malachi. Elijah himself would reappear in the Transfiguration, there he would appear alongside Moses as a representative of all the prophets who looked forward to the coming of the Messiah. Christs redemptive sacrifice was the purpose for which Elijah had ministered while on earth, and it was the goal about which Elijah spoke to Jesus in the Transfiguration. In the synoptic gospels, the account of the transfiguration happens towards the middle of the narrative and it is a key episode and almost immediately follows another important element, the Confession of Peter, you are the Christ. The Transfiguration narrative acts as a revelation of the identity of Jesus as the Son of God to some of his disciples. In the gospels, Jesus takes Peter, James, son of Zebedee and his brother John the Apostle with him and goes up to a mountain, which is not named. Once on the mountain, Matthew 17,2 states that Jesus was transfigured before them, his face shining as the sun, at that point the prophets Elijah and Moses appear and Jesus begins to talk to them. Luke states that they spoke of Jesus exodus which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem, Luke is also specific in describing Jesus in a state of glory, with Luke 9,32 referring to they saw His glory. Just as Elijah and Moses begin to depart from the scene and this has been interpreted as Peters attempt to keep the prophets there longer. But before Peter can finish, a cloud appears
21.
Josephus
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Josephus claimed the Jewish Messianic prophecies that initiated the First Roman-Jewish War made reference to Vespasian becoming Emperor of Rome. In response Vespasian decided to keep Josephus as a slave and interpreter, after Vespasian became Emperor in 69 CE, he granted Josephus his freedom, at which time Josephus assumed the emperors family name of Flavius. Flavius Josephus fully defected to the Roman side and was granted Roman citizenship and he became an advisor and friend of Vespasians son Titus, serving as his translator when Titus led the Siege of Jerusalem. Since the siege proved ineffective at stopping the Jewish revolt, the citys destruction, Josephus recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the first century CE and the First Jewish–Roman War, including the Siege of Masada. His most important works were The Jewish War and Antiquities of the Jews, the Jewish War recounts the Jewish revolt against Roman occupation. Antiquities of the Jews recounts the history of the world from a Jewish perspective for an ostensibly Roman audience and these works provide valuable insight into first century Judaism and the background of Early Christianity. Josephus introduces himself in Greek as Iōsēpos, son of Matthias and he was the second-born son of Matthias. His older full-blooded brother was also called Matthias and their mother was an aristocratic woman who descended from the royal and formerly ruling Hasmonean dynasty. Josephuss paternal grandparents were Josephus and his wife—an unnamed Hebrew noblewoman, distant relatives of each other and he descended through his father from the priestly order of the Jehoiarib, which was the first of the 24 orders of priests in the Temple in Jerusalem. Josephus was a descendant of the high priest Jonathon, born and raised in Jerusalem, Josephus was educated alongside his brother. In his early twenties, he traveled to negotiate with Emperor Nero for the release of 12 Jewish priests, Josephus successfully fought the Roman army in Galilee, until he was captured by the Romans during the height of the war. After the Jewish garrison of Yodfat fell under siege, the Romans invaded, killing thousands, according to Josephus, he was trapped in a cave with 40 of his companions in July 67 CE. The Romans asked the group to surrender, but they refused, Josephus suggested a method of collective suicide, they drew lots and killed each other, one by one, counting to every third person. Two men were left, who surrendered to the Roman forces, in 69 CE, Josephus was released. According to his account, he acted as a negotiator with the defenders during the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, in which his parents and first wife died. While being confined at Yodfat, Josephus claimed to have experienced a divine revelation, after the prediction came true, he was released by Vespasian, who considered his gift of prophecy to be divine. In 71 CE, he went to Rome in the entourage of Titus, becoming a Roman citizen, in addition to Roman citizenship, he was granted accommodation in conquered Judaea and a decent, if not extravagant, pension. While in Rome and under Flavian patronage, Josephus wrote all of his known works, although he uses Josephus, he appears to have taken the Roman praenomen Titus and nomen Flavius from his patrons
22.
Tabor Light
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In Eastern Orthodox Christian theology, the Tabor Light is the light revealed on Mount Tabor at the Transfiguration of Jesus, identified with the light seen by Paul at his conversion. When considered as a doctrine, this view is known as Palamism after Palamas. Since 1347, it has been the doctrine in Eastern Orthodoxy. Roman Catholic theologians have rejected it in the past, but Andreas Andreopoulos has said that now the Western world has started to rediscover what amounts to a lost tradition. Hesychasm, which was never anything close to a pursuit, is now studied by Western theologians who are astounded by the profound thought. This experience is referred to as theoria, barlaam held this view of the hesychasts to be polytheistic inasmuch as it seemed to postulate two eternal substances, a visible and an invisible. Seco and Maspero assert that the Palamite doctrine of the light is rooted in Palamas reading of Gregory of Nyssa. Gregory Palamas defended Hesychasm in the 1340s at three different synods in Constantinople, and he wrote a number of works in its defense. In these works, Gregory Palamas uses a distinction, already found in the 4th century in the works of the Cappadocian Fathers, Gregory taught that the energies or operations of God were uncreated. In Palamite theology, it is the uncreated energies of God that illumine the Hesychast who has been vouchsafed an experience of the Uncreated Light. However, in 1351 at a synod under the presidency of the Emperor John VI Cantacuzenus, many Orthodox theologians have identified the Tabor light with the fire of hell. According to these theologians, hell is the condition of those who remain unreconciled to the light and love of. According to Iōannēs Polemēs, Theophanes of Nicea believed that, for sinners, nevertheless, Roman Catholicism in recent years has shown itself more open to ideas of Hesychasm. Pope John Paul II repeatedly emphasized his respect for Eastern theology as an enrichment for the whole Church, John Paul II also added the Transfiguration at Mount Tabor to the mysteries of the Holy Rosary. The Eastern doctrine of uncreated light has not been accepted in the Roman Catholic Church. Increasing parts of the Western Church consider Gregory Palamas a saint, several Western scholars contend that the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas himself is compatible with Roman Catholic thought on the matter. Tabor Light was also used in the press of 1938 in reference to a mysterious light seen around a cemetery near Tábor, Bohemia. Lowell Clucas, The Triumph of Mysticism in Byzantium in the Fourteenth Century, in, Byzantine Studies in Honor of Milton V. Anastos, Byzantina kai Metabyzantina, ed. Speros Vryonis jr, vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, SVS Press,1997
23.
