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89-509: Sulam has been identified with the biblical village of Shunem , which is said to be of the tribe of Issachar , the place where the Philistines camped before Saul 's last battle, and the native town of Abishag , King David 's concubine in 1 Kings 1:3 , and of the noble woman whose son was revived by the prophet Elisha in 2 Kings 4:8 . The village is situated on and around an archaeological tell (mound) and developed around

178-606: A burnt layer from the end of the Crusader and beginning of the Mamluk periods (12th–13th centuries). It also revealed potsherds from the Iron Age, Hellenistic , Byzantine and Roman periods. Remains discovered in the village include hiding complexes , tombs, and a church. A 2004 salvage excavation exposed Early Bronze Age remains including part of a stone building and potsherds , covered by Roman-period strata. Potsherds from

267-641: A combined linguistic and historiographical approach, Hendel and Joosten date the oldest parts of the Hebrew Bible (the Song of Deborah in Judges 5 and the Samson story of Judges 16 and 1 Samuel) to having been composed in the premonarchial early Iron Age ( c.  1200 BCE ). The Dead Sea Scrolls , discovered in the caves of Qumran in 1947, are copies that can be dated to between 250 BCE and 100 CE. They are

356-469: A place like Alexandria, Egypt. Moreover, in the early centuries of the church, some locales had better scribes than others. Modern scholars have come to recognize that the scribes in Alexandria – which was a major intellectual center in the ancient world – were particularly scrupulous, even in these early centuries, and that there, in Alexandria, a very pure form of the text of the early Christian writings

445-408: A profound influence both on Western culture and history and on cultures around the globe. The study of it through biblical criticism has indirectly impacted culture and history as well. The Bible is currently translated or is being translated into about half of the world's languages. Some view biblical texts to be morally problematic, historically inaccurate, or corrupted, although others find it

534-467: A special two-column form emphasizing their internal parallelism, which was found early in the study of Hebrew poetry. "Stichs" are the lines that make up a verse "the parts of which lie parallel as to form and content". Collectively, these three books are known as Sifrei Emet (an acronym of the titles in Hebrew, איוב, משלי, תהלים yields Emet אמ"ת, which is also the Hebrew for "truth"). Hebrew cantillation

623-483: A stove. Bread dough was spread out on the pebbled floor of the tabun oven's interior, with hot coals and embers scattered with ash piled on top of the exterior shell, along with dried cattle dung. Many types of fuel or a combination of fuels can be used to heat a Tabun. Dried animal dung, dried bird droppings, chopped and dried tree branches or tree trimmings, wood chips, charcoal, dried tree leaves, fabrics, and other materials are potential fuels. The top opening

712-439: A support wall having a semi-cylindrical shape carrying a cooking pot ( כירה ‎ = kīrah ), yet does not produce a heat greater than a regular earthenware baking oven ( תנור ‎ = tannūr ) and which was usually a permanent fixture. Unlike the fire built between two support walls holding a cooking pot and which flame is exposed to the open-air, the tabūn is a large, overturned earthenware bowl and covers over completely

801-485: A useful historical source for certain people and events or a source of moral and ethical teachings. The Bible neither calls for nor condemns slavery outright, but there are verses that address dealing with it, and these verses have been used to support it, although the Bible has also been used to support abolitionism . Some have written that supersessionism begins in the book of Hebrews where others locate its beginnings in

890-549: A variety of disparate cultures and backgrounds. British biblical scholar John K. Riches wrote: [T]he biblical texts were produced over a period in which the living conditions of the writers – political, cultural, economic, and ecological – varied enormously. There are texts which reflect a nomadic existence, texts from people with an established monarchy and Temple cult, texts from exile, texts born out of fierce oppression by foreign rulers, courtly texts, texts from wandering charismatic preachers, texts from those who give themselves

979-603: A variety of hypotheses regarding when and how the Torah was composed , but there is a general consensus that it took its final form during the reign of the Persian Achaemenid Empire (probably 450–350 BCE), or perhaps in the early Hellenistic period (333–164 BCE). The Hebrew names of the books are derived from the first words in the respective texts. The Torah consists of the following five books: The first eleven chapters of Genesis provide accounts of

