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Researcher

Sarah L. Schwarz

Religion scholar who has studied the textual diversity and demonology of the Testament of Solomon.

Person

Benaiah son of Jehoiada

A court figure in Kings under David and Solomon, reused in the Talmudic tale as the man who brings Ashmedai.

Person

Eleazar in Josephus's exorcism report

A Jewish man whose exorcism Josephus says he witnessed before Vespasian; distinct from the biblical Eleazar son of Aaron.

Person

Vespasian

Roman emperor from 69 to 79 CE; Josephus names him among the audience of an exorcism linked to Solomon.

Roman gold aureus bearing Vespasian's portrait and name, minted in 70 CE. A contemporary witness to the emperor, not to Josephus's exorcism scene. Met 99.35.154; public domain

Person

Queen of Sheba

The ruler in narratives of Solomon's encounter with Sheba; neither First Kings nor the Quran gives her a personal name, and her historical identification is unresolved.

Solomon's meeting with the Queen of Sheba in British embroidery, ca. 1700: later artistic reception, not a historical portrait. Met 64.101.1307; public domain

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.

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

Person

Tommaso Tesei

Scholar of late-antique traditions and the Quran who proposes an earlier layer for the Syriac Alexander Legend.

Person

Sebastian P. Brock

Syriac literature scholar who distinguishes the Syriac Alexander Romance, Christian Legend and poem.

Person

Sverre Bøe

Norwegian New Testament and Revelation scholar who compared Gog and Magog in Ezekiel and Revelation.

Person

William A. Tooman

Professor of Hebrew Bible and ancient Judaism at St Andrews whose reading of Gog differs from the Marduk proposal.

Person

Casey A. Strine

Scholar of ancient Israel, Judah and the Near East who proposed reading Ezekiel's Gog in relation to Babylonian Marduk traditions.

Person

Christoph Rösel

Author of the 2012 German WiBiLex entry on Gog and Magog, surveying explanations of the names and their evidence.

Person

Gyges of Lydia

Seventh-century BCE king of Lydia in western Anatolia, called Guggu in an Assyrian inscription; his identification with Ezekiel's Gog is unproven.

Assyrian tablet of about 660 BCE naming Gyges of Lydia; a written witness, not the king's portrait

Person

Ibn Taymiyya

Hanbali Muslim scholar (1263–1328) based in Damascus, who wrote on interpretation, law and theology; modern research considers his influence on identifying Abraham's son in the sacrifice story.

Literary figure

Agamemnon

Figure of Greek narrative, commander of the expedition to Troy and Iphigenia's father in Euripides; the play does not independently establish his historicity.

Agamemnon Musters the Greek Troops at Aulis, later European Story of Iphigenia tapestry, The Met 226955; artistic reception, not historical evidence for the figure

Person

Sarah

Abraham's wife and Isaac's mother in Genesis; her story with Hagar and Ishmael appears in chapters 16 and 21, not in the Genesis 22 scene itself.

Georg Pencz, Sarah Presenting Hagar to Abraham, ca. 1543, The Met 2012.136.766.2; later artistic depiction

Person

Hagar

Figure in Genesis: an Egyptian woman in Sarah and Abraham's household and Ishmael's mother; chapters 16 and 21 narrate her flight and later expulsion and survival.

Camille Corot, Hagar in the Wilderness, 1835, The Met 38.64; later artistic depiction 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.

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

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.

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

Person

Abraham

Central figure in Genesis, the Qur'an and Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions; the sacrifice study compares what each text says about him.

Agostino Veneziano's engraving Abraham's Sacrifice, 1516–18, The Met 17.50.16-80. Later European artistic reception, not a historical likeness

Person

T. E. Kelley

Co-author with Raleigh Heth of a 2021 article on Isaac and Iphigenia; the published record gives only the initials T. E.

Person

Raleigh Heth

Scholar of ancient Mesopotamian and eastern Mediterranean literature; co-authored a 2021 comparison of Isaac and Iphigenia.

Person

Younus Y. Mirza

Scholar of Arabic and Islamic studies whose work compares biblical and Qur'anic narratives; published a 2013 study of Abraham's intended sacrifice.

