Glossary

Modern distinction between Ilimilku’s scribal work and the origin of recorded traditions; no portrait or claim that he invented the myths

Entity

Ilimilku

Ugaritic scribe associated with the Baal Cycle, Kirta and Aqhat; handwriting and colophons aid attribution. His work alone does not date the traditions’ origins.

صيغ للاسم: Ilimilku، Ili-milku، Ilumilku

Modern diagram separating the two CTH 321 Illuyanka versions; neither a tablet photograph nor a portrait of the serpent

Entity

Illuyanka

The serpent opposed by the storm god in two Hittite narratives preserved in CTH 321.

صيغ للاسم: Illuyanka

Alternative parentage of Inanna in different traditions, according to ORACC. Modern teaching diagram, not three simultaneous branches of one family tree

Entity

Inanna / Ishtar

Prominent Mesopotamian goddess with a major centre at Uruk, whose parentage and cult traditions vary rather than forming one fixed genealogy.

صيغ للاسم: Inanna، Inana، Ishtar، Ištar

Modern narrative diagram of Inara, Hupasiya and the storm god cooperating in the first Illuyanka account. Arrows show successive roles in the story; not an artifact or a reconstruction of divine appearances

Entity

Inara

Goddess in Hittite traditions who plans the feast enabling the serpent’s defeat in the first Illuyanka account.

صيغ للاسم: Inara

Alternatives can overlap; this diagram does not document a particular narrative’s route

Entity

Independent development

Similar elements arising without historical transmission between them.

صيغ للاسم: Independent development

Indus seal and modern impression, about 2600–1900 BCE; Met 49.40.1. A single-horned animal and script signs are visible; this is not an identified flood text

Site

Indus Valley, historical region

South Asian region associated with the Indus civilization, connected with the Near East in the third millennium BCE.

صيغ للاسم: Indus Valley, historical region

Printed Two Brothers excerpt in Wallis Budge’s Egyptian Language, 1889, pp. 38–39: educational hieroglyphic transcription with English glosses of the armed elder brother. Not a photograph of the hieratic papyrus or Inena’s signature

Person

Inena, the D’Orbiney scribe

Egyptian scribe of the late Nineteenth Dynasty, credited by the British Museum with the Two Brothers papyrus around 1215 BCE.

صيغ للاسم: Inena, the D’Orbiney scribe، Inena

Modern comparison of breathing, clapping and command in specified versions; no direct transmission route established

Ancient text

Infancy Gospel of Thomas

Accounts of Jesus’ boyhood, distinct from the sayings Gospel of Thomas.

صيغ للاسم: Infancy Gospel of Thomas

Limestone ostracon bearing the opening of the Instruction of Amenemope in hieratic; evidence for copying the text in Persian-period Egypt, not its original manuscript. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 26.3.165, institutional CC0 image via Wikimedia Commons; display derivative resized and converted to WebP

Ancient text

Instruction of Amenemope

Thirty-chapter Egyptian wisdom instruction preserved on a British Museum papyrus and scribal exercises; compared with Proverbs 22:17–23:11.

صيغ للاسم: Instruction of Amenemope، Wisdom of Amenemope

Modern comparison of intermediary arguments with the permission condition. Neither denial of all intercession nor a complete history of interpretation. [18][19][25][9]

Entity

Intercession

Mediation subject in the cited Quranic texts to permission and approval, not divine independence.

صيغ للاسم: intercession، intercessor، mediation

Modern abstract section: a burial cuts the floor, which is closed and used again. A grave physically below the house does not establish the origin of a cosmic underworld. Not an excavated-house plan

Entity

Intramural burial

Deposition of the dead within a settlement’s built area; burial beneath a domestic floor is one form.

صيغ للاسم: intramural burial، subfloor burial، residential burial

Second-century BCE Boeotian bowl with scenes from Iphigenia at Aulis, The Met 31.11.2. It does not show the deer substitution in Iphigenia among the Taurians

Person

Iphigenia

Mythic and dramatic daughter of Agamemnon. In Iphigenia among the Taurians, Artemis rescues her at the altar and substitutes a deer.