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1068-590: A wall that was probably built before the Early Islamic period. In 2007 an excavation exposed pottery sherds dated to either the Byzantine or the beginning of the Early Muslim period. At another dig, two coins were dated to shortly after the Byzantine period, one of which was an Arab -Byzantine coin (c. 640–660 CE) that imitates the coins of Emperor Constans II . A 2003 salvage excavation undertaken at

1157-649: Is a collection of religious texts or scriptures which to a certain degree are held to be sacred in Christianity , Judaism , Samaritanism , Islam , the Baháʼí Faith , and other Abrahamic religions . The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally written in Hebrew , Aramaic , and Koine Greek . The texts include instructions, stories, poetry, prophecies, and other genres. The collection of materials that are accepted as part of

1246-460: Is also known as the "Five Books of Moses " or the Pentateuch , meaning "five scroll-cases". Traditionally these books were considered to have been dictated to Moses by God himself. Since the 17th century, scholars have viewed the original sources as being the product of multiple anonymous authors while also allowing the possibility that Moses first assembled the separate sources. There are

1335-416: Is any deviation between two texts. Textual critic Daniel B. Wallace explains that "Each deviation counts as one variant, regardless of how many MSS [manuscripts] attest to it." Hebrew scholar Emanuel Tov says the term is not evaluative; it is a recognition that the paths of development of different texts have separated. Medieval handwritten manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible were considered extremely precise:

1424-418: Is covered and a layer of fuel (usually dried manure) is spread on the outside of the shell and lid. Once the fire takes hold, the fuel is covered with a layer of ash. The fuel will smolder for hours, usually all night long. The smoke also helps in repelling insects and mosquitoes. In the process the heat gets stored in the foundation. The amount of fuel varies depending on the amount of baking needed. When

1513-604: Is defined by what we love". Natural law is in the Wisdom literature, the Prophets, Romans 1, Acts 17, and the book of Amos (Amos 1:3–2:5), where nations other than Israel are held accountable for their ethical decisions even though they don't know the Hebrew god. Political theorist Michael Walzer finds politics in the Hebrew Bible in covenant, law, and prophecy, which constitute an early form of almost democratic political ethics. Key elements in biblical criminal justice begin with

1602-500: Is derived from Koinē Greek : τὰ βιβλία , romanized:  ta biblia , meaning "the books" (singular βιβλίον , biblion ). The word βιβλίον itself had the literal meaning of " scroll " and came to be used as the ordinary word for "book". It is the diminutive of βύβλος byblos , "Egyptian papyrus", possibly so called from the name of the Phoenician seaport Byblos (also known as Gebal) from whence Egyptian papyrus

1691-449: Is from Aaroub or Al Aaroub. The soil is wetted and made into a thick clay mixed with chopped stubble and straw from harvested wheat. The clay is hand-formed to make the dome-shaped shell. It can be as much as 82 centimetres (32 in) in diameter at its base, about 32 centimetres (13 in) high, with an open top, approximately 23 centimetres (9.1 in) in diameter. The shell wall is about 2.54 cm (1 in) to 5 cm (2 in) thick. The shell

1780-520: Is no surprise that different localities developed different kinds of textual tradition. That is to say, the manuscripts in Rome had many of the same errors, because they were for the most part "in-house" documents, copied from one another; they were not influenced much by manuscripts being copied in Palestine; and those in Palestine took on their own characteristics, which were not the same as those found in

1869-669: Is not until the Babylonian Talmud ( c.  550 BCE ) that a listing of the contents of these three divisions of scripture are found. The Tanakh was mainly written in Biblical Hebrew , with some small portions (Ezra 4:8–6:18 and 7:12–26, Jeremiah 10:11, Daniel 2:4–7:28) written in Biblical Aramaic , a language which had become the lingua franca for much of the Semitic world. The Torah (תּוֹרָה)

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1958-459: Is short for biblia sacra "holy book". It gradually came to be regarded as a feminine singular noun ( biblia , gen. bibliae ) in medieval Latin, and so the word was loaned as singular into the vernaculars of Western Europe. The Bible is not a single book; it is a collection of books whose complex development is not completely understood. The oldest books began as songs and stories orally transmitted from generation to generation. Scholars of

