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SABAOTH (צבאוﬨ (tseh baw ‘oth), army, host; צבא השמים (tseh baw  ha shaw ma yeem), host of the heavens)  See Host of Heaven.

SABBATH (ﬨשב (shah bawth), rest, cease)  In origin, the closing day of a seven-day week.  The noun is derived from the verb meaning “to cease, to abstain, to desist from, to terminate, to be at an end.” 

     In its early stages the Sabbath was observed as a day upon which all physical labor was taboo, probably because it was regarded as an unlucky evil day, under the control of gods or spirits hostile to humankind.  Ultimately it became a day of positive worship of the Deity, with both abstention from ordinary occupations and assemblage in the synagogue.  Judaism has always observed the Sabbath upon the seventh day of the week, Saturday.  Gentile Christianity gradually shifted its Sabbath to Sunday, influenced in large part by the considerations that according to biblical tradition light was created upon the first day and that Jesus, the Light of the world, rose from the nether world upon Sunday.

                  Origin—In ancient Babylonia a particular day of distinctive character was known as šabbattū.  It was designated specifically as the “day of quieting of the heart.”  The 7^th, 14^th, 19^th (i.e. the “49^th” day of the preceding month), 21^st, and 28^th days were regarded as “evil days.”  Upon these days the physician, the oracular priest, and the king might not function in any official or professional capacity whatsoever. 

                 Certainly the conditions of nomadic life, where animal husbandry was the primary source of human livelihood, would not have permitted the Hebrew clans or tribes to desist even briefly from pastoral activities.  All available evidence indicates unmistakably that the sabbath can have originated only in an agricultural environment.  The Hebrews became acquainted with the sabbath only after they had established themselves in Palestine, had settled down, and had borrowed from the Canaanites the techniques and institutions of agricultural civilization, of which the sabbath was one.

                 Actually the sabbath had its origin in a unique and primitive calendar, which was used by various western Semitic people until about 1000 B.C.  This calendar was based upon and recorded the stages in the planting, ripening, harvesting, and use of the annual crop.  It was one of the institutions of Canaanite culture which these Hebrew newcomers borrowed, and it was from this calendar that the Babylonian šabattū was derived.  Both institutions, the Babylonian šabattū and the Hebrew sabbath, sprang from a common source.

                 This calendar has been aptly designated as the pentecostal calendar.  Its basic unit was the 7-day week, and its secondary time unit was the period of 50 days (i.e. 7 times 7 days, plus one additional day).  The 50^th day stood outside the weeks and was celebrated as an ‘atsarah (solemn assembly).  The year of this calendar consisted of 7 50-day periods plus two week-long festival periods, plus one additional day of supremely sacred character, 365 days in all. 

    One of the week-long festivals took place after the 4^th 50-day period (early October) and was known as khag hasookkoth , the Feast of Ingathering or Booths.  The “ingathering” was of the annual crop at the close of the harvest season.  The next took place after the 7^th  50-day period (mid-March) and was known as khag hapasak, the Feast of Unleavened Bread or Passover.  Everything which remained of the old crop was eaten in the form of matzoth, “cakes of unleavened bread,” and whatever could not be so consumed had to be burned.  Under no condition might the crops of two successive years be mingled or be allowed to contact each other in any way, for the result would be disastrous for the community. 

     The additional day came after Passover, and was celebrated as the New Year’s Day.  Upon this day the first sheaf of the crop of the new year was cut, and was offered as a sacrifice for the redemption of the remainder of the crop from the control of the Deity, freeing it for use by the people for their daily needs.  The festival after the 1^st 50 days of the year was the Festival of First Fruits. 

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     Quite plainly the number 7 was basic to this primitive system of time-reckoning.  It extended beyond the year to include 7-year periods, with the 7^th being the sabbatical year.  Seven of those 7-year periods, plus one (50), made up the largest, ultimate unit of time, with the 50^th being the Jubilee Year.  There is abundant evidence that among the early Semites, the number 7 was regarded as evil, unlucky, and a potential source of ill fortune; 7 is the number of the evil spirits.  Among the ancient Babylonians the evil spirits were likewise seven in number.  The two groups of beneficent deities consisted each of seven gods, but they were spoken of as being either eight or nine in number.  A similar superstition existed among the Phoenicians and no doubt among the Canaanites.  The seven Israelite peoples of Palestine are frequently referred to and mentioned by name, but, except for three passages, the names of no more than six are ever cited together. 

     All this suggests quite compellingly that this 7^th and final day of the week was regarded generally by those ancient Semitic people as an evil day, a day therefore upon which human labor would certainly not prosper.  Accordingly it was, as its name in both Hebrew and Babylonian indicates, essentially a day of total abstention from labor.  There can be little question that the 7-day sabbath, was strictly observed already by the Canaanites.  As a Canaanite religious institution it was entirely negative in character, and only abstention from labor.  It was Israel which, while abstaining from labor, gradually transformed it into a day of gladness of spirit and of positive and joyous worship of the Deity.         

                 History: Pre-Exilic—The sabbath’s fundamental role in Israel’s religious belief and practice is demonstrated by the fact that its strict observance is prescribed in all 4 biblical decalogues (in the order they were first written down): 1.) Ex. 34: 21; 2.) Ex. 23:12; 3.) Ex, 20: 8-10, Deut. 5: 12-14; and 4.) Lev. 23:3)  The first of these from Ex. 34, dates from 899 B.C., and was written in the southern kingdom of Judah.  It commands abstention from all agricultural labor upon the 7^th day (the term “sabbath” is not used); the commandment in its oldest form does not prohibit other essential work.  An interpretation added a short time later emphasizes that even during the plowing and harvesting seasons, when every moment was precious, the 7^th day must be observed strictly by abstention from all labor.  This earliest decalogue seems to have placed this commandment first upon its list of positive ritual commands, as if abstention from farm labor was regarded as the fundamental institution of the religious practice.

                 The second Decalogue to be written was patterned after the earlier decalogue and came from the northern kingdom of Israel in 841 B.C.  In Elisha’s time, the northern kingdom had become relatively prosperous through development of an active and international commercial program.  In the decalogue of his time, the commandment for the strict observance of the seventh day (the term “sabbath” is not used) by the abstention from labor included not merely agricultural labor, but rather work of all types. 

     This wording plainly represents an expansion of the sabbath commandment of the earlier decalogue, and it probably was applied to all occupational activities and not to daily household tasks.  In close association with this commandment, this decalogue also prescribes the observance of every 7^th year by non-cultivation of the fields.  Just as in the earliest decalogue, the 7^th day is primarily a day of desisting from all occupational labor rather than a day of conscious and socially motivated rest.      

      The third decalogue to be written, the so-called Deuteronomic decalogue, served as the basis of the religious reformation and of the attendant renewal of the covenant with Yahweh in the reign of Hezekiah (715-687 B.C.) and Josiah (640-609 B.C.).  The sabbath commandment in this decalogue was recorded in Exodus 20: 8-10 and Deuteronomy 5:12-14, as part of ten direct and concise commandments, each expressing a fundamental principle which Yahweh demanded as fulfillment of the covenant obligation to him.  The sabbath commandment is one of the five in this group that has been amplified by later editors.

     The sabbath commandment’s concise formulation seems to be like the 2 older decalogues.  It strictly forbids all labor upon the 7^th day by the positive declaration that it is a shabbath.  By substituting kol mela-keteka “all thy work, for ma’ahshayik “thy labors,” it would seem that with this reformation the 7^th day has at last become for Israel a day of complete desistance from all labor on the part of every person.  Also in this commandment, shabbath is plainly the formal name or title of the day.  This consideration suggests that as late as the reformation under Josiah in 621 B.C. the sabbath was still observed primarily in its negative rather than its positive aspect.  But, even in its negative aspect it has now become definitely a day sacred to Yahweh.  The inclusion of the provision for sabbath observance in the 2 older decalogues suggests that by the beginning of the 800s B.C. the sabbath had lost in Israel much of its original character as an evil day.

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     Whereas the two earlier decalogues included in their formulations of the essential principles of Israel’s covenant relationship with Yahweh various cultic institutions, in this third Decalogue the sabbath is the only cultic institution the observance of which is specifically prescribed.  The sabbath is here well on its way to becoming the primary cultic institution of Israel’s religion.

     The fourth decalogue, that of the Holiness Code in Leviticus 23:3, is associated with the second temple’s dedication in 516 B.C.  Here the sabbath commandment reads “and you shall keep my sabbaths.”  The brevity and directness of this statement suggests that by 525 B.C., sabbath observance had become established and even conventional, and that it included complete desistance by all persons of all forms of labor.

     Moreover, this sabbath commandment is linked closely with the commandment of reverence for parents and with “[you shall] reverence my sanctuary.”  The sabbath is here represented as belonging definitely and entirely to Yahweh as a fundamental institution in the worship of Yahweh.  This suggests that by 516 the sabbath had come to be regarded negatively, as a day of prescribed desistance from all labor, but also positively, as a day of rest which made possible assemblage and worship at Yahweh’s sanctuary.

     This record of the history of the sabbath is fully confirmed by other references.  Throughout Israel’s history the sabbath seems to have been closely linked with the day of the new moon.  Very little is known of the import of the new-moon day in the culture and religious practice of Israel prior to the adoption of the lunar calendar in the final quarter of the 400s B.C.; both New Moon and sabbath were days of complete desistance from  labor, and all shops were closed.  A verse in Isaiah 1 suggests that already in the 700s New Moons and sabbaths were celebrated by certain ritual acts and even perhaps sacrifice.  Also it is plain that already by 750, if not earlier, the word shabbath, while keeping its primary connotation as a common noun, had come to be used as a proper name.

                 History: Post-Exilic—In all likelihood the role of the synagogue, steadily expanding during the early post-exilic period, contributed materially to a significant transformation.  The sabbath prohibitions ceased to be a safeguard against mishap at the hands of supernatural agencies hostile to humankind, and became instead a day of purposeful rest and an act of positive homage to Yahweh. 

     This complete freedom from the activities of daily life made the day quite appropriate for assemblage in local synagogues.  In the biblical writings of this period the sabbath is represented as the sign of God’s sanctification of Israel.  A somewhat later form of this doctrine told that God chose Israel to observe the sabbath in God’s honor.  Deuteronomic expansion of the sabbath commandment in the third decalogue states explicitly that the distinct purpose of the sabbath was that servants, animals, and the stranger might rest and relax upon the sabbath as well.  While the second temple was standing, strict sabbath observance by at least complete abstention from labor was one of the ritual practices imposed upon proselytes.

     From the 500s B.C. onward, the weekly assemblies in the local synagogues for communal worship were used to distinguish the sabbath from the other 6 days of the week.  The ritual used in worship was a steadily expanding one, in which the reading of the first 5 books of the Old Testament and selected passages from the Prophets and the explaining thereof by recognized authorities played a central role.  Quite probably the singing or chanting of selected psalms also constituted an important part of the early sabbath ritual in the synagogue.  Following the destruction of the third temple in 70 A.D., sabbath worship in the synagogue became the primary institution of Jewish ritual.

     The coming of Ezra to Jerusalem in 458 B.C., the erection of the third temple, the restoration of the Zadokite priests, and the program of intensive Jewish separatism and ritualism, revived in no small measure something of the original, austere character of the Sabbath as a day when all undue physical activity was strictly prohibited.  The origin of the sabbath and its character as a sacred day came to be explained by the tradition that God had created the world in 6 days and had himself rested upon the 7^th day.  The spirit of the age after Ezra and the stress which it laid upon the most rigorous sabbath observance are evidenced by the fact that a new term was coined—shabaton, total ceasing.  The compound shabath shabaton, designates the day as a “sabbath of total rest.”  But despite the innumerable restrictions which encompassed it, the sabbath was to be above all else, a joyous day for its celebrants.  The Sunday-sabbath and ritual worship thereon in the church are quite obviously a part of Christianity’s heritage from Judaism.

     See also entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha/Influences Outside the Bible section of the Appendix.

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SABBATH’S DAY JOURNEY (sabbatou odon (sab bah too  oh don), distance allowed by scribal legislation for travel on the sabbath.)

                 In Acts 1, Mount Olivet is described as a “sabbath day’s journey” from Jerusalem, which is most likely about 910 meters (Various estimates have been made as to what linear distance constituted 2,000 cubits, depending on whether the Greek, Roman, or Egyptian system of measuring was used).  The phrase, not used elsewhere, is derived from Joshua 3, where the ark is indicated as 2,000 cubits ahead of the people.  This thus became the basis of the law that on the sabbath a person could travel no more than 2,000 cubits, the farthest distance one would be from the center of worship.

                 However, scribes were able to figure how a person might go 4,000 cubits on the sabbath: Preceding the sabbath person could establish his “home” 2,000 cubits away by carrying food for two meals to a given place, one meal to be eaten and the other buried.  Hence, from this place an individual could travel 2,000 farther on the sabbath, and thus legally travel 4,000 cubits (1820 meters).

SABBATICAL YEAR (השמטה שנﬨ (sheh nat  ha sheh me tah), year of release [from debt]; שנﬨ שבﬨון (sheh nat  shah baw tone), year of ceasing [agricultural] labor)  The final year in a cycle of seven years; an institution of ancient Israelite time-reckoning and religious, social, and economic practice. 

     It had its origin in the “50-day” calendar, the earliest calendar current among the ancient Semitic peoples, a calendar of strictly agricultural character.  In this calendar the seventh or sabbatical year bore to the other years precisely the same relationship as the sabbath bore to the other days.  7 years made up another, larger unit of time-reckoning, with the 7^th and final year observed as a taboo year, in which, for its entire duration, all agricultural labor ceased.

     It is not surprising that the oldest Decalogue in the Bible, formulated in 899 B.C. in the southern kingdom of Judah, where agriculture was normally not a primary source of livelihood, makes no mention of the sabbatical year.  However, the Decalogue of the so-called Book of the Covenant, formulated in 841 B.C. in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, where agriculture was the dominant occupation, does provide for the observance of the 7^th year.  Moreover, the spontaneous, untilled produce of the field, orchard, or vineyard could not be retained by the owner alone, but might be eaten freely by the poor of the land.  Under no condition might the crop of this 7^th year be harvested and stored.

     An early stratum of the Book of the Covenant provides for the automatic release of Hebrew male slaves in the 7^th year (Exodus 21; and later Deuteronomy 15).  This automatic freeing of Hebrew slaves has no connection with the sabbatical year.  But the legislation in the beginning of Deuteronomy 15 links the nationalized institution of the cancellation of debts owed between Israelites.  The Deuteronomic Code does not make any provision whatever for the ancient agricultural institution of leaving the fields fallow during the sabbatical year.  Deuteronomy 31 does make incidental reference to the sabbatical year, the “year of dropping,” when the people would assemble exclusively at the temple in Jerusalem, for the celebration of the new year.  Unquestionably it was in conformity with this command Ezra read the Law to the people.

     Following the Southern Kingdom of Judah’s overthrow by the Babylonians, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the upper social strata’s exile, the economy of the Jewish people left behind in the land became predominantly agricultural.  It is not surprising that the post-exilic period’s Holiness Code, with a part of it related to the second temple’s erection and dedication in 516 B.C., should revive the sabbatical year’s strict and ancient observance; this code made no provision whatever for the cancellation of debts that was in the Deuteronomic Code.  Instead, lending money or charging interest by one Jew to another was forbidden. 

     Moreover, in the Holiness Code the automatic release of fellow Israelites, held as slaves, in the 7^th year, after six years of servitude, was transferred to the Jubilee Year.  In the post-exilic period the sabbatical year reverted to what it had been originally, a year of complete “dropping” or “interruption” of agricultural labor and of consequent non-cultivation of fields.

     The Priestly Code was formulated after 425 B.C. and regulated official Judaism, which was centered in the Jerusalem temple, for the next 500 years.  It makes not the slightest mention of or reference to the sabbatical year.  A clear-cut distinction speedily evolved between the urban and the rural sections of Jewish community of Palestine.  Jerusalem population, largely trades-people by occupation and living in immediate contact with the temple, naturally conformed strictly to its official cult.  The sabbatical year, as a purely agricultural institution, could have little concrete meaning and appeal for them as trades-people; its observance as the year of the cancellation of debts, would have been practically impossible.  These two facts account for complete silence of the primary stratum of the Priestly Code with regard to the sabbatical year.

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     Moreover, the rural Palestinian Jewish community often dwelt far from the temple.  They were largely shepherds or farmers by occupation, and as such naturally conservative, zealously adhering to many ancient religious institutions.  These included the old, agricultural 50-day calendar, which in turn included the sabbatical year with its custom of leaving the fields untilled, and in its secondary aspect of debt cancellation.  In the original Holiness Code legislation for the sabbatical year, 2 late, priestly revisions can be detected.  They coin the new and decidedly descriptive title shenat shabaton, the “year of sabbatical desistance.” 

     See also entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha/Influences Outside the Bible section of the Appendix.  

     Rabbinic Judaism, evolving rapidly in the period following the final destruction of the temple by the Romans in 70 A.D., sought to observe the sabbatical year in both its phases.  However, steadily changing conditions of Jewish life and expanding migration of Jews from Palestine to other lands made necessary modification of the manner of observance of the sabbatical year.  The Palestinian Jewish community rapidly became too small and unimportant for its practice to continue.  Quite naturally in foreign lands and among strange people with widely divergent cultures, the observance of the sabbatical in either of its two phases became both meaningless and impracticable.  Thus this ancient institution eventually became obsolete.

SABEAN (סבאי or שבאי)  A Semitic people who dwelt in the southwest corner of the Arabian Peninsula, and who traded in spices, gold, and precious stones.  Seba is perhaps the name of a Sabean colony, in Africa.  The Sabeans occupied that part of southwestern Arabia which roughly corresponds to modern Yemen.  This region is one of the most fertile of Arabia, augmented in antiquity through enormous irrigation works.  Located as they were on the periphery of the ancient Near East at a safe distance from the great empires to the north, the Sabeans enjoyed comparative peace and security.

                 This location also enabled the Sabeans to play an important role in the economic life of the ancient Near East.  It is in connection with their caravan activities and traffic in incense, precious stones, and gold that the Sabeans were known to biblical writers.  Sabean ships sailed from Sabean ports to trade with east Africa, Socotra, and probably India.

                 The recovery of Sabean civilization began in 1762 with the explorations of a Danish expedition.  Other explorers copied thousands of southern Arabic inscriptions and described numerous ancient sites.  The origins of the Sabeans are shrouded in mystery.  Sheba, together with Seba, is listed a descendant of Ham through Cush, and was therefore considered by the author to be related to western and northwestern peoples.  Since Seba is directly descended from Cush, it is probable that Seba was located in Africa.  But according to Genesis 10, Sheba and several other southern Arabian tribes are descended from Shem through the lineage Arpachshad, Joktan, and others.  Taken together, these genealogical references indicate that the Israelites thought that the Sabeans were related to the peoples of the Fertile Crescent.

                 For a number of years, scholars disputed the position of Saba in southern Arabian history.  Excavations at Hajar Kohlan proved that Saba preceded the other southern Arabian states.  Other evidence suggests that southern Arabia was settled by Semites who migrated southward from central or western Arabia.  Whether Saba’s founders were among this group or came later is unknown.  By the 900s B.C., Saba was so well established that a queen could journey to Palestine with a richly laden caravan.  Her visit to Solomon must have been concerned with trade.  Presumably her mission was part of a general Sabean commercial expansion. 

     From not later than the 800s to the middle of the 400s B.C., Saba was governed by rulers who assumed the title mukarrib (priest).  If Saba is similar to Assyria, the god was called “king,” and his earthly agent or the actual ruler was called “priest.”  The first group of mukarribs ruled from the 800s B.C.-675 B.C. and included two rulers who are mentioned in Assyrian inscriptions:  Yithi ‘amara and Karib’il.  To this period belongs the construction of the southern tombs at Marib.  The mukarribs of the second group (675-525 B.C.) are known to have been extremely active in building, things such temples and sluices through solid rock.  The third group ruled 525-450 B.C., but little is known of their activities.  Around 450 B.C., Karib’il Watar, the last mukarrib, assumed the title “king of Saba,” probably as a concession to the times.  He conquered the kingdom of Ausan in the south with the aid of Qataban and Hadhramaut.  He is also responsible for many constructions in Saba.  His successors carried out extensive building operations at Marib.

     See also entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha/Influences Outside the Bible section of the Appendix.

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     The period of the Kings of Saba and Dhu-Raidan began around 50 A.D.  Saba emerged victorious from the struggle for ascendancy and possession of Qatabanian territory.  Increased contact with the Mediterranean world is reflected by the more accurate descriptions of the region by Pliny the Elder.  Around 325 A.D., King Shamar Yuhar’ish adopted the title “King of Saba, Dhu-Raidan, Hadhramaut, and Yamanat.”  Theophilus converted the Sabean ruler to Christianity, no doubt with the support of the Christian ruler of Abyssinia.  The last Sabean ruler, the Abyssinian viceroy Abraha, was overthrown by the Persians in 575.

SABTAH (הﬨסב)  A son of Cush, and hence the name of a place in Arabia.  It has been identified with Sabota in Hadramaut.  Another possibility is the Saptha mentioned by Ptolemy, an inland town situated not far from the Persian Gulf.

SABTECA (אﬨﬤשב  A son of Cush, and hence the name of an unknown Arabian locality.

SACHAR (שﬤﬧ) . .A 1. A Hararite; the father of Ahiam, one of David’s Mighty Men.  While it is not possible to determine the original proper name, the gentilic “Hararite” is undoubtedly the true reading (I Chronicles 11).

2.  A Korahite who is included among the sons of Obed-edom, the ancestor and origin of the name of a family of gatekeepers (I Chronicles 26).

SACK  (שק (sak), sackcloth; ﬨחﬨאמ (‘ah met ta khat), bag)  In most references, a container for grain or food.  Sacks were perhaps often made of coarse (goat’s hair) cloth.

SACKCLOTH (שק (sak), sack; sakkoV (sak kos))  A garment of goat’s hair or camel’s hair, often worn as a symbol of mourning and by some prophets and captives.  Authorities do not agree as to the shape of the garment; either it was a rectangular piece of cloth sewn on the sides and one end, or a smaller garment such as a loincloth.  In favor of this view may be cited the Hebrew practice of girding the loins with sackcloth.  Sack cloth was dark, as in “I clothe the heavens with darkness, and make sackcloth their covering (Isaiah 50).” 

            Sackcloth’s origin is unknown; it probably goes back to prehistoric times when it was the only garment worn.  Sackcloth’s use continued over many centuries.  Jacob wore it to mourn for Joseph; Ahab “put sackcloth upon his flesh; entire families with their cattle, laborers, and slaves put on sackcloth in time of national crisis: sackcloth is not mentioned in the Law.  Priests, like others, wore sackcloth at a time of mourning.  Although Isaiah wore sackcloth on one occasion, it was probably not a normal prophetic garment.

SACRED STONE (diopethV (dee op eh tes), fallen from Jupiter)  Probably a meteorite which, having fallen from the sky and thus believed to be of supernatural origin, was considered a symbol of Artemis.

