Know the Text
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Reading as Seek: to learn Scripture and its teachings. Same facts, warmer framing.

Know the Text

Glossary

Texts, terms and the people who interpret them. Follow a source to read more, or return to a page where the term appears.

Texts and versions

1 Enoch

An anthology of at least five booklets, surviving complete only in Classical Ethiopic, according to Kelley Coblentz Bautch. It belongs to the Ethiopian Orthodox biblical canon; Jude quotes material corresponding to 1 Enoch 1:9.

Sources

Used on: Did God create the devil? · Noah and the Flood

Apocrypha

A collection including Tobit and Judith, outside the Jewish canon. The HarperCollins Bible Dictionary distinguishes Catholic and Greek Orthodox recognition of shared deuterocanonical books as scripture from most Protestant practice; lists differ.

Sources

Used on: No pages yet.

Hebrew Bible

A name academics offered as a neutral alternative to “Old Testament”. Amy-Jill Levine argues the label blurs real differences between the Christian Old Testament and the Jewish Tanakh.

Sources

Used on: Did God create the devil? · Did the Exodus and the conquest of Canaan happen? · Noah and the Flood · The Binding of Isaac (the Akedah)

Masoretic Text

The accepted Hebrew biblical text from the second half of the first millennium CE onward, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority. Many Qumran biblical manuscripts closely resemble it, the Authority says, while some differ in language and spelling.

Sources

Used on: No pages yet.

Midrash

Both a body of literature and a form of rabbinic biblical interpretation. Rachel Mikva distinguishes it from peshat, the contextual meaning, and describes its interest in the richness of what scripture can teach.

Sources

Used on: Jonah and the Great Fish · The Binding of Isaac (the Akedah)

Mishnah

A collection of Jewish legal traditions compiled in the early third century CE, which Elizabeth Shanks Alexander calls the earliest text of rabbinic Judaism.

Sources

Used on: No pages yet.

Pentateuch

The Greek-derived name for the Bible’s first five books. Christophe Nihan and Julia Rhyder explain that the name refers to the collection’s five books or scrolls.

Sources

Used on: No pages yet.

Peshitta

An ancient Syriac version of the Old and New Testaments used in Syriac churches. The Jewish Encyclopedia explains its name as “the simple one”.

Sources

Used on: The Binding of Isaac (the Akedah)

Pseudepigrapha

Books ascribed to authors who did not write them, according to the Jewish Encyclopedia. Olivia Stewart Lester writes that ancient Jewish scribes wrote whole texts in the voices of figures such as Enoch, Ezra and Moses.

Sources

Used on: No pages yet.

Talmud

A collection of rabbinic teachings and discussions framed as commentary on the Mishnah. Sara Ronis explains that the name usually means the Babylonian Talmud, produced from the third to seventh centuries CE.

Sources

Used on: Creation in six days · Did the Exodus and the conquest of Canaan happen? · Jonah and the Great Fish · Noah and the Flood · Rahab and the fall of Jericho · The Binding of Isaac (the Akedah)

Targum

An Aramaic translation of the Bible. The Jewish Encyclopedia traces the practice to the Second Temple period and describes translators rendering biblical texts into Aramaic in the synagogue.

Sources

Used on: Rahab and the fall of Jericho · The Binding of Isaac (the Akedah)

Vulgate

A Latin Bible closely associated with Jerome, with contributions from other translators. Dionisio Candido writes that it was the official Bible of Western Christianity for centuries.

Sources

Used on: Jonah and the Great Fish · Noah and the Flood · The Binding of Isaac (the Akedah)

Terms

Allegory

Reading Scripture as saying one thing while meaning another. Dennis MacDonald explains that readers often used this approach to address difficult or troubling passages by finding a deeper truth beneath them.

Sources

Used on: No pages yet.

Aramaic

A Semitic language closely related to Hebrew. The HarperCollins Bible Dictionary notes that parts of Ezra, Daniel and Jeremiah and a phrase in Genesis are written in Aramaic; Jesus probably spoke a Western Aramaic dialect.

Sources

Used on: Jonah and the Great Fish · Noah and the Flood · The Binding of Isaac (the Akedah)

Canaanite

An inhabitant of ancient Canaan, a territory the HarperCollins Bible Dictionary describes as including parts of present-day Israel, the occupied territories and Lebanon.

Sources

Used on: Did the Exodus and the conquest of Canaan happen? · Noah and the Flood · Rahab and the fall of Jericho

Canon

The list of writings a community treats as authoritative scripture. Nicola Denzey Lewis explains that the word comes from a term meaning “measuring stick” or “rod”.

Sources

Used on: No pages yet.

Cherub

A composite biblical being (plural cherubim), typically winged and always connected with God, appearing as a guardian or as God’s mount, according to the HarperCollins Bible Dictionary.

Sources

Used on: Adam and Eve: the garden and the fall · Did God create the devil?

Covenant

The covenant between YHWH and Israel/Judah is a formal agreement involving obligations, Marvin Sweeney explains, expressed in language based on ancient Near Eastern treaties.

Sources

Used on: No pages yet.

Documentary Hypothesis

The hypothesis that the Pentateuch combined four earlier written sources, J, E, D and P. Steven McKenzie reports that it has been widely disputed since the 1970s, with differing European and North American scholarly responses.

Sources

Used on: No pages yet.

Elohim

A grammatically plural Hebrew word used for God, gods or divine beings. The HarperCollins Bible Dictionary interprets its plural form when referring to God as expressing grandeur rather than multiple identities.

Sources

Used on: Adam and Eve: the garden and the fall · Creation in six days · Noah and the Flood

Priestly source

A reconstructed layer of the Pentateuch, also called P, especially concerned with sacrifice and purification in Hirsch and Barton’s Jewish Encyclopedia account. Steven McKenzie reports disagreement over its date, including whether it followed the Babylonian exile.