Wagon fort
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A wagon fort is a mobile fortification made of wagons arranged into a rectangle, a circle or other shape and possibly joined with each other, an improvised military camp. It is also known as a laager, ammianus Marcellinus, a Roman army officer and historian of the 4th century, describes a Roman army approaching ad carraginem as they approach a Gothic camp. Historians interpret this as a wagon-fort, similar ad hoc defense formations were used in the United States, and were called corrals. These were traditionally used by 19th century American settlers travelling to the West in convoys of Conestoga wagons. The armed men would then man the perimeter, the circled wagons serving to break up the charge, to create a certain amount of concealment from observation. This tactic was known as circling up the wagons. One of the earliest examples of using conjoined wagons as fortification is described in the Chinese historical record Book of Han, in the 13th century, the armies of Kievan Rus used tabors in the Battle of Kalka to defend themselves from Mongol forces. In the 15th century, during the Hussite Wars, the Hussites developed tactics of using the tabors, called vozová hradba in Czech or Wagenburg by the Germans, such a camp was easy to establish and practically invulnerable to enemy cavalry. The etymology of the word tabor may come from the Hussite fortress and modern day Czech city of Tábor, which itself is a name derived from biblical Jezreel mountain Tavor. The crew of each wagon consisted of 18 to 21 soldiers,4 to 8 crossbowmen,2 handgunners,6 to 8 soldiers equipped with pikes or flails,2 shield carriers and 2 drivers. The wagons would normally form a square, and inside the square would usually be the cavalry, there were two principal stages of the battle using the wagon fort, defensive and counterattack. The defensive part would be a pounding of the enemy with artillery, the Hussite artillery was a primitive form of a howitzer, called in Czech a houfnice, from which the English word howitzer comes. Also, they called their guns the Czech word píšťala, meaning that they were shaped like a pipe or a fife, from which the English word pistol is possibly derived. When the enemy would come close to the fort, crossbowmen and hand-gunners would come from inside the wagons. There would even be stored in a pouch inside the wagons for throwing whenever the soldiers were out of ammunition. After this huge barrage, the enemy would be demoralized, once the commander saw it fit, the second stage of battle would begin. Men with swords, flails, and polearms would come out, together with the infantry, the cavalry in the square would come out and attack. At this point, the enemy would be eliminated or very nearly so, the wagon forts effect on Czech history was lost, but the Czechs would continue to use the wagon forts in later conflicts
24.
Sphere
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A sphere is a perfectly round geometrical object in three-dimensional space that is the surface of a completely round ball. This distance r is the radius of the ball, and the point is the center of the mathematical ball. The longest straight line through the ball, connecting two points of the sphere, passes through the center and its length is twice the radius. While outside mathematics the terms sphere and ball are used interchangeably. The ball and the share the same radius, diameter. The surface area of a sphere is, A =4 π r 2, at any given radius r, the incremental volume equals the product of the surface area at radius r and the thickness of a shell, δ V ≈ A ⋅ δ r. The total volume is the summation of all volumes, V ≈ ∑ A ⋅ δ r. In the limit as δr approaches zero this equation becomes, V = ∫0 r A d r ′, substitute V,43 π r 3 = ∫0 r A d r ′. Differentiating both sides of equation with respect to r yields A as a function of r,4 π r 2 = A. Which is generally abbreviated as, A =4 π r 2, alternatively, the area element on the sphere is given in spherical coordinates by dA = r2 sin θ dθ dφ. In Cartesian coordinates, the element is d S = r r 2 − ∑ i ≠ k x i 2 ∏ i ≠ k d x i, ∀ k. For more generality, see area element, the total area can thus be obtained by integration, A = ∫02 π ∫0 π r 2 sin θ d θ d φ =4 π r 2. In three dimensions, the volume inside a sphere is derived to be V =43 π r 3 where r is the radius of the sphere, archimedes first derived this formula, which shows that the volume inside a sphere is 2/3 that of a circumscribed cylinder. In modern mathematics, this formula can be derived using integral calculus, at any given x, the incremental volume equals the product of the cross-sectional area of the disk at x and its thickness, δ V ≈ π y 2 ⋅ δ x. The total volume is the summation of all volumes, V ≈ ∑ π y 2 ⋅ δ x. In the limit as δx approaches zero this equation becomes, V = ∫ − r r π y 2 d x. At any given x, a right-angled triangle connects x, y and r to the origin, hence, applying the Pythagorean theorem yields, thus, substituting y with a function of x gives, V = ∫ − r r π d x. Which can now be evaluated as follows, V = π − r r = π − π =43 π r 3
25.
Kfar Tavor
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Kfar Tavor is a village in the Lower Galilee region of Northern Israel, at the foot of Mount Tabor. Founded in 1901, it was awarded local council status in 1949, in 2015 it had a population of 3,796. Ceramics from the Byzantine era have found here. In the Ottoman era was here a village called Mesha, in 1596 the village appeared under the name of Masha in the tax registers as part of the nahiya of Tabariyya in the Sanjak of Safad. It was noted as hali, but a fixed tax-rate of 25% on agricultural product was paid and these products included wheat, barley and cotton, the taxes totalled 3,300 akçe. In 1799 it appeared as Mechi on the map Pierre Jacotin compiled that year, in 1881, the Palestine Exploration Funds Survey of Western Palestine described Meshah village with a population of 100 Muslims, with houses chiefly of basalt stone, and a few of adobe and stone. The village was situated on a plain, without trees. The water supply was from a cistern in the village, Kfar Tavor was established in 1901 by pioneers of the First Aliya under the auspices of the Jewish Colonization Association. Twenty-eight farmers settled in the area with the assistance of the philanthropist Baron Edmond de Rothschild, the new settlement was originally known as Mesha, the name of the nearby Arab village. It was renamed in 1903 at the urging of Zionist leader Menachem Ussishkin who visited the site and was surprised to find it had no Hebrew name. At first, there was debate over whether to use the term kfar. Ussishkin responded that he had visited the German town of Düsseldorf, which had originated as a Dorf, or village. The Rothschild administration determined that the site was ideal for cultivating grapes, the vineyards of Kfar Tavor became a supplier of grapes to the countrys wineries. In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Mesha had a population of 274, in 1945 Kfar Tavor had 230 inhabitants, all Jews. Mas-ha was noted as an alternative name, in the Hameyasdim neighborhood, the core of the village, there is a museum and other sites, including the HaShomer house, the first school and teachers house and a synagogue that was built in 1937. Another school, built in 1911, now serves as the Shenkar Tzfira Music Center, the main street of the neighborhood has houses left from the villages early days, as well as parts of the wall that surrounded it. Yigal Allon, politician, commander of the Palmach, and general in the IDF, was born in Kfar Tavor, itay Segev, basketball player Photo of Mesha from 1910 Survey of Western Palestine, Map 6, IAA, Wikimedia commons
26.