SACRIFICES AND OFFERINGS, OT 

   אוﬤל לחם (‘oh kel  la ham), breaking bread;       מנחה (me naw khaw), gift, present,    

                                                                                  meal offering
אשם (‘aw shawm), guilt offering                      מﬨנה  (mat taw naw), gift, present

   הולﬤה (ho leh kah), taking of blood to the          סמך  (saw mak), lay hands upon   

       altar                                                                    [offering]
   זבח (tseh bakh), slaughtering, sacrifice              עבו ﬢה  (‘ah bow daw), serving god

   זﬧיﬤה (tsah ray keh), sprinkling [of blood]         עלה (‘oh lah), continual, whole offering   

   חטאﬨ (khat ‘at), sin-offering                            פלא נﬢﬧ (pa la  na dar), wonderful 
                                                                              [sacred] vow 

   הקטﬧﬨ (hah keh to rat), burning the                  קלהב (kaw lah hab), gathering [blood]  
         dedicated portion                                                                                    הפנים לחם (la ham  ha faw neem), bread      שחיﬨה  (sheh khee tah), slaughtering 
        of presence  
   לחם המעﬧﬤﬨ                                               ﬨוﬢה (toe dah), confession, 

     (lah kham  hah ma ’ah rah ket)                            thanksgiving offering  
     bread piled-up, arranged, showbread      ﬨמיﬢ (taw meed), ever [continual] 
                                                                              offering    

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                 From earliest times until the destruction of the second temple 70 A.D., a dominant element of Hebrew religion, in which beasts were dispatched and victuals presented to, or consumed in the deity’s presence.  A sacrifice involves the slaughter or burning of an animal while an offering does not.  The practices in question were diverse and varied not only in form but also in motivation and significance.  Some of them propitiated the god; some were tribute.  Some were designed to provide the fare for a common meal by which god and worshiper might renew their ties, and for the god’s sustenance.  Others were the purging of sin and the regeneration of the sinner by sanctified blood.  They cannot be derived from any one single principle.

                 Hebrew sacrifices and offerings are best classified according to motivations: gifts and tributes; providing nourishment for the god and the priests; having communion; and atoning or removing sin.  Communion could be between people or to unite the deity with his worshipers.  Expiation could be for individuals, or for the community as a whole.  Parallels to Hebrew sacrifices and offerings may now be found in other ancient Semitic sources from Mesopotamia, Ugarit (Ras Shamra), and South Arabia.

                 Gifts and Tribute—All sacrifices and offerings actually involved the presentation of something to or before the deity.  The equivalent of the Hebrew mattanah occurs as the name of an offering in a sacrificial tariff from Ras Shamra.  Similarly, in Mesopotamia usage, sacrifices and offerings are sometimes designated by words meaning “gift.”  As gifts, sacrifices and offerings would be considered primarily as of the same order as those presented to a superior one sought favor from, i.e. propitiatory.  A gift could also look like tribute.  In Akkadian documents, manhatu designates a token of homage rendered to an overlord.  Menach is what other gods bring to Baal in recognition of his sovereignty.

                 The idea that sacrifices and offerings are tributes rests not only on the general conception of the god as a king, but also, that he who “quickens” the soil, or activates anything, is entitled to a share of the produce; to withhold it is both impiety and embezzlement.  The spoils of war were made over to the god who led or inspired the victory.  The god claimed the male firstborn as such tribute, but in the case of human beings, provision was made for ransom by monetary or other equivalents; to the god also belonged the first fruits.

                 Analogous offerings (reseti) are attested in Mesopotamia and in Phoenician sacrificial tariffs.  The specification of first fruits and firstlings as tributary offerings was probably influenced by the notion that there is a special “virtue” in new things.  Originally of undetermined quality, these first fruits were later stabilized as a tenth part, or tithe.

                 Besides being propitiatory or tributary, gifts could also be votive—i.e. consequent upon a vow or promise to make a concrete payment to a god for fulfilling the wish.  Offerings of this kind could be presented either on making the vow or later, when the request had been granted.  The basic meaning of nadir would seem to be “to set apart.”  This meaning is contained also in the expression pala nadir.  Where the votive offering is made in acknowledgement of favors received, it naturally tends to merge into the todah or thanksgiving.  This is put into the category of a meal consumed by those offering it.  Lastly, to the category of gifts belonged the voluntary, or freewill offering, prompted solely by the impulse of the donor.  It involved no statutory commandment, and the animal offered did not have to be spotless.

                 Nourishment: Divine and Human—It was a Semitic belief, as of other ancient peoples, that the gods were sustained by their consuming special food and drink in heaven.  Such food plays a significant role in Mesopotamian myth.  When the gods came to earth and sojourned among men, they were deprived of that substance, and therefore needed constant refreshment; this notion was widespread in ancient times.  Hence, another of the purposes of sacrifice was to supply the gods, while on earth, with blood and suet.  When a god took up residence in an earthly habitation in order to be more accessible to men, he was treated in the same way as a mortal king, being roused in the morning, washed, dressed, hair styled, fed, and put to bed at night.  The Hebrew term ‘abodah, commonly rendered “worship,” implies such service in the widest sense.

                 In the Hebrew system, the daily sustenance of God on earth was provided principally by the so-called ‘ohlah, continual offering, which was a beast offered whole, together with a meal or cereal offering.  The rules concerning it seem to have varied at different periods.  Varying numbers of unblemished he-lambs, young bullocks are specified for various times of day and festival days.  A fixed scale determines the accompanying meal offerings.  A different schedule, however, is laid down by the prophet Ezekiel, with more use made of young bullocks.  Analogous Babylonians sacrificial schedules may be found on the tablet from Uruk.  The Ugaritic sacrificial tariffs contain but few indications of the calendar dates to which they apply.

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                 Besides such daily quotas of meat, meal and drink offerings, Yahweh received the so-called lakham hafanim, bread of the presence (See entry), later known as lakham hama’araket, or showbread.  According to Leviticus 24, it consisted of 12 loaves of fine flour, set upon the altar in two rows of six, and topped with pure frankincense (and salt according to the primary Greek Old Testament).  The loaves were changed every sabbath, those that were removed being then eaten by the priests.  There are arresting parallels in the Mesopotamian cult, which has “food of the presence” which was unleavened bread.

                 Communion, Covenant, and Expiatory (Sin) Offering—In some cases sacrifices and offering were simply a translation to the cultic sphere of regular social practices.  One of the most prominent of these was the custom of ‘akahli  lakham, “breaking bread,” and thereby forging or reaffirming ties of kinship and alliance.  Accordingly, it has been suggested by one scholar that the primary and original purpose of sacrifice among the Semites was to forge or cement relations with a god by sharing a meal with him.  In Israelite thought the relationship between God and God’s people was indeed conceived as that of a covenant.  The Old Testament bears witness to the god participating in communal feasts.  In Deuteronomy 12, the Israelites are commanded to perform sacrifices and offerings and “eat in the presence of Yahweh your God.” 

                 While the importance of sharing in God’s presence is an important part of ancient Israelite belief, evidence recently discovered in Mesopotamia and Ugarit shows that the usages in question do not really represent survivals from primitive Semitic antiquity.  In outward recognition of the covenantal bond, it was anciently the custom to sprinkle drops of the sacrificial blood on the persons or dwellings of the participants.

                 Any contact with impurity, physical or moral, any breaking of traditional taboos, and any violation of cultic laws was regarded by the Hebrews as entailing an impairment of the offender’s essential “self.”  The Hebrew term for this condition was khata, sin.  The word’s primary meaning is “to miss, fall short of”; the reference was not so much to actually committing the offense as to the state of the offender’s self.

                 To purge this condition, the sacrificial rite known as khatat was performed.  The rite was two-sided: it removed the contagion; and it regenerated the “infected” individuals.  The former was usually accomplished by having the priest lay his hand on the victim’s head.  The latter end was served by having the priest apply drops of sacrificial blood to the right ear, thumb, and big toe of the one making the offering.  The purpose of the procedure was evidently to regenerate the impaired “self” of the offender.  Nor was it only human beings who could thus be reconditioned. The altar too could be purged of taint and made over anew.  Moses is said to have slaughtered a bullock as a khatat and to have applied drops of its blood to the horns of the altar.

                 Distinct from the khatat, was the so-called ‘asham, guilt offering.  Far from being a vehicle of rehabilitation, this was a fine imposed upon one who had caused damage to another.  Originally a civic institution, it was later extended to cases of damage or loss occasioned to the deity by fraud.  The incorporation of the ‘asham into the sacrificial system first appears in the Priestly Code (400s B.C.).  The institution itself however, was known at an earlier date.  The ‘asham was a fine, paid over and above the actual damage penalty; its purpose was punitive.  The basic idea of the ‘asham may perhaps be best understood from Is. 53 and Joel 1.  In Isaiah it is said that the Suffering Servant let his own person serve as an ‘asham.  In Joel, the poor condition of flocks and herds is described as:  “Even the flocks of sheep are being made to pay guilt offering.”   

                 A common view of sin and guilt offerings is that they were designed to provide surrogates for the lives of human offenders.  This seems to have been the view of the ancient rabbis, and modern scholars have resorted to it especially to account for the rite of the scapegoat on the Day of Atonement.  This view is mistaken, for such animals are merely vehicles for transferring and thereby removing taint and contagion.  The main thing is simply to dispatch it from the community, so that the poisonous influence may be borne away. 

                 Disposal of residual poisonous influence was obviously necessary before complete clearance from impurities like leprosy could be affected.  The scapegoat was not something to which one shifted the blame for one’s own transgression.  It was a means of removing from the community the taint of sins which had first to be openly confessed; the expulsion of the scapegoat was essentially a public ceremony.  Its primary purpose was to rid society of any poisonous influence, responsibility for which could not be assigned precisely to individuals.  In other words, the scapegoat was representative and was to do that which had to be done for the public benefit but which could not be done by or for individuals.  A close parallel to the biblical ritual is afforded by the ceremony called kuppuru, which took place on the day of the Babylonian festival of Akitu.

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                 Special Occasions of Sacrifice—In addition to those which formed part of the statutory cult, sacrifices were performed publicly on occasions when it was thought necessary to purge the community of the taint of collective misdeed.  The consecration of a temple or altar also required appropriate sacrifices.  What was involved was the removal of impurity on the one hand and the replenishment of “holiness” on the other.  Sacrifices were also offered before battle.

                 Private sacrifices comprised also offerings made after childbirth, weaning, and personal pacts.  Sacrifices offered by families and religious guilds are expressly distinguished from those presented by individuals; such a guild was called a marezakha.  Sacrifices to the dead are seemingly mentioned in Psalm 106. The Hebrew text speaks only of “sacrifices of the dead.”

                 Biblical denunciation of human sacrifice is found in Deuteronomy 12, II Kings 16, Psalm 106, and Jeremiah 7.  There are several references in the Old Testament (OT) to passage of children through fire to Molech; what is implied is a matter of debate among scholars.  Molech was a pagan god mentioned in tablets of the 1700s B.C. from Mari and the 3^rd Dynasty of Ur.  It is possible that the Israelite writers have confused with human sacrifice a more innocuous practice, widely attested, of passing rapidly through a flame as a means of absorbing extra strength or immortality.  The archaeological evidence for the sacrifice of children is also ambiguous.  Jephthah’s sacrifice of his daughter is simply a Hebrew version of a widespread folk tale; the story’s point depends on being something unusual and extraordinary.  The slaying of people at the foundation of a city or building is mentioned in Joshua 6 and I Kings 16, and belongs in this category.  

                 Sacrificial Procedure—The most comprehensive term for “sacrifice” is tseba, slaughtering.  It has therefore been assumed that the original method of dispatching sacral animals was by immolation, and that burning came in later.  In the Israelite forms, sacrifices were divided into two major categories: ‘olah, whole offering; and tsebah, in which only certain parts only were consigned to the altar.  ‘Olah is thought to refer either to the placing of the victim on the altar or to the rising of the smoke in a burnt offering.

                 The reserved portions usually consisted of the blood, the kidneys, and part of the liver.  Provision was made for the priests to receive part of the sacrifices and offerings for their sustenance.  They were likewise entitled to the major portions of cereal offerings.  In addition, they received the bread of the Presence, once it had been replaced by a fresh supply.  Similar provisions appear elsewhere in the ancient world.

                 Although the amounts of sacrifices and offerings were precisely defined, concessions were made for the benefit of the poor.  In cases of indigence, two turtle doves might be substituted for the sheep, and a poor leper might bring one tenth of an ephah of fine flour soaked in oil together with one log of oil, in lieu of lambs, fine flour, and oil.  Babylonian ritual text prescribes a similar substitution for one of lower degree.

                 Material and Purity of Sacrifices and Offerings—The sacrifice for an ‘asham, guilt offering was usually a ram.  The beast offered for a khatat, sin offering, varied with different cases.  At the release of a Nazirite from his term, a yearling female lamb had to be brought as a khatat.  The formal prescriptions of the legal codes are well illustrated by the historical narratives (e.g. II Samuel 24; I Kings 1; I Samuel 7).  A holocaust, or large, multiple sacrifice offered at the funeral rites of the god Baal includes 70 buffaloes, 70 oxen, 70 sheep, 70 harts, 70 mountain goats, and 70 asses, but this may be a deliberate exaggeration.

                 In many cases, the rule is laid down that sacrificial animals are to be not more than one year old.  One- year-old sacrificial animals are likewise mentioned in Mesopotamian sources.  Vegetable offerings consisted in a tithe of the produce and in the first fruits of the crops.  Libation of wine usually accompanied the sacrifice of animals.  Babylonian sacrificial texts mention, in addition to animals: wine; juice; date wine; honey; cream; and garlic.  Leavened food was in general forbidden in offerings.

                 All sacrifices and offerings involved contact with divinity, and were therefore in the category of the “holy.”  Moreover, since the essence of the sacrificial ceremony was to provide a means whereby that quality might be absorbed, care had to taken to ensure that it was kept free of contamination.  The fat of sacred animals, which was consigned to the god, was not allowed to remain on the altar overnight.  The priests and all other participants in a sacrificial ceremony had likewise to be in a state of purity.  Such regulations reflect standard practice in antiquity.  The Babylonians too insisted that sacrificial animals be perfect.  The same insistence that the sacred precincts be kept pure was also found among the Greeks.

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                 In connection with paschal sacrifice, purity meant that the victim’s bones must not be broken.  The Israelites’ prejudices seem to have imposed the discontinuance of another ancient practice, namely ritual nudity, lest clothes convey impurity.  Bare feet may be all that is left of this ritual in Hebrew practices.  Evidence of ritual nudity is found in early Mesopotamia, and is found in the pre-Islamic ritual of circling the altar.

                 Closely associated with the purity provisions was the necessity of averting negative spiritual influences (i.e. demons).  Every offering had to be accompanied by salt.  In the Levitical prescription, this is associated with the custom of sealing covenants by sharing bread and salt.  It may have preserved the covenantal food, but it is probable that the original purpose was to avert demons, for the belief that salt is immune to corrosive influences and can impart immunity to any who consume or hold it, is widespread in folklore.

                 At New Moon, seasonal festivals and other ceremonial occasions, the ram’s horn was blown over sacrifices.  It seems likely that the original purpose of the trumpet-blowing was to scare away those demons and noxious spirits which are universally believed to be present at the dark of the moon and other crucial calendar dates.  Processing around the altar is usually designed to keep out demons.

                 Attitudes of the Prophets and Later Developments—Once the real nature and function of sacrifice are made clear, the statements of the prophets about the observance of it in their time can be better appreciated.  They were not against sacrifice per se, but simply against the abuse of it.  Isaiah inveighed equally against hypocritical prayer.  Their protest was against the view that it expressed of itself the spiritual bond between worshiper and God, that God could thereby be persuaded or compelled.

                 A detailed account of sacrificial usage in the second temple was furnished in the Mishna.  Sacrifices and offerings were divided broadly into “sacred in the highest degree” (whole burnt offering, cereal offering, and sin offering), and “sacred in lower degree” (thank offering, votive offering, freewill offering, and the paschal sacrifice).  In accordance with the rules laid down in the Pentateuch, an animal sacrifice consisted of: laying on of hands on the victims; slaughtering; gathering blood; carrying blood to the altar; sprinkling of blood; and burning of the dedicated portion.

                 For the laying on of hands, there was a difference of opinion as to whether one hand or both hands should be used.  The act was performed by the offerer, but was omitted when the offerer was deaf, blind, mentally defective, slave, or woman.  The only wine permitted was red wine.  In treating the efficacy of sacrifices and offerings, the rabbis were careful to distinguish between expiation—the removal of sin’s taint and the psyche’s restoration—and atonement—reconciliation with God.  Almost all sacrifices possessed the power of expiation, but the sinner’s total regeneration involved both expiation and atonement together. 

                 Following the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D., prayer was held to be the legitimate substitute for sacrifice.  In the synagogue services for New Moon and holy days, the appropriate sacrificial regulations are read, and on the Day of Atonement an account of the sacrificial ritual in the temple is read.  The attitude of the Dead Sea Sect toward sacrifice is a matter of debate; the archaeological and literary evidence is ambiguous.  Josephus says that the Essenes did not make offerings at Jerusalem, but “offered sacrifices within themselves.”  The view that prayer took the place of sacrifice became the norm in Christianity as well.

SACRILEGE (bdelugma (beh deh lig ma), abomination)  Something repulsive, loathsome, disgusting; be-fouling of the sacred. 

                 Matt. 24 and Mark 13 have the same expression as is found in the primary Greek translation of Dan. 9, 11, and 12.  In Daniel the “abomination that makes desolate” refers to the small Greek altar which Antiochus IV Epiphanes had erected on the altar of burnt offering.  Jews could not worship Yahweh in a temple having a pagan altar.  In Matt. 24 and Mark 13 the “desolating sacrilege is possibly one of the following:  a statue of the Roman emperor, Caligula (the threat, which existed for a year was never carried out); the Antichrist (a supernatural figure as in II Thess. 2 and Rev. 12); the Roman army at the time of the war in 66-73 (it contradicts the sense of a supernatural event in the passages); and no particular thing or person.  It is also possible that the words “desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be” were not originally part of the context at all, which makes interpretation all but impossible.

SADDLE (ﬧﬤבמ (meh reh kawb), seat of a chariot)  A cloth or leather seat for a rider, strapped to the back of an animal.  Anything approaching a saddle in the modern sense was unfamiliar to the Old Testament, and appears to have emerged only in Scythia in the 300s B.C.  It came later to the Mediterranean area, and was not fully developed until the Christian era.

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SADDLECLOTHS (חפש ﬢיבג (be geh die  kho fesh), literally a spread covering)  Ornamental cloths used with saddles “for riding.”

SADDUCEES (ﬢוקיםצ (tsad do keem), from the name of Zadok (meaning “just) the high priest; Saddoukaioi)  The priestly aristocratic party in Judaism, whose interests centered in the temple, and whose views and practices opposed those of the Pharisees. 

     See also entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha / Influences Outside the Bible section of the Appendix.

                 The numerous high priests under Herod’s son Archelaus (4 B.C.- 6 A.D.), Herod Agrippa (41 A.D.- 44) and the procurators, was clearly because of unsuccessful attempts of the Roman authorities to find subservient high priests.  Upon Herod’s death, the populace demanded Joazar be removed in favor of a more fitting high priest.  When Archelaus returned from having his rule confirmed in Rome he removed Joazar.

     The Jewish historian Josephus numbers 28 high priests from the days of Herod until the fall of Jerusalem Josephus was anxious to show that the leading Jews, the high priests, and the chief Pharisees desired to avert the disastrous revolution of 66-70.  But Eleazar, the governor of the temple and son of Ananias the high priest, initiated the decisive act of revolt in refusing to accept temple sacrifices for foreigners.  The temple priesthood evidently supported Eleazar.  This suggests an alignment of a preponderance of the priest-hood with Eleazar against the Romans and their puppet high priest.  When Ananias was murdered Eleazar made a bid against Menahem for leadership of the revolt.

                 In the New Testament and Josephus, the Sadducees denied the doctrine of the body’s resurrection.  According to Acts 23, they also denied that angels and spirits existed; Josephus tells us that they also denied fate.  Following Jerusalem’s and the temple’s destruction in 70 A.D., the Sadducees had no important role in Judaism.  The loss of Sadducean influence is not simply because of the temple’s destruction.  Probably the Sadducees, based mainly in Jerusalem and implicated in the war, suffered heavily with the fall of the city.

                 See also entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha/Influences Outside the Bible section of the Appendix.

SAFFRON  (ﬤﬧﬤם (kar kome))  A plant and its product used in cooking and medicines.  Saffron is extracted from the aromatic style and stigma of certain crocuses.  The English word comes from the Arabic za’faran.

 SAIL (נס (nase), flag, banner; artemwn (ar teh mon), topsail, foresail)  A sheet of strong material usually textile, which is extended on a mast to catch enough wind to propel a vessel through water.  Boats on the Sea of Galilee were fitted with a small sail as well as with oars.  Mediterranean ships would have one or two sails, both being square or rectangular.  Later a triangular topsail was found set above the mainsail. While ships usually ran before the wind, a skillful captain could travel against the wind, but this would be uncommon.

SAILOR (nauthV (naw tes) As the ship on which Paul was taken to Rome neared Malta, the sailors lowered the dinghy.  Acts 27 says that the sailors were trying to escape from the ship.  Revelation 18 records John’s vision of the mourning of shipmasters and sailors over the destruction of Rome.  See Ships and Sailing.

SAINT (חסיﬢ (khaw seed), pious, godly, holy; קﬢוש (kaw dosh), set apart, sacred, holy to God; agioV (ah gee os), hallowed)  A person “holy” or “set apart” for God’s use.

                 In the Old Testament (OT), as the covenant people, Israel is a holy nation, being consecrated as the peculiar possession of God.  “You shall be holy; for I the Lord your God am holy (Leviticus 19).  Qadosh is the more general term, and applied to those who are especially dedicated to God.  The attendant angels of the Lord are described in Moses’ blessing:  “The Lord came from Sinai, . . . with him were myriads of holy ones” (Deuteronomy 33).  The writer of the 5^th verse of Psalm 89 says:  “Let the heavens praise your wonders, O Lord, your faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones.” 

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                 More commonly, the term is used of Israel as God’s people.  Holiness is the quality of Israel’s faithful remnant, the loyal nucleus of God’s people, who remain steadfast in the persecution under Antiochus; this is where the term hasid originated.  More generally, this term describes the pious and God-fearing Israelite.  (e.g. “Love the Lord, all you his saints.  The Lord preserves the faithful . . .” (Ps. 31:23, New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)); and “For the Lord loves justice; he will not forsake his faithful ones.” (Ps. 37: 28, NRSV).  It is unlikely that the instances mentioned above are Maccabean.  In Daniel, the term denotes the faithful to whom the Kingdom will be given in the approaching judgment day.  These “saints of the Most High” are pious upholders of the law who formed a fanatically loyal body of support.

                 In the New Testament (NT), the Pre-Christian faithful are called “saints” in Matthew 27.  Generally, the term describes the Christian community; they are “saints” by virtue of being “in Christ Jesus.”  Their holiness is in respect of God’s calling.  The “saints,” as the covenant people, now include Gentiles.  Thus the saints will be associated with Christ in the final judgment of the world, including the angels.  The conception of the appearance of the angels as ministers of the final judgment is found in both the OT and NT.

                 “Saints” naturally becomes a common term for the members of the church.  The same use of “saints” as equivalent to “Christians” is found in Acts 9, 26, Heb. 13, and Rev; 5, 16, 17, and 18.  The term “saints” is often associated with the love Christians showed to one another.  Despite the association in late Judaism of poverty with sanctity, we need not suppose that Jerusalem saints are so called by virtue of their poverty.  Jude 3 suggests that “saints” were only the earliest Christian generation, but this was not typical NT thought.

SAKKUTH AND KAIWAN (סﬤוﬨ, shrine; ﬤיון, cake, pedestal)  Names referring to Israelite apostasy in Amos 5. “Sakkuth” might be a corruption of succath (tabernacle); “Kaiwan” might mean “pedestal.”  The words are probably the proper names of deities; Saccuth and Kaiwanu are 2 names for the Babylonian Saturn.

