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A Aahmes See Ahmose I
In the Hebrew Bible and the Qur'an, Aaron who is often called "'Aaron the Priest"' and once Aaron the Levite (Exodus 4:14), was the older brother of Moses, (Exodus 6:16-20; Qur'an 28:34) and a prophet of God. He represented the priestly functions of his tribe, becoming the first High Priest of the Israelites. While Moses was receiving his education at the Egyptian royal court, and during his exile among the Midianites, Aaron and his sister Miriam remained with their kinsmen in the eastern border-land of Egypt (Goshen). There, Aaron gained a name for eloquent and persuasive speech, so that when the time came for the demand upon the Pharaoh to release Israel from captivity, Aaron became his brother’s nabi, or spokesman, to his own people (Exodus 7:1) and, after their unwillingness to hear, to the Pharaoh himself (Exodus 7:9). Various dates for his life have been proposed, ranging from approximately 1600 to 1200 BC. Aaron was the son of Jochebed and Amram of the tribe of Levi, brother of Moses and Miriam, forebear and founder of the Israelite priesthood. Because Moses stuttered, Aaron served as a spokesman before both the Pharaoh and the Israelites. Aaron was empowered by God to cast his staff to the ground where it turned into a serpent before Pharaoh's eyes. Several of the ten plagues were instigated by Aaron wielding the staff. Aaron's position was officially established when God ordered Moses to consecrate him and his sons as priests. Aaron and his sons, Eleazar and Ithamar, officiated at Moses' side.
Like Moses,
Aaron was not allowed to enter the promised land. Aaron
died on Mount Hor, at age 123, near the Edom border, and his son,
Eleazar, became the priest. In the New Testament, Aaron
is seen as the imperfect priest when contrasted with the perfect
priesthood of Jesus (Hebrews 5:7,11).
Descended from Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob one of the seven eunuchs in Ahasuerus's court (Esther 1:10;2:21). Abagtha was a court official (likely a eunuch) of King Ahasuerus. He is mentioned once in the Book of Esther (Esther 1:10). According to this narrative, he and six other officials suggested that Queen Vashti parade before the king and his ministers in the crown jewels. Her refusal led to her demise and the selection of Esther as the new queen of the Persian Empire.
The Hebrew word (saris), translated eunuch, can mean a
general court official, not only a castrated man. Since Abagtha
and the other six officials are spoken of as attending to the king,
not to royal women, it is possible that he was not a eunuch in the
technical sense. Meaning: servant, worshiper. This was the name of two biblical men: 1. The father of Adoniram, who Solomon put in charge of the tribute (1 Kings 4:6); i.e., the forced labor.
2. A Levite
of the family of Jeduthun (Neh. 11:17), also called Obadiah (1 Chr. 9:16). ("servant of God")
Father of Shelemiah,
one of the three men sent by King Jehoiakim
to seize the prophet Jeremiah and
his scribe Baruch. Abdias may refer to:
See Obadiah
Also unknown is whether he was part of a dynasty that
governed Jerusalem or whether he was put on the throne by the
Egyptians. Abdi-Heba himself notes that he holds his position not
through his parental lineage but by the grace of Pharaoh, but this
might be flattery rather than an accurate representation of the
situation. At this time the area he administered from his garrison
may have had a population of fifteen hundred people and Jerusalem
would have been a 'small highlands stronghold' in the fourteenth
century BC with no fortifications or large buildings. Correspondence with Egypt During Abdi-Heba's reign the region was under attack from marauding bands of Apiru. Abdi-Heba made frequent pleas to the Pharaoh of Egypt (probably Amenhotep III), for an army or, at least, an officer to command. Abdi-Heba also made other requests for military aid in fighting off his enemies, both Canaanite warlords and bands of Apiru: Say to the king, my lord: Message of Abdi-Heba, your servant. I fall at the feet of my lord 7 times and 7 times. Consider the entire affair. Milkilu and Tagi brought troops into Qiltu against me... ...May the king know (that) all the lands are at peace (with one another), but I am at war. May the king provide for his land. Consider the lands of Gazru, Ašqaluna, and Lakisi. They have given them [my enemies] food, oil and any other requirement. So may the king provide for archers and send the archers against men that commit crimes against the king, my lord. If this year there are archers, then the lands and the hazzanu (client kings) will belong to the king, my lord. But if there are no archers, then the king will have neither lands nor hazzanu. Consider Jerusalem! This neither my father nor my mother gave to me. The strong hand (arm) of the king gave it to me. Consider the deed! This is the deed of Milkilu and the deed of the sons of Lab'ayu, who have given the land of the king to the 'Apiru. Consider, O king, my lord! I am in the right!.... EA 287. As a result, conspiracy charges are made against Abdi Heba, who defended himself strenuously in his correspondence with Pharaoh. In later years Abdi-Heba appears to have reconciled with the Apiru, or at least certain bands of them, and hired mercenaries from among their ranks. Indeed, though he earlier complained about the depredations of Labaya, Shuwardata, king of the Canaanite town of Keilah as well as other places in the Judean highlands, refers to him as a "new Labaya": Say to the king, my lord, my god, my Sun: Message of Shuwardata, your servant, the dirt at your feet. I fall at the feet of the king, my lord, my god, my Sun, 7 times and 7 times. The king, my lord, permitted me to wage war against Qeltu (Keilah). I waged war. It is now at peace with me; my city is restored to me. Why did Abdi-Heba write to the men of Qeltu, "Accept silver and follow me?"... Moreover, Labaya, who used to take our towns, is dead, but now another Labaya is Abdi-Heba, and he seizes our town. So, may the king take cognizance of his servant because of this deed... EA 280.
Abdi-Heba's ultimate fate is unknown. List of Abdi-Heba's 6 letters to Pharaoh Abdi-Heba was the author of letters EA 285-290.
1. EA
285—title: "The soldier-ruler of Jerusalem" ("service" "servile" )
Abdon is the name of 4 men and one
town found in the Bible . . .
a city; mourning, vanity; breath; transitoriness Abel was the second son of Adam and Eve, and who was murdered by his brother Cain.
Abel was a shepherd and Cain was a farmer. They both made an offering to the Lord from the fruits of their labor. The Lord expressed favor toward Abel's offering, but rejected Cain's. In a fit of jealousy, Cain killed his brother (Genesis 4:2-8). In the New Testament, Abel is called righteous (Matthew 23:35), and is named by Jesus as a just and innocent man who suffers and is killed (Luke 11:51). Abel's sacrifice is judged greater than Cain's because of his faith, and this faith speaks beyond the grave (Hebrew 11:4). The Qur'an mentions the story, calling them the two sons of Adam only.
In the Greek New Testament, Cain
is referred to as In all versions, Cain is a crop farmer and his younger brother Abel is a shepherd. Cain is portrayed as sinful, committing the first murder by killing his brother, after God has rejected his offerings of produce but accepted the animal sacrifices brought by Abel.
The oldest known copy of the
Biblical narration is from the 1st century Dead Sea Scrolls. Cain and Abel
also appear in a number of other texts, and the story is the subject
of various interpretations. Abel,
the first murder victim, is sometimes seen as the first martyr;
while Cain, the first murderer, is sometimes seen as an ancestor of
evil. A few scholars suggest the pericope may have been based on a
Sumerian story representing the conflict between nomadic shepherds
and settled farmers. Others think that it may refer to the days in
which agriculture began to replace the ways of the hunter-gatherer. Meaning: father of gathering; the gatherer “my father has gathered” or “harvested.” A levitical priest in the line of Korah (Exodus 6:24). This was the name of the youngest of the three sons of Korah the Levite according to Exodus 6:24, head of a family of Korhites (Ex. 6:24); called Ebisaph (1 Chr. 6:37). Born in Egypt.
Ebiasaph is a spelling variation
of Abiasaph. The name Abiathar means "father of abundance." Abiathar was one of two chief priests in the court of King David, about 3000 years ago in Israel. Abiathar was the son of Ahimelech of the priestly clan of Eli from Shiloh (1 Samuel 22:20). When the residents of the priestly village of Nob were massacred by King Saul for helping David, Abiathar was the only one to escape. When David eventually became king, he appointed Abiathar, along with Zardok, as priests of the royal court (2 Samuel 8:17). Abiathar and Zardok carried the Ark of the Covenant out of the capitol city, when David was forced to leave Jerusalem, because of Absalom's rebellion - but later returned it. Both priests remained in Jerusalem to inform David of Absalom's plans (2 Samuel 15:34). After Absalom's death, Abiathar and Zardok carried the message of reconciliation to Amasa and the elders of Judah. (2 Samuel 19:11-14). During the struggle over who would succeed David as king, Abiathar supported Adonijah. When Solomon emerged as the new ruler, Zardok was appointed priest of the royal court, while Abiathar escaped execution only because of his earlier loyalty to David.
Abiathar and his family were banished to
Anathoth, and his rights and privileges as a Jerusalem priest were
taken away (1 Kings 1:7-25; 1 Kings 2:22-35). This Abigail had been the wife of Nabal the Calebite, a wealthy man who was surly in his dealings with other people. David sent servants to Nabal to request assistance for David and his men, who were hiding from King Saul. But Nabal refused to provide any. When Abigail found out about the refusal, she rounded up a large quantity of bread, figs, wine and other supplies and brought them to David and his men.
Nabal died a short time later, after finding out that Abigail
had helped David and his men. David later married Abigail. (Hebrew: Abhihu ; "He (Yahweh) is my father") or “my father is he.” This was the name of the second of the sons of Aaron (Ex. 6:23; Num. 3:2; 26:60; 1 Chr. 6:3). Along with his three brothers he was consecrated to the priest's office; one of Israel's first priests (Exodus 6:23; Exodus 28:1). With his father and elder brother he accompanied the seventy elders part of the way up the mount with Moses (Exodus 24:1, 9). On one occasion, he and Nadab his brother offered incense in their censers filled with “strange” (i.e., common) fire, i.e., not with fire taken from the great brazen altar (Lev. 6:9, etc.), and for this offense they were struck dead, and were taken out and buried without the camp (Lev. 10:1-11; compare Num. 3:4; 26:61; 1 Chr. 24:2). The exact nature of their sin is not known. They simply did what God had not commanded. Perhaps they offered sacrifice at the wrong time or with coals or materials not properly sanctified. Compare Leviticus 16:12. The result is clear. God's fire consumed them. It is probable that when they committed this offense they were intoxicated, for immediately after is given the law prohibiting the use of wine or strong drink to the priests.
See
Nadab and Abihu
House of David
Regnal titles
His mother's name was Maacah, or Micaiah, the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah, and the granddaughter of the infamous Absalom (Abishalom). Abijah married fourteen wives, and had 22 sons and 16 daughters. A more complete biography than that of the Hebrew Bible of Abijah was written by Iddo the Seer. A reference to the account is made in 2 Chronicles 13:22, but the work itself has been lost. Abijah was buried beside his ancestors in Jerusalem. He was succeeded by his son, Asa. According to 2 Chronicles 13:1-2, Abijah became king of Judah in the 18th year of the reign of Jeroboam, and reigned for three years. William F. Albright has dated his reign to 915 – 913 BC. E. R. Thiele offers the dates 914/913 – 911/910 BC. As explained in the Rehoboam article, Thiele's chronology for the first kings of Judah contained an internal inconsistency that later scholars corrected by dating these kings one year earlier, so that Abijah's dates are taken as 915/914 to 912/911 BC in the present article.
The calendars for reckoning the
years of kings in Judah and Israel were offset by six months, that of
Judah starting in Tishri (in the fall) and that of Israel in Nisan
(in the spring). Cross-synchronizations between the two kingdoms
therefore often allow narrowing of the beginning and/or ending dates
of a king to within a six-month range. For Abijam, the Scriptural
data allow the narrowing of his accession to some time between 1
Nisan 914 BC and the day before 1 Tishri of that year. For
calculation purposes, this should be taken as the Judean year
beginning in Tishri of 915/914 BC, or more simply 915 BC. His death
occurred at some time between 1 Tishri 912 BC and 1 Nisan 911 BC,
i.e. in 912 (912/911) BC. These dates are one year earlier than those
given in the third edition of Thiele's Mysterious Numbers of the
Hebrew Kings, thereby correcting an internal consistency that Thiele
never resolved, as explained in the Rehoboam article. ("my father is God", or "God is father")
Ancestor of the Israelites as a
descendant of Shem and Eber through Arphaxad. He was the son of
Joktan (Gen 10:22-28; I Chr 1:17-22). meaning, “My father is king.” (also spelled Abimelek or Avimelech; ) was a common name of the Philistine kings. Abimelech was most prominently the name of a king of Gerar who is mentioned in two of the three wife-sister narratives in Genesis. The Haggada identifies them as separate people, the second being the first Abimelech's son, and that his original name was Benmelech ("son of the King") but changed his name to his father's. At the time of Abimelech, there was an Egyptian governor of Tyre named Abimilki. They could possibly be the same person. Abimilki's name appears on the Amarna tablets.
Abimelech found throughout The Bible:
also suggested names: Abraham Ibn Tarikh, Ibn Nahur, Ibn Sarough, Ibn Raghu, Ibn Phaligh, Ibn Aher, Ibn Shalih, Ibn Arfghshand, Ibn Sam, Ibn Noah Meaning of “Abraham”: father of a multitude.
This was the name of the son of Terah, named (Gen. 11:27) before his older brothers Nahor and Haran, because he was the heir of the promises of God. He was originally named, Abram. Abraham, whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam. According to both the Hebrew Bible and the Qur'an, through his sons Ishmael and Isaac, Abraham is the forefather of many tribes, including the Ishmaelites, Israelites, Midianites and Edomites. Abraham was a descendant of Noah's son, Shem. Christians believe that Jesus was a descendant of Abraham through Issac, and Muslims believe that Muhammad was also descendant of Abraham through Ishmael. The Book of Genesis narrative that records the life of Abraham presents his role as one that could only be fulfilled through a monotheistic covenant established between him and God. The Qur'an has stories about Abraham and his offspring that are similar to the Bible's. In Islam, Abraham is recognised as a prophet, patriarch and messenger, archetype of the perfect Muslim, and reformer of the Kaaba. The patriarch of the Hebrew people. Abraham is traditionally called “Father Abraham” because the Israelite people and their religion descend from him. God establishes his covenant, or promise, with Abraham, and God develops an ongoing relationship with the Israelites through Abraham’s descendants. Abraham practices the monotheistic worship of God, and his resilient faith in God, despite many challenges, sets the pattern for the Israelite religion’s view of righteousness. For many years, Abram lived among his relatives in his native country of Chaldea (Genesis 11:31). Then, with his father, family and household, he left the city of Ur, where he lived. He traveled 300 miles north to Haran and lived there for fifteen years. The cause of his migration was a call from God (Acts 7:2-4). There is no mention of this first call in the Old Testament; it is implied, however, in Gen. 12. While they lived at Haran, Terah died at the age of 205 years. Abram now received a second and more definite call, accompanied by a promise from God (Gen. 12:1-2). As a result, he left at the age of 75 (Gen. 12:4), taking his nephew Lot with him, not knowing where he was going (Hebrews 11:8). He trusted God implicitly. Abram now, with a large household of probably a thousand souls, began a migratory life, and lived in tents. Passing along the valley of the Jabbok, in the land of Canaan, he formed his first encampment at Sichem (Gen. 12:6), in the valley or oak-grove of Moreh, between Ebal on the north and Gerizim on the south. Here he received the great promise, “I will make of thee a great nation,” etc. (Gen. 12:2-3, 7). This promise brought not only temporal but also spiritual blessings. It implied that he was the chosen ancestor of the great Deliverer whose coming had been long ago predicted (Gen. 3:15). Soon after this, for some reason not mentioned, he removed his tent to the mountain district between Bethel, then called Luz, and Ai, towns about two miles apart, where he built an altar to “Jehovah.” He again moved into the southern tract of Palestine, called by the Hebrews the Negeb (Negev). Due to a later famine he was compelled to go down into Egypt. This took place in the time of the Hyksos, a Semitic race which now held the Egyptians in bondage. Here took place Abram's deception which exposed him to the rebuke of Pharaoh (Gen. 12:18). Sarai was restored to him; and Pharaoh loaded him with presents, recommending that he leave the country. Abram returned to Canaan richer than when he left it, “in cattle, in silver, and in gold” (Gen. 12:8; 13:2. Compare Ps. 105:13-14). The whole group then moved northward, and returned to their previous location near Bethel. Here disputes arose between Lot's shepherds and those of Abram about water and pasturage. Abram generously gave Lot his choice of the pasture-ground. (Compare 1 Cor. 6:7.) He chose the well-watered plain where Sodom was located. Thus the uncle and nephew were separated. Immediately after this, Abram was cheered by a repetition of the promises already made to him. He then moved to the plain or “oak-grove” of Mamre, which is in Hebron. He finally settled here, pitching his tent under a famous oak or terebinth tree, called “the oak of Mamre” (Gen. 13:18). This was his third resting-place in the land. According to Jewish belief, Abraham was the first Jew, the founder of Judaism, the physical and spiritual ancestor of the Jewish people. One of the three Patriarchs of Judaism.
Was Pharaoh Amenemhet I
the biblical Abraham? Abraham's Family Tree
Abram (ay' bruhm) Personal name meaning, “father is exalted.” The name of Abraham (“father of a multitude”) in Genesis 11:26-17:4.
