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Brief definitions of names, concepts, and places. Open a record to read its context, sources, and related materials.
563 definitions
The Judgment of Solomon, an oil painting by Nicolas Poussin from 1649, in the Louvre, INV 7277. It depicts the judgement between two women in 1 Kings 3 and illustrates the story’s reception in seventeenth-century European art
Person
Solomon is the biblical king, David’s son, associated in Kings with Jerusalem and building the temple
صيغ للاسم: King Solomon
Context والمصادر →
Modern diagram of heavenly-group vocabulary. Sons of God resemble sons of El structurally, but the terms establish no fixed membership or transfer of every Ugaritic figure into Hebrew texts
Entity
A Hebrew expression for heavenly beings in texts such as Job; context determines its meaning, rather than biological descent or a fixed angelic roster.
صيغ للاسم: sons of God، bene elohim
Context والمصادر →
A modern conceptual illustration places river and vessel together to contrast two distinct procedures. It depicts no documented ordeal or specific artifact; the tablet's marks are decorative and not legible text. IL Archive / CC0
Entity
A later name for Numbers 5:11–31, combining marital suspicion, oath and water with sanctuary dust.
صيغ للاسم: sotah، bitter-water ordeal
Context والمصادر →
Ubaid stamp seal and modern impression; Syria or Anatolia, sixth–fifth millennium BCE. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1984.175.13. The rectangular block on the right is a modern impression, not an ancient tablet
Entity
A carved surface pressed into soft material to leave an impression that may distinguish a person, object or procedure. Unlike a rolled cylinder seal; imagery alone makes it neither writing nor evidence of a creed.
صيغ للاسم: stamp seal، stamp seals
Context والمصادر →Person
Scholar of early Christian Mary traditions and late-antique Near Eastern religion.
صيغ للاسم: Stephen J. Shoemaker
Context والمصادر →
Modern conceptual illustration of receding water, two survivors, a mountain and stones evoking Deucalion; not an archaeological photograph or a documented location. © IL Archive, CC0
Entity
A Greek image of humanity renewed from stones after the flood, attested by Pindar and elaborated by Ovid and Pseudo-Apollodorus.
صيغ للاسم: stone-born people، people from stones
Context والمصادر →Person
Islamic-history scholar who proposed a comparative route for Mary and palm narratives.
صيغ للاسم: Suleiman A. Mourad
Context والمصادر →
Tablet of a Sumerian lament with Akkadian translations of many lines, about the second–first centuries BCE; Met 86.11.286a. A late witness to the language’s continued scribal and ritual use
Entity
Ancient language of southern Mesopotamia, clearly attested in third-millennium BCE texts and maintained in learning and ritual after its spoken use declined.
صيغ للاسم: Sumerian language، Sumerian
Context والمصادر →
Remains of the Apadana hall of Darius’s palace at Susa, at Shush in southwestern Iran, 18 April 2019. The column bases and archaeological remains appear in the foreground
Site
Susa is an archaeological city at Shush in southwestern present-day Iran
صيغ للاسم: Susa، Shush
Context والمصادر →Person
Norwegian New Testament and Revelation scholar who compared Gog and Magog in Ezekiel and Revelation.
صيغ للاسم: Sverre Bøe
Context والمصادر →
Folios 9v and 10r of the Rabbula Gospels, a sixth-century Syriac manuscript: canon tables and portraits of the Evangelists. An example of Syriac Christian book culture, rather than the language’s entire history
Entity
A literary form of Aramaic, with an extensive Christian heritage and earlier non-Christian attestations.
صيغ للاسم: Syriac
Context والمصادر →
Modern comparison: fish marks the meeting in al-Kahf, tests life-water in the Poem; fragrance signals Eden in Tamid. Different functions
Ancient text
Poetic work about Alexander and life-water, distinct from the long Romance and prose Legend; attribution and date require examination.
صيغ للاسم: Syriac Alexander Poem
Context والمصادر →
Modern method diagram: Alexander356–323BCE;proposed sixth/seventh-century layers;Budge manuscript1708–1709;edition1889. Dates have distinct functions
Ancient text
Christian prose narrative of Alexander’s journeys and the gate restraining nations; distinct from Romance and Poem, with debated dating.
