1.
Daniel Maclise
–
Daniel Maclise RA was an Irish history, literary and portrait painter, and illustrator, who worked for most of his life in London, England. Maclise was born in Cork, Ireland, the son of Alexander McLish, a tanner or shoemaker and his education was of the plainest kind, but he was eager for culture, fond of reading, and anxious to become an artist. His father, however, placed him in employment, in 1820, in Newenhams Bank and it became very popular, and led to many commissions for portraits, which he executed, in pencil. There he made a sketch of Charles John Kean, the actor and he entered the Royal Academy schools in 1828, eventually being awarded the highest prizes open to students. Maclise exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy in 1829, the years that followed were occupied with a long series of figure pictures, deriving their subjects from history and tradition and from the works of Shakespeare, Goldsmith and Le Sage. He also designed illustrations for several of Dickenss Christmas books and other works, in 1858, Maclise commenced one of the two great monumental works of his life, The Meeting of Wellington and Blücher, on the walls of Westminster Palace. It was begun in fresco, a process which proved unmanageable, Maclises vast painting of The Marriage of Strongbow and Aoife hangs in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin. It portrays the marriage of the main Norman conqueror of Ireland Strongbow to the daughter of his Gaelic ally, by the grand staircase of Halifax Town Hall, which was completed in 1863, there is a wall painting by Maclise. The intense application which he gave to these great historic works, and various circumstances connected with the commission, had a serious effect on the artists health. He began to shun the company in which he formerly delighted, his old buoyancy of spirits was gone, and when, in 1865 and he died of acute pneumonia on 25 April 1870 at his home 4 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. His fame rests most securely on his two greatest works at Westminster, a memoir of Maclise, by his friend William Justin ODriscoll, was published in 1871. The works of Maclise in portraiture were celebrated in 1972 at an exhibition in the National Portrait Gallery, the Crawford Gallery in Cork, Ireland, Maclises native town, held a major exhibition of his works from October 2008, opened by David Puttnam. It had been displayed previously from 23 May until 23 August at the Royal Armouries in Leeds as part of the Waterloo 1815, vol 35, Dictionary of National Biography. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Maclise
Daniel Maclise
–
1857 Lithograph of Daniel Maclise, by
Charles Baugniet
Daniel Maclise
–
Maclise's Spirit of Chivalry, Oil on canvas, 50 x 33 5/8 inches (127.00 x 85.60 cm), Private collection.
2.
Judaism
–
Judaism encompasses the religion, philosophy, culture and way of life of the Jewish people. Judaism is an ancient monotheistic Abrahamic religion, with the Torah as its text, and supplemental oral tradition represented by later texts such as the Midrash. Judaism is considered by religious Jews to be the expression of the relationship that God established with the Children of Israel. With between 14.5 and 17.4 million adherents worldwide, Judaism is the tenth-largest religion in the world, Judaism includes a wide corpus of texts, practices, theological positions, and forms of organization. Modern branches of Judaism such as Humanistic Judaism may be nontheistic, today, the largest Jewish religious movements are Orthodox Judaism, Conservative Judaism and Reform Judaism. Major sources of difference between groups are their approaches to Jewish law, the authority of the Rabbinic tradition. Orthodox Judaism maintains that the Torah and Jewish law are divine in origin, eternal and unalterable, Conservative and Reform Judaism are more liberal, with Conservative Judaism generally promoting a more traditional interpretation of Judaisms requirements than Reform Judaism. A typical Reform position is that Jewish law should be viewed as a set of guidelines rather than as a set of restrictions and obligations whose observance is required of all Jews. Historically, special courts enforced Jewish law, today, these still exist. Authority on theological and legal matters is not vested in any one person or organization, the history of Judaism spans more than 3,000 years. Judaism has its roots as a religion in the Middle East during the Bronze Age. Judaism is considered one of the oldest monotheistic religions, the Hebrews and Israelites were already referred to as Jews in later books of the Tanakh such as the Book of Esther, with the term Jews replacing the title Children of Israel. Judaisms texts, traditions and values strongly influenced later Abrahamic religions, including Christianity, Islam, many aspects of Judaism have also directly or indirectly influenced secular Western ethics and civil law. Jews are a group and include those born Jewish and converts to Judaism. In 2015, the world Jewish population was estimated at about 14.3 million, Judaism thus begins with ethical monotheism, the belief that God is one and is concerned with the actions of humankind. According to the Tanakh, God promised Abraham to make of his offspring a great nation, many generations later, he commanded the nation of Israel to love and worship only one God, that is, the Jewish nation is to reciprocate Gods concern for the world. He also commanded the Jewish people to one another, that is. These commandments are but two of a corpus of commandments and laws that constitute this covenant, which is the substance of Judaism
Judaism
–
Judaica (clockwise from top):
Shabbat candlesticks,
handwashing cup,
Chumash and
Tanakh,
Torah pointer,
shofar and
etrog box
Judaism
–
Silver case containing a handwritten
Torah (
Museum of Jewish Art and History, Paris)
Judaism
–
Glass platter inscribed with the Hebrew word zokhreinu – remember us
Judaism
–
A 19th-century silver
Macedonian Hanukkah menorah
3.
Christianity
–
Christianity is a Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, who serves as the focal point for the religion. It is the worlds largest religion, with over 2.4 billion followers, or 33% of the global population, Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of humanity whose coming as the Messiah was prophesied in the Old Testament. Christian theology is summarized in creeds such as the Apostles Creed and his incarnation, earthly ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection are often referred to as the gospel, meaning good news. The term gospel also refers to accounts of Jesuss life and teaching, four of which—Matthew, Mark, Luke. Christianity is an Abrahamic religion that began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the mid-1st century, following the Age of Discovery, Christianity spread to the Americas, Australasia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the rest of the world through missionary work and colonization. Christianity has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilization, throughout its history, Christianity has weathered schisms and theological disputes that have resulted in many distinct churches and denominations. Worldwide, the three largest branches of Christianity are the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the denominations of Protestantism. There are many important differences of interpretation and opinion of the Bible, concise doctrinal statements or confessions of religious beliefs are known as creeds. They began as baptismal formulae and were expanded during the Christological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries to become statements of faith. Many evangelical Protestants reject creeds as definitive statements of faith, even agreeing with some or all of the substance of the creeds. The Baptists have been non-creedal in that they have not sought to establish binding authoritative confessions of faith on one another. Also rejecting creeds are groups with roots in the Restoration Movement, such as the Christian Church, the Evangelical Christian Church in Canada, the Apostles Creed is the most widely accepted statement of the articles of Christian faith. It is also used by Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists and this particular creed was developed between the 2nd and 9th centuries. Its central doctrines are those of the Trinity and God the Creator, each of the doctrines found in this creed can be traced to statements current in the apostolic period. The creed was used as a summary of Christian doctrine for baptismal candidates in the churches of Rome. Most Christians accept the use of creeds, and subscribe to at least one of the mentioned above. The central tenet of Christianity is the belief in Jesus as the Son of God, Christians believe that Jesus, as the Messiah, was anointed by God as savior of humanity, and hold that Jesus coming was the fulfillment of messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. The Christian concept of the Messiah differs significantly from the contemporary Jewish concept, Jesus, having become fully human, suffered the pains and temptations of a mortal man, but did not sin
Christianity
–
An
Eastern Christian icon depicting
Emperor Constantine and the Fathers of the
First Council of Nicaea (325) as holding the Niceno–Constantinopolitan Creed of 381
Christianity
–
Various
depictions of Jesus
Christianity
–
Crucifixion, representing the death of
Jesus on the
Cross, painting by
Diego Velázquez, 17th century
4.
Islam
–
Islam is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion which professes that there is only one and incomparable God and that Muhammad is the last messenger of God. It is the worlds second-largest religion and the major religion in the world, with over 1.7 billion followers or 23% of the global population. Islam teaches that God is merciful, all-powerful, and unique, and He has guided mankind through revealed scriptures, natural signs, and a line of prophets sealed by Muhammad. The primary scriptures of Islam are the Quran, viewed by Muslims as the word of God. Muslims believe that Islam is the original, complete and universal version of a faith that was revealed many times before through prophets including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses. As for the Quran, Muslims consider it to be the unaltered, certain religious rites and customs are observed by the Muslims in their family and social life, while social responsibilities to parents, relatives, and neighbors have also been defined. Besides, the Quran and the sunnah of Muhammad prescribe a comprehensive body of moral guidelines for Muslims to be followed in their personal, social, political, Islam began in the early 7th century. Originating in Mecca, it spread in the Arabian Peninsula. The expansion of the Muslim world involved various caliphates and empires, traders, most Muslims are of one of two denominations, Sunni or Shia. Islam is the dominant religion in the Middle East, North Africa, sizable Muslim communities are also found in Horn of Africa, Europe, China, Russia, Mainland Southeast Asia, Philippines, Northern Borneo, Caucasus and the Americas. Converts and immigrant communities are found in almost every part of the world, Islam is a verbal noun originating from the triliteral root s-l-m which forms a large class of words mostly relating to concepts of wholeness, submission, safeness and peace. In a religious context it means voluntary submission to God, Islām is the verbal noun of Form IV of the root, and means submission or surrender. Muslim, the word for an adherent of Islam, is the active participle of the verb form. The word sometimes has connotations in its various occurrences in the Quran. In some verses, there is stress on the quality of Islam as a state, Whomsoever God desires to guide. Other verses connect Islām and dīn, Today, I have perfected your religion for you, I have completed My blessing upon you, still others describe Islam as an action of returning to God—more than just a verbal affirmation of faith. In the Hadith of Gabriel, islām is presented as one part of a triad that also includes imān, Islam was historically called Muhammadanism in Anglophone societies. This term has fallen out of use and is said to be offensive because it suggests that a human being rather than God is central to Muslims religion
Islam
–
The
Kaaba, in
Mecca,
Hejaz region, today's
Saudi Arabia, is the
center of Islam.
