U 


Ugaritic  Ancient cuneiform writing found in tablets at the archaeological site of Ras Shamra (ancient Ugarit) in present-day Syria. Ancient texts written in Ugaritic are very important for understanding the socio-historical context of Canaan around the time the Israelites arrived there, as well as the literary context of much of the Hebrew Bible.

Ulama (plural),  Alim (single)   Islamic scholars.


Umbanda   an Afro-Brazilian religion that blends African religions with Catholicism and Spiritism (Kardecist Spiritualism).

Umbanda is related to and has many similitudes with other Afro-Brazilian religions like Candomblé, Batuque, Macumba, Quimbanda, Xambá, Egungun, Ifá, Irmandade, Confraria, Xangô do Nordeste and Tambor de Mina, but also has it own identity.

Although some of its beliefs and most of its practices existed in the late 19th century in almost all Brazil, it is assumed that Umbanda originated in Rio de Janeiro and surrounding areas in the early 20th century, mainly due to the work of a psychic (medium), Zélio Fernandino de Moraes, who practiced Umbanda among the poor Afro-Brazilian population. Since then, Umbanda has spread across mainly southern Brazil and even to foreign countries like Uruguay and Argentina.

Umbanda has many branches, each one with a different set of believes and practices. Some of the Umbanda's basic beliefs are the existence of a One Supreme Creator God (the Orixá Olorum); deities called Orixás related to Catholic Saints that act as God's energy and plain power expansions; spirits of deceased people that counsel and guide believers through troubles in our material world; psychics called mediums who have a natural ability that can be perfected to bring messages from the spiritual world of Orixás and guiding spirits, reincarnation and spiritual evolution through many material lives (Karmic Law) and the practice of Charity.

The information here presented is just a general view of all Umbanda branches, so some beliefs and practices here described could be different from those observed in a specific place.


Unconditional election   It is one of the five points of Calvinism and is often linked with predestination.

Unconditional election is the Calvinist teaching that before God created the world, he chose to save some people according to his own purposes and apart from any conditions related to those persons. Unconditional election is drawn from the doctrines of salvation developed by Augustine of Hippo, was first codified in the Belgic Confession (1561), re-affirmed in the Canons of Dort (1619), which arose from the Quinquarticular Controversy, and is represented in the various Reformed confessions such as the Westminster Standards (1646).


Undead   literal sense of "alive" or "not dead"

Undead is a collective name for fictional, mythological, or legendary beings that are deceased yet behave as if alive. Undead may be incorporeal, such as ghosts, or corporeal, such as vampires and zombies. Undead are featured in the legends of most cultures and in many works of fantasy and horror fiction.

Most commonly, it is now taken to refer to supernatural beings which had at one time been alive and continue to display some aspects of life after death, but the usage is highly variable.


Underworld    Most cultures, including Asian ones, have myths of the Underworld where heroes descend for various reasons and where the dead—often the evil dead—reside.


unicum  A unique thing; esp., a text that exists only in a single manuscript without necessarily being the author's own autograph.


Unitarian  

   1.  An adherent of Unitarian Universalism.
   2. A monotheist who is not a Christian.
   3. A Christian who is not a Trinitarian.

This term is sometimes used to refer to the belief that the Christian God is a unity, not a Trinity. This was a near-universal belief in the very early Christian movement, but was narrowly voted down at an early church council in the fourth century CE. By popular vote, and a bit of political arm twisting, God was perceived as multiple persons in one entity.

 A more common modern usage is to refer to the members and congregations associated with the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) in the U.S. or the Canadian Unitarian Council in Canada. They promote a creedless religion in which members are expected to develop their personal spirituality, moral standards and religious beliefs. The purpose of the minister in Unitarian congregations is not to teach what the membership should believe. It is to help the congregation develop spiritually and religiously. Many articles and books by non UUA members mistakenly propagate the belief that the UUA teaches the unity of God. In fact, most UUA followers are Humanists and do not believe in a personal deity.