صيغ للاسم: Syriac Christian Alexander Legend، Neṣḥānā
Context والمصادر →Person
Co-author with Raleigh Heth of a 2021 article on Isaac and Iphigenia; the published record gives only the initials T. E.
صيغ للاسم: Kelley, T. E.
Context والمصادر →
Tangier and its port from the sea, 18 September 2008; a modern city view, not a confirmed location of Moses' story
Site
City in northern Morocco by the Strait of Gibraltar, proposed in one interpretation of the Quran's meeting of the seas.
صيغ للاسم: Tangier، Tanger
Context والمصادر →
Modern comparison of Eleazar’s and the Testament’s rings, nest and chamber glass, and Solomon’s roles; resemblance does not decide dependence
Entity
An Aramaic translation and expansion of Esther containing an excursus on Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.
صيغ للاسم: Targum Sheni of Esther
Context والمصادر →
Modern explanatory diagram of Tartarus in Iliad 8.13–16: depth compared with the distance between sky and earth, with iron gates and a bronze threshold. A poetic comparison, rather than an archaeological map
Entity
Deep abyss in Greek poetic imagination, named by Zeus as a place of punishment in the Iliad.
صيغ للاسم: Tartarus
Context والمصادر →
Modern diagram highlighting Tashmishu among the figures in Kumarbi’s pregnancy account. It preserves the multiple names without supplying a complete biography or imagined portrait
Entity
Divine figure named in Kumarbi’s pregnancy with the storm god and the river Aranzah.
صيغ للاسم: Tashmishu، Tašmišu
Context والمصادر →
Rocky Black Sea coast in the Crimean peninsula, modern photograph. Regional context for Tauris, not the site of Iphigenia's temple in the play
Site
Ancient Greek name for Taurian territory on the Black Sea, associated with today's Crimean peninsula; the setting of Euripides' Iphigenia play.
صيغ للاسم: Taurica، Land of the Taurians
Context والمصادر →
Telemachus returning to Ithaca in a plaster relief by Antonio Canova, late eighteenth century; Museo Correr, Venice. A modern work revisiting the ancient story, rather than an artifact from Homer’s era
Person
Odysseus’s son in the Odyssey, whose position at home is affected by his father’s absence and family crisis.
صيغ للاسم: Telemachus
Context والمصادر →
Positions in specific texts, not a consensus of early or later Christianity; no portraits depicted
Person
Latin Christian author of the late second and early third centuries with a distinctive body–spirit vocabulary.
صيغ للاسم: Tertullian
Context والمصادر →
Roles in the long Testament of Abraham, 10–14: a modern textual diagram distinguishing Michael the guide from Dokiel the weigher; not an ancient artifact
Entity
Narrative of Abraham’s death and journey; its long recension distinguishes Abel the judge, Dokiel the weigher and Michael the guide.
صيغ للاسم: Testament of Abraham
Context والمصادر →
Modern method diagram: manuscript, work and modern research dates differ; these rows do not prove a transmission chain
Entity
A Greek pseudepigraphal text about Solomon commanding spirits and building the Temple, preserved in different forms.
صيغ للاسم: Testament of Solomon
Context والمصادر →
Modern diagram: El belongs to the Semitic word family for god; YHWH has four letters. Religious identification does not establish linguistic derivation of one name from the other. Not an ancient inscription or a solution to Yahweh’s etymology
Entity
Designation for YHWH written with four Hebrew letters; it does not settle the earliest pronunciation or etymology.
صيغ للاسم: Tetragrammaton
Context والمصادر →
Modern textual-criticism method, not a proven historical genealogy. An inferred reading is not material evidence; copy age alone does not determine the best reading
Entity
Comparing witnesses to explain variation and infer earlier readings or editions, distinguishing preserved from reconstructed text.
صيغ للاسم: textual criticism، text-critical
Context والمصادر →
Modern comparison of harmonization in 4QDeutⁿ, following VanderKam p.20. Does not reproduce the fragment or equate this witness with every Samaritan reading
Entity
Aligning parallel passages through additions or changes; may be deliberate editing, not proof of a copyist’s identity.