Muslims from all over the world gather there to
pray in unity.
Islam
–
The dome of the
Carol I Mosque in
Constanța,
Romania, topped by the
Islamic crescent
Islam
–
Medallion showing "
Allah " (
God) in
Hagia Sophia,
Istanbul,
Turkey.
Islam
–
An
angel presenting
Muhammad and his companions with a miniature city. In the
Topkapi Palace Library,
Istanbul.
5.
Mandaeism
–
Mandaeism or Mandaeanism, Arabic, مندائية Mandāʼīyah) is a gnostic religion with a strongly dualistic worldview. Its adherents, the Mandaeans, revere Adam, Abel, Seth, Enos, Noah, Shem, Aram, and especially John the Baptist, the Aramaic manda means knowledge, as does Greek gnosis. According to most scholars, Mandaeaism originated sometime in the first three centuries AD, with the Mandaen people migrating from the Southern Levant to Mesopotamia in the first centuries CE and they are Semites and speak a dialect of Eastern Aramaic known as Mandaic. There is a theory that they may be related to the Nabateans who were pre-Islamic pagan Arabs whose territory extended into southern Iraq, there are thought to be between 60,000 and 70,000 Mandaeans worldwide. Until the 2003 Iraq war, almost all of them lived in Iraq, by 2007, the population of Mandaeans in Iraq had fallen to approximately 5,000. The Mandaeans have remained separate and intensely private, and British cultural anthropologist Lady E. S. Drower. An Anglican vicar, Rev. Peter Owen-Jones, included a segment on a Mandaean group in Sydney, Australia, in his BBC series. The term Mandaeism comes from Classical Mandaic Mandaiia and appears in Neo-Mandaic as Mandeyānā, on the basis of cognates in other Aramaic dialects, Semiticists such as Mark Lidzbarski and Rudolf Macuch have translated the term manda, from which Mandaiia derives, as knowledge. This etymology suggests that the Mandaeans may well be the only sect surviving from late Antiquity to identify themselves explicitly as Gnostics, other scholars derive the term mandaiia from Mandā d-Heyyi or from the word mandi, which is the cultic hut in which many Mandaean ceremonies are performed. This last term is possibly to be derived from Pahlavi m’nd mānd, within the Middle East, but outside of their community, the Mandaeans are more commonly known as the Ṣubba. The term Ṣubba is derived from the Aramaic root related to baptism, in Islam, the term Sabians is used as a blanket term for adherents of a number of religions, including that of the Mandaeans, in reference to the Sabians of the Quran. Occasionally, Mandaeans are called Christians of Saint John, based upon reports made by members of the Discalced Carmelite mission in Basra during the 16th century. A mandī is a place of worship for followers of Mandaeism, a mandī must be built beside a river in order to perform maṣbattah because water is an essential element in the Mandaeic faith. Modern mandīs sometimes have a bath inside a building instead, the evidence about Mandaean history has been almost entirely confined to some of the Mandaean religious literature. While some scholars, as well as the Mandeans themselves, believe that Mandaeism formed in pre-Christian times, arab sources of early Quranic times make some references to Sabians. They are counted among the Ahl al-Kitāb, and several hadith feature them, the Sabians believed they belong to the prophet Noah, similarly, the Mandaeans claim direct descent from Noah. The earliest account we have about the Mandaeans is that of the Assyrian writer Theodore Bar Konai, in the Fihrist of Arabic scholar Al-Nadim, the Mogtasilah are counted among the followers of El-Hasaih. Called a sect of Sabians, they are located in southern Mesopotamia, Mogtasilah may thus have been Al-Nadims term for the Mandaeans, but they may just as well have been a related group which does not exist anymore today
Mandaeism
–
Image of
Abatur from Diwan Abatur
Mandaeism
–
Image of Abatur at the scales from Diwan Abatur
6.
Abrahamic religions
–
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are the largest Abrahamic religions in terms of numbers of adherents. As of 2005, estimates classified 54% of the population as adherents of an Abrahamic religion, about 32% as adherents of other religions. Christianity claims 33% of the population, Islam has 21%, Judaism has 0. 2%. It has been suggested that the phrase, Abrahamic religion, may mean that all these religions come from one spiritual source. Christians refer to Abraham as a father in faith, there is an Islamic religious term, Millat Ibrahim, indicating that Islam sees itself as having practices tied to the traditions of Abraham. Jewish tradition claims descent from Abraham, and adherents follow his practices and it is the Islamic tradition that Muhammad, as an Arab, is descended from Abrahams son Ishmael. Jewish tradition also equates the descendants of Ishmael, Ishmaelites, with Arabs, as the descendants of Isaac by Jacob, who was also later known as Israel, are the Israelites. The Báb, regarded by Baháís as a predecessor to Baháulláh, was a Sayyid, or a descendant of Muhammad. Tradition also holds that Baháulláh is a descendant of Abraham through his third wife, while there is commonality among the religions, in large measure their shared ancestry is peripheral to their respective foundational beliefs and thus conceals crucial differences. For example, the common Christian beliefs of Incarnation, Trinity, there are key beliefs in both Islam and Judaism that are not shared by most of Christianity, and key beliefs of Islam, Christianity, and the Baháí Faith not shared by Judaism. Judaism regards itself as the religion of the descendants of Jacob and it has a strictly unitary view of God, and the central holy book for almost all branches is the Masoretic Text as elucidated in the Oral Torah. In the 19th century and 20th centuries Judaism developed a number of branches, of which the most significant are Orthodox, Conservative. Christianity began as a sect of Judaism in the Mediterranean Basin of the first century CE and evolved into a separate religion—Christianity—with distinctive beliefs, Jesus is the central figure of Christianity, considered by almost all denominations to be God the Son, one person of the Trinity. The Christian biblical canons are usually held to be the ultimate authority, over many centuries, Christianity divided into three main branches, dozens of significant denominations, and hundreds of smaller ones. Islam arose in the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century CE with a unitary view of God. Muslims hold the Quran to be the authority, as revealed and elucidated through the teachings and practices of a central. The Islamic faith consider all prophets and messengers from Adam through the messenger to carry the same Islamic monotheistic principles. Soon after its founding Islam split into two branches, each of which now have a number of denominations
Abrahamic religions
–
An interpretation of the borders (in red) of the
Promised Land, based on God's promise to
Abraham.
Abrahamic religions
–
Clockwise from Top Left:
Christian cross, Islamic
star and crescent, Bahá'i
nine-pointed star, Jewish
Star of David
Abrahamic religions
–
The tomb of
Abraham, a
cenotaph above the
Cave of the Patriarchs traditionally considered to be the burial place of Abraham.
Abrahamic religions
–
A Bible handwritten in
Latin, on display in
Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, England. This Bible was transcribed in Belgium in 1407 for reading aloud in a monastery.
7.
Hebrew language
–
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
Hebrew language
–
Hebrew street sign, above in
Hebrew alphabet, below in
Latin transliteration. Aluf Batslut veAluf Shum (he) ("The Onion Champion and the Garlic Champion") is a
play by
Hayim Nahman Bialik.
Hebrew language
–
Portion of the
Temple Scroll, one of the longest of the
Dead Sea Scrolls discovered at
Qumran
Hebrew language
–
The
Shebna Inscription, from the tomb of a royal steward found in
Siloam, dates to the 7th century BCE.
Hebrew language
–
Hebrew script used in writing a Torah scroll. Note ornamental "crowns" on tops of certain letters.
8.
Modern Hebrew
–
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
Modern Hebrew
–
The word shalom as rendered in Modern Hebrew, including
vowel points
9.
Tiberian vocalization
–
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
Tiberian vocalization
–
Closeup of Aleppo Codex, Joshua 1:1
Tiberian vocalization
–
Figurines holding Tiberian vowel diacritics. Limestone and basalt artwork at the shore in
Tiberias.
