Apocrypha: A term, meaning "writings of uncertain origin," used to describe seven books not included in all versions of the Christian Bible.
Align: To associate or line up with someone or something else.
Allah: The Arabic word for God.
Anoint: To pour oil over someone's head as a symbol that God has chosen that person to fill a position of leadership.
Anti-Semitism: Hatred of, or discrimination against, Jews.
Apostle: A religious figure who is sent out to teach, preach, and perform miracles.
Assimilate: To be mixed into a larger group of people.
Atone: To make up for something.
Baptism: To be lowered into water as a symbol of death and rebirth.
Bear false witness: To lie.
Chosen People: The name by which Jews are often known, meaning that they were chosen to fulfill God's plans on earth.
Coincide: To happen at the same time as something else.
Commemorate: To recall an important event or person.
Concubine: A woman whose role toward a man is like that of a wife's, but without the social and legal status of a wife.
Covenant: A sacred agreement.
Covet: To desire something that belongs to someone else.
Crucifixion: A Roman punishment in which the victim was nailed or tied to a cross until he died.
Crusade: "Wars for the cross," or so-called holy wars by European kings to recapture the city of Jerusalem.
Deity: A god.
Deportation: Forced removal of a person or a group of people.
Descendant: Someone who is related to an earlier person; an ancestor.
Disciple: A close follower of a religious teacher.
Epistle: A letter.
Exile: A situation of being forced to move away from the place in which one lives.
Exodus: The act of going out from a place.
Foreshadowing: An early sign of something that will appear later, either in history or in a story.
Fundamentalist: Someone who calls for a return to the basic traditions of a religion.
Ghetto: A place in which a group of people, separated by race, religion, or some other factor, are forced to live.
Hellenistic: Influenced by Greece.
Holocaust: The systematic murder of more than six million Jews by Nazi Germany during World War II (1939-1945).
Idol: A statue of a god that the god's followers worship.
Ironic: When something is intended to be one way, but turns out to be quite different from what was intended.
Islam: A faith that arose in Arabia in the a. d. 600s, led by the prophet Muhammad (A. D. 570?-632).
Koran: The holy book of Islam.
Locust: A type of insect similar to a grasshopper.
Millennium: A period of 1,000 years; its plural
Is millennia.
Morality: A code of right and wrong.
Mosque: A Muslim temple.
Muslim: A believer in Islam.
Notorious: Having a bad reputation.
Pagan: Worshiping many gods.
Peninsula: An area of land that sticks out into a body of water.
Pharaoh: The title for the king of ancient
Egypt.
Plague: A disease or other bad thing that spreads among a group of people.
Prophet: Someone who receives communications directly from God and passes these on to the people.
Protestant: A group of Christians that split off from the Catholic Church in a series of movements about a. d. 1500.
Province: A political unit, like a state, that is part of a larger country.
Rabbi: A Jewish teacher or priest.
Ram: A male sheep.
Resurrect: Bring back to life.
Revolutionary: Someone who calls for an armed uprising against the rulers of a nation or area.
Sabbath: The seventh day, a holy day of rest. For Jews, this day is on Saturday; for Christians, Sunday.
Sacrifice: A symbolic offering to God.
Scriptures: Holy writings.
Shrine: A holy place for believers in a religion.
Symbol: Something that stands for something else.
Synagogue: A Jewish temple.
Talmud: A Jewish text that provides additional information on the law and other subjects covered in the Old Testament.
Vassal: A ruler who is subject to another ruler.
Western: A term referring to the cultures and civilizations influenced by ancient Greece and Rome.
Zealot: A group of Jewish revolutionaries who called for the overthrow of Roman rule; also, someone who is extremely committed to a cause.
Zoroastrianism: The religion of ancient Persia.
Cain kills his brother Abel and brings forth the wrath of God, who witnessed the murder. Archive Photos. Reproduced by permission.
Because of the wrong committed by those first two humans, the Israelites believed, all of humanity was guilty, which resulted in a fall from grace with God. But all hope was not lost, because God would again and again show his willingness to make covenants (CUH-vuh-nunts), or sacred agreements, with humankind. This willingness distinguished the Hebrew deity (DEE-ih-tee) from all others. Most ancient peoples worshiped gods who changed their minds on a whim, helping or hurting people depending on what suited them at the moment. The god of the Hebrews, on the other hand, was much more likely to judge people fairly. For example, when Adam and Eve's son Cain killed his brother Abel in Genesis 4, God placed a curse on Cain but then gave him a form of protection so that no one would kill him.
The incident that led to the murder involved a sacrifice, or a symbolic offering to God. Abel had offered up lambs, whereas Cain had brought only fruit or some other type of plant. This is the first mention of a practice that would become
God's Names
The word “God," or Elohim (ee-loe-HEEM) in Hebrew, was a general term, like “man," and capitalizing it simply distinguished him as the one and only supreme deity. (Likewise Muslims worship Allah [ah-LAH], which is Arabic for “God.") Later, when Moses asked the name of the god who appeared in the burning bush, he was told simply, “I Am." The Israelites believed that God had a name; however, it was so sacred that it could not even be spoken. Therefore they usually referred to him by titles such as “Lord" or Adonai (a-doe-NIE.) The Hebrew scriptures sometimes represented his name as “YHWH," which was unpronounceable precisely because it was too sacred to be pronounced. Over time, however, he came to be called Yahweh (YAH-way), which later Christian scholars changed to Jehovah (jeh-HOE-vah).
Common: by shedding the blood of a lamb, a creature that symbolizes purity, men could atone, or make up, for their sins. Again, the sacrifice was a symbolic act whose most important aspect was not so much God's desire for the offering as it was the willingness of the worshiper to make that offering. This was another difference between the Hebrew god and other deities, who tended to be greedy and demanding.
It should be pointed out, however, that the Hebrew god had his demanding side as well. He was, as he often described himself throughout the Old Testament, “a jealous god,” meaning that he expected to be the Israelites' only object of worship. This attitude extended to his name, which is often rendered as Yahweh (YAH-way) or Jehovah (je-HO-vah) [see sidebar,
“God's Names”]. Despite his demand for worship, however, the offer of a covenant demonstrated a desire to treat man as a kind of equal. This may seem inconsistent, but Genesis says that God created man “in his own image”; likewise, he allowed human beings the freedom to choose between right and wrong, which he would not have done if he considered people mere slaves.
But the sins of later generations made God so angry that he nearly destroyed his creation in the Great Flood, as described in the seventh and eighth chapters of Genesis. He spared Noah, along with Noah's families and the creatures in the ark with him, and afterward he made the first of many significant covenants, promising that he would never again destroy the earth. As important as this covenant was, however, it did not have as much bearing on the Israelites' later history as the covenants that he would make with a descendant of Noah, a man called Abraham.
World History
