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TAANACH  (ﬨﬠנך)  A Canaanite and later Israelite Levitical town at the base of the Mount Carmel mountain ridge in northern Israel, midway between the Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea.  Taanach is identified with the Tell Ta’annak, midway between Megiddo and Jenin.  In antiquity it commanded two trade routes. 

                 The earliest occupation belongs to the 2500s B.C.  The site was again occupied from the late 1600s to the early 1400s.  The most important archaeological finds at the site, consisting of a dozen whole and fragmentary cuneiform tablets, belong to the occupation of the late 1400s.  During the Amarna Age (1300s) the site was inhabited again.  After the Israelite invasion of Palestine in the late 1200s, Taanach was allotted to Manasseh, and was assigned to the children of Kohath as a Levitical city.  Contrary to Joshua 12, Judges 1 makes it clear that Manasseh was unable to take full possession of the town, because of Canaanite strength.

                 The site was probably occupied in the late 1100s B.C., and was probably the nearest inhabited town to the battle Deborah and Barak fought with Sisera.  Taanach prospered under David and Solomon.  Occupation during the United Monarchy ended with its destruction by Shishak of Egypt in the course of his Palestinian campaign around 918.  Whether the site was inhabited during Iron II (900-500) is uncertain; it was reoccupied during late classical times (300s B.C.) and again in the Arab period (600s A.D.). 

TAANATH-SHILOH (שלה ﬨאנﬨ, approach to Shiloh)  A village on the northeast boundary of Ephraim, around 11 km. southeast of Shechem on a mountain where it may have served as a fortress in ancient times. 

TABBAOTH (ﬨבﬠוﬨ, (seal) rings, impressions) Head of a family of temple servants returned from Exile.

TABBATH  ( טבﬨ, celebrated)  A place east of the Jordan where Gideon ended his pursuit of the Midianites.  It must have been in the vicinity of Karkor, where they rallied their forces.  Tabbath must therefore have been in the mountains of eastern Gilead.  A probable identification of the site is Ras Abu Tabat, on the slopes of the Jebel ‘Ajlun. 

TABEEL  (טבאל, God is good)  1.  An Aramean, the father of a man whom the allied kings Rezin of Damascus and Pekah of Israel intended to set up in Jerusalem as a puppet king in place of the Davidic king Ahaz (Is.
7).
           2. An Aramean in Samaria who was a party to a letter to Artaxerses I endeavoring to prevent the reconstruction of Jerusalem (Ezra 4).

TABER (ﬨפף (ta faf), beat) The King James Version uses this archaic English word to translate the Hebrew.

TABERAH  (ﬨבﬠﬧה, burning)  A stopping place of the Israelites in the wilderness. Here the people, complaining about misfortune, provoked the Lord to anger.  He sent his fire among them, destroying a part of the camp.  It is not listed in the itinerary of Numbers 33.  The location is not known.

TABERNACLE (ﬤןמש (me sheh kawn), habitation, dwelling; ﬢשמק or ﬢשק (me keh dawsh or keh desh), holy place, sanctuary; אהל מﬠﬢ (‘oh hel mo ade), tent of the congregation; משﬤן הﬠﬢוﬨ (me sheh kawn ha ‘eh dooth), tabernacle of the testimony) A sacred tent, a portable sanctuary, said to have been erected by Moses. It was the place at which the God of Israel revealed God’s self to and dwelt among his people, and also housed the ark. It is stated that it was located in several places in Canaan after Israel’s settlement in that land and finally was replaced by Solomon’s temple. 
         

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                 The biblical account of the tabernacle begins in the Priestly (P) sources with Ex. 25-31, which contains Yahweh’s instructions to Moses in the form of a specification of sizes and materials, etc.; and continues with Ex. 35-40, largely a past tense repetition of Ex. 25-31.  This section presents the instructions in the following order:  materials and furniture; tabernacle shrine and shrine tent; entrance screen; sacrificial altar; tabernacle court; priestly clothing; consecrating sacrifices; incense altar and offerings.  There are considerable differences as to order, extent, and translation in the primary Greek version of chapters 35-40.  The Letter to the Hebrews offers the first Christian interpretation of the priestly tabernacle.

     Priestly Tabernacle:  Dwelling and Erection—The main narrative in Ex. 26 describes the tabernacle as a tent of 10 curtains, each 28 by 4 cubits (12.7 m. by 1.8 m.).  These 10 curtains of violet, purple, and scarlet fabric with woven cherubim were to be joined in 2 sets of 5 (63.4 m. by 1.8 m.) and the two curtains were be connected by 50 gold clasps.  Over this there was to be a tent of goats hair made of 5 and 6 curtains coupled by hooks, of a total size of 40 by 30 cubits (6 m. by 4.5 m.).  The tent was to have two coverings, one a covering of rams’ skins dyed red, and the other a covering of skins of dugong.

     The curtains were supported by 48 acacia frames.  For a long time it was thought that these frames were thick boards or beams.  These frames consisted of two long, light side arms, connected at top, middle, and foot by cross rungs, with two silver bases for each frame.  These silver bases were thus a continuous foundation around the dwelling.  The frames were further held together by 5 bars.  The frames and the bars were plated with gold.  The front, of course, had no frames, for it was simply enclosed by curtains.

     Next came the veil, separating the holy of holies from the holy place, and the screen which served at the door of the holy place.  Of the two parts thus separated by the veil, the outer was twice the size of the inner.  The screen was made of the same material as the screen at the entry of the court and hung from golden hooks on 5 gold-plated pillars of acacia wood.  The over-all structure of the tabernacle thus reveals three cubes, one for the most holy place, and the other two for the outer holy place.

      Like the pattern, place, and mode of erection, the time of the dwelling’s erection is also revealed.  The Lord instructs Moses to erect the tabernacle on the 1^st day of the 1^st month of the 2^nd year of the Exodus, 9 months after the arrival at the sacred mountain.  When the work is finished then the dwelling is ready for the divine inhabitant whose cloud now covers the tent of meeting.  The cloud’s behavior on or above the dwelling is the signal for Israel to advance or remain encamped.  The tent of meeting is at the center of the camp with Levites on 3 sides, and with Moses, Aaron, and his sons on the 4^th and east side.  Then 3 tribes of Israel are on each side of the four-sided shape thus formed.  Judah occupies the center of the east side, Ephraim is in the center of the west, and Reuben in the south.  The Levites who served the tabernacle are no fewer than 8,580.

     These arrangements depict a diminishing of holiness from the center outward.  In the same way there is a diminishing in the value of the metals used, fine gold at the very center, then ordinary gold, then silver, and lastly bronze.  The best gold is used for the ark, the mercy seat, the candlestick and its utensils.  Ordinary gold is used for the moldings and rings and staves of the ark.  Silver is used for the bases of the frames and of the pillars of the veil.  Bronze is used for the altar of burnt offering, the laver, or large basin, and the altar utensils. 

     The same symbolic gradation is probably true of the dimensions.  The holy of holies, like the New Jerusalem, is a perfect cube matching the perfection of the presence.  The holy place is two cubes.  It is this graduated holiness and perfection which also explains why the people may come as far as the court, the priests may enter the holy place, and only the high priest the holy of holies but once a year.

     A blast from the silver trumpets was the signal to strike camp.  The priest took down the veil and wrapped it around the ark.  In the same way all the sanctuary’s furniture was wrapped.  The carrying was entrusted to the Levites’ 1^st guild.  The 2^nd guild, the Gershonites, transported the tabernacle’s curtains, the tent of meeting with coverings, etc.  The 3^rd guild, Merari’s sons, removed the frames, bars, pillars, and bases of the dwelling.

     Such is the P’s account of the sacred dwelling of the wilderness period, and it was the one place for worship and sacrifice, and the focal point of P’s view of the divine order of Israel’s cult.  After Numbers there is very little to learn about P’s dwelling.  The ark is the leading feature in the passage of Jordan, but nothing is said of the tent of meeting.  A verse from Josh. 18 and 19 tells us that the people Israel set up the tent of meeting at Shiloh.  After Shiloh’s destruction, the ark eventually was left in Abinadab’s house at Kirath-jearim.  The priests of Eli’s house appear to have gone to Nob and grown to 85 in number. All were eventually slain by Doeg the Edomite for helping David by giving him the bread of the presence and Goliath’s sword.  There is no reference to the tent, but it may be assumed that it was used as the sanctuary at Nob.

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     Materials and Furniture—God commands that the materials of the tabernacle are to be from the gifts of the people, gifts of:  gold, silver, and bronze; blue, purple, scarlet stuff, and fine twined linen; goats’ hair, tanned rams’ skins, goatskins; acacia wood and lamp oil, and stones for the ephod and the breastpiece.  There was ordinary and refined gold treated in various ways.  The bronze was an alloy of copper and probably tin.

     There is no need to seek symbolic meaning in the colors; they simply represent what was available.  The red of the goatskins is one of the oldest and most characteristic features of ancient Semitic religion.  The fine twined linen was a superior fabric from finer flax.  The list of materials is followed by a definition of the purpose.  The pattern is divinely revealed so that there can be made a dwelling place, a tabernacle for Yahweh’s presence.  This conception dominates the P account and is the basic theology of the Jerusalem cults. 

     The narrative proceeds in Ex. 25 with the construction of the ark, P’s ark.  It had a more elaborate design than the ark of the other traditions, and was an oblong chest of acacia wood overlaid with gold, approximately 110 by 67 by 67 cm., and it contained the testimony—possibly the Decalogue or other documents of covenant requirements.  Before it were to be placed a pot of manna and Aaron’s rod.  Resting on the ark in the form of a solid slab of gold, was the mercy seat.  At each end of the seat were the little figures of refined gold known as the cherubim.  Between the cherubim and above the mercy seat was the dwelling of the God of Israel.  This ark was carried by means of poles in 4 golden rings on the two short sides.

     The sacred writer now turns to the furniture.  The table for the north side of the holy place was of acacia wood overlaid with fine gold.  It had rings and poles for the carrying, the rings being close to a frame or rail which connected the four legs.  Accessories were gold plates for the loaves of the presence, dishes or cups for the frankincense, and large and small gold vessels for the wine libations.

     On the south side was to stand the 7-branched golden lamp stand.  The central stem stood on a tripod, and from this 6 golden branches bent outward and upward.  Each branch and the central shaft ended in a lamp.  A talent of gold was used to make the lamp stand.  In Ex. 30, there was an altar of incense in front of the veil.  There is no mention of this in Ex. 25, so Ex. 30’s altar is probably a later addition.  The altar was of acacia wood overlaid with gold.  Perpetual incense was to be offered by the priests night and morning.

     The most important piece of furniture in the court is called the altar in Ex. 27, altar of burnt offering in Ex. 30, and bronze altar in Ex. 38.  This altar was a hollow box of bronze-plated acacia wood, with a horn projecting upward at each corner.  Halfway down was a ledge, and below this is a grating on all sides. The horns’ origin and purpose remain obscure, but they were used for asylum, and were smeared with blood in the priests’ consecration service.  The grating allowed the sacrificial blood to be dashed against the altar’s base through the network.  It is probably a description based upon and an imitation of Solomon’s bronze altar.

     The altar was to stand at the center of the court of the tabernacle, which measured about 45 m. by 22.7 m.  The western half of this rectangle contained the tabernacle, and the eastern the altar.  The court itself was screened from the Israelite camp, which lay beyond, by 5 white curtains about 2.3 m high of varying lengths.  The north and south curtains were 45 m.; the western curtain was 22.7 m.; and the eastern side had two curtains slightly less than 7 m. with an opening of 9 m. in the middle.  The poles were held in place by cords attached to bronze pegs on the ground.  It was intended that there should be a pillar for every 2.3 m. of hanging, but then this would not agree with the number of pillars which Exodus states as belonging to each side.

     In Ex. 27 there is a paragraph dealing with the lamp stand oil, but it is a passage which presupposes both the tabernacle’s erection and Aaron’s consecration.  Chaps. 28 and 29 have to do with priestly garments, ordination, and anointing.  The section on the altar of incense is followed by Israel’s census to determine the atonement offerings and for servicing the sanctuary.  The laver or basin is dealt with very briefly, and who is to carry it is not mentioned in the marching directions.  Chap. 31 deals with the appointment and investing of the artisans’ foreman, Bezalel, and his assistant Oholiab, and their helpers, and with the law about sabbaths.

     P’s Tabernacle and the JE Tent—The combined material of the Jahwist (J) and Elohwist (E) writers also speaks of the tent of meeting and of the tent in Ex. 33, Num. 11 and 12, and Deut. 31.  In Exodus the tent of meeting is a simple tent pitched outside the camp.  Moses and other Israelites went out to this tent to seek God.  It is clearly not Moses’ tent but a divine tent different but parallel to P’s tent.  The tent in E was far simpler in every way than its counterpart in P.  Further, if Ex. 33 is taken literally, Moses was himself able to pitch the tent.  The same account of the tent appears in Num. 11 and 12, and Deut. 31.

     

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     It is reasonable to assume that the JE tent continued to shelter the ark at least until the days of Shiloh.  Thereafter the tent does not seem to have been mentioned with the ark.  But then David pitched a tent for the ark after he had brought the ark to Jerusalem, probably a new tent, and not the tent of meeting.  From Egypt to David’s day Yahweh had been moving about in a tent for Yahweh’s dwelling.  Following the erection of Solomon’s temple, the tent of meeting and all its vessels accompanied the ark into the temple.  It is therefore very likely that, after the settlement, the tabernacle was set up permanently at Shiloh as their shrine.  Then it was eventually removed to Jerusalem to be David’s tent.  

     It would be natural and reasonable to take for granted from the 1^st 5 books of the Old Testament (OT) that the JE tent and the P tabernacle were really one and the same.  But there are grave difficulties in the way of a simple identification.  A closer examination reveals that there are so many obscurities and omissions that it would not be possible on the basis of P’s present instructions to erect such structure as his tabernacle.  It is especially difficult to know how the hollow box sheathed in bronze serving as the altar could have withstood the heat necessary for the burning of animal sacrifices.  Also, the combined weight and volume of the materials would have taken a great deal more than the four wagons assigned to carry them.

      Also, the question arises whether the Israelites in the desert were in a position to erect such a sanctuary.  Were all the skills of joinery, embroidery, casting, present to the degree required for the erection of the tabernacle?  Also, the amounts of the materials required are very considerable.  The precious stones and metals, linen, dyes, and lamp oils taken all together made up several tons of resources.  The Num. 1 figure of 2,000,000 people could have amassed such a collection, but the more likely figure of 10,000 people could not have done so.  The last difficulties is seen in the many differences between the tent of E and P’s tabernacle. 

     As a result of these difficulties, there is a critical movement to treat P’s tabernacle as not historic and to find the explanation of the priestly portrait in ideal rather than historic situations.  P’s tabernacle has been seen and explained as an ideal fiction based on Solomon’s temple.  One scholar claimed that the tabernacle was a copy of Solomon’s temple and not its prototype. 

     One reconstruction of the tent/tabernacle/temple tradition has E’s tent as the shadowy original; then Solomon’s temple, and then Ezekiel’s ideal reconstruction, and lastly P’s own tabernacle.  Both Ezekiel in the Exile and P after it attempt the reconstruction of the relationship between Yahweh and Israel.  They see the problem as one of finding a worthy medium for the dwelling of Yahweh in the midst of Yahweh’s people.  Ezekiel sketches his ideal temple as the location for the return in the distant future, centering on the Messiah.  P describes his ideal in terms of the desert period of Israel, the distant past, centering on Moses.  This theory’s religious and evolutionary aspects are being rejected by an increasing number of scholars.  The section that follows reassesses P’s tabernacle in the light of the new approach and the new understanding of OT criticism.

     P’s Tabernacle: New Theory—The varying degrees of access to the tabernacle (i.e. the court for the people; the holy place for all the priests; and the holy of holies once a year for the high priest) is reminiscent of the narrative portion of Exodus.  First, the people at Sinai are gathered near the altar at the foot of the mountain; second, the priesthood and 70 elders make a nearer approach; and third, Moses goes farther and is there for 40 days and nights.  It is clear that there is a rough parallel between the 3-fold narrative access to Mount Sinai in Exodus and the 3-fold Levitical access of P.  But how are we to explain the elders’ presence with the priests in the second degree of access?  It is best to suppose that later Levitical degrees of access were a development out of the exodus tradition of access that gradually got stricter.

     There is the earlier, simpler tradition of E’s tent.  But, if P’s tabernacle is based on Solomon’s temple, why should P project it into the past before Solomon?  It is feasible that P’s tabernacle is an elaboration of E’s tent, just as Solomon drew upon that same tent for his temple.  Rather than being an idealization of Solomon’s temple, P’s tabernacle could be seen as one of the missing links between E’s tent and Solomon’s temple.  Perhaps, if credence can be given to the Chronicler’s tradition that the tabernacle was in existence before Solomon’s day in the great high place at Gibeon, then a new vantage point for the survey of the problem will have been gained, and the 2 traditions can be more closely integrated.  Most likely E’s tent was in existence both before and after the tabernacle was erected, perhaps as the shrine used by the loose tribal federation.   

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     Real substance remains in the difficulties which suggest desert Israel did not have the craftsmen, the materials, or the wealth to erect the tabernacle.  What the instructions omitted may actually represent a summary statement of what was actually done, but were not put into writing.  The 2 different locations of E’s tent (outside the camp) and P’s tabernacle (center of the camp) are overemphasized.  The E tent passage of erection presupposes an earlier passage in which the JE traditions spoke of the tent’s making and that passage might show that pitching the tent outside the camp was not Moses’ habitual custom, but that it represented a temporary action, in which Moses was symbolically showing the denial of the Presence to the camp.  P, in carrying the central position back to the desert period, has simply extended to the desert what was actual after the settlement.  The different location of the tent in E and the tabernacle in P are related to theological ideas.

     The doctrine of the tabernacling presence is central to the thought of Ezekiel and P, and is also characteristic of Levitical theology at Jerusalem.  If these traditions are reliable, then the tabernacling presence is probably best explained as Moses’ greatest contribution to desert Israel’s faith.  This doctrine of the presence is the magnet that attracts P’s tabernacle into the desert period as an ideal elaboration of an ancient doctrine.  It is the Mosaic age which is the creative period of Israel’s religious history, so it is reasonable to find the basic origin of the “presence” theology in Moses’ faith.

     P’s Tabernacle: Conclusion—Within P’s account there are certain features which connect with the desert life.  P’s tabernacle is a tent, made of curtains.  Its covering is made of red leather which, like the acacia wood, is a product of the desert.  One scholar has isolated all the typically desert characteristics of the tabernacle; and from these features, he seeks to construct the actual Mosaic tabernacle.

     In P’s use of tabernacle terminology, P’s effort to find appropriate terminology for his doctrine of God’s distance from and close association with humankind is seen.  P rescued and restored a desert vocabulary “genuinely archaic” to express this polarity.  The desert nucleus of P’s tabernacle centers in a terminology, and an institution of desert materials and construction which expressed this doctrine. 

     Yet to say that there is a core of desert portrayal in P’s tabernacle is not to claim that E’s tent and P’s tabernacle are identical.  A verse in II Samuel 7 says:  “I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling”; I Chronicles 17 has a verse which says:  “I have gone from tent to tent and from dwelling to dwelling.”  The idea of more than one historic tent may afford a solution.

     There was, first, a tent erected by Moses, which served as a portable shrine, normally housed at the center of the camp, but occasionally pitched outside the camp to symbolize the withdrawal of Yahweh’s presence.  This tent, with its ark, if nothing else, was the dwelling of Yahweh and gave visible expression to Yahweh’s tabernacling presence among his people.

     There was next the sanctuary at Shiloh, which appears to have been a more permanent structure.  This suggests that Moses’ tent had by this time decayed after hard desert usage.  But the ark remained, and also furniture such as a lamp, a table of showbread, and the like.  The Shiloh sanctuary thus replaced the perishable parts of the old Mosaic tent in a shrine more suitable as a loose tribal confederacy’s center for Israel.  Shiloh’s destruction was followed by the adventures of the ark in Philistia, Kiriath-jearim, and Jerusalem.

     So far, then, there has been only one tent and its survival in remnants; the 2^nd tent is that of David.  This ark was set “in its place, inside the tent which David had pitched for it.”  P’s tabernacle account perhaps reflects David’s tent.  Near the holy of holies must have been an altar of burnt offerings.  From I Kings 1 and 2 has been inferred at least an altar of burnt offering in the court, and possibly a 2^nd horned altar within the tent.    

     Associating P’s tabernacle or something like it with David’s tent is part of an increasing tendency to date various documents and lists in the P document to pre-monarchic and early monarchy days (e.g. census lists in Num. 1 and 26; list of cities of refuge in Josh. 21 and I Chron. 6; stations of the Exodus in Num. 33; and the list of spies in Num. 13).  It is quite feasible that P’s tabernacle records could reflect the Davidic tent.  Then, if this is true, P’s tabernacle will not be an idealized copy Solomon’s temple, but one of its actual prototypes.

     The tabernacle’s influence on New Testament (NT) terminology is to be seen in such phrases as in John 1:  “The word . . . dwelt [or tabernacled] among us,” and the basin or “washing of regeneration.”  There are references to the tabernacle in Acts 7; Revelation 13, 15 and 21.  The Letter to the Hebrews sets forth the Christian interpretation of the Mosaic tabernacle.  The court symbolizes the human approach to God, and the most holy place represents God’s approach to humans.  According to Hebrews, the tabernacle is modeled on a heavenly pattern, but the way into the sanctuary is not yet opened as long as the outer tent is still standing.  When Christ appeared, he entered once for all into the heavenly sanctuary.  In Revelation 21 the dwelling of God with humans is identified with the Holy City.

     

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          But even heaven and the New Jerusalem are not the real culmination of the tabernacle image. What is of chief significance is that the tabernacle is the place of the presence.  The tabernacle thus properly belongs to the theology of the Incarnation.  Personifying the presence image of OT faith took place fully in the person of Jesus Christ.  In the NT the tabernacle finds a double fulfillment: as a place, in heaven and in the New Jerusalem; and as a personified image, in the body of Jesus Christ.  In the OT, the tabernacle of the presence is the principal bridgehead to the doctrine of the Incarnation.

TABERNACLES, FEAST OF.  See Booths, Feast of.

TABITHA. See Dorcas.

TABLE (שלחן (shoo lee khan); trapeza (tra pay za), eating-table)  The root meaning of shulikhan, “skin, “hide,” indicates that it was originally a piece of leather, like those still used by Bedouins in the desert. 