Unitarianism   Religious movement that stresses free use of reason in religion, holds that God exists in only one person, and denies the divinity of Jesus and the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Its modern roots are traced to several liberal, radical, and rationalist thinkers of the Protestant Reformation, who were in turn inspired by Arius. The mainstream of British and American Unitarianism grew out of Calvinist Puritanism. The scientist Joseph Priestley was a founder of the English Unitarians, who became a force in Parliament and were noted advocates of social reform. In the U.S., Unitarianism developed out of New England Congregationalism that rejected the 18th-century revival movement. Transcendentalism injected Unitarianism with a new interest that attracted many more followers.

 See also Calvinism,  Universalism.


Universalism   Belief in the salvation of all souls. Arising as early as the time of Origen and at various points in Christian history, the concept became an organized movement in North America in the mid-18th century. It maintains the impossibility that a loving God would bestow salvation on only a portion of humankind while dooming the rest to eternal punishment. It stresses the use of reason in religion and the modification of belief in light of the discoveries of science. Thus, the miraculous elements of traditional Christianity are rejected, and Jesus, while a worthy teacher and model, is not held to be divine. Universalist and Unitarian churches in the U.S. merged in 1961 (see Unitarianism).


Unmoved mover  That which initiates motion, but which is itself unmoved. The first of the Five Ways of Aquinas argues for such an entity. It may seem as though this is a version of the first cause argument, with God seeming like the railway engine that starts the shunting of connected waggons. But in the Aristotelian and medieval tradition the argument is different. Nature, for the Greeks, is characterized by a nisus or tendency to actuate what is potential; change is driven by a kind of striving or direction towards a goal; an ethical action at a distance. The process of change or becoming is intelligible only if the goal acts in the world; it is the initiator of motion because it is the final cause of it. The idea is that a natural motion, such as that of the iron filings towards the magnet, is analogous to the impulses of agents (thus, we still speak in one breath of the filings being drawn towards the magnet, and the man being drawn to the woman). The single unmoved mover is the one thing that has a self-contained activity (self-consciousness) of its own, and that is not therefore caused to move by the need to actualize any potential. It is in some way identical with the forms that it thinks, and the movements of nature are inspired by the things of nature being drawn towards it. Thus the primum mobile or outermost sphere of the heavens best imitates the self-contained nature of God by its perfect, spherical rotation. In this system it is, literally, love that makes the world go round. Unfortunately however the unmoved mover, being entirely wrapped up in itself, cannot act in the world, nor possess any awareness of it, and this aspect of the doctrine was formally condemned in 1277.

See also Cosmological argument  and   The Five Ways


Upanishad  Any of 108 speculative texts of the Vedas that contain elaborations in poetry and verse. They are believed to have been composed since 500 BC, based on teachings circulated since 1000 BC. They represent the final stage in the tradition of the Vedas, and the teaching based on them is called Vedanta. Generally the Upanishads are concerned with the nature of reality, the individual soul (atman), and the universal soul (Brahman) and with the theory of the transmigration of souls and the nature of morality.

Upper Egypt  See Upper Egypt


Upper and Lower Egypt  Ancient Egypt was divided into two regions, known as Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt.

 
To the north was Lower Egypt where the Nile stretched out with its several branches to form the Nile Delta. To the south was Upper Egypt, stretching to Syene. The two kingdoms of Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt were united c. 3000 BC, but each maintained its own regalia. Thus, the pharaohs were known as the rulers of the Two Kingdoms, and wore the pschent, a double crown, each half representing sovereignty of one of the kingdoms.

While the labelling of "Upper" and "Lower" might seem counterintuitive, with Upper Egypt in the south and Lower Egypt in the north on modern maps, the terminology derives from the flow of the Nile from the highlands of East Africa (upstream) to the Mediterranean Sea (downstream).

There were a number of differences between Upper and Lower Egyptians in the ancient world. They spoke different dialects and had different customs. Many of these differences, and the occasional tensions they created, still exist in modern times.


Ur of the Chaldees  See Ur Kas'dim below


Ur Kas'dim   or Ur of the Chaldees is the town in the Hebrew Bible and related literature where Abraham (origin. Abram Gen. 17.5) may have been born. The traditional site of Abraham's birth is in the vicinity of Edessa although Ur Kas'dim has been popularly identified since 1927 by Sir Charles Woolley with the Sumerian city of Ur, in southern Mesopotamia, which was under the rule of the Chaldeans — although Josephus, Islamic tradition, and Jewish authorities like Maimonides all concur that Ur Kas'dim was in Northern Mesopotamia — now southeastern Turkey (identified with Urkesh, Urartu, Urfa, and Kutha respectively).

