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[German Version] Matt 27:1–10 and Acts 1:15–20 (death of Judas) presuppose the existence of an otherwise unattested field which according to Matthew served as a necropolis for foreigners and was called the “Field of Blood” (Aram. ḥaqēl damā; Graecized in Acts 1:19 as ʿΑκελδαμάχ/ hakeldamách; translated in Matt 27:8 as ἀγρὸς αἵματος/ agrós haímatos and in Acts 1:19 as χωρίον αἵματος/ chōríon haímatos). Matthew and Acts, however, give the designation differing aetiological interpretations. Pilgrimage ac…

[German Version] (Lat.), originally the camp tent of the praetor or army general, later often applied to residences taken over from former indigenous rulers. While Mark 15:16 and Matt 27:27 note only that Jesus, after his condemnation, was taken to a pretorium called a “palace,” John 18:28–19:16 presupposes a place of judgment called a lithostrōton or “Gabbatha” in front of it. Although the Gospels do not allow the place to be identified, non-biblical authors relate that the governor used Herod’s former palace in the northwest of the city as his official seat (Jos. Bell. II 46; Ant. XVII 2…

[German Version] According to Mark 14:32 and Matt 26:36, after the Lord's Supper (Eucharist: I), Jesus went with his disciples to an otherwise unspecified estate, known as Gethsemane (Aram. gat šemānî, “oil press,” Grecized γεϑσημανί), Luke 22:39 speaks of an unspecified site “on the Mount of Olives,” and John 18:1 locates the arrest in a likewise unspecified garden beyond the Kidron (an allusion to 2 Sam 15:23?). Since 333, pilgrimage literature has located the site of the disciples who remained behind and of the arrest north of the Mount of Olives road (CChr.SL 175,17) and, si…

[German Version] (Γολγοϑᾶ) is the designation for the site of Jesus’ crucifixion, attested only in the New Testament, ¶ derived from the Aramaic גּוּלְגּוּלְתָּא ( gulgultā', “scull”) through syncopation. Its etymology is correctly interpreted in all the canonical Gospels (Mark 15:22; Matt 27:33; John 19:17; only interpreted in Luke 23:33). The term calls to mind an exposed rocky knoll, which according to New Testament information (John 19:17, 41f.; Heb 13:12) must have been situated outside the city of Jerusalem in accordance with Jewish tradition (Lev 24:14; Num 15:35f.; b. Sanh. …

[German Version] I. Old Testament – II. Judaism – III. New Testament – IV. Early Church – V. Patriarchates – VI. Islam – VII. Religious and Political Situation Today – VIII. Archaeology I. Old Testament Jerusalem (ירושׁלם/ yerûšālēm, MT yerûšālayim) was founded c. 1800 bce as a fortified town in the central Palestinian uplands at a strategic point for transportation between northern and southern Palestine. Outside the Bible, the name appears from the 18th century on in the Egyptian execration texts and the Amarna letters (as Akkad. uruu-ru-sa-lim). It derives from the verb yrh I…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies The English word temple derives from Latin templum. In the technical vocabulary of religious studies, it is more specialized than sanctuary, shrine, cult site, or place of worship. The usage of the originally Latin term beyond the sphere of classical antiquity is well established, particularly for structures that appear comparable in regard to their architectural form (monumentality, stone construction) or religious function (dwelling place of a god or goddess). But this usage does not reflect a precise defi-¶ nition it is based primarily …

[German Version] I. Archaeology – II. Art History I. Archaeology That Jesus was buried in a rock-cut tomb (Mark 15:46; Matt 27:60; Luke 23:53) was only natural, for earth burial is not attested in Jerusalem (II) until the late Herodian period (Herod/Herodian dynasty) and was extremely rare. A stone rolled to seal the tomb (Mark 15:46; Matt 27:60) presupposes an elevated layout; only John 19:41f. situates it in a garden not far from Golgotha. That the area to the west of the later Constantinian church site (Constantine the Great) was used as a cemetery in the Hasmone…