     Tables are never mentioned in the patriarchal narratives.  The earliest table for eating in the Bible is that of the Canaanite king Adoni-bezek in Judges 1; this table was evidently large and elevated.  King Saul’s table was also large, for many of his court ate at it.  Various people ate at David or Solomon’s table.  Sometimes this meant eating at the expense of the ruler, not literally at his table.  The prophet of Judah ate with the old prophet of Bethel at a table.   The Greek word listed above and used in the New Testament (NT), taken with its root meaning, indicate that reclining was the usual way of eating in NT times.  At formal meals the table was U-shaped, to permit servants to serve food.  Guests reclined on couches around the outside of the table.

     The structure of the Table of the Bread of the Presence in the tabernacle is described in Exodus 25; it was of acacia wood 96 cm. long, 48 cm. wide and 72 cm. high, overlaid with gold.  It was consecrated by the sacred anointing and placed on the northern side of the holy place, outside the veil of the holy of holies.  Solomon made a new golden table for the bread of the Presence in the temple.  After Ahaz defiled the temple, its furniture was purified by Hezekiah.  David gave silver to Solomon to make tables for the temple.  Ezekiel lists 12 temple tables.  Isaiah 65 condemns idolaters who “set a table” for Gad the god of fortune.  In I Corinthians 10 the “table of demons” mean a pagan sacrificial meal.  The table of the Lord is the altar of burnt offering.  The tables of the money-changers were small trays on stands.  Jesus overturned these tables in the temple in protest against cheating and commercialization.

     For Tables of the Law, see Tablets.

TABLELAND (מישוﬧ (me shore), plain)  The Old Testament designation for that part of the fertile Eastern Jordanian Plateau between the Arnon and Heshbon; it was Moabite territory during the monarchy.

TABLET (לוח (lo kha), planks, writing surface; גליון (gee lay on); pinakidion (pee na kee dee on), small tablet; Plax (plaks), table)  The two tablets of the Ten Commandments are called “tablets of stone”  Because of the sins of the people, Moses broke these first tablets and later made new ones.  Perhaps these tablets were like small Egyptian stone steles which were often rounded at the top.

TABOR (ﬨבוﬧ, quarry)  A Levitical town in the territory of Zebulun.  It does not appear in the parallel list in Joshua.  If the Chronicles reading is correct and there was a town named Tabor, it must have been on or near the hill of the same name.

TABOR, MOUNT (הﬧ ﬨבוﬧ  (har  tah bor))  A hill in the northeast corner of the Valley of Jezreel having important associations with the judges of Israel and with Christian tradition.  It is approximately 9.6 km east-southeast of Nazareth and over 19 km west-southwest of the south end of the Sea of Galilee.  The summit surface is roughly rectangular and measures about 800 m. east-west by 400 m. north-south.  Tabor reaches a maximum elevation of only 560 meters.  It location dominates 2 important routes: the east-west road connecting the valley with the Sea of Galilee, and the north-south road between Beth-shan and Damascus.  

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                 It is possible that there was an early sanctuary on the summit of Mount Tabor, if Tabor is the mountain of Deuteronomy 33.  It is first mentioned by name as the meeting place of the territories of Issachar, Naphtali, and Zebulun.  Barak choose this place as the base from which he and the men of Naphtali and Zebulun launched their attack against Sisera.  It was also the place where the two Midianite kings, Zebah and Zalmunna, killed the brothers of Gideon.

                 Mount Tabor’s primary fame rests on its traditional identification as the Mount of Transfiguration, but that cannot be determined with certainty.  Helena the mother of Constantine built a church on Mount Tabor in 326 A.D., and by the 600s there were three shrines on its summit, dedicated to Jesus, Moses, and Elijah.  All the shrines, churches and monasteries built there were destroyed in 1187 by Saladin, whose brother erected a fortress in 1212.  By the end of the 1200s, this structure had also been destroyed.  In the late 1800s a church and monastery were erected by the Greek Orthodox community.

TABOR, OAK OF (ﬨבוﬧאלון  (ah lon  tah bor))  It was here that Saul was to meet three men going to the sanctuary at Bethel; this was Samuel’s second sign confirming the mission of Saul (I Samuel 10).  The exact location of this tree is unknown.

TABRIMMON  (ﬧמןטב, (the god) Rimmon is good)  The son of Hazyanu and the father of Ben-hadad I, the king of Damascus.  Tabrimmon was possibly the predecessor of Ben-hadad I as king of Damascus, but nothing more is known of him.

TACKLE (חבל (kheh bel), cord, rope; skeuh (skyoo ay), apparatus)  The apparatus on a ship used in working the sails and handling cargo.  In Acts 27 skeue presumably means all the ship’s equipment, including the tackle.

TADMOR (ﬨﬢמﬧ, city of palms)  A city in the wilderness to the north of Palestine that was built by Solomon.  If “Tadmor” is the correct reading in these passages, it is identical with the famous Arab city that was known as Palmyra by the Greeks and Romans. 

     The city reached the height of its power under Odenathus (255-67) and was finally destroyed by Emperor Aurelian in 273.  Biblical scholars are divided on the question of identity of the Tamar or Tadmor mentioned in the Bible with the historical Palmyra.  It is notable that the building of the city is mentioned directly after the statement of Solomon’s conquest of Hammath-zobah in Syria.  The prosperity which developed in Solomon’s reign was primarily due to his control of the routes of trade between Egypt and Arabia.  It would have been sound policy for him to establish such a station as Tadmor on the route from Zobah to Mesopotamia.  After his death this outpost must have been abandoned to the Arameans.

TAHAN (חןﬨ (tah khan), encampment)  The third son of Ephraim; ancestor of the family of Tahanites (Numbers 26).  In the Ephraimite genealogy in I Chronicles 7, which shows signs of alteration, Tahath appears as the third son of Ephraim and Tahan as a descendant in a later generation.

TAHASH (ﬨחש (tah khash, badger)  The third son of Nahor and Reumah; identified with the place name Tahsi in the Tell el-Amarna Letters and in Thutmose III’s records; located north of Damascus.

TAHATH (ﬨחﬨ (tah khath), place, station)  1.  A name in a genealogy of the family of Kohath, one of the three sons of Levi (I Chronicles 6).  2. Ancestor and source of an Ephraimite family name; son of Bered (I Chronicles 7).  3.  Ancestor and source of an Ephraimite family name; son of Eleadah (I Chronicles 7).  4.  A stopping place of the Israelites in the wilderness (Numbers 33).  The location is unknown.

TAHCHEMONITE  (ﬨחﬤמני , wise)  A word identifying one of David’s Mighty Men.  The first consonant probably is an error; very likely a copyist mistook the Hebrew article-letter for a tet.

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TAHPANHES (ﬨחפּנחס, Daphne)  A city on the eastern frontier of northern (Lower) Egypt.

                  Tahpanhes is almost universally identified with the classical site of Daphnai, modern Tell Defneh.  The Hebrew spelling is an accurate transcription of the Egyptian, which means “the Fortress of Penhase.”  Penhase, from which the name “Phinehas” comes, was the name of a powerful Theban general of the 1000s B.C.  The site known as Tell Defneh is an unimpressive mound in the desert bordering on Lake Menzaleh in northern Egypt.  There is little evidence of extensive occupation before 663 B.C.  Herodotus names Daphnai, Elephantine, and Marea as three important frontier stations.  From the biblical references we learn that Tahpanhes was a refuge city for the Jews who fled from Palestine before the successive Assyrian invasions.   Jeremiah followed them and delivered in that city a promise of further destruction for Egypt and its Jews.

TAHPENES (ﬨחפּניס)  An Egyptian queen of the time of David Solomon. 

                 In the time of David, young Hadad of Edom fled to Egypt.  The pharaoh wedded him to the sister of his queen Tahpenes.  The primary Greek Old Testament’s spelling of tahimness is probably correct, giving us the title “wife of the king,” an Egyptian title rather than a name.

TAHTIM-HODSHI ( ﬨחﬨים הﬢשי (takh tim  hod shee))  A place in the north, possibly between Gilead and Dan, visited by the census takers of David (II Samuel 24).  The place is not mentioned elsewhere.

TALENT (ﬤﬤﬧ (kee kawr); talanton (tah lan ton))  Standard large weight in Mesopotamia, Canaan, and Israel.  In biblical passages it was probably about 34 kg. In New Testament times a talent was 6,000 drachmas.

TALISMAN.  An amulet or charm; an object having supposed magical power.  See amulet.

TALITHA CUMI (taliqa koumi)  The Aramaic words attributed to Jesus in the healing of Jarius’ daughter in Mark 5.  The first Aramaic word is in feminine form, and means “lamb” or “youth,” and the second is the feminine imperative of “stand” or “rise up.”  The retention of the Aramaic in a healing story would enhance the miraculous aspect of the event for Gentile (Greek) readers.  The use of foreign words in such contexts was common in the magical papyri.  In Mark the characteristic preservation of Aramaic sayings in various contexts may also be attributed to an interest in retaining the actual words of Jesus.

TALMAI (ﬨלמי, full of furrows?)  1. One of the three sons of Anak, or “giants,” residing in Hebron when the Israelite spies reconnoitered the land.  Talmai was defeated in Hebron by the invading Israelites.  2.  King of Geshur; father of David’s wife Maacah, who was mother of Absalom (II Samuel 3, 13).  When Absalom fled after the murder of Amnon, he took refuge with his grandfather in Geshur.

TALMON (טלמון, oppression) A Levite, the ancestor and source of a Levitical family name.  They were gatekeepers in the post-exilic temple (I Chronicles 9; Ezra 2; Nehemiah 7, 12).

TALMUD (ﬨלמוﬢ, from the root meaning “to learn”)  The written story, in Hebrew and Aramaic, of biblical interpretation, of the making of bylaws, wise counsel, covering a period of almost 1,000 years from the time of Ezra to the middle of the 500s A.D.

                 Preservation of Oral Law—The Talmud, which was at first mainly oral, grew out of the conviction that there was both a written and an oral Torah, handed down from generation to generation, which lawgiver and prophets strove to engrave on the hearts of the people.  Teachings and often conflicting opinions, all based on the Bible, were treasured.  The accumulated mass of oral traditions and teachings became so unwieldy that the best memory could not be trusted, making necessary a compilation which would summarize all that was most vital and essential in the teachings of preceding generations.  There they would find inspiration and guidance amid the persecutions and temptations they might have to encounter.  This was the Talmud’s origin, and in Jewish eyes it ranks second only to the Hebrew Scriptures as a national religious creation and possession.

                 The oral law as embodied in the Talmud has two functions.  First, it interprets the ordinances of the written law, explaining their contents and defining their scope, forming thus an integral and indispensable part of the written law (e.g. defining “work” and “not work” under sabbath law). Second, the oral law adapts and modifies the ordinances of the written law to changes in conditions.  It transforms the Torah from a mere written document, liable to become obsolete, into a continuous revelation.  The oral law introduced numerous measures, either as a “fence around the law,” or as an expression of religious devotion and loyalty.

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                 The earliest method of teaching the oral law was by means of a running commentary, the Midrash, on the biblical text.  When it yielded a legal teaching, the result was Midrash Halachah; other commentary was part of Midrash Haggadah.  The Midrash method was employed by Ezra in the Law’s public reading in 444 B.C., at which the Torah was enthroned in the constitution of Judea’s new community.  The Midrash method was followed by teachers who succeeded Ezra, the Soferim (scribes), whose activities ended around 270 B.C.   (See also entry in the Old Testament (OT) Apocrypha/Influences Outside the OT section of the Appendix.)

                 Midrash and Mishna to existed side by side as media for teaching Halachah,  There is strong proof of the existence of a body of Mishnaic lore as far back as the days of the Shammai and Hillel’s schools around 50 B.C.  Among the collections of the later period is that of Rabbi Akiba, who died a martyr in 135 A.D. under the Hadrianic persecution.  It was developed by his disciple to become the groundwork of the Rabbi Judah the Prince’s Mishna, which presents a digest of the whole legal system governing Jewish life up to 200.  The Mishna of Rabbi Judah contained only a fraction of the legal material current in the Palestine academies. 

                 Contemporaries of Rabbi Judah, including Rabbi Hiyya, and Rabbi Hoshaia, preserved teachings which Rabbi Judah excluded and which often went counter to his teaching.  Discussions of “external” or “additional” teaching in comparison with Rabbi Judah’s Mishna were carried on in the schools of Palestine and Babylon by scholars designated Amoraim (speakers) down to the end of the 400s.  Their endeavor was to interpret the Mishna, explain it obscurities, and harmonize contradictions in oral traditions.  Theirs was also the task of making final decisions of Halachah.  This intellectual activity of centuries was crystallized in the Gemara, which, together with the Mishna of Rabbi Judah, constitutes the Talmud.

                 Divisions in and Versions of the Talmud—Both the Mishna and the Talmud are divided into six Orders.  Each order is subdivided into tractates.  The Orders are: Zeraim (sown seeds); Moed (appointed seasons”); nashim (woman); Nezikin (damages); Kodashim (consecrated things); and Tohoroth (cleanliness).  Side by side with the laws themselves are the Halachah, the legal teachings of the Talmud, and the Haggadah, the ethical and religious teachings.  Moral reflections, worldly wisdom, tales of Israel, both historical and legendary, and educational observations on geometry, medicine, astronomy, botany, etc. make up the Haggadah.  Its aim everywhere is to educate, inspire, elevate, and supply those finer qualities of heart and mind.

                 As a product of two distinct centers of learning, the Talmud appears in a Palestinian version and Babylonian version.  They are very different in subject matter, method, presentation, and language.  The differences extend to the Mishna of Rabbi Judah, which seem to indicate that the Rabbi himself made a Palestinian and a Babylonian version of his Mishna.

                 The Palestinian Talmud is often refereed to as the Yerushalmi.  This Talmud is the product of the schools of Tiberias, Caesarea, and Sepphoris.  The Palestinian Talmud was compiled hurriedly because of the persecutions which the Jews in Palestine suffered throughout the 200s and 300s at the hands of the Romans.  This fact may account for its incompleteness and lack of unity, coherence, and deep meaning.  This Talmud has Gemara (discussion) only for the first four Orders, and none for Kodashim and Tohoroth. 

     In bulk the Palestinian Talmud is only about a third of the other version; its dialect is that of Western Aramaic.  Tradition ascribes the redaction of this Talmud to Rabbi Johanan ben Nappaha.  It is however, a fact that the Palestinian Talmud contains a lot of material from a much later date than Rabbi Johanan.  It took its present shape in all essentials sometime at the beginning of the 400s.  The Palestinian Talmud is generally regarded as subordinate to the Babylonian Talmud, but nonetheless indispensable, as it represents the Halachah in its unbroken line of development.  It is also important for the Haggadic material it contains, which is a veritable mine of information on the internal and external relations of the Jews in Palestine. 

     The Babylonian version, written in Eastern Aramaic, records the discussions on Rabbi Judah’s Mishna as carried on in the school of Babylonia.  The Babylonian Talmud abounds in Haggadah, constituting about one-third of its contents and mirroring the entire knowledge of the secular and religious rabbis of the time.  A constant intellectual intercourse existed between Babylonia and Palestine; statements of Palestine’s Amoraim (speakers) enjoy high authority in the Babylonian Gemara.  The great teacher and “father” of the Babylonian Talmud was Abba (Papa) Arika, “the Tall” (died 247).

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          Arika was from Babylon but spent some years in Palestine, where he studied under Rabbi Judah.  In the year 219, he founded the academy at Sura, on the Euphrates, where he taught his master’s Mishna.  His reputation rose so high that he became known as Rab, “teacher par excellence.”  He was considered the leading authority in matters of civil law, in which his judgments were declared by later generations as binding.

     The intensive activities of the Babylonian Amoraim reached their climax under Abbaye (280-338) and his colleague and Halachic opponent Raba (299-352).  The mass of orally transmitted traditions and teachings accumulated through the centuries assumed such large proportions that the time came for a well organized sifting, systematization, and orderly rearrangement.  This work was undertaken by Rab Ashi, the Sura Academy’s head from the age of 23 to the age of 75.  Rab Ashi’s work was carried on by Rabina bar Huna (Rabina II), the last of the Amoraim to teach Torah on the basis of oral transmission.  The finishing touches were supplied by the Saboraim (reflectors), who flourished from the end of the 400s to the middle of the 500s. 

     Talmud: Influence, Persecution, Editions, and Significance:  The Talmud as a written book was closed just as the Dark Ages were beginning.  It contributed powerfully to the religious and national preservation of the Jews in that Judaism was able to adjust itself to every time and place.  The Talmud offered the Jew a spiritual haven of tranquility.  Poring over its pages, generations of Jews have found in the Talmud the satisfaction of their deepest religious yearnings.  Through the intellectual and moral discipline it imparted, Talmudic thought helped to lead the thought of the Middle Ages into new channels.

                 The “persecution” of the Talmud began before it was actually committed to writing.  Hadrian (117-38), Antoninus Pius (138-61), and the Persian kings Yazdegerd II (438-57) and Peroz (459-84) forbade the study of the Law; burnings of the Talmud were common.  Very often Jewish converts to Christianity would take the lead in these actions.  Reuchlin (1453-1522) and his fellow humanists fought against the destruction of “a book written by Christ’s nearest relatives.”  The Babylonian Talmud was subjected to a censorship by the church.  Later the Jews themselves exercised censorship in manuscripts and in printed editions of the Talmud.

                 In modern times the Talmud in the hands of anti-Semites was turned into a weapon wherewith to attack the Jews and Judaism.  They claimed that the Talmud which was the guide of Jewish life, condoned and sanctioned crimes of all sorts against non-Jews.  Jewish and non-Jewish scholars have had no difficulty in showing that these attacks were based on falsification and perversion of texts. 

    There is only one manuscript surviving of the whole Babylonian Talmud, written in the year 1343, and finally published in 1520-24.  The first edition of the Palestinian Talmud was published in 1522-23.  The Talmud is by no means an easy work to study.  Its peculiar style, its brevity and succinctness, and the lack of a discernible format make the Talmud almost a sealed book, difficult to understand without guide or commentary.  The most classical and universally adopted guide for Talmudic interpretation is that of Rabbi Solomon Yitschaki of Troyes, Rashi (1040-1105).  There is a different class of commentary, known as Tosafoth (Additions) or glosses that appear along side of the text.  The commentaries on the Jerusalem Talmud are the Korban ha-Edah (1743) and the Pene Mosheh (1750).

     The immense influence which the Talmud has exerted over the Jewish people is the result of an educational system in which the Talmud was made to occupy the most important place.  Instruction in the Talmud was begun at an early age in the elementary schools, and continued in the Yeshivah, where the advanced student was introduced to the analytical method called “pilpul.”  The broadening of Jewish culture in consequence of the emancipation led to the gradual displacement of the Talmud by other subjects; yet the Talmud continued to play a major role in Jewish education.

     In our times the Talmud still remains, after the Bible, the most fruitful, spiritual and moral force in Jewish life.  The ritual, liturgy, the festivals, the marriage laws, derive directly from the Talmud.  And it is the Talmud which inspires those virtues for which the Jew is credited: benevolence, strong family ties, and aversion to cruelty to animals.  It is to the Talmud that the builders of the new social order in Israel are turning more and more for light and guidance in their manifold tasks.

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TAMAR (ﬨמﬧ, date palm)  1.  Daughter-in-law of Judah.  The Canaanite wife of Judah’s eldest son, Er, she remained a widow because the second son, Onan refused to marry her and Judah withheld his third son Shelah.  Out of impatience Tamar offered herself to Judah, and bore him twins, Perez and Zerah (Genesis 38).  She is recalled as an ancestress of the Judah tribe in Ruth 4.  2.  Daughter of David.  Amnon, a half brother, raped her and then drove her from his house.  Subsequently Absalom, her full brother, obtained revenge by having Amnon murdered.  3.  Absalom’s only daughter, renowned for her beauty.  She became Rehoboam’s wife and bore Abiathar.  She may be the Maacah of I Kings 15 and II Chronicles 11.  4. A city built by Solomon, according to the actual text in I Kings 9.  Some scholars would identify this city built by Solomon with #5 under this entry. 

     5.  A city in the extreme southeast part of Judah near the Dead Sea’s southern end.  The New Revised Standard Version also reads “Tamar” in Ezekiel 47.  Tamar was evidently a well-known fortified town on the boundary between Israel and Edom.  During Solomon’s time, when the Edomites were subdued, it had been a supply depot for the mines in the Arabah.  Later, Tamar may have been a fortress protecting the border.  It may be the same as Hazazon-Tamar.  The site is uncertain so three different sites have been suggested.

TAMERISK (אשל (‘ee shel))  A distinctive tree or shrub with minute scale-like leaves pressed close to feathery branches.  More than 12 species are found on a flora list.  The species common to the Sinai Desert exudes an edible resin which considered one possibility for the Exodus’ Manna.  Abraham planted a tamarisk in Beer-sheba (Gen. 21).  Saul sat under one in Gibeah (I Sam. 22), and his bones were buried beneath another one in Jabesh-gilead (I Sam. 31); each of the above mentioned trees are probably a sacred tree or shrine.

TAMMUZ (ﬨמוז)  The Summerian deity of spring vegetation; known from the Gilgamesh Epic as Ishtar’s lover and love goddess, and his betrayer.  Her betrayal’s anniversary was the occasion of an annual wailing for the god in the fourth month.  The “dying god” idea is suggested by annual wilting of vegetation in the Near East.

TANHUMETH (ﬨנחמﬨ, consolation)  The Netophathite whose son Seraiah was a captain who remained with Gedaliah after the Exile.  A Lachish stamp contains this name.

TANIS.  A city in Egypt.  See Zoan.

TANNER, TANNING (ﬢםמא (me ood dawm), to die red [as a result of the tanning process]; burseuV (boor say oos), leather-dresser)  The process of tanning using lime, the juice of certain plants, or the bark or leaves of certain trees, has been known from ancient times.  Tanners were not held in good repute among the Jews, as we see often in the Talmud.  It was customary for tanners to live outside the cities because of the nature of their work.  Simon the tanner’s house was an excellent setting for the triple vision of vessels filled with all kinds of animals (Acts 9, 10). 

TAPHATH (טפﬨ, drop) A daughter of Solomon, and wife of Ben-adinadab, one of Solomon’s officials in the district of Naphath-dor (I Kings 4).  

TAPPUAH (ﬨפּח (tap poo akh), apple)  A Calebite family or person descended from Hebron; possibly name of a town in the vicinity of Hebron.