Monadnock
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An inselberg or monadnock is an isolated rock hill, knob, ridge, or small mountain that rises abruptly from a gently sloping or virtually level surrounding plain. In southern and south-central Africa, a formation of granite is known as a koppie. If the inselberg is dome-shaped and formed from granite or gneiss, it can also be called a bornhardt, plains containing various inselbergs, inselberg plains, occur in various parts of the world including the interior of Angola, Namibia, Tanzania, Northern Finland and Swedish Lapland. An example of an inselberg is Uluru in Australia, the word inselberg is German for island mountain, the name was coined by geologist Wilhelm Bornhardt in 1900 to describe the abundance of such features found in southern Africa. At that time, the term applied only to landscape features. However, the term inselberg has since used to describe a broader geography and range of rock features. As recently as 1972, the term has been defined as steep-sided isolated hills rising abruptly above gently sloping ground. Thus, the terms monadnock and inselberg may not perfectly match, Monadnock is an originally Native American term for an isolated hill or a lone mountain that stands above the surrounding area, typically by surviving erosion. Geologists took the name from Mount Monadnock in southwestern New Hampshire and it is thought to derive from the Abenaki language, from either menonadenak or menadena. In this context, monadnock is used to describe a mountain that rises from an area of relatively flat and/or lower terrain. For instance, Mount Monadnock rises 2,000 feet above its terrain and stands, at 3,165 feet. Volcanic or other processes may give rise to a body of rock resistant to erosion, inside a body of rock such as limestone. When the less resistant rock is eroded away to form a plain, the strength of the uneroded rock is often attributed to the tightness of its jointing. The presence of a monadnock or inselberg typically indicates the existence of a plateau or highland. This is especially the case for inselbergs composed of sedimentary rock, however once exposed, the inselbergs are destroyed by marginal collapse of joint blocks and exfoliation sheets. This process leaves behind tors perched at their summits and, over time, inselbergs can be reshaped by ice sheets much the same way as roche moutonnées. In northern Sweden this kind of inselbergs have been referred as flyggbergs, the kopjes of Eastern Africa tend to be a refuge for life in the Serengeti of Tanzania and Kenya. Where the soil is too thin or hard to support life in large areas
27.
Nazareth
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Nazareth is the capital and the largest city in the Northern District of Israel. Nazareth is known as the Arab capital of Israel, in 2015 its population was 75,726. The inhabitants are predominantly Arab citizens of Israel, of whom 69% are Muslim and 30. 9% Christian, Nazareth Illit is built alongside old Nazareth, and had a Jewish population of 40,312 in 2014. The Jewish sector was declared a city in June 1974. In the New Testament, the town is described as the home of Jesus. One view suggests this toponym might be an example of a name used by resettling groups on their return from exile. The negative references to Nazareth in the Gospel of John suggest that ancient Jews did not connect the name to prophecy. Another theory holds that the Greek form Nazara, used in Matthew and Luke, may derive from an earlier Aramaic form of the name, or from another Semitic language form. If there were a tsade in the original Semitic form, as in the later Hebrew forms and this has led some scholars to question whether Nazareth and its cognates in the New Testament actually refer to the settlement known traditionally as Nazareth in Lower Galilee. In the Quran, Christians are referred to as naṣārā, meaning followers of an-Nāṣirī, in Lukes Gospel, Nazareth is first described as a town of Galilee and home of Mary. Following the birth and early epiphanial events of chapter 2 of Lukes Gospel, Mary, Joseph and Jesus returned to Galilee, to their own city, Nazareth. In English translations of the New Testament, the phrase Jesus of Nazareth appears seventeen times whereas the Greek has the form Jesus the Nazarēnos or Jesus the Nazōraios. One plausible view is that Nazōraean is a normal Greek adaptation of a reconstructed, Nazaréth is named twelve times in surviving Greek manuscript versions of the New Testament,10 times as Nazaréth or Nazarét, and twice as Nazará. The former two may retain the feminine endings common in Galilean toponyms, the minor variants, Nazarat and Nazarath are also attested. Nazara might be the earliest form of the name in Greek and it is found in Matthew 4,13 and Luke 4,16. However, the Textus Receptus clearly translates all passages as Nazara leaving little room for debate there, the form Nazara is also found in the earliest non-scriptural reference to the town, a citation by Sextus Julius Africanus dated about 221 CE. The Church Father Origen knows the forms Nazará and Nazarét, later, Eusebius in his Onomasticon also refers to the settlement as Nazara. The nașirutha of the scriptures of the Mandeans refers to craft, not to Nazareth
28.
Daburiyya
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Daburiyya, also Deburieh or Dabburieh, is an Arab village ca.8 km. east of Nazareth in Israels Northern District. Daburriya gained local council status in 1961 and its jurisdiction extends over 7,200 dunams. In 2015 it had a population of 9,889, Daburiyya is located off of Highway 65 at the foot of Mount Tabor in the Lower Galilee, near the area where the prophetess Deborah judged. Daburiyya is identified with the city of Daberath, which in Joshua 21,28 and in the Book of Chronicles was allotted to the tribe of Issachar. Its Greek name was Dabráth or Dabiroth and its Latin name was Dabareth, Daburiyya has been identified with the locality of Helenopolis of the Roman-Byzantine period, but Helenopolis is more commonly identified with Kafr Kama or other town or region. Remains of a Crusader church can still be seen in Daburiyya and it paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat and barley, fruit trees, cotton, as well as on goats and/or beehives. A map from Napoleons invasion of 1799 by Pierre Jacotin showed the place, named as Dabouri. Victor Guérin visited in the 1875, and noted Among the houses may be remarked the remains of an ancient edifice, measuring twenty-two paces in length by ten in breadth and it was once constructed of cut stones and a certain number of courses are still standing. The interior is now occupied by a house and a stable. In all probability this was a Christian Church and it is situated on the slope of the hill. Water is obtained from cisterns in the village, in 1945 the population was 1,290,1,260 Muslims and 30 Christians, with 13,373 dunams of land, according to an official land and population survey. Of this,723 dunams were for plantations and irrigable land,12,581 for cereals, in 2008 and 2009 Daburiyya High School received the National Education Award, achieving second and third place. It was the first time that a school in Israel has won the award twice in a row, the principal, Abed Elsalam Masalcha, attributed the positive developments in the school to the introduction of a Transcendental Meditation program which solved student discipline problems. In 2009 the Israeli Education Ministry said it would shut down the high school of sciences. The school, located in a building intended for a project, specialized in biology, physics, chemistry. It was a branch of the Ibillin-based Mar Elias School, according to the local parents association, the school was opened because the local high school had become chaotic and the police needed to frequently intervene between students
29.
