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Kenite
According to the Hebrew Bible, the Kenites ( or ; he, ''Qēinī'') were a nomadic tribe in the ancient Levant. The Kenites were coppersmiths and metalworkers. According to some scholars, they are descendants of Cain, Harris, Stephen L., Understanding the Bible. Palo Alto: Mayfield. 1985. though the Bible does not give their origin. They played an important role in the history of ancient Israel, although the Kenites descended from Rechab maintained a distinct, nomadic lifestyle for some time. Kenite is a rendition of Hebrew קֵינִי ''Qeni''. According to Wilhelm Gesenius, the name is kabbalistically derived from the name Cain (קַיִן ''Qayin''). According to A. H. Sayce, the name ''Kenite'' or ''Qéní'', is identical to an Aramaic word meaning a smith, which in its turn is a cognate of Hebrew ''Qayin'', with the meaning ‘a lance’. According to the Kenite hypothesis, Yahweh was historically a Midian deity, and the association of Moses' father-in-law with Midian re ...
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Kenite Hypothesis
The Kenite hypothesis (also called the Midianite hypothesis) proposes that the origins of Yahweh, and by extension Yahwism, do not lie in Canaan as the Hebrew Bible describes, but instead originated in the area immediately south of the Levant, possibly extending far into the northwest Arabian Peninsula, on the east shore of the Gulf of Aqaba on the Red Sea, in the area the Tanakh calls "Midian". The theory states that Yahweh originally was a Midianite deity, who made his way up north to the proto-Israelites. History Friedrich Wilhelm Ghillany in 1862 was the first to propose that Yahweh had originally made his home in what was historically known as the kingdom of Edom (the area immediately south of the Dead Sea), citing for evidence numerous passages where the deity is described as coming from southern lands. A decade later, a similar theory was independently espoused by Cornelis Petrus Tiele, and more fully by Bernhard Stade (1887). The hypothesis in the form it currently take ...
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Yahweh
Yahweh *''Yahwe'', was the national god of ancient Israel and Judah. The origins of his worship reach at least to the early Iron Age, and likely to the Late Bronze Age if not somewhat earlier, and in the oldest biblical literature he possesses attributes typically ascribed to weather and war deities, fructifying the land and leading the heavenly army against Israel's enemies. The early Israelites were polytheistic and worshipped Yahweh alongside a variety of Canaanite gods and goddesses, including El, Asherah and Baal. In later centuries, El and Yahweh became conflated and El-linked epithets such as El Shaddai came to be applied to Yahweh alone, and other gods and goddesses such as Baal and Asherah were absorbed into Yahwist religion. Towards the end of the Babylonian captivity, the very existence of foreign gods was denied, and Yahweh was proclaimed as the creator of the cosmos and the one true God of all the world, giving birth to Judaism, which has 14–15 mill ...
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Jethro (Bible)
In the Hebrew Bible, Jethro (; , lit. "His Excellence/Posterity"; ar, يثرون, Yathʿron) was Moses' father-in-law, a Kenite shepherd and priest of Midian, Harris, Stephen L., Understanding the Bible. Palo Alto: Mayfield. 1985. sometimes named as Reuel (or Raguel). In Exodus, Moses' father-in-law is initially referred to as "Reuel" (Exodus 2:18) but afterwards as "Jethro" (Exodus 3:1). He was also identified as Hobab in the Book of Numbers 10:29. Some Muslim scholars and the Druze identify Jethro with the prophet Shuayb, also said to come from Midian. For the Druze, Shuayb is considered the most important prophet, and the ancestor of all Druze. In Exodus Jethro is called a priest of Midian and became father-in-law of Moses after he gave his daughter, Zipporah, in marriage to Moses. He is introduced in . Jethro is recorded as living in Midian, a territory stretching along the eastern edge of the Gulf of Aqaba, northwestern Arabia. Some believe Midian is within the Sina ...