Ur Kas'dim is mentioned four times in the Tanakh or Old Testament, with the distinction "Kas'dim" traditionally rendered in English as "of the Chaldees", referring to the Chaldeans. In Genesis, the name is found in 11:28, 11:31 and 15:7. In Nehemiah 9:7, a single passage mentioning Ur Kas'dim is a paraphrase of Genesis.

Although not explicitly stated in the Tanakh it is generally understood to be the place where Abraham was born. (Genesis 11:27-31 names it as the birthplace of Abraham's brother Haran, and the point of departure of Abraham's family.)

The Book of Jubilees states that Ur Kas'dim was founded in 1687 Anno Mundi (year of the world) by 'Ur son of Kes'ed, presumably the offspring of Arphaxad, adding that in this same year, wars began on Earth. Although Arphaxad himself is recorded to have been born 2 years after Noah's Flood of 1656 AM and so aged just 29 in 1687.

"And 'Ur, the son of Kes'ed, built the city of 'Ara of the Chaldees, and called its name after his own name and the name of his father. (ie, Ur Kas'dim = Ur of the Kes'eds)" (Jubilees 11:3)

It also represents Abraham's immediate ancestors as dwelling in Ur Kas'dim beginning with his great-grandfather, Serug.

Jewish sources say very little about the location of Ur Kas'dim. In Genesis 12:1, after Abraham and his father Terah have left Ur Kas'dim for the city of Haran (spelled differently in the Hebrew text than the name of Abraham's brother) in Aram-Naharaim, God instructs him to leave his land, his moladet, and his father's house. The traditional Jewish understanding of the word moladet is "birthplace".

n Genesis 24:4-10, similarly, Abraham instructs his servant to bring a wife for Isaac from his land and moladet, and the servant departs for Aram Naharaim. The general Jewish understanding is thus that the birthplace lay in Aram Naharaim. This view was noted in particular by Nachmanides (Ramban).  This understanding of the term moladet as "birthplace" is not universally agreed; most translations, from the Septuagint to modern English versions, typically render it as "kindred" or "family". However, a further reference in Genesis 24 to the area of Aram Naharaim as being the eretz moladet, i.e. "land of nativity" of Abraham from which a wife is to be found for Isaac, appears to corroborate the traditional Jewish understanding.

The Talmud (Yoma 10a) identifies the Biblical city of Erech with a place called "Urichus".  T. G. Pinches in The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records and Legends of Assyria and Babylonia and A. T. Clay, writing in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia article Ur of the Chaldees, understood this as an identification of Uruk (modern Warka) or Biblical Erech with Ur Kas'dim. However no tradition exists equating Ur Kas'dim with Urichus and the latter is understood by modern scholars as a reference to Uruk which is indeed identified with Erech.

The traditional site of Abraham's birth according to Islamic tradition is a cave in the vicinity of the ancient Seleucid city of Edessa. Edessa is now named S,anl?urfa, and the cave lies near the centre of this modern city and is the site of a mosque called the Mosque of Abraham. The Turkish name Urfa for the city is derived from earlier Syriac, Orha-y and Greek, Orrha. The tradition connecting Ur Kas'dim with the site is not exclusively Islamic, the 18th century anthropologist Richard Pococke noted in his Description of the East, that it was the universal opinion of the Jews that Urfa was Ur Kas'dim.

Scholars are skeptical of the identification of Ur Kas'dim with Urfa. Although the origin of the Greek and Syriac names of the city are uncertain, they appear to be based on a native form, Osroe, the name of a legendary founder, the Armenian form of the Persian name Khosrau (Chosroes). Similarity with "Ur" would thus be accidental.


Uz   The land of Uz    Hebrew: 'Uwts

This is the ancient land where Job lived, sometime after The Flood.

It is mentioned in the Bible in these three verses: 1:1; Jer. 25:20; Lam. 4:21.

It may have been named after Uz, the son of Aram, who settled this region. Genesis 36:20-21 seems to indicate that this area was conquered by Horites and eventually Edomites, and became known as Edom (Lamentations 4:21).

 

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