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Biblical Topics & Doctrines
Practices, doctrines, people groups and concepts the biblical text assumes its reader already understands, explained in full.
- IsraelitesThe descendants of Jacob (renamed Israel), organized into twelve tribes, whom God chose…
- JewsThe New Testament's most common term for the covenant people descended from Israel…
- SamaritansA people of mixed Israelite and foreign ancestry centered in Samaria, whose rival…
- PhariseesAn influential Jewish religious and political movement devoted to strict observance of…
- SadduceesA wealthy, priestly Jewish party centered on the Jerusalem temple establishment…
- LevitesThe tribe descended from Jacob's son Levi, set apart from Israel's other tribes for…
- CanaanitesThe peoples inhabiting the land of Canaan before Israel's conquest under Joshua, whose…
- PhilistinesA seafaring people (likely originating in the Aegean region) who settled Canaan's…
- EgyptiansThe ancient civilization along the Nile whose pharaoh enslaved Israel for centuries…
- EdomitesThe nation descended from Jacob's twin brother Esau, settled south of the Dead Sea —…
- Moabites and AmmonitesTwo related nations descended from Lot, Abraham's nephew, settled east of the Dead Sea —…
- AssyriansA brutal, highly militarized Mesopotamian empire that conquered and deported Israel's…
- BabyloniansThe Mesopotamian empire under Nebuchadnezzar that destroyed Jerusalem and Solomon's…
- PersiansThe empire under Cyrus the Great that conquered Babylon and permitted Judah's exiles to…
- RomansThe empire that ruled Judea throughout Jesus's life and the apostolic era — executor of…
- GreeksIn New Testament usage, less an ethnic label than shorthand for the whole non-Jewish…
- The TempleThe fixed, permanent house of worship in Jerusalem that replaced the portable Tabernacle…
- DemonsFallen angelic beings, led by Satan, who oppose God and afflict people through…
- AngelsCreated spiritual beings who serve as God's messengers, worshipers, and agents of…
- TabernacleThe portable tent-sanctuary God had Israel build in the wilderness so he could dwell…
- CherubimA distinct class of angelic being — never depicted in Scripture as the soft, winged…
- Holy of HoliesThe innermost, most sacred chamber of the Tabernacle and later the Temple, housing the…
- GentilesThe biblical term for every people group outside ethnic Israel — a barrier the Old…
- New CovenantA covenant God promised through Jeremiah centuries before Christ, in which he would…
- TorahThe five books of Moses — Genesis through Deuteronomy — given to Israel at Sinai as…
- Day of PreparationThe ordinary Jewish term for the day before the Sabbath (or, in John's usage, before…
- SynagogueThe local Jewish assembly hall for weekly Scripture reading, prayer, and teaching that…
- Casting LotsThe ancient practice of throwing marked objects (likely stones or sticks) to make a…
- The TrinityThe historic Christian teaching that the one true God eternally exists as three distinct…
- PassoverThe annual Jewish feast commemorating God's deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt…
- Young Earth and Old Earth CreationismTwo positions held by Christians who both affirm Genesis 1-2 as real history, a real…
- GehennaA steep ravine on the south and west side of Jerusalem where two of Judah's kings burned…
- Nicene CreedThe statement of faith drawn up at the Council of Nicaea in AD 325 and expanded at…
- Pilate StoneA reused block of limestone found in the theatre at Caesarea Maritima in 1961, carrying…
- Tel Dan SteleThree fragments of a smashed basalt monument found at Tel Dan in 1993 and 1994, carrying…
- Mesha SteleA basalt monument set up by King Mesha of Moab in the ninth century BC, brought to…
- Merneptah SteleA ten-foot granite slab from a pharaoh's mortuary temple at Thebes, found by Flinders…
- Cyrus CylinderA barrel-shaped baked clay cylinder covered in Akkadian cuneiform, found in the ruins of…