TAPPUAH (PLACE) (ﬨפּוח (tap poo akh), apple)  1.  A city in the Shephelah, one of the cities of the second district of Judah.  In the same list a Beth-Tappuah appears among the cities in the hill country of Judah.  The exact location of the Shephelah Tappuah is unknown; it is often identified with Beit Nettif, about 19 km west of Bethlehem.  
                  2.  A city on the northern border of the territory of Ephraim.  Associated with En-Tappuah and located on the southern border of Manasseh, assigned to the Ephraimites; the region around it is assigned to Manasseh.  Sheikh Abu Zarad, about 12.8 km. south of Shechem, has been proposed as its location.  The king of Ephraimite Tappuah is mentioned among the Canaanite kings defeated by Joshua.  A Canaanite king of Tappuah and the men of the city are mentioned in an apocryphal tradition about Judah.  Tappuah may have been the scene of a ruthless attack by Menahem king of Israel; probably the Ephraimite Tappuah is intended.

TARALAH (ﬨﬧאלה)  A town in the allotment to the tribe of Benjamin (Josh 18).

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TAREA (ﬨאﬧﬠ)  A descendant of King Saul through Jonathan.

TARGET (מטﬧה (mah taw raw), mark) New Revised Standard Version translation of the Hebrew word in Job 16.

TARGUM (ﬨﬧגום, translate, interpret) 1.  The Aramaic translation of Scriptural books, especially the 1^st 5 books of the Old Testament, as delivered orally in the synagogue during the period of the second temple and later, in accordance with a generally accepted, but by no means rigidly fixed, tradition of interpretation.  2.  The written Targums that still survive, which are for the most part editions of the old traditional rendering. 

TARPELITES (טﬧפּליא (tah reep pee law yee))  The word is either a professional name or an ethnic name.

TARSHISH (ﬨﬧשיש, break, destroy)  1.  A Benjamnite, son of Bilhan (I Chronicles 7).  2.  One the “seven princes of Persia and Media” next in rank to King Ahasuerus (Esther 1).  3.  A far-off, and sometimes idealized, port that cannot be identified with any one location.  The identification of the original Tarshish is unsettled, from nearby Tarsus to a Spanish port at the “end of the world.”  “Ships of Tarshish” came to designate the larger seagoing vessels, regardless of their origin or ports of call.  The places associated with the ships of Tarshish include the lands of the Kittim (Cyprus).  Solomon’s fleet of Tarshish that fetched gold, silver, ivory, monkeys and peacocks, pointing to a route along the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean (I Kings 10).  Jehoshaphat’s ships of Tarshish sailing for Ophir from Ezion-geber are mentioned in I Kings 22:49.  Isaiah parallels Tarshish with “the pleasant place, desire,” suggesting that whatever Tarshish was originally in literature and popular imagination it became a distant paradise.

TARSUS (TarsoV)  A city in the province of Cilicia on the southeast coast of Asia Minor (Acts 9, 11, 21, 23). 

                 Tarsus is the historical capital of Cilicia and especially the chief city of the eastern fertile part of this country, Cilicia Pedias.  The city is located on the right bank of the Tarsus River (ancient Cydnus) about 16 km from the present coast.  Its location has never changed, from its foundation in prehistoric times to the present day, and as a city with a continuous history of at least 6 millenniums it should have better claims than Damascus to being the “oldest city of the world.” 

                 The earliest settlements at Tarsus are contained in the prehistoric mound on the southwest side of the city.  The site was founded at least as early as Neolithic times, and was a fortified town in the 2000s B.C.  It became an important center of coastal trade in the phase when Troy flourished.  In the 1000s B.C., when Cilicia makes its appearance in Hittite records as Kizzuwatna, Tarsus is one of its most important towns, and perhaps was its capital.  Excavations have produced evidence of architecture and objects of the Hittite Empire type in Tarsus in the period 1400-1200 B.C.

                 Late legends refer to this first Greek colonization of Tarsus.  It is not precisely remembered and is variously attributed to Perseus, Heracles, or Triptolemus and a group of Argives.  In Assyria records Tarsus is first mentioned by Shalmaneser III (858-824), who captured the city in his 26^th year.  During the Cilician campaign in 698 his army took Tarsus and carried off its spoil.  Sennacherib in his Cilician campaign also had to cope with Ionian attacks on the coast.  No specific Greek contingent is attested to have settled in Tarsus in this period.  For the Persian period we lack detailed evidence.  Tarsus was the capital of the Kingdom of Cili-cia and started issuing coins in the 400s B.C.

                 See also entry in the Old Testament (OT) Apocrypha/Influences outside the OT section of the Appendix.

                 The general prosperity of Tarsus was based on the fertility of the Cilician plain.  The town’s industries are the weaving of linen and the making of tents.  The raw materials were the flax of Cilicia and perhaps a goat’s-hair fabric called cilicium for tents.  Paul’s pride in his birthplace as “no mean city” is understandable on the basis of the political, economic, and intellectual prominence of Tarsus at this time.

                 How many of the citizens of Tarsus were Jewish in the days of Paul is unknown.  In general, the population must have continued as a mixed Anatolian substratum with Greek, Roman, and Jewish additions.  The later Roman history of Tarsus is peaceful in a general way.  Serious competition did not arise for Tarsus until the 200s A.D., when Anazarbus became the counterpart of Tarsus.  Tarsus was visited by several emperors and adopted several honorary titles and festival in the 100s and 200s A.D., especially in the case of Hadrian.

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                 In the Parthian wars of Rome, Tarsus and Cilicia were again of strategic importance.  The city was captured by Shapur after his victory over Valerian III in 260 A.D.  The later history of Tarsus is one of continued dispute Between East and West.  After many and wide variations in fortune, it was incorporated in the Ottoman Empire by Beyazit I.

                 The ancient appearance of Tarsus is hard to reconstruct.  We know from Assyrian and Greek sources that the Cydnus flowed through the city.  It was navigable and connected Tarsus with it harbor Rhegma.  The change in the course of the river was effected in the 500s A.D. by the Emperor Justinian, who had the Cydnus led into a channel east of Tarsus.  Ancient Tarsus, with its agorai, stoai, avenues, bridges, baths, fountains, gymnasium, and stadium, remains buried.  What has been excavated is the mound of Gozlu Kule, which was a minor outpost of the Greek and Roman city.    The present level of habitation has risen far above the original one by filling in of the coastal plain and accumulation of habitation debris.  In the center of the modern city a large Roman building decorated with mosaics was found under the courthouse in 1947.

TARTAK (ﬨﬧﬨק)  a deity worshipped by the Avvites settled in Samaria after 722 B.C.  The name is presumably a corruption of Atargatis, a goddess worshiped in Syria and by the Arameans in Mesopotamia.  The deity is a composite figure, made up of Athtar and Anath.

TARTAN (ﬨﬧﬨן)  The title of an Assyrian general in command of an army group.  The office is first attested under Adad-nirari II (911-891 B.C.) in historical texts.  There are tartan officials of the right and of the left wing.  The word seems to be of foreign origin.

TASKMASTER (נגש (naw gas), oppressor)  One whose office it is to allot tasks and to enforce their performance by any means.  He is the foreman or overseer of labor gangs.  Their cruelty is legendary.  The fact that David and Solomon had such superintendents over their enforced Israelite labor gangs was disruptive of the monarchy.  Any foreign ruler may be considered a taskmaster or oppressor by the prophets.

TASSEL (ﬨציצ (tsee tseet), fringe) The Israelites were to make tassels or fringes on the four corners of their garments.  See Fringe, Cloth.

TATTENAI (ﬨﬨני)  The governor of the province “across the river” under Darius Hystaspes (Ezra 5,6).

TATTOO (ﬤﬨנﬨ קﬠקﬠ  (kee toe net  kah ‘eh kah), cut marks covering the skin)  A pattern made on the skin by making punctures and inserting pigments.  Tattooing is mentioned along with self-inflicted laceration in the rites or mourning for the dead, probably because both practices were associated with the pagan cults.

TAU (ﬨ)  The 22^nd letter of the Hebrew Alphabet as it is placed in the King James Version as the head of the 22^nd  section of Psalm 119, where each verse of this section of the psalm begins with this letter.                     

           

TAWNY (ﬧוﬨצח (tseh kho roth), white)  The whitish-brown color of the she-ass.

TAX, TAXES (ﬠﬧך (‘ay rek), valuation, estimate; מס (mase), tribute; הלך (ha lawk), toll; khnsoV (ken sos), assessment, tribute; foroV (foe ros), tribute)  A compulsory contribution to the support of government, local or federal, civil or ecclesiastical.

     A heavy tax in kind was exacted of all Egypt during the seven years of plenty.  Egypt was thus spared the worst consequences of her own years of leanness and became a source of supply for other countries during the famine.  During the period of the judges there was in Israel no army or royal court to support.  David seems to have been able to maintain an army without taxing the people in money.  Eventually David’s treasury grew to enormous proportions, principally because of booty of war and tribute exacted from those he subdued.

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     Forced labor was required by Israel of the various resident Canaanite peoples (e.g. Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites) who were not driven out of the land in the construction of the temple and on other projects.  Israelites themselves were compelled to do forced labor in building the temple under Solomon.  In all probability it was Solomon who first introduced state taxes in Israel.  David’s court could live within whatever means the spoils of war and foreign tribute provided.  Solomon’s court depended partially on its own subjects for support, and Israel was taxed.  This was in addition to the tribute and gifts incoming from subject peoples and more or less dependent foreign governments, as well as tolls collected from caravans and traders.

                 Recent archaeological discoveries, dating from the early 700s and 600s B.C., offer very scant but concrete data on taxes in kind paid to the Israelite kings.  Jar handles are stamped in Hebrew characters of the period lamalech, “to the king.”  The cause of the division of the kingdom is attributed by Jeroboam and his fellow Israelite to the oppressive taxation and corvee exacted by Solomon and attempted by Rehoboam.  The Chronicler reports that Jehoshaphat was able to regain much the same prestige Solomon had enjoyed and received taxes from his own people.  In order for King Jehoiakim to pay the tribute exacted of him by Pharaoh Neco, landholders in Judah were taxed, each according to his assessment.         

                 Under the Persians there was begun a system of taxation which reached into the purses of the common people.  This system was administered directly in each Persian province by a Persian satrap.  These satraps paid fixed sums into the royal treasury.  This royal revenue was exacted of the people in the form of “tribute, custom, or toll.”  Besides the royal revenue there was as well a tax imposed on the people called “bread of the governor.”  Though Nehemiah in his governorship claims not to have exacted the “bread of the governor,” the people were forced in hard times to mortgage their fields, vineyards, and houses to survive, as well as raise the money for the royal revenue.  

                (See also entry in the Old Testament (OT) Apocrypha/Influences Outside the OT section of the Appendix.)

                Under the procurators the financial system of the Empire was introduced, with the tax collecting office again going to the highest bidder.  Aside from the tribute and taxes due foreign powers, the Jewish people individually were subject to a half-shekel payment annually to the temple, in the New Testament (NT) called the didrachma (In Nehemiah’s time the Jews paid a third of a shekel to the temple.)  In order to collect the half-shekel temple tax levied on all Jews 20 years older and over, tax collectors went from town to town annually to raise the money. 

                 An enrollment for purposes of taxation was ordered by the Roman emperor Augustus.  Another enrollment recorded in the NT evoked protests from the Jews, and disturbances ensued.  Matthew was one of the customs officials that Jesus spent time with.  During his ministry the Pharisees asked Jesus if is it was lawful to pay taxes to Caesar.  Jesus answered:  “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s.”

TAX COLLECTOR (TelwnhV (teh lo nes), publican)  In New Testament (NT) times the Roman officialdom in Palestine had responsibility for collecting poll and land taxes.  The collection from those transporting property by land or sea was still auctioned off to private contractors.  The Greek term telones and the corresponding Latin publicanus apply to the private contractors.  These “publicans” were sometimes, but not invariably, Romans.  Both the Roman officials and their contractors employed Jewish underlings to the actual collection.  It is to such small fry that the term telones is usually applied in the NT.  The rendering “tax collector” in the New Revised Standard Version and its earlier edition is more exact than the “publican” used in older versions.

                   Tax officers are never popular, even in free lands; but the Palestinian tax collectors were an especially despised lot.  The Jews regarded themselves as an oppressed people under military occupation, and they looked forward to liberation.  Messianic and revolutionary movements seethed undercover and at time boiled into the open, especially when the sums wrung from them were often excessive.  The more responsible leaders looked on the taxes as tribute exacted by a foreign conqueror.  The Jews who for pay participated in these operations were therefore regarded as doubly base, despicable robbers.  The rabbinic sources repeatedly bracket tax collectors with robbers.  Just as one may deceive a highway man to avoid loss, so one may deceive a tax collector.  Later scholars modified the older rule; the Babylonian Talmud, composed in a more settled society, permits evasion only if an unauthorized tax collector is himself flouting the established laws. 

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                  The Synoptic gospels hold the same opinion of tax collectors as the early rabbinic sources; tax collectors are classified with prostitutes as offenders against morality.  The willingness of Jesus to eat in the company of tax collectors does not mean that he tolerated or condoned their activities.  His association with these men was in the hope of winning them for a better life.  Mathew-Levi gave up his post as collector of tolls in order to become a disciple; the rich Zacchaeus undertook to restore 4-fold whatever he had taken by fraud, and to donate half his capital to charity.  The rabbis also allowed for tax collectors turning over a new leaf; such repentance, they remarked, is difficult because the penitent cannot possibly make restitution.  In later centuries Jewish scholars drastically modified the requirement of monetary restitution to encourage inner repentance.

TAX OFFICE (telwnion (teh lo nee on), toll house)  In Matthew 9, Mark 2, and Luke 5, the tax office in question was probably a toll or customs booth, where duties were levied on merchandise in transit.

TEACHER (didaskaloV (dih das kah los), master)  The term appears often in Greek literature. Frequently it is a title of respect, and is found coupled with kyrios, “lord,” and basileus, “king.”  In the New Testament (NT) the term is sometimes applied to non-Christian leaders such as John the Baptist or Jewish religious authorities.  For teachers of Moses’ law, the compound nomodidaskalos, “law teacher” is often preferred.

                 Of some 60 instances of didaskalos in the NT, more than 30 are in reference to Jesus.  John 1:38 equates the term with rabbi, but this implies no official position.  Elsewhere, the title “teacher” is given to leaders of the young church.  Paul ranks teachers next below apostles and prophets, and above miracle-workers, healers, administrators, and speakers.

     In the evolution of the church’s ministry, the exact place of the teacher is not clear.  The situation in the first Christian decades was fluid, with “prophets and teachers” as recognized officials in some areas but not in all.  Unlike the Christian prophet, the teacher had a contemporary model in the Jewish synagogue, and like his Jewish counterpart enjoyed a position of high honor in the young church.  The teacher’s task was to address the church, and to engage in pedagogical instruction and, rudimentary theological discussion.

TEACHING, EARLY CHURCH.  Instruction or exhortation on various aspects of Christian life and thought, addressed to men already won by the missionary preaching in order to strengthen them.

TEACHING OF JESUS.  These teachings were recorded almost exclusively in the 4 gospels; the rest of the New Testament (NT) seldom directly quotes Jesus.  Jesus’ sayings from other sources add little, even if scholars could agree on their authenticity.  The NT contains words attributed to Christ and communicated through a Spirit-filled person.  The gospels may include thoughts from the early church, as well as Jesus’ words before his death.  The evangelists recorded his teachings to illustrate their own views of him and his message.

                 When the gospels are examined, certain themes appear which had central importance in Jesus’ teaching.  With the exposition of these themes must also be sought Jesus’ teaching about God and God’s will for us, as well as Jesus’ own understanding and work.  It has been the task of later generations to draw out the consequences of Jesus’ teaching.  With the appearance of the 4^th Gospel Jesus’ teaching received its clearest and most coherent reformulation within the NT period.   Whatever view is taken of the relation of John’s Gospel to the Synoptic record, most scholars would be unwilling to build up an account of Jesus’ teaching from sayings taken indiscriminately from the Synoptic and John’s Gospels.

                 Jesus’ Teaching Methods—Jesus was regarded as teacher by his disciples.  He taught publicly in the open air, synagogues, and the temple.  Like contemporary Jewish teachers he gathered disciples, but he did not create a school to interpret the Bible; he sent his disciples to share his own proclamation.  As a recognized rabbi he was consulted on conduct and doctrinal questions (e.g. legality of divorce; adultery; a family quarrel; legality of Caesar’s tribute).  Among theological questions, he was asked about the most important commandment, resurrection, the coming age and the “remnant,” and sin and blindness from birth.  In all these matters Jesus was moving in the style of contemporary teachers, and even agreed with them on some points.

                 Jesus is also represented as giving teachings which explained his actions, or discourses such as the Sermon on the Mount.  Study of the discourses suggests that they are the evangelists’ compositions.  Much the same is true of the parables.  Jesus is represented as announcing the kingdom in parables.  The pattern of “public retort and private explanation” is from rabbinic Judaism.  Some parables were first spoken in reply to questions, and it is often possible to look at just the parables and ask what questions they originally answered.

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                 Despite similarities between Jesus and the rabbis, the gospels have sayings severely critical of contemporaries.  Their teachings were regarded as the “traditions of men”; Jesus’ teaching provoked popular astonishment and disapproval.  It is notable that his teaching was closely associated with healing, and that when asked to perform miracles he was addressed simply as teacher.  The request for privileged places and Peter’s Transfiguration remark demonstrate a primitive Christian tradition to go beyond “teacher’s” normal meaning.

                 In popular estimation he was a prophet, John the Baptist’s successor or a reviver of the prophetic spirit of earlier times.  Much of his teaching had close kinship with that of the prophets in form, manner, and content.  The initial summary of his message in Mark 1 places Jesus at once in the prophetic tradition as the herald of the fulfillment of the prophecy.  His sense of vocation cannot be adequately recognized by the title “teacher.” 

                 The forms of Jesus’ teaching may be studied by using form criticism.  There is a broad distinction between parables and sayings, though the 2 overlap.  Examination of the sayings gives some insight into the recorded tradition of Jesus and may permit a judgment about the originality of the sayings, and the influences at work upon them.  The sayings were originally spoken in Aramaic.  Retranslation of the sayings into Palestinian Aramaic provides instances of wordplay, a feature of Semitic poetry.  It is said that in Aramaic the sayings give the impression of being premeditated and studied deliverances, prophetic utterances of the style and grandeur of Isaiah.  By this prophetic method, the teacher ensured that his words would not be forgotten.

                 Jesus’ teaching includes the “pronouncement story” or brief narrative, which sketches a situation in the barest outline, betraying no interest in the person involved, but simply leading up to Jesus’ pronouncement in response to a question or an action.  When John the Baptist sent messengers to inquire about Jesus’ mission, his reply pointed to his healing activity, which along with “miracle stories” and “kyrios stories,” demonstrated Jesus as Lord.  They include calling the disciples, the confession of Jesus as Messiah, and the Transfiguration.  

                 The Fourth Gospel lacks parables and has few aphorisms.  The dramatic dialogue appears to be a development of a less common Synoptic form.  The long interwoven discourses are not closely allied to the loose Synoptic compositions.  Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls suggests that the “typically Greek” terminology of John’s discourses was more familiar in Palestine than has been supposed.  The teaching of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel still looks like a conscious modification or transformation of the simpler Synoptic forms. 

                 Modifications, Themes and Development of the Tradition—Modifications may have taken place at a stage much earlier than the writing of John’s Gospel, though scholars are widely divergent in their judgments about the extent to which Jesus’ sayings have been reliably preserved.  In the setting out Jesus’ teaching it is necessary to remember that the primitive Christian communities’ concerns caused certain words and actions to be remembered.  A process of selection took place; it is possible by comparing the written gospels to observe how sayings and themes were modified.  The influence of the changed circumstances of a later time may be detected in many of the parables. 

     In the marriage feast parable, it at once appears that the kernel is a parable about a man who prepared a meal for invited guests and when they declined, threw it open to all.  Luke’s version has a repeated invitation to people outside the city, which looks like an allegorical touch to represent the subsequent Gentile mission of the church.  Matthew 22:11-14 appears to have been a separate parable, possibly joined to the previous one in order to guard the primitive church against immoral and unrepentant pagans.  This example illustrates the tendency of the primitive church to use Jesus’ words for their concerns by adaptation arrangement, and allegory.

     If now the individual strata of the Synoptic tradition are examined, it appears that certain traits predominate in each.  In Matthew there is a notable concentration of teaching predicting the coming of the Son of man and much emphasis on the permanent importance of the Jewish law.  Luke’s material is particularly interested in the Christian mission to Gentiles.  Mark and the sayings collection Q have their particular interests.

     In the Synoptic gospels Jesus’ teaching is dominated by God’s kingdom.  The fundamental content of this phrase is derived, by way of rabbinic expression, where the dual conviction is maintained that God is already King and will finally reign in open triumph.  Such a presentation seems almost a direct response to the eager expectation in first-century Palestine, of an imminent victory of the divine sovereignty.  Apocalyptic writings were widely popular and fostered such expectations.  

T-16

     Daniel 7 was likely an influence on Jesus’ teaching.  The term Son of Man and possibly the necessity of suffering and the disciples gathering to be the “saints of the Most High” came from this Daniel chapter.  The apocalyptic expectation of the historical kingdom of God required both Israel‘s purification and her triumph, and also conquering opposition.  The opposition might be demonic forces or Gentile enemies, or both.  Some Jews denounced Gentile idolatry and launched a vigorous movement aimed at their conversion; others believed that God had given the present age to the evil powers and waited the signal for the coming age when God would intervene to make his triumph sure. 

     Jesus used these themes with a difference.  He could use the kingdom metaphor of an evil kingdom in order to assert that it was divided and coming to an end.  Moreover, Jesus’ healing activity was wider than exorcism.  For Jesus the opposition to God’s kingship was a distorted world, inhabited by distorted beings.  Towards Gentiles, Jesus counseled forbearance, forgiveness, and love (“sinners” often meant Gentiles and not lawless Jews).  He was notorious for his association with tax collectors and sinners.  He neither despised Gentiles for ignorance and wickedness nor approved their ways.  He confined his teaching to his own people; but at the same time he urged upon them a new response to the Gentiles in their midst and warned them of the catastrophe that would result from a continued policy of hostility.