[German Version] I. History – II. Location גִּלְגָּל; from gll, “to roll, rotate,” perhaps “debris (field)” and often interpreted as “(stone) circle,” is interpreted etiologically in Josh 5:9 as “to roll away” in reference to guilt. I. History The book of Joshua cites (the) Gilgal as the first encampment after crossing the Jordan, as the site of the stone monument, of circumcision, of the first Passover-Mazzot Feast (Feasts and Festivals: II) in the land (4:19–5:12, literary prototype for Mic 6:5) and as the point of departure for…

[German version] A. Historical Development up to the 4th cent. ‘The Red One’ primarily refers to the mountain region east of the Wādı̄ al-Arabā, to its population only secondarily. Under Merenptah, a report emerged that the ‘Schasu ( Šśw) of E.’ were received in Egypt (ANET 259). Their settlement began in the 12th/11th cents. BC from the north and reached its peak in the 8th-6th cents. BC. The Esau-Jacob cycle (Gen. 25*, 27*, 32-33) demonstrates a special relationship to E., at least from an israelitic perspective. David achieved …

[German version] [1] God see  Amun Bieberstein, Klaus (Fribourg) [German version] [2] Tribe Hebrew Bnē  Ammōn, collectively  Ammōn; Assyrian bīt Ammān; meaning uncertain. Name of a tribe and small state with main city Rabbath Bnē  Ammōn, Hellenistic  Philadelphia, today Ammān. Gen. 19,38 explains the autochthonous population aetiologically as descendants of Lot; Deut. 2,20 introduces the Samsummim fictively as prior inhabitants. According to 2 Sam. 11,1 and 12,26-31, the A. were compelled by David into …

[German version] Road junction in the Jordan valley (Χωβα, Jdt 4,4; Χωβαι, Jdt 15,4), according to the Tabula Peutingeriana 12 miles from  Scythopolis and 12 miles away from  Archelais, but in view of the total distance between those two locations ( c. 50 miles) that cannot be the case and so it is unlocated. Bieberstein, Klaus (Fribourg) Bibliography TIR/IP 105, s.v. C.

[German version] [1] (δάφνη; dáphnē). Used in antiquity as a name for the plant sacred to Apollo and Artemis ─ the  laurel Laurus nobilis L. of the Lauraceae family, not the Thymelaeacea genus of the daphne with which we are familiar today ( Cneorum). Hünemörder, Christian (Hamburg) [German version] [2] Nymph, transformed into a laurel tree (Δάφνη; Dáphnē). The chaste nymph D. devoted to  Artemis and who loved to hunt, was a daughter of the river god Ladon (or Peneius) and  Gaia. She fled from Apollo, who tried to force his affections on her, and tur…

This item can be found on the following maps: Syria | Dead Sea (textual finds) | Caesar | Christianity | Zenobia | Coloniae | Alexander | Commerce | Hasmonaeans | Legio | Limes | Mesopotamia | Natural catastrophes | Phoenicians, Poeni | Pilgrimage | Pompeius | Aegean Koine [German version] I. Name Hebrew Y  rūšālēm, presumably ‘foundation of the (god) Šalēm’, in the Masoretic texts ( Masorah) always vocalized in the dual form Y  rūšālayim; Greek Ἱερουσαλήμ, Ἰεροσόλυμα; Latin Ierusalem, [ H] ierosolyma), archaizing Šālēm (Gn 14:18; Ps 76:3) or Y  bōs (Judg 19:10-11; 1 Chr 11:4-5), und…

[German version] This item can be found on the following maps: Dead Sea (textual finds) | Hasmonaeans (Hebrew Yriḥō; Greek Ἱεριχώ, Ἱερικοῦς, Ἱεριχοῦς; Latin Hierichô, Hierikoûs, Hierichoûs; Arabian ar-Rīḥā; from western Semitic yrḥ, ‘moon’?). Oasis with a wealth of palms, famous for dates and balsam (Str. 16,2,41; Pomp. Trog. 3,2-3; Plin. HN 13,44; Jos. BI 1,138; 4,452-475; Jos. Ant. Iud. 14,54; 15,96), 8 km west of the Jordan, 10 km north of the Dead Sea, 250 m below sea level, watered by the spring ʿAin as-Sulṭān on the nor…