SALAMIS  (SalamiV, possibly from the Hebrew shalom (peace))  A principal city of Cyprus, situated on a shallow inlet on the eastern coast opposite Syria.  Ancient writers recognized the confusion with the Greek island and city of the same name in the Saronian Gulf between Attica and the Peloponnesus.  

                 See also entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha/Influences Outside the Bible section of the Appendix.

                 The influential Jewish colony which Paul and Barnabas visited may have been founded during the dispersion under the Syrian Greeks (Ptolemies).  According to an early Christian tradition Barnabas was martyred here by a Jewish mob.  In 116-117 A.D. the Jewish community led the island in violent rebellion; the city was destroyed by Trajan, the Greek population was slaughtered, and the Jews were expelled.

SALECAH  (סלﬤה)  A city of Gad in the extreme eastern part of Bashan and possibly also a district of the same name.  It was a part of the kingdom of Og and indicated the limit of his realm toward the northeast; it fell to the Israelites when they conquered Bashan; it is only briefly mentioned in the Bible.  The site and name have been preserved in the town of Salkhad, the strongest point in the Jebel el-Druze, not far from Qanawat.  The city is built on a circular basalt hill, an old volcano’s solidified plug; it rises a little less than 100 meters above the surrounding plain.  It was captured by the Nabatean king Malik in 17 A.D.

SALEM  (שלם, complete, finished, at peace)  Originally the name of a place where Melchizedek was the king, and which was at times identified with Jerusalem.  It must be emphasized that “Salem” is not properly an-other name for Jerusalem.  The identity of Salem and Jerusalem in Genesis 14 has been variously challenged in non-Jewish circles.  It has been identified with the Jordan Valley’s Salim (Salumias), south of Scythopolis (Beth-shan) and near where John baptized, or with the Salim 6 or 8 km east of Balata-Shechem.

SALIM  (Salim)  A place of uncertain location near Aenon, where John was baptizing “because there was much water there.” (John 3).  The traditional site is that identified by Eusebius, south of Scythopolis (Beth-shan).  Other scholars favor a site about 6 km east of Shechem.  The only likely Judean site is a Wadi Saleim, about 10 km northeast of Jerusalem.

SALLAI  (סלי, elevated, exalted)  1.  A Benjaminite, resident in Jerusalem in the postexilic period, according to Nehemiah 11.  The text is corrupt, and the name is absent in the parallel in I Chronicles 9.

     2.      A Levitical house in the postexilic period, according to Nehemiah 12.

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SALLU  (סלוא, weighed)  1.  A Benjaminite among the returned exiles; son of Meshullam (I Chron.; 9 Neh. 11).

2.    A Levite or Levitical house among the returned exiles (Nehemiah 12).

SALMON (שלמון, reward, gift)  1.  Son of Nahshon; the father of Boaz of the family of Chelubai.  As an ancestor of David he is included in the genealogy of our Lord in Luke 3.

2.      A Calebite whose father, Hur, was the son of Caleb and Ephrath(ah), or “the Ephrathitess.”

SALMONE  (Salmwnh)  An eastern point of Crete; probably the modern Cape Sidero.  The Egyptian ship in which Paul and his companions were en route to Rome sailed by this promontory.  The ship had approached the Carian city of Cnidus with great difficulty.  Rather than risking the northern coast of Crete, the captain chose to run before the Aegean winds to the eastern and southern coasts of Crete, and then slowly work westward under the shelter of the island. 

SALOME  (Salwmh, from the Hebrew word shalom, meaning peace, well-being)  1.  A Galilean follower of Jesus; probably the wife of Zebedee, and the mother of James and John.  In John 19 “his mother’s sister” probably is to be distinguished from “Mary the wife of Clopas”; Salome may be meant, and becomes the aunt of Jesus through this connection.

                 It is argued by some scholars that Jesus’ committal of his mother to the Beloved Disciple thus becomes plausible.  The transfer of the blame for the request for special preferment in the kingdom to James’ and John’s mother is perhaps an attempt by Matthew to protect the reputation of these apostles.

     2.  Herodias’ daughter; unnamed in the gospels.  She is said to have danced for Herod and his guests.

SALT  (מלח (meh lach); alaV (ah las))  Salt was a necessity of life in biblical times.  In addition to its use as a condiment, it was strewn on cereal offerings and burnt offerings.  Incense was also to be “seasoned with salt.”  The practice may be derived from Mesopotamian religion, or it may simply reflect the natural association of salt with food.  The custom of rubbing a new born child with salt may have been for medicinal or more likely religious purposes.

                    In biblical times salt was generally procured from the area of the Dead Sea.  The famous story of the transformation of Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt is probably a legend explaining a natural rock-salt formation in the area of Sodom and Gomorrah.  “Salt” was often used as images for barrenness or desolation.  The disobedient land is described as “brimstone and salt.”  Conversely, however, the life giving and preservative qualities of salt are often mentioned; Elisha purifies the Jericho spring with salt.  The expression “covenant of salt” means a “permanent covenant,” since eating with someone means to be bound to him in loyalty. 

                    These uses of the term “salt” are also to be found in the New Testament.  “Have salt in yourselves” (Mark 9) refers to the mutual loyalty of two participants in a covenant relationship.  The disciples being the “salt of the earth” (Matthew 5) is probably connected with the life-giving qualities of salt.  The prediction:  “Every one will be salted with fire” (Mark 9), refers to the sacrifice involved in the coming judgment.

SALT, CITY OF  ( עיﬧ המלח(‘eer  ha meh lekh))  A city of Judah in the “wilderness” district to be identified with modern Khirbet Qumran.  Remains of Iron Age II (900-600 B.C.) buildings have been found, almost certainly those of a fortress, but they cannot be reconstructed.

SALT, VALLEY OF  (גיא מלח (gah ‘ee  meh lakh), valley (low plain) of salt)  A valley in the neighborhood of the Dead Sea, the scene of victories of the Israelites over the Edomites.  The first victory was in the time of David; credit is given to David, Abishai, and Joab.  200 years later, Amaziah again defeated the Edomites.  Opinions are divided as to the exact location of the Valley of Salt.  The Wadi el-Mith, east of Beer-sheba, is a tempting suggestion, but the site is more apt to have been in Edomite territory.  The most likely place is es-Sebkha, a barren saline stretch south of the Dead Sea.

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SALT SEA (ים המלח (yom  ha meh lakh))  The name applies, in the first five books of the Old Testament, and in Joshua, to the lake now customarily called the Dead Sea.

SALU (סלוא, weighed)  A Simeonite; the father of Zimri, who was slain when he married Cozbi, Midianite woman.  Zimri’s marriage occurred while Israel was lamenting its earlier apostasy to a Moabite Baal and evoked the wrath of the Israelite leaders.

SALUTATION (aspasmoV (as pas mos), greeting)  A greeting on meeting.  The custom of bidding “peace” to persons greeted developed from Old Testament times.  Both the Hebrew custom and the Greek word chaire are reflected in the salutation of New Testament letters.

SALVATION (ישועח (yeh shoo ‘ah), deliverance, safety; גאל (gah ‘al), redeem, ransom, recover [debt]; swzein (so tsine), save, deliver, preserve, free; swthria (so teh ree ah), saving, preservation, deliverance) 

                 The saving or deliverance of a person or group from spiritual destruction.  The Hebrew and Greek words which are translated in their religious context as “salvation” actually have meanings that range from the most ordinary and everyday sense of the word to the most profoundly theological and religious sense.  For instance, the Hebrew ga’al transforms from its original meaning of recovering property to a word meaning “to deliver” or “to save,” with God as go’al, the deliverer or savior (Isaiah 41, 43, and 44).  Redemption is conceived as deliverance from adversity, oppression, death, and captivity.  

                 In the New Testament (NT), the Greek sozein occurs more than 100 times; soteria is translated as “salvation,” and is found 46 times in the NT.  “Savior” is represented by soter.  It will be noted that the great majority of uses occur in those parts of the NT which probably belong to the period after the death of Paul.  Perhaps under the influence of Gnosticism, the title soter began to be commonly used of Christ.

                 Salvation may be the ultimate concern of all religion; different religions view salvation in very different ways.  Biblical faith is not concerned with asking what salvation consists of or in recommending techniques.  It is concerned with announcing the fact of salvation and thus it differs from all other religions.  It proclaims that the historical salvation thus attested is the foreshadowing of the salvation to come; it proclaims that God is a God of salvation. God has saved God’s people and will save them; in the Bible salvation is both a historical reality and something that will take place at this age’s end.  It is therefore appropriate that the Son of God should be called Jesus, which means “savior.”  Salvation is the whole Bible’s central theme.  

                 Salvation:  Historical Deliverance—Biblical faith is essentially faith in God as Savior, the conviction of the Hebrew people that God had saved them from destruction.  It was the actual historical experience of God’s deliverance of Israel from Egyptian bondage at the Red Sea which formed the basis of the belief God was Savior of Israel.  There can be no doubt that it was upon the historical experiences of the deliverance from Egypt and the establishment in Canaan that the fundamental certainty of all biblical faith was based.

                 It is uniquely the genius of the Bible that the historical is transmuted by the Bible’s view of the end of this age, so that the action of God in the past becomes the type or foreshadowing of God’s action in the future.  The great prophets understand the forthcoming salvation at that time as a new act of creation-redemption whereby a new people of God are to be brought into being.  The claim of the NT is that this prophetic expectation has already been fulfilled in its first stages.  The redeemed still await the final salvation, the passing away of the old order at the great act of creation-salvation.

                 It is natural that “save” should be used in the Bible in quite non-technical, everyday senses.  A tribe or nation which is surrounded by hostile tribes or imperial powers is inevitably preoccupied with the problem of its preservation or deliverance from it enemies.  Yet the secular or non-technical use of the “save” words passes over almost imperceptibly into the technical religious use.  The various escapes of David from the wrath of King Saul, though they are apparently quite “secular” occasions are undoubtedly thought of by the narrator of the stories as deliverances for which Yahweh was responsible.  “It is God who sends “saviors” and who empowers these human saviors to perform their mighty deeds.  Every deliverance which is experienced by Israel is in reality an instance of the care of God over Israel as God’s children.

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                 Every deliverance comes from God, and the biblical point of view would be that there is no salvation except it comes from the Lord.  National and personal well-being are gifts of God alone.  They must be sought from no other source than the hand of the Lord; not alliances with powerful states like Egypt, and not in material possessions.  If, then, we are unable always to distinguish between ordinary deliverances from peril and those deliverances which the author is God, this is because we cannot distinguish between the secular and sacred elements in Israel’s history.  In some ways there is no secular history in the Bible.  David’s stories are not unlike Robin Hood’s stories.  The crucial difference between the David stories and the Robin Hood stories is that the David stories are part of salvation history.  It was by a particular series of historical events, through a particular national history, that God’s saving purpose in Jesus Christ was fulfilled.

                 Salvation history is the story of the divine action for our salvation in and through real flesh-and-blood historical characters who, through no virtue of their own, are made the instruments of the divine plan for the world’s salvation.  The Old Testament (OT) shows that the Hebrews were uniquely conscious of their being “surrounded by deliverance.”  When Israel suffered adversity, the prophets told the people that this was because they had rejected the salvation which God was always offering them by sinning.

                 The conviction that God was Israel’s special Savior for all eternity was based upon experiencing actual deliverance in history.  What fixed the idea of Yahweh’s salvation in the minds of God’s people was the deliverance from Egyptian bondage, the miracle of the Red Sea, and God’s caring for them in the wilderness.  It is quite impossible for us today to reconstruct what happened during the Exodus.  The accounts as we have them now in the book of Exodus were written down several centuries after the period of the events.  No doubt, much consolidation was necessary after the settlement in Canaan.  It is clear that the Israelites had at the coming out of Egypt undergone a profound and transforming experience that convinced them of a supernatural deliverance through the power of Yahweh.

                 This experience of deliverance left its mark upon the whole of Israel’s subsequent existence and upon every part of the OT.  Indeed, it is not too much to say that the making of Israel bears testimony to the greatness of the event that happened to the tribes that came out of Egypt.  It is upon Israel’s experience of salvation in history that the biblical conception of salvation is based.  Biblical theology is essentially recital of the great things which God has done in history.  Yahweh showed signs and wonders, great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh, and God brought us out from there.

                 The Bible is thus concerned, not with religion’s philosophy, but with proclamation, the recital of a creed whose clauses are historical statements rather than philosophical propositions.  The view that God is love is reached through God’s loving and saving action in history.  “Yahweh has brought you out with a mighty hand. . .  Know then that Yahweh your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love God and keep God’s commandments.”  We do not believe in our ultimate salvation because we first believe that God is love: we believe that God is love because of our salvation experience. 

                 This is what is implied when we speak of biblical religion as being historical religion.  Biblical faith is distinct from all “religion” precisely in respect of its character as historical recital.  The worship of God includes the recitation of the historical creed:  “A wandering Aramean was my father; and he went down into Egypt . . . And Yahweh heard our voice, and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression, and Yahweh brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand . . . into a land flowing with milk and honey.”  So too at the Eucharist in the Christian church solemn recitation was always made of the facts of the historical redemption (“that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread. . .”). 

                 An important aspect of historical salvation is brought out by the frequent occurrence of the first person plural in the recitation of the events of the deliverance.  In some way the event is part of our existence; it is not something dead and gone.  The saving event is re-enacted, is made contemporary, in the Passover meal or the Lord’s Supper:  “This day shall be for you a memorial day. . .  You shall observe this rite as an ordinance for you and for your sons for ever.  And “As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.  In the biblical view it is not a mere event of the past, but something that is ever and again made present and real in the lives of those who celebrate.

                 Salvation: Expecting a Savior in the Endtime—The end of this age is a reality that is present and active even now, and at the same time is not yet realized.  Salvation is real, achieved, and active, but it is not yet totally realized.  We live “between the times,” when by faith we know already the salvation which is ours, although we have not fully appropriated it.  In the OT the salvation of Israel is already assured.  According to the prophets, God’s act of salvation at the Red Sea was active in the history of Israel; it was a continuing redemption.  It is especially in the prophecy of the Deutero-Isaiah that this doctrine is most fully developed.  Past, present, and future constitute, not three deliverances, but one deliverance.

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                 There is a close connection in biblical thought between salvation and righteousness.  God saves Israel because God is righteous; it is the worst sin of pride on Israel’s part to imagine that God saves her because she is righteous.  God delivered her “for the sake of God’s holy name.”  Israel is saved by the righteousness of God.  Israel’s justification is by faith alone; the second part of Isaiah explains the biblical truth concerning salvation, which later Paul had to recover from beneath the rabbinic doctrine of merit. 

                 Though Paul’s exegesis of the verse in Habakkuk 2 (“The righteous shall live by their faith”) may be technically defective, he was not wrong in implying that the prophets had taught a doctrine of justification by faith.  Paul’s use of dikaioun is taken over from the primary Greek translation of the OT, and he employs it to reassert the profound OT conviction that “no man living is righteous before God.”  His justification doctrine is already in Isaiah 59, except that Paul proclaims a gospel which is even now God’s power unto salvation.  For Paul and those who study Isaiah, “righteousness” and “salvation” are virtually synonymous.  

                 In the prophetic view salvation is also virtually synonymous with creation.  Much distortion has been caused in Christian theology through a putting asunder of the doctrines of creation and redemption.  The second part of Isaiah sees clearly that redemption involves a new creation.  The prophets of Israel are not afraid to make use of the old Semitic mythology to convey their profoundest spiritual teaching.  They represent God’s original act of the creation of the world as a mighty deed of salvation, in which according to the ancient world picture God defeated the Dragon of the Deep.  The picture of God as King above the floods and Lord of the power of the sea arises out of this ancient myth.  It is worth noting how the picture of God as King above the raging floods is combined with the prophecy of his coming to judge the world in righteousness.  The picture of Yahweh as slaying the Dragon of the Sea has survived most vividly in Psalm 74, which is a heartfelt appeal to God to come in righteousness and save God’s people.

                 The second part of Isaiah thinks of the creation of the world as an act of divine salvation which was the redemption of Israel from Egypt and also of the deliverance of God’s people from the Babylonian captivity.    The Creator-Savior defeated chaos, established the world, redeemed Israel from Egypt, and here again was redeeming them by a new act of creation-salvation (Isaiah 43).  The idea of redemption as an act of new creation thenceforward passes into the thought of Judaism.

                 According to the prophets, creation is renewed in redemption, and salvation is new creation.  When God brought Israel out of Egypt or Babylon, God created Israel anew.  There appears also the hope of a new world, which takes different forms:  a renewal of the natural order; an existence resembling paradise; an order containing a new heaven and earth; or a new political world order.  In the last instance, Israel would be the light of the Gentiles and the salvation of the ends of the earth.  With the disappointment of the hope of a renewed Israel and of a more just international and social order, it was natural that salvation thought should be concerned with the end of this age; God was a God of salvation, so God must create a new world.  It is in the New Jerusalem of the transcendental order that the innocence of paradise will be restored. 

                 The prophetic expectation that the righteousness of Yahweh must bring salvation for Yahweh’s people, caused the transfer to the new heavens and earth those aspirations that were frustrated in this world.  Salvation will be established for all the earth on the day of new creation, the great Day of Yahweh.  The assurance of this salvation is given in the historical acts of redemption which God has already wrought.  This knowledge is sustained by the recitation of the mighty acts of God and by keeping the Passover as a memorial of the deliverance that has taken place and a foretaste of that which is to come. 

                 Salvation implies the existence of a savior, but does not necessarily imply the existence of a savior other than Yahweh.  Yahweh may send human saviors in certain crises, but the main emphasis of the OT is that it is God who saves.  In the OT the Messiah is never called “savior,” is a somewhat shadowy and unformed figure, and is only the projection of the King, “Yahweh’s Anointed.” This figure may be called “deliverer” or “redeemer,” but in reality this figure is only the agent of God.

                 The second part of Isaiah portrays a new deliverer of the type of Moses, whose special title was the “Servant of Yahweh.”  The Servant suffers, as Moses did for the sins of his people and bears their iniquity.  One thing is certain about the Servant figure; the Servant is the Moses of the deliverance from the Exile.  The Servant is not the Messiah in the sense in which this term was understood in later Judaism.  It is with this figure of the Spirit-anointed Moses of the new act of redemption that Jesus identifies himself.

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                 After the profound theological insights of those who studied Isaiah closely were produced, the prophetic vision faded, and the great concept of salvation by divine righteousness alone was obscured in the doctrines of later Judaism, the salvation of the individual was to be achieved by the meticulous observance of the detailed commandments of the Torah.  A pious Jew who had tried, but had barely succeeded, might draw upon the bank of the superb merits of the fathers.  Salvation thus became largely a matter of human achievement.  Such was the nature of official (rabbinic) Judaism at the end of the OT period.  The Qumran of Dead Sea Scroll fame aimed at the salvation of a small community of the puritanically elect; the salvation which it envisaged was far removed from what Jesus proclaimed was available for publicans and sinners.  Later Judaism knew only of salvation for the righteous and nothing of the salvation of sinners. 

                 It is neither apocalyptic, rabbinic, nor sectarian Judaism which recovers the deep insight of OT prophecy, but Jesus and the church.  The theology of the New Testament (NT) is basically a reinterpretation of the OT prophetic plan of salvation, not a patchwork of Jewish apocalyptic and Gnostic fantasies from Greek culture.  The NT teaching concerning salvation owes little to any apocryphal work of the intertestamental period.  There is evidence that Jesus reflected deeply upon Isaiah’s prophecy of salvation.  “Son of man” as used by Jesus as a self-designation means the OT’s “Servant of Yahweh.”  Intertestamental literature is valuable in understanding the prevalent ideologies of NT times, because “the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet it doth not apply them to establish any doctrine.”

                 The most significant development in the salvation concept during the intertestamental period is salvation’s transference from this world where the OT firmly grounds it, to the world to come, or to a millennium or longer period of bliss upon the earth after the intervention in history of God or God’s Messiah.  It would be a mistake to suppose that it was only the apocalyptic writers who believed in the resurrection of the dead.  By the time of Christ all had come to believe in the resurrection of the dead, except for the Sadduceans.  (See also entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha/Influences Outside the Bible section of the Appendix.)

                 Salvation: Ministry and Teaching of Jesus—The whole NT claims that the salvation outlined in Israel’s scriptures has been fulfilled in the coming of Jesus Christ.  Salvation still fundamentally means as it did in the OT, God’s saving action in history.  The whole NT is concerned with the proclamation of a gospel, which is the power of God for salvation.  The Synoptic gospels represent the ministry of Jesus as concerned with the work of salvation.  The unique feature of his doctrine of salvation is that it is offered to sinners; there is no parallel to the teaching of Jesus in rabbinic Judaism.  The people who acknowledged that they were sinners in need of God’s mercy went home justified; the people who boasted of their genuinely good works did not.  It was sinners who responded to the gospel of Jesus, not law-observing Pharisees.

                 Sinners were justified by their faith, not by their works.  Salvation means the forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with God, and the peace which flows from it.  God cannot forgive unless the sinner is willing to be forgiven.  Hence Jesus’ mission is closely bound up with forgiving sins.  The formula “Your faith has saved you” is applied to the sick who have been healed.  The Greek word sozein means “to save” and also “to heal or make whole”—a double meaning essential to the purpose of the miracle stories of healing, which are parables of salvation.  This truth is especially brought out in the paralytic’s story.  To heal implies the power to forgive sins; both healing and forgiveness (“saving”) are divine prerogatives.  The healing signs were part of the total picture of the Servant-Son of man.  In the days of the coming salvation the blind would see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the dumb sing.  The gospel stories were parables of Christ’s saving power.      

                 The healings of the demon-possessed make their point, however, in rather a different way from the stories of the healing of disease.  Demon-possession in the popular view is quite fortuitous, and might happen to anyone, good or bad.  The exorcisms are not connected with forgiveness.  The exorcisms are signs that the house of the “strong man” (i.e. Satan) has been entered and is being spoiled.  Christ’s victory is a cosmic victory.  This important NT theme proclaims Christ as liberator, for he has not only loosed us from our sins but also set us free from bondage to the hostile world powers.

                 According to Luke, Jesus saw his own mission in terms of Isaiah’s Servant and the Servant’s liberating work:  “He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives . . . to let the oppressed go free.” (Luke 4:18, from Is. 61:1).  In Mark 10:45 “The Son of man also came . . . to give his life as a ransom for many,” echoes Is. 53:12 ( “. . . because he poured out himself to death . . . he bore the sin of many, and interceded for the transgressors”).  It is evidence to the fact that Jesus conceived of his mission as that of the Lord’s Servant.

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                 More evidence that Jesus thought of himself and his work in this way is found in the NT accounts of his teaching with bread and wine at the Last Supper, whereby he set himself forth as the new sacrificial offering.  The Moses of the redemption from Egypt had offered to give his life for his people’s forgiveness and salvation.  Jesus understood his death as bringing salvation to the world through a new covenant between God and humankind.  The Lord’s Servant would bring a new covenant; he opens the blind eyes and frees the prisoners.  It was in this sense that Jesus and the apostolic church understood his work of salvation. 

                 Salvation:  Historical Deliverance—In the NT, salvation is understood to be accomplished by an act of God in human history.  Man is not saved by wisdom or right knowledge, but by the act of God in Jesus Christ.  The Christian message is not a philosophy, nor an ethical code, nor a mystical practice; it is a proclamation, a preaching, a gospel.  His work of salvation is presented under a considerable variety of images or metaphors.  Salvation is not exclusively connected with his death, for it is the whole Christ event, including the Resurrection, which is regarded as the saving act of God. 