   In Jesus’ teaching it was not Gentiles who hindered the kingdom’s coming, but unrepentant Israelites.  With Jesus the distinctive and paradoxical feature was that he found the hard, unrepentant core, not among the “sinners,” but among the “righteous.”  They resented his offer of the gospel to sinners and heard his reply in such parables as the prodigal son.  It was certainly Pharisees who regarded his sabbath healing as dishonorable to God.  Jesus rebuked scribal rulings for the way they had made the practice of law external and destroyed its prophetic, personal challenge.

     Jesus’ yoke, unlike the scribal law’s yoke, was easy, because it did not include keeping the burdensome law; it did mean different ambitions and priorities.  No doubt the rigorous demands arose from the need to confront people with the holy standard, with the divine attributes of love and forgiveness.  Any disciple of his had to decide to enter God’s kingdom.  Renouncing earthly attributes was a necessity if any are to share the life of God.  Judgment awaited those who waited too long to decide.

     In all his teaching Jesus closely associated a body of disciples with himself.  They are the little flock which is to receive the kingdom.  They were to learn and pass on the teaching.  To receive or reject the disciples was to receive or reject Jesus.  At one point at least, it seems that Jesus believed that some disciples would share the suffering of the Son of man.  Many scholars believe that Jesus was consciously assuming the role of the Suffering Servant (Isaiah 53).  His words at the Last Supper, when he gave bread and wine to his disciples, seem to mean that as a condition of sharing his life they must also share his sacrifice. 

     There is little agreement among scholars about what Jesus expected after his death.  That he expected his death to be vindicated in resurrection is firmly established in the tradition; it is not clear when he expected God to bring about the end of this age (For Jesus’ teaching about God, see God entry; for teachings about his own person, see Christ entry and Son of Man entry See also Jesus Christ).  Development of Jesus’ teaching takes place in John’s gospel.  First, there is a revaluation of the Synoptic end of this age; “kingdom of God” is almost entirely replaced by “eternal life.”  Second, there is an explanation of the Christology latent in the Synoptic records. Third, there is conscious reflection on the continuing community of disciples.

TEBAH (טבח (teh bakh), slaughter, meat)  The first son of Nahor and Reumah, and a place between Damascus and Kadesh; same as Betah and Tishath.

TEBALIAH (טבליהו (teh bal yah hoo), whom the Lord has purified)  The third son of Hosah in the line of Merari; a temple gatekeeper in a post-exilic alignment of Levites ascribed to David.

TEBETH (טבﬨ)  The tenth month in the Hebrew Calendar (December-January).

TEETH.  See Tooth.

TEHINNAH (ﬨחנה (teh kheen nah), favor, mercy, supplication)  A man or family of Judah, probably Calebite; founder of Irnahash.

T-17

TEIL TREE (אלה (‘eh law), oak) King James Version’s translation of the Hebrew.  “Teil” is an obsolete name for the lime or linden tree. 

TEKEL.  See Mene, Mene, Tekel, and Parsin.

TEKOA (ﬨקוﬠ, from the root meaning “to smite,”)  A city in the highlands of Judah, identified with Khirbet Taqu’a, about 16 km. south of Jerusalem.  It is 850 meters higher than Bethlehem.  It is surrounded by an area under cultivation; there are a couple of springs in the vicinity. 

                 Eusebius says “Thecua” was 12 Roman miles south of Aelia (Jerusalem), near a wilderness of the same name.  Here a tomb of Amos the prophet was pointed out, a place of veneration also noted in Byzantine historiography.  There was a church of Saint Amos in Tekoa.  A remnant of his church may be the baptismal font, about 1.1 meters deep and 1.2 meters in diameter, cut out of a single limestone.  Jerome mentions that from Bethlehem, he could see the village of Tekoa.

                 In the royal administrative reorganization, Tekoa became a part of highland district of Bethlehem.  One of David’s Mighty Men, Ira son of Ikkesh, was a native of Tekoa.  After the division of the Monarch, possibly soon after Shishak’s invasion of 918 B.C., Rehoboam included Tekoa among the cities whose fortifications were to be strengthened.

                The prophet Amos’ ministry was from 752-738 B.C.; he lived at Tekoa, and was called from there to bring God’s message to the northern kingdom.  Jeremiah calls for a trumpet blast from the fortress Tekoa, so it would appear that even in his time Tekoa was still an important post in Judah’s defense system.  People from Tekoa helped rebuild Jerusalem’s walls after the Exile (Nehemiah 3).  The village played a role in Palestine up to the 1100s A. D. but played no role after that in the history of the region and is now unoccupied.

                 See also entry in the Old Testament (OT) Apocrypha/Influences Outside the OT section of the Appendix.   

TEL-ABIB (אביב ﬨל, hill of corn-ears)  A town in Babylonia, the home of Ezekiel and other exiles, near the canal Chebar, but its exact location cannot be determined.  There was a belief passed on from the Akkadians that all such hills that existed before the Flood.

TEL-ASSAR (ﬨל אשﬧ , hill of the blessed (?))  An Aramean site in northern Mesopotamia, conquered by Sennacherib’s predecessors.  II Kings 19 defines it as the abode of the people of Eden.  “Tel” is the Semitic word for “mound”; its use shows that in Old Testament times the site was known to contain ancient buried cities.

TEL-HARSHA (ﬨל חﬧשא  (tel  khar shaw), hill of the forest)  A Babylonian place from which men unable to produce genealogies proving their Jewish lineage came to Jerusalem.  It was apparently a Jewish settlement on the site of a ruined city. 

TEL-MELAH (ﬨל מלח  (tel  meh lakh), hill of salt)  A Babylonian place from which men unable to produce genealogies proving their Jewish lineage came to Jerusalem.  It was probably a Jewish settlement on a ruined city which had been sown with salt, perhaps near the Persian Gulf.

TELAH (ﬨלח (teh lakh), breach)  A family of the tribe of Ephraim, in a post-exilic list tracing Joshua’s descent.

TELAIM (םהטלא, lambs, also called Telem)  City of Judah, near Ziph and not far from the border of the Amalekites.  It was here that Saul assembled his forces in his campaign against the city of the Amalekites (I Samuel 15).  In I Samuel 27 it is better to take the meaning “from Telem,” which would indicate that the territory of the Amalekites extended from the vicinity of Telaim to the border of Egypt.  The site is uncertain; it could be Khirbet Umm es-Salafeh, southwest of Kurnub, or Khirbet Abu Tulul, about 19 km southeast of Beer-sheba.

TELEM (טלם, oppression)  1.  A Levite, and one of the contemporaries of Ezra listed as having married foreign wives (Ezra 10).  2.  Alternate name for Telaim.

T-18

TELL EL-AMARNA.  The modern name of the site of Akhetaton, capital of Egypt during the reign of Amen-hotep IV (Akh-en-Aton, reigned 1375-1366 B.C.) 

                 Historical Context and the Amarna Revolution—Amen-hotep IV became pharaoh of Egypt about 1375 B.C. after a co-regency of not more than 12 years with his father Amen-hotep III.  By this time Egypt had begun to lose her hold on the large Asian and African empire conquered by Thutmose III, Amen-hotep II, and Thutmose IV.  Recent study has cast considerable doubt on the period of co-regency.  The events of the new king’s early years are difficult to reconstruct.  The one fact which stands out clearly, however, is his indifference to the Empire’s affairs.  He is depicted as religious, physically malformed, with a thin sensuous face, narrow, sloping shoulders, and unusually large hips and abdomen.

                 In sixth year of his reign, for reasons still only conjectured, he broke with the influential priesthood of Amon at Thebes, and devoted himself exclusively to the worship of Aton (sun-god).  The name of Amon was excised from monuments in the entire land, and the king changed his name from Amen-hotep (“Amon is satisfied”) to Akh-en-Aton (“the one who is beneficial to Aton” or “it goes well with Aton”).  Akh-en-Aton planned and built three cities, sacred precincts to his own unique deity, Aton, in Nubia, Syria, and Egypt.  The Egyptian city was at Tell-et-Amarna and was named Akhetaton (“the horizon of Aton” or “place of the effective glory of Aton”; Akh-en-Aton moved there with his family and court.

     The religious heresy and the political changes are often referred to as the Amarna Revolution.  Its religious heresy was an essentially monotheistic cult devoted to the worship of Aton, whose evolution from object to life-sustaining principle and god took place shortly before the time of Akh-en-Aton, and was adopted by him.  It is conjectured that Atonism is an offspring of Heliopolis’ theology and represents a temporary victory by that priesthood, which had a longer history then Amon at Thebes.  It is reasonable too to suppose that Akh-en-Aton was reared under the influence of Heliopolis’ priests.

     Some scholars feel that “monotheism” is not a satisfactory designation for the religion of Akh-en-Aton.  They stress Aton’s superiority over other gods, rather than an exclusive existence.  The sources and nature of this new religion has been a subject of great interest to Old Testament (OT) scholars; some see a relationship between early OT religion and Atonism.  There is, however, no real evidence of direct transmission from the Egyptian to the Israelite, and similarities between them are often superficial.   The often-quoted parallels between Psalm 104 and the Aton Hymn of Akh-en-Aton provide a striking example of literary influence.  Since the Hymn survived Atonism, the influence could have been from much later forms of it. 

     The Amarna period is equally remarkable for the changes which took place in art forms and in literary composition.  The naturalism familiar from most of the Amarna portraiture represents a radical departure from the traditional forms of Egyptian art, although it may have had some of its beginnings in the previous reign, and it was more predominate early in Akh-en-Aton’s reign.  Realistic representation is coupled with an unusual choice of subject; the mystery surrounding the pharaoh was abandoned, and we are confronted with scenes depicting the private life of the king and his family.  These representations show a shift in emphasis from concentration on the eternal and the after life in the old to an interest in the new for the living, current, and temporary.  We find common speech invading and replacing the classical written form of the language.

     Closely associated with the new religion was an extraordinary emphasis on the concept of maat, “truth.”  Recent studies have shown rather conclusively that maat in the Armarna literature should be understood as a unifying force of rightness and order in all things and never as actuality or reality as comprehended by the senses.  Maat is closely associated with the pharaoh, to whom it is sustenance.  It is notable for its lack of symbolism and personification in the Amarna milieu.

     Few details of happenings in the rest of Egypt are available, but in his 12^th year a genuine crisis seems to have been caused by social, political, and religious reforms connected with the revolution, and by a growing concern over the Empire’s rapid dissolution.  Pharaoh’s brother Smenkhere married pharaoh’s eldest daughter, became co-regent, and returned to Thebes to conciliate with the Amon priesthood.  This concession did not fix the situation, and both Akh-en-Aton and his brother disappeared from the historical scene.  The kingship was assumed by the half brother of Queen Nefert-iti, Tutankhaton who submitted to the Amon priesthood, even to the extent of altering his name to Tut-ankh-Amon; his reign was not a successful one.  After a short rule by another member of the Akhetaton court, the throne was turned over to General Hor-em-heb.   

T-19

                 Location, Name, and Description of the Site—Tell el-Amarna is the modern designation of the site in Egypt about 320 km south of Cairo on the east bank of the Nile, occupied in antiquity by the city called Akhetaton, capital and sacred precinct of Akh-en-Aton, 10^th ruler of the 18^th Dynasty.  It derives its current name from the Beni ‘Amran tribe, who settled there in comparatively modern times.  Several villages including Amarea, and et-Till; it is from a chance combination of et-Till with that of the area in general that the name Tell el-Amarna was formed by travelers who visited the site.

                 Extensive British German excavations early in the 1900s have made available much information concerning the plan of the city and the daily life and institutions of its inhabitants.  The city extended over 8 km from north to south but was less than a kilometer wide, because no part of the city could be too far from a source of water.  The excavators have given names to the separate quarters of the city.  From north to south they are: Customs House; North City; North Palace; North Suburb; Central City; Eastern Village; River Temple; and Maru-Aton, or the Precinct of the Southern Pool.

                 From what has been discovered, it is clear that Akhetaton was an impressive city.  Most of its area, apart from official buildings and temples was occupied by estates.  All the houses show a striking uniformity of plan, with size the principal mark of the owner’s importance.  The city itself does not show careful planning beyond the main north-south streets.  The Central City consisted of the Great Temple and its dependencies: the Hall of Foreign Tribute; several official residences; the Palace; and the Royal Residence.  The remainder of the Central City consisted of administrative buildings, including the Military and Police Headquarters.

                 The Precinct of the Southern Pool includes a garden, a pool, a small temple, and several other buildings, and appears to have been a resort area for the royal family.  Eastern City was presumably the home of the tomb diggers and grave tenders for the royal city.  These tombs, with their rich wall paintings of buildings and activities in Akhetaton and their various inscriptions have proved an invaluable aid for reconstructing the Amarna scene.  The life of this remarkable city, Akhetaton, was extremely short.  There is no evidence either of prior or of subsequent occupation.  The site appears to have been abandoned suddenly and completely at the fall of the Amarna court.  In fact, evidence indicates that skilled masons carried out an orderly devastation of the city, probably at the orders of Pharaoh Hor-em-heb.

                 Amarna Letters—The Amarna Tablets consist almost entirely of diplomatic correspondence between the Egyptian courts of Amen-hotep III and Amen-hotep IV and the rulers of the Asian section of the Empire.  They were discovered by Egyptian peasants in 1887 in the ruins of el-Amarna near the village of et-Till.  The tablets are distributed at present among several European museums.  Because the majority of the letters were sent to Egypt by princes and local rulers in Syria and Palestine, the Amarna Tablets rank first among archaeological finds bearing on the topology and history of the biblical lands in the 1500s B.C. and onwards. 

     The tablets are written mostly in cuneiform Babylonian, the diplomatic language of the entire Near East at this time.  The correspondents may be divided into three categories:  rulers of nations equal to Egypt; vassal princes in Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine; and various minor Egyptian officials in the same areas.  The first group includes:  kings of the Kassite Dynasty in Babylon; king of Assyria; king of Mitanni; king of the Hittites; and king of Alasya (Cyprus).  Most frequently heard from among the vassal princes are those of Qatna, Amurru (Amorite), Byblos, Beirut, Sidon, Tyre, and Jerusalem.

    At the beginning of 1300s B.C., 4 other principal powers must be reckoned with in the Near East besides Egypt:  the Mitanni kingdom, ruled by Indo-Aryans; the Hittite kingdom; the Assyrian kingdom; and the Kassite Dynasty in Babylon.  Under Thutmose III’s powerful leadership, the borders of the Egyptian Empire had been extended northward to the Euphrates and southward to the Nubian city of Napata.  Egypt was forced to withdraw from its northernmost Syrian provinces under the constantly expanding Mitanni kingdom.  Toward the end of the reign of Amenhotep III (1412-1375) Egypt’s hold on its entire northern empire had weakened.

     The most extensive correspondence from a single source is that of Rib-Addi, prince of Byblos, from whom over 50 letters to the Egyptian court still exist. His urgent requests for military aid were because of Abdi-Ashirta of Amurru, who was attempting to gain control over several adjacent principalities. Constant reference is made to the Sa. Gaz (Habiru), who are generally associated with the Hebrews, and first came to the attention of scholars through the Amarna Letters. Although many features of the Habiru problem remain obscure, it is clear that they consisted mainly of landless vagrants who entered into a dependent status as laborers or soldiers. Despite their status, they eventually stripped Rib-Addi of every other city except Byblos.

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            Mitanni control in the north was finally usurped by the Hittites under the command of Suppiluliumas, who in 1370 sacked their capital Wassukkanni.  Suppiluliumas completed his conquest of Syria in a second campaign around 1340.  Little is known of the extent to which Egyptian control survived in Palestine after the reign of Akh-en Aton.  It is not until the reigns of Seti I (1318-1299) and Ramses II (1299-1232) that Egypt once more became actively involved with her Asian empire.

TEMA  (ﬨימא)  Son of Ishmael, and name of an Arabian locality.  It is the same as the modern Teima, an oasis located at a crossroads, about 400 km southeast of Aqaba, and on the road to the head of Persian Gulf, and 320 km north-northeast of Medina, on the road to Damascus; this location made it an important rest stop.  The oracle in Isaiah 21, which bids the inhabitants of Tema help their fugitive brethren, probably refers to the campaign of Tiglath-pileser III of Assyria in 738 B.C. 

   The dire predictions of Jeremiah against the inhabitants of Tema may refer to the campaign of Nebuchadnezzar.  Nabonidus, the last king of Babylonia, seems to have taken a special interest in Tema.  In 552 B.C. he slaughtered its inhabitants, and completely rebuilt and repopulated the city; he made it his residence for perhaps 10 years.  The exact reason for his long stay in Tema is uncertain.  Perhaps it was to establish a point of contact with Egypt, Babylonia’s only remaining ally against Persia; or it may have been his desire to build up a great religious center in opposition to Babylon.

TEMAH  (ﬨמח (teh makh))  Ancestor and the source of the name of a family of Nethinim, or temple servants, among the exiles returned from Babylon (Ezra 2; Nehemiah 7).

TEMAN (ﬨימן, towards the south)  A clan descended from Esau, and the place were it lived.  The Edomite fortifications there was the site of an unusually large amount of Edomite Early Iron I-II (1200-600 B.C.) pottery, which suggests a site of considerable importance.  It dominated the fertile, well-watered area, which was thickly settled in the Edomite period and the meeting place of important trade routes.  Like “Bozrah,” “Teman” is used as a parallel expression for the Edomite nation.

TEMANITE (יﬨימנ, “of Teman” or “of Tema”)  1.  An inhabitant of the region occupied by the clan of Teman.  2.  Designation of Job’s companion Eliphaz; he could be from either Tema or Teman.

TEMENI (ﬨימני, right, south)  A man or family of Judah; son of Ashhur, a son of Caleb.

TEMPERANCE.  See Self-control.      

TEMPLE, JERUSALEM.  There were in the biblical period 3 successive temples in Jerusalem on the same site:  Solomon’s (957 B.C.); Zerubbabel’s (539 B.C.); and Herod’s (20 B.C.).  The site is that of the presently standing and famous Muslim shrine known as Qubbet es-Sakhra (“Dome of the Rock”), completed in 691 A.D.

                  Solomon’s Temple in I Kings: History and Exterior—This was the “first temple,” according to Jewish thinking.  Prior to its establishment as a symbol of the official state religion, there were smaller, local temples at various places.  The recently nomadic Hebrews had little experience and sought help from the nearby Canaanites.  The early tradition in II Samuel 24 relates that David purchased a threshing floor from Araunah the Jebusite upon which to build an altar.  According to I Chronicles 22 and II Chronicles 3, this was the site of Solomon’s temple.  Some traditions mention David’s hopes and preparations for building a temple.

                 At any rate, Solomon took decisive action, calling upon Hiram I (968-935 B.C.), king of Tyre, for workmen and materials.  In addition to the skilled Phoenician workmen (called here Sidonians), Solomon used 30,000 forced laborers from his own country.  A special contingent from Gebal (Byblos) is also mentioned.  The work began, so it is said, 480 years after the Exodus.  Unfortunately this item does not agree with information from elsewhere about the Exodus.  Other data provides “in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign . . . in the month of Ziv, which is the second month.” 

    Taking 961 as the accession date of Solomon, we have 957 as the date for the beginning of the temple.  The month of Ziv (April-May), after the winter rains were over, was the proper time of year to begin.  7 years were required to finish the temple, but Solomon’s building was not ended.  He erected in 13 years a series of palaces and other royal buildings adjoining the temple.

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                 In ancient times there were 3 types of cubits, the ordinary of 45 cm., the royal of 52 cm., and a rarely used long cubit of almost 55 cm.  It is now generally agreed that the royal cubit is the one intended in descriptions of the temple.  What follows is a comparison of the dimensions of Solomon’s and Herod’s temple.  Zerubbabel’s temple right after the Exile cannot be included, because very little data on its dimensions is offered.

                 Temple Dimensions                                                    

                                 Solomon’s Temple 957 B.C.)                                                 

l by w by h in:                      Cubits                            Meters                                    

Low wall                                       [no dimensions given]                             

Platform height                          6                                     3.1                             

Porch (Ulam)                    20 x 10 x 30                  10.4 x 5.2 x 15.6                    

Building                             60 x 20 x 30                 31.2 x 10.4 x 15.6                   

Wall Thickness                          6                                     3.1                          

      Main room                         40 x 20 x 30                 20.8 x 10.4 x 15.6                   

      Holy of Holies                    20 x 20 x 20                 10.4 x 10.4 x 10.4                   

      Side Structure                                                                       

          (3 sides) 1^st flr.:                 5  x  5                            2.6 x 2.6                                 

                        2^nd flr.:                6  x  5                            3.1 x 2.6                        

                        3^rd flr.:                7  x  5                            3.6 x 2.6

      Altar of Burnt Offering                  [no dimensions given]                                         

      Bronze Pillars                   3.8 (diam.) x 23               2 (diam.) x 12                   

      Cherubim                            10 x 10                            5.2 x 5.2                   

      Molten Sea                        10 (diam.) x 5               5.2 (diam.) x 2.6                  

        Herod’s Temple (20 B.C.)
   l by w by h in:                      Cubits                            Meters         
   Low wall                         400 x 300 x 3                    208 x 156 x 1.6
   Porch                               50 x 20 x 90                    26 x 10.4 x 46.8
   Building                            60 x 20 x 60                   31.2 x 10.4 x 31.2
   Wall Thickness                              [no dimensions given]
   Main room                       40 x 20 x 60                    20.8 x 10.4 x 31.2      
   Holy of Holies                  20 x 20 x 20                    10.5 x 10.5 x 10.5       
   Side Structure 
       (2 sides, 3 floors each)   60 x 20 x 5                      31.2 x 10.4 x 2.6
   Altar of Burnt Offering     50 x 50 x 15                        26 x 26 x 7.8
   Bronze Pillars                                       None present
   Cherubim                                             None present
   Molten Sea                                          None present

           A few comments are necessary regarding the temple structure.  First, there is no reliable information as to how, or as to what extent, each story of the side structure was divided into rooms, so reconstructions naturally vary widely in this detail.  Second, the 2 huge bronze pillars were mentioned among the bronze objects in and around the building.  They are usually placed just outside the porch’s entrance; they may have been hollow, or they may have had a wooden core.  Third, the temple platform seems to be indicated in Ezekiel 41.  In front of the building was the “inner court,” fenced about “with 3 courses of hewn stone and 1 course of cedar beams.” 

                 Interior and Bronze Furnishings—The interior walls were covered with cedar wainscoting; the floor was covered with cypress boards.  All the inside wainscoted walls were filled with carved figures of gourds, cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers.  Thus no stonework could be seen anywhere on the inside of the building.  Much of this woodwork was inlaid with gold, just as ivory inlay was used at Samaria and Megiddo.  The cherubim of the holy of holies faced front, with wings touching the wall, while the other two wings met in the center.  Beneath these wings was placed the Ark of the Covenant.  The Holy of Holies’ double doors were of olivewood, decorated in the same way as the walls.  The temple proper had much larger double doors. 