10.
Syriac language
–
Syriac /ˈsɪri. æk/, also known as Syriac Aramaic, is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent and Eastern Arabia. Indeed, Syriac literature comprises roughly 90% of the extant Aramaic literature, Old Aramaic was adopted by the Neo-Assyrian Empire when they conquered the various Aramean city-kingdoms to its west. The Achaemenid Empire, which rose after the fall of the Assyrian Empire, also adopted Old Aramaic as its official language, during the course of the third and fourth centuries AD, the inhabitants of the region began to embrace Christianity. Along with Latin and Greek, Syriac became one of the three most important Christian languages in the centuries of the Christian Era. Primarily a Christian medium of expression, Syriac had a cultural and literary influence on the development of Arabic. Syriac remains the language of Syriac Christianity to this day. Syriac is a Middle Aramaic language and, as such, a language of the Northwestern branch of the Semitic family and it is written in the Syriac alphabet, a derivation of the Aramaic alphabet. Syriac was the local accent of Aramaic in Edessa, that evolved under the influence of Church of the East and it has been found as far afield as Hadrians Wall in Ancient Britain, with inscriptions written by Assyrian and Aramean soldiers of the Roman Empire. Modern Syriac/Modern Syriac Aramaic is an occasionally used to refer to the modern Eastern Aramaic languages. In this terminology, Modern Syriac is divided into, Modern Western Syriac Aramaic, note however that these are sometimes excluded from the category of Modern Syriac. The modern varieties are, therefore, not discussed in this article, in 132 BC, the kingdom of Osroene was founded in Edessa and Proto-Syriac evolved in that kingdom. Many Syriac-speakers still look to Edessa as the cradle of their language, there are about eighty extant early Syriac inscriptions, dated to the first three centuries AD. All of these examples of the language are non-Christian. As an official language, Syriac was given a relatively coherent form, style, in the 3rd century, churches in Edessa began to use Syriac as the language of worship. There is evidence that the adoption of Syriac, the language of the Assyrian people, was to effect mission, much literary effort was put into the production of an authoritative translation of the Bible into Syriac, the Peshitta. At the same time, Ephrem the Syrian was producing the most treasured collection of poetry, in 489, many Syriac-speaking Christians living in the eastern reaches of the Roman Empire fled to the Sassanid Empire to escape persecution and growing animosity with Greek-speaking Christians. The Christological differences with the Church of the East led to the bitter Nestorian schism in the Syriac-speaking world, as a result, Syriac developed distinctive western and eastern varieties. Syriac literature is by far the most prodigious of the various Aramaic languages and its corpus covers poetry, prose, theology, liturgy, hymnody, history, philosophy, science, medicine and natural history
Syriac language
–
Syriac Aramaic alphabet
Syriac language
–
Although once a major language in the
Fertile Crescent and
Bahrain, Syriac is now limited to the towns and villages in the
Nineveh plains,
Tur Abdin, the
Khabur plains, in and around the cities of
Mosul,
Irbil and
Kurkuk.
Syriac language
–
An 11th-century Syriac
manuscript.
Syriac language
–
Isho or Eesho, the
Aramaic name of
Jesus
11.
Arabic language
–
Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested
Arabic language
–
The Galland Manuscript of
One Thousand and One Nights, 14th century
Arabic language
–
al-ʿArabiyyah in written Arabic (
Naskh script)
Arabic language
–
Bilingual traffic sign in
Qatar.
Arabic language
–
Examples of how the Arabic root and form system works.
12.
Ancient Greek
–
Ancient Greek includes the forms of Greek used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD. It is often divided into the Archaic period, Classical period. It is antedated in the second millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Hellenistic phase is known as Koine. Koine is regarded as a historical stage of its own, although in its earliest form it closely resembled Attic Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects, Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical phases of the language, Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic, Arcadocypriot, some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms, homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek used in the epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic, the origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period and they have the same general outline, but differ in some of the detail. The invasion would not be Dorian unless the invaders had some relationship to the historical Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, the Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people—Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians, each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Often non-west is called East Greek, Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric, Southern Peloponnesus Doric, and Northern Peloponnesus Doric. The Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek and this dialect slowly replaced most of the older dialects, although Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language, which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek, by about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosized into Medieval Greek
Ancient Greek
–
Inscription about the construction of the statue of
Athena Parthenos in the
Parthenon, 440/439 BC
Ancient Greek
–
Ostracon bearing the name of
Cimon,
Stoa of Attalos
Ancient Greek
–
The words ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ as they are inscribed on the marble of the 1955
Leonidas Monument at
Thermopylae
13.
Antediluvian
–
The Antediluvian period is the time period referred to in the Bible between the fall of humans and the Noachian Deluge in the biblical cosmology. The narrative takes up chapters 1–6 of the Book of Genesis, the term found its way into early geology and lingered in science until the late Victorian era. Colloquially, the term is used to refer to any ancient, according to Bishop Usshers 17th-century chronology, the Antediluvian period lasted for 1656 years, from Creation at 4004 BC to the Flood at 2348 BC. The Bible speaks of this era as being a time of great wickedness, There were Gibborim in the earth in those days as well as Nephilim, some translations identify the two as one and the same. The Gibborim were unusually powerful, Genesis calls them mighty men which were of old, the antediluvian period ended when God sent the Flood to wipe out all life except Noah, his family, and the animals they took with them. Nevertheless, the Nephilim reappear much later in the narrative, in Numbers 13. The primary rocks are void of fossils and were thought to be associated with the creation of the world in the primary Pre-Adamitic period. The secondary rocks, often containing copious fossils, though human remains had not been found, were thought to have laid down in the secondary Pre-Adamitic period. The Tertiary rocks were thought to have put down after Creation and possibly in connection to a flood event. The Post-Flood period was termed the Quaternary, a still in use in geology. As mapping of the geological strata progressed in the decades of the 19th century. The fossil rich Secondary Pre-Adamitic period was divided up into the Coal period, the Lias, whiston calculated that as many as 500 million humans may have been born in the Antediluvian period, based on assumptions about lifespans and fertility rates, There were no clouds or rain. Instead, the Earth was watered by mists which rose from the Earth, (Another interpretation is that the Earth was covered completely by a global cloud layer, which was the upper waters mentioned in the Creation. This is commonly called the vapor canopy view, during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the understanding of the nature of early Earth went through a transformation from a biblical or deist interpretation to a naturalistic one. While vast aeons of time were involved, the narrative of the world was still influenced by the biblical story of creation in this transition. A modern naturalistic view of the ancient world, along with the abandonment of the term Antediluvian, came about with the works of Darwin and Agassiz in the 1860s. From antiquity, fossils of animals were often quoted as having lived together with the giants from the Book of Genesis. They are often described in books of the Bible, especially by God himself in the Book of Job, e. g. Reem in verse 39,9, Behemoth in chapter 40
Antediluvian
–
The Creation, beginning of the antediluvian (i.e., pre-Flood) world. (Artist's rendition by
James Tissot)
Antediluvian
–
Noah prepares to leave the antediluvian worlds,
Jacopo Bassano and assistants, 1579
Antediluvian
–
Strata of "Secondary rock",
Lyme Regis
Antediluvian
–
The Deluge subsides, thought in early geology to be responsible for the formation of sediments, with only traces of the antediluvian world.
Thomas Cole, 1829
14.
Patriarchs (Bible)
–
The Patriarchs of the Bible, when narrowly defined, are Abraham, his son Isaac, and Isaacs son Jacob, also named Israel, the ancestor of the Israelites. These three figures are referred to collectively as the patriarchs of Judaism, and the period in which they lived is known as the patriarchal age and they play significant roles in Hebrew scripture during and following their lifetimes. They are used as a significant marker by God in revelations and promises, more widely, the term Patriarchs can be used to refer to the twenty male ancestor-figures between Adam and Abraham. The first ten of these are called the Antediluvian patriarchs, because they came before the Flood. Only Rachel, Jacobs favorite wife, is said to be buried separately at what is known as Rachels Tomb, near Bethlehem, at the site where she is believed to have died in childbirth. The lifetimes given for the patriarchs in the Book of Genesis are, Adam 930 years, Seth 912, Enos 905, Kenan 910, Mahalalel 895, Jared 962, Enoch 365, Methuselah 969, Lamech 777, Noah 950. The lifespans given cause problems of chronology for Bible scholars, as the following quotation shows, the long lives ascribed to the patriarchs cause remarkable synchronisms and duplications. Adam lived to see the birth of Lamech, the member of the genealogy, Seth lived to see the translation of Enoch. Noah outlived Abrams grandfather, Nahor, and died in Abrams sixtieth year, Shem, Noahs son, even outlived Abram. He was still alive when Esau and Jacob were born and this list, taken from the Book of Genesis, gives the details of that genealogy. Noah, father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth Shem an hundred years old, Arphaxad lived five and thirty years, and begat Salah. Salah lived thirty years, and begat Eber, Eber lived four and thirty years, and begat Peleg. Peleg lived thirty years, and begat Reu, Reu lived two and thirty years, and begat Serug. Serug lived thirty years, and begat Nahor, Nahor lived nine and twenty years, and begat Terah. Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, many major world religions trace their origin back to the patriarch Abraham. Israel was the given to the grandson of Abraham. All Jews consider themselves to be descendants of Abraham through his son Isaac, Abraham believed God, so in general all people with faith in God are considered sons of Abraham. Islam regards Abraham as the father of the prophets in Islam because all subsequent prophets descended from him
Patriarchs (Bible)
–
The bosom of Abraham - medieval illustration from the
Hortus deliciarum of
Herrad of Landsberg (12th century)
15.