                 Our salvation depended both on the fact that Christ was willing to die, and that he was willing to be born; the Son of God’s incarnation is itself the atonement whereby God and humans are brought together in Jesus Christ’s new humanity.  It is Christ’s life which saves us.  Christ is represented as the sacrificial victim by whose death communion with God and the forgiveness of sins were obtained.  Jesus’ death occurred at Passover time, and it is hardly surprising that the metaphors of the Passover and of the paschal lamb are prominent.  The Eucharist in the church became the weekly paschal festival, the commemoration of the historical deliverance wrought by Jesus and thanksgiving for the covenant of salvation which he had made.

                 The NT says almost nothing about the Eucharist, probably because it was considered improper to commit the most sacred truths of the inmost mystery of the faith to writing and expose them to profane inspection.  Just as the Passover continued and kept alive the tradition of God’s deliverance from Egypt, the Eucharist was the commemoration of Christ’s sacrifice and the deliverance which God wrought through it.

                 The death of Christ is set forth in the NT and celebrated in the church as the means of our salvation, but the death was always regarded as a moment in the whole act of deliverance.  The Letter of the Hebrews, with its tremendous emphasis upon the once-only efficacious death of Christ stresses most powerfully the significance of the Christ’s ascension in the work of salvation.  God is providing for sinners the means of forgiveness; it was God who reconciled us to himself through Christ.

                 It should be noted that this act of salvation, which God has done through Christ, is not limited to the human race; salvation in the NT is a cosmic conception.  God reconciled all things to God’s self.  It is nothing less than the new creation.  In the present age the new creation is discernible only by the eye of faith; the church is God’s new Israel, the people of the new creation-redemption, who are the first fruits of the consummation that shall be.  The church’s existence and preaching provides the evidence that historical salvation has already taken place.  The salvation heralded by the prophet has begun for humankind with faith.  Sometimes it seems that baptism into the church is the time of the individual Christian’s salvation.  The apostolic church’s outlook is that, whereas Christ’s death represents the baptism of humanity, the moment of death to sin, or resurrection to salvation, of the individual believer is his baptism into Christ’s church.

                 Salvation: A Reality at the End of this Age—The tension between “even now” and “not yet,” which we saw was present in the OT conception of salvation, is even more strongly marked in the NT.  The historical event is only the guarantee of the mighty salvation that is yet to be revealed; it is the means by which salvation is brought to us even now in the midst of history. 

     It is Paul who revives Isaiah’s conception of the divine righteousness which works salvation.  Paul uses dikaiosune (fair and equitable dealing, justice, and “doing the right thing”) in Isaiah’s deeper sense of the outgoing, energizing power of God which works salvation for humankind.  God has demonstrated God’s righteousness by setting forth Christ as atonement for the sins of God’s people.  Our present knowledge of salvation brought to us by Christ, is a foretaste of the salvation that we shall know at Christ’s second coming.  Our present experience of salvation in Jesus Christ’s church is, as it were, the shadow cast before by the reality of the coming salvation.  The concept of salvation in the NT is that of a future reality which we enjoy now through faith.  When we say God has saved us, we mean also that God will save us (“Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed”—Romans 13).  Both the salvation and God’s wrath have already been revealed in history through Jesus Christ, and it is through faith in God’s righteousness that we shall be reconciled to God.  Christians are those who obtain salvation.  The general attitude of the NT as a whole is that of the verse in Hebrews 9:  “Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but save those who are eagerly waiting for him.”

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     Although the pattern of the salvation concept remains the same in the NT as in the OT, there is an extension and enrichment of salvation’s meaning in the NT.  Salvation now in the NT concerns, not only this life, but also life in the age to come.  The “life” concept in John’s writing largely replaces the Synoptic “kingdom of God.”  To be saved is to enter now by faith into the life of the age to come and to possess it now. 

     Not even Jesus himself knows when this end will come.  Christians must work out their salvation with fear and trembling.  The final salvation is described by Jesus in pictures from the traditional Jewish imagery of the messianic banquet.  The Eucharist proclaims also that salvation is a social reality; there is no individualism in the NT conception of it.  All the salvation metaphors are corporate in character—the Israel of God, the body of Christ, the communion of saints, etc.  So great is this salvation that the earth cannot contain it.

                 Salvation:  Gnostic and Imperial Cult Influences—The myth of the Anthropos or Heavenly Man is incorporated into many of the mystery cults of the Greek world, and it is suggested that it has likewise been incorporated into that part of Christianity most influenced by Greek culture.  Paul’s “heavenly man,” “new man,” “perfect man” and the “Son of man” in John’s Gospel show how Greek culture helped Christianity reinterpret the original message of the Aramaic church.  The whole concept of a gathering into one of a fragmented humanity in the “body” or person of the Son of man from heaven, it is argued, is a Christianized version of the Gnostic myth.  (See also the entry in the New Testament Apocrypha section of the Appendix.)

                 This theory is open to serious criticism.  First, there is no evidence for the existence of the Gnostic myth in Jesus’ century; all the evidence is found no earlier than 175 A.D.  Second, it is a circular argument to say that Colossians-Ephesians embodies the widespread Gnostic myth, and then cite Colossians-Ephesians to prove the point.  Third, all the characteristic terms and concepts of salvation which are found in the NT can be explained by reference to the OT.  The NT plan of salvation is a rediscovery of the OT prophetic message in the light of the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  There is no need to explain NT doctrine with a hypothetical myth when there exists in the OT an outline of the NT doctrine of salvation.

                 The concept of salvation through political power, a timeless, popular human conceit, expressed itself in the Roman cult of emperor-worship, which originated in the oriental myth of the divine king.  The book of Revelation is a profound study of the rival mythologies of Caesar-worship and Christ-worship, in which the former is a kind of diabolical perversion of the worship of the true King of kings.  In Asia Minor especially, the divine emperors were worshiped in temples built in their honor and at the imperial games.  It is probably because the title Soter was used in connection with “divine” emperors, that it is not used in Revelation. 

     The scene of the final salvation must be beyond earth and beyond history in the world, beyond time, decay, and death; the scene is laid in the new heavens and new earth of Isaiah’s prediction.  This is pictorial language, and the poetry is spoiled if it is treated as literal prose; but all our speaking about our ultimate salvation must be in pictures, for we have no other means of communication, and we speak of a realm which utterly transcends our experience.  “As it is written, what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love God—these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit” (I Corinthians 2:9-10, containing a quote from Isaiah 64).

SALVE (kollourion (kol loo ree on), cake)  A medical compound used for aiding the eye (Revelation 3).  It is sometimes referred to as “Phrygian powder.”

SAMARIA (שמﬧון (so meh rone), watch-hill, height; Samareia)  The capital of Israel, the northern kingdom.

     It is about 67 km north of Jerusalem, the capital of Judah, the southern kingdom, and 40 km east of the Mediterranean.  Samaria occupies a hill in the central range of Palestine.  It overlooks the main north-south road connecting Jerusalem with the Plain of Esdraelon and the north.  The hill itself is a long east-west ridge which terminates in a summit on the west; the site is easily defensible.  The modern village still there, Sebastiyeh, preserves Herod’s name for it (Sebaste).  Archaeologists from Harvard (1908-1910), and from a joint venture of Harvard, the British School of Archaeology, Hebrew University, the Palestinian Exploration Fund, and the British Academy (1931-1933) partially excavated the site.  The expeditions cleared a considerable portion of the summit and the ridge to the east.

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    Old Testament History—Aside from a lot of Early Bronze Age (3000-2100 B.C.) material found in cuttings in bedrock, the hill was first occupied in the late Iron Age (870 B.C.).  Some 60 years after Israel broke away from Judah, Omri and Ahab, reigning together at this point, purchased the hill from Shemer, and built a city which they named Samaria; it was Israel’s capital for nearly 150 years until its fall in 722 B.C.  Remains of the Omri-Ahab city have been found on the summit, terraces, and slopes of the hill.  Construction is so widespread that it must have been started by Omri in the last years of his reign, and completed by his son Ahab.  Some of its walls are among the finest ever built in Palestine in any period.  The masonry style used was probably Phoenician, introduced into Palestine during Solomon’s reign.

     The royal quarter occupied the summit; the palace must have contained at least 2 stories.  On the courtyard’s northern side a large, shallow, rectangular pool was discovered, which may have been the “pool of Samaria.”  The temple which Ahab dedicated to Baal was also located in the royal quarter; no traces of these structures survived.  The most important find here was a group of more than 500 pieces of ivory, mostly inlays from wooden wall paneling and furniture.  Some of the pieces are carved in the round but most are in relief.  Their style suggests that they were carved by Syro-Phoenician artisans using Egyptian models.

     The royal quarter was surrounded by an enclosure wall.  Later a second enclosure wall was built just outside the earlier one.  It varied in thickness from about 3.6 meters on the south to almost 10 meters on the north.  The topography of the site suggests that the palace area was entered from the east; 6 rectangular columns were found that may have decorated a monumental entrance.  Traces of fortification walls which probably formed another ring have been found on the middle terrace below the summit; on the eastern side the remains of what may have been a gateway was found.  It was probably in this gateway that Ahab and Jehoshaphat sat on thrones and heard Micaiah the prophet speak of impending doom at Ramoth-gilead.  A third defensive system, consisting of a wall and towers, possibly encircled the lower slopes of the hill.  So strong was this system of fortifications that the city successfully withstood all attempts to take it until 722.

     Samaria witnessed the fury of the revolution inspired by Elijah and Elisha and carried through by Jehu, which destroyed all those of Omri’s royal lineage.  Samaria’s elders beheaded 70 sons of Ahab rather than risk warfare with Jehu.  Jehu slaughtered Baal-worshipers, and destroyed Baal’s temple which Ahab had built.  There is evidence of partial destruction of the Omri-Ahab royal quarter on the summit.  In any case, much rebuilding and new construction were probably carried out.  In view of the fact that Israel’s relations with Phoenicia were strained or broken, Samaria’s prosperity must have greatly declined at this time.

     Little is known of Samaria during the reigns of Jehoahaz (815-801) and Joash (801-786).  Under Jeroboam II (786-746), Samaria enjoyed its greatest period of prosperity.  But nowhere was the fine construction of the Omri-Ahab city used in this period; walls were roughly built of stones.  The most important find of this period was a group of 63 inscribed fragments.  All of them apparently belong to the 700s B.C.

     The stability and prosperity enjoyed by Samaria under Jeroboam ended soon after his death.  6 kings occupied the throne in the next 24 years.  Meanwhile Assyrian power was growing.  According to II Kings 15, Menahem paid heavy tribute to Tiglath-pileser invaded Israel.  After Pekah was murdered, Tiglath-pileser placed Hoshea on the throne and imposed tribute on him.  Hoshea rebelled against Shalma-neser V, who placed him in prison and laid siege to Samaria.  At least part of the city was burned, as shown by a burned layer which sealed the remains of this period on the summit.  Isaiah and Micah repeatedly used the fate of Samaria as an object lesson to Jerusalem.

     The events surrounding Samaria’s fall are recorded in the Bible.  After conquering Samaria, Sargon deported 27,290 Israelites.  In turn, he repopulated the city with people from other conquered lands; Samaria was rebuilt and became the headquarters of an administrative district of the Assyrian Empire.  Little is known of the city buildings of this period, but there is ample evidence of Assyrian domination.

     With the fall of Nineveh to the Medes and Babylonian in 612 B.C., and the subsequent division of the Assyrian Empire, Samaria became a Babylonian possession and served the same function.  Little is known of the city in this period, as few buildings built in this occupation have been found at the site to the east of the earlier Omri-Ahab palace.  A part of the summit was leveled and capped with a thick layer of rich brown soil, which probably marks the location of a large garden, a not uncommon feature of Babylonian cities.

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     See also entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha/Influences Outside the Bible section of the Appendix. 

     The first phase of the Roman period was from 63 B.C. to 70 A.D.  The second phase of the Roman period extends from the end of the First Jewish Revolt to the reign of Constantine (274-337 A.D.).   Early in the Jewish Revolt, Sebaste was captured by the rebels.  But until the late 100s A.D., Sebaste received little attention, judging from the scanty remains of this period.

     Between 180 and 230, Sebaste enjoyed another period of prosperity.  It became a colony known as Lucia Septimia Sebaste.  Its new prosperity is reflected by the results of a great building program under-taken during the reign of Severus.  The summit temple and the temple of Kore on the terrace north of the summit were thoroughly rebuilt.  A small theater with an external diameter of about 63 meters was erected on the northern slopes.  The summit temple was rectangular in plan and enclosed by porticoes on all sides. 

     North of the forum and just outside the city wall, a large rectangular stadium with a 160 columns surrounding it was constructed over the ruins of the earlier, smaller Doric stadium.  The western gate was rebuilt, and a long columned street was constructed connecting the western and eastern gates.  The street was about 12 meters in width and was flanked by colonnaded sidewalks.  Another interesting structure of this era was an aqueduct about 4.4 km long, which brought water to the forum from a spring southeast of the hill.

     The third phase covers the period from Constantine to the Arab conquest (634). With the establishment of Christianity as the Roman Empire’s religion, Sebaste became an Episcopal see.  Bishops of Sebaste attended several historic church councils.  Paganism remained strong in the city; there were anti-Christian riots during the reign of Julian (361-63).  Structures particularly associated with paganism were destroyed or reused.  The basilica was completely rebuilt, and converted into a cathedral.  During this period Sebaste was widely known as the site of John the Baptist’s burial.  A mosque at the city’s eastern end is over his alleged tomb, and a basilica south of the summit marks the traditional place where his head was hidden by Herodias.

SAMARIA, TERRITORY OF.  A region in the hill country of Palestine, named after the capital city of the northern kingdom of Israel.  The boundaries of this territory cannot be precisely fixed for every period.  In general they were the combination of Ephraim’s tribal allotments and Manasseh’s west of the Jordan River.  The southern boundary was roughly some 16 km north of Jerusalem, from Jericho to the Valley of Jezreel.  The western border was the Mediterranean.  The northern border started halfway between the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee, went north and west until it reached Mt. Carmel and the coastal plain, and then went southwest to the coast.  This territory measured approximately 64 km north to south and 56 km east to west.

     The southern or Ephraimite portion of this region has a relatively high elevation.  Steep valleys lead down on both the east and the west to the Jordan Valley and the coastal plains, respectively.  Access was difficult and as a result, this region was somewhat isolated from the outside world.  The northern portion consists of a central basin, with a number of hills which rise out of its floor (e.g. Mount Ebal (940 meters); and Mount Gerizim (almost 900 meters)).  Access to this basin from both the coastal plain on the west and the Jordan on the east was gained with little difficulty.  Movement within the basin was easy through a number of broad passes.  The accessibility of this region facilitated the movement of trade, exposed the land to influence from other cultures.  The richness and openness of the territory attracted invaders who, in the course of centuries, overran the land with comparative ease.

     This region did not become known as Samaria until after the division of the kingdom and the founding of Samaria as the capital of the northern kingdom.  Following the fall of Israel in 722/721 B.C. and the deportation of Israelites, the Assyrians settled captives from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, Hamath, and Sepharvaim; they called the province Samerena.  When their control weakened, Josiah of Judah (640-609 B.C.) was able to destroy the high places in the cities of Samaria.

     After the fall of Jerusalem in 587, the northern hill country of Judah, including Jerusalem, was added to the province of Samaria.  In 539 the Persians conquered Babylon, and the territory became a province or satrapy in the Persian Empire.  The governors of this province sought to hinder the returnees who were attempting to rebuild Jerusalem.  With the coming of Nehemiah, the hill country of northern Judah was made a separate province.  This region became the center of the Samaritans after they broke off from the Jewish mainstream in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah.

     See also entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha/Influences Outside the Bible section of the Appendix.

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     This region was given to Herod the Great by Augustus in 30 B.C., and Herod bequeathed it to his son Archelaus, who ruled until 6 A.D.  It was then placed under the control of appointed Roman procurators, among whom was Pontius Pilate until 41 A.D.  The ministry of Jesus and the work of the apostles took place in this period, although the territory of Samaria is rarely mentioned.  They generally seem to have followed the Jewish custom of skirting the borders of Samaria in journeying to Judea.  Following the Resurrection, the disciples obey Jesus’ command to bear witness in Samaria.

SAMARITAN, THE GOOD.  This narrative parable (Luke 10:30-36) contrasts two answers to the question: who is my neighbor?  Two representatives of Jewish law dared not aid a wounded Jew.  But not even traditional hostility between Jews and Samaritans, prevented the Samaritan from caring for the Jew.

SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH.  See entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha/Influences Outside the Bible section of the Appendix.

SAMARITANS  (שמﬧני (sah meh roe nee), Jewish name for group; ﬧיםשמ (shah meh reem), observant, group’s name for themselves; SamareithV)  The term “Samaritans” is now restricted to a particular religious community living in Samaria; see above Hebrew words for the group’s name for themselves.  It claims to be the remnant of Israel’s kingdom, specifically the two half-tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh.  It possesses an ancient revision of the Old Testament’s first five books, Certain of its characteristic doctrines reappear in the Old Testament’s Pseudepigrapha (writings under an assumed famous name) and in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

                 Our knowledge of the Samaritans is very imperfect.  Early references to them are few and confused.  Since the centuries under Muslim rule, a period from which most of their writings date, it is difficult to tell whether they come from a common ancient tradition, or whether the Samaritans have borrowed and adapted from Islam.  This article will use the writings of the 300s A.D. theologian Marqeh, and will draw on later Islamic literature only when necessary; because of this, the conclusions reached here must be tentative.

                 History—The Jewish view identifies the Samaritans as the descendants of the colonists whom Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, is said to have brought from Cutha, Babylon, Hamath, and other foreign parts after conquering Samaria.  Whatever knowledge of Judaism they possess is dismissed as superficial.  In this view the colonists appealed to the authorities to repatriate one of the priests of Yahweh as a teacher.  But the Yahwism they practiced was seen as only a thin veneer spread over an essential and deep-seated heathenism.   The Jews dub the Samaritans contemptuously “men of Cutha” (i.e. Babylonians), regarding them, at best, as one degree nearer than Gentiles, but still not as full-fledged members of the house of Israel.

                 Samaritan for their part, dismiss this story as vile Jewish slander.  The deportation in 722 B.C., they say, was neither total nor final.  According to their version, the breach with Judeans goes back to the time of Eli, who set up a sanctuary of Yahweh at Shiloh, rather than the true “chosen place” at Mount Gerizim.  Much later, Ezra falsified the sacred text and seduced the people to erect the 2^nd temple beside the Judean capital.

                 The biblical story of exchanging population, following Samaria’s fall in 722, is confirmed by the Assyrian records.  It is plain from these records that the Hebrew historian has confused and condensed his data into a smaller time-frame.  It was Sargon not Shalmaneser who deported the Samaritans.  And it seems more probable that the colonization took place over several years.  The Hamathites were probably transported to Samaria only after Sargon had quelled a revolt in that city in 721.  The Israelites’ deportation to Media would seem to counterbalance one of the Medians to Samaria in 714.  The introduction of Babylonians and Cutheans was more likely done by Ashurbanipal as retribution for their share in the civil war (652-648).

                 On the other hand, there is much to support the Samaritan claim.  Sargon says distinctly that he deported only 27,290 persons (a record in II Kings 15 shows that wealthy landowners alone then numbered 60,000).  And in II Chronicles 34, we hear of a “remnant of Israel” still resident in Ephraim and Manasseh.  Finally, it should be pointed that there is, in fact, nothing in subsequent Samaritan doctrine which betrays any indebtedness to Assyrian ideas.  The most plausible conclusion is that after the fall of Samaria in 722, the local population consisted of two distinct elements living side by side—the remnant of the native Israelites; and the foreign colonists.  The Jewish version ignores the former; the Samaritan version, the latter.

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                 In writing on the opposition to rebuilding the temple after the Exile, the author of Ezra-Nehemiah is writing from a very self-centered, Jewish viewpoint; his reference, therefore, is to the foreign colonists rather than to the native Israelites.  These colonists feared that what Nehemiah is undertaking might lead to a resurgence of Judean power that would be dangerous to their own several nations.  Second they feared that this Jewish attempt to create a kingdom within a kingdom might cause repercussions from the Persian government, and a reduction of their own status.  It is also likely that deciding the boundary between Samaria and Judah was also involved.  This caused the foreign colonists to support their governor, Sanballat, who had his own personal reasons for seeking to arrest the growing power of his Judean counterpart.

                 There was an offer of cooperation with Zerubbabel in 536 B.C., but those offering may have been general “Gentile Zionists” from other parts.  Their offer would have been rejected by a Jewish leader who saw his movement as a national revival, and who did not wish to compromise on anything with a vaguer, ecumenical universalism.  There may even have been opposition to Ezra and Nehemiah on more religious grounds.  Ezekiel’s blueprint of his temple seems to have envisaged a location in the northern kingdom (i.e. Samaria).  So, both regions had visions of erecting the official temple, to which Isaiah 66 may have been responding with “Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me?”   

                 See also entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha/Influences Outside the Bible section of the Appendix.

                 They lost some 12,000 men in a revolt against Vespasian around 70 A.D., while in the Bar Cocheba insurrection they at first aided the Jews and then joined the Roman side.  In 636 they were ruled by Muslim, in 1099 by the Crusaders, and in 1244 again by the Muslims.  Modern knowledge of Samaritans dates from the end of the 1500s.  In 1616, Pietro della Valle managed to procure a copy of the Samaritan Pentateuch (See article above).  In the late 1800s, manuscripts of their literature were acquired in increasing quantity.

                 The Samaritan Faith—Its beliefs are: in God; acknowledgement of Moses as the supreme apostle of God and as a unique being; acceptance of the Torah; recognition of Mount Gerizim as the chosen place of God; and expectation of a final day of rewards and punishments.

                  God is unique and incorporeal, beyond time and space; God cannot be localized.  His essential being is epitomized in the words: I am who I am.  God is creator and sustainer of all things, and is bound specifically to Israel by a covenant which has been affirmed with: Noah by the rainbow; Abraham by circumcision; Isaac and Jacob; Moses by the Sabbath; the Ten Commandments; with Passover; covenant of salt; and the eternal priesthood made with Phinehas.  Like the Jews, the Samaritans refrain from pronouncing “Yahweh”; they substituted shema (Name), rather than the Jewish adonai (Lord).

                 Moses is both the “exalted prophet,” and an utterly unique being.  He is a distillation of the primordial light, the “light of the world”; all other lights derive from Moses.  He existed from creation’s dawn, incarnated as Amram and Jochebed’s offspring.  The whole world was created for his sake.  He intercedes for the deserving and leads the prayers of the celestial congregation.  The Torah was written by God in a manuscript which was given to Moses on Sinai along with 10 Commandments.  It is permanent and immutable.

                 Mount Gerizim, not Zion is the true chosen place of God prescribed in the Torah.  The Samaritans insert a paragraph from Deuteronomy 27 after the Ten Commandments, ordering sacrifice on that mountain.  Their text represents the curse as being pronounced on Ebal, and the blessing on Gerizim—rather than vice versa, as in the Jewish revision.  Gerizim existed before creation. It alone escaped the Flood.  It is the center of the earth, and Adam was fashioned out of its dust.  The ark of the covenant is hidden upon it.

                 Samaritans identify Gerizim with several places mentioned in the Torah (see below).

Scripture Passage      Description               Scripture Passage      Description

       Genesis 4:4            Abel’s first altar             Genesis 35:1              Jacob’s dream 

Genesis 8:20          Noah’s post-flood                                                 (Bethel)                                                         sacrifice                    Exodus 15:17                “sanctuary” 

            Genesis 10:30         “ancient hill”                  Deuteronomy 12           “chosen place”

Genesis 22             Isaac’s sacrifice             Deuteronomy 27:4      12 stones erected

      Genesis 28:17          “gate of heaven”          Deuteronomy 33:15       a mountain

Genesis 28:19                 Luz

         

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      The Samaritans also read “Moreh” for “Moriah” in the story of the intended sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 22), and identify it with a certain More, near Shechem.  Similarly, they located Abraham’s encounter with Melchizedek at Salim, also near Shechem.