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                 For the execution of the vast amount of stonework and woodwork, Solomon hired one Hiram of Tyre, bearing the same name as the king.  This man was half Israelite, as his mother was from Naphtali or Dan.  His first task was to cast the great pillars Jachin and Boaz.  The capitals were decorated with lily-work and hundreds of pomegranates.  Another unusual bronze structure was the “molten sea” (See  Table 1).  The bowl was decorated with two rows of gourds all the way around.  It was a handbreadth thick, and had a cuplike brim resembling the flower of a lily; the capacity was 2,000 baths (41,800 liters).  This great basin rested upon 12 bronze bulls arranged in groups of three, each group facing a point of the compass; the whole structure was placed in the southeast corner before the temple.           

                 Other bronze objects made by Hiram the artisan included 10 ornate wagons, carrying 10 lavers (water basins), each having a capacity of 40 baths (836 liters).  It has been estimated that the “sea” would weigh over 27 metric tons, and one of the wagons with its basin of water 3.6 metric tons.  How could they have been moved from their place of casting in the Jordan Valley, and moved into place?  5 of them were placed on one side of the court and 5 on the other.  Smaller bronze objects are also mentioned.  Gold was to be found in the temple, in the form of: furnishings; the altar before the holy of holies; the table for the Bread of the Presence; ten lamp stands; flowers, lamps, tongs, cups snuffers, sprinkling bowls, incense dishes, and fire pans.

                 Solomon’s Temple:  Other Biblical Data—We learn in II Chronicles that the temple mount was called Moriah.  The chief overlooked item supplied here is the large “bronze” altar, 20 cubits (10.4 meters) square, and 10 cubits (5.2 meters) high, mentioned along with the two columns and the “sea.”  It probably was intended to supersede the altar built by David at this spot.  Some of the Chronicler’s contribution consists of exaggeration of the figures in I Kings.  The porch’s height is to have been 120 cubits (62.4 meters).  The height of the pillars Jachin and Boaz is 40 cubits (20.8 meters) in II Chronicles, versus 23 cubits (12 meters) in I Kings.

                 As to the “sea,” the Hebrew says its bowl was decorated with figures of bulls instead of gourds.  The capacity of the bowl is given as 3,000 baths (62,700 liters) instead of 2,000.  A note is added to the effect that the wagon-borne basins were for washing the burnt offerings, while the “sea” was for the ceremonial washing of the priests.  Many commentators see in this great tank what one has called a cosmic significance, symbolizing both cleansing and the primeval ocean from which all and fertility were thought to have been derived. 

                 The Chronicler is even more lavish with gold than is the author of Kings.  The 36 meter porch was overlaid (inlaid?) on the inside with pure gold.  Even the nails were of gold.  The veil mentioned in ch. 3 was probably from a temple after Solomon’s.  Solomon’s bronze dedication platform is also lacking in Kings, although there are archaeological parallels to it.

                 The temple in Ezekiel is a vision of the future, projected by the prophet or by one of the editors of the book.  Its basic plan seems to have been taken from the recently destroyed structure of Solomon.  It is clear that Ezekiel’s temple faced the east.  Solar elements in religions caused many temples to be so oriented.  Solomon’s Phoenician architects would have followed current practices.  The altar in the inner court is also mentioned here, though the material is not specified, and stone, not bronze, may be implied.  The size of the porch is 20 by 11 cubits, instead of 20 by 10.  The two pillars are in evidence, but not by name.

                 The size of the nave or main body of the temple agrees exactly with Kings, likewise the size of the holy of holies, though nothing is said about the height of either; the side chambers are divided into 90 rooms.  The outside length of the temple is given as 100 cubits.  The inside arrangement, decoration, and furnishings are similar to those listed in Kings.  The various courts and adjacent structures are different from those of Solomon.  Conspicuous by its absence is the great “sea”; its place seems to be taken by the stream of living water flowing eastward from the temple.

                 The temple did not stand alone, but was part of a complex of royal buildings that took altogether 20 years to build.  The king did have a private entrance from his palace, and the temple had public and national significance, increasingly so as time went on.  Solomon used rare “Almug or algum wood (sandalwood?)” brought by Hiram’s fleet from the south.  Treasure was kept in the temple, in the main structure or in the side chambers.  The young King Joash was hidden somewhere in the temple during the usurpation of Athaliah.  When Joash was crowned, he stood by one of the pillars “according to the custom.”

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           After the building had stood for a century, repairs were needed and were provided for by Joash. Soon afterwards Joash of Israel (Northern Kingdom) attacked Jerusalem and plundered the temple. Ahaz (735 B.C.) took treasure from the sanctuary to pay Assyria for protection against Israel and Syria. He also had a new-style altar copied for use in the temple court. Finally, he broke up the bronze basin-wagons and removed the bulls supporting the “sea,” replacing them with a stone pedestal. His son Hezekiah took further treasure from the temple and even stripped off gold trimmings to raise a sum to pay Sennacherib of Assyria.
           The apostate King Manasseh installed various heathen altars, images, and utensils within the sacred precincts; Josiah removed these and restored the proper worship of Yahweh.  Nebuchadrezzar, following his first attack, took vessels of gold but apparently did not damage the structure.  In the second attack, the temple was completely plundered and then burned.  Yet, in spite of the destruction, certain sacrifices continued to be offered.  The description of the tabernacle in Exodus is to a certain extent based on reminiscences of Solomon’s temple (e.g. the main room and the holy of holies are each exactly half the size of Solomon’s).

                 Archaeological Data and Special Problems—The biblical account makes it clear that Solomon’s temple was built by Phoenician architects and artisans, with Israel’s mainly unskilled help.  In Syrian ground plans, there is a porch, a main room, and an inner or back room.  This arrangement has examples in sacred architecture from ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, and modern churches.  With the rise of the study of Assyria culture, much effort was expended in an attempt to show Mesopotamian or Anatolian (i.e. Asia Minor) parallels with respect to the Jerusalem temple.  Names of parts of this temple seem to be borrowed from Akkadian.

                 Much of this research has to do with the “long room” or “long house,” originally open at one end.  When such a structure was divided into three parts with the largest part in the middle, a plan similar to that of Solomon’s temple was achieved.  The long room was hardly known in Lower Mesopotamia, but it appears rather frequently in early Assyria and among the Hittites.  A practical objection to all this is that simple types of construction like these might arise independently in different localities.  Assyrian parallels turn out to correspond rather inexactly with the Solomonic plan.

                 A “northern” origin may also be indicated by wooden wainscoting.  The Phoenicians could easily adopt this style because of their possession of Lebanon’s cedars.  Canaanite temples before Solomon’s time have been excavated in five Palestinian locations.  Only the one at Hazor, destroyed in the latter part of the 1200s B.C., seems to resemble closely Solomon’s structure in its ground plan.  What we have for a missing link with Solomon’s temple is the small temple at Tell Tainat, in northern Syria between Aleppo and Antioch dated in the 800s B.C., shortly after Solomon’s time; the size is about two-thirds that of Solomon’s temple.

                 Some controversy exists as to whether the bronze pillars stood free, and hence were symbolic or served functionally to support the roof.  Almost all scholarly opinion favors the free standing hypothesis.  The number of parallels is impressive, beginning with the New Kingdom in Egypt, Assyria, Phoenicia, and Cyprus.  In each case such pillars would probably symbolize divine or cosmic power relied upon to support the religious establishment.  The bronze sea, too, probably had symbolic significance with cosmic overtones.  Egyptian temples, had “sacred lakes,” sometimes for ritual washing, sometimes to be filled with Nun, water from the subterranean Nile.  There is also the Mesopotamian apsu, a word meaning both the subterranean ocean, and the basin of holy water in a temple.  Also, the great bowl was supported by bulls, the most popular animal representative of fertility in the ancient Near East.

                 The elaborate carving on the wood wainscoting finds its best counterpart in the richly carved ivories of pre-Solomonic and post-Solomonic dates discovered at such places as Nimrud, Ras Shamra, Samaria, and Megiddo, all thought to reflect Phoenician or Syrian influence.  Perhaps it can be said that the basic plan of the temple came from the far north, but that it took on Hittite, Assyrian, Syrian, Egyptian, and Phoenician elements as it traveled about in the movements and mixtures of peoples from 2000-1000 B.C.  It would have been called “Tyrian” or “Sidonian” or “Canaanite” in its time, or, as we would say, “Phoenician.”

                 Many observers have been impressed with the great rock that is so prominently featured within the Dome of the Rock today.  It has become the fashion to say that this was a sacred rock” from time immemorial, even before Solomon and David.  If we consider its size and its central location, the most plausible hypothesis would seem to be that it lay under the hekhal, or main room, or under the temple as a whole.

                 While the wood for the temple had to be brought from Lebanon, the bronze from Solomon’s copper mines and smelting furnaces in the Arabah, the gold and ivory from  far away in the south, the basic building material, the stone, was immediately at hand.  The famous white limestone is still quarried from the great cavern under the Old City known as Solomon’s Quarries.   

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    Reconstruction Attempts:  1700s-Howland-Garber Model (1950)—The early attempts go back at least as far as that of Lamy and Altschul (1720s).   During the 1800s, a considerable number of major works bearing on Solomon’s temple were published, most notable being Bernhard Stade’s, whose History of Israel, began to appear in 1881.  The models and reconstructions of Conrad Schick have had a great popular vogue, but are now known to be very inaccurate.  Schick confused features of Solomon’s temple with those of Herod’s. 

                 The ground plan has occasioned little difficulty or difference of opinion.  The serious problems arise when attempts are made to reconstruct the building above it.  Assyrian studies in the early part of the 1900s brought an overemphasis on Assyrian parallels.  Only Carl Watzinger in the 1930s shows the best understanding of the need for fitting Solomon’s temple into its immediate Phoenician and Syrian background, without neglecting the search for more remote origins in Assyria and further north.  The parallels should come from as close as possible, in both time and place, to Solomon’s temple.  Thus the Tell Tainat chapel of northern Syria was offered as the best parallel ground plan.                     

                  P. L. Garber and E. G. Howland combined forces to meet the challenge suggested by the hopeful words of Albright and Wright.  They produced the Howland-Garber model of Solomon’s temple, first exhibited in 1950.  The construction of an altar of burnt offering in front of the temple is not mentioned in Kings, but still its existence is assumed by many scholars.  The Solomonic altar seems to have been made at least partly of bronze.  Howland and Garber have followed Ezekiel in rough outline in producing their controversial altar.  It tapers more steeply than a strict interpretation of Ezekiel allows, with no steps but with a ramp-like arrangement similar to that of some Babylonian ziggurats (temples).

                 There is little controversy about the general design and size of the “sea.”  The temple structure itself in this model stands on a platform 6 cubits (3.1 meters) high.  The pillars in this model are free-standing, according to a presently strong majority of opinion.  The side chambers stop short of the portico on each side, in accord with the biblical text.  There is no attempt to divide them into small rooms.  The entrance to these side chambers is placed inside the temple, in the nave.  On the question of a tower, the solution is simple: no difference in height anywhere is mentioned in Kings; hence no tower or towers is to be assumed. 

                 With respect to the holy of holies, a perfect cube of 20 cubits (10.4 meters) long in each direction on the inside, the chief problem is to explain the differences of 10 cubits (5.2 meters) in inside height between the holy of holies and the temple as a whole.  Watzinger, and Howland-Garber along with him raises the floor of the holy of holies about 5 cubits (2.6 meters) and supplies the steps for the raised entrance.  The remaining 5 cubits are incorporated in an unused space between the roof and the room’s ceiling. 

     I Kings 6 says something about the entrance to the holy of holies being pentagonal. The most common explanations are: a gabled entrance (i.e. 5 sides); 5 steps; and 5-sided doorposts. The model uses the last of these explanations.  One feature of the interior of the model must be noticed.  This is the use of the so-called proto-Ionic spiral ornaments on top of the columns of the wooden pilasters in the nave.  It represents the use of an authentic architectural theme of the time.  One should also notice the splendidly and authentically realistic cherubim in the holy of holies.

     Every house was required to have a parapet, according to Deuteronomy 22, and it is likely that this temple had one.  Along with Watzinger, Howland and Garber have the straight-edge construction on the parapet, which differs from a later model to be mentioned shortly.   Howland and Garber chose the Egyptian style, which is found elsewhere in Palestine and Phoenicia.

    Reconstruction Attempts:  Stevens-Wright Drawing and Later Works—Albright and Wright praised the Howland-Garber model but were not satisfied with some of its details.  Stevens drew a reconstruction of Solomon’s temple, plus a drawing of the altar of burnt offering.  The Steven-Wright altar strictly follows Ezekiel, showing three stages with a large platform at the top reached by a long, steep flight of steps.         

     Stevens and Wright do not offer a “sea”; several other reconstructions of the object have proved satisfactory.  Stevens and Wright show nothing of the interior-arrangement.  Their pillars are free-standing, with the tops done largely out of their imaginations, whereas Howland and Garber used the top of the Megiddo incense burner for a model.  Probably neither is very close to the original.

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           The chief differences between Howland-Garber and Stevens-Wright are in the side chambers and the parapet.  The latter shows an outside entrance near the front of the side structure on the right (south) side.  Stevens and Wright stop the side structures short of the porch; Stevens and Wright put many windows into the side chambers, compared with none in Howland-Garber.

           The most striking disagreement to the eye is at the parapet.  Stevens and Wright show a crow-step (diagonally zig-zagged) crenellated battlement.  Solomon’s temple was designed by Phoenician architects.  No doubt, Phoenician architects knew about battlements; but did they put them on temples?  Architects enjoy adding battlements to the reconstructions as a sort of eye-filling top dressing.  Corswant has a brief treatment of the temple of Solomon with a simple line drawing of the ground plan and a side elevation.  There is a tower at the front; the pillars are free-standing; the side structure does not come all the way to the front. 

     Another prominent re-constructor is Père L.-H. Vincent.  He added mathematical calculations like triangulation, to the biblical text and to archaeology as a means of determining some of the building’s details.  Assuming that Solomon’s architects used Egyptian mathematics, unknown details can be calculated; there is no altar reconstruction.  The “sea” is about the same as the others, but the bowl seems larger, the bulls smaller, and they are lying down.  There is no platform.  Behind the pillars are 2 towers, arrived at by a process of triangulation aided by archaeological parallels.  Every stage is surmounted by battlements with crow-step crenellations.  Vincent has more small windows than Stevens and Wright.  Examination of Vincent’s ground plan shows a different approach to the problem of the entrance or entrances to the side structure.  Vincent protects the entrances.  A side room is added to each end of the porch; from each of these side rooms there is an entrance to the side structure.  Most scholars think there is little justification of this feature.

     It is probably fortunate that the only outstanding model of the 1900s so far is that of Howland and Garber.  This model is a relatively sane and conservative product, resting solidly on the text of Kings, the only reliable literary source, and on some of the less controversial archaeological finds.  There is every reason why scholars should continue to study the subject and produce books and relatively inexpensive plans drawn on paper.  

     Zerubbabel’s Temple—In 539 B.C., Cyrus II, the Great, Persia’s king, captured Babylon, overthrowing the Chaldean or Neo-Babylonian Empire, and incorporating Palestine among other regions into the new Persian Empire.  He issued his famous decree that allowed deported peoples to return to their own lands and to practice their own religious observances, so long as they did not engage in political rebellion against Persia. 

     As a result of these developments, a number of Jews returned to Judah and Jerusalem under Shesh-bazaar and Zerubbabel.  With the help of those who had never left, a temple was started on the old site, and finished probably around 516/515 B.C.  Jewish writers call this the “second temple,” and speak of the entire post-exilic period, including the time of Herod and his new temple,” as the period of the second temple.  It is also well to remember that the second temple, in spite of how little information there is about it, stood for nearly 500 years, a century more than Solomon’s, and far long than Herod’s magnificent replacement of it.

     Our earliest sources are Haggai (520 B.C.) and Zechariah (520-528), but they are very meager.  The former complains the people are procrastinating in building the “house of the Lord.” He suggests that their economic difficulties, drought, inflation, and the like, are due to the ruined state of the temple.  This challenge stirs Governor Zerubbabel and High Priest Joshua to lead the people in the work of construction.  The elderly prophet predicts a future more splendid than the glory of the old temple.  Haggai predicts the greatest material and spiritual success for Judah under the leadership of Zerubbabel.  

                 Zechariah speaks of the temple very little.  It rebuilding is predicted.  The coming of the Lord to dwell in the midst of his people is mentioned in chapter 2.  Chapter 6 mentions the laying of the foundation of the temple.  The Chronicler, writing perhaps two centuries later, seems to be the next witness.  I Chronicles 23-26 sets forth the organization of the temple staff, duties of the Levites, the temple musicians etc.  Surely this passage reflects to some extent the temple organization of the author’s own day.

                 Ezra, usually regarded with Nehemiah as a continuation of the work of the Chronicler, yields valuable historical information.  Chapter 1 tells of the return of a small group under Shesh-bazaar, with definite intent to rebuild the temple.  They were even allowed to bring back the sacred vessels that remained.  Ezra 2 speaks of freewill offerings by individual Jews to the temple fund.  Chapter 3 tells first of the restoration of the altar of burnt offering.  The leadership is already credited to Zerubbabel and Jeshua.

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     Chapter 4 tells of the offer of the Samaritans to join in the rebuilding of the temple, and its rejection by Zerubbabel and Jeshua, followed by attempts to hinder the construction.  Governor Tattenai of Syria writes Darius to ascertain whether the Jews were given authority to build by Cyrus.  Darius replies that Tattenai is to appropriate royal funds from the taxes of his province for completion of the building. 

     The project was completed in the month of Adar of the Darius I’s 6^th year, hence in the spring of 515 B.C.  Doubtless the temple was more modest than Solomon’s.  It is probable that recent writers have tended to overemphasize the second temple’s inferiority, especially if the reports of the Persian government’s substantial financial aid are correct.  The only statement of dimensions of this temple given in a biblical passage, “height . . . 60 cubits . . . breadth 60 cubits,” is both incomplete and unrealistic.

     The book of Nehemiah mentions the temple only incidentally.  It speaks of: the “gates of the fortress of the temple” (Chapter 2); the temple tax (10); chambers for the storage of contributions (12).  Also in 12, the people stand at the “house of God” during the dedication of the new wall.  Certain chapters (7, 8, 9, 12) in Daniel have verses that contain veiled references to the desecration of the second temple in 168 B.C.   

                  See also entry in the Old Testament (OT) Apocrypha/Influences Outside the OT section of the Appendix. 

                 Herod’s Temple: New Testament (NT) References—This temple lasted a much shorter time than the other two.  Begun around 20 B.C., the basic structure was completed in about 1½ years, but subsidiary construction may not have been entirely finished when the destruction came in 70 A.D.  This one involved an almost complete rebuilding in the new Greek-Roman style of architecture.  Our chief literary sources are the NT, Josephus, and the Mishna (See the Temple, Jerusalem entry in the Old Testament (OT) Apocrypha/ Influences Outside the OT section of the Appendix for Josephus and Mishna references).  The substructure of Herod’s temple still survives under the large area or court around the Dome of the Rock.

                 Although the NT contains more than 100 references to Herod’s temple, few yield any detailed information about the dimensions or appearance of the structure itself.  A number of gospel passages portray Jesus as frequenting the temple, “teaching’ or “walking” there.  Clearly, Jesus and his immediate followers still considered the temple as the religious center of their communal life.  “The pinnacle of the temple” refers, not to the top of the temple proper, but probably to the southeast corner of the outer wall, high above the Kidron Valley.  Similarly, the money changers were not within the building itself, but in one of the courts outside.

                 Only a few details are mentioned.  There was a section of the temple precincts called Solomon’s Portico, where Jesus and the apostles walked.  The “Beautiful Gate” is twice mentioned, but nothing is told of its location or design.   Paul was accused of bringing Greeks into a court forbidden to Gentiles.  Neither Jesus nor Paul, ever entered the temple building proper.

                 Attempts at Reconstruction—Many have offered ground plans of the sacred enclosure.  Basic is the work of De Vogue (1864), who presented both a ground plan of the area and a complete restoration of temple and environs in his magnificent folio publication.  The plans of Vincent and Steve are similar, except that Antonia is outside the northern wall, though contiguous to it.  A verbal description of their diagram follows.

                 Around the temple area, there was a portico (porch), supported by 3 or 4 long rows of marble columns.  Starting in the northwest (NW) corner, the portico was 40 cubits (18.2 meters) wide, and stretched east (E) for 650c. (295m.) on 3 rows of columns, ending 30c. (13.6m.) south (S) of due E; there is one gate, about 260c. (118m.) E of the NW corner.  The eastern portico was 40c. (18.2m.) wide, and stretched S for 940c. (427m.) on 3 rows of columns, ending 50c. (22.7m.) W of due S; there is one gate 300c. (136.4m.) S of the NE corner.  The southern portico was 80c. (36.4m.) wide, and stretched due W for 580c. (263.5m.) on 4 rows of columns; there are 2 gates, one 200c. (91m.) W of the SE corner, and one 200c. (91 m.) E of the SW corner. 

                 The western portico was 40 c. (18.2 m.) wide, and stretched N for 1000 c. (454.5 m.) on 3 rows of marble columns, ending 10 c. (4.5 m.) W of due N.  There are 3 gates, one 170 c. (77.3 m.) N of the SW corner, one 470 c. (213.5 m.) N of the SW corner, and one 190 c. (86.4 m.) S of the NW corner.  What we call “the Western or Wailing Wall is a small part of the foundation of the western portico and the only surviving part of the temple area above ground.  It is an 80 c. (36.4 m.) section, beginning 180 c. (82 m.) N of the SW corner.  

                 The portico surrounds the Gentiles’ Court, which in turn surrounds the temple compound.  Many scholars theorize this compound as an irregular four-sided shape, with the long sides running roughly N and S. In the diagram, its NW corner was 50c. (22.7m.) from the western portico and 330c. (150m.) from the northern portico.  The compound had a low, 3c. (1.4m.) high stone wall around it.  The outer north and south walls are 380c. (172.7m.) long; the northern wall ends 10-20c. (4.5-9.1m.) S of due E.  The outer eastern and western walls are 280c. (127.3m.) long; the SW corner was 30c. (13.6m.) from the western portico.  The compound also had a 25c. (11.8m.) high wall on the N, E, and S; 40c. (18.2m.) separated the low and the high walls on the N, E, and S.  Together with the low west wall, it enclosed an area 350c. (159.1m.) x 230c. (104.5m).  