See Abraham Personal name meaning “adornment, ornament or dawn.” There are 2 Adah's found in The Bible:
Adah, the first wife of Esau, the daughter of Elon the Hittite. It has been suggested by biblical scholars that she is the same person as "Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite"mentioned as a wife of Esau in Genesis 26. She bore Esau's firstborn Eliphaz, and became the matriarch of the Edomites. (Genesis 26:34,36:2-4)
The Order of
the Eastern Star considers Adah also to be the name of the
daughter of Jephthah, although the Bible does not name her. Adam is a city and a character in The Bible . . . Adam (dust; man; mankind), was created by God on the sixth day of creation. God gave him dominion over all living things. God formed Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed life into him. God then placed Adam in the Garden of Eden. Then God gave Adam a partner by creating Eve. Eve was later persuaded by a serpent to eat fruit from the tree of "knowledge of good and evil", the tree that God had warned Adam and Eve not to eat from. Eve gave some of the fruit to Adam. Because of this, God expelled Adam and Eve from Eden. Adam then had to till the ground and labor for his food. Adam and Eve's children included Cain, Abel and Seth, and other sons and daughters. In 1 Chronicles 1:1, Adam, Sheth, Enosh . . these verses contain a line of genealogical descents, ten in number, from Adam to Noah, adding mention of the three sons of the latter. The stride from Adam to Seth, and the genealogy's entire obliviousness of Cain and Abel, are full of suggestion. All of these thirteen names in the Hebrew and in the Septuagint Version, though not those in the Authorized Version, are facsimiles of those which occur in Genesis 5. They are not accompanied, however, here, as they are there, by any chronological attempt. Adam lived for 932 years. In the New Testament, Adam is compared to Christ: Just as Adam had brought sin and death into the world, Christ brings forgiveness and life. Paul writes, in Romans 5:12, that "when Adam sinned, sin entered the entire human race. His sin spread death throughout all the world, so everything began to grow old and die, for all sinned." Adam lived to be 930 years and then died. (Genesis 5:5 ) The story of Adam is found in Genesis, chapters 1-5. According to Jewish sources, Adam was the first to choose the Cave of the Machpelah as his burial place “under and inside of the cave.” The Midrash reports:
See also:
See also:
A Hebrew word signifying "the Lord"and used by Jews when speaking or writing of "YHWH,"or Yahweh, the ineffable name of God. The Jews entertained the deepest awe for this incommunicable and mysterious name, and this feeling led them to avoid pronouncing it and to substitute the word Adonai for "Jehovah"in their sacred text. The ancients attributed great power to names; to know and pronounce someone's name was to have power over them. Obviously one could not, like the Pagans, suggest that mere creatures had power over God.
This custom in Jewish prayers still prevails,
especially among Hasidic Jews, who follow the Kabala and believe that
the Holy Name of God, associated with miraculous powers, should not
be profaned. Yahweh is their invisible protector and king, and no
image of him is made. He is worshiped according to his commandments,
with an observance of the ritual instituted through Moses.
The term "YHWH"means the revealed Absolute Deity, the
Manifest, Only, Personal, Holy Creator and Redeemer. also referred to as Cybele or Angdistis Agdistis was a deity of Greek, Roman and Anatolian mythology, possessing both male and female sexual organs, connected with the Phrygian worship of Attis and Cybele. Her androgyny was seen as symbolic of a wild and uncontrollable nature. It was this trait which was threatening to the gods and ultimately led to her destruction. In mythology, According to Pausanias, on one occasion Zeus unwittingly begot by the Earth a superhuman being which was at once man and woman, and was called Agdistis. In other versions, there was a rock, called "Agdo", on which the Great Mother slept. Zeus impregnated the Great Mother (Gaia), which brought forth Agdistis. The gods were afraid of the multi-gendered Agdistis. One deity (in some versions Liber, in others Dionysus) put a sleeping draught in Agdistis's drinking well. After the potion had put Agdistis to sleep, Dionysus tied Agdistis's foot to his own male genitalia with a strong rope. When Agdistis awoke and stood, Agdistis ripped his penis off, castrating himself. The blood from his severed genitals fertilized the earth, and from that spot grew an almond tree. Once when Nana, daughter of the river-god Sangarius, was gathering the fruit of this tree, she put some almonds (or, in some accounts, a pomegranate) into her bosom; but here the almonds disappeared, and she became pregnant with Attis. In some versions, Attis was born directly out of the almond. Attis was of such extraordinary beauty that when he had grown up Agdistis fell in love with him. His relatives, however, destined him to become the husband of the daughter of the king of Pessinus, and he went accordingly. In some versions, the king betroths Attis to his daughter to punish Attis for his incestuous relationship with his mother. At the moment when the marriage song had commenced, Agdistis appeared, and all of the wedding guests were instantly driven mad, causing both Attis and the king of Pessinus to castrate themselves and the bride to cut off her breasts. Agdistis now repented her deed, and obtained from Zeus the promise that the body of Attis should not become decomposed or disappear. This is the most popular account of an otherwise mysterious affair, which is probably part of a symbolical worship of the creative powers of nature. A hill of the name of Agdistis in Phrygia, at the foot of which Attis was believed to be buried, is also mentioned by Pausanias. A story somewhat different is given by Arnobius, in which Attis is beloved by both Agdistis and Cybele. According to Hesychius and Strabo, Agdistis is the same as Cybele, who was worshiped at Pessinus under that name. In many ancient inscriptions, Agdistis is clearly distinct from Cybele, but in many others she is listed as merely an epithet of Cybele. Although primarily an Anatolian goddess, the cult of Agdistis covered a good deal of territory. By 250 BC it had spread to Egypt, and later to Attica: notably it could be found in Piraeus as early as the 3rd or 4th century BC, Rhamnus around 80 BC (where there was a sanctuary of Agdistis), and Lesbos and Panticapeum some time later on. Inscriptions honoring her have been found at Mithymna and Paros. In the 1st century BC, her shrine in Philadelphia in Asia Minor required a strict code of behavior. At that location and others she is found with theoi soteres. Inscriptions found at Sardis from the 4th century BC indicate that priests of Zeus were not permitted to take part in the mysteries of Agdistis.
Scholars have theorized that Agdistis is part of a
continuum of androgynous Anatolian deities, including an ancient
Phrygian deity probably named "Andistis" and one called
"Adamma", stretching all the way back to the ancient
kingdom of Kizzuwatna in the 2nd millennium BC. There is also some
epigraphic evidence that in places Agdistis was considered a healing
goddess of wholly benevolent nature. Considering Mahlat and Agrat as proper names and bat as "daughter of" (Hebrew), Agrat bat Mahlat means 'Agrat daughter of Mahlat'. Sometimes Agrat is used alone, or with variations (Agrath, Igrat, Iggeret). Iggeret means in Hebrew 'letter or missive' while 'agrah' means 'reward'. Mahlat may be from the word "mahalah" meaning sickness. Agrat bat Mahlat In Ancient Texts In Zoharistic Kabbalah, she is a queen of the demons and one of four angels of sacred prostitution, who mates with archangel Samael. Her fellow succubi are Lilith, Naamah, and Eisheth. In the Rabbinic literature of Yalk.ut. H.adash, on the eves of Wednesday and of the Sabbath, she is "the dancing roof-demon" who haunts the air with her chariot and her train of eighteen myriads of messengers of destruction. She dances while Lilith howls. She is also "the mistress of the sorceresses" who communicated magic secrets to Amemar, a Jewish sage. According to the Kabbalah and the school of Rashba, Agrat bat Mahlat mated with King David and bore a cambion son Asmodeus, king of demons. The spiritual intervention of Hanina ben Dosa and Rabbi Abaye curbed her malevolent powers over humans.
Some authors, such as Donald Tyson, refer to them as
manifestations of Lilith. "Brother of the father" Ahab was the seventh king of Israel since Jeroboam I, the son and successor of Omri, and the husband of Jezebel of Sidon, according to the Hebrew Bible. Ahab became king of Israel in the thirty-eighth year of Asa, king of Judah, and reigned for twenty-two years. William F. Albright dated his reign to 869–850 BC, while E. R. Thiele offered the dates 874–853 BC. Michael D. Coogan dates his reign to 871–852 BC. The infamy of Ahab rests upon Kings 16:33: "And Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Isreal to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him". During Ahab's reign, Moab, which had been conquered by his father, remained tributary; while Judah, with whose king, Jehoshaphat, he was allied by marriage, was probably his vassal. Only with Aram Damascus is he believed to have had strained relations. Ahab and The Battle of Qarqar The Battle of Qarqar is mentioned in extra-biblical records, and was perhaps at Apamea where Shalmaneser III of Assyria fought a great confederation of princes from Cilicia, Northern Syria, Israel, Ammon, and the tribes of the Syrian desert (853 BC), including Ahab (A-ha-ab-bu mat) (Adad-'idri).
Ahab's contribution was reckoned at 2,000 chariots and
10,000 men. In reality, however, the number of chariots in Ahab's
forces was probably closer to number in the hundreds (this due to
archaeological excavations of the area and the foundations of stables
that had been found). If, however, the numbers are referring to
allies it could possibly include forces from Tyre, Judah, Edom, and
Moab. The Assyrian king claimed a victory, but his immediate return
and subsequent expeditions in 849 BC and 846 BC against a similar but
unspecified coalition seem to show that he met with no lasting
success. According to the Tanakh, however, Ahab with 7,000 troops had
previously overthrown Ben-hadad and his thirty-two kings, who had
come to lay siege to Samaria, and in the following year obtained a
decisive victory over him at Aphek, probably in the plain of Sharon
at Antipatris (1 Kings 20). A treaty was made whereby Ben-hadad
restored the cities which his father had taken from Ahab's father
(that is, Omri, but see 15:20, 2 Kings 13:25), and trading facilities
between Damascus and Samaria were granted.
Ahaz
Regnal titles Ahaz was king of Judah, and the son and successor of Jotham. He is one of the kings mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew.
Ahaz was twenty when he became king of Judah and
reigned for sixteen years. His reign commenced in the seventeenth
year of the reign of Pekah of Israel. Edwin Thiele concluded that
Ahaz was coregent with Jotham from 736/735 BC, and that his sole
reign began in 732/731 and ended in 716/715 BC. William F. Albright
has dated his reign to 744 – 728 (16 years) BC. Ahaziah was the name of two kings:
Ahaziah of Israel Not to be confused with King Ahaziah of Judah Ahaziah or Ochozias (Israel, ca. 870 BC — ca. 850 BC) was king of Israel and the son of Ahab and Jezebel. William F. Albright has dated his reign to 850-849 BC, while E. R. Thiele offers the dates 853-852 BC. The author of the Books of Kings criticized him for following the ways of his father Ahab. Reign of Ahaziah of Israel During his reign the Moabites revolted against his authority (2 Kings 3:5-7). This event is recorded on the Mesha stele, an extensive inscription written in the Moabite language. He hoped to increase the wealth of Israel by taking part, with Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, in the Red Sea traffic with the land of Ophir. Jehoshaphat declined the partnership.
His messengers, sent to consult the god of Ekron
regarding his recovery from the effects of a fall from the
roof-gallery of his palace, were met on the way by Elijah, who sent
them back to tell the king that he would never rise from his bed (1
Kings 22:51; 2 Kings 1:18). Not to be confused with King Ahaziah of Israel
King of Judah Ahaziah of Judah was king of Judah, and the son of Jehoram and Athaliah, the daughter (or possibly sister) of king Ahab of Israel. He is also called Jehoahaz (2 Chronicles 21:17; 25:23). Born in Jerusalem, Kingdom of Judah.
According to 2
Chronicles 22:2, Ahaziah was 42 years old when his reign began,
while 2 Kings 8:26 gives his age as
22 years. Most scholars regard the 42 years in 2
Chronicles 22:2 as a copyist's error for an original 22 years.
The age of 22 is also found in some Greek and Syrian manuscripts of 2
Chronicles 22:2. According to the biblical sources, he reigned
for only one year. William F. Albright has dated his reign to 842 BC,
while E. R. Thiele offers the date 841/840 BC. As explained in the
Rehoboam article, Thiele's chronology for the first kings of Judah
contained an internal inconsistency that placed Ahaziah's reign one
year after his mother Athaliah usurped the throne. Later scholars
corrected this by dating these kings one year earlier, so that
Ahaziah's dates are taken as one year earlier than Thiele's in the
present article. The Hebrew Bible records two of his prophecies; 1 Kings 11:31-39, announcing the rending of the ten tribes from Solomon and 1 Kings 14:6-16, delivered to Jeroboam's wife, foretelling the death of the king's son, the destruction of Jeroboam's house, and the captivity of Israel "beyond the river."
According to 2 Chronicles, Ahijah also authored a
book, described as Prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite which contained
information about Solomon's reign. This text, however, has not
survived and is one of the lost texts mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.
Rabbinic tradition credits Ahijah with having lived a very long life,
linking his life-span with that of antediluvian patriarchs such as
Methuselah and Noah.
Ahisamach or Ahisamakh, also Ahis'amach, of the tribe
of Dan, was the father of Aholiab
according to Exodus 31:6, Exodus
35:34, and Exodus 38:23.
Reign: 1550–1525 BC (disputed) 25
years in Manetho, 18th Dynasty
Father: Tao II Seqenenre Ahmose I was a pharaoh of ancient Egypt and the founder of the Eighteenth dynasty. He was a member of the Theban royal house, the son of pharaoh Tao II Seqenenre and brother of the last pharaoh of the Seventeenth dynasty, King Kamose. During the reign of his father or grandfather, Thebes rebelled against the Hyksos, the rulers of Lower Egypt. When he was seven his father was killed, and he was about ten when his brother died of unknown causes, after reigning only three years. Ahmose I assumed the throne after the death of his brother, and upon coronation became known as Neb-Pehty-Re (The Lord of Strength is Re). During his reign, he completed the conquest and expulsion of the Hyksos from the delta region, restored Theban rule over the whole of Egypt and successfully reasserted Egyptian power in its formerly subject territories of Nubia and Canaan. He then reorganized the administration of the country, reopened quarries, mines and trade routes and began massive construction projects of a type that had not been undertaken since the time of the Middle Kingdom. This building program culminated in the construction of the last pyramid built by native Egyptian rulers. Ahmose's reign laid the foundations for the New Kingdom, under which Egyptian power reached its peak. His reign is usually dated to about 1550–1525 BC. Ahmose descended from the Theban Seventeenth Dynasty. His grandfather and grandmother, Tao I and Tetisheri, had at least twelve children, including Tao II and Ahhotep. The brother and sister, according to the tradition of Egyptian queens, married; their children were Kamose, Ahmose I and several daughters. Ahmose I followed in the tradition of his father and married several of his sisters, making Ahmose-Nefertari his chief wife. They had several children including daughters Meritamun B, Sitamun A and sons Siamun A, Ahmose-ankh, Amenhotep I and Ramose A (the "A" and "B" designations after the names are a convention used by Egyptologists to distinguish between royal children and wives that otherwise have the same name). They may also have been the parents of Mutnofret, who would become the wife of later successor Thutmose I. Ahmose-ankh was Ahmose's heir apparent, but he preceded his father in death sometime between Ahmose's 17th and 22nd regnal year. Ahmose was succeeded instead by his eldest surviving son, Amenhotep I, with whom he might have shared a short coregency. There was no distinct break in the line of the royal family between the 17th and 18th dynasties. The historian Manetho, writing much later during the Ptolemaic dynasty, considered the final expulsion of the Hyksos after nearly a century and the restoration of native Egyptian rule over the whole country a significant enough event to warrant the start of a new dynasty. Ahmose's reign can be fairly accurately dated using the Heliacal rise of Sirius in his successor's reign, but because of disputes over from where the observation was made, he has been assigned a reign from 1570–1546, 1560–1537 and 1551–1527 by various sources. Manetho gives Ahmose a reign of 25 years and 4 months; this figure is supported by a ‘Year 22’ inscription from his reign at the stone quarries of Tura. A medical examination of his mummy indicates that he died when he was about thirty-five, supporting a 25-year reign if he came to the throne at the age of 10. The radiocarbon date range for the start of his reign is 1570-1544 BC, the mean point of which is 1557 BC.
Alternative dates for his reign (1194 to 1170 BC) were
suggested by David Rohl, but these
were rejected by the majority of Egyptologists even before the
radiocarbon date was published in 2010.
In the Hebrew Bible, Aholiab son of Ahisamakh, of the
tribe of Dan, worked under Bezalel as the deputy architect of the
Tabernacle and the implements which it housed. He is described in
Exodus 38:23 as a master of carpentry, weaving, and embroidery. (Ex.