                 The day of vengeance and reward derives it name from the Samaritan text of Deuteronomy 32.  On that day God will inquire after the deeds of men.  Scales will be set up, and angels will serve both as prosecutors and as defenders.  Graves will open, and the dead will arise.  Those that led worthy lives will be robed in clean garments and exude a fragrant aroma, whereas the wicked will be clad in tatters and emit a foul odor.  The former will enter Eden; the wicked will be consigned to the devouring fire.

                 The day is designated by a wide variety of names, 8 in a single paragraph.  In general, the description of it hews close to Deuteronomy 32, and the latter is the ultimate source of all doctrines concerning it.  Inextricably associated with the last day is the concept of the Taheb.  The Taheb is not a messiah in the Jewish sense, but rather the prophet foretold in Deuteronomy 18—the guide and monitor for the end of this age mentioned in the Dead Sea Manual of Discipline.  Known also as the Star, in accordance with Numbers 24, the Taheb will restore the temple on Gerizim.  The Samaritans seem to have shared the Iranian and Jewish notion that the world will dissolve after 6,000 years, and the Taheb is regarded as the herald of this event. 

                 The Samaritans divide their community’s history into Ra’utah (favor) and Fanutah (turned away). 

Ra’utah is said to have lasted for 299 years.  The expression “era of favor” recurs in the Dead Sea Scrolls.  No less important than any of the foregoing is the concept of ancestral saints, who transmitted the divine “likeness.”  This likeness is interpreted as prophetic inspiration or insight.  This was passed from Adam to Seth, to Enosh, to Noah and then Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Moses and Aaron, Eleazar and Phinehas, Joshua, Caleb, and the 70 elders, ceasing with Eli’s apostasy.  The Samaritans claim that the ancestral saints can intercede with God, and to this end pilgrimages are made to their reputed graves on Mount Gerizim.

                 The Samaritans are essentially a religious community, governed by a high priest.  The 3 seasonal festivals of Passover, Pentecost, and Booths are marked by pilgrimages to Gerizim’s summit, and on Passover eve, the paschal lamb is slaughtered.  The Samaritans observe Pentecost on the 50^th day after the first sabbath in Passover-Massoth.  It thus falls always on a Sunday.  60 days before Passover and Booths occurs the Day of Simmuth (conjunction).  Today it marks the dates of the semi-annual payment of dues to the priests. 

     The Samaritans observe the Sabbath rigidly; no one is permitted to stir from his house except to attend services at the kinsha, or synagogue.  The holiest day of the year is the Day of Atonement, the fast of which is obligatory upon all.  Phylacteries are not worn by the Samaritans; the law of Deuteronomy 6:8 is interpreted metaphorically; prayer shawls are worn only by priests officiating at divine services.

     Language, and Literature; Affinities with Other Sects—The Samaritans’ traditional language is a Western Aramaic dialect.  Since the Muslim conquest in 636, it has been replaced by Arabic, except for liturgical and learned purposes.  It would appear that under the influence of Greek culture they wrote, not only in their own tongues but also in Greek, of which other writers have preserved extracts.  In addition, the text of the first 5 books of the Old Testament (a.k.a. Pentateuch) is contained in something called Samareitikon.  Scholars have various theories as to what it was: Greek rendering of the Samaritan text; adaptation of the oldest Greek Old Testament to the Samaritan text; or the Samaritan text itself.

     Surviving Samaritan literature falls into two major divisions: pre-Islamic, written in the native dialect; and post-Islamic, written mainly in Arabic. Pre-Islamic includes: a Targum, or translation, of the Pentateuch; and the treatises of the theologian Marqeh.  The post-Islamic works, written in Arabic include the book of Joshua, a version of the biblical text with interpretations of the text and hymns inserted into the book.  After the discovery of similar compositions in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the antiquity of this work goes back at least to the time Jesus, if not slightly before.

     Noteworthy also is the Al-asatir of Moses (stories of Moses), probably of the 1100s or 1200s.  The material contained in this work is often genuinely ancient, but a distinction must be made between the antiquity of the material and the date of the composition.  Of later works, there is a series of poems on the nativity and career of Moses.  The most elaborate and philosophical of these later works is the Maulid an-Nashi (“Nativity of the Child”), composed in 1537 by Isma’il ar-Rumaihi.  An Arabic rendering of the Pentateuch in the 1100s and later revised by Abu Sai’d, also still exists.  The principal exposition of Samaritan doctrine and practice are:  Kafi (Compendium, 1041); and Tabah (“Potpourri,” 1100s).  There are also numerous compositions on special portions of the Torah and extensive theological works.  

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     It is hard to say how much of Samaritan belief is their genuine heritage from long ago, and how much is borrowed from Islam.  The parallels between technical expressions used by Samaritan and Muslim writers are interesting, but we find them also in the Pre-Islamic works of the Samaritan theologian Marqeh from the 300s A.D.  Below are listed some of the more striking parallels.  [In the case of the Samaritan shatpeh and the Islamic sharik, both terms are used in the belief that God has no shatpeh or sharik (associate).]

      Samaritan Term                     Islamic Parallel              
      Qa’yim (the Permanent)          al-Baqi (same meaning)  

      shatpeh (associate)                 sharik (associate)                      

      Moses = primordial light           same belief                                

      Moses = seal of prophet           Mohammed:  same title               

      Day of judgment terms            Also found in Koran              

      mozan (judgment scales)         mizan (judgment scales)
waters of Gerizim                    holy Mecca rock’s waters
bosar (good news)                 bushra (good news)
kehsi’tah (hidden ones)           al-ghaib (hidden ones)
tsaka’yim (pure, saints)          ulu (constancy possessors) 

          There are several affinities between the Samaritan exegesis of the Torah and that of the Karaites, the anti-rabbinical sect which rose to prominence in the 700s and 800s A.D.  Samaritans and Karaites both interpret the law of levirate marriage; both calculate Pentecost from the day after the first Sabbath in Passover; both insist that fires not burn on the sabbath; both believe that the sheep’s fat tail belongs to priest.  It is becoming increasingly apparent that Karaite doctrines were to some extent a resurgence of earlier ideas.  It is possible that the similarities between Samaritanism and Karaism may be links in the chain of a forgotten tradition.

SAMECH (ס)  The 15^th letter of the Heberw Alphabet as it is placed in the King James Version at the head of the 15^th section of Psalm 119, where each verse of this section of the psalm begins with this letter.

SAMGAR-NEBO  (סמגﬧ-נבו)  Most probably the title of a Neo-Babylonia prince who participated in the siege of Jerusalem in 588-586 B.C.  The text (Jeremiah 39) mentions a “Nergal-sharezer the Samgar” and Nebosar-sechim the Rabsaris.”  Both represent Hebrew corruptions of Babylonian names, perhaps “Nergal-sharusur the Sinmagir” and “ Nebushazban the Rabsaris.”

SAMLAH (שמלה, garment)  Fifth king of Edom “before any king reigned over the Israelites”; a native of Mas-rekah (Genesis 36; I Chronicle 1).

SAMOS  (SamoV, heights, lofty place)  One of the Ionian islands southwest of Ephesus near the Asia Minor coast in the southeastern part of the Aegean Sea.  It measures about 43 km for east to west and 24 km at its greatest width.  Its chief city, also Samos, was a free city in Paul’s time.  The city was an important naval power in early times, especially in the 500s B.C. under Polycrates.  Paul’s ship either anchored overnight at Samos, or “came near” to Samos and passed by it to anchor for the night at Trogyllium.

                 See also entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha/Influences Outside the Bible section of the Appendix.

SAMOTHRACE (Samoqrakh) An island in the northeastern Aegean Sea and was a stop on the apostle Paul’s missionary travels.       The island lies off the Thrace’s coast in northeastern Greece, and was probably settled by Samians in the 700s B.C.  It may have been settled by Thracians or by northwestern Anatolia or Lesbos. 

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     Lying on a sea lane which led from Greece to the Black Sea, it became a center of importance for travelers, colonists, and traders.  Archaeological evidence indicates that the island was inhabited in the Neolithic Age.  Greek colonists began to arrive 700 B.C., gradually and peacefully.  Their town developed into one of the major Greek cities, possessing lands on the Thracian coast opposite the island.  The city was at its zenith of power in the 500s and 400s B.C. 

     See also the entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha/Influences Outside the Bible section of the Appendix.

     Hadrian was initiated into the Samothracian mysteries of the Great Gods cult (The cult was banned in the 300s A.D.)  The ancient city located beside a small harbor on the northern coast was visited by the apostle Paul on his way to Neapolis, and presumably on his return to Troas.  An early Christian church, may commemorate the landing.

SAMSON  (שמשון, sun-like)  Hero or “judge” of the tribe of Dan, famous for his superhuman strength associated with his uncut hair as a Nazirite and for his exploits against the Philistine.  Samson seems clearly to be a Canaanite personal name.  Samson is to be regarded as originally the hero of a sun myth.  His birthplace was a short distance from the city Beth-shemesh, “house of the sun,” the site of a shrine of the sun-god. 

     Narrative—The biblical account of Samson is oral stories based on Hebrew folklore, told and retold for generations.  The stories are probably all part of the earliest stratum in the book of Judges, perhaps an extension of the Y(J)ahwist document. 

     The present collection of Samson stories may have been collected in the following order:  stories of his exploits following his intended marriage; another cycle of stories, perhaps omitted by the previous editor because they were based on his love affairs and resulted in his death; and the story of Samson’s annunciation and birth of, to account for his feats and his being worthy to be included with the “judges.”  The antiquity of these stories, in which is Hebrew story-telling at its best, is indicated not only by their character as true folklore, but also by their inclusion of bits of Hebrew poetry (i.e. riddles and taunts).

                 Samson was born the child of promise to a long-time barren woman who kept the Nazirite vows.  Unlike similar plots, the angel appeared to the wife not the husband.  Manoah, the husband, presented the sacrifice and asked about the divine name, but received no answer.  As he was to be a “Nazarite to God from birth,” his mother was to prepare by keeping the vows concerning food and drink.  And while he was yet at home, “the Lord’s Spirit began to stir him.”  In Samson’s later story only the vow concerning uncut hair was observed.

                 Samson’s first adventures occurred in connection with his intended marriage with the Philistine woman at Timnah; neither parent would have consented to the proposed marriage.  Samson had to go after his own wife, procure Philistine instead of Israelite friends of the bridegroom, and hold the wedding feast in the bride’s home, all of which broke with custom. His intended coaxed out of him the secret of his lion-and-honey riddle; he lost a bet as a result, and paid it with the clothes of 30 Philistine victims.  When she was given to his best man, he set fire to Philistine crops with 150 live-fox-tail torches and slaughtered more Philistines. 

                 The riddle is an age-old form of mind-stretching and merrymaking suitable for the long hours of the festivities.  If the riddle “Out of the eater came something to eat, Out of the strong came something sweet, had something to with the festive eating and drinking of a “bachelor’s” (groom’s) party, then the answer, “Vomit,” would have brought loud, raucous laughter from the men.  The reply given in the story, “What is sweeter than honey?  What is stronger than a lion?” is actually another riddle, whose usual answer would be “love,” something which left Samson weak and vulnerable at least twice in his life.      

    The hero, only temporarily outwitted, strode across the miles and single-handedly outwitted the enemy.  According to Canaanite law, the father had a right to give his daughter to someone else, but she should not have been given to the best man, for the latter’s responsibility was to look after the groom’s interests.  Therefore Samson’s revenge was “blameless.”  Samson’s feat of catching 300 foxes is another superhuman tale.

                 Samson’s next two exploits provide explanations for place names in Judges 15:  Ramath-lehi, the “Hill of the Jaw-bone,” from the “jawbone of an ass” passage, and En-hakkor, the “Spring of Him Who Called” (i.e. for water).  His fellow Judeans bound him with new ropes to hand him over to the enemy.  There is a bloody play on words in Samson’s song of victory:  “With the jawbone of a red ass I have reddened them bright red.”  The sheer strength of a superhuman giant is the point of the story of Samson’s interrupting his night with a harlot to pull up the city gates of Gaza, and striding off nearly 64 km. 

                 The foolish weakness of the physical giant is the theme of the story of how, enslaved by passion in another illicit love, he toyed with his sacred vow and, lost successively his hair, his power, his eyes, and his freedom.  Samson’s career ended in a final act of desperate heroism:  his strength returning with his growing hair, uttering a prayer for vengeance for just one of his eyes, with a last surge of strength he pulled the supporting temple pillars and death down upon his head.

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                 History, Folklore, and Religious Significance—The locale of the Samson stories was the border between the tribes of Dan and Judah, perhaps in the period after the migration of most of the Danites to their northern home.  This was also the border between these Israelites tribes and the great Philistine plain to the southwest.  Because of their superior material civilization, including the use of iron, the Philistines in this border territory were increasing their control and expansion activities around 1150 B.C.  The conflicts with the Israelites in this period were only local disputes.

                  Samson is never described as “deliverer” from the enemy.  He was only to “begin to deliver Israel from the Philistines” through his personal revenge.  His anti-Philistine exploits resembled those of Shamgar (Judges 3) and Shammah (II Samuel 23).  Thus the historical significance of the Samson stories lies not in his defeat of the Philistines, but in its frank and colorful picture of life on the Philistine border in the Judges’ period.  The sociological material in these 4 chapters is extraordinarily instructive to the historian.

                 Samson’s name (“sun-like”), his home opposite the shrine to the sun-god at Beth-shemesh, and his adventures have given rise to comparison with sun heroes of Babylonian, Phoenician, of Greek mythology.  Striking parallels of Samson’s career with the roles of the sun are:  his hair as the sun’s rays giving daily agricultural life, but cut off by sleep-producing night (Delilah may be a pun on the Hebrew word for night); foxtail firebrands were the sun-withering blight on agricultural crops.  Some have Samson’s adventures as numbering 12, comparable to Hercules’ 12 labors.  Others have compared his career to the Babylonian Gilgamesh. 

     His total career is so earthy, that he may better be compared to folklore heroes like Paul Bunyan or Peer Gynt, as a rustic hero of frontier days.  He was possessed of enormous strength and given to selfish passion and vengeance to restore honor.  He was a trickster, conqueror of women, wild beasts and warriors.  The deeds of a historical Samson were probably enlarged to giant proportions by centuries of village storytelling.

     Because Samson was a Danite and an Israelite, his behavior, good and bad, become an object lesson on a charismatic hero’s traits; his moral virtues and vices were those of a rough frontier life.  But what gives the Samson cycle of stories religious significance is its role as a tragedy.  His selfish and uncontrolled passion, forgetful of sacred vows, brought him to disaster.  Thus he was an example of what God’s charismatic hero should not be.  The clear emphasis of the Samson stories as they stand is the working of Yahweh’s spirit in Yahweh’s hero, whose strength was withdrawn when in his passionate pursuits he forgot his vow, but which came surging back again in response to prayer.  Samson’s uniqueness in being devoted to God before birth and possessor of God’s Spirit, can be viewed as the inspiration of the author of Luke’s gospel to write similarly about John the Baptist.  Samson also became one of the heroes of faith in the Letter to the Hebrews. 

SAMUEL  (שמואל (sheh moo el), heard of God)  In the 1000s B.C., the last “judge” and first prophet, who anointed Saul and then David as king over Israel.  A reconstruction of historical data of Samuel’s life encounters great difficulties.  The different sources of Samuel introduce marked contrasts into Samuel’s portrayal.

                 The Elohwist, the editor who used “Elohim” to identify God, has Samuel’s father Elkanah as coming from the Ephraim tribe.  Hannah was barren, and she vowed to dedicate the child to the Lord if her petition were granted.  When Samuel was born and weaned, Hannah entrusted him into the care of Eli.  The Lord revealed to the boy Samuel the coming end of the house of Eli, and from that time Samuel was established as a prophet.  Samuel was Israel’s last “judge.” He went “on a circuit” and judged Israel at Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah; the last place was where he gathered Israel.  The Philistines attacked the unprepared gathering of the Israelites, but Samuel’s entreaties and the people’s repentance moved the Lord to deliver Israel by a miracle.

     As Samuel became old, he designated his two sons as judges over Israel, but they were corrupt.  As a result, Israel’s elders asked Samuel to appoint a king.  The request was an apostasy in God’s eyes, but God ordered Samuel to fulfill the people’s wish.  In a public festival at Mizpah, Samuel chose by lot Saul as king over Israel.  God through his prophet Samuel, ordered Saul to engage in an expedition against the Amalekites and to consecrate for destruction all the captives and spoil.  After the successful campaign Saul spared the life of the Amalekite king, and violated other of God’s orders.  Samuel slew the Amalekite king and rejected Saul as king.  Later, Samuel secretly anointed David to be Israel’s king.  David escaped Saul’s jealousy and outbursts of rage with Samuel’s help; Samuel was the head of a prophetic guild.  Saul even consulted Samuel’s ghost with a medium’s help.  The ghost foretold the Israelites’ defeat, Saul’s death, and his sons’ deaths. 

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     In the J(Y)ahwist’s contributions (he uses “Yahweh” (translated as “Lord”)), Samuel is a seer of Ramah to whom Saul for help finding his father’s lost asses.  The next morning Samuel secretly anointed Saul to be Israel’s king, with the admonition to wait at Gilgal seven days for the prophet’s coming.  When Samuel did not arrive, and the people with Saul began to scatter, so the king offered sacrifices in order to entreat the Lord’s favor.  Samuel arrived and rejected Saul from kingship over Israel because of his disobedience. 

     In the Lay Editor’s contribution Samuel makes his entry only with the short passage I Samuel 10:22-11:15.  It was Samuel’s role to conduct the rites of the election of the king.  He introduced Saul as the man who “was taller any of the people from shoulders upwards.”  In other books of the Bible, Samuel was remembered as a great intercessor, second only to Moses (Jeremiah 15).  He and David are credited with the establishment of the office of gatekeepers who guarded the tent of the meeting.

     Samuel’s personality made a lasting impression upon his contemporaries.  His office, his personality, and his role in the introduction of monarchy are shrouded by the presence of legendary elements.  Samuel belonged to a rich and important family of the town of Ramah.  He was a “man of God,” “seer,” “prophet,” and the last “judge of Israel.”  Samuel had authority in religious matters, as his connection with the cult, local and national, amply document.  He had the oil for the anointment, or he could consecrate it.  He could deny the right of offering from the king.  All these cultic privileges and his role in the rites preparing the election of the king designate him as the leading religious personality of Israel in his own time.  This man was also the Hebrew’s transition from “judge,” “seer,” “man of God,” to the great prophets of the 700s B.C. 

     Samuel’s role was decisive in the introduction of monarchy into Israel.  Difficulties arise in that the different sources that were combined to make up the books of Samuel present Samuel as having contradictory attitudes towards earthly kingship.  In the Elohwist source both the Lord and Samuel are opposed to earthly kingship, but in the J(Y)ahwist source they are okay with it.  Samuel could have opposed earthly kingship at first.  Under the influence of the growing menace Philistines, he could have changed his position.  Samuel probably conceived kingship as an earthly vice-regency of the Lord’s kingship over Israel.  After he withdrew his support from Saul, Samuel searched for another “vice-regent” and found him in the military leader David.  

SAMUEL, I AND II.  The ninth and tenth books of the English Bible and the third and fourth books of the Former Prophets in the Hebrew Bible.  They begin shortly before Samuel’s birth, and continue through David’s reign into his old age.  The names of the books in the Hebrew canon are I and II Samuel.  These two books were originally one, and the first Greek Old Testament first introduced them as two books, naming them books of the “kingdoms.”  The belief that Samuel was the author is a Talmudic tradition.

                 The text of the books of Samuel is corrupt in many places, but occasionally a reconstruction of the text is possible by the utilization of the parallel accounts of the books of Chronicles.  The oldest Greek Old Testament seems to point to a variant Hebrew text.  The discoveries of manuscript fragments in the caves of Qumran also support the contention that the occasional divergence of this Old Testament cannot be explained by paraphrasing.  The Hebrew variants, revealing a higher degree of affinity with this Old Testament than with the Masoretic Text, were apparently rejected and suppressed probably during the 100s A.D.

                 Contents—The first of six parts is Samuel’s introduction (I Samuel 1-7), beginning with the announcement of his birth and his dedication to the Lord’s service at the ark sanctuary of Shiloh.  The child Samuel and an unknown man of God announced the downfall of Eli’s priestly family.  Two sons of Eli fell in the battle where the Philistines captured the ark; news of the disaster killed Eli.  The captive ark brought calamity to the Philistines, who sent it back; the divinely-guided oxen brought it to Kiriath-jearim.  Samuel, as judge of Israel, called the people to repentance.  The Philistines’ attack was deterred by a miraculous deliverance.

                 In the second part (I Samuel 8-15), Israel’s people desired to be like all the nations and have a king.  Though the Lord regarded the people’s wish as apostasy, God gave God’s consent.  Saul, a Benjaminite in search of his father’s lost asses, came to Ramah, where Samuel secretly anointed him king; in another scene Saul was publicly chosen as king.  After a successful campaign against the Ammonites, the army went to Gilgal.  Samuel abdicated his office as judge and charged the people and King Saul to be faithful to the Lord.

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                 In preparation for a battle with the Philistines, Saul offered a sacrifice.  Because of this act, Samuel reprimanded Saul and rejected him from the kingship.  Jonathan faced death for breaking his father’s vow but the people ransomed his life.  In a war against the Amalekites, Samuel had proclaimed a cherem or consecration for the destruction of all spoils and captives; Saul disobeyed the ban.

                  In the third part (I Samuel 16-II Samuel 1), Samuel secretly anointed David to be Israel’s next king; David came to Saul’s court as a lyre player.  David killed Goliath, whereupon the victorious youth was introduced anew to Saul.  David won Jonathan’s friendship and the people’s admiration but awakened Saul’s jealousy; he had to escape from Saul’s jealous rage several times.  Later, Saul gave his younger daughter, Michal, to David.  Ahimlech, the priest of Nob, helped in his flight, and for this reason Saul massacred almost all of Nob’s priestly colony.  Abiathar of Nob fled to David, who had, after a short stay with the Philistine Achish, gathered an army of mercenaries and lodged with them in Judah’s mountains.  Saul continued to pursue David in the Ziph and Engedi wildernesses.  David spared Saul’s life more than once, and married Abigail, the widow of a rich Calebite.  Later, he entered the service of the Philistines, who installed him at Ziklag.

                 The Philistine army encamped at Gilboa against the Israelites; Saul, in his despair, turned for advice to Samuel’s ghost, who foretold the defeat of the Israelites.  David joined the Philistines, but his overlords sent him back to Ziklag.  In the meantime, Ziklag was raided by the Amalekites.  David pursued them, overtook the Amalekites and rescued the captive women.  An Amalekite brought the news to David that he had killed Saul.  David slew the Amalekite and sang a dirge over Saul and Jonathon.  

                 In the fourth part (II Samuel 2-8), after the death of Saul, the elders of Judah anointed David king in Hebron.  In the north, Saul’s son Ishbosheth became king.  Ishbosheth’s army commander, Abner was killed by Joab, David’s army commander.  Soon Ishbosheth was killed by two of his captains, who were executed by David.  Thus, David became king of Israel and Judah.  After the capture of the Jebusite city of Jerusalem, David established his own capital there; the ark was also brought to Jerusalem.  David’s plan to build a temple was rejected by the Lord in a prophecy of Nathan.

