Glossary

amulet A small figure of a god or object worn as a protective charm.

Amun The chief god of the New Kingdom in Egypt; usually represented as a ram or a goose, or as wearing a tall, feathered crown.

aniconism The prohibition against representations of a deity. In its less stringent form, aniconism refers to the practice of using symbolic representations of the deity but not depictions of the deity.

anthropomorphic Having a human form or features.

apostasy The renunciation of a religious faith.

astragali Knuckle bones from various animals, often sheep, used in religious ceremonies.

Aten A variant of the sun god in the early New Kingdom in Egypt, elevated to the status of an exclusive creator god by Pharaoh Akhenaten; often represented by the Sun-disc extending its rays downward towards earth.

Ba‘al The Canaanite storm god, whose consort was the goddess Asherah.

bamot “High places” (singular, bamah); large open-air platforms used for cultic rituals such as sacrifices.

Belial A name for the devil found in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament.

Bes Egyptian god usually associated with music, the household and especially childbirth; often portrayed as a lion or as a dwarf with a crown of feathers.

Canaanites A Semitic people who inhabited the Levant from about 3000 B.C.E.

chthonic From a Greek word for earth; meaning of the earth, as opposed to of the heavens.

Dead Sea Scrolls Texts and textual fragments in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, dating from about 250 B.C.E. to 70 C.E., most of them found in the late 1940s in 11 caves near the town of Qumran, on the northwestern coast of the Dead Sea.

deification The act of making an object or being into a god.

Diaspora Jewish settlements outside the Land of the Bible.

El Chief god of the Canaanite pantheon, often depicted as a bull.

Enoch A son of Cain and the father of Methuselah, according to the Hebrew Bible; traditional author of three visionary pseudepigraphical books.

eschatology The belief that the world, at least in its present form, is about to end—perhaps to be replaced by a new order.

Hathor Ancient Egyptian mother goddess often portrayed as a cow or cow-headed woman with a distinctive horned headdress.

Hellenistic Relating to Greek art, culture or religion after the reign of Alexander the Great, from 332 B.C.E. into the first century B.C.E.

henotheism The belief in one god for one locale or people and other gods for other locales and peoples.

homoousious Literally “of the same substance” in Greek. In the fourth century C.E., Christian homoousians believed that the Son (Jesus) is of the same substance as the Father (God), in accordance with the Nicene Creed.

Horus The Egyptian god of the sky associated with the role of the king; often portrayed as a falcon or a hawk-headed man.

hypostatization The act of attributing tangible form to an abstract idea.

iconography Traditional images or symbols associated with a subject, especially religious or legendary material, such as the use of a book to represent wisdom or knowledge.

in situ Literally “in place”; an archaeological term used to indicate an object’s original material context.

Logos The rationality and intelligibility inherent in the universe. The Stoics believed, for example, that the regular motion of heavenly bodies was one manifestation of the Logos.

masseboth Literally “standing stones” (singular, massebah); small stone pillars used as altars, or as boundary markers indicating the perimeters of local shrines, or as aniconic representations of a deity.

Melchizedek A priest-king of Jerusalem who prepares a ritual meal for Abraham and receives in return one tenth of the spoils of Abraham’s conquests (Genesis 14:18–20).

Metatron Prince of the Divine Light in the Jewish pseudepgraphical text 3 Enoch (fifth–sixth century C.E.); possibly a later development of the Son of Man, mentioned in the Book of Daniel (mid-second century B.C.E.) and in the New Testament.

monad In theology an elemental spiritual substance from which all material properties are derived.

monolatry The restriction of worship to one god without denying the existence of other gods.

naos A small model of a temple, often used as a household shrine (plural, naoi).

Nicene Creed A tenet of Christian belief expanded from a creed issued by the first Nicene Council (325 C.E.) concerning the one-fold nature of the Trinity. The Nicene Creed, beginning with the words “I believe in one god,” is often used in liturgical worship.

numina Spiritual beings.

onomasticon A list of personal names from a particular time and place.

pithos A large pottery storage vessel (plural, pithoi).

pneuma Literally “breath” or “wind”; used in ancient Greek philosophy to refer to the vital spirit or soul.

polydemonism The worship of many spirits or demons.

polytheism The belief in or worship of more than one god.

Qumran A site near the northwest corner of the Dead Sea, roughly 10 miles south of Jericho. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in caves in a line of hills just above Qumran.

rabbinical Referring to the rabbis’ consolidation of the scriptural canon and their commentaries on Jewish legal traditions. The rabbinical period began in the first and second centuries C.E.

Sed Festival A jubilee festival held by Egyptian kings after 30 years of rule and then repeated every three years thereafter. The festival involved, among other activities, a ritual recoronation of the king to confirm his reign.

sherds Fragments of pottery found at archaeological sites.

stela An upright stone or pillar, frequently bearing an inscription or a design or both (plural, stelae).

Stoicism School of philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium, Cyprus, in Athens in the late fourth century B.C.E. According to Zeno’s ethical doctrine, the only real good is virtue and the only real evil is moral weakness; nothing else—not poverty, pain or death—has actual existence. A virtuous man possesses the only real good and is, therefore, happy.

syncretism The combination of different forms of belief or practice.

Teacher of Righteousness Believed by many scholars to have been the leader of the community that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls.

terra-cotta Fired clay used for making pottery, statuettes and certain architectural features.

votive Expression of a wish, desire or prayer, generally in reference to a representation of or an offering to a deity.

zoomorphic Having the form of an animal.

amulet A small figure of a god or object worn as a protective charm.

Amun The chief god of the New Kingdom in Egypt; usually represented as a ram or a goose, or as wearing a tall, feathered crown.