- Sennacherib's PrismA six-sided clay prism, surviving in three near-identical copies, on which Sennacherib…
- Black ObeliskA two-metre limestone pillar from Nimrud carrying five bands of carved tribute scenes —…
- Siloam InscriptionSix lines carved into the wall of Hezekiah's Tunnel under Jerusalem, describing the…
- Dead Sea ScrollsRoughly a thousand manuscripts recovered from eleven caves near the Dead Sea between…
- Rylands Papyrus P52A scrap of papyrus the size of a credit card, carrying a few lines of John 18 on both…
- Chester Beatty PapyriEleven papyrus codices bought on the Egyptian antiquities market in the 1930s, which…
- Codex SinaiticusA parchment Bible written around the middle of the AD 300s at St Catherine's Monastery…
- SeptuagintThe translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek, begun in Alexandria around 250 BC —…
- Masoretic TextThe Hebrew text produced by generations of Jewish scribes at Tiberias and in Babylonia…
- Codex VaticanusA mid-fourth-century Greek Bible that has been in the Vatican Library since at least its…
- Muratorian FragmentEighty-five lines of bad Latin in an eighth-century manuscript at Milan, preserving what…
- Babylonian ChroniclesA series of terse cuneiform tablets logging what happened in each year of a Babylonian…
- Nabonidus CylinderA clay foundation cylinder from the ziggurat at Ur in which the last king of Babylon…
- Behistun InscriptionA vast relief and inscription cut into a limestone cliff in western Iran, in three…
- Kurkh MonolithA carved stone slab from southeastern Turkey on which Shalmaneser III lists the kings…
- Nuzi TabletsSome five thousand cuneiform tablets from a provincial town near modern Kirkuk, once…
- Amarna LettersAround 380 clay tablets from the abandoned Egyptian capital at Amarna — the incoming…
- Epic of GilgameshThe great Mesopotamian poem about a king's search for immortality — whose eleventh…
- Enuma ElishThe Babylonian account of how the world was made — Marduk killing the sea-goddess Tiamat…
- Code of HammurabiA seven-foot pillar of black stone carrying nearly three hundred laws and the king's…
- Lachish ReliefsA room-sized panorama of an Assyrian army taking a Judahite city, carved for the king…
- Jehoiachin's Ration TabletsClay food-issue dockets from Nebuchadnezzar's palace, listing oil for a deported king of…
- Deir Alla InscriptionInk on fallen plaster from a building in the Jordan Valley, telling of a night vision…
- Ekron Royal Dedicatory InscriptionFive lines cut into a limestone block, naming the city, its ruler and four generations…
- Ugarit TabletsThousands of tablets from a Syrian port city, written in a language a cousin of Hebrew —…
- Mari TabletsMore than 25,000 tablets from a palace on the Euphrates — including prophets delivering…
- Ebla TabletsA vast Syrian archive from a thousand years before Abraham — and the site of the most…
- Bubastite PortalA pharaoh's list of the towns he claimed to have taken in Canaan, carved on a gate at…
- Elephantine PapyriLetters, contracts and petitions from a Jewish military colony on an island in the Nile…
- Temple Warning InscriptionA block of limestone carrying the death-penalty notice that stood on the barrier around…
- Theodotus InscriptionTen lines of Greek recording that a priest built a synagogue in Jerusalem for reading…
- Crucified Man of Giv'at ha-MivtarA heel bone with an iron nail still through it, from a tomb north of Jerusalem — and a…
- Nazareth InscriptionA marble slab ordering that tombs be left undisturbed, on pain of death — bought from a…
- Arad OstracaMore than a hundred inked potsherds from a small fort in the Negev — ration orders…
- Hezekiah BullaA lump of clay the size of a fingernail, stamped "Belonging to Hezekiah, [son of] Ahaz…
- Isaiah BullaAn Ophel bulla reading "belonging to Yesha'yahu" and then three letters, nby. Add one…
- Baruch BullaeTwo clay bullae reading "belonging to Berekhyahu son of Neriyahu the scribe" — the…