31:6; 35:34; 36:1-2; 38:23)
Ahuramazda See Ahura
Mazda
Ahura Mazda first appeared in the
Achaemenid period under Darius I's Behistun Inscription. Until
Artaxerxes II, Ahura Mazda was worshiped and invoked alone. With
Artaxerxes II, Ahura Mazda was invoked in a triad, with Mithra and
Apam Napat. In the Achaemenid period, there are no representations of
Ahura Mazda other than the custom for every emperor to have an empty
chariot drawn by white horses, to invite Ahura Mazda to accompany the
Persian army on battles. Images of Ahura Mazda began in the Parthian
period, but were stopped and replaced with stone carved figures in
the Sassanid period. Aion may refer to: Aeon Greek "time, eternity; age", see Aeon
Significance of Aion (deity) Aion was of major importance in late antiquity when Hellenistic religion underwent a syncretistic phase with various deities converging on a single supreme God. Aion, identified with Eros in mythology, became recognized as the supreme God of Hellenistic religion and philosophy, existing above all Gods of the pantheon and the empire. Aion (deity) and Hellenistic Theology Aion, also called Aeon is identified as the Logos in Hermetism, GRS Mead confirms that there is no distinction between the Logos and God. "...if the Logos or Æon is momentarily treated of as apart from Supreme Deity, it is not so in reality; for the Logos is the Season of God, God in His eternal Energy, and the Æon is the Eternity of Deity, God in His energic Eternity, the Rest that is the Source of all Motion." Aion (deity) / Iconography and Symbolism Aion is usually identified as the nude or seminude youth within a circle representing the zodiac, or eternal and cyclical time. Examples include two Roman mosaics from Sentinum (modern–day Sassoferrato) and Hippo Regius in Roman Africa, and the Parabiago plate. But because he represents time as a cycle, he may also be imagined as an old man. In the Dionysiaca, Nonnus associates Aion with the Horae and says that he: changes the burden of old age like a snake who sloughs off the coils of the useless old scales, rejuvenescing while washing in the swells of the laws [of time]. Drawing of the leontocephaline found at the mithraeum of C. Valerius Heracles and sons, dedicated 190 AD at Ostia Antica, Italy (CIMRM 312) Detail from the Parabiago plate depicting Aion; Tellus (not shown) appears at the bottom of the plate, which centers on the chariot of Cybele The imagery of the twining serpent is connected to the hoop or wheel through the ouroboros, a ring formed by a snake holding the tip of its tail in its mouth. The 4th-century AD Latin commentator Servius notes that the image of a snake biting its tail represents the cyclical nature of the year. In his 5th-century work on hieroglyphics, Horapollo makes a further distinction between a serpent that hides its tail under the rest of its body, which represents Aion, and the ouroboros that represents the kosmos, which is the serpent devouring its tail. Identifications of Aion (deity) Martianus Capella (5th century AD) identified Aion with Cronus (Latin Saturnus), whose name caused him to be theologically conflated with Chronus ("Time"), in the way that the Greek ruler of the underworld Plouton (Pluto) was conflated with Ploutos (Plutus, "Wealth"). Martianus presents Cronus-Aion as the consort of Rhea (Latin Ops) as identified with Physis. In his highly speculative reconstruction of Mithraic cosmogony, Franz Cumont positioned Aion as Unlimited Time (sometimes represented as the Saeculum, Cronus, or Saturn) as the god who emerged from primordial Chaos, and who in turn generated Heaven and Earth. This deity is represented as the leontocephaline, the winged lion-headed male figure whose nude torso is entwined by a serpent. He typically holds a sceptre, keys, or a thunderbolt. The figure of Time "played a considerable, though to us completely obscure, role" in Mithraic theology. Aion is identified with Dionysus in Christian and Neoplatonic writers, but there are no references to Dionysus as Aion before the Christian era. Euripides, however, calls Aion the son of Zeus. The Suda identifies Aion with Osiris. In Ptolemaic Alexandria, at the site of a dream oracle, the Hellenistic syncretic god Serapis was identified as Aion Plutonius. The epithet Plutonius marks functional aspects shared with Pluto, consort of Persephone and ruler of the underworld in the Eleusinian tradition. Epiphanius says that at Alexandria Aion's birth from Kore the Virgin was celebrated January 6: "On this day and at this hour the Virgin gave birth to Aion." The date, which coincides with Epiphany, brought new year's celebrations to a close, completing the cycle of time that Aion embodies. The Alexandrian Aion may be a form of Osiris-Dionysus, reborn annually. His image was marked with crosses on his hands, knees, and forehead. Gilles Quispel conjectured that the figure resulted from integrating the Orphic Phanes, who like Aion is associated with a coiling serpent, into Mithraic religion at Alexandria, and that he "assures the eternity of the city." Aion (deity) and The Roman Empire This syncretic Aion became a symbol and guarantor of the perpetuity of Roman rule, and emperors such as Antoninus Pius issued coins with the legend Aion, whose female Roman counterpart was Aeternitas. Roman coins associate both Aion and Aeternitas with the phoenix as a symbol of rebirth and cyclical renewal.
Aion was among the virtues and divine personifications
that were part of late Hellenic discourse, in which they figure as
"creative agents in grand cosmological schemes." The
significance of Aion lies in his malleability: he is a "fluid
conception" through which various ideas about time and divinity
converge in the Hellenistic era, in the context of monotheistic tendencies.
Rabbi Akiba ben Joseph. A poor,
semi-literate shepherd, Akiba became one of Judaism's greatest
scholars. He developed the exegetical method of the Mishnah, linking
each traditional practice to a basis in the biblical text, and
systematized the material that later became the Mishnah.
Alalngar of Eridu
was the second pre-dynastic king of Sumer
(before ca. 2900 BC), according to the Sumerian
king list. Hayward's primary field of research was fluid density and flowmeters, writing a textbook on the subject. and presenting to the Institute of Physics in 1981. As a Christadelphian lay preacher Hayward had commenced writing on general religious topics for the Christadelphian Auxiliary Lecturing Society during the early 1970s. In particular his booklet on the characteristic (Socinian) belief of Christadelphians against the personal pre-existence of Christ remains that church's most widely circulated publication on that topic. Other publications included The Real Devil against belief in supernatural evil. As a Christian, and a scientist, though not a biologist, he was soon involved in the subject of creation. In New Scientist (11 March 1992 issue) Hayward is cited speaking of "the quiet majority of Bible-believing creationists" who accept the "evidence of physics and geology that the Universe and our planet are billions of years old".
Despite being a nontrinitarian
Hayward's moderate old-earth creationist stand led to him being
invited to write for mainstream publishers Thomas Nelson. He
published three books which for a time were widely circulated: God
is: (May 24, 1891 – September 19, 1971) William Foxwell Albright was an American archaeologist, biblical scholar, philologist, and expert on ceramics. From the early twentieth century until his death, he was the dean of biblical archaeologists and the acknowledged founder of the Biblical archaeology movement. Most notably, coming from his own background in radical German historical criticism of the historicity of the Biblical accounts, Albright, through his seminal work in archaeology (and most notably his development of the standard pottery typology for Palestine and the Holy Land) arrived at the conclusion that the biblical accounts of Israelite history were, contrary to the dominant German literary criticism of the day, largely accurate. Albright's view was novel among scholars at the time, but it has prevailed over a wide front, though there are detractors. His student George Ernest Wright followed in his footsteps as the leader of the biblical archaeology movement, contributing definitive work at Shechem and Gezer. Albright also inspired, trained and worked with the first generation of world-class Israeli archaeologists, who have carried on his work, and maintained his perspective.
Other students, notably Joseph
Fitzmyer, S.J., Frank Moore Cross, Raymond E. Brown, and David Noel
Freedman, became international leaders in the study of the Bible and
the ancient Near East, including Northwest Semitic epigraphy and
paleography. John Bright, Cyrus H. McCormick Professor of Hebrew and
Old Testament Interpretation at Union Seminary in Richmond (PhD,
Johns Hopkins, 1940), went on to become "the first distinguished
American historian of the Old Testament" and "arguably the
most influential scholar of the Albright school", owing to his
"distinctly American commonsense flavor, similar to that of
W[illiam] James". Thus Albright and his students achieved a very
wide reach and were highly influential in American higher education
from the 1940s through the 1970s, after which revisionist scholars of
merit such as T. L. Thompson, John Van Seters, Niels Peter Lemche,
and Philip R. Davies developed and advanced their own minimalist
critique of Albright's view that archaeology supports the broad
outlines of the history of Israel as presented in the Bible. Like
other academic geniuses (Edmund Huesserl in Phenomenology and Max
Weber in sociology and the sociology of religion), W.F. Albright
created, advanced and soundly established the new discipline of
Biblical Archaeology, which is taught now at major and even elite
universities on a worldwide basis and has exponents across national,
cultural and religious lines. Aleister Crowley was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, painter, novelist, and mountaineer. He founded the religion and philosophy of Thelema, in which role he identified himself as the prophet entrusted with guiding humanity into the Æon of Horus in the early 20th century. As he grew up, Crowley found himself unsympathetic with the faith of his father—an elder in the fundamentalist group—and mother. For his refusal to fall into line both in belief and practice, his mother called him "the Beast 666" (the Antichrist, from Revelation 13:18), a title he eventually accepted with some pride. Following his father's death in 1887, Crowley was sent to public school. In 1894 he entered King's College and went on to Trinity College, Cambridge, the next year. During his college years he emerged as a poet of some merit. He also spent his leisure time exploring the joys of sexuality, a theme that strongly influenced his poetry and led to some trouble with college authorities. He also discovered and made his first ventures into magic and the occult. He left college before completing his degree. In 1898 he was initiated into the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the pioneering ceremonial magic group, into which he was introduced by George Cecil Jones. He was an avid pupil and quickly progressed until he became involved in the split that had developed between the bulk of the members, who resided in England, and the head of the order, S. L. MacGregor Mathers, who lived in Paris. He sided with Mathers, which cut him off from fellow believers in London. In 1903 Crowley married Rose Kelly, and in 1904 they traveled to Egypt. There, at his wife's insistence, he sat for a period on each of three days (April 9-11) and received (channeled) material from a spirit entity, Aiwass. The finished product, The Book of the Law, would provide the philosophical distinctives for what would become Crowley's own system of magic. The keynote of the new system would be thelema or will, and its basic admonition, "Do what thou will shall be the whole of the Law." This ambiguous phrase was often misunderstood by other magicians and by critics alike as promoting an amoral libertinism, but that was not Crowley's teaching or meaning. Rather, he taught that it was the magician's duty to discover his or her destiny (or true will), and, having discovered it, he or she had no choice but to align actions with the accomplishment of that true will. Having left the Golden Dawn, in 1907 Crowley founded the Argentum Astrum (AA; Silver Star). On its behalf he began issuing a periodical, the Equinox, a semiannual journal in which he began to publish the teachings of the AA. The journal attracted attention, however, because Crowley also began to publish the secrets of the Golden Dawn, which he denounced as a juvenile organization. Crowley was diverted from developing the AA in 1912, following an encounter with Theodore Reuss, the outer head of the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), a German sex magic group. Crowley had independently discovered sex magic and made his first experiments in it several years earlier. In The Book of Lies he had published a brief section that indicated to Reuss that he knew about the sex magic teaching of the OTO, and Reuss invited Crowley into its membership. He was immediately accepted into the highest levels of the OTO and appointed head of its British branch, which he organized under the name Mysteria Mystica Maxima. Crowley also rewrote the OTO rituals, adding an eleventh degree reflective of his own homosexuality. In 1914 Crowley moved to America, where he waited for World War I to end. During his stay he conducted extensive sex magic experiments, established an OTO lodge in Vancouver, British Columbia, and initiated Charles Stanfeld Jones (later known publicly as "Frater Achad") into the order. Because of his own accomplishments and the unexpected coordination of Frater Achad's magic work, Crowley declared Achad his "magical child" and assumed the title of magus, the second-highest grade. In 1919 Crowley moved to Sicily and established a small magic colony at Cefalu. He remained there for four years, during which time he proclaimed himself an ipsissimis. Banished by Mussolini in 1923, he resided for a while in Tunis and France before settling down in England, where he spent the last 15 years of his life. All through his life Crowley continued his experimentation with magic, which soon led him into the use of consciousnessexpanding drugs. Along the way he became a heroin addict, a condition he fought but was never able to overcome. During his mature years he expended much energy in building the OTO and in getting his writings published though in both endeavors he was only partially successful. Not until the 1970s—about thirty years after his death—was the order successfully organized and lodges established across Europe and North America. Simultaneously, most of his writings, including his magic diaries, were published, and they have remained in print. Following Crowley's death on December 1, 1947, in Hastings, England, Karl Germer became the new outer head of the order of the OTO but did little to assist its growth. Germer died in the 1960s, and in the 1970s Grady McMurtry, having learned of Germer's death, assumed leadership and built the order into a substantial international body.
Crowley's influence can be seen throughout popular
culture through such rock bands as Led
Zeppelin and Ozzie Osborne, who claim to be Crowley fans and
reflect his ideas in their music. In 1993 an album of his teachings
was released and sold over 8,000 copies, exhibiting a constant
interest in Aleister Crowley.
Born: 356 B.C. A towering figure in ancient history, Alexander the Great came close to conquering the entire civilized world of his day. The son of King Phillip II of Macedon, Alexander was educated by the philosopher Aristotle and first led troops at age 18. After his father's death he took command of the Macedonian army, whipped the superpower Persians, and then went on to conquer much of the civilized world. At the peak of his powers, his empire stretched from the western edge of modern-day India across to Egypt (where he founded the city of Alexandria and named it for himself). He died at age 33, after days of fever following a bout of heavy drinking; some suggest he was poisoned, though no cause of death has ever been proved. He was entombed in a golden coffin in Alexandria, where his tomb attracted travelers for centuries.
His mother was Olympias, a princess from Empiris in
western Greece . . . Alexander's favorite horse Bucephalus is
one of history's famous steeds . . . Ancient legend claimed
that Alexander was the son of the god Zeus. Derived from an old Semitic root refering to the Divine and used in the Canaanite El, the Mesopotamian ilu, and the biblical Elohim, the word Allah is used by all Arabic-speaking Muslims, Christians, Jews, and others. According to the Qur'an, Allah is the creator and judge of humankind, omnipotent, compassionate, and merciful. The Muslim profession of faith affirms that there is no deity but God and emphasizes that he is inherently one: "nothing is like unto him." Everything that happens occurs by his commandment; submission to God is the basis of Islam. Although the Qur'an of Islam lists ninety-nine names for God, it says most emphatically that la ilah illa' Allah-"there is no God but Allah." Allah is not so much a name as a title. The word means "the God," and it is the name revealed to the prophet Muhammad of the god worshiped by other "people of the book"-that is, Christians and Jews-although they use other names. Some of the names of God in The Qur'an and the Hadith includes the One and Only, the Living One, the Real Truth, the Hearer, the Seer, the Benefactor, and the Constant Forgiver. Because the Qur'an cannot be translated-that is, any translation is considered merely a study aid, not the true Qur'an-these words are an approximation, but they carry the weight and the essential meaning of Allah. There is no god but he; That is the witness of Allah, His angels, and those endued with knowledge, standing firm on justice. There is no god but he, the Exalted in Power, the Wise. (Qur'an 3:18) He it is Who created the heavens and the earth in Six Days, and is moreover firmly established on the Throne [of Authority]. He knows what enters within the earth and what comes forth out of it, what comes down from heaven and what mounts up to it. And he is with you wheresoever ye may be. And Allah sees well all that you do. (57:4) To Allah belongeth all that is in the heavens and on the earth. Whether ye show what is in your minds or conceal it, Allah calleth you to account for it. He forgiveth whom he pleaseth, and punisheth whom He pleaseth, for Allah hath power over all things. (2:284)
He is the First and the Last, and the Outward and the
Inward; and he is the Knower of all things. (57:3) Alma may refer to:
Book of Alma, a part of
The Book of Mormon Alma's Conversion Alma was born about 173 BC. While a young man, Alma was one of several corrupt priests who served King Noah in the land of Nephi. About 148 BC, a prophet named Abinadi was arrested for preaching repentance and condemning the wickedness of Noah and his people. Brought before the king and his priests, Abinadi emphatically urged them to repent and obey the gospel of Jesus Christ. Of all who heard him, only Alma was touched by Abinadi's words. When Alma began to defend Abinadi the king had Alma cast out and had Abinadi burned alive. Fleeing for his life, Alma went into hiding and wrote down what Abinadi had said before the court. Alma began to teach Abinadi's words in secret, emphasizing repentance and faith in Christ. Alma's Followers At a hidden retreat in the wilderness called the waters of Mormon, Alma baptized his listeners and organized the church of Christ among them. In time, King Noah found out where Alma's congregation was meeting, and sent his army to destroy them. Being warned by God of the army's coming, Alma quickly led his band of approximately 450 converts into the wilderness for eight days, stopping in an uninhabited area which they named the land of Helam. The people of Alma established the city of Helam there and prospered for many years, remaining faithful to God's commandments. Return to Zarahemla As the years passed, the Lamanites invaded the land of Helam and placed Alma's people under their jurisdiction, taxing them heavily. Finally, in about 120 BC, Alma's people escaped the Lamanites and were led by God through the wilderness for twelve days until they arrived in the land of Zarahemla, then the chief Nephite population center. The people of Alma joyfully united with the Nephites and helped to strengthen the church of Christ in Zarahemla. Zarahemla's King Mosiah soon authorized Alma to serve as the first high priest over the Church in Zarahemla. Alma continued in this capacity for many years. When Alma's son, Alma the Younger, and the four sons of King Mosiah came of age they rebelled against the church and "were numbered among the unbelievers" (Mosiah 27:8) However, as they went about to destroy the church an angel appeared and, in an experience similar to that of Saul on the road to Damascus, they were all converted. Like Saul, their subsequent efforts on behalf of the church overshadowed their previous efforts to destroy the church. Shortly before his death, Alma conferred the office of high priest upon his son. The Book of Mormon states that Alma the Elder "lived to fulfil the commandments of God" (Mosiah 29:45). He died in about 91 BC. Descendants of Alma Alma had several notable descendants in the Book of Mormon narrative as shown in the family tree below:
Name
At the time the Book of Mormon was translated by
Joseph Smith into English, the name Alma was known only as a woman's
name. This was used as a detraction to make Smith look like he
borrowed a Latin name. However, the name Alma has been found in
recent historical research to be a masculine name that might have
been known to the Jewish people around the time the people of the
Book of Mormon were supposed to have left the Old World for America. According to the Book of Mormon, Alma, the son of Alma /?ælm?/ was a Nephite prophet often referred to as "Alma the Younger" to distinguish him from his father, who is often referred to as "Alma the Elder". These appellations, "the Younger" and "the Elder", are not used in the Book of Mormon; they are distinctions made by scholars, useful because both individuals were prominent during the same time period and filled a similar cultural and religious role. Alma is the namesake of the Book of Alma. Summary of his life Alma the Younger lived in Zarahemla during the end of the reign of the Nephite King Mosiah. As a young man, he, the four sons of Mosiah, and others wanted to destroy the church and actively persecuted its members. After they were visited personally by an angel and were rebuked for their actions, Alma fell into an unconscious state where for three days, and three nights as he lay unable to move until he felt within himself that he had been forgiven of his sins. He and those who persecuted church members with him abdicated their role as persecutors and became followers of Christ. Alma the Younger subsequently became the first elected chief judge of the Nephites as well as their religious leader. He observed that the Nephites of the church were becoming increasingly wicked, proud, disdainful of outsiders and neglectful toward the poor and needy. (Alma 4:11-12) When the "unbelievers" began to follow their example, Alma feared the entire people was on the path to self-destruction. (Alma 4:11) He resigned his post as chief judge and began traveling from city to city to preach to the Nephites. He began in Zarahemla, where his efforts were successful. A thorough purge of the church leadership and membership took place, with those former insiders and leaders who refused to relinquish their pride being "rejected, and their names blotted out" (Alma 6:3). Alma moved on to the cities of Gideon and Melek, where his call to humility was also well received. From Melek he traveled three days journey north to Ammonihah, whose inhabitants proved much more hardened than those of the previous three cities. In Ammonihah the people were very wicked. They considered themselves superior to outsiders, especially the Lamanites, and gloried in the strength of their city, which they considered indestructible. According to Alma chapter 9, Satan held such control over them that they would not listen to Alma. While trying to speak to them he was manhandled, abused and thrown out of the city. Commanded by an angel to return, Alma slipped back into the city through a different route from the south. There he met Amulek, a lapsed believer (Alma 10:5-6) of some social prominence who fed Alma and housed him for a time. In the city streets, the two of them joined up and preached to the people, where they were challenged by a lawyer named Zeezrom. After Amulek had silenced Zeezrom through his teaching and aroused his conscience, Alma took his turn, preaching to the people with similar results. When finished, Alma and Amulek were cast into prison and delivered by a miracle. A repentant Zeezrom eventually joined Alma in his missionary work. Several years later, Alma met up with a man named Korihor, whom the Book of Mormon describes as an anti-Christ. This Korihor tried to lead the Nephites astray. Alma confronted him, confounding his arguments and miraculously removing Korihor's power of speech. The stricken Korihor signaled acknowledgement that he had acted maliciously, knowing all along that he was wrong and bringing destruction upon others. He was reduced to begging and was eventually run down and killed in a city of Nephite dissenters called Zoramites. These same Zoramites were found to practice things that perverted the ways of the Lord. This led Alma to extend his missionary work to these people. While amongst them he was most successful among the poor. Alma's final instruction was to his sons, Helaman, Shiblon, and Corianton. He gave each separate lessons, and finally gave the records of the church to Helaman. He then departed, in the 19th year of the reign of the judges (or 73 BC) as if to go to Melek, but was never heard from again. Both Mormon and Helaman believed that he was taken up like Moses of old, and buried by the Lord. Descendants of Alma the Younger The Book of Mormon narrative describes several of Alma's notable descendants as shown in the following family tree:
The first of Joktan's 13 sons whose descendants settled "from Mesha as you go toward Sephar'', which is believed to be in Arabia (Gen 10:26, 30; I Chr 1:20). Almodad was a descendant of Noah and the first named son of Joktan in Genesis 10:26 and 1 Chronicles 1:20. While the Bible has no further history regarding Almodad, this patriarch is considered to be the founder of an Arabian tribe in "Arabia Felix". This is based on the identification of Joktan's other sons, such as Sheba and Havilah, who are both identified as coming from that region. According to Easton's Bible Dictionary "Almodad" means "immeasurable", however it has also been translated as "not measured", "measurer", "measure of God", "the beloved," or, "God is beloved", "God is love", and "God is a friend".