Genesis flood narrative
–
The Genesis flood narrative makes up chapters 6–9 in the Book of Genesis, in the Torah. Thus, the flood was a reversal of creation, although many religious groups consider the story to be largely allegorical, there are still many groups and individuals who believe the story to be literally true. Genesis 6, 1–4 presents the reason for the flood, the Sons of God marry the daughters of men and sire a race of giants, mighty men which of old, men of renown. Genesis continues, And GOD saw that the wickedness of man great in the earth, God decides to destroy the world in a reversal of creation. The flood occurs because God judges humanity, in Genesis 6, 5-8, the LORD judged man for being wicked and evil. In verses Genesis 6, 11-22, God judged all flesh for being corrupt, the judgment in verses 6, 5–8 is thought to have been written earlier and later combined with the second. This element of judgment makes the flood story different from the flood in the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh. In the Gilgamesh story, the flood is mentioned only in passing as part of the Epic tale itself, beginning with Genesis 6,14, God instructed Noah to build an ark to save his immediate family, along with samples of animal life. The ark was to be made of wood covered with pitch inside and outside. The ark was 300 cubits long,50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high, and it had an opening for daylight near the top, an entrance on its side, and three decks. God told Noah that he, his sons, his wife, his sons wives, and two of each kind of beast – male and female – would survive in the ark. The Priestly source, Genesis 7,11,8, 1-2, describes the nature of the waters as a cosmic cataclysm, by the opening of the springs of the deep. This is the reverse of the separation of the waters recounted in the Genesis creation narrative of chapter 1. After Noah and the remnant of animals were secured, the fountains of the great deep, the waters elevated, with the summits of the highest mountains under 15 cubits of water, flooding the world for 150 days, and then receding in 220 days. The Jahwist version of how the waters came to be is indicated in Genesis 7,12. During this time, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat, then he sends out a dove to see if the waters had decreased from the ground, but the dove could not find a resting place, and returned to the ark. He waited another seven days, and again sent out the dove, and he waited another seven days and sent out the dove, and it did not return. When Noah removed the covering of the ark, he saw that the ground was drying, God makes a pledge of commitment to Noah in Genesis 9, 1–17
Genesis flood narrative
–
The Deluge, by
John Martin, 1834. Oil on canvas.
Yale University
Genesis flood narrative
–
A dove with an
olive branch,
Catacombs of Domitilla,
Rome
Genesis flood narrative
–
Landscape with Noah's Thank Offering (painting circa 1803 by
Joseph Anton Koch)
Genesis flood narrative
–
This engraving, made from carved sardonyx and gold, features a line of animals on the gangway to Noah's ark. It is based on a woodcut by the French illustrator Bernard Salomon. The Walters Art Museum.
16.
Curse of Ham
–
The Curse of Ham is a misnomer for the curse upon Canaan that was imposed by the biblical patriarch Noah. The curse occurs in the Book of Genesis and concerns Noahs drunkenness and the shameful act perpetrated by his son Ham. The controversies raised by this story regarding the nature of Hams transgression, nevertheless, most Christians, Muslims and Jews now disagree with such interpretations, because in the biblical text, Ham himself is not cursed, and race or skin color is never mentioned. However, according to Nahum Sarna, the narrative of the curse upon Canaan is replete with difficulties and it is uncertain what the precise nature of Hams offense is. Verse 22 has been a subject of debate, as to whether it should be taken literally, in verse 25, Noah names Shem and Japheth as the brethren of Canaan, seven verses after indicating that they were Canaans uncles. The Table of Nations presents Canaan and Mizraim among the sons of Ham, in the Psalms, Egypt is equated with Ham. The treatment of Japheth in verses 26–27 raises questions, Why is YHWH named as the God of Shem, what does it mean that God will enlarge Japheth. And why will Japheth dwell in the tents of Shem, further difficulties include Hams being referred to as the youngest son, when all other lists make him Noahs second son. The majority of commentators, both ancient and modern, have felt that Hams seeing his father naked was not a serious crime to explain the punishment that follows. Other ancient commentators suggested that Ham was guilty of more than what the Bible says, ancient commentaries have also debated whether seeing someones nakedness meant to have sex with that person. The same idea was raised by 3rd-century rabbis, in the Babylonian Talmud, the same explanations are found in three Greek translations of the Bible, which replace the word see in verse 22 with another word denoting homosexual relations. In the Book of Jubilees, the seriousness of Hams curse is compounded by the significance of Gods covenant to never again bring a flood on the earth. In response to this covenant, Noah builds an altar to atone for the land. Noah’s practice and ceremonial functions parallel the festival of Shavuot as if it were a prototype to the celebration of the giving of the Torah and his priestly functions also emulate being first priest in accordance with halakhah as taught in the Qumranic works. By turning the drinking of the wine into a religious ceremony, thus, Ham’s offense would constitute an act of disrespect not only to his father, but also to the festival ordinances. There are those of our rabbis who say he emasculated him, Genesis 9,23, And Shem and Japheth. covered their fathers nakedness, their faces were turned backward. Genesis 9,24, his son, הפסול The defective one והבזוי. Similar to Behold, I have made you the smallest among the nations, Genesis 9,25, Cursed is Canaan, Noah said to Ham, You caused me that I should not father a fourth son, another one to serve me
Curse of Ham
–
Noah damning Ham, 19th-century painting by Ivan Stepanovitch Ksenofontov
Curse of Ham
–
Noah curses Ham by
Gustave Dore
17.
Books of Chronicles
–
In the Hebrew Bible, Chronicles is a single book, called Diḇrê Hayyāmîm, and is the final book of Ketuvim, the third and last part of the Tanakh. Chronicles was divided into two books in the Septuagint and called I and II Paralipoménōn, the English name comes from the Latin name chronikon, which was given to the text by scholar Jerome in the 5th century. Chronicles present the narrative from the first human being, Adam, through the history of ancient Judah. The Chronicles narrative begins with Adam and the story is carried forward, almost entirely by genealogical lists. The bulk of the remainder of 1 Chronicles, after an account of Saul, is concerned with the reign of David. The next long section concerns Davids son Solomon, and the part is concerned with the Kingdom of Judah with occasional references to the second kingdom of Israel. Originally a single work, Chronicles was divided into two in the Septuagint, a Greek translation produced in the immediately preceding Jesus. Within this broad structure there are signs that the author has used various devices to structure his work. The last events in Chronicles take place in the reign of Cyrus the Great, the Persian king who conquered Babylon in 539 BC and it was probably composed between 400–250 BC, with the period 350–300 BC the most likely. The latest person mentioned in Chronicles is Anani, a descendant of King Jehoiachin according to the Masoretic Text. Ananis birth would likely have been sometime between 425 and 400 BC, the Septuagint gives an additional five generations in the genealogy of Anani. For those scholars who side with the Septuagints reading, Ananis likely date of birth is a century later, Chronicles appears to be largely the work of a single individual, with some later additions and editing. The writer was probably male, probably a Levite, and probably from Jerusalem and he was well read, a skilled editor, and a sophisticated theologian. His intention was to use Israels past to convey messages to his peers. One of the most striking, although inconclusive, features of Chronicles is that its closing sentence is repeated as the opening of Ezra–Nehemiah. The last half of the 20th century saw a radical reappraisal, despite much discussion of this issue, no agreement has been reached. Recent suggestions have been that it was intended as a clarification of the history in Genesis-Kings, the message which the author wished to give to his audience was this, God is active in history, and especially the history of Israel. The faithfulness or sins of individual kings are immediately rewarded or punished by God, God calls Israel to a special relationship
Books of Chronicles
–
Tanakh (Judaism)
18.