- Nathan-Melech BullaA clay seal impression from the City of David reading "belonging to Nathan-Melech…
- Gemariah BullaOne of fifty-one seal impressions found in a burnt room in the City of David, reading…
- Jehucal and Gedaliah BullaeTwo bullae found three years and a few metres apart in the City of David, naming Jehucal…
- Bethlehem BullaA clay seal from a shipment of tax sent to the king of Judah, reading "in the seventh —…
- Shema SealA large jasper seal from Megiddo carved with a roaring lion and the words "belonging to…
- Mesad Hashavyahu OstraconFourteen lines of ink on a potsherd, in which a farm worker at a small coastal fort asks…
- Tell es-Safi OstraconSeven letters scratched on a bowl fragment at Philistine Gath, giving two non-Semitic…
- Lachish LettersTwenty-one inked potsherds from the gate of a Judahite fortress, most of them found in…
- Ketef Hinnom Silver AmuletsTwo tiny sheets of silver foil, incised and worn on a cord, from a burial cave above the…
- Samaria OstracaA hundred and two inked potsherds from the royal acropolis of Samaria, recording…
- LMLK Seal ImpressionsStorage jars stamped on the handle, before firing, with the words "belonging to the…
- Execration TextsIn a state ritual, Egyptians wrote the names of foreign rulers and towns on clay bowls…
- Beni Hasan Tomb PaintingA painted register in a Middle Egyptian tomb shows thirty-seven Semitic-speaking…
- Soleb Yhw InscriptionOn a column in an Egyptian temple deep in Nubia, one bound prisoner is captioned "the…
- Brooklyn Papyrus 35.1446A late Middle Kingdom papyrus, probably from Thebes, one side of which records a widow's…
- Ipuwer PapyrusA battered papyrus in Leiden in which an Egyptian sage describes his country turned…
- Nimrud IvoriesMore than six thousand carved ivory panels, plaques and harness fittings dug out of the…
- James OssuaryAn ancient limestone burial box whose Aramaic inscription names a man, his father and —…
- Jehoash InscriptionA stone tablet that surfaced on the antiquities market describing repairs to the temple…
- Museum of the Bible Scroll FragmentsSixteen small pieces of inscribed leather, bought after 2002 as Dead Sea Scroll…
- Ivory PomegranateA thumb-sized pomegranate carved from hippopotamus tooth, genuinely ancient, pierced for…
- Shapira ScrollA set of blackened leather strips carrying a version of Deuteronomy, offered to the…
- Gospel of Jesus' WifeA business-card-sized piece of papyrus in Coptic, announced in Rome in 2012, carrying a…
- Talpiot TombA rock-cut burial cave found in south Jerusalem in 1980, holding ten ossuaries, six of…
- Mount Ebal Lead ObjectA folded square of lead about two centimetres across, recovered in 2019 by wet-sifting…
- Ron Wyatt's Claimed DiscoveriesNoah's ark in eastern Turkey, chariot wheels on the floor of the Red Sea, the ark of the…
- Shroud of TurinA linen cloth kept in Turin bearing the faint front-and-back image of a crucified man…
- SabbathThe seventh-day rest commanded in the Ten Commandments and kept as a sign of God's…
- the ChristNot a surname but a title: Greek Christos translates Hebrew mashiach, 'anointed one.'…
- Son of ManThe phrase Jesus uses of himself more than any other in the Gospels — and one whose…
- eldersThe senior laymen who shared Israel's leadership from the wilderness onward, and who in…
- chief priestsThe senior priestly officials of the Jerusalem temple — the serving high priest, those…
- scribesThe trained writers and legal specialists of Israel — royal secretaries and copyists in…
- Pharisees and Sadducees ComparedThe two parties are named together so often that they can blur into a single opposition…
- Caiaphas OssuaryA carved ossuary from a tomb a bulldozer opened in 1990, inscribed twice with the family…
- Pilate RingA cheap ring dug at Herodium in 1968, cleaned and read fifty years later as "of Pilate"…
- Galilee BoatA working boat from the lake Jesus taught beside, uncovered by a drought in 1986 — and…