2047-553: Is sun baked for weeks, before it is fired. The earthenware shell is placed over an impression in the earth, usually about 4 feet (1.2 m) to 5 feet (1.5 m) in diameter and about 38 centimetres (15 in) to 51 centimetres (20 in) in depth. This impression is usually filled with sand and gravel, or with compacted locally abundant materials known to handle and store heat, such as broken glass, rock salt, and broken potsherds, over which layer beach stones or Suwan stones (flint stones) are carefully embedded. Made of clay or

2136-554: Is taken from the masoretic text (called the Leningrad Codex ) which dates from 1008. The Hebrew Bible can therefore sometimes be referred to as the Masoretic Text. The Hebrew Bible is also known by the name Tanakh ( Hebrew : תנ"ך ‎). This reflects the threefold division of the Hebrew scriptures, Torah ("Teaching"), Nevi'im ("Prophets") and Ketuvim ("Writings") by using the first letters of each word. It

2225-525: Is the manner of chanting ritual readings as they are written and notated in the Masoretic Text of the Bible. Psalms, Job and Proverbs form a group with a "special system" of accenting used only in these three books. The five relatively short books of Song of Songs , Book of Ruth , the Book of Lamentations , Ecclesiastes , and Book of Esther are collectively known as the Hamesh Megillot . These are

2314-528: Is thought to have occurred before 68 during Nero's reign. Early Christians transported these writings around the Empire, translating them into Old Syriac , Coptic , Ethiopic , and Latin , and other languages. Bart Ehrman explains how these multiple texts later became grouped by scholars into categories: during the early centuries of the church, Christian texts were copied in whatever location they were written or taken to. Since texts were copied locally, it

2403-468: The liwa of Lajjun , with a population of 26 Muslim families. The villagers paid a fixed tax rate of 25% on various agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summecrops, goats and beehives in addition to"occasional revenues"; a total of 8,500 akçe . The 2006 trial excavation unearthed building remains from the Ottoman period: from the early phase (17th–18th centuries) mainly potsherds, but from

2492-427: The 1931 census to 328, all Muslim, in a total of 85 houses. In the 1945 statistics the population was 470, all Muslims, while the total land area was 3,605 dunams , according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 4 dunams were allocated for citrus and bananas, 291 for plantations and irrigable land, 2,041 for cereals, while 17 dunams were classified as built-up areas. Biblical The Bible

2581-658: The Arabic : طابون ), is a portable clay oven , shaped like a truncated cone . While all were made with a top opening, which could be used as a small stove top, some were made with an opening at the bottom from which to stoke the fire. Built and used even before biblical times as the family, neighbourhood, or village oven, tabun ovens continue to be built and used in parts of the Middle East today. The tabūn oven has historically been used to bake flatbreads such as taboon bread and laffa , and has been in widespread use in

2670-823: The Hebrew Bible : the Septuagint , the Masoretic Text , and the Samaritan Pentateuch (which contains only the first five books). They are related but do not share the same paths of development. The Septuagint, or the LXX, is a translation of the Hebrew scriptures, and some related texts, into Koine Greek, and is believed to have been carried out by approximately seventy or seventy-two scribes and elders who were Hellenic Jews , begun in Alexandria in

2759-517: The Iron Age . Mentioned by the name Sulem in 4th century CE works, such as the Onomasticon of Eusebius , and by Jerome , both authors situate it 5 Roman miles from Tabor . A 2004 salvage excavation unearthed Roman period remains including potsherds, coins, animal bones, and marble fragments. 3rd-century potsherds were uncovered in the 2006 trial dig. The 2006 trial excavation exposed

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2848-590: The Israelites and other nations, and conflicts among Israelites, specifically, struggles between believers in "the L ORD God" ( Yahweh ) and believers in foreign gods, and the criticism of unethical and unjust behaviour of Israelite elites and rulers; in which prophets played a crucial and leading role. It ends with the conquest of the Kingdom of Israel by the Neo-Assyrian Empire , followed by

2937-618: The Mediterranean (fourth century to the founding of the Principate , 27  BCE ), the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple (70 CE), and the extension of Roman rule to parts of Scotland (84 CE). The books of the Bible were initially written and copied by hand on papyrus scrolls. No originals have survived. The age of the original composition of the texts is therefore difficult to determine and heavily debated. Using