                 In the fifth part (II Samuel 9-20), David reinstated Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, into the estate of Saul.  The king of Ammon’s humiliation of David’s envoy led to repeated long wars with the Ammonites and their allies, during which David plotted the death of Uriah, with whose wife Bathsheba, he had committed adultery; after her husband’s death, Bathsheba became David’s wife.  The fruit of the illicit love died, and Solomon was David and Bathsheba’s second.  Amnon, the first-born son of David, raped his half-sister, Tamar; her full brother, Absalom, killed Amnon in revenge, and fled to Talmai, his maternal grandfather.

                 Three years later Absalom was allowed to return to Jerusalem, where he successfully conspired against his father and finally started an open rebellion, which forced David and his army to flee from Jerusalem.  Absalom listened to Hushai’s deliberately bad advice to delay his attack, not knowing that Hushai was a friend of David’s.  David and his army retreated to Transjordan territory to rest and to rally new troops.  The king mourned his son’s death in battle and pardoned Shimei for cursing him.

                 The sixth part (II Samuel 21-24) contains appendixes.  David at one time during his reign allowed seven of Saul’s descendants to be put to death.  David, moved by Rizpah’s grief over her two sons gathered the remains of the whole family of Saul and buried them in the tomb of Kish.  The “last words” of David appears with a short summary of the feats of David’s heroes, in chapter 23.  The final chapter reports an episode from the life of David—that of the census, which displeased the Lord, so that he sent pestilence.  David built an altar for the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah as atonement.

                Composition—The books of Samuel are not the work of one writer, but they appear to be composed of different sources.  Thus Saul is anointed to be king over Israel secretly and on two different occasions elevated to the same office in public ceremony.  Twice Samuel rejects Saul; twice David is introduced to Saul; twice David escapes from Saul.  The slaying of Goliath is attributed both to David and to one of his heroes.  Sharp differences can also be perceived in the religious outlook of several portions.  Kingship is alternately regarded as an institution favored by God, and condemned as apostasy.

                 Samuel’s composite character presents a challenge to biblical scholars which advance 3 different theories.  All 3 theories recognize that the final composition of the books was the work of the Deuteronomic editors, who compiled and edited some surviving literary material between 621 and 586 B.C.  The difference between the 3 theories is in their separation and identification of the literary works utilized as sources.

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                 At the end of the 1800s some scholars suggested that two sources, J (J(Y)ahwist) and E (Elohist), were components parts of the books.  These source-names were also used for the sources of the first five books of the Old Testament, but some doubt the connection of the sources of the books of Samuel with the sources of the earlier Old Testament books, so the use of L, J, and E for the sources of the books of Samuel does not necessarily imply their identity.

                 As a reaction to source criticism in explaining the Old Testament, several tradition-historical attempts were made to solve the problems of the books of Samuel.  The representatives of this school emphasize the decisive importance of narrative complexes, such as the ark narratives and the history of David’s court.  The scholars belonging to this school reject the separation of the book into sources.  They explain the occasional doublets as the result of slow accumulation of manuscript variants.  This saga-cycle theory suggests that the books of Samuel were composed of narrative complexes, joined by setting one after another and by connecting these parts loosely.   The apparent difficulty of the saga-cycle theory is in its lack of a sharp distinction between literary pieces and literary subject.

                 A thorough analysis of the narratives of I Samuel 7-12, led several scholars to the recognition that there are three easily separable sources.  These three sources are L (Lay Editor), J, and E.  The three-source theory seems to do the greatest justice to the books of Samuel because it best explains of some of the peculiarities of the books.  There are sufficient grounds in the similarities of style and outlook to assume that those books and the books of Samuel share the same circle of authors. 

                 The following is a breakdown of I and II Samuel into the three sources.  Material from sources other than the three main sources is marked by “+” in the “L/+” column.  The two instances where (D) is used marks two of the Deuteronomist’s additions.

I Samuel

       E                   J                    L/ +                     E                   J                L/ +

    1:1-3a               3b                                                              10:1-16    

       4-28                                                           10:17-21                         10:22-25 (L)           

    2:11               2:12-17          2:1-10  (+)                                              11:1-15  (L)

       18-21             22-25             27-36 (D)      12 (ch.)                           13: 1-7(+)

    3: 1-2a                                    3:2b (+)                               13:8-1       13:15b-22(+)    

        3-11                                    3:12-14 (D)                                          13: 23  (L)

      15-21                                                              

                         4: 4               4: 1-3 (L)                                                    14 (ch.; L)

                             7b                 5-7a (L)           15 (ch.)                        

                             8b                 8a (L)                                                 

                                                  9   (L)              16: 1-17                          16:18 (L)  

                             12-                10-11 (L)         16:19-20                         16:21 (L)                          16:22-23    

                             19b                19a (L)            17:1-11        17:1-11 

                             22                  20-21 (L)                            17:12-31            

                           5: 1              5: 2-12 (L)          17:32-39 

                           6: 1-2           6: 2-3a (L)          17:40-54       17:40-54                     

                              3b-5a                                                         17:55-58 

                              5b-7a            7b (L)                                   18:1-4        18: 5-9 (L) 

                              8-9                10 (L)              18:10-16      18:17-19    18:20-29 (L) 

                              11-12a          12b (L)                                 19: 1-10     19:11-17(L)  

                              13-15            16  (L)             19:18-24  

                              17-18a           18b (L)                                                   20: 1a  (+)

                              19                                                               20:1b-42 

                           7: 1                                                                21:1-9          21: 1-9 (L)

       7:2-17                                                         21:10-15

       8 (ch.)          9 (ch.)                                                           22: 1-2        22: 1-2 (L) 

                                                                      22: 3-5          22: 6-23     22:6-23 (L)

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       E                   J                    L/ +                     E                  J                   L/ +

                                           23: 1-14a (L)                         27: 8-12                   

  23:14b-18      23:19-28                                                      28: 1-2   

                        24 (ch.)                                       28: 3-25                                           

                                               25: 1 (+)                                   29: 1-6        29: 7-10(L)

                                               25: 2-44 (L)          29:11                               

                                               26 (ch.) (L)                                             30-31 (chs.; L)                    

                         27: 1-4           27: 5-7   (L)                           

                                                                               

II Samuel         

          E                    J                    L/ +                  E                    J               L/ +

                                                    1:1b-2a (L)                              7:1-17                

                   

                               2b-4                  5-10 (L)                              18-19  

                           11-12               13-16 (L)                                                   8 (ch.; L)  

                               17-27                                                        9-24 (chs.)               

                                                  2-6 (chs.; L)   

     E Source Notes—The source designated with the sign E sharply condemns the institution of monarchy.  This source starts with the assumption that Israel did not need the military leadership of a king against the Philistines.  The defeat of the Philistine army was so complete that Philistines did not again assault the nation of Israel within the lifetime of Samuel.  Because of this the E source could not have reported any of the Philistine wars, because E was convinced that the Philistines were subdued.  

     In the opinion of the E writer, kingship was not a national necessity.  With their demand for a king, “so that we may be like other nations,” the Israelites rejected the Lord’s kingship over Israel.  The Lord finally gave his consent to fulfill the people’s foolish and rebellious desire.  The selection of the king was done by lot, and was followed by Samuel’s abdication and farewell words, which are also pervaded by the anti-monarchic spirit.  In E the “law of the king” is more or less the arbitrary way of the oriental despot.  David was brought to Saul’s court as a player of the lyre. When David had to flee from Saul’s jealousy, Samuel provided the necessary help.  E does not recognize David’s mercenary services to the Philistines.

     In terms of religious orientation, E seems sympathetic toward mass ecstasy, is very interested in the person of Samuel, and recognizes a constant leading and blessing spirit.  It is characteristic of the E source that its literary material is mostly of the sacred, legendary, nature.  E’s foremost hero is Samuel the great intercessor; E alone includes Samuel’s birth narrative.  The memories of the great man were preserved by the prophetic circles of the northern empire. 

     The dating of E is dependent in large measure on its anti-monarchic attitude, which is the authentic memory of the anti-monarchic reaction at the time of the institution of kingship in Israel.  This theocratic, anti-monarchic view seems to be older than the monarchy.  E is traced by some scholars to II Kings 23 and is dated shortly after the Josianic reform (622).  On the other hand, the statement:  “He will take the best of your fields and vineyards . . .” could allude to the seizing of Naboth’s vineyard by King Ahab, putting the date after Ahab (850 B.C.), probably around 800.                      

                 J Source Notes—The second strand of the narrative concerning the introduction of kingship in Israel is designated with the letter “J.”  In the J source Saul appears as a young man still living at his father’s house and going on his father’s errands.  In this source one does not hear the rebellious demand of the people for a king.  Here, the introduction of the monarchy is the work of the Lord to deliver the Lord’s people by the hands of an anointed prince.

                 J’s version of the rejection of Saul assumes Philistine wars even during Samuel’s life, in contrast with E.   When David had to flee from Saul’s jealousy, Jonathan helped him in this source, and David spares the king’s life in a cave in Engedi.  David is pictured as being in Gath as Achish’s bodyguard.  The narrative of David’s court in II Samuel 9-24 is the work of J.

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                 The literary characteristics of J include a remarkably vivid, forceful style, elegance of expression, and a fondness for folktale.  The story of David’s ascendance and, especially, the court narrative have the clarity of an eyewitness account.  In terms of religious orientation, J seems to take great interest in the ark’s fate but likewise in the destiny of the priesthood at Shiloh and Nob.  The Lord’s spirit means for J a force causing the mass ecstatic phenomenon.  J seems to be closest to the happenings in the Davidic court.  Depending on the assumptions that scholars make on how far a particular source extends beyond the court narratives,  J could be as early as the Solomon or Rehoboam’s reign (late 900s B.C.), or as late as Hezekiah’s reign (715-687 B.C.).

                 L Source Notes—In terms of religious orientation, L recognizes only the ephod and the oracle techniques.  The spirit of the Lord means an irresistible impulse for action and the communication of superhuman power.  The L source makes its first appearance in chapters 4-6.  Its interest is focused on the misfortunes of the ark.  The narrative is interwoven with the J source.  When describing David’s coming to Saul’s court, phrases like “a man of valor,” “a man of war,” and “he became his armor-bearer”, and verses like “When Saul saw any strong or valiant warrior, he took him into his service,” belong to this source, rather than to E.  When David had to flee from Saul’s jealousy, he was aided in his escape by Michal, his wife in this source.   

    This source begins telling of Saul’s elevation to kingship at the very end of I Samuel 10: 21-11:15.  This source shows more sympathy towards kingship than does E.  The king was apparently appointed by the Lord.  The favorable attitude of the L Source toward kingship is manifest in the fact that it calls those who voiced their derogatory opinion of Saul “worthless fellows.”  The election to kingship by lot, as it is described in 10:20-21, presupposed the presence of Saul, but Saul was obviously not present.  The emphasis on Saul’s tallness postulates the receiving of an oracle.  This oracle would have been followed by a general mustering of the people.  In L the law is that of “kingship” and not of “the king,” (i.e. divinely approved).  In II Samuel, chapters 2-6 belong, in the main, to L, but there are small traces of foreign material present.

     The L source has an explicit preference for sagas presenting folk-tale motifs.  It enjoys reporting the bizarre marriage presents in I Samuel 18.  L relates the Nabal episode with the sincere sympathy so characteristic of the folk tale toward the successful adventurer.  The circle from which the stories originate was close to the country folk.  The cultural environment of L is with the country folk.  L’s closeness to the events of the Davidic reign can be assumed on the ground that David still did not become a stereotyped folktale; the late 900s B.C. seems to be the probable date for L.

     General Source Notes—The seventh chapter starts with an oracle of Nathan, which prohibited David from building a temple for the Lord but promised establishment of the Davidic dynasty forever.  The dynastic oracle might be assigned either to L, J, or to an independent but ancient tradition, even though in a shorter form. Any attempt to find the date of the origin of any of these literary sources encounters great difficulties. 

     The following are steps in the process of composition.  At first some sagas were formed by utilizing folklore patterns and motifs; these sagas were transmitted in the channels of oral tradition.  The dirges of David and the original pithy version of the dynastic oracle belong to this period.  The second stage of the history of composition saw the emergence of the continuous historical works L and J.  Later the E circle brought and joined together the original historical works of L and J and added to them its own prophetic point of view.  E also contributed some independent tradition.  In the next stage, the Deuteronomic edition of the book took place.  The Deuteronomist added only some passages.  The last step in the process of composition was the incorporation of poetic material (e.g. I Samuel 2 and II Samuel 22 and 23).

     The historical validity of these literary sources presents a very intricate problem.  With the exception of the Davidic court narrative of J, all the sources are inclined to transcend the historical facts and prefer to convey the meaning of events in the legends or sagas.  General statements on the reliability of any individual source is unjustified, for a historical investigation must weigh the historical validity of the sources altogether.  

SANBALLAT (סנבלט, hatred in secret, Akkadian for “[the god] Sin had given life”)  The chief political opponent in Palestine of Nehemiah’s efforts, as governor of Judah under the Persian Empire, to rebuild the walls of post-exilic Jerusalem (445-437 B.C.).  Outside the Bible he is referred to as “governor of Samaria,” and having two sons, Delaiah and Shelemiah.

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                 Nehemiah represents Sanballat as having substantial political power in the province of Samaria under Persian rule.  Nehemiah refers to him as “the Horonite” (i.e. from Beth-Horon, overlooking the road between Jerusalem and the Mediterranean).  The bitter opposition of Sanballat to Nehemiah’s work was based presumably on the threat to Samaria’s control of Judah, which they enjoyed ever since Jerusalem’s fall in 586 B.C.  The rivalry between the two leaders was neither racial nor religious in nature.  Nehemiah’s own account shows that Sanballat and Tobiah the Ammonite were on relatively good terms with influential Jews.  The high priest Eliashib’s grandson married Sanballat’s daughter; Nehemiah had him banished from the city. 

                 The Jewish historian Josephus implies that this last-mentioned affair brought about the Jewish-Samaritan schism.  Josephus places Sanballat a century later than the time of Nehemiah.  But Josephus’ account at this point must be considered historically less trustworthy than that of Nehemiah, especially since it was set in a context of a lot of other things that were historically questionable.

SANCTIFICATION.  The realization or progressive attainment of likeness to God or to God’s intention for men.  It may be conferred by divine grace and be seen as a goal to be aimed at.

                 Holiness in the Old Testament relates to man’s elemental reaction to that which is beyond normal experience and control, a category distinct from the intellectual and moral.  But if this factor of human experience is not to be outgrown, it needs to be moralized and intellectualized; Hebrew religion does this.  The basic sense of the Hebrew root qadash, holy, seems to be “separateness,” “otherness.”  The Bible retains the insight of primitive man, that the divine was the primary reality.  The word qadosh has this sense of reality in it; it is not a negative term.   

                 This is, of course a primitive idea, and is applied to beings other than God, and to material things, such as the ark of the covenant.  Two developments in holiness are distinctive of the Old Testament.  First, holiness is conceived as referring pre-eminently to Yahweh; all other persons and things are defined as holy only in connection with Yahweh.  Second, the pre-exilic prophets moralized the notion of divine holiness—i.e., they understood God’s will as having moral implications.

                 From Acts we learn that sanctification in the primitive church depends on reception of the Holy Spirit.  More positively, reception of the Spirit confers power to perform miracles, moral power, and the courage to witness to Christ.  Christians are called “saints” in Acts, in Paul’s writings, and in Revelation.  The meaning in all these cases is not moral perfection, but consecration to Christ.  There is some overlapping of meaning with words implying cleanness or purification. 

                 This usage of “saint” has two main implications.  First, it is the basis of the concept of the church as a holy society.  This needs to be kept in view if a too narrow a striving after sainthood is to be avoided.  The original, semi-magical concept of separateness is here fully personalized.  Individuals are united in worship of a Lord who is Head of the body and source of holiness.  Second, the New Testament terminology of sanctification implies that the church is a divinely controlled society.  Church experience is described in Acts 20 and 26 in terms of inheritance “among those who have been sanctified.”  The sanctification is already effected, even though not completed, when one is gathered into the church.  For the Christian who has begun to experience sanctification, the distinction between here and hereafter, earth and heaven, becomes less absolute.

                 In Paul’s Christian experience sinful men are accepted by God.  Sin is a powerful enemy but not sovereign, for God’s grace is even more powerful.  The Christian, freed from his past, walks in “newness of life.”  When Paul begins to speak of the positive implication of this, he uses the term agiasmos, “sanctification.”  In I Thessalonians 4, it is contrasted with immorality and uncleanness.  The new moral emphasis is described in terms of the Spirit.  This Spirit terminology is, in fact, more frequent in Paul’s references to the Christian development than the language of sanctification.

                 It is not sufficient, however, to take “sanctification” as the same as “moral growth”; “sanctification” can also be the same as “justification.”  Against this reference of sanctification to the beginning of the Christian experience may be quoted passages which imply that sanctification is an aspect of the Christian’s whole life.  Its connection with the Spirit appears again in II Thess. 2, with the notion that it is part of God’s original purpose for the church.  In short, the experience Paul has in mind when he speaks of sanctification is too significant to be confined to any single moment of the Christians’ career.  It is the process thereby inaugurated, presided over by the Spirit, and mounting up to a maturity definable in terms of Christ’s own perfection.   

                 According to the Gospel of Mark, Jesus is God’s Holy One, who drives out all that is unholy.  He is not afraid of contamination, for his holiness is positive and sovereign.  He rejects the Pharisees’ definition of what constitutes holiness, in order to diagnose the need of humankind more truly.  Jesus understood his mission to be to cleanse humans from that inward uncleanness which corrupts their life.  To this purpose he devoted his life even to the ultimate sacrifice of death.

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                 The main theme of the Letter to the Hebrews is the work of Christ as priest and sacrifice.  But the metaphor changes to that of sanctification when Christ is referred to as the sanctifier.  Jewish rites effected outward sanctification; Christ offers an inward one.  “Sanctification” is a synonym for “perfection,” a key word in this letter.  This sanctification or perfection is due to Christ, who identified himself with humans, made them fit for God’s presence, and pioneered a way to God as “forerunner.”

                 In I Peter 1 sanctification is due to the Spirit, but is also connected with God’s eternal purpose and the atonement effected by Christ.  It is a reproduction of God’s holiness, which distinguishes Christians from other people.  The author comes near to defining this holiness as imitation of Christ.  The idea of sanctification does not occupy much space in John’s Gospel, but it can be related to John’s thought.  Christ is the remover of the world’s sin.  In Jesus is operating a power superior to the temple.  The holiness of earthly temples such those in Jerusalem and on Mount Gerizim must give way when true spiritual worship is inaugurated.

                 Jesus transcends the sacredness of the sabbath.  He does not cease work on the Sabbath, but his work is part of God’s.  As Son of man, he is “from above.”  Jesus’ ministry is a continuation of God’s own activity, and a revelation of God’s glory.  Christ imparts holiness more effectively than all other media, personal or material.  Those who believe in him are sanctified in the sense of being in communion with God.  They possess the truth and are sanctified by it.   

SANCTUARY  (שﬢק (ko desh), holy place; naoV (nah os), temple)  In the Old Testament the word refers to heavenly or earthly sacred places, such as the tabernacle, temple, Jerusalem, Zion, etc.  In the New Testament, naos is used of the Jewish temple, the heavenly temple and temples in general.  The word is also personalized for reference to the body of Jesus, and to the spirit-filled life of the Christian.

SAND LIZARD  (חמט (kho met), dark one (?))  The ancient version and the context in Leviticus 11 favor some variety of lizard, but further identification is hazardous.

SANDALS AND SHOES  (נעל (na ‘al))  Sandals apparently were worn in Palestine from the earliest times.  

                 Women’s shoes appear to have been somewhat different from those worn by men.  Shoes were designed for protection against cold and damp in winter and against the hot sand and sharp stones in the summer.  Foot protection was not required at home and so shoes were removed upon entering the house.  Footwear isn’t mentioned in connection with priestly apparel.  To go without shoes was a mark of poverty and destitution.

                 There is no way of distinguishing types of footwear from the biblical terminology.  Our only sources are the monuments, descriptions in post-biblical literature, and surviving ancient footwear.  The black obelisk of Shalmaneser III depicts Jehu of Israel bearing tribute to the Assyrian king.  The tribute bearers seem to be wearing shoes with upturned, pointed toes.  Northern Syrian monuments from Samal and Carchemish (800s and 700s B.C.) show sandals with a double strap going across the arch near the ankle.  It must be remembered that these were probably not the shoes or sandals worn by ordinary people.  They probably had no more than a simple piece of leather or wood or fibrous material tied on with leather thongs.

                 Leather was doubtless the regular material employed in the making of footwear.  Shoemakers were probably included in the general class of leatherworkers.  Worn shoes were mended with leather straps.  Shoes were also of symbolic significance, as may be seen from the legal practice of presenting the shoe to confirm publicly the renunciation of the levirate marriage rights of the brother-in-law.  According to Amos 2, shoes were obviously regarded as legal symbols—i.e. token payments necessary for strict legal transactions.  To be unsandaled was to be dispossessed, and to cast one’s sandals upon property signified possession.

SANHEDRIN (ﬢﬧינסנה, the spelling of a Greek label for the assembly in Hebrew letters)  The supreme Jewish council of 71 members in Jerusalem during post-exilic times; the sanhedrin at Jerusalem was an aristocratic institution presided over by a hereditary high priest..  The supreme council had legislative and executive, as well as judiciary functions, but its effective authority varied greatly under different political regimes.

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            Other Designations

      ﬨ ﬢינ גﬢולבי (bet  deen  gaw dole), house of         Presbuterion (pres beh teer   

             great justice                                                      ree on), assembly of elders    

ﬤנישﬨא (kaw nee sheh tah), assembly                 Sunedrion (suh ned ree on), 
boulh (boo leh), counsel assembly                         sitting together, source of  

      Gerousia (geh roo see ah), senate,                       Hebrew word, sanhedrin

             assembly of elders

                 In rabbinical interpretation the sanhedrin had its origin in the council of 70 elders appointed to assist Moses, and was reorganized by Ezra after the return from exile.  The connecting of the sanhedrin with Moses and Ezra betrays a concern for establishing deep roots for the council in the soil of Israel’s past.  Actually, there is no trustworthy evidence for the early existence of the Sanhedrin.  In Greek sources the earliest mention of Jewish gerousia has reference to the time of Antiochus the Great (223-187 B.C.).

           See also the entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha/Influences Outside the Bible section of the Appendix.

           After Herod’s death, Augustus confirmed Herod’s testament, save that Archelaus was appointed ethnarch until he proved himself worthy of the royal title, which he never did.  With the introduction of the new system, the territory over which Archelaus had ruled became an imperial province; the sanhedrin became responsible for the imperial taxes.  The Roman officials did not share Herod’s jealousy of the local aristocracy, which made up the majority of the sanhedrin.  The nobility was predominantly Sadducean, and the lawyers in the sanhedrin were predominantly Pharisaic; this lent itself to stormy debates in the assembly.  The internal government of the provinces seems to have largely in the hands of the sanhedrin.  The extent to which it had responsibility for the administration of justice in the tetrarchies of Antipas and Philip is disputed.

           The high priest was president and convener of the sanhedrin.  The procurator exercised the right of appointing and deposing the high priest.  The 18 high priests from 6-67 A.D. came from 7 families; 5 families were responsible for 16 of them.  There were 7 high priests from 6-41 A.D., and 11 from 41-67.  There was only one high priest at a time; the word “high priest” was used in the plural to refer to the institution.  A new regime was established by Claudius in 41, when Herod Agrippa I was made king of all of Herod the Great’s  territory.  After Agrippa’s death in 44 all his kingdom became an imperial province under a procurator.   