Highway 65 (Israel)
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Highway 65 is a major highway in northern Israel. It connects Hadera with the Galilee and this road is the shortest and simplest way to connect these two major regions. Historically, people traveled on or near this route for thousands of years from the plain to reach the Galilee, and beyond it the Golan, Syria, Lebanon. In the 1949 Armistice Agreements Israel received the portion of road in Wadi Ara for this reason. The road passes by many Arab villages and cities but few Jewish habitations in Nahal Iron, in October 2000, at the beginning of the second intifada, the road was blocked by an Arab mob. For security reasons Highway 70, which runs parallel to the north of Highway 65, has been improved, the northern section of the highway, between Golani and Nahal Amud is a freeway. The road begins in the plain near Hadera and Caesarea. Its western terminus is Highway 2, after Pardes Hana-Karkur, the road is colloquially known as Wadi Ara road, passing through Iron Valley and Umm el-Fahm. Afterward the road intersects Highway 66 at Megiddo junction, from this point to Afula the road crosses the southern part of the Jezreel Valley. This section is known as Kvish HaSargel as its route is as flat. It then passes by Afula Illit, and turns north until crossing Highway 77 at Golani Interchange. It continues to its northeast terminus at Nahal Amud junction, where it meets Highway 85, the long term plans are for the entire highway to be converted to a freeway, including a new bypass section just north of Afula. Construction on this section is expected to begin by 2019
30.
Israel National Trail
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The Israel National Trail, is a hiking path that was inaugurated in 1995. The trail crosses the country of Israel. Its northern end is at Dan, near the Lebanese border in the far north of the country, and it extends to Eilat at the southernmost tip of Israel on the Red Sea, a length of 1,015 km. The trail is marked with three stripes, and takes an average of 45-60 days to complete and it does not enter the Golan Heights or the West Bank. The Israel National Trail has been listed in National Geographics 20 most epic trails and it is described as a trail that delves into the grand scale of biblical landscapes as well as the everyday lives of the modern Israeli. Since January 2016, the Israel National Trail can be explored on Google Street View, Israel National Trail on Google Street View. The Israel National Trail was officially inaugurated by then President of Israel, one of its purposes is to give Israelis a way to experience the entire breadth of the land firsthand. The various sections of the trail have been added progressively during this development, in 2003 a portion of the trail was diverted from the Sharon and now runs along the coast. The reasons for the change were the development of Highway 6, avoiding the security risk of walking along the Green Line, according to statistics compiled in 2010, only 4 out of 10 hikers complete the entire trail. Recognizing this, the planners divided it into sections that can be hiked separately. Some sections can be completed in day trips or over the weekend, hikers can seek help from trail angels. For example, at Kibbutz Yagur, a soldier leaves the key to her room for hikers who need a place to sleep, in 2012, National Geographic magazine included the trail on its best hiking trail list. It was praised for connecting to something that gets lost in all the headlines. According to the magazine, the joy of the trail is meeting the Israelis hiking it, the Israel National Trail may be described in sections as follows. On the eastern slopes of the Ramim Cliffs in the Upper Galilee are several roads and walking routes, springs. The Israel National Trail is marked here by afforestation roads and views of planted forests, the area ranges from a deserted sandstone quarry above Kiryat Shmona, at the height of 280m above sea level, southward towards Yesha Fortress. In the autumn, the trail is rich with rain-forecasting flowers, especially types of crocus, the bottom of the canyon is hard limestone, and the path lies in the shadow of the treetop canopy. Elsewhere along the Kadesh Stream, hikers can climb rock steps up the southern bank to view the ravine from above
31.
Via Maris
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In Latin, Via Maris means way of the sea. It is a road that runs along the Israeli Mediterranean coast. It was the most important route from Egypt to Syria which followed the coastal plain before crossing over into the plain of Jezreel and its earlier name was Way of the Philistines, a reference to a passageway through the Philistine Plain. The name Via Maris is not ancient and academic researchers prefer other names, together with the Kings Highway, the Via Maris was one of the major trade routes connecting Egypt and the Levant with Anatolia and Mesopotamia. The Via Maris was crossed by other trading routes, so one could travel from Africa to Europe or from Asia to Africa. It began in al-Qantara and went east to Pelusium, following the northern coast of Sinai through el-Arish, again turning northward along the shore, the Via Maris passed through Migdal, Capernaum, and Hazor. From Hazor it crossed the northern River Jordan at Jacobs Daughters Bridge then climbed sharply over the Golan Heights, here travellers could continue on the Kings Highway as far as the Euphrates River or proceed northward into Anatolia. According to Anson Rainey, Via Maris is not the name of any road. The phrase rather originates as the Latin translation of Isaiah 9,1 – by the way of the sea. The prophet was probably referring to the road from Dan to the sea at Tyre, passing through Abel-beth-maachah, the road mentioned in the traditional description is better listed as the Great Trunk Road. Carl G. Rasmussen in the Zondervan Atlas of the Bible, p.32, also notes the traditional misnomer, Rasmussen, basically in agreement with Langfur and Rainey, suggests that the Via Maris was the road that connected Tyre with Damascus. Beitzel, in contrast, denotes the Via Maris as a road from Ptolemais to Kedesh in the Galilee - also leading west to east, but slightly further south and not reaching so far inland
32.