3026-670: The Nevi'im ("prophets"), was canonized in the third century BCE. A third collection called the Ketuvim ("writings"), containing psalms, proverbs, and narrative histories, was canonized sometime between the second century BCE and the second century CE. These three collections were written mostly in Biblical Hebrew , with some parts in Aramaic , which together form the Hebrew Bible or "TaNaKh" (an abbreviation of "Torah", "Nevi'im", and "Ketuvim"). There are three major historical versions of

3115-660: The Ottoman Empire with the rest of Palestine. During the 16th and 17th centuries , Sulam belonged to the Turabay Emirate (1517–1683), which encompassed also the Jezreel Valley , Haifa , Jenin , Beit She'an Valley , northern Jabal Nablus , Bilad al-Ruha/Ramot Menashe , and the northern part of the Sharon plain . Sulam was listed in the tax registers of 1596 as being in the nahiya of Jinin in

3204-522: The Wely of Duhy who offered to take them to the shrine on the mountain, which he said was often visited by monks. In 1870–1871 an Ottoman census listed the village in the nahiya (sub-district) of Shafa al-Shamali. In 1882 the PEF 's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) describes Sulam as, "a large village, standing on a slope near the foot of Jebel ed Duhy ["Mountain of Duhy"]". It further notes that part of

3293-411: The creation (or ordering) of the world and the history of God's early relationship with humanity. The remaining thirty-nine chapters of Genesis provide an account of God's covenant with the biblical patriarchs Abraham , Isaac and Jacob (also called Israel ) and Jacob's children, the " Children of Israel ", especially Joseph . It tells of how God commanded Abraham to leave his family and home in

3382-474: The 13th and 19th centuries was observed in one specific area of the tell north of the spring. Collapsed masonry from the end of the Crusader and beginning of the Mamluk period in the 13th century was documented on the tell. In December 2006, a trial excavation was undertaken on the southern slope of the tell, near the spring in the centre of the village, exposing four layers dated to the Early Islamic, Crusader, Mamluk and Ottoman periods. It uncovered potsherds from

3471-578: The 17th century; its oldest existing copies date to c. 1100 CE. Samaritans include only the Pentateuch (Torah) in their biblical canon. They do not recognize divine authorship or inspiration in any other book in the Jewish Tanakh. A Samaritan Book of Joshua partly based upon the Tanakh's Book of Joshua exists, but Samaritans regard it as a non-canonical secular historical chronicle. In

3560-463: The Bible "often juxtaposes contradictory ideas, without explanation or apology". The Hebrew Bible contains assumptions about the nature of knowledge, belief, truth, interpretation, understanding and cognitive processes. Ethicist Michael V. Fox writes that the primary axiom of the book of Proverbs is that "the exercise of the human mind is the necessary and sufficient condition of right and successful behavior in all reaches of life". The Bible teaches

3649-404: The Bible by a particular religious tradition or community is called a biblical canon . Believers in the Bible generally consider it to be a product of divine inspiration , but the way they understand what that means and interpret the text varies. The religious texts were compiled by different religious communities into various official collections. The earliest contained the first five books of

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3738-510: The Bible, called the Torah in Hebrew and the Pentateuch (meaning five books ) in Greek. The second-oldest part was a collection of narrative histories and prophecies (the Nevi'im ). The third collection (the Ketuvim ) contains psalms, proverbs, and narrative histories. " Tanakh " is an alternate term for the Hebrew Bible composed of the first letters of those three parts of the Hebrew scriptures:

3827-778: The Bible. A number of biblical canons have since evolved. Christian biblical canons range from the 73 books of the Catholic Church canon, and the 66-book canon of most Protestant denominations, to the 81 books of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church canon, among others. Judaism has long accepted a single authoritative text, whereas Christianity has never had an official version, instead having many different manuscript traditions. All biblical texts were treated with reverence and care by those that copied them, yet there are transmission errors, called variants, in all biblical manuscripts. A variant

3916-698: The Former Prophets ( Nevi'im Rishonim נביאים ראשונים , the narrative books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings) and the Latter Prophets ( Nevi'im Aharonim נביאים אחרונים , the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel and the Twelve Minor Prophets ). The Nevi'im tell a story of the rise of the Hebrew monarchy and its division into two kingdoms, the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah , focusing on conflicts between