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Jethro (biblical Figure)
In the Hebrew Bible, Jethro (; , lit. "His Excellence/Posterity"; ar, يثرون, Yathʿron) was Moses' father-in-law, a Kenite shepherd and priest of Midian, Harris, Stephen L., Understanding the Bible. Palo Alto: Mayfield. 1985. sometimes named as Reuel (or Raguel). In Exodus, Moses' father-in-law is initially referred to as "Reuel" (Exodus 2:18) but afterwards as "Jethro" (Exodus 3:1). He was also identified as Hobab in the Book of Numbers 10:29. Some Muslim scholars and the Druze identify Jethro with the prophet Shuayb, also said to come from Midian. For the Druze, Shuayb is considered the most important prophet, and the ancestor of all Druze. In Exodus Jethro is called a priest of Midian and became father-in-law of Moses after he gave his daughter, Zipporah, in marriage to Moses. He is introduced in . Jethro is recorded as living in Midian, a territory stretching along the eastern edge of the Gulf of Aqaba, northwestern Arabia. Some believe Midian is within the Sina ...
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Rechabites
The Rechabites () are a biblical clan, the descendants of Rechab through Jehonadab. Biblical sources The Rechabites belonged to the Kenites, who accompanied the Israelites into the Holy Land and dwelt among them. The main body of the Kenites dwelt in cities and adopted settled habits of life but Jehonadab forbade his descendants to drink wine or to live in cities. They were commanded to always lead a nomadic life. The Rechabites adhered to the law laid down by Jonadab, and were noted for their fidelity to the old established custom of their family in the days of Jeremiah; and this feature of their character is referred to by God for the purpose of giving point to his message to the King of Judah. As a reward for their fidelity, God proclaims that there will always be a descendant of Jonadab in his service. Claims of descent from the Rechabites The Mekhilta tells a story - presumably dating to the late Second Temple period - of Rechabites, known as "sons of water drinkers" due to ...
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Biblical Mount Sinai
Mount Sinai (, ''Har Sīnay'') is the mountain at which the Ten Commandments were given to Moses by God, according to the Book of Exodus in the Hebrew Bible. In the Book of Deuteronomy, these events are described as having transpired at Mount Horeb. "Sinai" and "Horeb" are generally considered by scholars to refer to the same place. The location of the Mount Sinai described in the Bible remains disputed. The high point of the dispute was in the mid-nineteenth century. Hebrew Bible texts describe the theophany at Mount Sinai in terms which a minority of scholars, following Charles Beke (1873), have suggested may literally describe the mountain as a volcano. Mount Sinai is one of the most sacred locations in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Biblical description The biblical account of the giving of the instructions and teachings of the Ten Commandments was given in the Book of Exodus, primarily between chapters 19–24, during which Sinai is mentioned by name twice, in . In ...
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Balaam
Balaam (; , Standard ''Bīlʿam'' Tiberian ''Bīlʿām'') is a diviner in the Torah (Pentateuch) whose story begins in Chapter 22 of the Book of Numbers (). Ancient references to Balaam consider him a non-Israelite, a prophet, and the son of Beor. King Balak of Moab offered him money to curse Israel (), but Balaam blessed the Israelites instead, as dictated by God. Nevertheless, he is reviled as a "wicked man" in both the Torah and the New Testament (). According to the Book of Revelation (), Balaam told King Balak how to get the Israelites to commit sin by enticing them with sexual immorality and food sacrificed to idols. The Israelites fell into transgression due to these traps and God sent a deadly plague to them as a result (). Balaam and Balak The main story of Balaam occurs during the sojourn of the Israelites in the plains of Moab, east of the Jordan River, at the close of forty years of wandering, shortly before the death of Moses and the crossing of the Jordan. The I ...