Many translations and scholarly works use
"Elmodad", including Josephus, Douay Rheims Bible and the
Targum Ps.-Jonathan, which elaborates Gen 10:26 and says "begot
Elmodad, who measured the earth with cords." Alphaeus is a man mentioned in the New Testament as the father of two of the Twelve Apostles, namely: There may have been two separate men named Alphaeus. Though both Matthew and James are described as being the "son of Alphaeus" there is no Biblical account of the two being called brothers, even in the same context where John and James or Peter and Andrew are described as being brothers. Alphaeus is traditionally identified with Clopas, based on the identification from parallel Gospel accounts of Mary, the mother of James the third woman with Mary Magdalene and Salome wife of Zebedee beside the cross in Matthew with Mary, the wife of Clopas, the third woman in John's account.
The Catholic Encyclopedia suggest that etymologically,
the names Clopas and Alphaeus are different, but that they could
still be the same person. Other sources propose that Alphaeus,
Clophas and Cleophas are variant attempts to render the Aramaic H in
Aramaic Hilfai into Greek as aspirated, or K. The Sumerian King List has the following entry for Alulim: "After the kingship descended from heaven, the kingship was in Eridug (Eridu). In Eridug, Alulim became king; he ruled for 28800 years." In a chart of antediluvian generations in Babylonian and Biblical traditions, Professor William Wolfgang Hallo associates Alulim with the composite half-man, half-fish counselor or culture hero (Apkallu) Uanna-Adapa (Oannes), and suggests an equivalence between Alulim and Enosh in the Sethite genealogy given in Genesis chapter 5. Hallo notes that Alulim's name means "Stag" (deer).
Shea, however, suggests that Alulim may be the same
man as the biblical Adam. The Amalekites are a people mentioned a number of times in the Hebrew Bible. They are considered to be descended from an ancestor Amalek. According to the Book of Genesis and 1 Chronicles, Amalek was the son of Eliphaz and the grandson of Esau (Gen. 36:12; 1 Chr. 1:36); the chief of an Edomite tribe (Gen. 36:16). His mother was a Horite, a tribe whose territory the descendants of Esau had seized. According to the genealogy in Gen. 36:12; 1 Chr. 1:36. Amalek is a son of Esau's son Eliphaz and of the concubine Timna, a Horite and sister of Lotan. Gen. 36:16 refers to him as the "chief of Amalek" thus his name can be understood to be a title derived from that of the clan or territory over which he ruled. Indeed an extra-Biblical tradition recorded by Nachmanides relates that the Amalekites were not descended from the grandson of Esau but from a man named Amalek after whom this grandson was later named. Such an eponymous ancestor of the Amalekites is also mentioned in Old Arabian poetry. According to Muslim historians such as Ibn Khaldun and Ali ibn al-Athir, Amalek is a name given to the Amorites and the Canaanites. The name is sometimes interpreted as "dweller in the valley", but most specialists regard the origin to be unknown (M. Weippert, Semitische Nomaden des zweiten Jahrtausends. Biblica vol. 55, 1974, 265-280, 427-433).
In (Arabic: imlaq) is the singular of giant, and the
plural is (amaliqah) or (amaliq), suggesting the sons of this tribe
were known for being unusually tall. Amaziah or Amasias may refer to:
House of David
Regnal titles Amaziah of Judah, Amasias (DRB), was a king of Judah, the son and successor of Joash. His mother was Jehoaddan (rendered "Joadan" in the Douay-Rheims and some other translations) (2 Kings 14:1-4) and his son was Uzziah (2 Chronicles 26:1). He took the throne at the age of 25 (2 Chronicles 25:1). He reigned for 29 years (2 Kings 14:2) from 797/796 to 768/767 BC. Edwin R. Thiele's chronology has Uzziah becoming co-regent with his father in 792/791 BC, with his sole reign starting on the death of Amaziah.
Amatzia, Israel is named after him. Amel-Marduk, 'man of Marduk' was the son and successor of Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon. His name, along with the length of his reign, are recorded in the 'Uruk King List' and the Canon of Ptolemy, however no surviving cuneiform document records anything concerning his life or deeds. Berossus writes that he was murdered in a plot orchestrated by Nergal-sharezer, his successor and brother-in-law. Berossus also notes that "he governed public affairs after an illegal and impure manner", possibly an allusion to actions that infuriated the priestly class, including reforms made to the policies of Nebuchadrezzar. One such reform is recorded in the Hebrew Bible, where Evil-Merodach is remembered for releasing the Jewish king Jehoiachin from prison after thirty seven years in captivity.
Later Jewish and Christian texts expand the Biblical
account. Josephus and the Avot of Rabbi Natan state that the king
believed Jehoiachin was held by his father without cause, and thus
decided to release him upon the latter's death. Josephus assigned
eighteen years to his reign. Leviticus Rabbah 18:2 states that
Evil-Merodach was made king while Nebuchadrezzar was still living,
and was punished for this act of rebellion by his father, who had him
imprisoned. In Esther Rabbah, Evil-Merodach, owing to his father's
actions before his death, is heir to a bankrupt treasury. Seder Olam
Rabbah assigned twenty three years to his reign.
Reign: 1991–1962 BC, Twelfth Dynasty Amenemhat I was the first ruler of the Twelfth Dynasty (the dynasty considered to be the beginning of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt). He ruled from 1991 BC to 1962 BC. Amenemhat I was a vizier of his predecessor Mentuhotep IV, overthrowing him from power, scholars vary if Mentuhotep IV was killed by Amenemhat I, but there is no independent evidence to support this and there may even have been a period of co-regency between their reigns. Amenemhet I was not of royal lineage, and the composition of some literary works (the Prophecy of Neferti, the Instructions of Amenemhat) and, in architecture, the reversion to the pyramid-style complexes of the 6th dynasty rulers are often considered to have been attempts at legitimizing his rule. Amenemhat I moved the capital from Thebes to Itjtawy and was buried in el-Lisht. His son Senusret I followed in his footsteps, building his pyramid–a closer reflection of the 6th dynasty pyramids than that of Amenemhat I–at Lisht as well, but his grandson, Amenemhat II, broke with this tradition. Amenemhat I is considered to be the first king of Egypt to have had a coregency with his son, Senusret I. A double dated stela is dated to the thirtieth year of Amenemhat I and to the tenth year of Senusret I, which establishes that Senusret was made co-regent in Amenemhat's 20th regnal year.
Was Pharaoh Amenemhet I the biblical Abraham?
Amenemhet I See Amenemhat
I
Amenes See Ahmose
I
Reign: 1427–1401 BC or 1427–1397 BC, 18th Dynasty Amenhotep II was the seventh Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty of Egypt. Amenhotep inherited a vast kingdom from his father Thutmose III, and held it by means of a few military campaigns in Syria; however, he fought much less than his father, and his reign saw the effective cessation of hostilities between Egypt and Mitanni, the major kingdoms vying for power in Syria. His reign is usually dated from 1427 to 1400 BC. Amenhotep II was the son of Thutmose III and a minor wife of the king: Merytre-Hatshepsut. He was not, however, the firstborn son of this pharaoh; his elder brother Amenemhat, the son of the great king's chief wife Satiah, was originally the intended heir to the throne since Amenemhat was designated the 'king's eldest son" and overseer of the cattle of Amun in Year 24 of Thutmose's reign. However, between Years 24 and 35 of Thutmose III, both queen Satiah and prince Amenemhat died, which prompted the pharaoh to marry the non-royal Merytre-Hatshepsut. She would bear Thutmose III a number of children including the future Amenhotep II. Amenhotep II was born and raised in Memphis in the north, instead of in Thebes, the traditional capital. While a prince, he oversaw deliveries of wood sent to the dockyard of Peru-nufe in Memphis, and was made the Setem, the high priest over Lower Egypt. Amenhotep has left several inscriptions touting his athletic skills while he was a leader of the army before his crowning. Amenhotep was no less athletic than his powerful father. He claims to have been able to shoot an arrow through a copper target one palm thick, and that he was able to row his ship faster and farther than two hundred members of the navy could row theirs. Accordingly some skepticism concerning the truth of his claims has been expressed among Egyptologists. Amenhotep acceded to the throne on the first day of the fourth month of Akhet, but his father died on the thirtieth day of the third month of Peret. If an Egyptian crown prince was proclaimed king but did not take the throne on the day after his father's death, it meant that he served as the junior coregent during his father's reign. A coregency with Thutmose III and Amenhotep II is believed to have lasted for two years and four months. When he assumed power, Amenhotep II was 18 years old according to an inscription from his great Sphinx stela: "Now his Majesty appeared as king as a fine youth after he had become 'well developed', and had completed eighteen years in his strength and bravery." After becoming pharaoh, Amenhotep married a woman of uncertain parentage named Tiaa. As many as ten sons and one daughter have been attributed to him. Amenhotep's most important son was Thutmose IV, who succeeded him; however, there is significant evidence for him having many more children. Princes Amenhotep, Webensenu, Amenemopet, and Nedjem are all clearly attested, and Amenemhat, Khaemwaset, and Aakheperure as well as a daughter, Iaret, are also possible children. Papyrus B.M. 10056, which dates to sometime after Amenhotep II's tenth year, refers to a king's son and setem-priest Amenhotep. This Amenhotep might also be attested in a stele from Amenhotep II's temple at Giza, however the stele's name has been defaced so that positive identification is impossible. Stele B may belong to another son, Webensenu. Webensenu's name is otherwise attested on a statue of Amenhotep's chief architect, Minmose, and his canopic jars and a funerary statue have been found in Amenhotep II's tomb. Another Giza stele, stele C, records the name of a Prince Amenemopet, whose name is otherwise unattested. The same statue with the name Webensenu on it is also inscribed with the name of prince Nedjem, who is otherwise unattested. There are other references to king's sons from this period who may or may not be sons of Amenhotep II. Two graffiti from Sahel mention a king's son and stable master named Khaemwaset, but specifically which king is his father is unknown. A figure with the name Amenemhet is recorded behind a prince Amenhotep in Theban tomb 64, and assuming this Amenhotep is indeed the king's son from B.M. 10056, Amenemhat would also be Amenhotep II's son. Additionally, a prince Aakheperure is mentioned in a Konosso graffito alongside a prince Amenhotep, and if one again assumes that this Amenhotep was the same person as the one in B.M. 10056, Aakheperure would also have been Amenhotep II's son. However, in both these cases the figure identified as Amenhotep has been identified by some as possible references to the later King Amenhotep III, which would make these two princes sons Thutmose IV. In addition to sons, Amenhotep II may have had a daughter named Iaret, but she could have also been the daughter of Thutmose IV.
Two more sons had been attributed to Amenhotep II in
the past, however, they have since been proven to be of other
parentage. Gauthier catalogued one Usersatet, the "King's son of
Kush," (i.e. Viceroy of Nubia) as a son of Amenhotep II, as well
as one Re, however, both are now known to be unrelated to the royal
family. Usersatet merely served as Amenhotep's chief official in
Nubia and was not a blood relative of the king. It has a dog-leg shape, typical of the layout of early Eighteenth Dynasty tombs, but several features make this tomb stand out. The burial chamber is a rectangular shape and divided into upper and lower pillared sections, with the lower part holding the sarcophagus of the king. This style of burial chamber became 'standard' for royal burials in the later New Kingdom. Later the tomb was used as a mummy cache. Mummies belonging to the following individuals were relocated here during the Third Intermediate Period and were identified by inscriptions on their burial wrappings: Amenhotep II (the original tomb owner found in his original sarcophagus) Side Chamber:
Was Amenhotep II the
Pharaoh of Exodus? In Japanese mythology and Shintoism, Amenominakanushi was the first kami to come into being in the Plane of Heaven as a "solitary kami" (hitorigami). He was acknowledged as one of the zo-ka sanshin ("three kami of creation") and one of the five kotoamatsukami ("separate heavenly deities").
Amenominakanushi is found at the very beginning of the
Kojiki. Amenominakanushi was chief kami of the seven major stars of
the constellation Ursa Major. As a result of this influence,
Amenominakanushi was made a central deity at the Daikyo-in in the
early Meiji period. He was also worshiped within sectarian Shinto (kyo-ha
Shinto- ). (Hebrew: Amminadabh ; "my people are generous") This was the name of three biblical men: 1. Father-in-law of Aaron, his daughter Elisheba was married to Aaron (Ex. 6:23). He was the father of Nahshon, who was chief of the tribe of Judah (Num. 1:7; 2:3; 7:12, 17; 10:14). He was in the lineage of Ruth (Ruth 4:18-20; 1 Chr. 2:10; Matt. 1:4; Luke 3:33). 2. A son of Kohath, the second son of Levi (1 Chr. 6:22), also called Izhar (2, 18).
3. Chief of the 112 descendants of Uzziel the Levite,
his father (1 Chr. 15:10-11). Amminadab was a minor character in the Book of Genesis. According to the genealogies of Genesis' and Jesus' genealogy, he was born of Ram (also known as Aram) during the Israelite exile in Ancient Egypt. He was also the father of Nahshon, chief of the tribe of Judah (Numbers 1:7; 2:3; 7:12, 17; 10:14). His daughter Elisheva was Aaron's wife (Exodus 6:23), making him Aaron's father-in-law. In Bloodline of the Holy Grail, revisionist historian Laurence Gardner proposes Amminadab to be Akhenaten, allegedly the historical basis for Moses. According to Gardner's speculation, when Thutmose IV died, his son Amenhotep III married his sister Sitamun. Once he had secured his pharonic throne, he also married Tiye, the daughter of Chief Minister Yuya, who has been hypothesized to be the biblical patriarch Joseph, son of Jacob.").
Because the Israelites were gaining too much power in
Egypt and because Yuya, a foreigner, had been governor for so long,
it was decided that no children of Tiye would be allowed inherit the
throne of Egypt, but instead should be killed at birth. Tiye's family
lived in the Land of Goshen, so she went to have her baby at Zarw,
her summer palace. Her son was put in a reed basket to float
downstream to the house of Yuya's half-brother Levi.
King of Judah Amon of Judah was a 7th-century BC King of Judah who, according to the biblical account, succeeded his father Manasseh of Judah. Amon is most remembered for his idolatrous practices while king, which led to a revolt against him and eventually his assassination in c. 641 BC.