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                 The eastern compound, or Women’s court measured 120c. (54.1m.) E-W and 180c. (82m.) N-S. The western compound, which included the temple, the Priest’s court, and Israel’s (Men’s) court measured 220c. (100m.) E-W, and 180 (82m.) N-S.  The temple and the Priest’s court with the altar of burnt offering measured 170c. (77.3m.) E-W, and 90c. (40.9m.) N-S; Israel’s court surrounds it on the N, E, and S.  For the dimensions of Herod’s temple, see Table at the beginning of this article.

TEMPLES.  The word “temple,” sporadically used in English versions, specifically applies to man-made, architectural structures built for the cult of God or the gods, as distinguished from the so-called high places.  However, a temple may be erected in place of, in connection with, or as a substitute for, an ancient high place.  The Hebrews had no specific word for “temple,” but rather spoke of the “house” (beth) of such and such a deity.  The Hebrew expression bate batmoth, groups together the divine “houses” and the “high places.” 

                 We are especially concerned with the temples and places of worship of the non-Hebrew population of Palestine.  Most of the ancient temples of Canaan were connected with the religion of Semites.  They are mentioned but never described in full in the Bible.  In contrast, we are favored with an abundance of archaeological material.  Identification of ruined buildings as temples depends largely on considerations of plan and location, and still more on the examination of the objects found in the ruins.

                 Pre-Israelite Temples: Shechem, Megiddo, Ai, and Gezer—One of the buildings on the acropolis of Shechem has been recognized for a temple.  Its foundation rests on an artificial platform from around 1800 B.C.  The building is a rectangular hall, about 10 by 12 meters, divided into three aisles by columns.  A little porch gave admittance to the hall.  The temple itself may date as early as 1600 B.C., and might be the temple to Baal-berith or El-berith referred to in Judges 9.  A large building of Megiddo, dating from the 1300s or 1200s is a striking replica of this structure.

                 Early in Megiddo’s history there was a Chalcolithic (3300-3000 B.C.) structure which could be a temple.  It had a narrow hall with a row of stone bases along its longer axis.  Later in Megiddo’s history (1900), 3 temples existed.  2 of them stood side by side on the same alignment; the third was close to the first 2 but at an angle.  Each unit consists of a room approximately 12-13.6 meters x 8.2-9.1 meters, with stone bases for the roof-supporting posts, and a raised rectangular platform against the back wall, where the god’s image presumably stood. 4 lateral steps led to the third unit’s platform.  Close to the shrines, a low enclosure surrounded a huge circular masonry block, approximately 9.1 meters in diameter and 2 meters high, with a flight of steps leading to its top.  Physical evidence indicates that it is an open-air, burnt offerings altar.  After the Hebrew conquest (1000 B.C.), there were several rooms on Megiddo’s acropolis containing small limestone altars, offering stands, and incense burners.  2 raised stone pillars in a passage may have cultic significance.

                 The foundations of a small building discovered in the ruins of et-Tell, the biblical Ai, may be regarded as most likely an ancient shrine or temple; it consisted of 2 rooms.  2 steps gave admittance to a first room, rectangular in shape and measuring approximately 7.6 x 5.5 meters.  2 earthenware stands, the ivory handle of a knife, jars and bowls of the Early Bronze Age were found in this room.  A narrow door opened into second, irregular room of about the same size.  In a corner of this room was a structure of masonry which may have been an altar.  The building as a whole and its contents may be dated tentatively from around 2500.

                 The age and interpretation of Gezer’s ancient sanctuary cannot be agreed upon, because of defective excavation techniques; dates range from 3000-1200.  It consisted of an irregular row of 8 rough stone pillars unequal in size and in appearance, and ranging from 1.5 to 3 meters in height.  To the west of the row of pillars, but not toward its center, stood a large stone block measuring about 1.8 by 1.5 by 0.75 meters.  The block’s top had been hollowed intentionally.  This monument may have been an “altar” or the pedestal for some figure.  Close to the pillars, the bodies of young children had been buried in earthen jars.  A natural cave in the rock east of the row of pillars contained another burial.  The relationship of all these things to the pillars has not been established.  The pillars could most likely not have been meant as supports for the roof, but rather raised stones which we know to have been characteristic elements early Semitic places.

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                 Pre-Israelite Temples:  Nahariya, Lachish, Beth-shan, and Hazor—A shrine from about 1800 onward was discovered at Nahariya, 8 km. north of Acre.  It consists of a long stone building with a small square room.  Incense burners, pottery, a silver figurine representing a female deity, and clay figurines of doves, usually associated with the worship of Ishtar, were found in disorder among the ruins.

                 A temple of Lachish, rebuilt several times, was discovered in a filled-in section of the ancient moat which surrounded the ramparts of the city.  The original building had been in use from around 1475 to 1400 B.C.  It consisted of a rectangular shrine, approximately 4.5 by 9.1 meters, with a square ante-chamber and a small room on one side.  The back wall of the sanctuary had three small platforms which may have been altars or stands for placing offerings. 

     The building was subsequently enlarged in such a way that the elaborate altar-like structures of shrines 2 and 3 were over the bench of the early sanctuary.  No. 2 was in use from 1400 to 1325.  In the main room, roughly square sides over 9 meters long, a stone bench and a square altar with a hearth were built against the back wall.  Shrine No. 3 appears to be a mere remodeling of No. 2.  Abundant pottery of the Late Bronze Age, jars, cups, bowls, and Cypriote water bottles, were found in the sanctuary, and a bronze figurine representing the Syrian god Reshef.  The sanctuary of Lachish was destroyed, possibly when Merenptah raided Palestine.  
     The excavation of Beth-shan has brought to light the remains of several temples built in succession from the 1300s.  Egyptian influences are most conspicuous in the architecture and the archaeological material of the temple.  The architecture of the earliest temple was a complex of open-air courtyards divided once by adobe walls.  The first sanctuary was dedicated to Mekal, god of Beth-shan, closely related to Reshef, god of lightning, and the Egyptian god Seth.  Various structures and objects found in the sacred area were specifically related to religious worship. 

    The stratum in which the above buildings and objects were discovered dates from the 1300s. In the course of the following century a small temple was built to replace the ancient sanctuary of Mekal.  The stone bases of two columns for supporting the beams of the roof were found in their original position.  Temple No. 3, dating from the 1100s B.C., is very similar to the preceding temple with, however, more regularity.

                 In the 1000s, twin temples were built, differing from the earlier structures by their orientation and by their plan.  In each temple, steps led from the central aisle to the altar platform.  The north temple was dedicated to a female deity.  The southern temple continued to be the “house” of Mekal-Reshef.  It is possible, even probable that the twin temples of the 1000s are those mentioned in the Bible as Ashtaroth’s temple and Dagon’s temple.  The Bible’s use of “Dagon” rather than “Mekal” is probably because the Philistines defeated Saul, and the Bible writers assumed that the Philistines would use a Dagon shrine to display Saul’s head.

                 The excavation of Hazor has led to the discovery of two Canaanite temples built in succession at the foot of the ancient earth wall of the city.  The “holy of Holies” contained “a basalt sculpture of a male (deity?) seated on a throne.  A row of several small columns the same height as the sculpture was placed just left of the sculpture.”  The third of these five columns bears “two up-stretched hands in prayer fashion, below. . . a crescent with a sun-disk inside it.”  Another monument has “the head and forelegs of a lion on its narrow side, and a relief of a crouching lion—its tail coming up from between its hind legs—on its wide side.”  The archaeologist in charge of this site suggests a date in the 1200s or possible 1300.

                 After the Hebrew conquest, Canaanite cults continued normally in regions or single localities in which the Israelites were not able to establish themselves.  The biblical records even suggest that many local shrines and high places remained open and were popular, because of the complacency and at times the approval of the kings of Israel and Judah.  The texts give practically no information on the Canaanite and foreign temples of Palestine under the monarchy.  Cults akin to the old Canaanite religion survived long in the cultures of neighboring countries.  It appears that open-air “high places” may have been used simultaneously with temple buildings. This is most probably the case at Petra.  The victims were slain and prepared on a rocky platform left of the altar; the water necessary for the service was stored in vats dug out of the rock.  Pottery and coins make it clear that it was still in use in the first century of the Christian Era.

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                 The Nabatean site of the Djebel Ramm, northeast of the Gulf of Aqaba, offers a good example of the duplication of a high place by a temple.  The open-sanctuary was located on a narrow cornice of rock at the foot of a high vertical cliff.  The inscriptions to Allat, a lunar deity, and Dusharra, a sun-god invoked here as “lord of the house.”  The valley temple corresponding to the rock sanctuary was a square-shaped building adorned with columns.  The temple dates from the beginning of the 100s A.D.  It would be futile to venture an over-all theory on the functional difference between a high place and a temple on such insufficient premises.  It is clear that the relationship between these two sanctuaries is not that of a high place early and later a valley temple.  In western Palestine, Herod and the tetrarchs built a series of shrines and temples in which the syncretistic tendencies of the art and religion of the Near East in Roman times are clearly seen.

                 Hebrew Sanctuaries and Temples—(See the Temple, Jerusalem entry for information on the Jerusalem Temple.)  It must be kept in mind that a considerable interval of time elapsed between the first appearance of the Hebrew nomads, led by their patriarchs, the conquest of Palestine by Joshua, and the establishment of the monarchy.  Their religious cult must have materialized long before the temple in places of worship and eventually in regional shrines or temples.  There is no archaeological information concerning these shrines and temples, but biblical references make it possible to outline the history of the places of worship of the Hebrews in Palestine prior to the foundation of Solomon’s temple.

                 The book of Genesis lists the places where the patriarchs worshiped and founded sanctuaries, which consisted of an open-air area akin to the high places of the Canaanites.  The sanctuary at Shechem, founded by the patriarchs by the oak of Moreh, had a stone altar.  The sanctuary of Bethel goes back to Abraham who built there an altar.  It owes its name (“house of El”) to the stone pillar erected by Jacob as a mark of the divine presence.  The manifestation of God to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre resulted in the creation of a sanctuary which is not explicitly mentioned in the Bible.  The sanctuary by the wells of Beer-sheba marked the southern limit of the territory where the patriarchs had dwelt.

                 Although these sanctuaries of the patriarchs are not, strictly speaking, temples, the narratives in which their foundation are recorded contain valuable information concerning the Hebrews idea of the essential requirements of a place of worship.  Some of these places of worship founded and visited by the patriarchs were to develop in later times into very popular shrines and sanctuaries.

                 The books of the Bible covering Israelite history from Palestine’s conquest by Joshua to the establishment of the Jerusalem “sanctuary,” tend to project the conditions existing at the time those histories were written, centuries after the fact, back to the period after the Conquest.  The Jerusalem temple’s exclusive monopoly had become for the authors of the historical books political as well as religious dogma, which they traced back to Moses and the tabernacle.  It was difficult to reconcile their views with the existence of local sanctuaries.

                 The existence of these places was acknowledged by the biblical authors, who were reluctant to admit to the Canaanite background of provincial sanctuaries.  The apparent conflict of the historical facts with the theory of one sanctuary was solved in three ways.  First, some were regarded as national memorials (Shechem and Gilgal); second, early worship centers were regarded as transitional between desert and royal sanctuary; third, all of these centers were legitimized by assuming the Ark of the Covenant had been housed in them.

                 The first in order of their appearance in the narratives of the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, is the sanctuary of Shiloh.  Valuable details on the temple of Shiloh as a center of pilgrimage, it ritual, and of its college of Levitical priests, may be gathered from I Samuel 1.  Second is Nob, on the eastern slopes of the Mount of Olives, in the time when Jerusalem was still occupied by Jebusites.  It also had a small temple served by Levitic priests.

                Third is Kiriath-Jearim, one of the four cities of the Gibeonites, had been a Canaanite place of worship.  It housed the ark of the covenant after it was recovered from the Philistines.  Fourth, Gibeon itself is mentioned in relation with Solomon’s offering of sacrifices prior to the building of the temple, and is credited with the custody of eh tabernacle and its bronze altar.  The historical books of the Bible assume that the official cult ceased as soon as the temple of Jerusalem was open for worship.

                 From the building of Solomon’s temple onward, it may be surmised from incidental passages of the Bible that at least some of the provincial sanctuaries of the Israelites continued in competition with the temple.  It is most likely that the distinction between the surviving centers of worship of the Israelites and the local shrines of the Canaanites became less and less perceptible. 

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                 The Bible gives some incomplete, yet valuable information on two Hebrew sanctuaries regarded as heretical in Jerusalem.  The first one is sanctuary of Laish-Dan by the spring of the Jordan at Tell el-Qadi.  The cult rendered there was that of an adulterated form of Yahwism suggests a relation to local cults—namely that of the Baal of Mount Hermon.  The other dissident sanctuary is that of Bethel.  While its first origin can be traced back to the time of the patriarchs, it is represented as being recent founded by Jeroboam.  The anniversary of its founding was celebrated on the full moon of the 8^th month of the year, to offset the popularity of the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem.  Most objectionable to the Jerusalem priestly circles was the erection in the temple of Bethel of a golden calf, which was actually a part of the pedestal or throne of the deity.  The “calf” of Bethel was involved in the same reprobation as Aaron’s golden calf.  Reference is made to a similar figure set up by Jeroboam in the temple of Dan.  Amos mentions the cult at Beer-sheba with reprobation.

                 See also entry in the Old Testament (OT) Apocrypha/Influences outside the OT section of the Appendix.

TEMPT (נסה (naw saw), try; prove; מסה (ma saw), trial, temptation; peirazw (pie rah zo), put to the test; subject to trial; peirasmoV (pi ras mos), trial, temptation)  These Hebrew and Greek words are used in the Bible for the testing of man or of God.

                 In the Old Testament (OT), a wide variety of things can be tested: a sword; a reputation; or convictions.  The most characteristic use is of God’s testing man, or man’s testing God.  God test individuals (Deuteronomy 8) “. . . to what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments, or not.”  God’s testing could include exposing false prophets, or permitting Satan to afflict Job.  Later writers of sacred history were careful to revise their story to make it clear that Satan and not God entices men to evil. 

                 In the New Testament (NT), God still tests men’s faith and understanding.  He permits agents to test men.  Perhaps the typical “temptation” is the enticement to apostasy found in persecution.  This understanding of temptation underlies the petition in the Lord’s Prayer:  “Lead us not into temptation.”  God will not let Christians be tempted beyond their strength.  Jesus has “in every respect . . . been tempted as we are,” and this enables him to help us in our temptations.  His victory of the powers of evil is final and representative.  Christ shares his victory with his people, who have been “delivered . . . from the dominion of darkness. . .” 

                 In both OT and NT, men put God to the test—i.e., seek to discover whether his purposes are good and merciful.  Man has no ground whatever to test God, whose purposes are gracious and loving.  Testing God is tantamount to unbelief.  It was the core of the temptation which Jesus resisted in the wilderness.

TEMPTATION OF JESUS.  The 40-day period of testing in the wilderness where Jesus, led by the Spirit, was tempted by the devil.  The Greek verb peirazo is translated as “tempt”; it also means “to test,” which may have a good intent, to prove the true nature of a person; or an evil intent, to incite a person to sin.

                 Jesus, as Son of God and Messiah, was both tried and tempted.  Empowered by the Spirit, which came upon him at baptism, Jesus faced and defeated his adversary.  The Letter to the Hebrews declares that Jesus is able to help because he was tempted but without sin.  The first three, synoptic gospels agree that:  Jesus faced temptation in the wilderness for 40 days; and that he was directed by the Spirit and enticed by Satan.  Mark’s brief and starkly pictorial story alone mentions wild beasts and omits the fasting of Jesus.  Matthew and Luke present a dramatic dialogue between Jesus and the devil.  He refused to use his powers to foster living by bread alone, to test God by a specious miraculous leap, or to surrender his complete loyalty to God.

                 3 main interpretations of the Temptation are offered here.  First, the accounts are said to be autobiographical; only Jesus could have told his experiences to his disciples.  The literary forms of these stories indicate reflective thought about Jesus rather than reports of Jesus.  Second, the narratives are said to be devout imaginative illustrations intended to show that the Son of God faced decisions about his use of supernatural power before he began his public ministry; that he used the Scriptures; that he rejected a faith founded on sensational appeals God; that he endured a testing; and that he was victor over Satan.  A third theory is that the events, which show victory over the devil and his demonic powers, act as a prologue for Jesus’ public ministry.

TEN COMMANDMENTS.  The summary statement of the covenant requirements between Yahweh and Israel, consisting primarily of prohibitions.  The Ten Commandments, or the Decalogue, have been of great significance for the history and development of contemporary religious and cultural existence.

                  Outline and Literary Examination—The Ten Commandments are presented in the form of a direct address of God to God’s people.  Yahweh calls them to obedience to his law: “I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”  Many attempts have been made to divide the Commandments’ contents into 2 types of law, suitable for division between the 2 stone tablets, namely commandments concerned with man’s relation to God, and those concerned with relations between people. 

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     The first 5 commandments are:  against polytheism; against idolatry; against dishonoring of God’s name; sabbath observance; and honoring of parents.  Since the obligations of son to parents is a deeply religious one and comes to be used to describe the relation between Israel and her God, this commandment thus provides a good “bridge” between the two parts of the Ten Commandments.  The next commandments sum up, in negative but inclusive fashion, the basic social and moral requirements for Israel.

     Literary analysis of the Ten Commandments has not led to any scholarly consensus as to whether there is one ancient form, the number of versions, or the relation of these laws to the major sources or traditions of the Pentateuch or first five books of the Old Testament (OT).  The major variations occur in the sabbath command and in that against covetousness.  Exodus 34 is set forth as though it included the contents of the previous Ten Commandments given to Moses on the mountain. 

     This collection can be divided into a set of ten commandments only with difficulty.  It is better understood as a festival calendar than as a variant form of the Ten Commandments.  The catalogue of curses pronounced by the Levites at the tribal gathering between Ebal and Gerizim contains twelve curses, not ten.  It is possible that different decalogues existed in early Israel.

                 The Ten Commandments could be removed from their present literary context without damage to the literary connection between Exodus 19:25 and 20:18.  Indeed, the connection would be improved by removing them.  The Ten Commandments’ literary form is of considerable importance for understanding them.  The early form of the Ten Commandments is best preserved in the 1^st, 6^th, 7^th, 8^th, and 9^th commandments.  The explanations, justifications, and promises connected with the 2^nd, 4^th, and 5^th commandments and the itemization in the 10^th commandment are considered to be later additions.  It is not certain whether the original form of the commandments was that of a verb and a negative particle, or whether the original form consisted of short categorical statements of varying length.         

                 Literary historical analysis of the Pentateuch during the 1800s and early 1900s led to the conclusion that the Ten Commandments arose under the influence of the great prophets of the 700s B.C. and the writers of the Elohwist source of the Pentateuch.  More probably the Ten Commandments have no direct literary connection with any one of the major Pentateuchal sources or traditions.

                 Contents—The 1^st commandment states the unconditional and exclusive claim of Yahweh upon his Covenant people.  Yahweh will tolerate no rivals to his authority.  The 2^nd commandment prohibits all form of idolatry.  No image of the deity is to be made.  More fundamental is the certainty that Yahweh cannot be controlled by humans.  Yahweh will not be coerced into blessing Yahweh’s people or destroying their enemies.

                 The 3^rd commandment extends the argument.  Just as idolatry leads to controlling the deity, so also does the use of the divine Name.  Once one knew the name of a person or thing, one had entered into relationship with this person or object.  In the case of Yahweh, however, this was not true.  Yahweh discloses Yahweh’s nature in Yahweh’s historical deeds.  No curses or blessings are to be made by invoking the divine name.  God’s name is not to be placed, by humans, into human service and control.

                 The 4^th commandment authorizes 1 day in 7 as a day of rest.  The Sabbath’s origin is to be found in days of ill omen, days on which it was dangerous to undertake important ventures.  The Israelite sabbath, however, is a day of reflection, rejoicing, and holy remembrance.  It should be noted that this commandment authorizes both labor and rest from it.  Even God rested on the 7^th day, after completing the works of creation.    

                 The 5^th commandment provides for the maintenance of the most fundamental unit of society, the family.  Such a commandment aims at the maintenance of family life in general.  The admonitions to parents to deal properly with their children are proper implications from this commandment.  Dishonoring implies contempt for God’s people and for God’s purpose through this people.

                 The remaining 5 commandments also aim at the holy community’s preservation.  In the 6^th commandment’s prohibition against taking human life, the fundamental assertion is that life belongs to God; if human life is taken, it is to be taken with this in mind.  The one who kills is acting like God.  Adultery is prohibited in the 7^th commandment, because it denies the unity of the relationship between man and woman.  In its original setting, this commandment stresses protecting the objective character of the marriage relationship. The 8^th commandment is against theft, and conceives of property as an extension of the “self” of its owner. 

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                 False witness is the subject of the 9^th commandment, as it also destroys the wholeness of covenant community.  Falsehood before the judges not only damages the person against whom the evidence is given; it is falsehood before Yahweh, the ultimate lawgiver and judge in the OT.  The commandment against covetousness means to prohibit desire to take pleasure in someone or something; it also prohibits securing these for oneself.  Both the inward desire and the objective actions taken to secure them are condemned.  It should be noted that these commandments carry direct implications for positive action. 

                 Date, Authorship, and Later History—As indicated above, the Ten Commandments are only loosely connected with the narrative and legal context where they are found.  It has often been argued that the lofty moral and spiritual teaching in them must be a product of the great prophets of the 700s B.C.  The present form may safely be assigned to the exilic period (587-530 B.C.).  No sound arguments have been offered which support the conclusion that any one of the commandments must be later than the age of Moses.

                 Evidence confirming a date in the period before the conquest of Canaan is not available.  Important information concerning date and authorship is provided by comparing the law in the Ten Commandments with ancient Near Eastern covenants or treaties.  In the Hittite treaties the major elements of comparison with OT covenant forms are: preamble; historical prologue; stipulations; and the curses-blessing formula.  In Josh. 24 appear preamble, historical prologue, and covenant stipulations.  The curse formula appears in Deut. 27. 

     Considerable evidence exists for the conclusion that the covenant between Israel and Yahweh was renewed annually or every seven years.  The Ten Commandments would have provided an exceptionally fine summary of covenant stipulations.  Once the connection between covenant and law has been seen, there appears to be no reason to assign the Ten Commandments to a date later than Joshua.  The Ten Commandments may appear separately in Deuteronomy because of their use in instructing priests and Levites.  The commandments’ Exodus version would then be where it is as a result of its connection with the Sinai covenant.