Book of Tobit
–
Athanasius mentioned that certain other books, including the book of Tobit, while not being part of the Canon, were appointed by the Fathers to be read. Augustine writes in his book On Christian Doctrine that the book of Tobit is a Canonical book, according to the monk Rufinus of Aquileia the book of Tobit and other deuterocanonical books were not called Canonical but Ecclesiastical books. Pope Innocent I sent a letter to the bishop of Toulouse citing the book of Tobit and this list mentions the book of Tobit as part of the Old Testament Canon. Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England lists it as a book of the Apocrypha, protestants regard Tobit as apocryphal because it was not included in the Tanakh nor considered canonical by Judaism. Qumran fragments of the text, which were copied between 100 BC to 25 AD, evidence a much earlier origin than previously thought, however, it could be hypothesized that some ancient Jewish rabbinic scholars considered Tobit to be historical. Midrash Bereishit Rabbah, a commentary on the Book of Genesis compiled circa 400–600 AD. Tobit was also considered part of the Septuagint, in more contemporary times, a number of Jews in Israel have sought to reclaim Tobit as part of the canon. This book tells the story of Tobit, a righteous Israelite of the tribe of Naphtali and he is particularly noted for his diligence in attempting to provide proper burials for fallen Israelites whom Sargons successor Sennacherib has slain. For this behavior the king seizes his property and exiles him, after Sennacheribs death, Tobit is allowed to return to Nineveh, where he buries a man who has been murdered on the street. That night, he sleeps in the open and is blinded by bird droppings which fall into his eyes, the blindness caused by this injury strains his marriage and, ultimately, he prays for death. Meanwhile, in faraway Media, a woman named Sarah has prayed for death in despair. The demon of lust, Asmodeus, the worst of demons, abducts and kills every man whom Sarah marries, God sends the angel Raphael, disguised as a human, to heal Tobit and to free Sarah from the demon. The main narrative is dedicated to Tobits son, Tobiah or Tobiyah, Raphael presents himself as Tobits kinsman Azariah and offers to aid and protect Tobias. Under Raphaels guidance, Tobias journeys to Media with his dog, and over the objection of Tobits wife Hannah, along the way, whilst he washes his feet in the river Tigris, a fish tries to swallow his foot. By the angels order, he captures it and removes its heart, liver, upon arriving in Media, Raphael tells Tobias of the beautiful Sarah, whom Tobias has the right to marry because he is her cousin and closest relative. The angel instructs the man to burn the fishs liver. The two marry, and the fumes of the burning organs drive the demon to Upper Egypt, sarahs father has been digging a grave to secretly bury Tobias. Surprised to find his son-in-law alive and well, he orders a double-length wedding feast and has the grave secretly filled, since the feast prevents him from leaving, Tobias sends Raphael to recover his fathers money
Book of Tobit
–
Tanakh (Judaism)
Book of Tobit
–
Tobit and Anna. Painting by Abraham De Pape (c. 1658),
National Gallery of London
19.
Book of Wisdom
–
The Book of Wisdom, is one of the books of the Bible. It is considered scripture, classified as deuterocanonical by the Roman Catholic Church and similarly, protestant churches generally consider it to be non-canonical, and thus not Biblical scripture. It is one of the seven Sapiential or wisdom books included within the Septuagint, along with Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Job, and Sirach. The Book of Wisdom should not be confused with the Wisdom of Sirach, an Aramaic translation of the Wisdom of Solomon is mentioned by Naḥmanides in the preface to his commentary on the Pentateuch. Athanasius writes that the book of Wisdom and three other books, while not being part of the Canon, were appointed by the Fathers to be read. Epiphanius of Salamis mentions that the Wisdom of Solomon was of disputed canonicity, augustine writes in his book On Christian Doctrine that the Wisdom of Solomon and other deuterocanonical books are Canonical books. According to the monk Rufinus of Aquileia, the book of Solomon, pope Innocent I sent a letter to the bishop of Toulouse citing the book of Solomon as a part of the Old Testament Canon. This list mentions too the book of Solomon as a part of the Old Testament Canon, the Synod of Hippo, followed by the Councils of Carthage, the Council of Florence and finally the Council of Trent listed the book of Solomon as a Canonical book. The book is believed to have written in Greek language. The traditional attribution of The Book of Wisdom to Solomon has been rejected in modern times. Although the book of Wisdom is also called the Wisdom of Solomon, scholars believe that the book represents the most literary post-classical Greek language found in the Septuagint, having been written during the Jewish Hellenistic period. The author of the text appears well versed in the philosophical, religious. Peter Ennss theory identifies the author of Wisdom of Solomon as an Alexandrian Jew writing c.26 BC, some commentaries mention Wisdom 14,22 as a clear reference and condemnation of the so-called Pax Romana. The exclusive use of references to events prior to the Solomonic kingdom is a device the author used to make his work appear to be a genuine piece of Solomonic literature. The philosophical influences on the Book of Wisdom may include those of Middle-Platonism, some religious and ethical influences may also stem from Stoicism, found in the writings of the Alexandrian Jew, Philo, to whom Book of Wisdom has on occasion been wrongly attributed. A sorites appears in Chapter 6 and this logical form is also called chain-inference, of which the Stoics were very fond. One passage has notable similarity to Virtues speech to Heracles in Xenophons Memorabilia, although the Book of Wisdom is non-canonical in the Rabbinical Jewish tradition, the work was at least known to medieval Jews, as Rabbi Moses ben Nachman attests. That it was known to ancient Jews as well is trivially true, according to the Jewish Encyclopedia, the last section is devoid of all connection with what precedes it
Book of Wisdom
–
Tanakh (Judaism)
20.
Sirach
–
In Egypt, it was translated into Greek by the authors grandson, who added a prologue. This prologue is generally considered the earliest witness to a canon of the books of the prophets, the book itself is the largest wisdom book from antiquity to have been survived. Sirach is accepted as part of the Christian biblical canons by Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and most of Oriental Orthodox. The Anglican Church does not accept Sirach as protocanonical, and say it should be only for example of life and instruction of manners. Similarly, the Lutheran Churches include it in their lectionaries, and as a book proper for reading, devotion and it was cited in some writings in early Christianity. There are claims that it is cited in the Epistle of James, clement of Alexandria and Origen quote from it repeatedly, as from a γραφή, or holy book. The Apostolic Canons stated as venerable and sacred the Wisdom of Sirach, the Roman Catholic Church declared it to be canonical in 1546 during the fourth session of the Council of Trent. However, some Jews in the diaspora considered Sirach scripture, for instance, it was included in the canon of the Septuagint, the 2nd century BCE Greek version of the Jewish scriptures used by Diaspora Jews, through which it became part of the Greek canon. The multiplicity of manuscript fragments uncovered in the Cairo Genizah evidence its authoritative status among Egyptian Jewry until the Middle Ages, because it was excluded from the Jewish canon, Sirach was excised from the Protestant canon following the Reformation. However, a series of six poems about the search for and attainment of wisdom divide the book into something resembling chapters, despite the lack of structure, there are certain themes running through the Book that reappear at various points. The New Oxford Annotated Apocrypha identifies ten major recurring topics,1, the Wisdom of Sirach is a collection of ethical teachings. The question of which actually originated with Sirach is open to debate. The teachings are applicable to all conditions of life, to parents and children, to husbands and wives, to the young, to masters, to friends, to the rich, and to the poor. Wisdom, in ben Sirachs view, is synonymous with the fear of God, the maxims are expressed in exact formulas, and are illustrated by striking images. They show a knowledge of the human heart, the disillusionment of experience, a fraternal sympathy with the poor. As in Ecclesiastes, two opposing tendencies war in the author, the faith and the morality of olden times, which are stronger than all argument, some of the refutations of these views are developed at considerable length. The book concludes with a justification of God, whose wisdom and these chapters are completed by the authors signature, and are followed by two hymns, the latter apparently a sort of alphabetical acrostic. Joshua ben Sirach, or, according to the Greek text Jesus the son of Sirach of Jerusalem, was a Jewish scribe who had living in Jerusalem, may have authored the work in Alexandria
Sirach
–
Tanakh (Judaism)
Sirach
–
"Alle Weissheit ist bey Gott dem Herrn..." (modern orthography: Alle Weißheit ist bei Gott dem Herrn) (Sirach, first chapter, German translation), anonymous artist 1654
Sirach
–
Illustration from Sirach, c. 1751.
Sirach
–
Illustration of the high priest Jesus Sirach in the Secret Book of Honour of the Fugger by
Jörg Breu the Younger, 1545-1549
21.
