Online Glossary

aggadah (also haggadah) — the ethical sayings and scriptural exposition of the sages, in contrast to their halachic statements; the non-legal part of rabbinic literature in contrast to halachah. aggadic — pertaining to aggadah.

amoraic — pertaining to the amoraim (singular: amora), the sages of the talmudic period, as distinguished from the earlier tannaim, the sages of the mishnaic period. Roughly speaking, the tannaim are the sages quoted in the Mishnah and contemporary rabbinic works, while the amoraim are the sages mentioned in the Germara.

Apocrypha — books included in the Septuagint and Vulgate, but excluded from the Hebrew Bible and Protestant canon. The Apocrypha contains 1 and 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, additions to Esther, The Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus (= Ben Sira), Baruch, The Letter of Jeremiah, The Prayer of Azariah and The Song of the Three Young Men, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, The Prayer of Manasseh and 1 and 2 Maccabees.

Aramaic — a northwest Semitic language closely related to Hebrew. The earliest Aramaic inscriptions date from the ninth-tenth centuries B.C. Its square script replaced the Hebrew archaic script, and by the time of Jesus was the normal script for writing in Hebrew.

B.C.E. — abbreviation of "Before Common Era," corresponding to B.C. in Christian terminology. Jerusalem Perspective Online uses B.C.E. and C.E. in articles authored by Jewish scholars since many Jews feel unable to use B.C. (before Christ) and A.D. (anno Domini, in the year of our Lord) without compromising their beliefs.

bar — the Aramaic word bar (son, son of). In the Second Temple period bar often was used together with the father's name or a family nickname to distinguish males bearing the same personal name. Females with the same personal name often were distinguished by adding berat (daughter, daughter of) and the father's name. The Hebrew equivalents of bar and berat are ben (son, son of) and bat (daughter, daughter of).

baraita — (literally, "outside"; plural: baraitot) a tannaic saying excluded from the Mishnah of Rabbi Yehudah ha-Nasi, that is, teachings that predate 230 A.D. Baraitot were incorporated in later rabbinic works such as the Talmud.

bat kol — literally, "daughter of a voice," that is, a heavenly or supernatural voice that reveals the will of God.

ben — (son, son of). In the Second Temple period there were relatively few personal names, and ben often was used together with the father's name to distinguish males bearing the same personal name. Females with the same personal name often were distinguished by adding bat (daughter, daughter of) and the father's name.

bet Hillel — (house of Hillel) Hillel's disciples and the disciples of his disciples, referred to collectively as "the house [i.e., school] of Hillel."

bet keneset — (house of assembly) synagogue.

bet midrash — (house of study) center for study and teaching of the Torah. In the first century, the bet midrash was usually connected to a synagogue, and learning took place in the synagogue's assembly hall or in a room adjoining it.

burial chamber — a central room of a burial cave into the sides of which may be cut loculi, or burial recesses.

C.E. — abbreviation of "Common Era," corresponding to A.D. in Christian terminology. Jerusalem Perspective Online uses B.C.E. and C.E. in articles authored by Jewish scholars since many Jews feel unable to use B.C. (before Christ) and A.D. (anno Domini, in the year of our Lord) without compromising their beliefs.

codex — a manuscript whose sheets of papyrus or parchment are fastened together in the form of a book, rather than rolled into a scroll.

Codex Bezae — late fifth-early sixth-century Greek-Latin manuscript of the gospels and Acts.

darshan — a Jewish preacher who is particularly skilled in aggadah and gives sermons and expositions of the biblical text in accordance with midrashic exegesis.

Derech Eretz Zuta — later the basis for Seder Eliyahu, this work, according to Shmuel Safrai, is a repository of ancient Hasidic teaching.

Diaspora — the area outside the land of Israel settled by Jews, or the Jews who settled there.

double tradition — the pericopae shared only by Matthew and Luke, for instance, the Beatitudes and the Lord's Prayer.

