Glossary

Modern view of the Qumran archaeological site, the setting of scroll research; not a portrait of Fitzmyer or an image of manuscript 4Q225

Person

Joseph A. Fitzmyer

American biblical and Dead Sea Scrolls scholar (1920–2016), who studied Qumran retellings of Abraham’s test.

صيغ للاسم: Joseph Fitzmyer

Female pillar figurine from Lachish, ceramic, about eighth–seventh century BCE; Metropolitan Museum 34.126.53, height 18.4 cm. Actual artifact; attribution to Asherah is unresolved

Entity

Judean pillar figurines

Clay female figurines with pillar bases in Judah, especially widespread in the eighth/seventh centuries BCE; identity and function not determined by form alone.

صيغ للاسم: Judean pillar figurines، Judahite pillar figurines، JPFs

Sixth-century San Vitale mosaic at Ravenna portraying Justinian and his court. Contemporary imperial art, not a photograph or a barrier scene

Person

Justinian I

Eastern Roman emperor from 527 to 565 CE; his reign is used in a proposed dating of a Syriac Alexander Legend layer.

صيغ للاسم: Justinian I

Modern reference guide: KTU1.114 corresponds to RS24.258 in Spronk’s chapter. No ancient writing or tablet surface reproduced

Entity

KTU: Ugaritic Text References

Abbreviation for a modern scholarly corpus of alphabetic cuneiform texts; its numbers are references, not dates.

صيغ للاسم: KTU، CAT، Ugaritic text references

Different interpretive patterns, not a fixed one-method-per-school table

Entity

Kalām

Islamic traditions of doctrinal reasoning with diverse approaches to attributes and transcendence.

صيغ للاسم: Kalām، Islamic theology، kalām theology

Modern diagram of Exodus 25:10–22, not an original artifact or cherub anatomy. No mentioned statue is a textual observation, not an excavated empty space

Entity

Kapporet

Gold Ark cover linked with cherubim and speech in Exodus and atonement ritual in Leviticus; “seat” in translation does not prove a chair.

صيغ للاسم: kapporet، kappōret، mercy seat

The Karahantepe excavation on 22 August 2024. Ropes and work supports are modern. The T-shaped pillar in this frame is not the faced pillar announced in 2025, and the photograph is not a reconstruction of the Neolithic site

Site

Karahantepe

An excavation area in the Taş Tepeler project in southeastern Anatolia, where a faced T-shaped pillar was announced in 2025.

صيغ للاسم: Karahantepe، Karahan Tepe

Attic red-figure vessel, 4th century BCE; depicts Heracles’s apotheosis, not Alcestis’s rescue. Metropolitan Museum, 52.11.18; public-domain photograph

Entity

Katabasis: descent to the underworld

Comparative term for a journey to the realm of the dead; does not by itself establish that its traveler died and rose.

صيغ للاسم: katabasis

Bockman Hall on Luther Seminary’s campus in Saint Paul, Minnesota, photographed on 5 January 2013. This institutional view provides context for Kathryn Schifferdecker’s work as an Old Testament professor at the seminary

Person

Kathryn M. Schifferdecker

Old Testament scholar at Luther Seminary, studying biblical interpretation and creation theology in Job.

صيغ للاسم: Kathryn Schifferdecker، Kathryn M. Schifferdecker

Sterling Memorial Library at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, on 20 April 2026, seen from Elm and High Streets. It provides context for the university that Kathryn Slanski joined in 2004

Person

Kathryn Slanski

Yale scholar of Mesopotamia, studying texts, images, inscribed monuments, law and authority.

صيغ للاسم: Kathryn Slanski، Kathryn E. Slanski

Ketef Hinnom silver amulets displayed at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; photograph, 2012. Usually dated to the late seventh or early sixth century BCE. A blessing related to Numbers 6, not evidence for the entire book. Display copy resized without cropping

Artifact

Ketef Hinnom amulets

Two silver scroll amulets found in Jerusalem in1979, with wording related to Numbers6. Usually late seventh/early sixth century BCE; they do not date the whole book.

صيغ للاسم: Ketef Hinnom، Ketef Hinnom amulets

A Persian scene of Alexander building the wall, dated 1481. It is a later witness to the story, not the Syriac text studied by van Bladel or his portrait. Walters Art Museum, W.604.315A

Person

Kevin van Bladel

Philologist and historian of the Near East and the transmission of learning across languages.

صيغ للاسم: Kevin van Bladel

Modern method diagram: verses, reports, commentary and reception are distinct layers; later names are not Quranic wording

Person

Khidr

Name of the servant in Islamic reports about Moses’ journey; al-Kahf leaves him unnamed.