4005-626: The Galilean cities of Tiberias and Jerusalem, and in Babylonia (modern Iraq). Those living in the Jewish community of Tiberias in ancient Galilee ( c.  750 –950), made scribal copies of the Hebrew Bible texts without a standard text, such as the Babylonian tradition had, to work from. The canonical pronunciation of the Hebrew Bible (called Tiberian Hebrew) that they developed, and many of

4094-548: The Hebrew Bible was produced. During the rise of Christianity in the first century CE, new scriptures were written in Koine Greek. Christians eventually called these new scriptures the "New Testament" and began referring to the Septuagint as the "Old Testament". The New Testament has been preserved in more manuscripts than any other ancient work. Most early Christian copyists were not trained scribes. Many copies of

4183-546: The Hebrew Bible was written with spaces between words to aid in reading. By the eighth century CE, the Masoretes added vowel signs. Levites or scribes maintained the texts, and some texts were always treated as more authoritative than others. Scribes preserved and changed the texts by changing the script and updating archaic forms while also making corrections. These Hebrew texts were copied with great care. Considered to be scriptures ( sacred , authoritative religious texts),

4272-709: The Middle Bronze Age were unearthed at a 2007 trial excavation. In the Amarna letters , 14th century BCE clay tablets written in the cuneiform script of the Akkadian language , the village is listed under its ancient name of Shunama , as one of several cities conquered by the Canaanite warlord Lab'ayu in the Dothan Valley and southern Jezreel Valley . A 2007 excavation discovered potsherds from

4361-489: The Roman (3rd century), Byzantine, and Early Muslim periods, as well as various finds from the Crusader (12th century), Mamluk (13th–15th centuries), and Ottoman (17th–19th centuries) periods. Another excavation, undertaken on the main street of the village and north of the spring at the end of 2007, uncovered building remains from the Early Islamic period (8th–10th centuries) and the late Ottoman period (19th century), as well as

4450-529: The Septuagint as the basis of the Old Testament . The early Church continued the Jewish tradition of writing and incorporating what it saw as inspired, authoritative religious books. The gospels , Pauline epistles , and other texts quickly coalesced into the New Testament . With estimated total sales of over five billion copies, the Bible is the best-selling publication of all time. It has had

4539-576: The Torah ("Teaching"), the Nevi'im ("Prophets"), and the Ketuvim ("Writings"). The Masoretic Text is the medieval version of the Tanakh, in Hebrew and Aramaic, that is considered the authoritative text of the Hebrew Bible by modern Rabbinic Judaism . The Septuagint is a Koine Greek translation of the Tanakh from the third and second centuries BC; it largely overlaps with the Hebrew Bible. Christianity began as an outgrowth of Second Temple Judaism , using

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4628-536: The airs of sophisticated Hellenistic writers. It is a time-span which encompasses the compositions of Homer , Plato , Aristotle , Thucydides , Sophocles , Caesar , Cicero , and Catullus . It is a period which sees the rise and fall of the Assyrian empire (twelfth to seventh century) and of the Persian empire (sixth to fourth century), Alexander 's campaigns (336–326), the rise of Rome and its domination of

4717-505: The belief in God as the source of justice and the judge of all, including those administering justice on earth. Carmy and Schatz say the Bible "depicts the character of God, presents an account of creation, posits a metaphysics of divine providence and divine intervention, suggests a basis for morality, discusses many features of human nature, and frequently poses the notorious conundrum of how God can allow evil." The authoritative Hebrew Bible

4806-454: The books of Ketuvim in the order they appear in most current printed editions. The Jewish textual tradition never finalized the order of the books in Ketuvim. The Babylonian Talmud ( Bava Batra 14b–15a) gives their order as Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Lamentations of Jeremiah, Daniel, Scroll of Esther, Ezra, Chronicles. Tabun oven A tabun oven , or simply tabun (also transliterated taboon , from

4895-421: The books were compiled by different religious communities into various biblical canons (official collections of scriptures). The earliest compilation, containing the first five books of the Bible and called the Torah (meaning "law", "instruction", or "teaching") or Pentateuch ("five books"), was accepted as Jewish canon by the fifth century BCE. A second collection of narrative histories and prophesies, called