Damascus
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Damascus is the capital and likely the largest city of Syria, following the decline in population of Aleppo due to the ongoing battle for the city. It is commonly known in Syria as ash-Sham and nicknamed as the City of Jasmine, in addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major cultural and religious centre of the Levant. The city has an population of 1,711,000 as of 2009. Located in south-western Syria, Damascus is the centre of a metropolitan area of 2.6 million people. The Barada River flows through Damascus, first settled in the second millennium BC, it was chosen as the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate from 661 to 750. After the victory of the Abbasid dynasty, the seat of Islamic power was moved to Baghdad, Damascus saw a political decline throughout the Abbasid era, only to regain significant importance in the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods. Today, it is the seat of the government and all of the government ministries. The name of Damascus first appeared in the geographical list of Thutmose III as T-m-ś-q in the 15th century BC, the etymology of the ancient name T-m-ś-q is uncertain, but it is suspected to be pre-Semitic. It is attested as Dimašqa in Akkadian, T-ms-ḳw in Egyptian, Dammaśq in Old Aramaic, the Akkadian spelling is found in the Amarna letters, from the 14th century BC. Later Aramaic spellings of the name include a intrusive resh, perhaps influenced by the root dr. Thus, the English and Latin name of the city is Damascus which was imported from originated from the Qumranic Darmeśeq, and Darmsûq in Syriac, meaning a well-watered land. In Arabic, the city is called Dimašqu š-Šāmi, although this is shortened to either Dimašq or aš-Šām by the citizens of Damascus, of Syria and other Arab neighbours. Aš-Šām is an Arabic term for Levant and for Syria, the latter, the Anti-Lebanon mountains mark the border between Syria and Lebanon. The range has peaks of over 10,000 ft. and blocks precipitation from the Mediterranean sea, however, in ancient times this was mitigated by the Barada River, which originates from mountain streams fed by melting snow. Damascus is surrounded by the Ghouta, irrigated farmland where many vegetables, cereals, maps of Roman Syria indicate that the Barada river emptied into a lake of some size east of Damascus. Today it is called Bahira Atayba, the hesitant lake, because in years of severe drought it does not even exist, the modern city has an area of 105 km2, out of which 77 km2 is urban, while Jabal Qasioun occupies the rest. The old city of Damascus, enclosed by the city walls, to the south-east, north and north-east it is surrounded by suburban areas whose history stretches back to the Middle Ages, Midan in the south-west, Sarouja and Imara in the north and north-west. These neighbourhoods originally arose on roads leading out of the city and these new neighbourhoods were initially settled by Kurdish soldiery and Muslim refugees from the European regions of the Ottoman Empire which had fallen under Christian rule
33.
Tribe of Zebulun
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According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Zebulun was one of the twelve tribes of Israel. Following the completion of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelite tribes in the Book of Joshua, Joshua allocated the land among the twelve tribes. According to the Torah, the tribe consisted of descendants of Zebulun, some Biblical scholars, however, view this as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation. With Leah as a matriarch, Biblical scholars believe the tribe to have been regarded by the authors as a part of the original Israelite confederation. In the ancient Song of Deborah, Zebulun are described as sending to the battle those that handle the sopher shebet, the Tribe of Zebulun plays an important part in the early history of Israel. At the census of the tribes in the Desert of Sinai during the year of the Exodus. This army, under the command of Eliab the son of Helon, encamped with Judah and Issachar east of the Tabernacle, among the spies sent by Moses to view the land of Canaan, Gaddiel the son of Sodi represented Zebulun. At Shittim, in the land of Moab, after 24,000 men were slain for their crime, elizaphan the son of Parnach was chosen to represent Zebulun at the division of the Promised Land. During the rule of Joshua it received no special mention. e, such as recruiting and inspecting officers. The reference is to Baraks campaign against Sisera, the commander of the forces of Jabin and they answered the call of Gideon and joined in battle against Madian, and gave to Israel Elon, who judged it ten years. When Hezekiah made reparation for the abominations of his father Ahaz, at the division of the land of Israel among the seven tribes not yet provided for, the lot of Zebulun was third. The tribes territory started with Sarid, which is supposed to have been Tel Shadud, zebuluns boundaries have not been made out. The historian Josephus assigns to Zebulun the land near to Carmel, to its northwest lay Asher, to the southeast Issachar. It included a part of the Jezreel Valley, and the highway from the sea to the lake. Within the territory of Zebulun, Jesus was raised, and did and said much that is narrated in the Gospels, especially in the Synoptics, about his Galilean ministry. As part of the Kingdom of Israel, the territory of Zebulun was conquered by the Assyrians, and the tribe exiled, israeli Knesset member Ayoob Kara speculated that the Druze are descended from one of the Lost Tribes of Israel, probably Zevulun. Kara stated that the Druze share many of the same beliefs as Jews, Zebulun Tribe of Issachar This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Easton, Matthew George. Media related to Tribe of Zebulun at Wikimedia Commons
34.
Tribe of Naphtali
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The Tribe of Naphtali was one of the twelve tribes of Israel. In the biblical account, following the completion of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelite Joshua allocated the land among the twelve tribes, kenneth Kitchen, a well-known conservative biblical scholar, dates this event to slightly after 1200 BCE. However, the view of modern scholars is that the conquest of Joshua as described in the Book of Joshua never occurred. The most significant city was Hazor, from after the conquest of the land by Joshua until the formation of the first Kingdom of Israel in c.1050 BC, the Tribe of Naphtali was a part of a loose confederation of Israelite tribes. No central government existed, and in times of crisis the people were led by ad hoc leaders known as Judges. However, on the accession of Rehoboam, Davids grandson, in c.930 BC the northern tribes split from the House of David to reform a Kingdom of Israel as the Northern Kingdom. In c.732 BCE, Pekah allied with Rezin, king of Aram, threatened Jerusalem, and Ahaz, king of Judah, appealed to Tiglath-Pileser III, the king of Assyria, for help. After Ahaz paid tribute to Tiglath-Pileser, Tiglath-Pileser sacked Damascus and Israel, annexing Aram, according to 2 Kings 16,9 and 15,29, the population of Aram and the annexed part of Israel was deported to Assyria. The kingdom of Israel continued to exist until c.723 BC, when it was invaded by Assyria. From that time, the Tribe of Naphtali has been counted as one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, according to the Torah, the tribe consisted of descendants of Naphtali, a son of Jacob and Bilhah, from whom it took its name. However, Biblical scholars view this as a postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation, militarism is featured in Naphtalis history. In the Blessing of Jacob, which textual scholars date to 700-600 BC - and thus a postdiction, Naphtali is compared to a hind let loose, and commended for giving goodly words. Centuries later, the Assyrians invaded Israel, which, though it had been a tributary, had also defaulted, with the land taken, the tribe were exiled, the manner of their exile led to their further history being lost. The symbol of the tribe is a very quick animal. The people of Naftali were famous for being great runners, there has been speculation that the Bukharian Jews of Central Asia are the descendants of the Naphtali tribe. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Easton
35.