                 Thanks to the insurrection, the large measure of autonomy which had been conceded to the Jewish people was taken away; the sanhedrin as a political institution with authority other than purely religious ceased to exist.  The sanhedrin founded at Jamnia after the insurrection was really an assembly of religious teachers.  It was an ecclesiastical tribunal of an academic character.  It seems that the rabbis projected this version of the sanhedrin backwards to the time before the insurrection.

                 The sanhedrin was composed of 71 members.  There were no sittings on Sabbaths or on feast days.  A capital case could not be tried on the eve of a sabbath or festival.  The sanhedrin held its sessions in the “hall of hewn stone” on the south of the great court of the temple.  According to the New Testament, the sanhedrin could hold its sessions in the residence of the high priest.  The members sat in a semi-circle so that they could be seen by one another.  The sanhedrin does not seem to have been a court of appeal, but it could be requested to intervene whenever an inferior court was unable to agree as to the interpretation of the Mosaic law.

           According to Mark’s Gospel, Jesus was arrested at the order of the Jewish authorities, but executed at the Pilate’s order. It is possible that Jesus was handed over to Pilate on a political charge because he had not committed an obvious capital offense against the Mosaic law.  In the first section of John 8, the scribes and the Pharisees sought to trap Jesus in the dilemma of a woman caught in adultery.  If Jesus declared that the prisoner should be released, he would be violating the Mosaic law; whereas if he declared that the Mosaic ruling should be applied he would stand condemned by his own ethical teachings of love and forgiveness.  In John 18 the Jews informed Pilate that it was not lawful for them to put any man to death.  John here seems to want to show that a constitutional restriction was the only thing that prevented the Jews from putting Jesus to death.  According to Acts 6-7, Stephen was condemned by the sanhedrin and was duly stoned to death. 

           From the Jewish historian Josephus we learn that Pharisaic pressure restrained the Sadducean magistrates from harsh judgments; there is no suggestion of any restrictions made by the Roman authorities.  According to Josephus, James and certain other Christians were put to death at the order of the Sanhedrin, although objection was taken to the action.  The Pharisee’s objection was not to a lack of authority, but to the arbitrary way in which Ananius, the Sadducean high priest, filled vacant seats on the sanhedrin, and to the fact that identifying Jesus with the Messiah was not blasphemy in the strict sense of Mosaic law.  Given these examples and other non-biblical documents, it is likely that the sanhedrin would be empowered to execute any Jewish citizen accused and found guilty of a capital offense against the law of his religion.

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SANANNAH  (סנסנה, from the root meaning “thorn-bush,” or the root meaning “palm-branch”)  A town in the southern part of Judah in the neighborhood of Ziklag (Joshua 15).  The list of Simeon’s cities besides this one in Joshua give Hazar-susah and Hazar-susim, and are apparently the same as “Sansannah,” likely a spelling error due to the preceding name of Madmannah.

SAPH (סף, threshold, doorkeeper)  One of the giants’ descendents.  He was slain by a member of David’s “Thirty Men.”  Saph is included among the giants’ descendents who served with the Philistines and lived at Gath.   

SAPPHIRA (Sapfeirh, beautiful)  A member of the primitive Christian community in Jerusalem, wife of Ananias.  Acts 5 relates that Sapphira and her husband sold a piece of property while keeping part for themselves.  When rebuked by Peter for this deceit, each in turn fell dead. 

SAPPHIRE (ספיﬧ, unknown; sapfeiroV (sap fie ros))  A transparent rich-blue stone made up of di-aluminum tri-oxide, similar to rubies in chemical makeup.  The biblical contexts suggest brilliance and preciousness, with no indication of color or hardness; the New Jerusalem is laid in sapphire (Isaiah 54).  It is the second jewel in the foundation of the walls of the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21).

SARAH, SARAI (שﬧי (sah rie), contentious; שﬧה, princess, noble lady)  Wife of Abraham, and mother of Isaac.  Sarai is first mentioned in Gen. 11, where it is stated that she was Abram’s wife and that she was childless.  Sarai was 65 years old at this time; despite her age she had retained so much beauty that in Egypt told her to tell the Pharaoh the half-truth that they were brother and sister.  Despairing of herself producing the heir, she gave Hagar to him with the hope that she might produce a child for him.  The meaning of this early name (i.e. “contentious”) probably stems from her reaction to Hagar conceiving and then treating her with contempt.

                 King Abimelech of Gerar thought that Abraham and Sarah were brother and sister, and took Sarah into his house, but he was warned by God in a dream not to touch her.  When she became Sarah at the age of 90, God promised that she would have a great posterity through a son who would be born to her; she laughed in disbelief, and for this Yahweh reproved her.  According to the divine promise, Sarah conceived in her old age and bore Isaac.  Sarah died at Kiriath-arba (Hebron) at the age of 127 and was buried at Machpelah; Isaiah 51 is the only other place in the Old Testament (OT) where she is mentioned.

     See also entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha/Influences Outside the Bible section of the Appendix.

     The NT mentions Sarah several times.  In Rom. 4 her prolonged barrenness is cited as evidence of Abraham’s faith.  Her conception of Isaac is mentioned as an instance of divine sovereignty in election.  Her submissiveness to her husband is chosen in I Peter 3 as an example of true godly adornment.  In the Jewish literature shortly after Jesus’ death, she is described as “Above all women is she lovely and higher is her beauty than them all.”

SARAPH (ףﬧש, to burn)  A descendant of Judah.  The note regarding his rule in Moab and his return to Lehem adds little information, as Lehem is an unknown site (I Chronicles 4).

SARDINE STONE (sardinoV (sar dih nos); the King James Version translates the Greek as shown here; the New Revised Standard Version translates it as “carnelian.”)  The Greek Theophrastus suggests the “sardine stone” is the male of sardion and is brown, while the transparent red variety is female and our carnelian.

SARDIS (SardeiV)  A city in western Asia Minor; capital of ancient Lydia.  Sardis is located in the Hermus Valley on the banks of its southern tributary, the Pactolus, north of the Tmolus Mountains. 

     There is some evidence for prehistoric habitation.  The leading position of the city must be a development of the Lydian period under the kings of Mermnad Dynasty.  Sardis became an important and wealthy Persian city in Asia Minor.  It lay at the western end of the great royal road which went from Susa across the rivers and through Asia Minor.  Sardis may appear in the Old Testament in Obadiah 20 as Sepharad, as a place where exiles from Jerusalem were living during the 400s B.C.

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     See also entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha/Influences Outside the Bible section of the Appendix.

     The site contains a number of striking ancient landmarks: an acropolis formed by a craggy rock on the eastern side of the Pactolus; and Roman and Byzantine ruins at the foot of the citadel.  The acropolis still carries the ruins of fortification walls which are made of reused material of classical-to-Byzantine origin; the lower city was also fortified.  Among the ruins of the city are a Roman theater and stadium, both constructed in concrete; near the stadium there is a ruined marble arch. 

     The outstanding architectural relic is the temple of Artemis, to the west of the acropolis.  The original cult was dedicated to a local Asiatic goddess, identified with Artemis but sometimes referred to as Cybele.  The present building is an unfinished 300s B.C. reconstruction the Artemis temple at Ephesus.  Roman repairs were made to its eastern facade after an earthquake in 17 A.D. 

                 The cemeteries of ancient Sardis are twofold.  Modest rock-cut tombs exist on the slopes of the hills.  The necropolis lies some 11 km to the northwest of the ancient city.  There are about 100 round hills erected over chamber tombs.  The largest of these is the “tomb of Alvattes.  It can be presumed to contain the royal and aristocratic burials of the Mermnad Dynasty. 

                 Sardis enjoyed great prosperity in the first 3 centuries A.D.  After the 17 A.D. earthquake Tiberius facilitated reconstruction.  Christianity gained in Sardis.  Melito, Sardis’ bishop, wrote many treatises.  After 297, Sardis became the revived Lydia district’s capital.  A small brick church was built against the southeast angle of the peristyle (rows of columns) of the temple in the 300s A.D.  Sardis was conquered by the Arabs in 716.

SARDIUS (ﬢםא (‘oh dem), ruby, carnelian)  A deep orange-red type of quartz darker than carnelian.  It is a stone on the breastpiece of judgment and the ephod.

SARDONYX (sardonux) The King James Version translation of the Greek word, a banded form of quartz.

SARGON (גוןס)   A1. Sargon of Akkad, some time during the 2000s B.C.  With the exception of a few damaged lines on a stela found in Susa, all historical inscriptions are on later copies made and found in Nippur, written in Sumerian and Akkadian; they also contain legendary tales centering around Sargon.  The legends take his conquests deep into Anatolia.  They endow the story of his birth and rise to power with mythological trappings and attribute his success to the love of the goddess Ishtar.

                 Sargon claims to have extended his realm from the Upper to the Lower Sea (i.e. Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea).  From other written and archaeological sources, we have evidence which places Sargon and his grandson Naram-Sin as far abroad as Nineveh, Upper Mesopotamia, and the upper Tigris; as to Babylonia, Sargon first conquered Kish and defeated the powerful Lugalzagesi of Umma.  During 56 years of rule, he built a new capital, Agade, which so far has not been found.  His success in governing this large area is borne out by the nearly 60 years it was ruled by his sons Rimush and Man-ishtisu, and the latter’s son Naram-Sin.   

     2.   Sargon I (1850 B.C.), king of Assyria, son of Ikunum and the father of Puzur-Ashur.  Nothing is known of this king but the impression of his seal on Old Akkadian tablets.

     3.   Sargon II (722-705 B.C.), king of Assyria and Babylonia, son of Tiglath-pileser III, successor to his brother Shalmaneser V, and the father of Sennachrib.  When his brother was murdered during the siege of Samaria, an internal conflict must have been going on in Assyria which brought Sargon to the throne.

     Among his first acts was the granting of a new charter to the city of Asshur and of important privileges to sanctuaries.  At first, he was defeated near Der by Merodach-baladan, then king of Bit-Yakin, who had the assistance of the Elamite king Humbanigash I.  On the historic battlefields of Qarqar on the shores of the Orontes, he met and defeated the kings of Hamath and Damascus and the Egyptian general Sib’u.  Sargon pursued the Egyptians as far as Raphia and beat them again; he did not cross the Egyptian border.

     The next years were taken up by campaigns directed toward southeastern Asia Minor and King Midas of Muski, and the offensive against Uratu.  In both endeavors Sargon was extremely successful.  He reached Cilicia and Mediterranean coast in 712.  The conquest or reconquest of Samaria spelled the end of the kingdom of Israel, whose inhabitants were deported.  In their place were settled Arameans deported from just-conquered Hamath, later on Arabs were moved there.

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     Not until more than 10 years after his accession to the throne did Sargon turn against Babylon.  Babylon was given up without a fight, but Merodach-baladan escaped into Elam.  In 711 another insurrection caused by the king of Ashdod, and supported by Egypt was crushed.  In the following years, campaigns were made mainly toward the west, and they led to the annexation of the region between the Euphrates and the Taurus.  The menace of the Cimmerians led to minor campaigns against them, during which Sargon was killed.  Sargon’s special interest was the building of his own city, called Dur-Sharruken.  It was begun in 713 and inaugurated in 707 but hardly ever really inhabited.

SARID (ﬧיﬢש, remnant)  A border town in the territory of Zebulun (The word Sedud in the Masoretic text is likely the more correct spelling).  It is on the northern edge of the Valley of Jezreel, approximately 10 km north-northeast of Megiddo.

SARSECHIM (ﬧסﬤיםש)  The name or title of one of the Babylonian princes or eunuchs participating in the capture of Jerusalem.  If it is a title, it would mean “chief of the slaves.”

SATAN (שטן, adversary; diaboloV (dee ab oh los), instigator, slanderer)  The archfiend; chief of the devils; instigator of all evil; the rival of God; the Antichrist.  The Hebrew root satan means primarily “obstruct, oppose” (e.g. obstructing a man’s path; opposing in war; playing the part of an adversary). 

                 The archfiend was not always called Satan.  His more usual name was Belial (the Worthless One); it appears 8 times in I Samuel and II Samuel.  Satan begins in the Old Testament (OT) as a common noun, not a name.  Nowhere in the OT does Satan appear as a distinctive demonic figure, opposed to God and responsible for all evil.  In the book of Job, the member of the divine entourage who impugns the integrity of the pious man of Uz is described as “the satan,” playing the part of prosecuting attorney on a given occasion.  It is not implied that he is inherently evil, and he is clearly God’s subordinate and can act only with his consent.

                 In Zechariah 3, the celestial being who challenges the fitness of Joshua ben Jozadak to function as high priest is “the satan”; here too, no more is implied than someone serving as a temporary accuser on a divine tribunal.  In I Chronicles 21 “satan” is said to have incited David to the sin of taking a census.  It is still no proper name, but rather a spirit who is the personification of human frailty.

                 See also entries in the Old Testament Apocrypha/Influences Outside the Bible and the New Testament Apocrypha sections of the Appendix.

                 Satan is mentioned by name 33 times in the New Testament, but he appears also as “the Obstructer, Devil,” “prince of demons,” “the ruler of this world.”  Satan appears invariably as a distinctive personality.  He is represented as entering into men and as the responsible author of their evil deeds and passions.  He maliciously obstructs Christian endeavor, preventing Paul from visiting the Thessalonians.  At the same time, Satan retains the more primitive character of a noxious demon who causes bodily pains and afflictions.  It cannot be said that the New Testament makes any appreciable advance in the concept of Satan upon the time-honored fancies of Jewish popular lore.  Almost everything is paralleled from Jewish sources.  Revelation 3’s “synagogue of Satan” finds a parallel in a Dead Sea Scroll hymn as “congregation of Belial.”

                 Of special interest is the role played by Satan in apocalyptic visions of the book of Revelation.  He is described as “the great dragon,” “the ancient serpent,” and is said to be vanquished by Michael.  The label “the ancient dragon” is found in rabbinic commentaries, and is applied to the serpent in Eden.  In Revelation, the term refers to the primordial Dragon (Leviathan, Rahab, Tannin), who was said in ancient Hebrew myth to have been subdued by Yahweh at the dawn of creation.  Spirits were known in Mesopotamian folklore as the “bound gods,” because they rebelled against Anu and were thrust by their conqueror, Marduk, into nether caverns.  The idea of the serpent breaking loose again comes from an Iranian myth.  Satan has also been identified with the rebel angel Lucifer.

SATRAP (חשﬢﬧפניםא (‘ah khah sheh da reh peh neem), Hebrew spelling of Persian word meaning “protector of the land; the major English versions translate it as “presidents” in Daniel 6; the King James Version uses “lieutenant” in Ezra and Esther, while the New Revised Standard Version uses “satraps.”)  A governor of a province in the Persian Empire.

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SAUL (שאול, asked for, lent)  The name of the first king of Israel, appearing nearly 400 times in the Old Testament (OT) and once in the New Testament. 

                 Saul was a Benjaminite, son of Kish, son of Abiel.  The family home was at Gibeah, less than 5 km north of Jerusalem.  The family was also connected with Zela, for this was the burial place of Kish.  Gibeah was built on a limestone mound covering less than 1 hectare.  The city of Saul’s time was a village with a fortress, much like the castle of a king.  Saul was a creature of circumstances, the man of the hour.  He stood in a period of transition from a loose confederacy of tribes to the larger confederation under David and Solomon. 

                 From the religious point of view the tribes had some measure of unity in Shiloh.  In the wake of the Philistines, Shiloh had been laid in the dust, and the priestly leadership was no longer adequate to meet the situation.  On the political side, the Battle of Ebenezer ended tragically for Israel.  All of the central mountain territory, the center of Israelite cultic life, fell into the hands of the Philistines. The ark of the covenant had virtually disappeared from the scene of action.

                 The Philistine’s heavy hand while ruling is best illustrated by the iron monopoly which they imposed upon Israel.  The Philistines’ success doubtless encouraged Israel’s other enemies to take advantage of the situation to grab territory.  The Philistines did not go beyond the central highland, and so the Israelites rallied around the old shrine at Gilgal near the Jordan River, which became the center of worship and Saul’s kingdom.

                Saul, Samuel, and David—One of the most disconcerting episodes in the early kingdom of Israel’s history revolves around the strained relations between the “man of God” and the first king.  His first meeting with Saul occurred in connection with the lost asses of the latter’s father.  He is represented there as having reserved a place of honor for Saul and as having anointed him king in a private ceremony.  At the public investiture Samuel was the Lord’s mouthpiece or representative.  He also celebrated a great thank-offering after the anointing.  All this made a deep impression on the anointed king, who was utterly dependent on Samuel.

                 The first serious rupture between Samuel and Saul came just before the Michmash battle.  Saul conducted a sacrifice at Gilgal when Samuel was late.  Because Saul had overstepped his bounds, Samuel upbraided him for his rash act and informed him, “Now your kingdom shall not continue.”  The final breach came after the Amalekite raid.  Saul was ordered to exterminate the Amalekites without mercy, but Saul spared the king and the best sheep and cattle.  In any case, Samuel saw this act as rank insubordination to the Lord’s will and killed the Amalekite king himself.  Samuel declared unconditionally that the Lord had rejected him in favor of “a neighbor.”  The best Saul could do was to get Samuel to remain for the sacrifice.  “Samuel did not see Saul again until the day he died.”  Saul’s last contact with Samuel was with Samuel’s spirit at Endor.  Saul hoped for some word of encouragement from him; what he got was a pronouncement of doom and defeat.

                 The attempt to combine the charismatic principle of leadership with a political kingdom thus ended in failure.  The lines between political and religious functions were not yet drawn and could not be at this stage.  His responsibilities as king clashed with the principles and views of the prophets.  Because Saul was a devoted person and deeply religious, the consequences of the breach with Samuel were demoralizing and mentally unsettling.  “The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him.”

                 Two stories of David’s coming to the attention of Saul are related in the sources of I Samuel.  The first tells of the former’s coming to the court as a skilled musician, sought out to calm the disturbed mind of the king after the rupture with Samuel.  The other has David come to the notice of Saul in the Goliath episode.  But in II Samuel 21, Goliath is said to have been slain by Elhanan.  David may even have slain a giant too.  Both narratives indicate the immediate rise to favor of the young Bethlehemite in the court of Saul.  He be-came his personal attendant and armor-bearer.  The rapid rise of David, together with the unstinted praise from the people, preyed upon the already divided mind of Saul.  He was aroused to a jealousy which knew no bounds, in the wake of the withdrawal of prophetic support and the striking success of David and the transfer of the divine blessing from himself to David.

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                 First, in one of his melancholic fits, he attempted to pin David to the wall with a spear.  Then he persuaded him to marry his daughter, and spurred David on in further exploits with the Philistines in the hope that he might be killed.  Next Saul tried to influence Jonathan and his servants to kill him.  Jonathan interceded with his father on behalf of his friend and secured a pledge that David should not be put to death.  David distinguished himself in further skirmishes with the Philistines, but again Saul attempted to thrust David through with his spear.   At the Feast of the New Moon, Saul flew into an uncontrollable rage when he discovered David’s planned absence. Jonathan risked his own life in a futile endeavor to reason with him.

                 Saul poisoned the minds of his bodyguard against David.  Since the priests at Nob had unwittingly assisted David, he had them murdered in cold blood.  David was in Horesh and Saul went after him, but David escaped to the Desert of Maon.  Saul heard that David was at Engedi and set out to hunt him down there.  His life was in David’s hands there, but the latter demonstrated that Saul’s fear of him was ill-founded.  Saul returned home once more after swearing an oath with David.  Once more Saul pursued David, this time in the Wilderness of Ziph.  David could have killed him, and Abishai wanted to thrust Saul through, but David would not be guilty of laying a hand on the Lord’s anointed.  Saul acknowledged his error in attempting to kill David.  This was to be the last meeting between the two rivals.

                 King Saul and Saul’s Kingdom—There at least two different stories dealing with the choice of Saul as king.  Both of them belong to the earlier source of Samuel.  The first story centers in the episode of the lost asses of Kish.  When they inquired after the whereabouts of the seer, Samuel informed them that he was the seer.  He pressed them to attend the sacrifice at the high place.  The next morning, Samuel anointed Saul.  The majority of the people accepted the choice of Saul at a sacral meeting at Mizpah.

                 The second story of Saul’s rise to power is connected with the move of the Ammonites against Jabesh in Gilead.  In response to the threat of Nahash the Ammonite, an embassy was sent to Gibeah to plead for help.  “The spirit of God came mightily upon Saul . . . and his anger was greatly kindled.”  He sacrificed a “yoke of oxen” and sent the pieces to the people of the territory.  This had the effect of binding them in a covenantal relationship and of pledging them to follow the inspired leader. 

                 Here is a clear reflection of the charismatic principle operative in the time of the judges.  Immediately after Saul’s return from the deliverance of the citizens of Jabesh, the people again raised their voices, making him king.  The factors that combined to put Saul in office were: the charismatic power which indicated the presence of the Lord; the official act of anointing at Gilgal; and the popular demand and assent.

                 The first act of Saul was the reduction of the Philistine outpost at Gibeah, which he established as his seat of government.  Jonathan and his armor bearer’s courageous exploit threw fear into the enemy camp and roused his fellows to action.  The result was a telling local victory; it marked the beginning of Israel’s earnest resistance against the foe.  The Philistines were driven out of the central highland as far as Aijalon.  Saul also raided the Amalekites, who doubtless had taken advantage of the earlier situation to expand their own territory.  Saul restored to Jabesh what they had taken.

                 Saul pressed his early advantage and carried the war to the Philistines.  The Goliath episode is connected with the next campaign southwest of Gibeah.  This campaign served to push the enemy still farther toward his own borders.  The expansion of Saul’s movements must have been keenly felt by the Philistines.  The threatened severance of their trade precipitated Saul’s last battle with them at Gilboa; Saul’s army was defeated.  Saul seems to have checked the further advances by the Philistines, who never again penetrated the hill country.  While they were not decisively beaten, they were definitely challenged and measurably weakened.

                 The Bible presents Saul as a rejected king because he didn’t always follow prophetic commands.  But he was hardly to be blamed so severely as a cursory reading of the sources might indicate.  He held the enemies of his people in check and made his people relatively secure throughout his reign.  Saul set the stage for his wiser successor, David, by developing a kind of separation of functions of church and state.  The times demanded political leadership beyond the old charismatic appeal of a “judge.”  Saul took the first step which marked the transition from judge to king, which was not fully realized until Solomon took over the kingdom.

                 As a person Saul was a commanding figure; he could inspire his followers with unbounded zeal.  He was also a man of conscience.  He admitted his guilt on numerous occasions but was not forgiven.  The kingdom of Saul was only a loosely organized confederacy and of necessity so.  Saul had the support of his own tribe (Benjamin), Ephraim, Manasseh, and Judah.  The capital was just a fortress-town and very modest indeed. 

SAUL OF TARSUS.  See the Paul entry in this section.

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SAW (מגﬧה (meh gee rah))  In primitive form, a knife with a notched blade sometimes provided with a pistol-grip handle.  Early saws cut only on the push or the pull of the stroke, not on both.  The saw was a familiar implement of the Israelite woodcutter, and stone-working with saws is referred to in the account of the building of Solomon’s temple.  Traditionally Isaiah’s martyrdom was death by saw.

SCAB (פﬨיל (yah leh fet))  An itching disease.

SCALES (פלס (peh les), balance)  A device used in weighing by putting standard weights on one side, the object to be weighed on the other.  See Balance entry and Weights and Measures entry.

SCALES (FISH) (קשﬨקש (ka sheh keh shet), also used for armor; lepiV (leh pees), shell)  Tiny, shell-like pieces which cover the skin of fish.  Only fish with both scales and fins are permitted as food for the Israelite.  Lepis  is used in metaphor to explain Paul’s regaining his sight in Acts 9.

SCAPEGOAT.  See Azazel.