Book of Isaiah
–
The Book of Isaiah is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the first of the Major Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. While virtually no one today attributes the entire book, or even most of it, to one person, Isaiah 1–33 promises judgment and restoration for Judah, Jerusalem and the nations, and chapters 34–66 presume that judgment has been pronounced and restoration follows soon. It can thus be read as a meditation on the destiny of Jerusalem into. Isaiah speaks out against corrupt leaders and for the disadvantaged, Isaiah 44,6 contains the first clear statement of monotheism, I am the first and I am the last, besides me there is no god. This model of monotheism became the characteristic of post-Exilic Judaism. Isaiah was one of the most popular works among Jews in the Second Temple period, the scholarly consensus which held sway through most of the 20th century saw three separate collections of oracles in the book of Isaiah. God has a plan which will be realised on the Day of Yahweh, on that day all the nations of the world will come to Zion for instruction, but first the city must be punished and cleansed of evil. Israel is invited to join in this plan, chapters 5–12 explain the significance of the Assyrian judgment against Israel, righteous rule by the Davidic king will follow after the arrogant Assyrian monarch is brought down. The oppressor is about to fall, chapters 34–35 tell how Yahweh will return the redeemed exiles to Jerusalem. Chapters 36–39 tell of the faithfulness of king Hezekiah to Yahweh during the Assyrian siege as a model for the restored community, chapters 55–66 are an exhortation to Israel to keep the covenant. Gods eternal promise to David is now made to the people of Israel/Judah at large, the book ends by enjoining righteousness as the final stages of Gods plan come to pass, including the pilgrimage of the nations to Zion and the realisation of Yahwehs kingship. Chapters 56–66 assume an even later situation, in which the people are returned to Jerusalem. Anonymity → Isaiahs name suddenly stops being used after chapter 39, style → There is a sudden change in style and theology after chapter 40, numerous key words and phrases found in one section are not found in the other. These observations led scholars to the conclusion that the book can be divided into three sections, labeled Proto-Isaiah, Deutero-Isaiah, and Trito-Isaiah. Early modern-period scholars treated Isaiah as independent collections of sayings by three individual prophets, brought together at a later period, about 70 BCE, to form the present book. The second half of the 20th century saw a change in approach. The conquest of Jerusalem by Babylon and the exile of its elite in 586 BCE ushered in the stage in the formation of the book. Deutero-Isaiah addresses himself to the Jews in exile, offering them the hope of return, deutero-Isaiahs predictions of the imminent fall of Babylon and his glorification of Cyrus as the deliverer of Israel date his prophecies to 550–539 BCE, and probably towards the end of this period
Book of Isaiah
–
Tanakh (Judaism)
Book of Isaiah
–
The
Isaiah scroll, the oldest surviving manuscript of Isaiah: found among the
Dead Sea Scrolls and dating from about 150 to 100 BCE, it contains almost the whole Book of Isaiah and is substantially identical with the modern
Masoretic text.
Book of Isaiah
–
Michelangelo (c. 1508–12), Isaiah,
Vatican City:
Sistine Chapel ceiling
Book of Isaiah
–
detail of entrance to 30 Rockefeller Plaza showing verse from Isaiah 33:6
Rockefeller Center,
New York
22.
Book of Ezekiel
–
The Book of Ezekiel is the third of the Latter Prophets in the Tanakh and one of the major prophetic books in the Old Testament, following Isaiah and Jeremiah. The visions, and the book, are structured around three themes, Judgment on Israel, Judgment on the nations, and Future blessings for Israel. Its themes include the concepts of the presence of God, purity, Israel as a divine community and its later influence has included the development of mystical and apocalyptic traditions in Second Temple and rabbinic Judaism and Christianity. Inaugural vision, God approaches Ezekiel as the warrior, riding in his battle chariot. The chariot is drawn by four living creatures, each having four faces, beside each living creature is a wheel within a wheel, with tall and awesome rims full of eyes all around. God commissions Ezekiel as a prophet and as a watchman in Israel, Son of man, I am sending you to the Israelites. Building a new city, The Jewish exile will come to an end, a new city and new Temple will be built, and the Israelites will be gathered and blessed as never before. Most scholars today accept the authenticity of the book. According to the book that bears his name, Ezekiel ben-Buzi was born into a family of Jerusalem c.623 BCE. Josiah was killed in 609 and Judah became a vassal of the new regional power, in 597, following a rebellion against Babylon, Ezekiel was among the large group of Judeans taken into captivity by the Babylonians. He appears to have spent the rest of his life in Mesopotamia, the various dates given in the book suggest that Ezekiel was 25 when he went into exile,30 when he received his prophetic call, and 52 at the time of the last vision c.571. The Jewish scriptures were translated into Greek in the two immediately before the birth of Christ. The Greek version of books is called the Septuagint. The Jewish Bible in Hebrew is called the Masoretic text, ecclesiasticus 49,8 refers to it, so does Josephus. It is mentioned as part of the canon in Melitos catalogue, cited by Eusebius, also in Origen, Jerome, the first half of the 20th century saw several attempts to deny the authorship and authenticity of the book, with scholars such as C. C. Torrey and Morton Smith placing it variously in the 3rd century BCE, the pendulum swung back in the post-war period, with an increasing acceptance of the books essential unity and historical placement in the Exile. The most influential modern work on Ezekiel, Walther Zimmerlis two-volume commentary, appeared in German in 1969. Ezekiel depicts the destruction of Jerusalem as a sacrifice upon the altar
Book of Ezekiel
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Tanakh (Judaism)
Book of Ezekiel
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A mid-12th century
Flemish piece of copperwork depicting Ezekiel's Vision of the Sign "Tau" from Ezekiel IX:2–7. The item is currently held by the
Walters Museum.
Book of Ezekiel
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Monument to
Holocaust survivors at
Yad Vashem in
Jerusalem; the quote is Ezekiel 37:14
Book of Ezekiel
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The Visionary Ezekiel Temple plan drawn by the 19th-century French architect and Bible scholar
Charles Chipiez.
23.
2 Esdras
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2 Esdras is the name of an apocalyptic book in many English versions of the Bible. Its authorship is ascribed to Ezra and it is reckoned among the apocrypha by Roman Catholics, Protestants, and most Eastern Orthodox Christians. Although Second Esdras was preserved in Latin as an appendix to the Vulgate and passed down as a unified book, as with 1 Esdras, there is some confusion about the numbering of this book. The Vulgate of Jerome includes 1,2,3 and 4 Esdras. Protestant writers, after the Geneva Bible, called 1 and 2 Esdras of the Vulgate Ezra and Nehemiah and it appears in the Appendix to the Old Testament in the Slavonic Bible, where it is called 3 Esdras, and the Georgian Orthodox Bible numbers it 3 Ezra. This text is also known as Apocalypse of Ezra. The first two chapters of 2 Esdras are found only in the Latin version of the book, and are called 5 Ezra by scholars. They are considered by most scholars to be Christian in origin, they assert Gods rejection of the Jews and these are generally considered to be late additions to the work. Chapters 3–14, or the bulk of 2 Esdras, is a Jewish apocalypse also sometimes known as 4 Ezra. The latter name should not be confused with a work called the Greek Apocalypse of Ezra. The Ethiopian Church considers 4 Ezra to be canonical, written during the Babylonian captivity and it was also often cited by the Fathers of the Church. In the Eastern Armenian tradition it is called 3 Ezra and it is conjectured by Protestant scholars to have been written in the late 1st century CE following the destruction of the Second Temple. Among Greek Fathers of the Church,4 Ezra is generally cited as Προφήτης Ἔσδρας Prophetes Esdras or Ἀποκάλυψις Ἔσδρα Apokalupsis Esdra,4 Ezra consists of seven visions of Ezra the scribe. The first vision takes place as Ezra is still in Babylon and he asks God how Israel can be kept in misery if God is just. The archangel Uriel is sent to answer the question, responding that Gods ways cannot be understood by the human mind, soon, however, the end would come, and Gods justice would be made manifest. Similarly, in the vision, Ezra asks why Israel was delivered up to the Babylonians, and is again told that man cannot understand this. In the third vision Ezra asks why Israel does not possess the world, Uriel responds that the current state is a period of transition. Here follows a description of the fate of evil-doers and the righteous, Ezra asks whether the righteous may intercede for the unrighteous on Judgment Day, but is told that Judgment Day is final
2 Esdras
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Tanakh (Judaism)
24.
4 Maccabees
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The book of 4 Maccabees is a homily or philosophic discourse praising the supremacy of pious reason over passion. It is not in the Bible for most churches, but is an appendix to the Greek Bible and it was included in the 1688 Romanian Orthodox and the 18th-century Romanian Catholic Bibles where it was called Iosip. It is no longer printed in the Romanian Bibles today, the last chapters concern the authors impressions drawn from these martyrdoms. The work thus appears to be an independent composition to 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees and it was composed originally in the Greek language, in what Stephen Westerholm of the Eastern / Greek Orthodox Bible calls very fluently. and in a highly rhetorical and affected Greek style. According to some scholars, the last chapter shows signs of later addition to the work, the dispute is based on the weak ending the book would have without the added chapter, as well as arguments based on style. Others hold that a homily would have to be based on scriptural texts, in style, the book is oratorical, but not so much as 3 Maccabees. What can be interpreted as Stoic philosophy is cited by the author, the writer appears to be an Alexandrian Jew who used a philosophical approach in order to present a concept of piety. Regarded as Jewish literature, it is cited as the best example of syncretism between Jewish and Hellenistic thought, the book is ascribed to Josephus by Eusebius and Jerome, and this opinion was accepted for many years, leading to its inclusion in many editions of Josephus works. Scholars have however pointed to perceived differences of language and style, the book is generally dated between the 1st century BCE and the 1st century CE, due to its reliance on 2 Maccabees and use by some of early Christians. It has been suggested that it was written before the persecution of the Jews under Caligula, the writer believes in the immortality of the soul, but never mentions the resurrection of the dead. Good souls are said to live forever in happiness with the patriarchs and God, Greek text from Septuaginta, Id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interpretes, via The Online Pseudepigrapha
4 Maccabees
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Tanakh (Judaism)
25.