[German version] (Hebr. Dotān, Dotayin; Greek Δωθάειμ/ Dōtháeim; Arab. Tall Dūṯān). Town 15 km north-west of Samaria, not mentioned except in the Bible (finds of the name t/dn in Egyptian lists of the 18th dynasty refer to a town in Lebanon), named in the Joseph story as a station on the trading route from Gilead to Egypt (Gen. 37,17; 25), in the Elisha cycle surrounded by Arameans (2 Kgs 6,13), scene in the fictitious Judith novella from the Hellenistic period (Jud. 3,9; 4,6; 7,3; 18; 8,3). As excavations by S. Free (19…

[German version] [1] Village on the Mount of Olives near Jerusalem (Βηθανία; Bēthanía; Anānyā, Neh 11,32, or Bēt Aniyyā, ‘house of the poor’). Village on the south-eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, 15 stades (John 11,18) or two miles (Eus. On. 58) from Jerusalem (ruins of settlement 5th cent. BC -- 14th cent. AD). Place where Jesus was anointed by the sinner (Mark 14,3; Matt. 26,6; John 12,1), home of Mary and Martha, and place where Lazarus was raised from the dead (John 11,1), hence in late antiquity Lazarion, today al-āzarı̄ya, ‘Lazarus(village)’. A chamber tomb in a cliff s…

[German version] (Ἰτουραία; Itouraía). Region named after an Arab tribe, whose eponym Jeṭūr (Hebrew Yṭūr) was regarded as a son of  Ishmael (Gn 25,15; 1 Chr 1,31). In the early Hellenistic period, the tribe is referred to as living east of the Jordan (1 Chr 5,19; Eupolemus in Euseb. Praep. evang. 9,30). However, it settled in the area of the Antilebanon, on the plains of Massya (modern Beqaʿ), and in the Lebanon itself. Infamous for their brigandry (Cic. Phil. 2,112), the Ituraeans raided  Byblus and Beirut …

(Ἀρσινόη; Arsinóē). I. Myth [German version] [I 1] Daughter of Leukippos Daughter of Leucippus, sister of the Leucippids, who were abducted by the Dioscuri, she was the mother by Apollo of the Messenian Asclepius (Hes. fr. 50; Apollod. 3,117f.; Paus. 2,26,7; 4,3,2). In Sparta A. had a shrine (Paus. 3,12,8); on the agora of Messene there was an A. spring (Paus. 4,31,6), in the Messenian Asclepieum there was, amongst other things, a painting of A. (Paus. 4,31,11f.). The relationship of the Messenian to the …

[German version] [1] Writer of the Justinian period (6th cent. AD) Writer of the Justinian period (6th cent. AD), a German, probably of Gothic descent, grandson of Paria (secretary to the Prince of the Alani Candac), son of Alanoviamuth. Probably born in the late 5th cent. AD, I. also served as secretary to Cantac's nephew Gunthigis (Iord. Get. 265). Following his conversio (from Arianism to Orthodoxy?, from a secular to a clerical position?), in Constantinople in 551 (Iord. Rom. 4. 363; cf. Iord. Get. 104) he was asked by a friend named Vigilius (unlik…

[English version] (hebr. Dotān, Dotayin; griech. Δωθάειμ; arab. Tall Dūṯān). Ort 15 km nordwestl. von Samaria, außerbiblisch nicht erwähnt (Belege des Namens t/dn in ägypt. Listen der 18. Dyn. beziehen sich auf einen Ort im Libanon), in der Josefsnovelle als Station des Handelsweges von Gilead nach Ägypten gen. (Gn 37,17; 25), im Elischazyklus von Aramäern umschlossen (2 Kg 6,13), Schauplatz in der fiktiven Juditnovelle aus hell. Zeit (Jdt 3,9; 4,6; 7,3; 18; 8,3). Wie Grabungen von S. Free (1953ff.) ergeben haben, w…