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Ancient Israel
The history of ancient Israel and Judah begins in the Southern Levant during the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. "Israel" as a people or tribal confederation (see Israelites) appears for the first time in the Merneptah Stele, an inscription from ancient Egypt that dates to about 1208 BCE. According to modern archaeology, ancient Israelite culture developed as an outgrowth from the Canaanites. Two related Israelite polities known as the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah had emerged in the region by Iron Age II. According to the Hebrew Bible, a "United Monarchy" (consisting of Israel and Judah) existed as early as the 11th century BCE, under the reigns of Saul, David, and Solomon; the country later would have split into two separate kingdoms: Israel (containing the cities of Shechem and Samaria) in the north and Judah (containing Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple) in the south. The historicity of the United Monarchy is debated as there are no archaeological remai ...
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Abraham
Abraham, ; ar, , , name=, group= (originally Abram) is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the special relationship between the Jews and God; in Christianity, he is the spiritual progenitor of all believers, whether Jewish or non-Jewish; and in Islam, he is a link in the chain of Islamic prophets that begins with Adam (see Adam in Islam) and culminates in Muhammad. His life, told in the narrative of the Book of Genesis, revolves around the themes of posterity and land. Abraham is called by God to leave the house of his father Terah and settle in the land of Canaan, which God now promises to Abraham and his progeny. This promise is subsequently inherited by Isaac, Abraham's son by his wife Sarah, while Isaac's half-brother Ishmael is also promised that he will be the founder of a great nation. Abraham purchases a tomb (the Cave of the Patriarchs) at Hebron to be S ...
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Midian
Midian (; he, מִדְיָן ''Mīḏyān'' ; ar, مَدْيَن, Madyan; grc-gre, Μαδιάμ, ''Madiam'') is a geographical place mentioned in the Hebrew Bible and Quran. William G. Dever states that biblical Midian was in the "northwest Arabian Peninsula, on the east shore of the Gulf of Aqaba on the Red Sea", an area which he notes was "never extensively settled until the 8th–7th century B.C." According to the Book of Genesis, the Midianites were the descendants of Midian, who was a son of Abraham and his wife Keturah: "Abraham took a wife, and her name was Keturah. And she bare him Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah" (Genesis 25:1–2, King James Version). Neither Midian's nor the Midianites' existence are attested in antiquity outside of Biblical sources. Land or tribal league? Some scholars have suggested that the name "Midian" does not refer to geographic places or to a specific tribe, but to a confederation or "league" of tribes br ...
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Mount Horeb
Mount Horeb (Hebrew: ''Har Ḥōrēḇ''; Greek in the Septuagint: ; Latin in the Vulgate: ') is the mountain at which the Ten Commandments were given to Moses by Yahweh, according to the Book of Deuteronomy in the Hebrew Bible. It is described in two places (the Book of Exodus and the Books of Kings) as the "Mountain of Elohim". The mountain is also called the Mountain of YHWH. In other biblical passages, these events are described as having transpired at Mount Sinai. Although most scholars consider Sinai and Horeb to have been different names for the same place, there is a minority body of opinion that they may have been different locations. The Protestant reformer John Calvin took the view that Sinai and Horeb were the same mountain, with the eastern side of the mountain being called Sinai and the western side being called Horeb. Abraham Ibn Ezra suggested that there was one mountain, "only it had two tops, which bore these different names". Locally, around Saint Catherine ...
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Arad, Israel
Arad ( he, עֲרָד ) is a city in the Southern District of Israel. It is located on the border of the Negev and the Judean Deserts, west of the Dead Sea and east of Beersheba. The city is home to a diverse population of , including Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews, both secular and religious, Bedouins and Black Hebrews, as well as new immigrants. After attempts to settle the area in the 1920s, Arad was founded in November 1962 as an Israeli development town, the first planned city in Israel. Arad's population grew significantly with the Aliyah from the former Soviet Union. Landmarks in Arad include the ruins of Tel Arad, Arad Park, a domestic airfield and Israel's first legal race circuit. The city is known for its annual summer music festival, the Arad Festival. History Antiquity Arad is named after the Biblical Bronze Age Canaanite town located at Tel Arad (a Biblical archaeology site famous for the discovery of ostraca), which is located approximately west of modern ...
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