صيغ للاسم: Khidr، al-Khidr

Modern diagram of context, common reading and limits at el-Qom. Not the inscription or its physical layout; debated translation not made certain

Site

Khirbet el-Qom

Site west of Hebron known for an eighth-century BCE funerary inscription commonly associating Yahweh with “his asherah”; damaged text and readings disputed.

صيغ للاسم: Khirbet el-Qom، Khirbet el-Qôm، el-Qom inscription

Detail of the Assyrian reliefs showing the siege of Lachish, a city of the kingdom of Judah, during Sennacherib’s campaign of 701 BCE. Carved at Nineveh around 700–692 BCE and held in the British Museum. Photographed on 12 September 2010; an Assyrian representation of the event from the attackers’ perspective

Site

Kingdom of Judah

Judah was an ancient southern Levantine kingdom centered on Jerusalem in the Iron Age

صيغ للاسم: kingdom of Judah

Modern conceptual illustration: a sandal, an uninscribed clay tablet and model fields symbolize kinship and inheritance. No documented artifact or historical scene is depicted. IL Archive / CC0

Entity

Kinsman-Redeemer in Ruth

A relative exercising a family property-redemption right in Ruth 4; he need not be the deceased husband’s brother.

صيغ للاسم: goel، redeemer، kinsman redeemer

Klaus Schmidt, the Göbekli Tepe archaeologist, at the Monumento fair in Salzburg on 16 January 2014. Not a photograph from the excavation

Person

Klaus Schmidt

A German prehistorian who directed the Göbekli Tepe excavations from 1995 until his death on 20 July 2014.

صيغ للاسم: Klaus Schmidt

Modern explanation of the craftsman’s battle and building roles; no reconstruction of the weapons or palace

Entity

Kothar-wa-Hasis

Craftsman god in the Baal Cycle, supplying weapons and building the palace.

صيغ للاسم: Kothar-wa-Hasis، Kothar

Rhea hands Kronos a wrapped stone on an Attic jar, about 460–450 BCE, attributed to the Nausicaä Painter. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 06.1021.144; museum photograph

Entity

Kronos

Greek divine figure and Zeus’s father; Hesiod connects his reign with struggles between divine generations.

صيغ للاسم: Kronos، Cronus

Modern succession diagram for CTH 344; neither a proven father–son genealogy nor an ancient portrait of Kumarbi

Entity

Kumarbi

Hurrian divine figure in Hittite CTH 344; challenges Anu and carries the storm god after swallowing his seed.

صيغ للاسم: Kumarbi

Modern summary of two Kuntillet ʿAjrud formulas in published readings. Not a jar photograph, inscription facsimile or map; does not settle “his asherah” or drawing identities

Site

Kuntillet ʿAjrud

Sinai site preserving blessings by Yahweh of Samaria/Teman and “his asherah” around 800 BCE; building function and wording disputed.

صيغ للاسم: Kuntillet Ajrud، Kuntillet ʿAjrud، Quntillet Ajrud، Horvat Teman

Roman marble table base depicting Jonah swallowed and cast up by a marine creature, early fourth century CE. Metropolitan Museum,77.7, public-domain photograph. Evidence of Christian artistic reception, not an artifact from the prophet’s time or identification of his fish’s species

Entity

Kētos: marine creature

Greek word for the marine creature in Jonah and Matthew; alone it establishes neither a modern species nor the story’s origin.

صيغ للاسم: kētos، ketos

Person

Lajos Berkes

Papyrologist who co-edited a papyrus with the clay-sparrow episode.

صيغ للاسم: Lajos Berkes

Latakia photographed by Frédéric Gadmer on 27 October 1921, an autochrome, A30032S. A historical city view, rather than the ruins of Ugarit. Musée Albert-Kahn, Département des Hauts-de-Seine

Site

Latakia

A coastal city in Syria, south of ancient Ugarit at Ras Shamra.

صيغ للاسم: Latakia، Lattakia

An object from the Late Bronze Age: fragment of a Ugaritic alphabet tablet, c. 1400–1200 BCE; Louvre, AO 19992 / RS 10.087. This image illustrates one object, not every society of the period

Period

Late Bronze Age

An archaeological period conventionally around 1600–1200 BCE in much of the Near East, with regional variation.

صيغ للاسم: Late Bronze Age

Modern distinction between the dates of witnesses surrounding this study, not fixed boundaries for late antiquity or a borrowing chain

Period

Late antiquity

Historical frame for late ancient transformations; boundaries vary by region and subject.