- Politarch InscriptionsLuke calls the magistrates of Thessalonica politarchai, a word that survives in no other…
- Sergius Paulus InscriptionsActs names the Roman governor of Cyprus who sent for Paul and Barnabas. Several…
- Alexamenos GraffitoOn a plastered wall in the servants' quarters of the imperial palace in Rome, somebody…
- Hezekiah's TunnelFive hundred and thirty-three metres of limestone cut through by hand from both ends at…
- Broad WallSeven metres of wall thickness laid straight across the foundations of the houses it…
- Pilgrimage RoadSix hundred metres of paved, stepped street running uphill from the Pool of Siloam to…
- Robinson's ArchThe springing of a vast arch still projecting from Herod's retaining wall, and beneath…
- Place of Trumpeting InscriptionA signpost from the parapet at the highest corner of Herod's Temple Mount, telling a…
- Stepped Stone StructureAn eighteen-metre wall of stepped stone terracing on the eastern slope of the City of…
- Large Stone StructureMassive undressed walls at the top of the City of David ridge, announced in 2005 as the…
- Warren's ShaftA vertical shaft above the Gihon Spring that generations were taught was how Joab took…
- Burnt HouseA basement in Jerusalem's Upper City left exactly as the fire finished with it — ash, a…
- Temple Mount Sifting ProjectNine thousand tons of earth were scraped off the Temple Mount by machine in 1999 and…
- Khirbet QeiyafaA walled town overlooking the valley where 1 Samuel puts David and Goliath, dated to…
- Tel HazorA 200-acre Canaanite capital that burned so hot the mudbrick vitrified, with its gods…
- The Arad SanctuaryA small sanctuary inside a Judahite border fort in the Negev — the only Israelite shrine…
- The Mount Ebal StructureA stone structure full of burnt animal bone on the slope of Mount Ebal, published by its…
- The Timna Copper MinesA district of ancient copper workings in the southern Arabah, called Solomon's mines…
- Khirbet en-NahasTen hectares of black slag in southern Jordan, with a fortress in the middle of it —…
- The Beersheba Horned AltarA large hewn-stone altar from a Judahite town, taken apart and its blocks reused in a…
- Tall el-HammamOne of the largest Bronze Age sites in Jordan, with a burnt Middle Bronze destruction…
- The Search for AiThe site everyone identifies with Ai had been a ruin for roughly a thousand years before…
- The Search for Mount SinaiThe mountain where the law was given has never been located. The traditional peak rests…
- The Search for BethsaidaPeter, Andrew and Philip came from Bethsaida, and two teams two kilometres apart are…
- The Search for Jesus' TombOne of these two sites has a first-century rock-cut tomb in a disused quarry that lay…
- The Search for Noah's ArkA boat-shaped ridge in eastern Turkey and a series of expeditions up Mount Ararat have…
- Great Isaiah ScrollSeventeen sheets of leather sewn end to end, carrying all sixty-six chapters of Isaiah…
- Community RuleEleven columns setting out how a Jewish community by the Dead Sea admitted members, ate…
- Habakkuk PesherThirteen columns quoting Habakkuk 1-2 a passage at a time and reading each one as a…
- War ScrollNineteen columns setting out how the Sons of Light will fight the Sons of Darkness at…
- Temple ScrollEight metres of the thinnest parchment found in the caves, rewriting the laws of the…
- Great Psalms ScrollTwenty-eight columns of psalms from Cave 11, in an order that is not the Bible's and…
- Copper ScrollTwo rolls of almost pure copper, engraved rather than written, listing sixty-four places…
- 4QMMTSix fragmentary copies of a letter from one Jewish group to another, arguing about…
- 4QSamuel-aThe most substantial manuscript of the book of Samuel from Qumran, agreeing again and…
- Damascus DocumentTwo medieval copies turned up in a Cairo synagogue storeroom in 1896 and puzzled…