Deborah
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Deborah was a prophet of the God of the Israelites, the fourth Judge of pre-monarchic Israel, counselor, warrior, and the wife of Lapidoth according to the Book of Judges chapters 4 and 5. Judges chapter 5 gives the story in poetic form. This passage, often called The Song of Deborah, may date to as early as the 12th century BC and is perhaps the earliest sample of Hebrew poetry, in Hebrew, her name, דְּבוֹרָה, translates as bee. She is considered a saint in the Catholic Church, the Deborah number, a dimensionless number used in rheology, is named after her. In the Book of Judges, it is stated that Deborah was a prophet, a judge of Israel and she rendered her judgments beneath a date palm tree between Ramah in Benjamin and Bethel in the land of Ephraim. Some people today refer to Deborah as the mother of Israel, as she is titled in the biblical Song of Deborah, the people of Israel had been oppressed by Jabin, the king of Canaan, whose capital was Hazor, for twenty years. At the same time she states that the Lord God of Israel will draw Sisera to the River Kishon, Barak declines to go without the prophet. Deborah consents, but declares that the glory of the victory will therefore belong to a woman, as soon as the news of the rebellion reaches Sisera he collects nine hundred chariots of iron and a host of people. Then Deborah said, according to Judges 4,14, “Go and this is the day the Lord has given Sisera into your hands. Has not the Lord gone ahead of you. ”So Barak went down Mount Tabor, as Deborah prophesied, a battle is fought, and Sisera is completely defeated. He himself escapes on foot, while his army is pursued as far as Harosheth of the Gentiles, Sisera comes to the tent of Jael, and he lies down to rest. He asks for a drink, she gives him milk, the Biblical account of Deborah ends with the statement that after the battle, there was peace in the land for 40 years. Traditional Jewish chronology places Deborahs 40 years of judging Israel from 1107 BC until her death in 1067 BC, the Dictionary of World Biography, The Ancient World claims that she might have lived in the period between 1200 BC to 1124 BC. The Song of Deborah is found in Judges 5, 2–31 and is a hymn, sung by Deborah and Barak. Biblical scholars have identified the Song as one of the oldest parts of the Bible, dating somewhere in the 12th century BC, based on its grammar. However, some scholars have argued that the songs language. The song itself differs slightly from the events described in Judges 4, the song mentions six participating tribes as opposed to the two tribes in Judges 4,6 and does not mention the role of Jabin. After the death of Joshua, the tribe of Judah led the tribe of Simeon in a campaign against the Canaanites and Perizzites, then they marched against Kiriath-Arba and defeated three more kings
36.
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
37.
Beacon
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A beacon is an intentionally conspicuous device designed to attract attention to a specific location. When used in fashion, beacons can be considered a form of optical telegraphy. Beacons help guide navigators to their destinations, types of navigational beacons include radar reflectors, radio beacons, sonic and visual signals. Visual beacons range from small, single-pile structures to large lighthouses or light stations, lighted beacons are called lights, unlighted beacons are called daybeacons. As signals, beacons are an ancient form of telegraph and were part of a relay league. Systems of this kind have existed for centuries over much of the world, the ancient Romans used beacons and beacons figure on several occasions on the column of Trajan. It was devised by Leo the Mathematician for Emperor Theophilos, but either abolished or radically curtailed by Theophilos son and successor, Michael III. Beacons were later used in Greece as well, while the parts of the beacon system in Anatolia seem to have been reactivated in the 12th century by Emperor Manuel I Komnenos. In Scandinavia many hill forts were part of networks to warn against invading pillagers. In Finland, these beacons were called vainovalkeat, persecution fires, or vartiotulet, guard fires, in Wales, the Brecon Beacons were named for beacons used to warn of approaching English raiders. In England, the most famous examples are the used in Elizabethan England to warn of the approaching Spanish Armada. Many hills in England were named Beacon Hill after such beacons, in the Scottish borders country, a system of beacon fires was at one time established to warn of incursions by the English. Hume and Eggerstone castles and Soltra Edge were part of this network, the Great Wall of China is also a beacon network. In Spain, the border of Granada in the territory of the Crown of Castile had a beacon network to warn against Moorish raiders. Vehicular beacons are rotating or flashing lights affixed to the top of a vehicle to attract the attention of surrounding vehicles, emergency vehicles such as fire engines, ambulances, police cars, tow trucks, construction vehicles, and snow-removal vehicles carry beacon lights. Beacons may be constructed with halogen bulbs similar to those used in vehicle headlamps, xenon flashtubes, incandescent and xenon light sources require the vehicle’s engine to continue running to ensure that the battery is not depleted when the lights are used for a prolonged period. The low power consumption of LEDs allows the engine to remain turned off while the lights operate nodes. Beacons and bonfires are used to mark occasions and celebrate events
38.
Jewish holidays
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Certain terms are used very commonly for groups of holidays. These include the first and seventh days of Passover, Shavuot, by extension, outside the Land of Israel, the second-day holidays known under the rubric Yom tov sheni shel galuyot are also included in this grouping. Colloquially, Yom Kippur, a Biblically-mandated date on which even food preparation is prohibited, is included in this grouping. The English-language term High Holy Days refers to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur collectively, the term Three Pilgrimage Festivals refers to Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot. Within this grouping Sukkot normally includes Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, certain terminology is used in referring to different categories of holidays, depending on their source and their nature, Shabbat, or Sabbath, is referred to by that name exclusively. Similarly, Rosh Chodesh is referred to by that name exclusively, moed, plural moadim, refers to any of the Three Pilgrimage Festivals of Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot. When used in comparison to Yom Tov, it refers to Chol HaMoed, Ḥag or chag, plural chagim, can be used whenever yom tov or moed is. It is also used to describe Hanukkah and Purim, as well as Yom Haatzmaut, Taanit, or, less commonly, tzom, refers to a fast. These terms are used to describe the rabbinic fasts, although tzom is used liturgically to refer to Yom Kippur as well. The most notable feature of Shabbat and the Biblical festivals is the requirement to refrain from melacha on these days. Melacha is most commonly translated as work, perhaps a translation is creative-constructive work. Strictly speaking, Melacha is defined in Jewish law by 39 categories of labor that were used in constructing the Tabernacle while the Jews wandered in the desert, as understood traditionally and in Orthodox Judaism, On Shabbat and Yom Kippur all melacha is prohibited. On a Yom Tov which falls on a weekday, not Shabbat, some melacha related to preparation of food is permitted. On weekdays during Chol HaMoed, melacha is not prohibited per se, however, melacha should be limited to that required either to enhance the enjoyment of the remainder of the festival or to avoid great financial loss. On other days, there are no restrictions on melacha, in principle, Conservative Judaism understands the requirement to refrain from melacha in the same way as Orthodox Judaism. In practice, Conservative rabbis frequently rule on prohibitions around melacha differently from Orthodox authorities, still, there are a number of Conservative/Masorti communities around the world where Sabbath and Festival observance fairly closely resembles Orthodox observance. However, many, if not most, lay members of Conservative congregations in North America do not consider themselves Sabbath-observant, at the same time, adherents of Reform Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism do not accept halacha, and therefore restrictions on melacha, as binding at all. Jews fitting any of these descriptions refrain from melacha in practice only as they see fit
39.