"Eighteen" — (shemoneh esreh) the central prayer in Jewish life and liturgy. It is also known as Amidah (Standing), because it is said standing; or simply Tefilah (Prayer), the prayer par excellence. The prayer originally consisted of eighteen benedictions, and thus the name "Eighteen." Its final version dates from about 90-100 A.D. when a nineteenth benediction was added. Every Jew is religiously obligated to pray the "Eighteen" daily; however, in times of emergency saying an abbreviated form of the prayer may fulfill this obligation.

eruv hatserot — (mixing or blending of courtyards) the symbolic union of a neighborhood or settlement's private property (private dwellings) and public domain (e.g., common courtyards, alleys and streets). The new entity is considered private property, jointly owned by the residents. This transformation makes it legal for residents to transport things from one point in the fused neighborhood or settlement to another on the Sabbath. Ancient sources indicate that the practice of eruv hatserot was already well established in the Second Temple period.

genizah — (storing) a place for storing damaged or worn-out books or ritual objects containing the four-letter Tetragrammaton, the divine name of God. According to halachah, such objects could not be destroyed, but were hidden so that they would not be defiled. When the genizah could hold no more, its contents were buried in a cemetery. The genizah was usually a room attached to the synagogue. The most famous of these is the Cairo Genizah, discovered in 1896 in the attic of the Ezra Synagogue in Fostat (Old Cairo), where most of the lost Hebrew book of Ben Sira was discovered.

geonic — pertaining to the Geonim.

Geonim — (singular: Gaon), heads of the talmudic academies in Babylonia from the seventh to eleventh centuries A.D.

haggadah — See entry "aggadah" above.

Hakhel — the assembly during the Feast of Tabernacles of "men, women, children and aliens" for the public reading of the Pentateuch (Deut 31:10-13). This assembly was held in the Women's Court every seven years (Mishnah, Sotah 7:8; Babylonian Talmud, Sotah 41b).

halachah — (plural: halachot) law, regulation; the legal ruling on a particular issue; the body of Jewish law, especially the legal part of rabbinic literature, thus often the opposite of aggadah. halachic — pertaining to halachah.

hasidic — pertaining to the Hasidim (pious ones) and their beliefs.

Hasid — (pious one; plural: Hasidim) member of a sect of charismatic sages who shared the Pharisees' ethical and religious values, but also were characterized by an extreme familiarity with God and a greater emphasis on deeds than study of Torah.

haver — (member; plural: haverim) member of an order that was meticulous in observing the commandments concerning heave offerings, tithing and purity (e.g., washing ones hands before eating and before touching ritually clean food). These regulations had already been laid down in the time of Hillel and Shammai (last quarter of first century B.C.). Women and slaves also could become haverim. In rabbinic sources the term haver often stands in contrast to the term am ha'arets (person of the land), someone who was not a member of the haverim fellowship.

Hasmonean — pertaining to the Hasmoneans.

Hasmoneans — a family of Jewish priests who led a successful revolt that began in 168 B.C. against the Hellenized Selucid rulers of Syria. The Hasmoneans, nicknamed the Maccabees, ruled the land of Israel from 142 to 63 B.C.

kal vahomer — (light and heavy) term of logic applied to the inference from minor to major (a minori ad maius, or a fortiori, reasoning).

kibbutz — a collective farm or settlement in Israel.

loculus — a recess or small chamber cut into a wall of a room in a burial cave for the reception of an ossuary or coffin. Plural: loculi.

Lukan doublet — a saying of Jesus appearing twice in the gospel of Luke, apparently the result of Luke's copying from two sources, each of which had a different version of the saying.

ma'amadot — delegations of representatives, including priests, Levites and ordinary Israelites, sent in turn to Jerusalem from twenty-four local districts to offer sacrifices in the Temple. The delegations served together with twenty-four parallel divisions, or mishmarot, of priests. The term now refers to a series of extra-liturgical prayers and extracts used daily in the synagogue.