SCARECROW (ﬨמﬧ (tah mar), palm tree)  Probably a pillar, crudely shaped in human form and set up to frighten away birds or vandals.  Jeremiah 10 compares pagan idols to “scarecrows in a cucumber field.”

SCARF  (ﬧעלוﬨ (reh ‘awl oth), veils)  According to Arab tradition, a double veil, one part of which was placed around the head above the eyes and the other below the eyes.

SCARLET (שני (shaw nee); ﬨולעﬨ (toe law ‘at), worm used to get scarlet dye; kokkinoV (kok kee nos), worm used to get scarlet dye)  A highly prized brilliant red color obtained from the female bodies of certain insects.  Shades of scarlet varied; results of dyeing were unpredictable. Probably the more lasting hues were produced with the aid of alum to make the color more lasting.

                 It is likely that the Phoenicians developed the scarlet industry.  Kermes was used both for dyeing and for medicinal purposes.  To the Hebrews scarlet was an important dye and color.  Yarns dyed scarlet were used extensively alone and with linen and yarns of blue and purple for the tabernacle furnishings.  Scarlet clothing was associated with well-being and was also represented as the dress of Jerusalem’s harlot.  In Revelation 17 of the New Testament, the woman is dressed in purple and scarlet and is seated on a scarlet beast. 

SCENTED WOOD (quinon (thie in on), aromatic evergreen tree)  An import prized by the apocalyptic “Babylon and its people (Rev. 18).  “Pliny the Elder” calls the tree “citrus” and says that this fragrant wood, imported from Africa (Libya), was employed by the Romans in the manufacture of furniture, particularly tables.  Because of its aromatic scent this wood was also used by the Greeks in connection with temple worship.

     

SCEPTER (מחקק (meh kho kek); שבט (shay bet), rod, staff)  The official staff or baton of the king, emblematic of his authority and, specifically, of his striking power.  A ceremonial staff—the stylized descendant of humankind’s most ancient weapon, the club—is an almost invariable feature of near Eastern royal portraits.  The scepter of Yahweh, the supreme king, is the tribe of Judah to which the Davidic monarch belonged.  Davidic kingship is an extension of the divine authority.  The Hebrew word shabit has a more general use for any kind of rod.  Two main types of scepter are pictured in ancient art: a long slender staff with an ornamented head; and a short-handled battle-mace.  The long staff is seen in a relief of the Persian kind Darius.  The mace type of scepter appears in a relief of Esar-haddon of Assyria.

SCEVA (SeuaV)  A Jewish high priest whose seven sons at Ephesus were exorcising evil spirits in the name of Jesus.  Paul was just concluding two years at Ephesus when an outburst of healing miracles by his hands occurred, particularly the casting out of demons.  The seven sons of Sceva attempted this, but the demon challenged their authority, and drove them away humiliated.

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                 No record of a high priest named Sceva has been discovered; Sceva was a name of Latin origin.  It was common for a Jew to have both a Hebrew name and a Greek name.  The reference to itinerant Jewish exorcists agrees with what we know otherwise of Jewish preoccupation with such matters.  The Jewish historian Josphesus tells of King Solomon and of one Eleazar who could cast out demons.  That these Jews tried to cast out demons in the name of Jesus reminds us that the same thing occurred during the ministry of Jesus.  In the context of its time there is not an item in the story which lacks authenticity.

SCHIN (ש)  The 21^st letter of the Hebrew alphabet as placed in the King James Version at the head of the 21^st section of the acrostic psalm, where each verse of this section of the psalm begins with this letter.

SCHOOL. See Education

SCIENCE.

                 Egypt—In spite of the deep admiration expressed by Herodotus, Aristotle, and Democritus, the truth seems to be that Egyptian mathematics has been a factor of only secondary importance in the civilization of Egypt.  The Egyptian script possessed special signs for units, tens, hundreds, thousands, and millions.  Addition and subtraction were by the accurate counting of these signs.  Multiplication and division were executed on the basis of the principle of duplication, the sum of numbers representing the powers of 2 that add up to the first number, each power of two being multiplied by the second number, or the sum of dividing each of the powers of 2 that add up to the number to be divided.  In general only fractions with the numerator 1 are used.  Besides being able to compute the areas of triangles, and trapezoids, the Egyptians empirically found the relatively accurate value of 3.1605 for the value of π.

                 See also Astronomy.

                 What has been called “the Pharaohs’ secret science,” supposedly the astronomical and mathematical significance of the pyramids, is not in accordance with archaeological research.  From almost 3,000 years of Egyptian writing, the only texts which have come to us and deal with a numerical prediction of astronomical events and evidence for the zodiac belong to the period influenced by Greek and Roman culture in the 100s B.C.  The earlier astronomical documents are crude observational schemes, partly religious, partly practical in purpose. By a special set of constellations the year is divided into 36 “decans,” each of which corresponds to ⅓ of a zodiac sign.  Every ten days a different star was chosen to mark the last hour of the night.  

                 Until 1875 the achievements of Egyptian medicine were known only through the Greek writers.  At that time the discovery of documents about prescriptions and surgery from the 18^th Dynasty (1570-1375 B.C.), and prescriptions from the 19^th Dynasty (1303-1202) modified our knowledge.  Precise knowledge of the internal structure of the human body is lacking.  Sicknesses of the respiratory system, larynx, bronchi, and pulmonary lobes are classified after the common symptom of cough.  Under sicknesses of the stomach are: gastric discomforts; hemorrhage; and fever, as well as cough and diabetes.  The knowledge of the exterior parts of the body, head and skull, and face (ears, mouth, and eyes) is considerably more precise and advanced.  Wounds of the skull and face, migraine, fracture of the nose, inflammatory conditions of the ear, diseases of the teeth, and cataracts are among the ills which can be determined with more or less certainty.

                 Considerable portions of the documents refer to matters which in modern terms would come under the heading of gynecology.  It is in surgery that the achievements of the Egyptian physicians appear to be most advanced.  Such devices as the use of some sort of adhesive tape, of stitches to close a wound, of splints, and of a tube to insert food into the mouth of a patient struck by tetanus, seem to be well attested.

                Mesopotamia—The study of Mesopotamian mathematics is a recently developed branch of research.  Mesopotamian mathematical documents fall into two groups, “table” texts and “problem” texts.  They date from the “Old Babylonian” period (1800-1600 B.C.), and the “Seleucid” period (300-1 B.C.).  In the first, mathematics appears as a fully developed discipline.  The “Seleucid” documents, over a millennia later, show little change.  In spite of the numerical and algebraic skill and in spite of the abstract interest which is conspicuous in so many examples, the contents of Babylonian mathematics remained profoundly elementary.

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                The basic principle of Mesopotamian arithmetic is the consistent use of a positional system based on 60.  There is, however clear evidence for other systems of notation.  The presence of special cuneiform signs for 1, 10, and 100 points toward the decimal system.  It is only in the Seleucid period that a special sign for “zero” is generally used.  The advantages of the Babylonian place-value system over the Egyptian additive computation are so obvious that the base-60 system was adopted for all astronomical computations not only by the Greek but also by India, Islamic, and European astronomers.  Mesopotamians also possessed tables of squares and square roots, of cubes and cube roots.

                 Three preliminary remarks are in order. First, the use of the term “algebra” as applied to the contents of certain Mesopotamian mathematical texts seems to be justified by the fact that they contain problems resulting in equations of the first and second order, with one or more unknowns, which are solved by means similar to that used in “modern” algebra.  As to geometry, spatial relations were considered of importance only insofar as they led to algebraic equations.  Knowledge of the Pythagorean theorem is implied in the solution of a problem which involves the determination of the length, width and diagonal of a rectangle.  Among the other mathematical texts found at Susa are tablets which give the computation of the radius of a circle.  The volume of cubes and parallelograms is correctly calculated.  The volume of the truncated pyramid is calculated by an approximate formula.

                 In terms of astronomy, the planets of regular movement (“inner” planets), such as Venus, were studied without dividing the ecliptic; for others, like Mars, an “outer” planet, a division of the ecliptic into 6 parts was necessary, and the movement of these planets with each of these 6 parts was considered “regular.”  It should be stated that the conditions and observation tools set limits to the precision of the phenomena observed.  From the older period date documents which deal with celestial signs.  In this connection and in connection with the spread of “Chaldean” astrology, it should be remembered that the rise of astrology in Mesopotamia and astrology with horoscopes is rather recent.  The earliest horoscope in Mesopotamia dates from 410 B.C.

                 See also Astronomy.

                 The larger majority of medical texts come from the royal library of Ashurbanipal (600s B.C.) and from temple archives.  A Sumerian text from around 2100 B.C. from Nippur contains a series of prescriptions with resorting to magical practices.  In another Assyrian text, a repertory apparently composed by an individual physician is given which lists plants with the corresponding disease and the proper method of preparation and application.  To the Kassite period belongs a group of tablets which deal with diagnosis and prognosis.  In some texts a general classification after such symptoms as fever, skin disease, partial or general paralysis, and troubles attributed to possession by a demon or witchcraft, is given.  Mesopotamian compilators introduced some kind of order among the medical documents by classifying them after the afflicted parts of the body.

                 Little direct information exists on surgery.  In general it is clear from indirect evidence that serious and delicate operations were successfully executed.  In spite of the fact that in many instances the documents deal side by side with magic and medicine, a distinct tendency to separate the two procedures and to adopt a more enlightened method of approach is apparent.  The notion of the importance of the evolution of a disease, the recognition of the possibility of more than one diagnosis in the case of identical symptoms, and the observation of a regular pattern are all indications of the same trend.  The products of Mesopotamian pharmacists and druggists enjoyed wide popularity in the Near East.

                 Israel—In our main source, the Bible, the data on ancient Hebrew science are incidental and very small in number.  In addition, the political misfortunes of Israel hardly ever permitted the creation of conditions favorable to scientific activity.  There is no evidence for anything even approaching an organized discipline of mathematics in the Bible.  The extent of ancient Hebrew knowledge of geometry can only be guessed from references to its use for surveying purposes which made practical skill necessary.

SCOFFER  (לוץ (lotes), mock, scorn; ﬧףח (khaw ref), reproach)  Lots is one of several parallel expressions used, mostly in the book of Proverbs (chap. 1, 9, 13-15, 19, 21, 22, 24), to describe the man who rejects wisdom’s path.  He scoffs at the way of wisdom and right, for the sake of scoffing, and is a source of strife, quarreling, and abuse.  He is identified with the man of arrogant pride.  The psalmist describes his suffering in terms of the kharef or taunts of his enemies or even his friends (chap. 42, 44, 55, 74, 89, 102); the psalmist endures. “Taunt” further appears in a series of synonyms for utter devastation by divine judgment in Jer. 24, 42, 44, 49.

SCORPION  (עקﬧב (‘ah keh rawb), scourge)  An arachnid of which there are a dozen species in Palestine and 90% of which are the yellow scorpion.  Most carry a poisonous sting at the end of the tail, which is fatal to their prey and extremely painful even to man.  Figuratively, Rehoboam threatens his people with a worse yoke than his father, Solomon, as much worse as a scorpion is than a whip.

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                 Jesus, in giving the 70 authority over serpents and scorpions, was referring to everything opposed to himself.  Fathers are wise and know better than to give a child harmful things like a scorpion; God is even wiser and knows how to answer requests.  The first to strike those not sealed upon their foreheads is giant locusts with stings like scorpions (Revelation 9). 

SCOURGE  (שבט (shay bet), rod; שוט (showt), whip)  Beating with rod or staff was a form of discipline and punishment dealt out to slaves, children, and to fools.  As a penalty of legal courts, 40 strokes are the maximum allowed by the law of Deuteronomy 25; the laws fail to specify which crimes are punished by scourging.  The offender was placed in a reclining position and beaten under the supervision of the judge.  Later Jewish law punished with scourging contraventions of biblical prohibitions not otherwise penalized.  One third of the strokes were laid upon the culprit’s chest and two thirds on his back.

                 Roman practice in scourging varied with the status of the culprit.  Freemen might be beaten with rods of elm or birch.  Slaves, aliens, and criminals condemned to death might be beaten with a whip of knotted cord or leather straps, often weighted with pieces of metal or bone to aggravate the torture.

SCREEN  (מסך (maw sawk), covering; katapetasma (ka ta peh tas ma, veil, curtain)  The priestly term for the three screens of the tabernacle furnishings.  The first screen separates the Holy of Holies from the rest of the tent.  This screen was the richest material of the three, a colored linen with the same cherubic decorations on its inside as on the rest of the hangings of the Holy of Holies.  The second screen was at the entrance of the tent itself, made of the same linen material but without the cherubim.  The third screen was at the gate of the court, made of the same material as the screen at the tent door.

                 No veil or screen is mentioned in Solomon’s temple.  For Herod’s temple the evidence is not conclusive.  Verses in Matthew 27, Mark 15, and Luke 23 record the rending of the inmost veil when Jesus died.

SCRIBE  (סופﬧ (so fer); grammateuV (gram mah tayoos), clerk)  The original scribe, or sopher, was a person able to “cipher,” from this came the meaning of “secretary” or “scribe.”  The term is applied to an official who had charge of legal documents.  The scribe appears to have been a minister of finance.  Hezekiah’s scribe, Shebna, was secretary of state as well.  Thus in pre-exilic times the term had no religious significance, but applied to a purely secular office.

                 There was another, priestly class, among whom the art of writing was cultivated.  The spiritual ancestors of the scribes of later Judaism were the pre-exilic priestly exponents of the law.  The scribes as a professional class of “doctors of the law” had their origins in the conditions of the Exile.  These early scribes cannot, however, have been simply jurists in the narrower sense; they were also the wise men.  It is also undoubtedly to this class of post-exilic doctors of the law that we owe the fixing of the canon of the Old Testament.  They were men of (sacred) letters, occupying themselves in gathering together Israel’s sacred literature.

                 It was at the time of the restoration under Ezra the scribe that the Sopherim emerged as a distinctive and influential professional class of teachers and interpreters of the law.  Ezra is the archetype these earliest post-exilic doctors of the law.  Like Ezra the priest-scribe, the scribes of the restoration were drawn from priests and Levite families, forming themselves into guilds or clans (I Chronicles 2).  According to rabbinic tradition, the period following the restoration was characterized by the rule of the Men of the Great Synagogue.           

                 See also entry in the Old Testament Apocrypha/Influences Outside the Bible section of the Appendix.

                 The scribes are mentioned a number of times in the New Testament (Matthew 9, 13; Mark 9).  Individual scribes are featured in the gospel narrative at Mark12.  These references show clearly that they represented a distinctive class in the community.  Most other references occur in combination with associated groups.  The phrase “some of the scribes belonging to the sect of the Pharisees,” implies that there were scribes with other sectarian affiliations, such as Sadducean scribes. 

     Mark associates scribes with chief priests and elders; the order of importance beginning with the most important is chief priests, scribes, and elders.  These three groups make up the Sanhedrin.  The chief priests were the heads of the priestly class.  The scribes were obviously a special, high-ranking group in the Sanhedrin.  Next to the high priest and his family, this group of Sanhedrin scribes represented the leading personages in the Jewish bureaucracy of the time.

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     The chief priests must have belonged, chiefly if not exclusively, to the party of the Sadducees.  The Sanhedrin scribes most likely adhered strongly to the sect of the Pharisees, but also included Sadducean scribes.  But they may have been entirely Pharisees; they may have shared rule with the priestly aristocracy, mainly Sadducean.  The next important evidence from the gospels is the combination of “Pharisees and scribes” found at Mark 7.  The phrase just mentioned is not a stereotyped formula.  In Mark’s passage it is a substitute for a long phrase used earlier.  This was a definite group of Pharisees with a certain number of Jerusalem scribes.  Since Jesus was being challenged on a point of law, his interrogators must have been the scribes from Jerusalem.  There is a quite different situation with the combination “scribes and Pharisees” (Luke 6; 11).  It almost certainly represents a later historical perspective; the scribes, as professional lawyers, were much more important than the nonprofessional members of the party.

     The main business of the scribes was teaching and interpreting the law.  This consisted mainly in the transmission of traditional legal judgments, known as Halachah, and distinguished from Haggadah, or educational religious discourse.  Their authority, but not their ability to serve as models of behavior, is recognized at Matthew 23.  There are, however, also more spiritually minded scribes in the gospels.  It was to their faithful transmission of the religion of Israel in the Greek and Roman periods that we owe the preservation of our Old Testament scriptures, together with the foundation in Judaism of the Christian religion.

SCRIPTURES, AUTHORITY OF.  The Bible has been acknowledged as authoritative by Christians in every century, including the first.  In the apostolic days, the church used what we call the Old Testament (OT) as its Bible.  The Christian Bible as a book of 2 testaments came to be accepted as authoritative in the same sense as the Jewish Bible was accepted.  Thus, church and Bible are inseparable; there never was a time when the church existed without the Bible.  Although it is clear that the Bible is authoritative, it is not always easy to define its authority.  That became one of the most urgent and difficult questions in the 20^th century.

                 The New Testament (NT) writers regard the scriptures of the OT as completely authoritative.  They have taken over rabbinic Judaism’s view.  The attitude of the whole apostolic church is summed up in the words addressed by Paul to Timothy.  “From childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation. . . Every scripture inspired by God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (II Timothy 3).  

                 Thus, the words of scripture could be cited as the direct utterance of God.  Moses and the prophets had spoken God’s truth to every succeeding generation.  The apostolic church believed that God had revealed his character and purpose to the patriarchs and that the Jewish scriptures were the written record of this revelation.  These scriptures could only be understood in the light of Christ’s fulfillment of them.  The Jews themselves could not rightly comprehend them, because they did not possess the key to their mysteries—namely Christ.  The Sacred Scriptures recorded the witness of the prophets to the Christ who was to come.

                 The apostolic church believed that God had indeed spoken through the Scriptures.  The idea behind the phrase “every scripture inspired by God” is that God has breathed into the dry dust of the scriptural words the breath of life.  In fact, the apostolic church did not believe in the “inspiration” of scripture in the sense in which later Christians, influenced by pagan ideas came to believe in it.  Only understanding the scripture through the Spirit can breathe life into it. 

                 No official doctrine of biblical authority was put forward during the period from the apostolic age to the 1800s.  Marcion questioned the authority of the OT and Clement and Origen of Alexandria found difficulties in its literal interpretation, which they ease by their allegorical method (See Allegory).  The authority of the Scriptures was accepted by all parties to the Christological and other controversies of the ancient church.  Calvin’s theology was a matter of deducing and systematizing the truths which were contained in the inerrant words of scripture.  Because of the historical method of the 1800s, it was now no longer possible to believe in the literal inerrancy of scripture.  So, in what sense could it still be believed that the Bible is authoritative?   

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                Biblical Authority Problem—Frightened by the excesses of criticism, conservatives began to lay emphasis upon the literal inerrancy of the Bible, as inspired or even dictated by the Holy Spirit.  The unbiblical word “inspiration” became the storm center of controversy, and the term “fundamentalism” has been widely applied to this type of view.  The widespread attitude that scientific truth is the only kind of truth is paradoxically the great strength of the fundamentalist position: since there is no other truth than literal truth, either the stories of Genesis 1-3 are a literal, scientific account of creation, or they are false; there is no such thing as poetic truth.  It has been abundantly demonstrated that criticism and biblical theology belong together.

    Sometimes it is suggested that the Bible is authoritative because of the authority of the church.  The church is the supreme authority even over the Scriptures.  This solution confuses authority with authorization; the church authorized the canon of the Bible, but it did not confer its authority upon it.  The church recognized an authority which it did not create.

     In the early years of the 1900s liberal theologians developed the view that the authority of scripture results from the fact that the Bible is the normative record of man’s developing religious experience.  The people of the Bible were religious geniuses. This theory doesn’t fit the biblical evidence itself; the prophets don’t fall easily into the class of “religious genius,” nor did their backsliding audience have a genius for religion.  

     Closely related to the foregoing theory is the view that the progressive revelation of God’s will and character commends itself to the rational moral consciousness of the human race.  The Bible is the record of a progressive revelation which at each stage of human spiritual evolution is authoritative.  But, why did the spiritual consciousness of humankind stop evolving about the end of the first century A.D., why may we not expect progressive revelation to continue, and why should we not look for new Christs?

     Toward the middle of the 1900s a new conception of inspiration was put forward.  The inspired minds of the sacred writers perceived the truths of revelation and gave expression to them in great prophetic images which convey the biblical truth in much the same way as poetry, drama, or parables convey truth in other fields.  This theory has the great advantage of delivering us from literalism while yet at the same time it takes the biblical revelation very seriously.  Its danger lies in wandering too far from the literal meaning, and having too much emphasis on allegorical meanings.

     A More Adequate View—There is doubtless truth in each of the above views; the defect of all them is that they say little about God’s action in history.  A truer view starts from the fact that Israel’s history, culminating in Jesus Christ and his church, is unique history with a significance paralleled by no other historical development.  The Scriptures have no authority apart from Christ.  If Christ is authoritative (“Lord”), then the Bible is authoritative.  If Christ is unique, then the Bible is unique, because the Bible is a book of history.

     Scripture’s authority consists in the fact that the Bible is the authoritative historical witness to Christ.  It is the testimony of those who actually saw and witnessed to God’s saving acts in history.  This is the significance of both the OT and the NT.  Outside the Bible there is no historical testimony to Christ.  This is why the NT canon closes about the end of the first century A.D.: there is no more historical witness to be had, for those who had been in touch with the original eyewitnesses had now almost all passed away.  God’s saving act in history, represented in the NT by eyewitness testimony to the Christ event, is the whole Bible’s theme

     The Bible is essentially a book of witness, and it is this in a twofold sense.  It contains human witness to the events which the minds of the prophets and apostles, illuminated by God’s Spirit, perceived to be the saving acts of God in Israel’s history.  On the other hand, it becomes the means through which the Holy Spirit bears testimony in our hearts to the truth of God’s salvation; the Bible is the Word of God.  But its words are nonetheless human words—the poor, inadequate, stammering words of people who were subject to all the limitations of their historical situation.

     Like all human words and sentences, the scriptural writings are historically conditioned and therefore fallible; yet they express the deepest truth about humans and their relation to God that can be reached by finite and sinful beings.  In the Bible the testimony of the Holy Spirit is perfectly united with the human testimony of the prophetic and apostolic witnesses.  To those who are not yet ready to acknowledge Jesus as Lord, the Bible may perhaps possess other kinds of authority: insights of religious genius, compelling rational conceptions of God’s nature, and compelling moral conceptions of God’s purpose.  In the last resort the authority of the Bible is apprehended by those to whom the Spirit of God has brought conviction through the words of its human writers.

SCROLLS, DEAD SEA.  See Dead Sea Scrolls.

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SCULPTURED STONES  (פסילים (peh see leem), carved images, quarries)  The precise meaning of the Hebrew word in Judges 3 is not evident.  Elsewhere it refers to cultic representations of deities.  The references in Judges 3 are to hewn or dressed stones, set in a certain formation.  They may have served as a boundary marker between Moab and the neighboring territory.

SCURVY  (גﬧב (gaw rawb))  Not true scurvy, but a fungus disease such as ringworm. 

SCYTHIANS.  A nomadic people speaking an Indo-Iranian dialect, originating in southern Russia and moving through the Caucasus into the Near East.  At the beginning of the 700s B.C. the first waves of Eurasian nomads came on horseback into the Near East.  The Scythians became the allies of Assyria, while the Medes sided with Babylonia.  The Scythians went on a raid along the Phoenician coast to Egypt, where Pharaoh Psammetichus (663-609) turned them back by paying them off.  The Scythians are referred to in the Old Testament under the name Ashkenaz, and the threat of their raid through Palestine is often cited as the occasion for the book of Zephaniah.