New Testament
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The New Testament is the second major part of the Christian biblical canon, the first part being the Old Testament, based on the Hebrew Bible. The New Testament discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christianity, Christians regard both the Old and New Testaments together as sacred scripture. The New Testament has frequently accompanied the spread of Christianity around the world and it reflects and serves as a source for Christian theology and morality. Both extended readings and phrases directly from the New Testament are also incorporated into the various Christian liturgies, the New Testament has influenced religious, philosophical, and political movements in Christendom and left an indelible mark on literature, art, and music. In almost all Christian traditions today, the New Testament consists of 27 books, John A. T. Robinson, Dan Wallace, and William F. Albright dated all the books of the New Testament before 70 AD. Others give a date of 80 AD, or at 96 AD. Over time, some disputed books, such as the Book of Revelation, other works earlier held to be Scripture, such as 1 Clement, the Shepherd of Hermas, and the Diatessaron, were excluded from the New Testament. However, the canon of the New Testament, at least since Late Antiquity, has been almost universally recognized within Christianity. The term new testament, or new covenant first occurs in Jeremiah 31,31, the same Greek phrase for new covenant is found elsewhere in the New Testament. Modern English, like Latin, distinguishes testament and covenant as alternative translations, John Wycliffes 1395 version is a translation of the Latin Vulgate and so follows different terms in Jeremiah and Hebrews, Lo. Days shall come, saith the Lord, and I shall make a new covenant with the house of Israel, for he reproving him saith, Lo. Days come, saith the Lord, when I shall establish a new testament on the house of Israel, use of the term New Testament to describe a collection of first and second-century Christian Greek Scriptures can be traced back to Tertullian. In Against Marcion, written circa 208 AD, he writes of the Divine Word, by the 4th century, the existence—even if not the exact contents—of both an Old and New Testament had been established. Lactantius, a 3rd–4th century Christian author wrote in his early-4th-century Latin Institutiones Divinae and that which preceded the advent and passion of Christ—that is, the law and the prophets—is called the Old, but those things which were written after His resurrection are named the New Testament. The canon of the New Testament is the collection of books that most Christians regard as divinely inspired, several of these writings sought to extend, interpret, and apply apostolic teaching to meet the needs of Christians in a given locality. The book order is the same in the Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, the Slavonic, Armenian and Ethiopian traditions have different New Testament book orders. Each of the four gospels in the New Testament narrates the life, death, the word gospel derives from the Old English gōd-spell, meaning good news or glad tidings. The gospel was considered the good news of the coming Kingdom of Messiah, and the redemption through the life and death of Jesus, Gospel is a calque of the Greek word εὐαγγέλιον, euangelion
New Testament
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Books of the New Testament
New Testament
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Evangelist Mathäus und der Engel, by
Rembrandt.
New Testament
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Saint Paul Writing His Epistles, 17th-century painting. Most scholars think Paul actually dictated his letters to a secretary.
New Testament
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Papyrus Bodmer VIII, at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, showing 1 and 2 Peter.
26.
Gospel of Matthew
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The Gospel According to Matthew is the first book of the New Testament. The narrative tells how the Messiah, Jesus, rejected by Israel, most scholars believe the Gospel of Matthew was composed between AD80 and 90, with a range of possibility between AD70 to 110. The title Son of David identifies Jesus as the healing and miracle-working Messiah of Israel, as Son of Man he will return to judge the world, an expectation which his disciples recognise but of which his enemies are unaware. As Son of God he is God revealing himself through his son, the gospel reflects the struggles and conflicts between the evangelists community and the other Jews, particularly with its sharp criticism of the scribes and Pharisees. The original versions of the Gospel of Matthew and the gospels are lost. The oldest relatively complete extant manuscripts of the Bible are the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus, besides these, there exist manuscript fragments ranging from a few verses to whole chapters. P104 and P67 are notable fragments of Matthew, in the process of recopying, variations slipped in, different regional manuscript traditions emerged, and corrections and adjustments were made. The Gospel of Matthew is anonymous, the author is not named within the text, the consensus is that Papias does not describe the Gospel of Matthew as we know it, and it is generally accepted that Matthew was written in Greek, not in Aramaic or Hebrew. The majority view of scholars is that Mark was the first gospel to be composed. The author of Matthew did not, however, simply copy Mark, an additional 220 verses, shared by Matthew and Luke but not found in Mark, from a second source, a hypothetical collection of sayings to which scholars give the name Quelle, or the Q source. The author also had at his disposal the Greek scriptures, both as book-scrolls and in the form of collections, and, if Papias is correct. The majority view among scholars is that Matthew was a product of the last quarter of the 1st century, the Christian community to which Matthew belonged, like many 1st-century Christians, were still part of the larger Jewish community, hence the designation Jewish Christian to describe them. The author of Matthew wrote for a community of Greek-speaking Jewish Christians located probably in Syria, Matthew, alone among the gospels, alternates five blocks of narrative with five of discourse, marking each off with the phrase When Jesus had finished. The Gospel of Matthew begins with the words The Book of Genealogy of Jesus Christ, John baptizes Jesus, and the Holy Spirit descends upon him. Jesus prays and meditates in the wilderness for forty days, and is tempted by Satan and his early ministry by word and deed in Galilee meets with much success, and leads to the Sermon on the Mount, the first of the discourses. The sermon presents the ethics of the kingdom of God, introduced by the Beatitudes and it concludes with a reminder that the response to the kingdom will have eternal consequences, and the crowds amazed response leads into the next narrative block. From the authoritative words of Jesus the gospel turns to three sets of three miracles interwoven with two sets of two stories, followed by a discourse on mission and suffering. Opposition to Jesus comes to a head with accusations that his deeds are done through the power of Satan, Jesus in turn accuses his opponents of blaspheming the Holy Spirit
Gospel of Matthew
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Books of the
New Testament
Gospel of Matthew
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Papyrus
4, fragment of a flyleaf with the title of the Gospel of Matthew, ευαγγελιον κ̣ατ̣α μαθ᾽θαιον (euangelion kata Maththaion). Dated to late 2nd or early 3rd century, it is the earliest manuscript title for Matthew
Gospel of Matthew
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37, a 3rd-century CE papyrus of
Matthew 26
Gospel of Matthew
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The Evangelist Matthew Inspired by an Angel (
Rembrandt)
27.
Gospel of Luke
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The Gospel According to Luke, also called the Gospel of Luke, or simply Luke, is the third of the four canonical Gospels. It tells of the origins, birth, ministry, death, resurrection, Luke is the second-longest of the four gospels, and together with Acts of the Apostles, the pair make up a two-volume work from the same pen, called Luke–Acts. The cornerstone of Luke-Acts theology is salvation history, the understanding that Gods purpose is seen in the way he has acted. The gospels sources are the Gospel of Mark, the collection called the Q source, and a collection of material called the L source. Luke-Acts does not name its author, the most probable date for its composition is around 80–100 AD, and there is evidence that it was still being revised well into the 2nd century. Autographs of Luke and the other Gospels have not been preserved, as is typical for ancient documents, the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles make up a two-volume work which scholars call Luke–Acts. The author is not named in either volume and he admired Paul, but his theology was significantly different from Pauls on key points and he does not represent Pauls views accurately. The eclipse of the attribution to Luke the companion of Paul has meant that an early date for the gospel is now rarely put forward. Luke-Acts is a history of the Founder of the church and his successors. All three authors anchor the histories of their respective peoples by dating the births of the founders and narrate the stories of the founders births from God, each founder taught authoritatively, appeared to witnesses after death, and ascended to heaven. Crucial aspects of the teaching of all three concerned the relationship between rich and poor and the question of whether foreigners were to be received into the people. The author used as his sources the gospel of Mark, the collection called the Q source. Mark, written around 70 AD, provided the narrative outline, for these Luke turned to Q, which consisted mostly, although not exclusively, of sayings. Mark and Q account for about 64% of Luke, the remaining material, known as the L source, is of unknown origin and date. Most Q and L-source material is grouped in two clusters, Luke 6, 17-8,3 and 9, 51-18,14, Luke was written to be read aloud to a group of Jesus-followers gathered in a house to share the Lords supper. The author assumes an educated Greek-speaking audience, but directs his attention to specifically Christian concerns rather than to the Greco-Roman world at large. He begins his gospel with a preface addressed to Theophilus, the name means Lover of God, here he informs Theophilus of his intention, which is to lead his reader to certainty through an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us. He did not, however, intend to provide Theophilus with a justification of the Christian faith – did it happen
Gospel of Luke
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Books of the
New Testament
Gospel of Luke
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A 3rd-century AD Greek
papyrus of the Gospel of Luke
Gospel of Luke
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Annunciation (
Murillo)
Gospel of Luke
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Parable of the Sower (Biserica Ortodoxă din Deal, Cluj-Napoca),
Romania)
28.
