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[German version] This item can be found on the following maps: Aegean Koine City(state) of Palestine in the Bronze and Iron Age that controlled the exit of the road from Jerusalem to the coast out of the mountains. Conquered from the 15th to the 10th cents. BC. by Egypt, acquired and fortified by Solomon (1 Kg 9,16-18; 9,15 is anachronistic). It is impossible to decide whether G. was Israelitic, Judaic, Philistine or independent in the period that followed. From 734 it was under Assyrian rule, and in the 7th…

(Hebrew Mošæh, Greek Μω(υ)σῆς; Mō(y)sȇs). [1] Israelite religious founder [German version] I. Biblical tradition According to tradition, M. was a Levite who grew up as an Egyptian prince, was forced to flee to Midian, was called there by the god Yahweh to lead the enslaved Hebrew people out of Egypt; Biblical cultic and moral law were revealed to him on Mt. Sinai, and he led the Hebrew people through the desert to the edge of the Promised Land, where he died on Mount Nebo, across from Jericho (Ex 2 - Dt 34). …

Gat (Canaanitic gint, Hebrew gat, ‘winepress’). In Syria-Palestine frequent place name of the late Bronze and Iron Age. [German version] [1] The Philistine Gat The Philistine Gat, the south-eastern corner of the Pentapolis (1 Sam 7,14; 17,52), probably Tall aṣ-Ṣāfı̄. As the direct neighbour of Judah, G. was involved in the 10th cent. BC in the uprising of David who as a condottiere received Ziklag (Tall as-Saba/Tel Ber Ševa) as a fief from G. (1 Sam 27). Perhaps already conquered by Hasaël of Damascus as early as the 2nd half of the 9th cent. BC as par…

Name of the God of the Israelites and Judaeans, and after the collapse of these states (722/720 and 586/582 BC), of the God of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). [German version] A. Name The Old Testament gives only the consonants of the god's name ( Yhwh; epigraphically attested from the 9th cent. BC), its pronunciation is a taboo in Rabbinic Judaism. Yhwh is usually read as 'Lord', adōnāy, hence the Κύριος ( kýrios) of LXX as well as the erroneous 'Jehovah', in which the consonants of the written Yhwh are provided with the vowels of the read adōnāy. The pronounciation * Yahwē is based on t…

(Λευκὴ κώμη; Leukḕ kṓmē). [German version] [1] Phoenician village on the coast between Sidon and Berytus Phoenician village on the coast between Sidon and Berytus, where Mark Antony and Cleopatra met after the Parthian campaign (Plut. Antonius 51,2f.). Knauf, Ernst Axel (Berne) [German version] [2] Harbour town on the Arabian shore of the Red Sea This item can be found on the following maps: India, trade with Harbour town on the Arabian shore of the Red Sea and a Nabataean border post. It was from here that Aelius Gallus set out by land for the Sabaean capital …

[German version] (Canaanite * gab, ‘hill’). Settlement 5 km northwest of  Megiddo in the Valley of Jezreel, modern Tall Abı̄ Šūša. The name first appears as qb (no. 114) on  Thutmosis' III (1479-1425 BC) list of conquered Palestine cities, and is probably identical with Γαιβαι (Γεβαι, Γαβαι) in Jdt 3,10. Under  Alexander [16] Iannaeus (103-76 BC), G. was part of the Hasmonaean kingdom (Sync. 558,17-559,3). According to Josephus (Jos. BI 1,166; Ant. Iud. 14,88), the settlement was ‘restored’ by Gabinius between 57 and 55 BC; however, accordi…

[German version] This item can be found on the following maps: Dead Sea (textual finds) Canaanite ḥæbrōn (‘place of alliance’ or ‘junction’, the same semantics are at work in the more recent (!) name Qiryat ʿArbaʿ, ‘four-town’, sc. the four clans or tribes named in 1 Sam 25:3; 27:10; 30:26-31); Greek Χεβρων (LXX), Ἑβρών, Γιβρών, Ναβρόν, Χεβρών etc. (Jos passim); ha-barûk (‘the blessed’ = Abraham, Gen 14,19) in  Qumran (DJD III 298, DJD II 160); Arab. al-Ḫalīl ar-Raḥmān (‘the friend [= Abraham, see e.g. Is 41,8] of the merciful [= Allah]’). Central city in the Judaean mou…

[German version] This item can be found on the following maps: Egypt | Syria | Zenobia | Alexander | Commerce | Hasmonaeans | India, trade with | Arabia | Phoenicians, Poeni | Pilgrimage | Pompeius | Egypt (Arabic Ġazza, Hebrew Azzā, from Semitic ǧzz, ‘being thorny’). From  Thutmosis III (1457 BC) to Ramses IV (mid 12th cent. BC) an Egyptian administrative centre in southern Palestine [1], under the Ramessids ‘the town of Canaan’, short ‘Canaan’ (Κάδυτις, Hdt. 2,159; 3,5); under  Ramses II also the ‘town of Ramses in Canaan’. Taken over…

[German version] (Γαβαρα; Gabara, also Γαβαρωθ, Γαδαρα, Γαμαλα, Γαραβα, Γαβαρους; Gabarōth, Gadara, Gamala, Garaba, Gabarous [1]; from the Semitic ǧrb ‘to bear a grudge against someone’ or ‘to be angry’, which is the root of all variations of the name ─ apart from orthographic mistakes). Settlement in Lower Galilee, more likely the modern Arrāba/Arāv than Ḫirbat al-Qabra. At the beginning of the Jewish War (AD 66-70), G. sympathized with Josephus' opponent John of Gischala (Jos BI 2,629; Vita 82; 123f.; 203; 229…

[German version] (Biblical Gilgāl, ‘circle of stones’, probably not a settlement). Pre-Israelite sanctuary (Judg. 3:19) on the eastern shore of the oasis of Jericho (Jos 4:19), probably the site of Saul's elevation as king (1 Sam 11:15) and a pilgrimage centre of the 8th/7th cents. BC (Amos 4:4; 5:5; Hos 4:15; 9:15; 12:12), historicized as a memorial for the crossing of the Jordan under Joshua (Jos 4:20-24, hence Δωδεκαλιθον ( Dōdekalithon), ‘place of twelve stones’ on the Madaba map). The Jewish-Christian topographical tradition is continued in Tosefta Sōfṭa 8,6 (2nd cent. AD ?) …

[German version] Probably Tall Abı̄ Huraira/Tall Haror between  Gaza and Beeršeba. Important settlement of the 18th-11th cents. and the 7th-4th cents. BC. The sources 1 Chr 4,39-40 and 2 Chr 14,8-14 refer to the events of the 4th or 3rd cent. BC, although it remains unclear, where the authors were looking for G. 2 Macc 13,24 no longer refers to G., only to ‘Gerrenians’. In the 4th-6th cents. AD, there is mention of a saltus Gerariticus, seat of the bishop of Orda in 518. Knauf, Ernst Axel (Berne) Bibliography 1 O. Keel, M. Küchler, Orte und Landschaften der Bibel, vol. 2, 1982, 134-137 2 NE…