صيغ للاسم: textual harmonization، harmonistic text
Context والمصادر →
The Ogdoad in a ceiling relief at the temple of Hathor in Dendera: four pairs with frog and snake heads. This source crop was made by JMCC1 from Olaf Tausch’s 2011 photograph. The standing temple belongs to later Ptolemaic and Roman construction
Entity
The Eight are four divine pairs describing conditions before the ordered world in Egyptian traditions
صيغ للاسم: eight paired deities، Nunet، Heh and Hehet، Kek and Keket، Tenem and Tenemet، Amunet
Context والمصادر →
The harbour of Byblos, Lebanon, photographed on 4 September 2008. This modern view offers an example of the Levant’s Mediterranean coast. The region extends beyond this city, and its boundaries vary with period and context
Site
The Levant is a regional name for lands along the eastern Mediterranean
صيغ للاسم: Levant، the Levant
Context والمصادر →
Modern conceptual illustration of an offering on newly dried ground beneath an arc of light; neither an artifact photograph nor a reconstruction of a documented event. © IL Archive, CC0
Entity
Genesis 9’s covenant with Noah, descendants and all living creatures, marked by the bow in the clouds and a promise against another destroying flood.
صيغ للاسم: Noahic covenant، covenant with Noah
Context والمصادر →
Modern conceptual illustration of an offering on newly dried ground beneath an arc of light; neither an artifact photograph nor a reconstruction of a documented event. © IL Archive, CC0
Entity
A Hebrew idiom for an acceptable offering in Genesis 8:21 and Leviticus; it does not by itself show that God needs food.
صيغ للاسم: pleasing aroma، soothing aroma، sweet savour
Context والمصادر →Entity
A remarkable stone-cutting creature in Gittin 68's Temple-building story, not an identified archaeological tool.
صيغ للاسم: shamir
Context والمصادر →
Themis and Aegeus inside an Attic cup, about 440–430 BCE; Berlin Antikensammlung F 2538. A photograph of the ancient vessel, rather than a modern redrawing
Entity
Greek goddess instructed in the Iliad to gather the gods for a meeting with Zeus.
صيغ للاسم: Themis
Context والمصادر →
Gold solidus of Theodosius II, dated to his reign (408–450 CE), Met 04.2.819. Evidence for the emperor named in the story, not for the cave's events. Public Domain
Person
Eastern Roman emperor of 408–450 CE; the Sleepers narratives place their awakening in his reign.
صيغ للاسم: Theodosius II
Context والمصادر →
Detail of the inscription on Iddin-Ilum’s statue from Mari, ca. 2100–2000 BCE; Louvre, AO 19486. It illustrates the dedicator’s name containing a divine element; the statue represents a human, not El
Entity
A personal name containing the name of a deity or a divine element.
صيغ للاسم: theophoric name، theophoric names
Context والمصادر →
Peleus and Thetis on an Attic vase, about 470–460 BCE; Louvre LL 32 / N 3348 / L 55.1. Greek artistic evidence for the figures, rather than an image of Thetis’s appeal to Zeus in the Iliad
Entity
Sea goddess in Greek poetry and mother of Achilles, one of the Iliad’s heroes.
صيغ للاسم: Thetis
Context والمصادر →
Positions in specific texts, not a consensus of early or later Christianity; no portraits depicted
Person
Thirteenth-century theologian linking incorporeality, simplicity and immutability through philosophical premises.
صيغ للاسم: Thomas Aquinas، Aquinas
Context والمصادر →
Thomas Römer at the Collège de France in Paris on 23 June 2023. This portrait of the Hebrew Bible scholar was cropped at the source from a group photograph taken during Jutta Urpilainen’s visit to the institution
Person
Scholar of Hebrew Bible history and composition, holding the Biblical Milieux chair at the Collège de France.
صيغ للاسم: Thomas Römer، Thomas Romer، Thomas C. Römer
Context والمصادر →
Mušḫuššu dragon from Babylon’s Ishtar Gate decoration, Neo-Babylonian period; museum reconstruction using original bricks in Berlin. Associated with Marduk, not a confirmed depiction of Tiamat
Entity
Primordial watery divine figure in Enūma Eliš, later Marduk’s opponent; her defeated body provides material for cosmic arrangement.
صيغ للاسم: Tiamat
Context والمصادر →Person
Scholar of late-antique traditions and the Quran who proposes an earlier layer for the Syriac Alexander Legend.
صيغ للاسم: Tommaso Tesei
Context والمصادر →Person
Scholar of Christian apocrypha who edited Greek and Syriac infancy traditions.
صيغ للاسم: Tony Burke
Context والمصادر →