Person

Iphigenia

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

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

Contextual definition

Euripides

Fifth-century BCE Greek tragedian, died 406 BCE. In his Iphigenia among the Taurians, the heroine recounts a deer substituted for her.

Roman bust identified as Euripides, after a Greek model of c. 330 BCE; Vatican Museums inv. 302. Made after his death, it cannot establish his actual features

Contextual definition

Ibn Kathir

Syrian Qur'anic exegete and historian (c. 1301–1373 CE) who favors Ishmael in his reading of the sacrifice account.

Title page of volume 1 of the Egyptian al-Manar printing of Ibn Kathir's commentary, 1343–1347 AH/c. 1924–1928 CE; a later printed edition, not a fourteenth-century image

Contextual definition

Al-Tabari

Abbasid-era historian and Qur'anic exegete (c. 839–923 CE). His commentary records competing views on Abraham's son, then favors Isaac.

Title page of volume 2 of an Egyptian printed edition of al-Tabari's Jamiʿ al-bayan, 1323 AH/c. 1905 CE. It is a later edition, not his manuscript or portrait

Contextual definition

Flavius Josephus

First-century Jewish historian who retold older narratives, including Abraham’s test, in Jewish Antiquities.

Twelfth-century Latin copy of Jewish Antiquities, Cologne Cathedral Library MS 162, fol. 41r. The page begins Book IV, not the Book I sacrifice account

Researcher

Joseph A. Fitzmyer

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

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

Traditionally attributed author

Homer

The name to which Greek tradition attributes the Iliad and Odyssey.

Roman portrait bust representing Homer, second century CE; British Museum 1805,0703.85. An artistic likeness made long after the epics, rather than a contemporary portrait

Literary figure

Telemachus

Odysseus’s son in the Odyssey, whose position at home is affected by his father’s absence and family crisis.

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

Literary figure

Aegisthus

Human figure in Greek narrative whose fate Zeus recalls at the Odyssey’s opening.

Death of Aegisthus on a Greek vase of about 320 BCE; Louvre K 320, Wind Group. The artwork depicts the revenge story, rather than the Odyssey’s first assembly itself

Literary figure

Achilles

Important hero of the Iliad, whose anger and participation shape the poem’s warfare.

Achilles fighting Memnon on a vase of about 330–320 BCE; National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden, AMM 1. The scene belongs to broader Trojan War traditions, rather than the Iliad itself

Literary figure

Odysseus

Greek hero whose attempt to return home after the Trojan War is followed in the Odyssey.

Odysseus disguised as a beggar before Penelope, on a terracotta plaque of about 450 BCE; Louvre CA 860. An ancient representation of epic characters, rather than portraits of historically established people

Translator

Samuel Butler

English writer and translator of Homer who lived from 1835 to 1902.

Samuel Butler’s self-portrait of 1878, held by St John’s College, Cambridge. A digital reproduction of a painting, rather than a photograph of the person

Researcher

Carolina López-Ruiz

Scholar of ancient Mediterranean religions, mythologies and exchange between Greek and Semitic traditions.

Swift Hall at the University of Chicago, photographed in 2023. University context associated with López-Ruiz’s work; not a portrait or a photograph of her office

Researcher

Sang Youl Cho

Researcher who studied the ranks and roles of heavenly beings in Ugarit and the Hebrew Bible.

New College courtyard, University of Edinburgh, photographed in 2017. Institutional context for Cho’s thesis, completed in 2007; neither a portrait nor a photograph from the thesis year

Researcher

Aaron Tugendhaft

Scholar of the ancient Near East and the relationship between religion, politics and the arts.

Deep Springs College and its valley in California, photographed in 2017. A view of an institution where Tugendhaft taught, rather than his portrait

Researcher

Bernardo Ballesteros

Scholar of early Greek poetry and its comparison with Mesopotamian and Near Eastern literature.

Vestibule dome in the University of Vienna’s main building, photographed in 2016. Institutional context associated with the scholar, rather than a portrait

Person

Philo of Byblos

Writer of about the first–second centuries CE and author of Phoenician History, distinct from Philo of Alexandria.

Modern view of the Byblos remains, Lebanon, 4 September 2008. Photograph by Vyacheslav Argenberg; context for Philo of Byblos’s name, not a portrait or identification of his library