Amon's reign was in the midst of a transitional time
for the Levant and the entire Mesopotamian region. To the east of
Judah, the Assyrian Empire was beginning to disintegrate while the
Babylonian Empire had not yet risen to replace it. To the west, Egypt
was still recovering under Psamtik I from its Assyrian occupation,
transforming from a vassal state to an autonomous ally. In this power
vacuum, many smaller states such as Judah were able to govern
themselves without foreign intervention from larger empires. Amos may refer to:
Before becoming a prophet, Amos was a sheep herder and a sycamore fig farmer. Amos' prior professions and his claim "I am not a prophet nor a son of a prophet" (7:14) indicate that Amos was not from the school of prophets, which Amos claims makes him a true prophet (7:14). His prophetic career began in 750 BCE out of the town of Tekoa, in Judah, south of Jerusalem. Despite being from the southern kingdom of Judah Amos' prophetic message was aimed at the Northern Kingdom of Israel, particularly the cities of Samaria and Bethel. Jeroboam II (c. 781-741 B.C.), ruler of the Northern kingdom, had rapidly conquered Syria, Moab, and Ammon, and thereby extended his dominions from the source of the Orontes on the north to the Dead Sea on the south. The whole northern empire of Solomon thus practically restored had enjoyed a long period of peace and security marked by a revival of artistic and commercial development. Social corruption and the oppression of the poor and helpless were prevalent. Many availed themselves of the throngs which attended the sacred festivals to indulge in immoderate enjoyment and tumultuous revelry. Others, carried away by the free association with heathen peoples which resulted from conquest or commercial contact, went so far as to fuse with the Lord's worship that of pagan deities. The apocryphal work The Lives of the Prophets records that Amos was killed by the son of Amaziah, priest of Bethel. It further states that before he died, Amos made his way back to his homeland and was buried there. Two of Amos's teachings are:
Feast day
On the Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar, Amos'
feast day is celebrated on June 15 (for those churches which follow
the traditional Julian Calendar, June 15 currently falls on June 28th
of the modern Gregorian Calendar). He is commemorated along with the
other minor prophets in the Calendar of Saints of the Armenian
Apostolic Church on July 31. According to the Book of Mormon, Amos was a Nephite record keeper. His father was Amos, and his grandfather was Nephi the Disciple. Mormon is thought to have abridged his record which consists of 26 verses in the Book of 4th Nephi. Amos must have been exceptionally long-lived, for he had custody of the Nephite records for 112 years, approximately from AD 194 to 306 (although a certain commentator suggests that this Amos may be referring to at least two different people). 4 Nephi 1:21-46 are an abridgment of his writings. When Amos died, his brother Ammaron took over as record keeper.
Amos' record relates the degeneration of the society
of the Nephites after the appearance of Jesus on the American
continent. This degeneration is due to the pride of the people. According to the Book of Mormon, Amos was a Nephite record keeper and son of Nephi the Disciple. Amos had custody of the Nephite records for 84 years, from approximately AD 110 to 194. Upon his death the Book of Mormon record passed to his son Amos. Two verses, 4 Nephi 1:19-20, are an abridgment (by Mormon) of his writings: 19 And it came to pass that Nephi, he that kept this last record, (and he kept it upon the plates of Nephi) died, and his son Amos kept it in his stead; and he kept it upon the plates of Nephi also. 20 And he kept it eighty and four years, and there was still peace in the land, save it were a small part of the people who had revolted from the church and taken upon them the name of Lamanites; therefore there began to be Lamanites again in the land.
Amosis I See Ahmose
I
There is a Talmudic tradition that when the name of a
prophet's father is given, the father was also a prophet, so that
Amoz would have been a prophet like his son. Though it is mentioned
frequently as the patronymic title of Isaiah, the name Amoz appears
nowhere else in the Bible. The rabbis of the Talmud declared, based
upon a rabbinic tradition, that Amoz was the brother of Amaziah, the
king of Judah at that time (and, as a result, that Isaiah himself was
a member of the royal family). According to one tradition, Amoz is
the "man of God" in 2 Chronicles 25:7-9, who cautioned
Amaziah to release the Israelite mercenaries that he had hired. The name of two biblical men: 1. The son of Kohath, the son of Levi. He married Jochebed, “his father's sister,” and was the father of Aaron, Miriam, and Moses (Ex. 6:18, 20; Num. 3:19).
2. The sons of this man are listed as
having had foreign wives (Ezra 10:34). Beginning with E. Schrader (Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testament, vol II (1888), pp 299ff) this king was usually associated with Hammurabi, who ruled in Babylon from 1792 BC until his death in 1750 BC. However, according to The Oxford Companion to the Bible, this view has been largely abandoned in recent years. According to John Van Seters in Abraham in History and Tradition, the existence of Amraphel is unconfirmed by any sources outside the Bible. In the Midrash (Tanchuma Lekh Lekhah 6) and later Rabbinical literature, Amraphel was identified with Nimrod (this is also attested to in the 11th Book of Jasher). "And these are the sons of Ham; Cush, Mitzraim, Phut and Canaan, four sons" (Jasher 7) These four created the Tower of Babel (not the city Babel nimrod created in Shinar) 2 days journey east of Shinar under their grandson's (nimrod) authority. Followed by:
"And Nimrod dwelt in Babel, and he there renewed
his reign over the rest of his subjects, and he reigned securely, and
the subjects and princes of Nimrod called his name Amraphel, saying
that at the tower his princes and men fell through his means. - Book
of the Upright (Jasher) 11 According to Alma, chapters 8-14, Amulek, in 82 B.C., accompanied the prophet Alma the Younger on a mission to the wicked city of Ammonihah, where he preached the Gospel and contended with the smooth-talking lawyer (and future convert) Zeezrom. There, he witnessed righteous women and children being burned alive along with their scriptures. Amulek pleaded unsuccessfully for Alma to use Divine power to save the victims from the flames; Alma assured his companion that the innocent would be received by God and that the wicked would face their judgment "at the last day." Amulek and Alma were later bound and imprisoned, but broke from their bonds through the power of faith, causing the prison walls to crumble, slaying their captors. On a later mission to the Zoramites, Amulek delivered a sermon on prayer and the urgency of repentance.
Other mentions of Amulek can be
found in the Book of Ether, the
author recalls "the faith of Alma and Amulek that caused the
prison to tumble to the earth." (also spelled Amon, Amoun, Amen, and rarely Imen, Greek Ammon, and Hammon) Amun was a local deity of Thebes. He was attested since the Old Kingdom together with his spouse Amaunet. With the 11th dynasty (c. 21st century BC), he rose to the position of patron deity of Thebes by replacing Monthu. After the rebellion of Thebes against the Hyksos and with the rule of Ahmose I, Amun acquired national importance, expressed in his fusion with the Sun god, Ra, as Amun-Ra.
Amun-Ra retained chief importance
in the Egyptian pantheon throughout the New Kingdom (with the
exception of the "Atenist heresy" under Akhenaten). Amun-Ra
in this period (16th to 11th centuries BC) held the position of
transcendental, self-created creator deity "par excellence",
he was the champion of the poor or troubled and central to personal
piety. His position as King of Gods developed to the point of virtual
monotheism where other gods became manifestations of him. With
Osiris, Amun-Ra is the most widely recorded of the Egyptian gods. As
the chief deity of the Egyptian Empire, Amun-Ra also came to be
worshipped outside of Egypt, in Ancient Libya and Nubia, and as Zeus
Ammon came to be identified with Zeus in Ancient Greece.
An in Sumerian mythology is a
goddess, possibly a female principle of the creator god An. Early
iconography suggests a celestial sky goddess in the form of a cow
whose udders produce rain and who becomes Antu in the Akkadian pantheon. According to the Book of Numbers, during the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites, Anak was a well known figure, and a forefather of the Anakites (Heb. Anakim) who have been considered "strong and tall,"they were also said to have been a mixed race of giant people, descendants of the Nephilim (Numbers 13:33). The use of the word "nephilim"in this verse describes a crossbreed of God's sons and the daughters of man, as cited in (Genesis 6:1-2) and (Genesis 6:4). The text states that Anak was a Rephaite (Deuteronomy 2:11) and a son of Arba (Joshua 15:13). Etymologically, Anak means [long] neck. The sons of Anak are first mentioned in Numbers 13. The Israelite leader Moses sends twelve spies representing the twelve tribes of Israel to scout out the land of Canaan, and give a full report to the congregation. The spies enter from the Negev desert and journey northward through the Judaean hills until they arrive at the brook of Eshcol near Hebron, where reside Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai, the sons of Anak. After the scouts have explored the entire land, they bring back samples of the fruit of the land; most notably a gigantic cluster of grapes which requires two men to carry it on a pole between them. The scouts then report to Moses and the congregation, that "the land indeed is a land flowing with milk and honey,"but ten of the twelve spies discourage the Israelites from even attempting to possess the land, for they reported that the men were taller and stronger than the Israelites, and moreover the sons of Anak dwell in the land, and that they felt like grasshoppers in their presence. The Anakites are later mentioned briefly in the books of Deuteronomy, Joshua, and Judges. In Joshua, Caleb, one of the twelve spies sent by Moses into Canaan, later drove out the descendants of Anak — his three sons — from Hebron, also called Kiriath Arba.
The Egyptian Execration texts of the Middle
Kingdom (2055-1650 BC) mention a list of political enemies in Canaan,
and among this list are a group called the "ly Anaq"or
people of Anaq. The three rulers of ly Anaq were Erum, Abiyamimu, and
Akirum. Anak could be related to the Sumerian god Enki. Robert
Graves, considering the relationship between the Anakites and
Philistia (Joshua 11:21, Jeremiah 47:5), identifies the Anakim with
Anax, the giant ruler of the Anactorians in Greek mythology.
Reading of 1 Chronicles 1:11, interpreting Anam as an
individual rather than as a tribe or nation. See Anamim.
The name should perhaps be
attached to a people in northern Africa, probably in the surrounding
area of Egypt. A text from Assyria,
dating from the time of Sargon II, apparently calls the Egyptians "Anami". Ancus Marcius was the legendary fourth king of Rome. He was the son of Marcius (whose father, also named Marcius, had been a close friend of Numa Pompilius) and Pompilia (daughter of Numa Pompilius). According to Festus, Marcius had the surname of Ancus from his crooked arm. Upon the death of the previous king, Tullus Hostilius, the Roman Senate appointed an interrex, who in turn called a session of the assembly of the people who elected the new king. Ancus Marcius and His First Acts as King According to Livy, his first act as king was to order the Pontifex Maximus to copy the text concerning the performance of public ceremonies of religion from the commentaries of Numa Pompilius to be displayed to the public, so that the rites of religion should no longer be neglected or improperly performed.
Ancus Marcius was succeeded by
Lucius Tarquinius Priscus who was killed by the sons of Ancus
Marcius. Patrician Marcius Rex -family descended from this king and
remained prominent during the republic and empire. A person and a place
Angdistis See
Agdistis is the traditional name of the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Septuagint Anna; some versions have Hannah which is nearer to the original Hebrew. The Hebrew means "graciousness", from the root word Hannan, "to be gracious.") See Saint Anne There are three other women named "Anna" in Sacred Scripture. Anna, a prophetess, daughter of Phanuel
(Samuel i-ii, 21) The traditional name of the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Anna is carefully described by Luke 2:36-38, as a prophetess, daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser. The biographic notes given by Luke regarding the aged prophetess, of whom legend knows that she had had Mary under her tutelage in the Temple, bring out her great sanctity. In spite of her early widowhood, she had never married again, but had devoted her life to the service of God. She answers perfectly the portrait if the model widow of 1 Timothy 5:5-9. As she used to spend most of her time in the Temple, her presence at the scene narrated in Luke 2:25-35, is easily understood. Hence her praise to God, the subject of which was Jesus, with the burden that He was the longed-for Redeemer.
See also Saint
Anne (23/22 BC–death date unknown, probably around 40CE) Son of Seth, was appointed by the Roman legate Quirinius as the first High Priest of the newly formed Roman province of Iudaea in 6 AD; just after the Romans had deposed Archelaus, Ethnarch of Judaea, thereby putting Judaea directly under Roman rule. Annas officially served as High Priest for ten years (6–15 AD), when at the age of 36 he was deposed by the procurator Gratus. Yet while having been officially removed from office, he remained as one of the nation's most influential political and social individuals, aided greatly by the use of his five sons and his son-in-law as puppet High Priests. His death is unrecorded, but his son Annas the Younger, also known as Ananus ben Ananus was assassinated in 66 AD for advocating peace with Rome. Annas appears in the Gospels and Passion plays as a high priest before whom Jesus is brought for judgment, prior to being brought before Pontius Pilate. In the New Testament, Luke 3:2 indicates a joint high priesthood "of Annas and Caiaphas" when the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. Annas and The plot to kill Lazarus of Bethany The involvement of the family of Annas may be implied in the plot to kill Lazarus of Bethany in John 12:10. Although Annas is not mentioned by name in the plot to kill Lazarus, several 19th-century writers such as Johann Nepomuk Sepp and the Abbé Drioux, considered that there may be a concealed reference to Annas in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus which points at a "Rich man" with five sons. If it is considered that rich man dressed in purple and fine linen (cf. Exodus 28:8) represents Caiaphas, as figurehead of the Sadducees, then Annas is intended by the "father" in Luke 16:27, and the "five brothers" Luke 16:28 are Annas' five sons. In support of this is the coincidence that the father and five brothers who will not be convinced even if the parable Lazarus is raised from the dead (Luke 16:31) predict that Caiaphas, Annas, and the five sons of Annas would not believe and plotted to have the real Lazarus killed when he was raised (John 12:10). Annas and The trial of Jesus According to the Gospel of John (the event is not mentioned in other accounts), Jesus was first brought before Annas, and after a brief questioning of him (John 18:19-23) was sent to the home of Caiaphas, where some members of the Sanhedrin had met, and the first trial of Jesus took place (Matt. 26:57-68). Annas In the Book of Acts
After Pentecost, Annas presided
over the Sanhedrin before which the Apostles Peter and John were
brought (Acts 4:6). Anselm See Saint Anselm of Canterbury
Anselm of Canterbury See
Saint Anselm of Canterbury
He was one of the oldest gods in
the Sumerian pantheon and part of a triad including Enlil (god of
the air) and Enki (god of water). He was called Anu by the
later Akkadians in Babylonian culture. By virtue of being the first
figure in a triad consisting of Anu, Enlil, and Enki (also known
as Ea), Anu came to be regarded as the father and at first, king
of the gods. Anu is so prominently associated with the E-anna temple
in the city of Uruk (biblical Erech) in southern Babylonia
that there are good reasons for believing this place to be the
original seat of the Anu cult. If this is correct, then the goddess
Inanna (or Ishtar) of Uruk may at one time have been his consort. Twin brother of Artemis, the virgin huntress, and son of Zeus and Leto, a Titaness. Called by the Greeks Phoebus ‘shining’. Cultic associations with Asia Minor predate those of Greece: Leto was said to have given birth to Apollo and Artemis in Lycia, though the place most closely associated with Apollo's birth was the sacred island of Delos. At birth he said: ‘Dear to me shall be the lyre and bow, and in oracles I shall reveal to men the inexorable will of Zeus.’ According to one legend, the young Apollo went to Delphi at the age of four days in order to slay there the earth serpent which had tried to molest his mother during pregnancy. This python, a son of Gaia, sent up revelations through a fissure in the rock; a priestess, the Pythia, inhaling the potent fumes, was thus inspired to give voice to cryptic utterances—the prophecies of the Delphic Oracle. Apollo killed the great snake and took its place. Another legend makes the dispossessed creature a she dragon named Delphyne, ‘the womb-like’: hence Delphi.
Of his amorous adventures,
noteworthy were the affairs with Koronis, the mother of the medicine
god Asclepius; with Daphne, a wild virgin from Thessaly, who became a
laurel to avoid ravishment; with the nymph Dryope, whom he approached
in the guise of a tortoise; with the boy Kyparissos,
‘cypress’, a kind of double of Apollo himself. Daphne and
Kyparissos must derive from the god's older habitat, the wild regions
of the north. Apollo was originally the patron of shepherds: after
his installation at Delphi he acquired power over archery, music, and
medicine. The Romans built their first temple to Apollo in 432 BC.
They may have adopted him from Greek settlers or from the Etruscans,
whose divinity Veiovis was identified with Apollo.
Reign: 589–570 BC, 26th dynasty Hophra used in The Bible Thus says the LORD, ‘Behold, I am going to give over Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt to the hand of his enemies, to the hand of those who seek his life, just as I gave over Zedekiah king of Judah to the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who was his enemy and was seeking his life.’”
- Jeremiah 44:30 Apries is the name by which Herodotus (ii. 161) and Diodorus (i. 68) designate Wahibre Haaibre, (Pharaoh-Hophra), a pharaoh of Egypt (589 BC – 570 BC), the fourth king (counting from Psamtik I) of the Twenty-sixth dynasty of Egypt. He was equated with the Waphres of Manetho, who correctly records that he reigned for 19 years. Apries is also called Hophra in Jeremiah 44:30. Apries inherited the throne from his father, pharaoh Psamtik II, in February 589 BC and his reign continued his father's history of foreign intrigue in Palestinian affairs. Apries was an active builder who constructed "additions to the temples at Athribis (Tell Atrib), Bahariya Oasis, Memphis and Sais." In Year 4 of his reign, Apries' sister Ankhnesneferibre was adopted as the new God's Wife of Amun at Thebes. However, Apries' reign was also fraught with internal problems. In 588 BC, Apries dispatched a force to Jerusalem to protect it from Babylonian forces sent by Nebuchadrezzar II. His forces were quickly crushed and Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians. His unsuccessful attempt to intervene in the politics of the Kingdom of Judah was followed by a mutiny of soldiers from the strategically important Aswan garrison. While the mutiny was contained, Apries later attempted to protect Libya from incursions by Dorian Greek invaders but his efforts here backfired spectacularly as his forces were mauled by the Greek invaders. When the defeated army returned home, a civil war broke out between the indigenous Egyptian army troops and foreign mercenaries in the Egyptian army. At this time of crisis, the Egyptians turned in support towards a victorious general, Amasis II who had led Egyptian forces in a highly successful invasion of Nubia in 592 BC under pharaoh Psamtik II, Apries' father. Amasis quickly declared himself pharaoh in 570 BC and Apries fled Egypt and sought refuge in another foreign country. When Apries marched back to Egypt in 567 BC with the aid of a Babylonian army to reclaim the throne of Egypt, he was likely killed in battle with Amasis' forces. Amasis thus secured his kingship over Egypt and was now the unchallenged ruler of Egypt. Amasis, however, reportedly treated Apries' mortal remains with respect and observed the proper funerary rituals by having Apries' body carried to Sais and buried there with "full military honours." Amasis, the former general who had declared himself pharaoh also married Apries' daughter Chedebnitjerbone II to legitimise his accession to power. While Herodotus claimed that the wife of Apries was called Nitetis in (Greek), "there are no contemporary references naming her" in Egyptian records. Eusebius placed the eclipse of Thales in 585 BC in the eighth or twelfth year of Apries' reign.