صيغ للاسم: late antiquity، Late Antique، Late Antiquity

An inscribed face of Hammurabi’s stele, Louvre SB 8, eighteenth century BCE. This photograph shows cuneiform, not the upper king-and-Shamash relief. Photograph: Rama; CC BY-SA 3.0 France

Ancient text

Laws of Hammurabi

An eighteenth-century BCE Babylonian legal text in Akkadian, presenting property, family, labor and injury provisions within Hammurabi’s account of justice.

صيغ للاسم: Laws of Hammurabi، Hammurabi’s laws

Leto, Apollo and Tityos on an Attic vase, about 450–440 BCE; Louvre G 375, attributed to Polygnotos. The image belongs to the story of the assault on Leto and Tityos’s punishment

Entity

Leto

Greek goddess and Apollo’s mother in the Iliad, appearing among the gods supporting the Trojans.

صيغ للاسم: Leto

Modern guide to Aristeas: Hebrew law from Jerusalem, 72 elders, collaborative translation on Pharos, community approval. These are claims of the later narrative, not independently proved events or a story of new composition

Entity

Letter of Aristeas

Hellenistic Jewish account, commonly dated to the second century BCE, of 72 elders translating Hebrew law in Egypt. Not contemporary minutes or a Torah-composition account.

صيغ للاسم: Letter of Aristeas، Aristeas

Fragments of Ugaritic KTU 1.5, Louvre AO 16641 and AO 16642, c. 1400–1200 BCE. The Baal Cycle text mentions ltn; the artifact does not depict the creature. Photograph by Rama, 2007, CC BY-SA 2.0 France via Wikimedia Commons; original unchanged

Entity

Leviathan

A poetic sea being in Hebrew texts, related to Ugaritic ltn; its role varies between combat and creation imagery.

صيغ للاسم: Leviathan

Modern conceptual illustration: a sandal, an uninscribed clay tablet and model fields symbolize kinship and inheritance. No documented artifact or historical scene is depicted. IL Archive / CC0

Entity

Levirate Marriage

A widow’s marriage to her deceased husband’s brother, whose conditions and purposes vary across ancient traditions.

صيغ للاسم: levirate، brother-in-law marriage

Contemporary IL Archive conceptual illustration: an eye-shaped stone and a silver weight evoke matching penalty and compensation. Generated for this study; not an identified stele, artifact, or reconstruction of a particular historical judgment. IL Archive, CC0

Entity

Lex talionis

A formula linking a penalty to a harm, such as “eye for eye”; its setting and application vary across texts.

صيغ للاسم: lex talionis، eye for an eye، law of retaliation

Modern educational diagram of systematic correspondences across comparative rows. The symbols a, b, and c are schematic teaching examples, not data transcribed from an ancient language

Entity

Linguistic reconstruction

A comparative method for inferring forms in an older language from related languages.

صيغ للاسم: linguistic reconstruction، reconstructed form

Modern educational diagram: branching from a common origin on the left, transfer between two parties on the right. It distinguishes kinship from borrowing; it does not map a proven historical route for divine vocabulary

Entity

Linguistic relatedness

A relationship through shared linguistic ancestry, distinct from direct borrowing or identical beliefs.

صيغ للاسم: linguistic relatedness، linguistic kinship، linguistic relationship

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

Entity

Literary borrowing

Use of material from an earlier text or tradition in a new work.

صيغ للاسم: Literary borrowing

Relationship, source, direction and route can have different levels of support

Entity

Literary dependence

A relationship explaining a text’s composition through another text.

صيغ للاسم: Literary dependence

Placement at the bank differs from release into the current; no scene is reconstructed

Entity

Literary motif

Recurring narrative element whose presence alone does not establish dependence.

صيغ للاسم: Literary motif

Modern distinction between logogram, phonetic use and determinative. Functions overlap; no ancient signs or fixed universal stages reproduced

Entity

Logogram

A sign representing a word or related words; context selects the reading, and a sign may also have phonetic uses.

صيغ للاسم: logogram، word sign

Modern comparison of distinct witnesses. Threefold language and Christ’s status do not alone supply fourth-century terminology, and one text does not date every practice

Entity

Logos

Greek word for word or discourse, used in John’s language of God and incarnation.

صيغ للاسم: Logos

K.2518+DT.358 from Nineveh, a later, approximately seventh-century BCE witness to tablet II of Ludlul bēl nēmeqi, not the poem’s autograph. British Museum collection, displayed on loan at the Louvre. Photograph by Zunkir, 2020, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons; original image used without modification

Ancient text

Ludlul bēl nēmeqi

Akkadian poem of a sufferer who praises Marduk after illness, lost standing and recovery; compared with Job, though its form and damaged guilt passage differ.

صيغ للاسم: Ludlul bēl nēmeqi، Ludlul bel nemeqi، Babylonian Job