4984-447: The bread will take the shape of the pebbles or other materials used in constructing the oven floor. This baking process is unique and economical and produces aromatic and flavorful food. In the larger, fixed baking ovens ( tannūr ), the flattened dough is applied to the inner-wall of the oven, after the wall is dampened with a wet cloth, allowing for adhesion. After baking, the bread is removed. Made of yellow pottery clay soil. The best

5073-470: The city of Ur , eventually to settle in the land of Canaan , and how the Children of Israel later moved to Egypt. The remaining four books of the Torah tell the story of Moses , who lived hundreds of years after the patriarchs. He leads the Children of Israel from slavery in ancient Egypt to the renewal of their covenant with God at Mount Sinai and their wanderings in the desert until a new generation

5162-594: The conquest of the Kingdom of Judah by the neo-Babylonian Empire and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem . The Former Prophets are the books Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings. They contain narratives that begin immediately after the death of Moses with the divine appointment of Joshua as his successor, who then leads the people of Israel into the Promised Land , and end with the release from imprisonment of

5251-542: The culture of the fourth century Roman empire. The Bible has been used to support the death penalty , patriarchy , sexual intolerance , the violence of total war , and colonialism ; it has also been used to support charity , culture, healthcare and education . The term "Bible" can refer to the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Bible, which contains both the Old and New Testaments . The English word Bible

5340-668: The early Christian church translated its canon into Vulgar Latin (the common Latin spoken by ordinary people), a translation known as the Vulgate . Since then, Catholic Christians have held ecumenical councils to standardize their biblical canon. The Council of Trent (1545–63), held by the Catholic Church in response to the Protestant Reformation , authorized the Vulgate as its official Latin translation of

5429-410: The end of the Talmudic period ( c.  300 – c.  500 CE ), but the actual date is difficult to determine. In the sixth and seventh centuries, three Jewish communities contributed systems for writing the precise letter-text, with its vocalization and accentuation known as the mas'sora (from which we derive the term "masoretic"). These early Masoretic scholars were based primarily in

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5518-402: The first century BCE. Fragments of the Septuagint were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls; portions of its text are also found on existing papyrus from Egypt dating to the second and first centuries BCE and to the first century CE. The Masoretes began developing what would become the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible in Rabbinic Judaism near

5607-426: The gospels and Paul's letters were made by individual Christians over a relatively short period of time very soon after the originals were written. There is evidence in the Synoptic Gospels, in the writings of the early church fathers , from Marcion , and in the Didache that Christian documents were in circulation before the end of the first century. Paul's letters were circulated during his lifetime, and his death

5696-430: The greater Middle East for centuries. According to an 11th-century Judeo-Arabic commentary on the Mishnah , with a later recension made by an unknown Yemenite Jewish scholar (1105 – 1170 CE), the Arabic word tabūn ( Arabic : الطبون ) is equivalent to the Mishnaic Hebrew word כופח ‎ = kūppaḥ , and which, according to Maimonides , produces a heat greater than that of a fire built between two support walls or

5785-401: The heated place (usually a bed of smooth stones, upon which a fire is built). After dying out, the ashes are removed and dough is spread out over the smooth stones. Since the tabūn is built with an opening at its top that can be sealed with a ceramic lid, allowing it to be completely smothered over in ashes, dough that is spread out over the stone-lined bottom is quickly baked into bread. When

5874-599: The last king of Judah . Treating Samuel and Kings as single books, they cover: The Latter Prophets are Isaiah , Jeremiah , Ezekiel and the Twelve Minor Prophets , counted as a single book. Ketuvim (in Biblical Hebrew : כְּתוּבִים , romanized:  Kəṯūḇīm "writings") is the third and final section of the Tanakh. The Ketuvim are believed to have been written under the inspiration of Ruach HaKodesh (the Holy Spirit) but with one level less authority than that of prophecy . In Masoretic manuscripts (and some printed editions), Psalms, Proverbs and Job are presented in