Maccabees — nickname of the Hasmoneans, a family of Jewish priests who led a successful revolt, which began in 168 B.C., against the Hellenized Selucid rulers of Syria. The Maccabees ruled the land of Israel from 142 to 63 B.C.

"Markan freshness" — a term coined by Robert Lindsey to describe the colorful details found exclusively in Mark's gospel, for example, the detail that Jesus slept in a boat on a cushion while a storm raged (Mark 4:38; cf. Matthew 8:24 and Luke 8:23).

"Markan pickups" — a term coined by Robert Lindsey to describe the borrowed words and expressions that Mark substituted in Luke's text as he rewrote it to form his own account. Mark "picked up" these synonyms from elsewhere in Luke, and from Acts, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians and James. Occasionally, Mark proliferated one of these synonymic replacements or "pickups" and it became, in Lindsey's terminology, a "Markan stereotype."

Masoretes — the Jewish scholars of the sixth to ninth centuries A.D. who compiled the Masorah, a body of notes on the textual traditions surrounding Scripture. In particular, the Masoretes devised vowel signs with which to vocalize the Bible's consonantal text.

Masoretic Text — the text of the Bible produced by the Masoretes.

Megillat Ta'anit — (scroll of fasting) a composition that includes a list in Aramaic of thirty-five Second Temple-period holidays during which public fasting was prohibited (on fourteen of these days public mourning also was forbidden), and a commentary in Hebrew. The list, which includes reasons for the prohibitions, was compiled sometime before the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. The commentary portion of the work was added not earlier than the seventh century A.D.

mezuzah — (plural: mezuzot) the Hebrew word for doorjamb, "mezuzah," also came to mean the encased parchment scroll inscribed with Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and 11:13-21 that is affixed to the gate and right-hand doorjambs of a Jewish home.

midrash — (plural: midrashim) literally, an inquiry or investigation, but as a technical term, "midrash" refers to a rabbinic interpretation, or exposition, of biblical text. The term can also be applied to a collection of such expositions or, capitalized, to the whole midrashic literature written during the first millennium A.D.

mikva'ot — plural of mikveh.

mikveh — (a gathering, accumulation [of water]) pool of water for immersing the body to purify it from ritual uncleanness. The mikveh is similarly used to purify vessels (Numbers 31:22-23). Immersion in a mikveh is also obligatory for proselytes, as part of their ceremony of conversion.

minor agreements — instances within the pericopae of the triple tradition where Matthew and Luke exhibit verbal agreement against Mark. Minor agreements usually consist of only a word or phrase.

Mishnah — (literally, "repetition," from the root sh-n-h, to repeat) the collection of Oral Torah compiled and committed to writing around 200 A.D. by Rabbi Yehudah ha-Nasi. It records the sayings of sages who lived and taught during the previous several hundred years. In its narrow sense, "mishnah" (not capitalized) refers to an individual saying or ruling found in the Mishnah. In its wider sense, "Mishnah" refers to the work composed by Rabbi Yehudah ha-Nasi.

Mishnaic Hebrew — the Hebrew spoken in the land of Israel during the first centuries B.C./A.D., used loosely to refer to post-biblical Hebrew. Since this dialect is the language of the rabbinic works composed during the following centuries, it also is referred to as "rabbinic Hebrew." Some scholars prefer the term "Middle Hebrew."

Nabatea — ancient kingdom southeast of the land of Israel whose capital was Petra.

Nabatean — pertaining to Nabatea or the Nabateans; the language of the Nabateans.

Nisan — the first month of the ecclesiastical year in the Jewish calendar (Esther 3:7), roughly parallel to the month of April. The festival of Passover falls on the 15th to the 21st of Nisan.

omer — (sheaf of grain) the sheaf of barley offered in the Temple as a wave offering on the second day of Passover, the day that marks the beginning of seven weeks of counting; the fifty days counted from that day until Shavuot.