An obelisk which Apries erected at
Sais was moved by the 3rd century AD
Roman Emperor Diocletian and originally placed at the Temple of Isis
in Rome. It is today located in front of the Santa Maria sopra
Minerva basilica church in Rome.
The name Aram referring to places in the bible:
The name Aram referring to places in the Qur'an
Aram may also refer to:
See also
Aramazd See Ahura
Mazda In the Book of Exodus, Amram Arabic Imran, is the father of Aaron, Moses, and Miriam and the husband of Jochebed. Aram died in Egypt at the age of 137 years (Ex. 6:20). His descendants were called Amramites (Num. 3:27; 1 Chr. 26:23).
Aram The sons of this man are listed as having had foreign wives (Ezra 10:34).
Of the sons of Bani; Maadai, Amram, and Uel, Benaiah,
Bedeiah, Chelluh, Vaniah, Meremoth, Eliashib, Mattaniah, Mattenai,
and Jaasau, And Bani, and Binnui, Shimei, And Shelemiah, and Nathan,
and Adaiah, Machnadebai, Shashai, Sharai, Azareel, and Shelemiah,
Shemariah, Shallum, Amariah, and Joseph. The fifth son of Shem; the father (or, see I Chr 1:17, the brother) of Uz, Hul, Gether and Mash – five of the seventy nations listed after the Flood (Gen 10:22-23). Their descendants were the Arameans. Aram is a son of Shem, according to the Table of Nations in Genesis 10 of the Hebrew Bible, and the father of Uz, Hul, Gether and Mash. The Book of Chronicles confirms Aram as one of Shem's sons, confirming Uz, Hul, Gether and Mash, as also on the list of Shem's descendants. Aram son of Shem is recognized as a prophet in Mandaeism and as an Islamic prophet. Aram is usually regarded as being the eponymous ancestor of the Aramaean people of Northern Mesopotamia and Syria. According to the Book of Jubilees (9:5,6), the inheritance of the Earth to be bequeathed to the descendants of Aram included all of the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers "to the north of the Chaldees to the border of the mountains of Asshur and the land of 'Arara."
"The mountains of Asshur in the north, and all
the land of Elam, Asshur, and Babel, and Susan and Ma'edai"
(Persia, Assyria,
Babylonia, and Media, ie. the Medes the sons of Madai) were
apportioned to sons of Shem (Jubilees 8:21) and, consistent with the
statement of the Book of Jubilees on Aram, the Aramaeans have
historically been predominant in the north here, specifically central
Syria, where Aramaic was the lingua franca, or common language,
before the advent
of Christianity. Araunah was a Jebusite who was mentioned in the Books of Samuel who owned the threshing floor on the summit of Mount Moriah that David purchased and used as the site for assembling an altar to God, the implication being that the altar became the core of the Temple of Solomon.
Araunah means the lord in Hittite, and so most
scholars, since they consider the Jebusites to have been Hittite,
have argued that Araunah may have been another king of Jerusalem;
some scholars additionally believe that Adonijah is actually a
disguised reference to Araunah, the (r) having been corrupted to (d).
The narrative itself is considered by scholars to be aetiological and
of dubious historicity; Melchizedek, as a priest as well as king, was
likely to have been associated with a sanctuary, probably dedicated
to Zedek, and scholars suspect that the Temple of Solomon was simply
a natural evolution of this sanctuary. The name Arioch is assigned to several different men in the Bible:
Concordance Acts 19:29; 20:4; 27:2. Col 4:10.
Philemv. 24
Born: 384 B.C.
Aristotle is one of the "big three" in
ancient Greek philosophy, along with Plato
and Socrates. (Socrates taught
Plato, who in turn instructed Aristotle.) Aristotle spent nearly
20 years at Plato's Academy, first as a student and then as a
teacher. After Plato's death he traveled widely and educated a famous
pupil, Alexander the Great, the
Macedonian who nearly conquered the world. Later Aristotle began his
own school in Athens, known as the Lyceum. Aristotle is known for his
carefully detailed observations about nature and the physical world,
which laid the groundwork for the modern study of biology. Among his
works are the texts Physics, Metaphysics, Rhetoric and Ethics. He was
succeeded at the Lyceum by his student Theophrastus.
Armoni and Mephibosheth are the
two sons of Saul with his concubine Rizpah, daughter of Aiah. The
brothers were two of the seven descendants of Saul, along with the
five sons of Saul's daughter Merab, to be given by King David to the
Gibeonites, whose abuse by Saul had been identified as the source of
a famine. The Gibeonites hanged the men, and their mother Rizpah
stood guard over their bodies for five months before they were
allowed to be buried.(2 Samuel 21:8-9) Arpachshad or Arphaxad or Arphacsad was one of the five sons of Shem, the son of Noah (Genesis 10:22, 24; 11:10-13; 1 Chron. 1:17-18). His brothers were Elam, Asshur, Lud and Aram; he is an ancestor of Abraham. He is said by Gen. 11:10 to have been born two years after the Flood, when Shem was 100. In the Old Testament apocryphal books Jubilees describes, Arpachshad took to himself a wife and her name was Rasu'eja, the daughter of Susan, the daughter of Elam, and she bare him a son in the third year in this week, (1375 AM) and he called his name Kainam, Jubilees 8:1 In the Bible, Arpachshad's son is called Salah, except in the Septuagint, where his son is Cainan, Salah being Arpachshad's grandson. Cainan is also identified as Arpachshad's son in Luke 3:36 and Jubilees 8:1. Other ancient Jewish sources, particularly the Book of Jubilees, point to Arpachshad as the immediate progenitor of Ura and Kesed, who allegedly founded the city of Ur Kesdim (Ur of the Chaldees) on the west bank of the Euphrates (Jub. 9:4; 11:1-7) — the same bank where Ur, identified by Leonard Woolley in 1927 as Ur of the Chaldees, is located. Donald B. Redford has asserted that Arpachshad is to be identified with Babylon. Until Woolley's identification of Ur, Arpachshad was understood by many Jewish and Muslim scholars to be an area in northern Mesopotamia, Urfa of the Yazidis. This led to the identification of Arpachshad with Urfa-Kasid - a land associated with the Khaldis, whom Josephus confused with the Chaldean.
Another Arpachshad is referenced in the
deuterocanonical Book of Judith as being the "king of the
Medes" contemporary with Nebuchadnezzar II, but this is thought
to be a corruption of the historical name Cyaxares (Hvakhshathra).
In the classical period of Greek mythology, Artemis
(Greek: (nominative), (genitive)) was often described as the daughter
of Zeus and Leto,
and the twin sister of Apollo. She
was the Hellenic goddess of the hunt, wild animals, wilderness,
childbirth, virginity and protector of young girls, bringing and
relieving disease in women; she often was depicted as a huntress
carrying a bow and arrows. The deer and the cypress were sacred to
her. In later Hellenistic times, she even assumed the ancient role of
Eileithyia in aiding childbirth. Works of Arthur C. Custance:
House of David
Regnal titles Preceded by Abijam Succeeded by Jehoshaphat Asa was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the third king of the Kingdom of Judah and the fifth king of the House of David. He was the son of Abijam, grandson of Rehoboam, and great-grandson of Solomon. The Hebrew Bible gives the period of his reign as 41 years. His reign is dated between 913-910 BC to 873-869 BC. He was succeeded by his son by Azubah, Jehoshaphat. According to Thiele's chronology, when Asa became very ill, he made Jehoshaphat coregent. Asa died two years into the coregency.
Asa was zealous in maintaining the traditional worship
of God, and in rooting out idolatry, with its accompanying
immoralities. After concluding a battle with Zerah of Egypt in the
10th year of his reign, there was peace in Judah (2 Chronicles
14:1,9) until the 35th year of Asa's reign (2 Chronicles 16:1). In
his 36th year he was confronted by Baasha, king of Israel. He formed
an alliance with Ben-Hadad I, king of Aram Damascus, and convinced
him to break his peace treaty with Baasha and invade the Northern
Kingdom. (2 Chronicles 16:2-6) It is also recorded of Asa that in his
old age, when afflicted with a foot disease, he “sought not to
the Lord, but to the physicians”. He died greatly honoured by
his people, and was considered for the most part a righteous king.
However, his reign was said to have been marred by his reliance on Ben-Hadad. Asher was the eighth son of Jacob, and the second of Jacob's two sons by Zilpah, Leah's maid. The other son by Zilpah was Gad. When Jacob blesses his 12 sons in Genesis, chapter 49, he said that Asher would have a life blessed with an abundance of food and delicacies befitting a king (Genesis 49:20). Asher made the journey with Jacob and the family from Padan Aram to Canaan, and then later to Egypt. The Tribe of Asher increased in size from 41,500 to 53,400 adult males during the span of two censuses described in the Book of Numbers. In Deuteronomy 33:1 and Deuteronomy 24-25, Moses, in his blessing, also predicted prosperity for the Tribe of Asher. The Tribe of Asher failed to drive out the inhabitants of Phoenician towns in the area of Israel that the tribe had been allotted as its inheritance (Judges 1:27). In the Song of Deborah, which is featured in Judges, chapter 5, the Tribe of Asher is reprimanded for not helping out during the struggle against a Canaanite king (Judges 5:17). The tribe, however, did participate in the expulsion of the Midianites and Amalekites from the Plain of Jezreel. In Revelation 7:1-8, Asher is among the Tribes who are promised the Seal of God for 12,000 of their members.
Asherah Goddess of motherhood and fertility Lady of the Sea Asherah in Semitic mythology, is a mother goddess who appears in a number of ancient sources. She appears in Akkadian writings by the name of Ashratum/Ashratu, and in Hittite as Asherdu(s) or Ashertu(s) or Aserdu(s) or Asertu(s). Asherah is generally considered identical with the Ugaritic goddess At_irat.
Asherah is identified as the
consort of the Sumerian god Anu and Ugaritic El,
the oldest deities of their respective pantheons. This role gave her
a similarly high rank in the Ugaritic pantheon. The name Dione, which
like 'Elat means "Goddess", is clearly associated with
Asherah in the Phoenician History of Sanchuniathon, because the same
common epithet ('Elat) of "the Goddess par excellence" was
used to describe her at Ugarit. The Book of Jeremiah, written circa
628 BC, possibly refers to Asherah when it uses the title "Queen
of Heaven", stating: "pray thou not for this people...the
children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women
knead their dough, to make cakes to the Queen of Heaven, and to pour
out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to
anger." in Jer 7:18 and Jer 44:17–19, 25. (For a discussion
of "Queen of Heaven" in the Hebrew Bible, see Queen
of Heaven.) Asima was a West Semitic goddess of fate related to the Akkadian goddess Shimti ("fate"), who was a goddess in her own right but also a title of other goddesses such as Damkina and Ishtar. Damkina, for example, was titled banat shimti, “creator of fate”. The name Ashima could be translated as "the name, portion, or lot" depending on context. It is related to the same root as the Arabian qisma and the Turkish kismet. Obermann suggests a close association with between the concept of "name" and "fate or purpose" from the West Semitic root "šm" and cites several examples in the Ugaritic text in which the naming of a person or object determines future function which is a familiar theme in many mythologies. Driver translates "šmt" as "charge, duty, function" in his glossary of Ugaritic and links this with the Akkadian "shimtu" which he translates as "appointed lot". As a personification of fate, Ashima was cognate with the South Semitic goddess Manathu (or Manat) whose name meant "the measurer, fate, or portion" who was worshiped by the Nabataean peoples of Jordan and other early South Semitic and Arabian peoples. Both names appear in alternate verses in Ugaritic texts. (In the same way, the name of the goddess Asherah appears in alternate verses with Elath to indicate that both names refer to the same goddess). Ashim-Yahu and Ashim-Beth-El are forms of her name and a variant of her name is also attested in the Hebrew temple in Elephantine in Egypt. The divine name or epithet Ashima-Yaho (haShema YHWH) which is attested in the papyri from the Yahweh temple of Elephantine in Egypt has been connected in both theme and structure with a title of Astarte which appears in the Ugaritic texts as Astarte Name-of-Baal (e.g., KTU (“Keilalphabetische Texte aus Ugarit”) 1.16.vi.56).
Some speculate that Ashima was
praised by tribes in what appears to be Asia Minor and North Africa,
but more specifically by Hamath, who were later deported to Samaria
in the Land of Israel. The Hebrew Bible states that the goddess
should not be worshiped, but that the Samaritans nevertheless
worshiped her, together with other deities, clandestinely. 2Kings 17:30 In the Hebrew Bible, Ashkenaz was the first son of Gomer and brother of Riphath and Togarmah (Genesis 10:3, 1 Chronicles 1:6). Gomer was the grandson of Noah through Japheth. Accordingly, Ashkenaz was a Japhetic descendant of Noah. According to Jeremiah 51:27, a kingdom of Ashkenaz was called together with Ararat and Minni against Babylon. The location of this kingdom, however, is not clear and is not mentioned again, nor is there any clear non-biblical reference to the kingdom. Ashkenaz is often identified with the Scythians and Sarmatians, due in part to the use of the name "Ashkuz" (Saka) for the Scythians in Assyrian Akkadian inscriptions. It may also refer to the Phrygians, who according to Homer's Iliad settled around Lake Ascania. The Assyrian Gimirri and Hebrew Gomer have likewise been associated with the Cimmerians. Isaac Asimov has proposed that biblical Ashkenaz arose from Ashkuz, i.e. the Scythians, by an old misreading of (nun) for (vav). According to the Encyclopaedia Biblica, Ashkenaz must have been one of the migratory peoples which in the time of Esar-haddon, burst upon the northern provinces of Asia Minor, and upon Armenia. One branch of this great migration appears to have reached Lake Urumiyeh; for in the revolt which Esar-haddon chastised (i R 45, col. 2, 27 jf.), the Mannai, who lived to the SW of that lake, sought the help of Ispakai 'of the land of Asguza,' a name (originally perhaps Asgunza) which the scepticism of Dillmann need not hinder us from identifying with Ashkenaz, and from considering as that of a horde from the north, of Indo-Germanic origin, which settled on the south of Lake Urumiyeh. There is a theory of Isaac Asimov that biblical Askhenaz arose from Ashkuz (= the Scythians) by an old misreading of nun for vav. Ashkenaz is often identified with the Scythians and Sarmatians, due in part to the use of the name "Ashkuz" (Saka) for the Scythians in Assyrian Akkadian inscriptions. It may also refer to the Phrygians, who according to Homer's Iliad settled around Lake Ascania. In rabbinic literature, Ashkenaz is believed to be the ancestor of the Germanic people, probably due to the similarity of the names Gomer with German, and Ashkenaz with Aschanes (Askanius), a mythological progenitor of the Saxons. For this reason, Ashkenaz is the Medieval Hebrew name for Germany. Samewise they could have taken the name from the landholders and leaders of the German Siedlung (settlers) over the formerly Slavic lands of Eastern Europe after the XI c. with the Ascanians, the new titleholders of lands (or people, also when residents of neighbor feudal lords) resettled with their Ostsiedlung programs from the Western Marks of Saxony and other German speaking territories were invitations were announced and to which many German Jewish people responded too and moved in search of better prospects and more religious protections.
The German name for Northern
people, to which they could be included by outsiders was, Ascomannii
from the Ash wood used for their Spears. Gar-mann, which means
roughly "spear or pike" foot man, is a false etymology from
English for the name "German", as well attested by
reputable dictionaries. (also Astarot, and Asteroth) Astaroth, in demonology, is a Crowned Prince of Hell. He is a male figure named after the Canaanite goddess Ashtoreth. Ashtaroth, Hebrew plural form of Ashtoreth, the name of the Canaanite fertility goddess and consort of Baal. Her name is vocalized in Greek as Astarte. She was worshiped at various local shrines. There are several references to her in the Bible. The name Astaroth was ultimately derived from that of 2nd millennium BC Phoenician goddess Astarte, an equivalent of the Babylonian Ishtar, and the earlier Sumerian Inanna. She is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible in the forms Ashtoreth (singular) and Ashtaroth (plural, in reference to multiple statues of her). This latter form was directly transliterated in the early Greek and Latin versions of the Bible, where it was less apparent that it had been a plural feminine in Hebrew. The pseudepigraphal work Testament of Solomon, attributed to King Solomon of Israel, but thought to date to the early centuries AD, mentions "Asteraoth" (in Greek) as an angel, who is opposed to the demon of power. (cf. 1 Kings 11:4-5) The name "Astaroth" as a male demon is first known from The Book of Abramelin, written in Hebrew ca. 1458, and recurred in most occult grimoires of the following centuries. Astaroth also features as an arch-demon associated with the qliphoth (adverse forces) according to later Kabbalistic texts. He is referred to in The Lesser Key of Solomon as a very powerful demon. In art, in the Dictionnaire Infernal, Astaroth is depicted as a nude man with feathered wings, wearing a crown, holding a serpent in one hand, and riding a beast with dragon-like wings and a serpent-like tail. According to Sebastien Michaelis he is a demon of the First Hierarchy, who seduces by means of laziness, vanity, and rationalized philosophies. His adversary is St. Bartholomew, who can protect against him for he has resisted Astaroth's temptations. To others, he teaches mathematical sciences and handicrafts, can make men invisible and lead them to hidden treasures, and answers every question formulated to him. He was also said to give to mortal beings the power over serpents.