5963-406: The late third century BCE and completed by 132 BCE. Probably commissioned by Ptolemy II Philadelphus , King of Egypt, it addressed the need of the primarily Greek-speaking Jews of the Graeco-Roman diaspora. Existing complete copies of the Septuagint date from the third to the fifth centuries CE, with fragments dating back to the second century BCE. Revision of its text began as far back as

6052-430: The later phase (the beginning of the 19th century) a stone-paved open area yielding, apart from potsherds, a large number of animal bones, indicating an animal-related activity. Pierre Jacotin named the village Soulin on his map from 1799. Edward Robinson and Eli Smith , who visited the village in 1838, describe it as "small and dirty" and its inhabitants as "civil and friendly." They also recount being approached by

6141-526: The latest books collected and designated as authoritative in the Jewish canon even though they were not complete until the second century CE. The books of Esther , Daniel , Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles share a distinctive style that no other Hebrew literary text, biblical or extra-biblical, shares. They were not written in the normal style of Hebrew of the post-exilic period. The authors of these books must have chosen to write in their own distinctive style for unknown reasons. The following list presents

6230-452: The most authoritative documents from which to copy other texts. Even so, David Carr asserts that Hebrew texts still contain some variants. The majority of all variants are accidental, such as spelling errors, but some changes were intentional. In the Hebrew text, "memory variants" are generally accidental differences evidenced by such things as the shift in word order found in 1 Chronicles 17:24 and 2 Samuel 10:9 and 13. Variants also include

6319-525: The nature of authority and the sharing of power, animals, trees and nature, money and economics, work, relationships, sorrow and despair and the nature of joy, among others. Philosopher and ethicist Jaco Gericke adds: "The meaning of good and evil, the nature of right and wrong, criteria for moral discernment, valid sources of morality, the origin and acquisition of moral beliefs, the ontological status of moral norms, moral authority, cultural pluralism, [as well as] axiological and aesthetic assumptions about

6408-443: The nature of valid arguments, the nature and power of language, and its relation to reality. According to Mittleman, the Bible provides patterns of moral reasoning that focus on conduct and character. In the biblical metaphysic, humans have free will, but it is a relative and restricted freedom. Beach says that Christian voluntarism points to the will as the core of the self, and that within human nature, "the core of who we are

6497-404: The nature of value and beauty. These are all implicit in the texts." However, discerning the themes of some biblical texts can be problematic. Much of the Bible is in narrative form and in general, biblical narrative refrains from any kind of direct instruction, and in some texts the author's intent is not easy to decipher. It is left to the reader to determine good and bad, right and wrong, and

6586-527: The notes they made, therefore differed from the Babylonian. These differences were resolved into a standard text called the Masoretic text in the ninth century. The oldest complete copy still in existence is the Leningrad Codex dating to c. 1000 CE. The Samaritan Pentateuch is a version of the Torah maintained by the Samaritan community since antiquity, which was rediscovered by European scholars in

6675-474: The oldest existing copies of the books of the Hebrew Bible of any length that are not fragments. The earliest manuscripts were probably written in paleo-Hebrew , a kind of cuneiform pictograph similar to other pictographs of the same period. The exile to Babylon most likely prompted the shift to square script (Aramaic) in the fifth to third centuries BCE. From the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls,

6764-427: The path to understanding and practice is rarely straightforward. God is sometimes portrayed as having a role in the plot, but more often there is little about God's reaction to events, and no mention at all of approval or disapproval of what the characters have done or failed to do. The writer makes no comment, and the reader is left to infer what they will. Jewish philosophers Shalom Carmy and David Schatz explain that

6853-419: The seventh century, the first codex form of the Hebrew Bible was produced. The codex is the forerunner of the modern book. Popularized by early Christians, it was made by folding a single sheet of papyrus in half, forming "pages". Assembling multiples of these folded pages together created a "book" that was more easily accessible and more portable than scrolls. In 1488, the first complete printed press version of

6942-424: The smoke stops, the lid is removed and chunks of dough are hand flattened and placed directly on the limestones. In most ovens, 4 to 5 loaves can be baked at the same time. Then the opening is sealed and the fire stoked using the hot embers and ashes. When the bread is ready, the lid is removed and the bread taken out. The process can be repeated, or other dishes can be baked using metal or pottery trays. The bottom of