صيغ للاسم: Iphigeneia

Ruins of Darius’s palace at Persepolis in southwestern Iran, 24 September 2016. They belong to the Achaemenid period; construction of the site’s complex began around 518 BCE. This is one ancient Iranian site, distinct from Susa mentioned in the definition

Site

Iran

Iran is the modern country containing Shush, ancient Susa

صيغ للاسم: Iran

The Tigris in Baghdad, Iraq, on the evening of 29 December 2021. A modern river and city view illustrating the present geographical setting of Mesopotamia

Site

Iraq

Iraq is a modern country encompassing much of ancient Mesopotamia

صيغ للاسم: Iraq، modern Iraq

Person

Irenaeus of Lyon

Late-second-century Christian writer who mentioned the child Jesus and a teacher.

صيغ للاسم: Irenaeus of Lyon

Winged Iris on a Greek vase, about 500–490 BCE; Louvre L 43. An ancient representation of the divine messenger named in the Iliad

Entity

Iris

Greek divine messenger who conveys Zeus’s command to Poseidon in the Iliad.

صيغ للاسم: Iris

Rembrandt's etching Abraham and Isaac, 1645, The Met 29.107.26. A dialogue imagined by the artist centuries after the text

Person

Isaac

Son of Abraham and Sarah in Genesis; named explicitly in Genesis 22's sacrifice episode, while named after the unnamed-son scene in Qur'an 37.

صيغ للاسم: Yitzhak، Ishaq

George Richmond's Hagar and Ishmael in the Wilderness, 1829–33, The Met 2002.119a,b. Later artistic reception of Genesis, not a historical likeness

Person

Ishmael

Son of Hagar and Abraham in Genesis; later Muslim interpretation identified him with the unnamed son in Qur'an 37's sacrifice scene.

صيغ للاسم: Ismail، Yishmael

Person

Ittai Gradel

Roman historian (1965–2026) and coauthor of a study of rings bearing a Solomonic formula.

صيغ للاسم: Ittai Gradel

Kirkland Hall at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, on 26 October 2023. The photograph shows part of the institution associated with Jack M. Sasson’s work in biblical studies and Assyriology

Person

Jack M. Sasson

Hebrew Bible and ancient Near Eastern cultures scholar, Vanderbilt professor emeritus, also specializing in Mari’s archives.

صيغ للاسم: Jack Sasson، Jack M. Sasson

Person

Jacob L. Wright

Hebrew Bible scholar at Emory University studying Sabbath formation and Mesopotamian relationships.

صيغ للاسم: Jacob L. Wright

Jacob Milgrom, the Hebrew Bible scholar known for his research on Leviticus, offerings and purity. The source record dates this portrait to 13 September 1995 and credits Dr. Jo Milgrom

Person

Jacob Milgrom

Jewish biblical scholar (1923–2010), noted for studies of Leviticus, priestly traditions, purity and offerings.

صيغ للاسم: Jacob Milgrom

Modern method diagram: narrated Decius/Theodosius differ from homily composition and surviving copy. John is a named Latin intermediary; no particular copy route into Qur’an proven

Person

Jacob of Serugh

Syriac author of the late fifth and early sixth centuries, credited with a homily on the youths of Ephesus.

صيغ للاسم: Jacob of Serugh، Jacob of Sarug

Jaffa port on 3 October 2013, photographed by Noam.armonn. Modern buildings and vessels show the present place, not the harbor’s appearance in Jonah’s narrative setting

Site

Jaffa / Joppa, historic port

A Mediterranean coastal city and port from which Jonah begins his voyage toward Tarshish.

صيغ للاسم: Jaffa / Joppa, historic port

Person

James George Frazer

James George Frazer (1854–1941) studied classical literature, anthropology and comparative religion and was associated with Trinity College, Cambridge.

صيغ للاسم: James George Frazer

University Hall at Brown University, Rhode Island, in a photograph dated 1 April 1997. It illustrates the university that Egyptologist James P. Allen joined in 2007

Person

James P. Allen

Egyptologist and Brown professor emeritus, studying ancient Egyptian language, literature and religion, including the Pyramid Texts.