According to Francis Barrett,
Astaroth is the prince of accusers and inquisitors. According to some
demonologists of the 16th century, August is the month during which
this demon's attacks against man are stronger. Asiya, wife of the Pharaoh is revered by Muslims as one of the greatest women of all time. She was the wife of "Fir'awn," the Pharaoh who reigned during Moses's time (it is not clear whether he was the Pharaoh of the Oppression or the Pharaoh of the Exodus). The Qur'an chronicles her as a great person and she is respected all the more by Muslims as she was married to one of the most evil men in history, but never lost faith in God and remained steadfast in prayer and belief. Prophet Muhammad is said to have mentioned her as one of the four greatest women of all time, alongside Mary, Khadija and Fatimah. Asiya was the Israelite wife of the Pharaoh. Unlike her evil husband, she was a pious and believing woman who accepted the faith that Moses and Aaron were preaching, according to the Torah, in Israel at the time. Although she had exceeding wealth, she was not arrogant like the Pharaoh. She realized that faith in God was far more important and was thus exalted by God amongst the women of her generation. Asiya and her maids were at the neighboring Nile river one day. To their amazement, they found a crate floating in the river. Asiya immediately ordered the crate to be brought out on shore. Although the maids thought there was a treasure in the crate, they in fact found a baby boy inside. Asiya instantly fell in love with him and knew that this boy, Moses, was no ordinary baby. She told the Pharaoh about the baby and convinced her husband to allow the baby to live with them. Asiya subsequently saved Moses from the Pharaoh's anger several times. Asiya then offered Moses' mother to live in their household as Moses' wet nurse and paid her for her services, being unaware that the wet nurse was Moses' mother. Thus, mother and son were reunited again. The tradition holds that Asiya worshipped God in secret and praying in disguise fearing her husband. She died while being tortured by her husband, who had discovered her monotheism . . . It is said that Asiya was a sincere believer and that she fully submitted herself to God, despite being the wife of Pharaoh. According to Hadith, she will be among the first women to enter Paradise because she accepted Moses's monotheism over Pharaoh's beliefs. The Qur'an mentions Asiya as an example to all Muslims And God sets forth, as an example to those who believe the wife of Pharaoh: Behold she said: 'O my Lord! Build for me, in nearness to Thee, a mansion in the Garden, and save me from Pharaoh and his doings, and save me from those that do wrong': —Qur'an, chapter 66 (At-Tahrim), verse 11
See also Bithiah Modern translation spelling of Ashur (KJV, TEV). Personal name meaning, “to be black,” or “belonging to Ishara.”
The Hebrew text of Genesis 10:11 is somewhat ambiguous as to whether it was Asshur himself (as the 1611 Authorized Version says), or Nimrod (as in some other English translations) who built the Assyrian cities of Nineveh, Resen, Rehoboth-Ir and Calah, since the name Asshur can refer to both the person and the country.(Genesis 10:8-12 AV, Genesis 10:8-12 ESV) The 1st century Judaeo-Roman historian Flavius Josephus further gives the following statement: "Ashur lived at the city of Nineve; and named his subjects Assyrians, who became the most fortunate nation, beyond others” (Antiquities, i, vi, 4).
Ashur the father of Tekoa is mentioned in 1 Chronicles 4.
Assir was a son of Korah
of the house of Levi according to Exodus 6:24, born in Egypt. It was
also the firstborn son of Jehoiachin,
King of Judah.
Astarot See Ashtaroth An ancient Semitic goddess of love and war, being the Phoenician, Syrian, and Canaanite counterpart to Ishtar. In the Bible, her name sometimes appears in the plural, perhaps referring to a group of goddesses. The mother goddess in the Ras Shamra texts appears as Anat, Athirat, and Athtart, or Astarte. The consort and sister of Baal, the most active Canaanite god, Anat was called the ‘lady of the mountain’, and it was through her flattery of El that Baal was allowed to build a house on Saphon, a mountain situated in ‘the sides of the north’. In spite of titles like ‘the maiden’ and ‘the virgin’, Anat was an aggressive goddess: she slew Baal's enemies, waded in the blood of her human victims, and desired to possess Aqhat's bow. She was portrayed with helmet, battle-axe, and spear. In Egypt, where she was introduced by the Hyksos invaders, the cow's horns of Hathor became a part of her iconography. Athirat, ‘the lady of the sea’, appears to be the consort of El, an equivalent of the Hebrew God Yahweh. Her role was restricted to fertility. Less remote than Athirat and almost as fierce as Anat was Astarte, ‘the queen of heaven’. The Hebrews knew her as the goddess of the Sidonians, and gave her worship. Yahweh told the prophet Jeremiah that ‘the children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger’. At Mizpah temples to Yahweh and Astarte were actually erected side by side, while in Upper Egypt the Hebrew community still regarded the moon goddess as a divine consort in the fifth century BC. As in the cases of Ishtar and Inanna, the sacred marriage and temple prostitution were prominent features of the cult. ‘When I fed them to the full,’ Yahweh complained, ‘they then committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots' houses.’ Astarte was dangerous as well as beautiful. She wore the horns of the bull: hers was victory in the fray as ‘mistress of horses and chariots’. An Arabian variant could have been the god Athtar, also known as the ‘terrible’ lord who unsuccessfully tried to oust Baal.
Asteroth See Ashtaroth
House
of David
Regnal titles
Athaliah was queen consort of
Judah as the wife of King Jehoram, and later queen regnant for six
years. William F. Albright has dated her reign to 842–837 BC,
while Edwin R. Thiele's dates, as taken from the third edition of his
magnum opus, were 842/841 to 836/835 BC. However, a starting date of
842/841 for Athaliah is one year before the date of 841/840 that
Thiele gave for death of her son Ahaziah, a conflict that Thiele
never resolved. The present article accepts the one-year adjustment
to Thiele's dates for Ahaziah given by later scholars that is
explained in the Rehoboam and Ahaziah articles, thereby reconciling
Thiele's dates for Athaliah with those of her predecessor. These
dates are also compatible with cross-synchronisms between Ahaziah and
Athaliah and the northern kingdom. The text above regards Athaliah as the daughter of Ahab and his wife Jezebel. This is consistent with most Bible commentaries. However there are several Scriptures that, when combined with chronological considerations, have led some scholars to hold that she was Ahab's sister, not his daughter. The relevant Scriptural texts that can be cited to support the brother-sister relationship are the following.
The support for Athaliah being Ahab's daughter comes from two verses, 2 Kings 8:18 and its parallel in 2 Chronicles 21:6. These verses say that Jehoram of Judah did wickedly "because he married a daughter of Ahab." This would seem to settle the question in favor of the daughter relationship, with one precaution: the Syriac version of the 2 Chronicles 21:6 says "sister of Ahab" instead of daughter. This textual support for Athaliah being the sister of Ahab is usually regarded as weak enough to justify translating bath in 2 Kings 8:26 and 2 Chronicles 22:2 as "granddaughter," thus bringing the various passages about Athaliah into harmony: she is presented as Omri's granddaughter and Ahab's daughter. The chronological considerations brought forth by scholars who advocate the sister-theory have to do with determining the earliest age at which Athaliah could have been born, and then showing that this is too late for Athaliah to be Ahab's daughter, but not too late if she was his sister. This brings up the question of who her mother was. It is often assumed that her mother was the famous Jezebel, the only wife mentioned for Ahab in Scripture, but an argument from silence about other wives cannot be conclusive. There is no evidence that she was the daughter of Ahab’s chief wife, Jezebel. Athaliah might have been the daughter of another of Ahab's wives. The argument is made that the Ahab/Jezebel marriage was an affair of state that would only have occurred after Omri, Ahab's father, was firmly in control of his kingdom, and Ithobaal, Jezebel's father, was firmly in control of Tyre and Sidon. Omri and Ithobaal were both usurpers; neither was the member of a royal family before they took the throne, and so it is not reasonable that, before they became kings, an Israelite general would seek out a priest of Astarte in the kingdom of Tyre and Sidon to get a wife for his young son Ahab. According to F. M. Cross's chronology of Tyrian kings, as calculated from the records of Menander of Ephesus, Ithobaal killed Phelles and became king of Tyre in 878 BC, two years after Omri became undisputed king of Israel. If the marriage had taken place in the first year of Ithobaal's reign, then, assuming their first-born was Athaliah and that she was born in the following year, Athaliah would have been born in 877 BC at the earliest. She would have been 36 years old in 841 BC when her son Ahaziah came to the throne. Ahaziah was 22 years old at this time, according to 2 Kings 8:26, so his mother would have been 14 when he was born, under this scenario. Scholars have used these chronological considerations to say that Athaliah could not have been Ahab's daughter, but she could have been his sister. However, even today in the Middle East, child marriage is not uncommon, and girls as young as 9 may be married . Therefore, it would not necessarily have been unusual for a girl to have had a child at 14 .
A weakness in the foregoing
argument is that it assumes that Athaliah was the daughter of Ahab by
his wife Jezebel. There is no statement in Scripture that names her
mother, and if Ahab fathered Athaliah by an otherwise unknown wife
several years before he married Jezebel, the chronological argument
does not hold.
Augustus,Latin for "majestic, "the increaser," or "venerable", was an ancient Roman title given as both name and title to Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (often referred to simply as Augustus), Rome's first Emperor. On his death, it became an official title of his successor, and was so used by Roman emperors thereafter. The feminine form, Augusta was used for Roman empresses and other females of the Imperial family. The masculine and feminine forms originated in the time of the Roman Republic, in connection with things considered divine or sacred in traditional Roman religion. Their use as titles for major and minor Roman deities of the Empire associated the Imperial system and Imperial family with traditional Roman virtues and the divine will, and may be considered a feature of the Roman Imperial cult.
In Rome's Greek-speaking
provinces, "Augustus" was translated as sebastos
("venerable"), or hellenised as augoustos. After the fall
of the Roman Empire, Augustus was sometimes used as a name for men of
aristocratic birth, especially in the lands of the Holy Roman Empire.
It remains a given name for males. Augustus (Latin: Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August 14 AD) was the founder of the Roman Empire and its first Emperor, ruling from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD. He was born Gaius Octavius into an old and wealthy equestrian branch of the plebeian Octavii family. Following the assassination of his maternal great-uncle Julius Caesar in 44 BC, Caesar's will named Octavius as his adopted son and heir. Together with Mark Antony and Marcus Lepidus, he formed the Second Triumvirate to defeat the assassins of Caesar. Following their victory at Philippi, the Triumvirate divided the Roman Republic among themselves and ruled as military dictators. The Triumvirate was eventually torn apart under the competing ambitions of its members: Lepidus was driven into exile and stripped of his position, and Antony committed suicide following his defeat at the Battle of Actium by Augustus in 31 BC. After the demise of the Second Triumvirate, Augustus restored the outward facade of the free Republic, with governmental power vested in the Roman Senate, the executive magistrates, and the legislative assemblies. In reality, however, he retained his autocratic power over the Republic as a military dictator. By law, Augustus held a collection of powers granted to him for life by the Senate, including supreme military command, and those of tribune and censor. It took several years for Augustus to develop the framework within which a formally republican state could be led under his sole rule. He rejected monarchical titles, and instead called himself Princeps Civitatis ("First Citizen of the State"). The resulting constitutional framework became known as the Principate, the first phase of the Roman Empire. The reign of Augustus initiated an era of relative peace known as the Pax Romana (The Roman Peace). Despite continuous wars of imperial expansion on the Empire's frontiers and one year-long civil war over the imperial succession, the Roman world was largely free from large-scale conflict for more than two centuries. Augustus dramatically enlarged the Empire, annexing Egypt, Dalmatia, Pannonia, Noricum, and Raetia, expanded possessions in Africa, expanded into Germania, and completed the conquest of Hispania. Beyond the frontiers, he secured the Empire with a buffer region of client states, and made peace with the Parthian Empire through diplomacy. He reformed the Roman system of taxation, developed networks of roads with an official courier system, established a standing army, established the Praetorian Guard, created official police and fire-fighting services for Rome, and rebuilt much of the city during his reign. Augustus died in 14 AD at the age of 75. He may have died from natural causes, although there were unconfirmed rumors that his wife Livia poisoned him. He was succeeded as Emperor by his adopted son (also stepson and former son-in-law), Tiberius. Throughout his life, the man historians refer to as Augustus was known by many names:
Augustus' Rise to Power Octavian's enemy in his rise to power was Mark Antony, who had assumed the command of Caesar's legions. The two men became enemies immediately when Octavian announced his intentions of taking over his inheritance. Antony had embarked on a war against the Senate to avenge Caesar's murder and to further his own ambitions, and Octavian joined the senatorial side in the battle. Antony was defeated at Mutina in 43, but the Senate refused Octavian the triumph he felt was his due. Octavian abandoned the senators and joined forces with Antony and Lepidus, another of Caesar's officers; they called themselves the Second Triumvirate. In 42 the triumvirate defeated the last republican armies, led by Brutus and Cassius, at Philippi. The victors then divided the Mediterranean into spheres of influence; Octavian took the West; Antony, the East; and Lepidus, Africa. Lepidus became less consequential as time went on, and a clash between Antony and Octavian for sole control of the empire became increasingly inevitable. Octavian played upon Roman and Western antipathy to the Orient, and after a formidable propaganda campaign against Antony and his consort, Queen Cleopatra of Egypt, Octavian declared war against Cleopatra in 32. Octavian won a decisive naval victory, which left him master of the entire Roman world. The following year Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide, and Octavian annexed Egypt to Rome. In 29 Octavian returned to Rome in triumph. Political Authority of Augustus Octavian's power was based on his control of the army, his financial resources, and his enormous popularity. The system of government he established, however, was designed to veil these facts by making important concessions to republican sentiment. Octavian was extremely farsighted in his political arrangements, but he continually emphasized that his rule was a return to the mos maiorum, the customs of the ancestors. Early in January of 27 B.C., therefore, Octavian went before the Senate and announced that he was restoring the rule of the Roman world to the Senate and the Roman people. The Senate, in gratitude, voted him special powers and on January 16 gave him the title Augustus, signifying his superior position in the state, with the added connotation of "revered." A joint government gradually evolved which in theory was a partnership; in fact, Augustus was the senior partner. Suetonius, his biographer, said that Augustus believed that "he himself would not be free from danger if he should retire" and that "it would be hazardous to trust the state to the control of the populace" so "he continued to keep it in his hands; and it is not easy to say whether his intentions or their results were the better." The government was formalized in 23, when Augustus received two important republican titles from the Senate - Tribune of the People and Proconsul - which together gave him enormous control over the army, foreign policy, and legislation. His full nomenclature also included his adopted name, Caesar, and the title Imperator, or commander in chief of a victorious army. Character and Achievements of Augustus Suetonius has given a description of Augustus which is confirmed by the many statues of him. "In person he was unusually handsome and exceedingly graceful at all periods of his life, though he cared nothing for personal adornment&ldots; He had clear, bright eyes, in which he liked to have it thought that there was a kind of divine power, and it greatly pleased him, whenever he looked keenly at anyone, if he let his face fall as if before the radiance of the sun. &ldots; He was short of stature &ldots; but this was concealed by the fine proportion and symmetry of his figure." Augustus concerned himself with every detail and aspect of the empire. He attended to everything with dignity, firmness, and generosity, hoping, as he said himself, that he would be "called the author of the best possible government." He stabilized the boundaries of the empire, provided for the defense of the frontiers, reorganized and reduced the size of the army, and created two fleets to form a Roman navy. His many permanent innovations included also the creation of a large civil service which attended to the general business of administering so vast an empire. The Emperor was interested in public buildings and especially temple buildings. In 28 B.C. he undertook the repair of all the temples in Rome, 82 by his own count. He also built many new ones. In addition, he constructed a new forum, the Forum of Augustus, begun in 42 B.C. and completed 40 years later. It was with good reason that Augustus could boast that he had "found Rome built of brick and left it in marble." Repairing the temples was only one aspect of the religious and moral revival which Augustus fostered. There seems to have been a falling away from the old gods of the state, and Augustus encouraged a return to the religious dedication and morality of the early republic. In 17 B.C. he held the Secular Games, an ancient festival which symbolized the restoration of the older religion. The poet Horace commemorated the occasion with his moving Secular Hymn. Augustus tried to improve morals by passing laws to regulate marriage and family life and to control promiscuity. In A.D. 9, for example, he made adultery a criminal offense, and he encouraged the birthrate by granting privileges to couples with three or more children. His laws did not discourage his daughter Julia and his grand-daughter (also Julia), both of whom he banished for immoral conduct. Suetonius reports that "he bore the death of his kin with far more resignation than their misconduct." Throughout his long reign Augustus encouraged literature, and the Augustan Age is called the Golden Age because Roman writing attained a rare perfection. It was above all an age of poets - Horace, Ovid, and most especially, Virgil. And in Virgil's great epic, the Aeneid, there is expressed for all time the sense of the grandeur of Rome's imperial destiny which culminated in the age of Augustus. The Succession of Augustus Augustus suffered many illnesses, and these caused him to designate an heir early in his reign. But he had many deaths to bear and outlived his preferred choices, including his two young grandsons, and was finally forced to designate as his heir Tiberius, his third wife's son by her first marriage.