Oral Torah — (torah she-be-al peh) in contrast to the Written Torah (torah she-bichtav), the instruction God gave to Israel at Sinai contained in the five books of Moses. The Oral Torah consists of forty-two verbal commandments given to Moses at Sinai, and the precepts and interpretations implied in the Written Torah. It also came to include the legal decisions of rabbinical courts and the oral traditions received from earlier generations of Torah scholars.

ossuary — a "bone box," a depository for the bones of the dead. According to Jewish burial practices in the land of Israel at the time of Jesus, the bones of the deceased were collected one year after an initial interment and reinterred in a small container usually carved from stone. Ossuaries were generally decorated with geometric or other designs, and often inscribed with the name(s) of the deceased. Sometimes the bones of several members of the same family were collected and placed in the same ossuary. The average size of these boxes was 50 cm. long, 30 cm. wide and 30 cm. high. About nine hundred ossuaries have been found in the vicinity of Jerusalem alone.

pericope — an episode or story unit in the synoptic gospels; a division of a synopsis. Plural: pericopae.

Pseudepigrapha — (literally, falsely written) a title for various pseudonymous or anonymous Jewish writings of the third century B.C. to the second century A.D. not found in the Hebrew Bible or Apocrypha. James H. Charlesworth's recently published English translation of the Pseudepigrapha, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2 vols. (Doubleday, 1983-1985), includes fifty-two documents. Some of the most important of these for gospel studies are Enoch, Jubilees and The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, portions of all of which have been found in Hebrew or Aramaic at Qumran.

Q — a conjectured Greek work believed by some scholars to be the source of Matthew and Luke's non-Markan sayings. The designation "Q" is usually thought to be an abbreviation of the German Quelle, meaning "source"; however, the designation may have been chosen because Markan material was once thought to be from Peter, or P, and thus some second source would be Q.

R. — an abbreviation used in rabbinic literature for the honorific titles, "Rabbi," "Rabban," "Rav" and "Rabbenu."

Rashi — acronym for Rabbi Shlomo ben Yitzhak; Rashi's eleventh-century commentary on the Bible.

responsa — (Latin plural of responsum, answer, reply, opinion) the usual English designation for the rabbinic expression she'elot u-teshuvot (questions and answers), the term responsa refers to the halachic correspondence of rabbinic authorities, especially the written rulings of Geonim in response to halachic queries written by Jews living outside Babylonia.

Restoration of Zion — the return to Jerusalem of the Jewish exiles in Babylonia during the days of Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah (5th-6th centuries B.C.), accompanied by the rebuilding of the Temple. The term shivat tsiyon (the return, or restoration, of Zion) is taken from Psalm 126:1.

Second Commonwealth — a synonym for "Second Temple period."

Second Temple period — literally, the period from the rebuilding of the Temple (536-516 B.C.) to its destruction by the Romans in 70 A.D. However, the term usually refers to the latter part of this period, beginning with the Hasmonean Uprising in 168 B.C., and often extending to the end of the Bar-Kochva Revolt in 135 A.D.

Seder Eliyahu — also known as Tanna d've Eliyahu, this work is composed of Seder Eliyahu Rabbah and Seder Eliyahu Zuta.

Septuagint — the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures completed in Egypt between approximately 250 and 100 B.C.

Shavuot — (weeks) the annual festival of the firstfruits celebrated at the conclusion of the seven weeks of counting the omer (Leviticus 23:15-21; Deuteronomy 16:9-12); also known as Pentecost from the Greek pentekoste (fiftieth day).

Shema — (Hear!) the first word of Deuteronomy 6:4, "Hear [Shema], O Israel! The LORD our God, the LORD is one." In Judaism this verse is the supreme affirmation of God's oneness and uniqueness. Since at least the second century A.D. the Shema has consisted of three passages: Deuteronomy 6:4-9; 11:13-21; Numbers 15:37-41 plus the accompanying benedictions that were recited before and after the three passages.