Lunisolar calendar
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A lunisolar calendar is a calendar in many cultures whose date indicates both the moon phase and the time of the solar year. As with all calendars which divide the year into months there is a requirement that the year have a whole number of months. In this case ordinary years consist of twelve months but every second or third year is an embolismic year, also, some of the ancient pre-Islamic calendars in south Arabia followed a lunisolar system. The Chinese, Coligny and Hebrew lunisolar calendars track more or less the tropical year whereas the Buddhist, therefore, the first three give an idea of the seasons whereas the last two give an idea of the position among the constellations of the full moon. The Tibetan calendar was influenced by both the Chinese and Hindu calendars, the Germanic peoples also used a lunisolar calendar before their conversion to Christianity. The Metonic cycle, used in the Hebrew calendar and the Julian and Gregorian ecclesiastical calendars, the classic Metonic cycle can be reproduced by assigning an initial epact value of 1 to the last year of the cycle and incrementing by 11 each year. Between the last year of one cycle and the first year of the next the increment is 12 and this adjustment, the saltus lunae, causes the epacts to repeat every 19 years. When the epact goes above 29 an intercalary month is added and 30 is subtracted, the intercalary years are numbers 3,6,8,11,14,17 and 19. Both the Hebrew calendar and the Julian calendar use this sequence, the Buddhist and Hebrew calendars restrict the leap month to a single month of the year, the number of common months between leap months is, therefore, usually 36, but occasionally only 24 months. An alternative way of dealing with the fact that a year does not contain an integer number of months is by including uncounted time in the year that does not belong to any month. Some Coast Salish peoples used a calendar of this kind, for instance, the Chehalis began their count of lunar months from the arrival of spawning chinook salmon, and counted 10 months, leaving an uncounted period until the next chinook salmon run. The Gregorian calendar has a calendar, which is used to determine the date of Easter. The rules are in the Computus, Hebrew calendar Jain calendar Hindu calendar Computus Easter rule for Julian and Gregorian calendars. Lunisolar calendar year 2014 Lunisolar Calendar Calendar studies Model of lunisolar calendar based on observation of the sun and moon position
40.
Hasmonean dynasty
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The Hasmonean dynasty was the ruling dynasty of Judea and surrounding regions during classical antiquity. Between c. 140 and c. 116 BCE the dynasty ruled semi-autonomously from the Seleucids in the region of Judea, some modern scholars refer to this period as an independent kingdom of Israel. In 63 BCE, the kingdom was conquered by the Roman Republic, broken up, the dynasty had survived for 103 years before yielding to the Herodian dynasty in 37 BCE. Even then, Herod the Great tried to bolster the legitimacy of his reign by marrying a Hasmonean princess, Mariamne, the dynasty was established under the leadership of Simon Maccabaeus, two decades after his brother Judah the Maccabee defeated the Seleucid army during the Maccabean Revolt. However, the power vacuum that enabled the Jewish state to be recognized by the Roman Senate c. 139 BCE was later exploited by the Romans themselves. Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II, Simons great-grandsons, became pawns in a war between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great. The deaths of Pompey and Caesar, and the related Roman civil wars temporarily relaxed Romes grip on Israel and this short independence was rapidly crushed by the Romans under Mark Antony and Octavian. The installation of Herod the Great as king in 37 BCE made Israel a Roman client state, in AD6, Rome joined Judea proper, Samaria and Idumea into the Roman province of Iudaea. In AD44, Rome installed the rule of a Roman procurator side by side with the rule of the Herodian kings, an alternative view posits that the Hebrew name Hashmonai is linked with the village of Heshbon, mentioned in Joshua 15,27. Gott and Licht attribute the name to Ha Simeon, a reference to the Simeonite Tribe. Between 319 and 302 BC. Under Antiochus III the Seleucids wrested control of Israel from the Ptolemies for the final time and it was in Antioch that the Jews first made the acquaintance of Hellenism and of the more corrupt sides of Greek culture, and it was from Antioch that Judea henceforth was ruled. The books are considered part of the Biblical canon by the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches and apocryphal by most Protestants, the books include historical and religious material from the Septuagint that was codified by Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians. The other primary source for the Hasmonean dynasty is the first book of The Wars of the Jews by the Jewish historian Josephus, Josephus account is the only primary source covering the history of the Hasmonean dynasty during the period of its expansion and independence between 110 to 63 BCE. The books of Maccabees use the names Judea and Israel as geographical descriptors throughout for both the land and people over whom the Hasmoneans would rule, the Talmud includes one of the Hasmonean kings under the description Kings of Israel. Scholars refer to the state as the Hasmonean Kingdom to distinguish it from the kingdoms of Israel. The Hellenization of the Jews in the period was not universally resisted. Generally, the Jews accepted foreign rule when they were required to pay tribute. Nevertheless, Jews were divided between those favoring Hellenization and those opposing it, and were divided over allegiance to the Ptolemies or Seleucids, when the High Priest Simon II died in 175 BCE, conflict broke out between supporters of his son Onias III and his son Jason
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Proconsul
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A proconsul was an official of ancient Rome who acted on behalf of a consul. In the Roman Republic, military command, or imperium, could be exercised only by a consul. There were two consuls at a time, each elected to a one year term and they could not normally succeed themselves. If a military campaign was in progress at the end of a consuls term and this custom allowed for continuity of command despite the high turnover of consuls. In the empire, proconsul was a held by a civil governor. In modern times, various officials with notable delegated authority have been referred to as proconsuls, the terms satrap and viceroy are both used in a similar way. Studies of leadership typically divide leaders into policymakers and subordinate administrators, the proconsul occupies a position between these two categories. Max Weber classified leadership as traditional, rational-legal, and charismatic, a proconsul could be both a rule-following bureaucrat and charismatic personality. The rise of bureaucracy and rapid communication has reduced the scope for proconsular freelancing, Quintus Publilius Philo was one of two consuls for the year 317 BC. When his term expired at the end of the year, his army was in the midst of besieging the city of Neapolis. Rather than risk a change of command at such a delicate moment, Philo thus became the first proconsul. With imperial expansion beyond Italy and the annexation of territories as Roman provinces, the other was the praetor and the propraetor. In theory the proconsulate was an authority in which the proconsul acted on behalf of the consuls. Later, in practice, proconsular imperium became the extension of a consul’s imperium beyond the term of his office. This extension was a dispensation from the limit of the term of office which applied only outside the city walls of Rome. It did not have effect within the city walls, therefore, it was an exertion of the military command of the consul, but not of his public office. It was a military measure. As the scale of Romes military engagements and the number of her legions was increased there was a need to increase the number of military commanders, the office of the praetor was introduced in 366 BC
42.