The first emperor died at Nola on
Aug. 19, A.D. 14. On his deathbed, according to Suetonius, he quoted
a line used by actors at the end of their performance: "Since
I've played well, with joy your voices raise/ And from your stage
dismiss me with your praise." Azazel is a term traditionally understood to mean either as scapegoat or — in some traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam — as the name for a fallen angel or demon. It is used three times in the Hebrew Bible. Azazel in The Hebrew Bible The term in the Bible is limited to three uses in Leviticus 16, where two he-goats were to be sacrificed to God and one of the two was selected by lot, for God is seen as speaking through the lottery. The next words are la-aza'zeyl, read either as "for absolute removal" or as "for Azazel". This goat was then cast out in the desert as part of the Day of Atonement. In older English versions such as the King James Version the word azazeyl is translated as "as a scapegoat", however in most modern English Bible versions the word azazeyl is represented as a name in the text: 8 Aaron shall offer the bull as a sin offering for himself and shall make atonement for himself and for his house. 7 Then he shall take the two goats and set them before the Lord at the entrance of the tent of meeting. 8 And Aaron shall cast lots over the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other lot for Azazel. 9 And Aaron shall present the goat on which the lot fell for the Lord and use it as a sin offering, 10 but the goat on which the lot fell for Azazel shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement over it, that it may be sent away into the wilderness to Azazel. 8 And casting lots upon them both, one to be offered to the Lord, and the other to be the emissary goat: 9 That whose lot fell to be offered to the Lord, he shall offer for sin. 10 But that whose lot was to be the emissary goat, he shall present before the Lord, that he may pour prayers upon him, and let him go into the wilderness. — Leviticus 16:8–10 Later rabbis, interpreting la-azazel as azaz (rugged) and el (strong), take it as referring to the rugged and rough mountain cliff from which the goat was cast down. Azazel and The Second Temple Judaism Despite the expectation of Brandt (1889) to date no evidence has surfaced of Azazel as a demon or god prior to the earliest Jewish sources among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Azazel and The Dead Sea Scrolls In the Dead Sea Scrolls the name Azazel occurs in the line 6 of 4Q203, the Book of the Giants, which is a part of the Enochic literature found at Qumran. According to the Book of Enoch, which brings Azazel into connection with the Biblical story of the fall of the angels, located on Mount Hermon, a gathering-place of demons from of old (Enoch xiii.; compare Brandt, "Mandäische Theologie," 1889, p. 38). Azazel is represented in the Book of Enoch as one of the leaders of the rebellious Watchers in the time preceding the flood; he taught men the art of warfare, of making swords, knives, shields, and coats of mail, and women the art of deception by ornamenting the body, dying the hair, and painting the face and the eyebrows, and also revealed to the people the secrets of witchcraft and corrupted their manners, leading them into wickedness and impurity; until at last he was, at the Lord's command, bound hand and foot by the archangel Raphael and chained to the rough and jagged rocks of [Ha] Duduael (= Beth H.adudo), where he is to abide in utter darkness until the great Day of Judgment, when he will be cast into the fire to be consumed forever (Enoch viii. 1, ix. 6, x. 4–6, liv. 5, lxxxviii. 1; see Geiger, "Jüd. Zeit." 1864, pp. 196–204). Azazel In Greek Septuagint and Later Translations The translators of the Greek Septuagint understood the Hebrew term as meaning the sent away, and read:"8and Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other lot for the scapegoat (Greek apompaios dat.). 9And Aaron shall present the goat on which the lot fell for the Lord, and offer it as a sin offering; 10but the goat on which the lot of the sent away one fell shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement over it, that it may be sent away (Greek eis ten apompen acc.) into the wilderness." Following the Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate, Martin Luther and the King James Bible also give readings such as Young's Literal Translation: 'And Aaron hath given lots over the two goats, one lot for Jehovah, and one lot for a goat of departure;' This is rendered Za-za-e'il (the strong one against/of God), according to the Syriac Peshitta Version, as in Qumran fragment 4Q180. Azazel In 1 Enoch and 3 Enoch The whole earth has been corrupted through the works that were taught by Azazel: to him ascribe all sin. — 1 Enoch 10:8 According to 1 Enoch (a book of the Apocrypha), Azazel (here spelled ‘a(za-’zye-l) was one of the chief Grigori, a group of fallen angels who married women. This same story (without any mention of Azazel) is told in Genesis 6:2–4: That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. [&ldots;] There were giants in the earth in those days; and also afterward, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. 1 Enoch portrays Azazel as responsible for teaching people to make weapons and cosmetics, for which he was cast out of heaven. 1 Enoch 8:1–3a reads: And Azazel taught men to make swords and knives and shields and breastplates; and made known to them the metals [of the earth] and the art of working them; and bracelets and ornaments; and the use of antimony and the beautifying of the eyelids; and all kinds of costly stones and all colouring tinctures. And there arose much godlessness, and they committed fornication, and they were led astray and became corrupt in all their ways. The corruption brought on by Azazel and the Grigori degrades the human race, and the four archangels (Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Phanuel) “saw much blood being shed upon the earth and all lawlessness being wrought upon the earth [&ldots;] The souls of men [made] their suit, saying, "Bring our cause before the Most High; [&ldots;] Thou seest what Azazel hath done, who hath taught all unrighteousness on earth and revealed the eternal secrets which were in heaven, which men were striving to learn." God sees the sin brought about by Azazel and has Raphael “bind Azazel hand and foot and cast him into the darkness: and make an opening in the desert – which is in Dudael – and cast him therein. And place upon him rough and jagged rocks, and cover him with darkness, and let him abide there forever, and cover his face that he may not see light.” Several scholars have previously discerned that some details of Azazel's punishment are reminiscent of the scapegoat ritual. Thus, Lester Grabbe points to a number of parallels between the Azazel narrative in 1 Enoch and the wording of Leviticus 16, including “the similarity of the names Asael and Azazel; the punishment in the desert; the placing of sin on Asael/Azazel; the resultant healing of the land.” Daniel Stökl also observes that “the punishment of the demon resembles the treatment of the goat in aspects of geography, action, time and purpose.” Thus, the place of Asael’s punishment designated in 1 Enoch as Dudael is reminiscent of the rabbinic terminology used for the designation of the ravine of the scapegoat in later rabbinic interpretations of the Yom Kippur ritual. Stökl remarks that “the name of place of judgment (Dudael) is conspicuously similar in both traditions and can likely be traced to a common origin.” Azazel's fate is foretold near the end of 1 Enoch 2:8, where God says, “On the day of the great judgement he shall be cast into the fire. [&ldots;] The whole earth has been corrupted through the works that were taught by Azazel: to him ascribe all sin." In the 5th Century 3 Enoch, Azazel is one of the three angels (Azza [Shemhazai] and Uzza [Ouza] are the other two) who opposed Enoch's high rank when he became the angel Metatron. Whilst they were fallen at this time they were still in Heaven, but Metatron held a dislike for them, and had them cast out. They were thenceforth known as the 'three who got the most blame' for their involvement in the fall of the angels marrying women. It should be remembered that Azazel and Shemhazai were said to be the leaders of the 200 fallen, and Uzza and Shemhazai were tutelary guardian angels of Egypt with both Shemhazai and Azazel and were responsible for teaching the secrets of heaven as well. The other angels dispersed to 'every corner of the Earth.' Azazel In the Apocalypse of Abraham In the extracanonical text the Apocalypse of Abraham (c.1stC CE), Azazel is portrayed as an unclean bird who came down upon the sacrifice which Abraham prepared. (This is in reference to Genesis 15:11: "And when the fowls came down upon the carcases, Abram drove them away."). And the unclean bird spoke to me and said, "What are you doing, Abraham, on the holy heights, where no one eats or drinks, nor is there upon them food for men? But these all will be consumed by fire and ascend to the height, they will destroy you." And it came to pass when I saw the bird speaking I said this to the angel: "What is this, my lord?" And he said, "This is disgrace – this is Azazel!" And he said to him, "Shame on you, Azazel! For Abraham's portion is in heaven, and yours is on earth, for you have selected here, [and] become enamored of the dwelling place of your blemish. Therefore the Eternal Ruler, the Mighty One, has given you a dwelling on earth. Through you the all-evil spirit [was] a liar, and through you [come] wrath and trials on the generations of men who live impiously. — Apocalypse of Abraham 13:4–9 The text also associates Azazel with the serpent and hell. In Chapter 23, verse 7, it is described as having seven heads, 14 faces, "hands and feet like a man's [and] on his back six wings on the right and six on the left." Abraham says that the wicked will "putrefy in the belly of the crafty worm Azazel, and be burned by the fire of Azazel's tongue" (Abr. 31:5), and earlier says to Azazel himself, "May you be the firebrand of the furnace of the earth! Go, Azazel, into the untrodden parts of the earth. For your heritage is over those who are with you" (Abr. 14:5–6). Here there is the idea that God's heritage (the created world) is largely under the dominion of evil – i.e., it is "shared with Azazel" (Abr. 20:5), again identifying him with Satan, who was called "the prince of this world" by Jesus. (John 12:31 niv) Azazel In Rabbinical Judaism The Mishnah (Yoma 39a) follows the Hebrew Bible text; two goats were procured, similar in respect of appearance, height, cost, and time of selection. Having one of these on his right and the other on his left, the high priest, who was assisted in this rite by two subordinates, put both his hands into a wooden case, and took out two labels, one inscribed "for Yahweh" and the other "for absolute removal" (or "for Azazel"). The high priest then laid his hands with the labels upon the two goats and said, "A sin-offering to Yahweh" (thus speaking the Tetragrammaton); and the two men accompanying him replied, "Blessed be the name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever." He then fastened a scarlet woolen thread to the head of the goat "for Azazel"; and laying his hands upon it again, recited the following confession of sin and prayer for forgiveness: "O Lord, I have acted iniquitously, trespassed, sinned before Thee: I, my household, and the sons of Aaron Thy holy ones. O Lord, forgive the iniquities, transgressions, and sins that I, my household, and Aaron's children, Thy holy people, committed before Thee, as is written in the law of Moses, Thy servant, 'for on this day He will forgive you, to cleanse you from all your sins before the Lord; ye shall be clean.'" This prayer was responded to by the congregation present. A man was selected, preferably a priest, to take the goat to the precipice in the wilderness; and he was accompanied part of the way by the most eminent men of Jerusalem. Ten booths had been constructed at intervals along the road leading from Jerusalem to the steep mountain. At each one of these the man leading the goat was formally offered food and drink, which he, however, refused. When he reached the tenth booth those who accompanied him proceeded no further, but watched the ceremony from a distance. When he came to the precipice he divided the scarlet thread into two parts, one of which he tied to the rock and the other to the goat's horns, and then pushed the goat down (Yoma vi. 1–8). The cliff was so high and rugged that before the goat had traversed half the distance to the plain below, its limbs were utterly shattered. Men were stationed at intervals along the way, and as soon as the goat was thrown down the precipice, they signaled to one another by means of kerchiefs or flags, until the information reached the high priest, whereat he proceeded with the other parts of the ritual. The scarlet thread is symbolically referenced in Isaiah 1.18; and the Talmud states (ib. 39a) that during the forty years that Simon the Just was high priest, the thread actually turned white as soon as the goat was thrown over the precipice: a sign that the sins of the people were forgiven. In later times the change to white was not invariable: a proof of the people's moral and spiritual deterioration, that was gradually on the increase, until forty years before the destruction of the Second Temple, when the change of color was no longer observed (l.c. 39b). Azazel and Medieval Jewish Commentators The medieval scholar Nachmanides (1194–1270) identified the Hebrew text as also referring to a demon, and identified this "Azazel" with Samael. However, he did not see the sending of the goat as honouring Azazel as a deity, but as a symbolic expression of the idea that the people's sins and their evil consequences were to be sent back to the spirit of desolation and ruin, the source of all impurity. The very fact that the two goats were presented before God, before the one was sacrificed and the other sent into the wilderness, was proof that Azazel was not ranked alongside God, but regarded simply as the personification of wickedness in contrast with the righteous government of God. Maimonides (1134–1204) says that as sins cannot be taken off one’s head and transferred elsewhere, the ritual is symbolic, enabling the penitent to discard his sins: “These ceremonies are of a symbolic character and serve to impress man with a certain idea and to lead him to repent, as if to say, ‘We have freed ourselves of our previous deeds, cast them behind our backs and removed them from us as far as possible’.” The rite, resembling, on one hand, the sending off of the basket with the woman embodying wickedness to the land of Shinar in the vision of Zechariah (5:6-11), and, on the other, the letting loose of the living bird into the open field in the case of the leper healed from the plague (Lev 14:7), was, indeed, viewed by the people of Jerusalem as a means of ridding themselves of the sins of the year. So would the crowd, called Babylonians or Alexandrians, pull the goat's hair to make it hasten forth, carrying the burden of sins away with it (Yoma vi. 4, 66b; "Epistle of Barnabas," vii.), and the arrival of the shattered animal at the bottom of the valley of the rock of Bet H.adudo, twelve miles away from the city, was signalized by the waving of shawls to the people of Jerusalem, who celebrated the event with boisterous hilarity and amid dancing on the hills (Yoma vi. 6, 8; Ta'an. iv. 8). Evidently the figure of Azazel was an object of general fear and awe rather than, as has been conjectured, a foreign product or the invention of a late lawgiver. More as a demon of the desert, it seems to have been closely interwoven with the mountainous region of Jerusalem. Azazel in Christianity Latin Bible The Latin Vulgate contains no mention of "Azazel" but only of capro emissario "emissary goat": 8 mittens super utrumque sortem unam Domino et alteram capro emissario. 9 cuius sors exierit Domino offeret illum pro peccato 10 cuius autem in caprum emissarium statuet eum vivum coram Domino ut fundat preces super eo et emittat illum in solitudinem. — Latin Vulgate, Leviticus 16:8–10 English versions, such as the King James Bible followed the Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate in understanding the term as relating to a goat. A modern version English Standard Version provides the footnote "16:8 The meaning of Azazel is uncertain; possibly the name of a place or a demon, traditionally a scapegoat; also verses 10, 26". Most scholars accept the indication of some kind of demon or deity, however Judit M. Blair notes that this is an argument without supporting contemporary text evidence. Ida Zatelli (1998) has suggested that the Hebrew ritual parallels pagan practice of sending a scapegoat into the desert on the occasion of a royal wedding found in two ritual texts in archives at Ebla (24th C. BC). A she-goat with a silver bracelet hung from her neck was driven forth into the wasteland of 'Alini' by the community. There is no mention of an "Azazel". According to The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Azazel is the Hebrew word for scapegoat. This is the only place that the Hebrew word is found in the whole Hebrew Old Testament. It says that the Book of Enoch, (extra-biblical Jewish theological literature, dated around 200 B.C.) is full of demonology and reference to fallen angels. The EBC (Vol 2) says that this text uses late Aramaic forms for these names which indicates that The Book of Enoch most likely relies upon the Hebrew Leviticus text rather than the Leviticus text being reliant upon the Book of Enoch. Azazel and Christian Commentators Cyril of Alexandria sees the apompaios (sent-away one, scapegoat) as a foretype of Christ. Origen ("Contra Celsum," vi. 43) identifies Azazel with Satan. Azazel and Seventh-day Adventists Adventists teach that the scapegoat, or Azazel, is a symbol for Satan. This was commonly taught among Christians of other centuries as well. The scapegoat scenario has been interpreted to be a prefigure of the final judgment by which sin is removed forever from the universe. Through the sacrifice of Jesus, the sins of the believers are forgiven them, but the fact that sins were committed still exist on record in the "Books" of heaven (see Revelation 20:12). After the final judgment, the responsibility for all those forgiven sins are accredited to the originator of sin, Satan. After which, Satan is destroyed in the Lake of Fire. Sin no longer will exist anywhere. They believe that Satan will finally have to bear the responsibility for the sins of the believers of all ages, and that this was foreshadowed on the Day of Atonement when the high priest confessed the sins of Israel over the head of the scapegoat. (Leviticus 16:21) Some critics have accused Adventists of giving Satan the status of sin-bearer alongside Jesus Christ. Adventists have responded by insisting that Satan is not a saviour, nor does he provide atonement for sin; Christ alone is the substitutionary sacrifice for sin, but holds no responsibility for it. In the final judgment, responsibility for sin is passed back to Satan who first caused mankind to sin. As the responsible party, Satan receives the wages for his sin – namely, death. Jesus alone bore the wage of death for the sinful world, while the guilt of sin is ultimately disposed of on Satan who carried the responsibility of "leading the whole world astray." Thus, the unsaved are held responsible for their own sin, while the saved, depend on Christ's righteousness. The SDA Sabbath School quarterly, 2013 asks the question, "Does Satan then play a role in our salvation, as some falsely charge we teach? Of course not. Satan never, in any way, bears sin for us as a substitute. Jesus alone has done that, and it is blasphemy to think that Satan had any part in our redemption." Azazel in Islam The name Azazel (Arabic: ‘Aza-zi-l) is said to be the original name of Iblis. Iblis was the Jinni who worshiped Allah (God) and is different from angels. The jinn created from fire, while the angels from the light. Out of his pride, he denied Allah's command to bow down before Adam and later tempted Adam to eat from the forbidden tree. He made a promise to tempt mankind into sin and lead them all astray – those who are heedless of the signs of Allah (God). The word Iblis means "to despair" and Azazel despaired of the Mercy of God, thus earning him that title. Ibn Abbas, and Ibn Masoud and some companions, said: that Iblis was the main chief between Angels in the first heaven close to the earth and Ibn Abbas said: Iblis name was Azazel then Allah changed it to Iblis as the story mentioned in The Quran. In Sufism, Azazel is mentioned in the Tawasin, the collection by the 10th Century Sufi writer, Mansur Al-Hallaj. Chapter Six of that writing is dedicated to the self-defence of Iblis, and in one section Hallaj explains how each of the letters of Azazel's name relate to his personality. In the Isma-i-li- Ginans a Shia explanation of the Qur'an, Pir Sadardin explains in the fourth verse of his Ginan Allah ek kassam: There is no record of Ibn Abbas nor Ibn Masoud saying anything regarding Azazel. Scholars have deemed the interpretations by Mansur Al-Hallaj and the book by Pir Sadardin as false and baseless. Both books are subjected to a Saudi Fatwa advising Saudi Muslims against the distribution and viewing of these books. Azazel in popular culture There are many references to the Azazel figure in popular culture, with the character appearing in some form in film, television, fiction, music, comics and video games.
Azzandara See Ahura Mazda
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In at least one translation this is rendered "from the evil
one", while others have "of the evil one."Some
interpreters take this to mean that Cain was literally the son of the
serpent in the Garden of Eden. A parallel idea can be found in Jewish
tradition, that the serpent from the Garden of Eden was father to
firstborn Cain.
(1980), 