Song of Songs Rabbah — a midrash on the book of Song of Songs.

sotah — (a straying or errant woman) a woman suspected of adultery by her husband and who underwent the trial of "bitter water" (Numbers 5:11-31). Capitalized, "Sotah" refers to one of the tractates of the Mishnah.

synopsis — a book in which the first three gospels of the New Testament are arranged in parallel columns.

synoptic — an adjective derived from synopsesthai, a Greek word meaning, "to view together, or at the same time"; specifically, the adjective refers to the first three gospels of the New Testament.

synoptic gospels — Matthew, Mark and Luke. The synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) are so similar in form and content that it is convenient to view them together. The three are often printed in parallel columns; such a book is called a synopsis. With the aid of a synopsis, the synoptic gospels can be studied synoptically, that is, studied by comparing the similarities and differences between them. The gospel of John is so unlike the synoptic gospels that there is limited value in trying to view it "synoptically" with the other three gospels.

synoptic problem — the scholarly debate concerning the order in which the synoptic gospels were written and the literary sources used by each.

Talmud — a collection of Jewish halachah and aggadah comprising the Mishnah and the Gemara. The Gemara, commentary on the Mishnah, is printed section by section following each verse of the Mishnah. "Gemara" can be used in its narrow sense, the commentary on the Mishnah found in the Talmud, or in its wider sense as a synonym for "Talmud." There are two Talmuds: the Jerusalem (or Palestinian) Talmud was completed about the end of the fourth century A.D.; the Babylonian Talmud, which became authoritative, was completed about a century later.

tannaic — pertaining to the tannaim.

tannaim — sages from Hillel's time (died about 10 B.C.) until the generation (about 230 A.D.) after Rabbi Yehudah ha-Nasi, the compiler of the Mishnah. Singular: tanna.

targum — an Aramaic translation of a portion of the Hebrew Scriptures. Plural: targumim or targums. The targumim not only provided a translation for those who did not understand the original language, but also provided an interpretation of the biblical text. Since the inspired text could not be changed or altered in even the smallest way, the targum made possible the insertion of various explanations and clarifications that amplified the text. The targum dramatizes and adds additional information. According to the targum of Ruth 1:1-2, for instance, there was a mighty famine in the land, and a certain great man of Bethlehem in Judah went to live in the country of Moab; his two sons were chief Ephrathites who, when they came to Moab, were governors there" (italics highlights the differences in the Aramaic text of the targum compared to the Hebrew original).

tell — a mound created by the debris of successive levels of human occupation.

Tetragrammaton — the four-letter, unutterable, divine name of God (often transliterated in English as "YHWH").

tevul yom — (immersed on that day) a person who has incurred one of the uncleannesses for which Scripture ordains "he shall be unclean until evening," has immersed him or herself in a mikveh, and now awaits the day's end to be ritually pure (see Mishnah Kelim 1:8).

Therapeutae — (healers) a semi-monastic Jewish sect in Alexandria, Egypt (first century A.D.). The Therapeutae were ascetics, but not celibates — they had wives and children. According to Shmuel Safrai, they appear to have been older men who, although not wealthy, had the means to devote their time to Scripture study, pray and contemplation. In ancient sources they are mentioned only in Philo's De vita contemplativa.

Tosefta — (the addition) a collection of Oral Torah supplementing the Mishnah. Compiled about 220-230 A.D., a generation after the Mishnah.

translation Greek — Greek that has been translated quite literally from Hebrew or Aramaic.

triple tradition — the pericopae (story units) shared by all three synoptic gospels (for example, the Baptism of Jesus and the Stilling of the Storm).

unique Lukan material — pericopae (story units) found only in Luke's gospel.

unique Matthean material — pericopae (story units) found only in Matthew's gospel.

verbal identity — use of the same words, sometimes implying the same forms or sequence of words.

Zealots — a fanatical sect of Jewish extremists during the Great Revolt (66-73 A.D.) who urged a war to the death against the Roman occupiers of the Land, and ruthlessly persecuted Jews who held more moderate views.

Glossary entries written by David Bivin.

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