- Nash PapyrusA single scrap of papyrus from Egypt, four pieces mounted together, carrying the Ten…
- Bodmer PapyriA library of Greek and Coptic books — Homer and Menander bound alongside John's Gospel…
- Papyrus 66A nearly complete papyrus copy of John's Gospel, and the most heavily corrected early…
- Papyrus 75An early codex of Luke and the Fourth Gospel whose text turned out to be almost…
- The Magdalen PapyrusFive small scraps of Matthew's Gospel, split between Oxford and Barcelona, whose date…
- Papyrus 137A scrap of Mark's Gospel the size of a postage stamp, publicly claimed for six years to…
- Papyrus 72The earliest complete copy of 1 Peter, 2 Peter and Jude — and not a New Testament…
- Codex ClaromontanusA bilingual sixth-century copy of Paul's letters, remembered less for its text than for…
- Codex WashingtonianusThe four Gospels on parchment, bought from a dealer in Giza in 1906 — carrying, after…
- Codex AlexandrinusOne of the oldest near-complete Greek Bibles in existence, given to an English king in…
- Codex BezaeA bilingual copy of the Gospels and Acts from about AD 400 whose text departs from every…
- Codex Ephraemi RescriptusA great Greek Bible whose text was erased in the Middle Ages so the parchment could…
- Oxyrhynchus PapyriTwo Oxford classicists spent six seasons digging the rubbish mounds of a provincial…
- Thanksgiving HymnsSome thirty psalms of thanksgiving from the first Qumran cave, most of them opening "I…
- Genesis ApocryphonThe most extensive Aramaic manuscript from the Dead Sea caves: a first-person retelling…
- En-Gedi Leviticus ScrollA lump of charcoal from the ark of a Byzantine synagogue, too fragile to unroll for…
- Greek Minor Prophets ScrollA leather scroll from a cliff cave south of Qumran, carrying six of the Minor Prophets…
- Bar Kokhba Letters and the Babatha ArchivePapyri hidden in cliff caves above the Dead Sea by people who did not come back for…
- Aleppo CodexWritten at Tiberias about AD 930 and treated as the standard against which other Bibles…
- Leningrad CodexOne scribe in Fustat wrote out the whole Hebrew Bible, pointed it, added the masorah and…
- Cairo Codex of the ProphetsA complete Prophets codex that says it was written by the father of the Masorete of the…
- Cairo GenizaJewish law forbids destroying a text that carries the name of God, so one Cairo…
- Samaritan PentateuchThe Samaritans' own Torah, in their own script: about six thousand differences from the…
- The Comma JohanneumA sentence at 1 John 5:7 naming the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit as three…
- Codex AmiatinusA one-volume Latin Bible written at Wearmouth-Jarrow around AD 700 and carried south by…
- Vetus LatinaThe Latin Scriptures as they circulated before the Vulgate — surviving in a handful of…
- PeshittaThe standard Bible of the Syriac-speaking churches: an Old Testament translated straight…
- The Old Syriac GospelsThe Syriac gospels as they stood before the Peshitta replaced them, surviving in exactly…
- The Coptic VersionsThe Scriptures translated into Egyptian, written in Greek letters, from the third…
- Family 1 and Family 13Two clusters of medieval Greek gospel manuscripts that turned out to be cousins — copied…
- Minuscule 33A ninth-century Greek manuscript in Paris carrying the prophets and the whole New…
- Nag Hammadi CodicesTwelve surviving papyrus books and part of a thirteenth, dug up in Egypt in about 1945…
- Gospel of ThomasOne hundred and fourteen sayings of Jesus with no story around them — found complete in…
- DidacheSixteen short chapters telling a first- or early-second-century congregation how to…
- Gospel of JudasTwenty-six pages of Coptic in which Jesus takes Judas Iscariot aside and tells him he…
- Egerton Papyrus 2Three battered scraps bought from a Cairo dealer in 1934, plus a fourth found in Cologne…
- DiatessaronAbout AD 170 Tatian cut and spliced the four Gospels into a single continuous narrative…
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