Epistle to the Hebrews
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The Epistle to the Hebrews, or Letter to the Hebrews, or in the Greek manuscripts, simply To the Hebrews is one of the books of the New Testament. Scholars of Greek consider its writing to be polished and eloquent than any other book of the New Testament. The book has earned the reputation of being a masterpiece and it has also been described as an intricate New Testament book. Scholars believe it was written for Jewish Christians who lived in Jerusalem and its purpose was to exhort Christians to persevere in the face of persecution. The theme of the epistle is the doctrine of the person of Christ, the epistle opens with an exaltation of Jesus as the radiance of Gods glory, the express image of his being, and upholding all things by his powerful word. The epistle presents Jesus with the pioneer or forerunner, Son and Son of God, priest. The epistle casts Jesus as both exalted Son and high priest, a unique dual Christology, Hebrews uses Old Testament quotations interpreted in light of first century rabbinical Judaism. Although the author of Hebrews was not directly influenced by Qumrans Messiah of Aaron, to conceive Jesus similarly as a priest making atonement and eternal intercession in the heavenly sanctuary. By the end of the first century there was not a consensus over the author’s identity, Clement of Rome, Barnabas, Paul the Apostle, and other names were proposed. Others later suggested Luke the Evangelist, Apollos and Priscilla as possible authors, though no author is named, the original King James Version of the Bible titled the work The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews. However, the KJVs attribution to Paul was only a guess and its vastly different style, different theological focus, different spiritual experience, different Greek vocabulary—all are believed to make Pauls authorship of Hebrews increasingly indefensible. At present, neither modern scholarship nor church teaching ascribes Hebrews to Paul, because of its anonymity, it had some trouble being accepted as part of the Christian canon, being classed with the Antilegomena. Eventually it was accepted as scripture because of its theology, eloquent presentation. In antiquity, certain circles began to ascribe it to Paul in an attempt to provide the work an explicit apostolic pedigree. Scholars argued that in the 13th Chapter of Hebrews, Timothy is referred to as a companion, Timothy was Pauls missionary companion in the same way Jesus sent disciples out in pairs of two. Also, the states that he wrote the letter from Italy. The difference in style is explained as simply an adjustment to a distinct audience, many scholars now believe that the author was one of Pauls pupils or associates, citing stylistic differences between Hebrews and the other Pauline epistles. Recent scholarship has favored the idea that the author was probably a leader of a predominantly Jewish congregation to whom he or she was writing
Epistle to the Hebrews
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Books of the
New Testament
Epistle to the Hebrews
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Christians believe that
Jesus is the mediator of the
New Covenant. His famous
sermon from a hill representing
Mount Zion is considered by many Christian scholars to be the
antitype of the proclamation of the
Old Covenant by
Moses from
Mount Sinai.
29.
First Epistle of Peter
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The First Epistle of Peter, usually referred to simply as First Peter and often written 1 Peter, is a book of the New Testament. The letter is addressed to various churches in Asia Minor suffering religious persecution, the authorship of 1 Peter has traditionally been attributed to the Apostle Peter because it bears his name and identifies him as its author. Although the text identifies Peter as its author the language, dating, style, many scholars are convinced that Peter was not the author of this letter because the author had to have a formal education in rhetoric/philosophy and an advanced knowledge of the Greek language. Current scholarship has abandoned the persecution argument because the described persecution within the work does not necessitate a time period outside of the period of Peter, others argue that it makes little sense to ascribe the work to Peter when it could have been ascribed to Paul. One theory used to support Petrine authorship of 1 Peter is the secretarial hypothesis, on the one hand, some scholars such as Bart D. On the other hand, some argue that there is not enough evidence to conclude that Peter did not write 1 Peter. For instance, there are similarities between 1 Peter and Peters speeches in the Biblical book of Acts, and the earliest attestation of Peters authorship comes from 2 Peter, ultimately, the authorship of 1 Peter remains contested. 1 Peter is addressed to the “elect resident aliens” scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, the five areas listed in 1,1 as the geographical location of the first readers were Roman provinces in Asia Minor. The order in which the provinces are listed may reflect the route to be taken by the messenger who delivered the circular letter. The recipients of this letter are referred to in 1,1 as “exiles of the Dispersion. ”In 1,17, while the new Christians have encountered oppression and hostility from locals, Peter advises them to maintain loyalty to both their religion and the Roman Empire. David Bartlett lists the following outline to structure the literary divisions of 1 Peter, based on such internal evidence, biblical scholar John Elliott summarizes the addressees’ situation as one marked by undeserved suffering. Verse, Spirits in prison, is a theme in Christianity. A number of verses in the epistle contain possible clues about the reasons Christians experienced opposition, however, scholars differ on the nature of persecution inflicted on the addressees of 1 Peter. Some read the epistle to be describing persecution in the form of social discrimination, some scholars believe that the sufferings the epistles addressees were experiencing were social in nature, specifically in the form of verbal derision. Internal evidence for this includes the use of words like “malign” and it is significant to him that the author notes that “your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering”, indicating suffering that is worldwide in scope. On the other hand, scholars who support the official persecution theory take the exhortation to defend ones faith as a reference to court proceedings. They believe that these persecutions involved court trials before Roman authorities, one common supposition is that 1 Peter was written during the reign of Domitian. Domitians aggressive claim to divinity would have rejected and resisted by Christians
First Epistle of Peter
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Books of the
New Testament
30.
Second Epistle of Peter
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Some modern scholars regard it as pseudepigraphical. Second Peter quotes from and adapts Jude extensively, and addresses a threatening heresy which had arisen because the anticipated Second Coming of Christ had not yet occurred and it is the only New Testament book to treat other New Testament writings as scripture. Second Peter was one of the last letters included in the New Testament canon and is one of the texts that were in dispute before the canon was finalized, according to the Epistle itself, it was composed by the Apostle Peter, an eyewitness to Jesus ministry. It criticizes false teachers who distort the authentic, apostolic tradition,2 Peter explains that God has delayed the Second Coming of Christ so that more people will have the chance to reject evil and find salvation. It calls on Christians to wait patiently for the parousia and to study scripture, the date of composition has proven to be very difficult to determine. Commentaries and reference books have placed 2 Peter in almost every decade from AD60 to 160. Many believe that it was written between 65-68 A. D. because Peter was martyred around 68 A. D. by Nero, most biblical scholars have concluded Peter is not the author, considering the epistle pseudepigraphical. The questions of authorship and date are closely related, for Petrine authorship to be authentic, it must have been written prior to Peters death in c. The letter refers to the Pauline epistles and so must post-date at least some of them, regardless of authorship, thus a date before 60 is improbable. Further, it goes as far to name the Pauline epistles as scripture — the only time a New Testament work refers to another New Testament work in this way — implying that it postdates them by some time. Chester & Martin say scholars consider the epistle to be written between c, AD 100–150 and so contend that it is pseudepigraphical. For an argument for a late date see Harris, for a middle date see Bauckham who opts for a date between AD 80–90 as most probable. For an early date and for a defense of the Apostle Peters authorship see Kruger, Zahn, Spitta, Bigg, jeremy Duff argues that the various strands of evidence point towards the period 60–130 CE, with some reason to favour 80–90 CE. Acceptance of the letter into the canon did not occur without some difficulty, however, nowhere did doubts about the letters authorship take the form of definitive rejection. ”Origen, in both content and style this letter is very different from 1 Peter. This epistle presciently declares that it is shortly before the apostles death. The epistle contains eleven references to the Old Testament, in 3,15,16 a reference is made to one of Pauls epistles, which some have identified as 1 Thessalonians 4, 13–5,11. Because the Epistle of Jude is much shorter than 2 Peter, and due to various stylistic details, tartarus is mentioned in 2 Pet 2,4 as devoted to the holding of certain fallen angels. It is elaborated on in Jude 6, Jude 6 however, is a clear reference to the Book of Enoch
Second Epistle of Peter
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Books of the
New Testament
Second Epistle of Peter
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Two sides of the
Papyrus Bodmer VIII. This Papyrus today is the oldest source to the Second Epistle of Peter
4