Sources

Used on: Creation in six days

Radiocarbon dating

A method of dating once-living material by measuring remaining carbon-14, which decays at a fixed rate after death. Willard Libby developed the method in 1949 and received the 1960 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Sources

Used on: No pages yet.

Satan (Hebrew term)

Hebrew for “adversary”, used for enemies, accusers or opponents, according to the Jewish Encyclopedia. Adam Porter reads “the satan” in Job 1–2 as the title “the accuser”, rather than a personal name.

Sources

Used on: Did God create the devil?

Second Temple period

The period named after Jerusalem’s rebuilt temple. Lawrence Schiffman dates its role as the central place of Jewish sacrificial worship from about 515 BCE until its destruction by the Romans in 70 CE.

Sources

Used on: Jonah and the Great Fish

Stele

An upright stone slab or pillar, often carved and inscribed, according to the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica. Also called a stela; the Mesha Stela is an example from biblical archaeology.

Sources

Used on: Did the Exodus and the conquest of Canaan happen? · Jonah and the Great Fish

Tafsir

In Islam, commentary on the Qur’an and the study of how to interpret it, according to the first Encyclopaedia of Islam.

Sources

Used on: The Binding of Isaac (the Akedah)

Tell (mound)

An ancient settlement mound, also called a tel. UNESCO describes these eastern Mediterranean sites as built up by layers of occupation at one location over millennia.

Sources

Used on: No pages yet.

Typology

Reading a scriptural person or thing as prefiguring a future person or thing. A. J. Maas’s 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia article argues that such connections are probably intended by God, who foresees and arranges history.

Sources

Used on: Jonah and the Great Fish · Noah and the Flood · The Binding of Isaac (the Akedah)

Watchers

Angels in ancient Jewish and Christian texts who descended, married human women and fathered giants. McKenna Boling says they almost certainly connect to the “sons of God” in Genesis 6.

Sources

Used on: Daniel and his friends in Babylon · Did God create the devil? · Noah and the Flood

Interpreters and writers

Jerome

A Latin Church Father associated with the Vulgate, born in the fourth century and deceased in 420. Birth dates differ: Louis Saltet gives about 340–342, while Dionisio Candido gives 347.

Sources

Used on: Daniel and his friends in Babylon · Jonah and the Great Fish

John Chrysostom

Bishop of Constantinople from 398 (about 347–407), called “golden-mouthed” for his eloquence. The Catholic Encyclopedia calls him the chief representative of Antioch’s grammatical-historical interpretation, which opposed Origen’s allegorical reading.

Sources

Used on: Adam and Eve: the garden and the fall · Noah and the Flood · Rahab and the fall of Jericho

John Wesley

An English clergyman (1703–1791) whose Methodist movement developed within the Church of England and later gave rise to separate denominations, according to Weber’s 1911 account.

Sources

Used on: Cain and Abel

Martin Luther

A German religious reformer (1483–1546), according to the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica. Henry Ganss’s Catholic Encyclopedia article reports that Luther translated the New Testament into German while at Wartburg.

Sources

Used on: Creation in six days · Elisha, the jeering boys and the two bears · Noah and the Flood · Sinai and the Ten Commandments

Matthew Henry

An English nonconformist minister and Bible commentator (1662–1714), according to the Dictionary of National Biography. He began his Exposition of the Old and New Testament in 1704.

Sources

Used on: Daniel and his friends in Babylon

Philo of Alexandria

A Jewish philosopher of Alexandria (about 20 BCE–after 40 CE). The Jewish Encyclopedia describes his effort to harmonize Greek philosophy with Hebrew religion through allegorical interpretation of the Bible.

Sources

Used on: Noah and the Flood

Thomas Aquinas

A philosopher, theologian and Doctor of the Church, born in 1225 or 1227 and deceased in 1274, according to the 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia. He wrote the Summa theologica.

Sources

Used on: Adam and Eve: the garden and the fall · Creation in six days · Did God create the devil? · Noah and the Flood · Sinai and the Ten Commandments · The Binding of Isaac (the Akedah)

Traditions

Eastern Orthodox

A Christian tradition whose Bible, Thomas Hopko of the Orthodox Church in America teaches, was produced in, by and for the Church and requires the Church’s total life and experience for correct interpretation.

Sources

Used on: No pages yet.

Evangelical

The National Association of Evangelicals describes evangelicals as people who take the Bible seriously and believe in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; it derives the name from Greek euangelion, “good news” or “gospel”.

Sources

Used on: Cain and Abel · Creation in six days · Did the Exodus and the conquest of Canaan happen? · The beasts and the mark: 666 · The seven seals and the four horsemen; the 144,000

Rabbinic

Relating to the rabbis, the Jewish movement of teachers that Sara Ronis describes as emerging after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem’s temple in 70 CE, with teachings and discussions collected in the Talmud.

Sources

Used on: Adam and Eve: the garden and the fall · Cain and Abel · Crossing the Red Sea (and did the Exodus happen?) · Did God create the devil? · Elisha, the jeering boys and the two bears · Jonah and the Great Fish · Noah and the Flood · Rahab and the fall of Jericho · Sinai and the Ten Commandments · The Binding of Isaac (the Akedah)

Reformed

A Protestant church tradition whose historic expressions of faith, according to the Christian Reformed Church in North America, include the Belgic Confession, Heidelberg Catechism and Canons of Dort.

Sources

Used on: Creation in six days · Did God create the devil? · Sinai and the Ten Commandments · The seven seals and the four horsemen; the 144,000

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