     As to authorship, no argument against Mosaic authorship is decisive, but none supporting Mosaic authorship can be taken as more than a plausible possibility; no more appropriate author can be suggested.  If Moses was not the author, he was the one who provided the understanding of the relation between Yahweh and Israel which was to issue in this incomparable summary of a people’s responsibility to its sovereign God.

     As Israelite legal materials developed, the Ten Commandments continued to have a decisive place.  In the New Testament the Ten Commandments are referred to as simply “the commandments.”  They are and remain the fundamental policy statement by which Israel and the Christian community discern their obligations.  They give no basis whatever for an understanding of law in which obedience to the divine command compels God to bless Israel.  The Ten Commandments are rooted in the covenant relationship.  God has demonstrated graciousness and authority in the deliverance of God’s people from Egyptian slavers; obedience to covenant law is born of gratitude and praise. The Ten Commandments give less warrant to legalism than any other set of laws in the OT.  It is a free, sovereign, gracious God who addresses his covenant people.    

TENANT.  See Farmer.

TENON (ﬨוﬢי (yaw dote), artificial hands)  Projection on the end of a wooden piece, intended to fit into a hole or socket in another piece to form a joint. The tabernacle’s wooden frames were held in place by 2 tenons/frame.

TENT (אהל (‘oh hel), tabernacle, dwelling; skhnh (skeh neh), tabernacle, temporary dwelling; oikoV (oy kos), house, dwelling)  Movable habitation used by nomads and soldiers, distinct from hut or booth.

                 Tents were made of hand-woven black goat’s hair as early as 3000-2000 B.C., according to archaeological evidence.  New tents added to the enclosure of the clan after weddings gave rise to the “bridal canopy.”  The center pole was often higher than those at the sides of the tent; this afforded the simile of the ‘heavens’ being like a tent spread out.  A curtain hanging from the center poles divided the larger tents into two rooms, with the back portion reserved for women.  At other times it would appear that the patriarchs were wealthy enough to afford separate tents for their wives; in the exodus and wilderness period, tents were few.

                 See also Tabernacle.

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                 The furnishings of such nomadic tents were very meager.  The oven consisted of a few stones or a hole in the ground.  Straw mats served as beds; a piece of leather served as a table.  The best single picture of tent life in the Bible is offered in Genesis 18.  After settlement in Canaan the Israelites would return at harvest time to their tents, encamping near the crops.  The ancient custom became known as the Feast of Booths.  Long after the Israelites became a settled people living in more permanent kinds of dwellings, the word “tent” was still used to mean “home.”  Paul was a tentmaker, as were Aquila and Priscilla, with whom Paul often stayed.

TENT OF MEETING (ﬠﬢמו אהל (‘oh hel  mo ‘ed), tent of gathering, assembly)  A designation of the Tabernacle from the Elohwist and Priestly sources of the first five books of the Old Testament (Pentateuch).

TENTMAKER (skhnopoioV (skeh no poy os))  Paul’s trade (Acts 18).  We are told that Paul, Aquila, and Priscilla worked together at this trade in Corinth.  There is a question as to whether “tentmaker” is the best translation.  The woven black goat’s hair was called cilicium; Paul came from Cilicia.  There is evidence for believing that the term meant “leatherworker.” Chrysostom, Theodoret, and probably Origen called Paul a “leather-worker.” It is quite possible that to early church readers of Acts the word meant “leatherworker.”

TERAH (ﬨﬧח)  1.  A descendant of Shem; the father of Abram (Abraham), Nahor, and Haran.  Til sa turahi is a city located on the Balih River in Upper Mesopotamia.  Terah either took his name from, or gave it to that region.  Terah’s home was Ur according to the Priestly Writer.  Taking Abram, Lot, and Sarai, Terah left Ur for Canaan; but when he reached Haran, he settled there and died.  According to the Jahwist, Aramhaharaim was the original home of the patriarchs.  Joshua 24 speaks of Terah as worshiping pagan deities, including perhaps the moon-god Sin.  2.  A stopping place of the Israelites in the wilderness; the location is unknown.

TERAPHIM (ﬨﬧפּים, household gods)  Though plural in form, this word may designate either one or more idols, small, portable, and easily stolen and concealed.  Laban’s teraphim were basically religious in importance, but may have also had implications of power and property rights.  This explains Rachel’s impulse to steal them.  The teraphim in I Samuel 19 is an idol of the size, and in the shape, of a man.  Teraphim were used by Israelites cultically in the period of the judges, and were condemned in I Samuel 15, II Kings 23, and Hosea 3.  Ezekiel lists teraphim among the Babylon media of divination; Zechariah includes teraphim among the sources of false predictions.

TEREBINTH (אלה (‘eh law))  The Palestine terebinth is a deciduous tree, sometimes reaching 9 meters in height, and grows nuts (pistachios) that can be roasted and eaten.  Isaiah said Judah’s destruction would be like the burnt stump of “a terebinth.”  Hosea condemns high-place worship “under the terebinth.”  The New Revised Standard Version meaning gives “oaks” in the text, with “terebinth” in the footnotes in Genesis 12 and 13. 

TERESH (שﬨﬧ)  One of King Ahasuerus’ to royal eunuchs, guards of his harem, who plotted his assassination.  Mordecai informed Queen Esther and thereby saved the king’s life.

TERRESTRIAL BODIES (swmata epigeia (so mah tah  ep ih gay eeah), earthly, low, material body)  In I Corinthians 15 Paul contrasts “terrestrial” or “earthly” bodies with “celestial” or “heavenly” bodies.  Paul is pointing out that there are different kinds of bodies; the resurrection body has its own unique character.

TERTIUS (TertioV)  The person to whom Paul dictated the Letter to the Romans.  No doubt, many of Paul’s friends in various places wrote to his dictation in order to save him time and trouble.  It seems unlikely that the style or thought of Paul was significantly altered by those who wrote for him.

TERTULLUS (TertulloV)  The prosecutor of Paul before the Roman governor of Judea.  His charge against Paul was that he been found to be a public nuisance, a disturber of the peace, and a leader of the Nazarenes; this was a serious charge.  It is not clear whether Tertullus was a Roman, a Greek, or a Jew.  He might have been a professional Roman advocate who offered his services at the tribunals of provincial magistrates.

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TESTAMENT (diaqhkh (die ath eh keh), will, covenant)  Properly, a written instrument by which a person disposes of his estate, to take effect after his death.  The Hebrew language seems to have no word for “testament.”  The blessing of Isaac and the request of Elisha for a “double portion” of Elijah’s spirit, are all connected with disposal of estates, but give little information.  The same word was used to designate the spiritual legacy of a wise man or philosopher.

                  The New Testament (NT) follows the primary Greek Old Testament (OT) meaning for diatheke throughout, namely “covenant.”  As a will becomes effective only at the death of testator, so the death of Christ established the new covenant, put it into effect.  The two meanings of diatheke—“testament” and “covenant” both appear in the NT.  The fundamental meaning of “covenant” in the NT is derived from the OT berith, a two-party arrangement in which one is bound by oath.  The two uses both represent an arrangement binding upon the recipient which he cannot change.  

TESTIMONY (ﬠﬢוﬨ (‘eh doot), witness; ﬨﬠוﬢה (teh ‘oh daw), precepts of God, used in Isaiah 8 and Ruth 4; marturia (mar too reeah), evidence, declaration)  Evidence given by a witness or witness, orally or in written form, primarily to the action and requirements of God. 

     The most frequent occurrences of the Hebrew ‘edut are in connection with the Ark or the Tabernacle.  This word also refers to law in general, and particularly to the written words of the law.  In the Old Testament, the testimony to God’s actions calls for decision and action on the part of his people.  In the New Testament (NT), the Greek word marturion refers to the testimony of eyewitnesses to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, who himself bears testimony to God’s work; his testimony is rejected.  In the NT testimony to God’s action is provided in the proclamation of the gospel in word, deed, and suffering.

TET (ט)  The 9^th letter of the Hebrew Alphabet as it is placed in the King James Version at the head of the 9^th section of the acrostic psalm, Psalm 119, where each verse of this action of the psalm begins with this letter.

TETRARCH (tetrarchV (te trark es), one of a sovereign body of four)  Originally, the ruler of a fourth part of an area.  The word came to mean a “petty ruler” with strict limitations and dependency, lower than “king.” When Herod the Great died and his domains were divided, his son Archelaus received the title ethnarch, while the other sons Herod Antipas and Philip each became a tetrarch.

                 Precisely what the privileges and limitations of the tetrarch were is difficult to say, except that it was lower than “ethnarch.”  Herod the Great was first a tetrarch and later a king.  The size of the domain and the amount of independence from Rome dictated which title was bestowed.  Mark 6 speaks of Antipas as king rather than as tetrarch.  Matthew 2 speaks of Archelaus as king rather than ethnarch.  This would seem to indicate that the titles used in the New Testament were imprecise ones.  Luke 3 singles out Lysanias of Abilene for mention probably because since Luke used the title tetrarchs, he needed to specify four territories.

TETTER (בהק (bo hak), harmless leprosy)  An obsolete term which originally indicated the presence of unspecified dermatological conditions of obscure origin.  It evidently describes de-pigmented patches without other changes.  The skin assumes a mottled appearance.

TEXT, NEW  TESTAMENT (NT).  No other writing which has come to us from the 
      ancient world has had so great an influence upon Western life and culture as has  
      the NT.  And yet, the text of no other body of ancient literature exists in so many 
      different forms.  The NT presents the problem of an almost embarrassing number  
      of copies of the NT that have been preserved from ancient times and from the 
      Middle Ages.  The ultimate task of textual criticism is to recover the original text 
      [Note abbreviations: manuscript(s) = MS(S)].

                 The oldest translation of part of the NT into Syriac was made sometime in the 100s A.D.; only fragments still exist of the four gospels.  The Peshitta (“simple”) Version in Syriac appears to date from the latter part of the 300s, around the time of Jerome’s Latin Vulgate.  Someone produced a common text for the Syrian churches, a revision of the Old Syriac on the basis of the Greek text.  II Peter, II and III John, Jude and Revelation were excluded; a Peshitta version in the 500s included them.   

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           The NT is now known in nearly 5,000 Greek MSS alone.  Every one of these handwritten copies differs from every other one.  In addition to these Greek MSS, the NT has been preserved in more than 10,000 MSS of the early versions, and in thousands of quotations of the Church Fathers.  No complete catalog of the thousands of MSS of the versions has ever been published, and only a fraction of this great mass of material has been fully collated and studied. 

                They come to us in the form of stone monuments and talisman, papyrus, uncials (MSS written in a style descended from Greek capital letters), minuscule (MSS written in a cursive or running hand), lectionaries (excerpts from the NT to be read every day), direct translations from Greek into 7 languages, and quotations from the Church Fathers.  There is not one sentence in the NT in which the MS tradition is wholly uniform.

                 The Problem--It has been estimated that these MSS and quotations differ among themselves between 150,000 and 200,000 times.  Many thousands of these different readings are variants in lettering or grammar or style and have no effect upon the text’s meaning. But there are many thousands which have a definite effect upon the text’s meaning.  It is equally true that many of them do have theological significance and were introduced into the text intentionally.  It has been said that the great majority of the variant readings in the NT text arose before the NT books were canonized and that after they were canonized, they were carefully copied as Holy Scripture.  This, however, is far from being the case.

                 Many variations arose in the very earliest period.  The first person to copy the Gospel of Luke may have changed his copy to conform with his particular tradition, but he did not have to.  Once the Gospel of Luke become scripture, the copyist had to change his copy, because it had to be right.  Many thousands of the variations were put there deliberately, created for theological or dogmatic reasons.  It is  because the NT books are religious books, that they were changed to conform to what the copyist believed to be the true reading, rather than the original reading.  The thousands of Greek MSS, the many versions, and quotations of the Church Fathers provide the source for our knowledge of the original text.

                 The original copies of the NT books have long since disappeared.  First, because they were printed on perishable papyrus, and second, because the original copies of the NT books were not looked upon as scripture by those of the early Christian communities.  For example, Paul’s letters would have been valued as coming from the founder of a local church.  Were it possible to recover or to reconstruct the original texts of the NT books, the resulting texts would be texts that never were looked upon as scripture.

                 Whenever any document is copied by hand, the copy differs from the source.  Many changes were accidental, but just as many changes were intentional, even after the NT books were canonized.  The copyist’s interest was in the “true reading” and not in the “original reading.”  During the MS period no rigid control was ever exercised over MSS copying, nor was an official revision ever made in any great church center.

                 What comes from the Greek MSS, the MSS of the versions, and the quotations of the Church Fathers represents the various interpretations, doctrines and dogmas, theological interests, and worship habits of many different Christians in many different times and places.  The NT was a living body of literature which was constantly being enriched as it was interpreted and reinterpreted by each succeeding generation.

                 Sources—The official list of Greek NT MSS was divided into 6 quite arbitrary and sometimes quite meaningless classifications according to the writing material, the kind of writing used, and the use for which they were intended.  These classifications are:  ostraca; talismans; papyri; uncials; minuscules; and lectionaries.  25 ostraca (stone monuments) and 9 talismans containing a few NT verses are now known.  They are of no importance for the recovery of the original text or for the history of the transmission of the text.

                 A little over a century ago, not one fragment of Papyrus was known which contained any NT text. In the 1960s, 64 papyrus NT MSS have been catalogued and several others are known.  These papyrus fragments are designated by the letter “P” with an index figure.  Portions of 20 books, just over 40% of the entire NT, are now known on papyrus.  All of the papyrus NT MSS which have survived were found in Egypt and undoubtedly were written there. They prove conclusively that in Egypt, no one type of NT text was dominant.  The following are the most important of the papyrus, arranged from earliest to latest:

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                P52—dates from about 140 A.D.; size, 8.75 by 6.25cm; contains parts of  
                   John 18; 1 small fragment.

                P46—dates from early 200s; size 27.5 by 16.25 cm, 25-32 lines/page; 
              contains [in this order] Romans, Hebrews, I and II Corinthians, 
              Ephesians, Galatians, Philippians, Colossians, & I Thessalonians; 
              about 104 leaves originally, 76 leaves + fragments remaining.

                P66—dates from early 200s; size 16.25 by 13.75 cm; contains John's 
              Gospel 1-14, with fragments of 15-21; 146 leaves originally,
               surviving number not given.

                P45—dates  from  about 255 ; size about 25 by 20 cm., 39 lines/page; 
               parts of Matthew, Mark, Luke John, and Acts; about 110 leaves 
               originally, portions of 30 leaves remaining.

                P47—dates from about 267; size about 23.75 by 13.75, 25-30 lines/page; 
              contains parts of Revelation 9-17; 32 leaves originally, 10 remaining. 

                The MSS that are referred to as Uncial are written on parchment in a style that ultimately descended from the capital letters used in Greek inscriptions.  This style of writing was used exclusively in the NT MSS until the 800s.  The official list of MSS now contains 241 uncials.  Each is designated by an Arabic numeral preceded by a zero, is also known by Hebrew, Latin, or Greek letter-designation, and has a Latin name.  The Uncial MSS date from the 300s to the 900s or 1000s.  They were once looked upon as being the most important sources.  Textual scholars today do not hesitate to decide against an uncial reading if other evidence so warrants.  Some of the more important uncial MSS are the following:

                 01 (א)—also  known as  Sinaiticus; dates  from 300s; contains OT, NT, 
                         Epistle of Barnabas, and Shepherd of Hermas; size 38.1 by 34.2 
                         cm, 4 columns page, 48 lines/column (Pss., Prov.,  Eccl., Song, 
                         Wis. of Sol., and Job have 2 columns of writing); 199 leaves in 
                         the OT, 147½ leaves in the NT.

                 02 (A)—also known as Alexandrinus; dates from early 400s; original 
                         contained whole Greek Bible, I and II  Clement and Psalms of  
                         Solomon (OT is somewhat mutilated and is missing Song of Sol., 
                         NT is missing Matthew 1-25, John 7-8, and  I Cor. 4-12); size  
                         32.3 by 26 cm, 2 columns/page, 46-52 lines/column; 630 OT 
                         vellum leaves, and 143 NT leaves have survived.

                03 (B)—also known as Vaticanus; dates from early 300s; original 
                         contained whole Greek Bible, minus Prayer of Manasses and 
                         books of Maccabees (now missing is Gen. 1-46, parts of II Sam. 
                         2, Pss. 106-138 (OT), Heb.9-13, Pastoral Letters, and Revelation 
                         (NT); size 26.7 by 25.4 cm, 2 columns/page, 40-44 lines/column
                         in OT, 3 columns/page, 40-44 lines/column in NT; 617 OT vellum 
                         leaves, and 142 NT leaves (total 759) have survived out of 820.

                04 (B)—also known as  Ephraemi-Syri;  dates  from early 400s; 
                         original contained whole Bible, only parts of Job, Prov., Eccles., 
                         Wis of Sol, and Song of Songs survived in OT, parts of every NT 
                         book except II Thess. and II John survived in NT; size 31.1 by 
                         24.2 cm, 1  column/page, 40-46 lines/ page; 64 OT  leaves, 145 
                         NT leaves have survived (parchment was originally used for 
                         something else and was erased and reused for the Bible). 

                05 (D)—also known as Bezae; dates from 400s or 500s; contains 
                         Greek and Latin gospels (arranged  Matthew,  John, Luke, and 
                         Mark) and Acts (possibly Catholic letters); size  25.4  by  20.3 
                         cm, 1 column/page, 33 lines/page; 406 vellum leaves have 
                         survived out of more than 510.

                06 (Dp)—also known as Claromontanus; dates from 500s; contains 
                         Pauline letters in Greek and Latin; size  24.5  by  19.4 cm, 1 
                         column/page, 21 lines/ page; 533 vellum pages, 2 were used for 
                         Euripides’ Phaethon before they were used for Paul’s letters. 

                 07 (E)—also known Codex Basiliensis; dates from 700s; contains 
                         gospels; size 22.9 by 15.9 cm, 1 column/page, 23-25 lines/page; 
                         318 leaves.

                08 (Ea)—also known Codex Laudianus; dates from 600s; contains 
                         Acts (Latin in left column, Greek in right); size 26.7 by 21.9 cm, 
                         2 columns/page 22-26 lines/column; 227 leaves. 
          15 (Hp)—also known as Codex Coilinianus; dates from 500s; contains 
                         Paul’s letters; size 27.3 by 19.4 cm, 1 column/page, 16 lines/page;
                         43 leaves.

                17 (K)—also known as Codex Cyprius; dates from 800s or 900s; 
                        contains gospels; size 25.4 by 18.7 cm., 1 column/ page, 16-31 
                        lines/page; 267 leaves. 

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                19 (L)—also known Codex Regius; dates from 700s; contains 
                        gospels, including both longer and shorter endings of Mark; 
                        size 21.9 by 16.5 cm., 2 columns/page, 25 lines/column; 257 
                        leaves.

                27 (R)—also known as Codex Nitriensis; dates from 500s; original 
                        contained gospels, only portion of Luke survived; size 29.6 by 
                        22.5 cm., 2 columns/page, 25 lines/column; 53 leaves survived 
                        (original was gospels; they were erased and a  800s document 
                        was written over them).

                32 (W)—also known as Codex Washingtonianus; dates from 400s; 
                        contains gospel in the order of Matthew, John, Luke, and Mark; 
                        size 20.6 by 13.6 cm., 1  column/page, 30 lines/page; 187 leaves. 
           The miniscule MSS are those written in a cursive or running hand.  They date from the 800s to the 1700s.  A total of 2,533 miniscules have thus far been catalogued.  They are designated simply by Arabic numbers.  Over the years they have been grouped into “families” or types.  The ones mentioned in the original article are: Family 1; Family 13 or “Ferrar group”; and Neutral or Alexandrian type.

                 The lectionaries are the service books that contain lessons to be read every day from the Gospel and from the Apostle.  The official catalogue of MSS now contains 1,838 lectionaries, mostly unicials, with a few minuscules.  They date from the 200s or 300s to the 1600s.  The lectionaries have long been considered of no value for the study of the NT text.  Recent textual research has shown that the lectionaries are of great value for the study of the history of the transmission of the NT text.  In the future the lectionaries will play an ever-increasing role in the study of the text.

                 The most significant versions for the study of the NT text are those which were made before the year 1000 directly from the Greek.  The most important are:  Latin (Old Latin and Vulgate); Syriac (4 versions); Coptic (at least 5 versions); Armenian; Old Georgian; Old Slavic; Gothic; Arabic; Ethiopic; Nubian; Sogdian; Frankish; Anglo-Saxon; and Persian.  It is often affirmed that the versions are of great importance for the recovery of the original text of the NT because they often represent translations were made in very early times; there are no surviving MSS of the versions that date earlier than the 300s.

                 The NT quotations of the Church Fathers are of importance for the study of the NT text primarily because they can be definitely located as time and place (e.g. a certain reading was used by Origen in Egypt between 200 and 250 A.D.).  The Church Fathers quotations should be taken only from critical texts of the Fathers.  It must be kept in mind that the Fathers did not always quote accurately; they often paraphrased.

                 Printed Text of the NT:  Erasmus and Complutensian Polyglot—The first portions of the Greek NT to be printed were the Magnificat and the Benedictus (parts of Luke 1); they were attached to a Greek Psalter in Milan in 1481 and were printed 2 more times over the next 15 years.  In 1504 the Aldine press printed the first 6 chapters of John’s Gospel.  The first complete Greek NT to be published was that of Erasmus.  It contained Greek text and a revised Latin Vulgate text in parallel columns. 

                 Joannes Froben, a German-born printer of Basel, conceived the idea of getting a NT edition on the market before the Spanish edition now known as the Complutensian Polyglot could be published.  Erasmus was invited to Basel to edit the Greek NT in 1515.  In Erasmus’ own words the text was “precipitated rather than edited.”  He used texts from as late as the 1100s, and the Revelation MS which he used was mutilated at the end; Erasmus translated the last 6 verses from Latin into Greek for his edition.  In many places he “corrected” the older Greek text to conform to the Latin; the text contains hundreds of typographical errors. 

                 In 1516 the entire NT had been printed, and it was released immediately for publication.  Later editions were printed in 1519, 1522, 1527, and 1535.  In spite of its flaws in MSS used, and criticism for daring to change the Latin text, it became the text of authority, the generally accepted text by which the accuracy of other texts was measured for over 300 years, simply because it was published first.