7031-534: The southern end of the village uncovered a tabun oven and fragments of pottery that were dated to the early Abbasid period. The village was known to the Crusaders (12th century) under the name Suna . A thick burnt layer indicating prolonged activity with fire was exposed next to collapsed stone masonry and was dated to the end of the Crusader and beginning of the Mamluk period. The stratum of burnt earth and ashes has been exposed during various excavations on

7120-577: The spring. The core of the village has been repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt. Various archaeological digs undertaken in Sulam have brought to light pottery and other remains from the Early and Middle Bronze Age , the Iron Age , and most of the following periods: Hellenistic (feebly represented), Roman , Byzantine , Early Muslim (findings from the 7th–10th centuries), Crusader , Mamluk , and Ottoman (17th–19th c. findings). A hiatus in settlement between

7209-535: The substitution of lexical equivalents, semantic and grammar differences, and larger scale shifts in order, with some major revisions of the Masoretic texts that must have been intentional. Intentional changes in New Testament texts were made to improve grammar, eliminate discrepancies, harmonize parallel passages, combine and simplify multiple variant readings into one, and for theological reasons. Bruce K. Waltke observes that one variant for every ten words

7298-518: The tell and can be associated with prolonged activity at a kiln or oven. The 2006 trial excavation also came across a grey layer from the Crusader period. A wall and living space from the Mamluk period were uncovered during salvage excavations in a private home in August 2006. The December 2006 trial dig again uncovered building remains from the Mamluk period. In 1517 the village was incorporated into

7387-469: The top ashes are cleared away and the lid removed, a cooking pot can also be laid on top of the tabūn oven for heating and used as a small stove. In some cases, in addition to the hole at the top, there is a second side opening called the "eye of the oven", used for stoking the fire and clearing away the ashes, and which is closed by a detachable door. The early commentators describe the kūppaḥ as being large enough to hold only one cooking pot when used as

7476-418: The twenty-first century are only in the beginning stages of exploring "the interface between writing, performance, memorization, and the aural dimension" of the texts. Current indications are that writing and orality were not separate so much as ancient writing was learned in a context of communal oral performance. The Bible was written and compiled by many people , who many scholars say are mostly unknown, from

7565-569: The village was built of stone, and that to the west there were shady gardens of lemon -trees. A perennial spring in the west collected in a stone trough was said to have good supply of clear water in September, 1872. What was described as a suburb of mud hovels ran southwards out from the village. In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British authorities , Suolam had a population of 370; 366 Muslims and 4 Christians , decreasing in

7654-597: Was exported to Greece. The Greek ta biblia ("the books") was "an expression Hellenistic Jews used to describe their sacred books". The biblical scholar F. F. Bruce notes that John Chrysostom appears to be the first writer (in his Homilies on Matthew , delivered between 386 and 388 CE) to use the Greek phrase ta biblia ("the books") to describe both the Old and New Testaments together. Latin biblia sacra "holy books" translates Greek τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια ( tà biblía tà hágia , "the holy books"). Medieval Latin biblia

7743-686: Was noted in the recent critical edition of the Hebrew Bible, the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, leaving 90% of the Hebrew text without variation. The fourth edition of the United Bible Society's Greek New Testament notes variants affecting about 500 out of 6900 words, or about 7% of the text. The narratives, laws, wisdom sayings, parables, and unique genres of the Bible provide opportunity for discussion on most topics of concern to human beings: The role of women, sex, children, marriage, neighbours, friends,

7832-594: Was preserved, decade after decade, by dedicated and relatively skilled Christian scribes. These differing histories produced what modern scholars refer to as recognizable "text types". The four most commonly recognized are Alexandrian , Western , Caesarean , and Byzantine . The list of books included in the Catholic Bible was established as canon by the Council of Rome in 382, followed by those of Hippo in 393 and Carthage in 397. Between 385 and 405 CE,

7921-412: Was ready to enter the land of Canaan. The Torah ends with the death of Moses. The commandments in the Torah provide the basis for Jewish religious law . Tradition states that there are 613 commandments ( taryag mitzvot ). Nevi'im ( Hebrew : נְבִיאִים , romanized :  Nəḇī'īm , "Prophets") is the second main division of the Tanakh, between the Torah and Ketuvim. It contains two sub-groups,

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