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Person

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.

Entity

Ornias

A harmful spirit named in the Greek Testament of Solomon, whose capture begins the ring-and-Temple narrative.

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

Ancient text

Babylonian Talmud

A large rabbinic compilation in Hebrew and Aramaic, formed in Mesopotamia through stages; its final redaction remains debated.

A page from Daniel Bomberg's Babylonian Talmud, printed in Venice between 1525 and 1539, photographed by Warburg. This page is from Sukkah, not Gittin 68, and the edition postdates the Talmud's composition. Public domain

Entity

The shamir in the Talmudic story

A remarkable stone-cutting creature in Gittin 68's Temple-building story, not an identified archaeological tool.

Entity

Ashmedai

The 'king of demons' in the Babylonian Talmud's Gittin 68 story about Solomon and the shamir.

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

Site

Saba: the ancient South Arabian kingdom

An ancient South Arabian kingdom centered in present-day Yemen and prominent in the first millennium BCE; its attestation does not establish the Queen of Sheba's biography.

Copper-alloy votive plaque with a Sabaean dedicatory inscription, South Arabia, late first millennium BCE. A witness to Sabaean writing, not to the queen's identity. Met 1993.169; 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.

Site

Derbent

Caspian-coast city in Russia's Dagestan with Sasanian fortifications; its existence does not identify Dhul Qarnayn's barrier.

Derbent's northern city wall in Dagestan, photographed in 2018. It shows a real fortification, not proof of Gog and Magog's barrier

Site

Lydia

Ancient kingdom in western Anatolia with its capital at Sardis; neither a modern state nor a synonym for Magog.

Artemis temple remains at Sardis, ancient Lydia's capital. This temple postdates Gyges; the photograph locates the site rather than his reign

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.

Site

Aulis

Ancient place on the Boeotian coast near the Euripus Strait in Greece; setting of Iphigenia's Greek story and site of a fifth-century BCE Artemis temple.

Artemis sanctuary remains at Aulis, Greece; George E. Koronaios, 2021. Evidence for a cult site, not for Iphigenia's episode

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

Site

Tauris

Ancient Greek name for Taurian territory on the Black Sea, associated with today's Crimean peninsula; the setting of Euripides' Iphigenia play.

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

Zion

Name of a stronghold linked to David's city in 2 Samuel, later extended to Jerusalem and its religious centre; its referent changes across texts.

Modern excavations at the northern end of Jerusalem's eastern hill, photographed in 2011. Context for the city's history, not the site of Abraham's narrated sacrifice

Site

Moriah

The land named in Genesis 22 as Abraham's destination; 2 Chronicles later associates Mount Moriah with the Jerusalem Temple site, not an independently located journey.

Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem, photographed in 2013. 2 Chronicles associates Mount Moriah with the Temple site; this modern view illustrates that later association, not an independently located Genesis mountain

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