                 The first complete Greek NT contained the Greek and Latin Vulgate texts arranged in parallel columns.  The Complutensian Polyglot gets its name from Complutum, the Latin name for Alcala in Spain, where it was printed in 1514; Pope Leo X did not allow its publication until 1520.  The editors of this edition did not indicate which MSS they used in its production, but only that they were “very ancient and correct ones from the Vatican library; and of such antiquity, that it would be utterly wrong not to own their authority.”  Although it cannot now be determined which MSS were used by the editor of the Complutensian Polyglot it is evident that they used their MSS well.

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                 The NT text in this publication is a better text than those of Erasmus, Stephanus, and Elzevirs.  Since it was not the first published, it did not become the norm for NT texts.  Had it been first, the entire history of the English NT after 1611 would have been vastly different (See the Introduction to the New Testament Apocrypha section and the Versions of the Bible section of the Appendix for later editions).

                 NT Study Theory and Method:  Origen (200s) to 1700—Any study of the text of the NT should properly begin with Origen, the first great textual critic of the church.  Origen’s textual work should be conceived as a part of his larger conception of scripture, which was based upon three major beliefs.  First, the tradition of the church is the framework within which all teaching, belief, and activity must be done.  Second, scripture is a unity with light given from God equally in the OT in the NT.  Third, all scripture is inspired, so that whether every part of it looks important to the reader or not, it is important.

                 Origen attributed the great variety of readings to: carelessness in scribal transmission; conscious alteration made in a [rash] and daring manner; addition and subtraction made in an “arbitrary” way; and the corrupting influence of the heretics.  In choosing the [best reading], Origen seems to have based his choice upon:  dogmatics; geography; harmonization; etymology; and the majority of the MSS known to him.  Origen’s handling of the variants is based on: contextual meaning; harmonization; and the tradition of the church.  Origen’s method was a process of: correction; knowledge, use, and combining of different textual traditions; and handling the text with the interests of teaching and preaching in mind.  Origen sought to avoid changing the copies of the NT in use, even where it was corrupted by heretics.

                 Chrysostom was no mere follower of text, but a writer who consciously altered the text in an attempt to make more lucid certain passages of scripture.  Those who edited and published the early editions of the Greek NT depended in the main upon late Greek MSS, which they used uncritically.  Not always, but too often, the Greek text suffered by being “corrected” to the Latin.  An accumulation of variant readings was built up by those early editors.  They collated MSS and recorded their readings.  It was, of course, easier to print the generally accepted text and to record variant readings.  Using this method the editor did not leave himself open to all manner of charges of heresy.

                 Stephanus was condemned by the theologians for publishing an amended Latin text.  So severe did the criticism of Stephanus become that he fled to Geneva in fear of his life.  The early editors and printers of the Greek NT were motivated by the new interest in humanistic studies and by a desire to set the Greek text over against the Latin text in common use.

                As people saw not only that the current Greek NT differed from the Latin text in common use, but that it differed from the early Greek MSS, they began an attempt to make a better Greek text.  Their variant readings were relegated to marginal notes.  Even the great John Mill was severely criticized because of the generally accepted text; he made its authenticity precarious.  Because he had found 30,000 variant readings in the NT, his work was a work of evil tendency and hostile to the Christian religion. 

                 NT Study Theory and Method:  Richard Bentley—Richard Bentley wrote under an assumed name to criticize the mindless defense of the generally accepted text.  In his publication, Bentley made some observations that became a part of textual study methods later.  The fact that “so many Manuscripts are still amongst us, some from Egypt, . . . Asia, . . . and Western Churches . . . demonstrates that there could be no ...  altering of copies based on any one of them . . . the lesser matters of Diction and the Very Words of the Writers, must be found by Industry and Sagacity . . . and must not be risked upon any particular MS.”  In 1713, Francis Hare wrote a pamphlet in which he urged Bentley to edit an NT edition.  “The present Text is not the Text as left us by the Apostles . . . but as it was settled about 200 years ago by Robert Stephens; . . . the Text should be revis’d by an abler Hand and by the help of more and better Manuscripts.”

                 In 1716, Bentley wrote to Archbishop Wake and unfolded his plan for a new edition of the NT.  He said that he had found a close agreement between the oldest Latin and Greek MSS.  With these he could restore the text of the NT to that existing at the time of the Council of Nicea.  “After the Complutenses and Erasmus, who had but very ordinary MSS, it became the property of booksellers.  Robert Stephen’s text stands, as if an apostle had composed it.  Popes Sixtus and Clement had an assembly of learned divines adjust the Vulgate, but they were quite unequal to the affair; they had no experience in MSS. . . I find that by taking 2,000 errors out of the Pope’s Vulgate, and as many out of the Protestant Pope Stephen’s edition, I can set out an edition of each in columns using books no less than 900 years old that shall agree word for word . . .”  

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                 In 1720 Bentley issued his Proposals for Printing:  “The author of this edition observes that the printed copies of the NT in . . . Greek and . . . Latin, were taken from Manuscripts of no great antiquity . . . There are MSS in Europe above 1,000 years old in both languages; [the author] believes he may do good service to common Christianity if he publishes a new edition of the Greek and Latin . . . as represented in the most ancient and venerable MSS in Greek and Roman capital letters.” 

                 “The author . . . [looks to] St. Jerome . . . [who] adjusted and reformed the whole Latin Vulgate to the best Greek [texts, i.e.] those of the famous Origen . . . [Jerome found] that if the oldest copies of the original Greek and Jerome’s Latin were examined and compared . . . they would be found to agree both in words and order of words . . . [the actual comparison] succeeded . . . beyond his . . .hopes.”

                 “The author believes that he has retrieved [in most places] the true exemplar of Origen which was the standard of the most learned of the Fathers, at the time of the Council of Nicea and 2 centuries after. . . The Greek and Latin MSS [together] . . . settle the original text . . . [so] that out of a labyrinth of 30,000 various readings . . . there will scarce be 200 that can deserve the least consideration.”

                 “The author makes use of the old versions of Syriac, Coptic, Gothic, and Aethiopic . . . Greek and Latin within the first 5 centuries. . . in his notes. . .  so that the reader has under one view what the first ages of the church knew of the text; what had crept into any copies since is of no value or authority.  The author is very sensible, that in the sacred writings there is no place for conjecture or [changes] . . . He does not alter one letter . . . without the authorities [stated] in the notes.  And to leave the free choice to every reader, he places under each column the smallest variations in this edition.”

                “If the author has anything to suggest toward a change of the text, not supported by any copies now surviving, he will offer it separately in his Prolegomena. . . In this work he is of no sect or party; his design is to serve the whole Christian name. . . To publish this work . . . a great expense is requisite . . . on the best letter, paper, and ink that Europe affords. . . The work will be put to the press as soon as money is contributed to support the charge of the impression.  No more copies will be printed than are subscribed for.”

                 Although Bentley’s proposed edition was never published, it is important for the study of the NT text’s history.  He saw that it was necessary to discriminate in the choice of Greek MSS and that the ancient MSS are the witnesses to the ancient text.  After the ancient text had been established, Bentley was ready to discard from consideration the whole mass of late witnesses, which would unfortunately discard any ancient texts preserved there and found no where else.  Bentley is also wrong in assuming that Jerome used the Greek MSS of Origen in making his revision and that there had been one known and received Latin version, which was altered and revised to produce the confusion that Jerome found.

                 NT Study Theory and Method:  Bengel and Wettstein—With the work of John Albrecht Bengel, there was a revival of interest in the study of the NT text.  He learned to value the NT as the declaration of God’s revealed will, and he was anxious to know the precise form in which it had been given.  After much study, he came to the conclusion that the variant readings were less numerous than might have been expected and that they did not shake any article of evangelic doctrine.  He also came to the conclusion that a Greek text was needed which was based upon sound principles of criticism.

                 Bengel was encouraged by friends to complete his work for publication.  Bengel’s chief importance lies in the principle he followed: The more difficult reading is to be preferred.”  Bengel attached high value to the Latin versions as witnesses to the original text.  It was Bengel who advanced the theory of textual families or versions.  He tried to divide Greek MSS into an Asiatic (Constantinople region) or an African family.

                 The next important step in the study of the text of the NT was taken by John James Wettstein.  His love for biblical studies became a passion, the “master-passion which consoled and dignified a roving, troubled, unprosperous life.”  Wettstein lived at a time when the textual critic was suspect.  Anyone who suggested changes in the generally accepted text was accused of tampering with the Word of God.  Wettstein was constantly being accused of holding unorthodox beliefs and always protesting his orthodoxy.

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                 In 1730, while Wettstein was in Basel, he published anonymously at Amsterdam his famous Prolegomena (research and rules followed in printing his edition [in 15 chapters]).  The Prolegomena’s first 5 chapters dealt with MSS and their authority.  He discussed MSS in general, the material on which they were written, writing method, letter forms, etc.  “The Apostles were not literary purists.  They spoke and wrote according to the manner of the common people.”  Wettstein divided the materials for the text’s formation into 4 classes:  8 MSS written in the oldest lettering; 12 MSS of a later uncial type; MSS written by Latin copyists; and 152 miniscule MSS.  The place of honor he gave to Alexandrinus.  Wettstein intended to use it as the base for the text of his proposed NT edition.  Chapters 6-7 of the Prolegomena dealt with the Church Fathers’ NT quotations.  Ch. 8 dealt with the Latin versions; in ch. 9 Wettstein expressed his belief that the Bohairic and Syriac versions were of great value.  Chs. 10-14 dealt with various NT editions.

                  In the last chapter of his Prolegomena, Wettstein set down rules which he proposed to follow in his own NT edition: edit the NT correctly; all critical aids are to be used to clarify text; the generally accepted text has no special authority; editors must form their own impartial judgments on MSS; conjectural changes are never to be hastily admitted or rejected; the better sounding of 2 readings is most likely not the true reading.

                 (Rules continued)  Readings with peculiar expressions are to be preferred to similar readings in more common language; readings conforming to the book’s/author’s style in question are to be preferred; the more orthodox of two readings is not automatically preferred; readings that agree with ancient versions is likely the best; and the more ancient of two readings must be preferred. 

                 Wettstein did not publish his NT for 21 years after he wrote his Prolegomena.  Also, it had long been recognized that Greek text in the Greek-Latin MSS showed a remarkable resemblance to the Latin text.  Suspicions arose that the Greek text had been “corrected” to the Latin text.  Erasmus suggested at the Council of Florence, in 1439, that the Greeks should alter their MSS to make them conform to the Latin Vulgate.  Wettstein lamented the fact that all the most ancient Greek MSS had been influenced by the Latin.

                 Modern Criticism’s Beginning—Johann Jakob Griesbach recognized the value of the ancient MSS and approved in principle Bengel’s theory of an Asian and an African family, to which he added a Western group.  The Western class had many copyist errors and required much correction.  The Alexandrian was an attempt to revise the old corrupt text.  The Asian flowed from the other two.  In deciding upon the value of a reading Griesbach relied chiefly upon evidence furnished by agreement of families.  Agreement between the Western and Alexandrian (African) he considered to be of great importance. 

                 Griesbach’s principles were: no reading must be considered preferable unless it has the support of some ancient witness; all criticism of the text turns on the study of classes of documents, not single documents; the shorter reading is to be preferred to the longer; the more difficult reading is to be preferred; the reading which at first sight appears to convey a false sense is be preferred to other readings.

                 Charles Lachmann deserves the credit of being the first NT editor to break the sway of the generally accepted text.  Lachmann set out to edit the Greek NT as if the generally accepted text had never existed.  His aim was to recover the text of the 300s.  The oldest Greek MSS, compared with Origen citations, were the basis of his text.  The readings of the Old Latin and Latin Fathers citations were his secondary sources.

                 Lachmann’s principles of criticism were: nothing is better attested than that on which all authorities agree; the agreement has less weight if part of the authorities are silent; the evidence for a reading from different regions is greater than that of a particular place; widely varying witnesses from widely varying regions make a reading doubtful; readings with different forms in different regions are uncertain; readings that do not appear uniformly within the same region have weak authority.

                 The British scholar Samuel Prideaux Tregelles was born into a Quaker family in 1813, and eventually became a lay member of the Church of England.  In spite of his lack of formal education, at the age of 25 he was deeply interested in the critical study of the Greek NT.  Tregelles traveled the Continent, examined and collated many NT.  He developed “comparative criticism,” the theory that examination of the MSS should show that certain MSS do or do not agree with ancient authorities.

                 Tregelles principles were: readings whose antiquity is proved apart from MSS are found in repeated instances; as certain MSS are found to contain an ancient text, their witness deserves peculiar weight; 2 versions concurring excludes that the reading is merely an accident; patristic quotations of ancient texts that cannot be altered without changing the whole texture of their remarks should be considered faithful to the ancient text; the antiquity of documents is to be preferred to their number as a basis of testimony.

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                 Tischendorf’s greatest contributions to the study of the NT text were made as a collector and publisher of MSS.  His greatest discovery was the Codex Sinaiticus.  Tischendorf’s principles contained no new suggestions for determining the oldest or the best readings.  They were based on faith in ancient evidence, agreement between readings, discounting evidence based on copyist error, the belief that parallel passages should not agree precisely, the authority of a reading which seems to be a source of other readings, and preserving readings that are in keeping with the style of the book’s writer.

                  Westcott and Hort:  Internal Evidence of Readings—These 2 scholars dealt the death blow to the generally accepted text.  B. F. Westcott was an educator, churchman, humanitarian, Professor of Divinity (Cambridge), Durham’s bishop, advocate of coal miners, freight movers, and artisans, supportive of the co-operative movement, and a scholar, publishing 7 biblical works.  He served as a committee member engaged in the revision of the NT.

                 He wrote:  “A corrupted Bible is a sign of a corrupted Church, a Bible mutilated or imperfect, a sign of a Church not yet raised to the complete perception of Truth . . . In the Church and in the Bible alike God works through men.  As we follow the progress of their formation, each step seems to be truly human; and when we contemplate the whole, we joyfully recognize that every part is also divine . . . The Bible, no less than the Church, is Holy (moved by the Spirit), Catholic (embracing every type of Christian truth) and Apostolic (its limits do not extend beyond the first generation).”

                 F. J. A. Hort was a fellow and lecturer in Emmanuel College, and a member of the same NT revision committee as Westcott.  They write in their NT in the Original Greek:  “The best criticism is that which takes account of every class of textual facts and assigns to each method its proper use and rank.”  They set forth methods of textual criticism in their “natural order.”

                 Internal evidence of readings deals with each variation independently and adopting that which looks most probable.  The first impulse in dealing with a variation is usually to consider which of 2 readings makes the best sense, conforms to grammar, and is in agreement with the usual style of the author.  The assumptions involved in intrinsic probability are not to be implicitly trusted.  The best words to express an author’s meaning need not in all cases be those which he actually employed.  All readers are liable to suppose that they understand the author’s meaning and purpose.  They are led unawares to disparage words which owe their selection to something the reader has failed to perceive or feel.

                 The basis on which transcriptional probability (t.p.) rests consists of generalization as to the causes of corruption.  If one variant reading appears to us to give much better sense, the same superiority may have led to the introduction of the reading in the first place; no motive could lead a scribe to introduce a worse reading.  This does not mean that inferiority is evidence of originality.  At its best, t.p. carries us but a little way toward the recovery of an ancient text.  The number of variations in which it can supply by itself a decision is very small.  Readings which are certified by the coincidence of both intrinsic and transcriptional probability are the utmost value in the application of other methods of criticism.

                 Westcott and Hort:  Documents—Internal evidence of documents must be considered before a final judgment upon readings is made.  Only by examining readings grouped by the document in which they were found, can one rise above the uncertainties of the internal evidence of readings.  It is precarious to attempt to judge which of the readings available is most likely right, without considering which document or documents are most likely to provide an uncorrupted transcript of the original.  Knowledge of the document is central to making a trustworthy choice from the available readings. 

                 Documents are investigated on the basis of what has been learned from the investigation of readings to determine the best readings.  The readings are again investigated, and a tentative choice of readings is made in accordance with documentary evidence.  Where the results coincide with the internal evidence of readings, a very high degree of probability is reached.

                 The most prominent fact known about a MS is its date.  But the preservation of ancient texts in more modern ones forbids reliance on date unsustained by other marks of excellence.  The first effective security against the uncertainties of internal evidence is found in the general characteristics of the texts.  This alone supplies entirely trustworthy knowledge as to the relative value of different documents.  Readings authenticated by the coincidence of strong intrinsic and/or strong transcriptional probability are almost always to be found sufficiently numerous to supply a basis for inference. 

                 Where one document is found to contain mostly strongly preferred readings, and another to contain mostly their rejected rivals, there can be no doubt that the text of the first has been transmitted in comparative purity.  By a cautious advance from the known to the unknown it is possible to deal with a great mass of variations.  Confidence is increased when the document thus found to have the better text is also the older.

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                 The next step of investigation is to cease treating documents independently of one another, and examining them for their historical relationships.  Documents are not so many independent and rival texts.  They are all fragments, branches and even leaves of a genealogical tree of transmission.  All trustworthy restoration of corrupted texts is founded on the study of their genealogical evidence.

                 The characteristics of groups containing the same passages are examined for the readings each group supports and rejects, giving special attention to those readings in a document which set it apart from other documents in the group.  Westcott and Hort found many NT passages in which there are 3 text forms; 2 were short and the 3^rd was a longer, later reading, a combination of the 2 shorter forms.  

                 The MSS which contained these combined readings were grouped together under the name Syrian.  This Syrian text is characterized by style changes, combined readings, clarifications, and the harmonizing of parallel passages.  They identified three pre-Syrian types of text:  Neutral (primitive) text; Western text (100s); and Alexandrian text.  The last two types made additions and alterations to the first, and the last type tries to mold the NT text to classical standards.

                 Westcott and Hort applied the genealogical evidence method only to individual passages and to individual variants.  The genealogical method cannot account for mixture of source documents, it cannot get beyond a two-branch family tree.  Many scholars have made use of the method, and they have come to a clearer understanding of its limitations.   

                 Van Soden and Later Developments—The most outstanding work that has made use of the genealogical method is that of Hermann Von Soden (1852-1914).  He classified the MSS into groups according to their text, their form of the “adulterated text,” their chapter divisions, and their lectionary apparatus.  The last two groups were used to distinguish otherwise identical texts. 

                 Van Soden held that the I (Jerusalem) version was made by Origen in the 200s, the H (Hesychian) version was made in Egypt by Hesychius in the 200s, and the K (Koine) version was made by Lucian of Antioch at the end of 200s or beginning of the 300s.  The I version corresponds roughly to Westcott and Hort’s Western text.  Van Soden found the I version nowhere in a pure form.  He divided his I witnesses according to how much they were corrupted by being used in the K version, Ia being the least corrupt, and Ir being mostly the K version with a little bit of I included.   Von Soden reconstructed the original I version by comparing all these groups and sub-groups.  He concluded that [I] it was the type of text that was used by Cyril Jerusalem and Eusebius of Caesarea.

                 Von Soden’s H version corresponds to Westcott and Hort’s Neutral and Alexandrian texts.  The most important witnesses to this version are Sinaiticus and Vaticanus MSS.  The K version of Van Soden approximates the Syrian text of Westcott and Hort.  Von Soden divided his K witnesses into six subgroups:  K1,   Ka, Kx, Kr, Ki, and Kik.  K1 is the oldest and the most important witness to the K version.  The remaining K witnesses are of much less importance than is K1.  Von Soden was not able produce any direct evidence that the K version was in existence before the 700s.

                 After he reconstructed the texts of the 3 great versions, I, H, and K, Von Soden proceeded to reconstruct their I-H-K archetype, which is purely hypothetical and is not identical with text of any known MS.  In order to reconstruct I-H-K, Von Soden followed a series of rules:  those readings are rejected which are probably harmonization; if there are 2 harmonized readings, the one not from Matthew is to be preferred; when there is no harmonizing, that reading found in two of the three versions is preferred. 

                 The reconstruction of I-H-K took Von Soden only to the end of the 200s.  He recognized 2 Old Latin versions, the African and the Italian.  The African Latin had less corruption from Tatian than the Italian Latin.  Since the days of Von Soden, many significant works on the text of the NT have appeared.  None has contributed materially to the theory and method of textual criticism.  It is now generally agreed that the genealogical method does not meet the needs of the student of the NT text.

                 Conclusion—Among the textual scholars of today, the tendency is to follow an “eclectic” method in order to reconstruct the earliest possible text of the NT.  The principles of criticism which are most commonly used are:  the shorter reading is to be preferred; the more difficult reading is to be preferred; the reading which best suits the author’s characteristic tendencies is to be preferred; and the reading which best  explains the origin of all other variants is to be preferred. 

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                 The NT textual scholars who work from within the Christian tradition must be more than textual critics in the narrow sense of the word.  They must also be church historians, historians of Christian thought, and theologians as well.  The textual critic works with documents which are for them scripture, and their attitude toward that scripture is determined by the time and place and religious community from which they come.

                 Protestant critics have to work with MSS produced by those with attitudes toward scripture were different from their own.  The NT writers were proclaiming the church’s faith, as it was their faith.  They selected from the early church’s growing tradition those items that enabled them to “bear witness to God’s revelation”; they did not tell us all that happened.  What Protestant text historians may not be aware of is that tradition and scripture stood side by side, supplementing the other, and influencing the other’s development.

                 The textual critic must fully collate, carefully study, and classify all the thousands of Greek MSS, which will require the combined labors of several generations of scholars.  The textual critic must reconstruct the NT’s original writing.  He must develop a new theory and method to supplant the largely discredited genealogical method.  The original documents are those which bring us closest to the historical events which are the Christian faith’s great doctrines.  We are put in direct touch with the primitive church’s experience of that event through those documents.

                 The text historian must reconstruct not only the text of the originals, but many other texts as well.  Different passages may show the result of intentional alteration under the influence of different times and places.  Textual critics must place some evaluation upon the readings which they find in their documents.  They might well say that a certain reading is a part of the NT, because it comes to them from tradition.  If critics are well-versed in the many disciplines that go into textual study, should they not do more than work to find the oldest NT?  Because the readings that stem from the most original NT text that we can reach need not be the oldest possible texts and readings in order to proclaim the faith of the church, and be scripture.  

TEXTUS RECEPTUS.  Latin for “received [accepted] text,” used especially of the 1550 edition of the Greek New Testament published by Stephanus.  “Text received by all” is also used.  The accuracy of other texts were measured by this one.  See also Text, NT and “History of the NT Text” section of the Introduction.

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