صيغ للاسم: James Allen، James P. Allen

Person

Jan Joosten, Hebrew scholar

Scholar of Biblical Hebrew and the Septuagint, author of a 2019 study on the linguistic dating of Joseph.

صيغ للاسم: Jan Joosten, Hebrew scholar، Jan Joosten

Person

Jan Safford

Scholar of the Bible and its ancient Near Eastern context, specializing in Israelites and Judeans in Assyrian and Babylonian sources.

صيغ للاسم: Jan Safford

Modern chart distinguishing the Cain and Seth branches in Genesis and Jared’s position; textual relationships, not a reconstructed historical genealogy

Person

Jared, father of Enoch

Jared is Enoch’s father in Genesis 5; the Watchers’ descent is set in his days.

صيغ للاسم: Jared

Jason emerging from the serpent, Athena at right, and the hanging Golden Fleece; Attic cup attributed to Douris, about 480–470 BCE, Vatican Museums 16545. Photograph of the cup, neither Jonah nor a portrait of its painter

Person

Jason, hero of the Golden Fleece

A Greek hero of Golden Fleece narratives, shown on an ancient cup emerging from a serpent’s mouth with Athena’s aid.

صيغ للاسم: Jason, hero of the Golden Fleece

The Rotunda and Lawn, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 14 March 2011. Institutional context for Jenny Strauss Clay; a campus view, not her portrait

Person

Jenny Strauss Clay

Professor emerita at the University of Virginia, specializing in early Greek poetry and its gods and human–divine relations.

صيغ للاسم: Jenny Strauss Clay

Plastered skull from Jericho, Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, displayed at the British Museum. An ancient modeled face on human remains, not a modern facial reconstruction

Site

Jericho / Tell es-Sultan

Archaeological mound near present-day Jericho in Palestine’s Jordan Valley, preserving early Neolithic settlement and Bronze Age layers.

صيغ للاسم: Tell es-Sultan

Second Kings14:25 concerns restored borders and Jonah son of Amittai; Jonah1–4 concerns the sea, Nineveh, and mercy. Modern comparison distinguishing the figure’s setting from composition, not a portrait of king or prophet

Person

Jeroboam II, king of Israel

An eighth-century BCE northern king; Second Kings 14:25 links restored borders to the word of Jonah son of Amittai.

صيغ للاسم: Jeroboam II, king of Israel

Jerusalem’s Old City seen from the north, photographed on 20 July 2012. The Dome of the Rock and the Mount of Olives appear in the background. This modern view brings together landmarks from several periods; it differs from the city in the time of the kingdom of Judah

Site

Jerusalem

Jerusalem is a city of religious importance in Judaism, Christianity and Islam

صيغ للاسم: Jerusalem

Christ between two angels in a sixth-century mosaic at the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy. He is shown seated above a blue sphere in a cosmic scene. Photograph by José Luiz, 17 September 2016

Person

Jesus Christ

Jesus Christ is Christianity’s central figure, who lived in the first century CE

صيغ للاسم: Jesus Christ

Person

Jill Middlemas

Hebrew Bible and reception scholar at the University of Gothenburg, studying Esther’s reinterpretation across time.

صيغ للاسم: Jill Middlemas

Person

Jillian Stinchcomb

Scholar of biblical reception who studies the Queen of Sheba across Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions.

صيغ للاسم: Jillian Stinchcomb

Person

Joanna Töyräänvuori

Ancient Near East scholar studying water ordeals, Mari letters and testimony.

صيغ للاسم: Joanna Töyräänvuori

Job on the dunghill with his wife and a devil; woodcut from Albrecht Dürer’s school, Nuremberg, 1509, RP-P-OB-1550, Rijksmuseum. A later rendering, not a historical portrait

Person

Job

Central figure of the Book of Job, introduced as upright and subjected to suffering after a heavenly discussion of his fidelity.

صيغ للاسم: Job

Person

Joel Marcus

New Testament and Christian origins scholar and Duke emeritus professor, studying the Gospels in their Jewish context.

صيغ للاسم: Joel Marcus