Roman Syria
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Syria was an early Roman province, annexed to the Roman Republic in 64 BC by Pompey in the Third Mithridatic War, following the defeat of Armenian King Tigranes the Great. Following the partition of the Herodian Kingdom into tetrarchies in 6 AD, it was absorbed into Roman provinces, with Roman Syria annexing Iturea. Later, in 135 AD, in the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt, Syrian province was merged with Judea province, one province During the early empire, the Roman army in Syria accounted for three legions with auxiliaries, they defended the border with Parthia. Syrian province forces were engaged in the Great Jewish Revolt of 66–70 AD. In 66 AD, Cestius Gallus, the legate of Syria, brought the Syrian army, based on XII Fulminata, reinforced by troops, to restore order in Judaea. The legion, however, was ambushed and destroyed by Jewish rebels at the Battle of Beth Horon, the future emperor Vespasian was put in charge of subduing the Jewish revolt. In the summer of 69, Vespasian, with the Syrian units supporting him, the governor of Syria retained the civil administration of the whole large province undiminished, and held for long alone in all Asia a command of the first rank. It was Severus who at length withdrew the first place in the Roman military hierarchy from the Syrian governor, the emperor Septimius Severus divided up Roman Syria in the fashion it would remain until the rule of the Tetrarchs. From the later 2nd century, the Roman senate included several notable Syrians, Syria was of crucial strategic importance during the crisis of the third century. In 244 AD, Rome was ruled by a native Syrian from Philippopolis in the province of Arabia Petraea, the emperor was Marcus Iulius Philippus, more commonly known as Philip the Arab. Philip became the 33rd emperor of Rome upon its millennial celebration, in 259/260 a similar event happened when Shapur I again defeated a Roman field army and captured the Roman emperor, Valerian, alive at the battle of Edessa. Again Roman Syria suffered as cities were captured, sacked and pillaged, from 268 to 273, Syria was part of the breakaway Palmyrene Empire. Following the reforms of Diocletian, Syria Coele became part of the Diocese of Oriens, after c.415 Syria Coele was further subdivided into Syria I, with the capital remaining at Antioch, and Syria II or Syria Salutaris, with capital at Apamea on the Orontes. In 528, Justinian I carved out the coastal province Theodorias out of territory from both provinces. The region remained one of the most important provinces of the Byzantine Empire and it was occupied by the Sassanids between 609 and 628, then recovered by the emperor Heraclius, but lost again to the advancing Muslims after the battle of Yarmouk and the fall of Antioch. The city of Antioch was recovered in 963 AD along with other parts of the country. A reconquest undertaken by the Fatimad caliphate in the 970s retook most parts of Syria from the Byzantines, however, the Byzantine emperor Basil II reconquered all of Syria from Muslims by 1000 AD. Frequent rebellions, however, weakened Byzantine control over Syria, by 1045 only the city of Antioch remained Byzantine
43.
Aulus Gabinius
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Aulus Gabinius was a Roman statesman, general and supporter of Pompey. He was a prominent figure in the days of the Roman Republic. By two other measures of Gabinius, loans of money to foreign ambassadors in Rome were made non-actionable, in 65 BC, then a legate to Pompey, he marched with two legions into Northern Mesopotamia. This pressured the Parthian king Phraates III into a treaty with Pompey, during his term of office he aided Publius Clodius Pulcher in bringing about the exile of Marcus Tullius Cicero. In 57 BC Gabinius went as proconsul to Syria, on his arrival he reinstated Hyrcanus II in the high-priesthood at Jerusalem, suppressed revolts, introduced important changes in the government of Judaea, and rebuilt several towns. In 55 BC, Gabinius was sent by Pompey to Egypt, without the consent of the Senate and he succeeded in fulfilling his task after a short successful campaign, in which he was supported by the young Mark Antony. He left a part of his troops, the so-called Gabiniani and these Gabiniani fought against rebellious subjects of the king and later, after his death, against Gaius Julius Caesar. During Gabinius absence in Egypt, Syria had been devastated by robbers, with some difficulty Gabinius restored order, and in 54 BC handed over the province to his successor, Marcus Licinius Crassus. Nothing but Ciceros wish to do a favour to Pompey could have induced him to take on the task, the third charge, that of ambitus, was consequently dropped, Gabinius went into exile, and his property was confiscated. After the outbreak of Caesars Civil War, he was recalled by Gaius Julius Caesar in 49 BC and entered his service, after the Battle of Pharsalus, he was commissioned to transport some recently levied troops to Illyricum. On his way by land, he was attacked by the Dalmatians, there he defended himself against the attacks of the Pompeian commander, Marcus Octavius, but a few months later died of illness. Gabinius married a Roman noblewoman called Lollia from the Lollia, perhaps a daughter of Marcus Lollius Palicanus, Lollia bore him a son called Aulus Gabinius Sisenna. 13, Post reditum in senatu, 4-8, Pro lege Manilia,17,18,19 exhaustive article by Bähr in Ersch and Grubers Allgemeine Encyclopädie Giuseppe Stocchi, Aulo Gabinio e i suoi processi
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Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Mount Thabor". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
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