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Sanhedrin

(Encyclopedia)Sanhedrin sănhĕdˈrĭn [key], ancient Jewish legal and religious institution in Jerusalem that appears to have exercised the functions of a court between c.63 b.c. and c.a.d. 68. The accounts of it ...

Bar Mitzvah

(Encyclopedia)Bar Mitzvah bärmĭtsˈvə [key] [Aramaic,=son of the Commandment], Jewish ceremony in which the young male is initiated into the religious community, according to tradition at the age of 13 years and...

Numbers

(Encyclopedia)Numbers, book of the Bible, fourth of the five books of the Law (the Pentateuch or Torah) ascribed by tradition to Moses. Numbers begins at Sinai and ends in Moab on the eve of the Hebrews' entry into...

Judaism

(Encyclopedia)Judaism jo͞oˈdəĭzˌəm, jo͞oˈdē– [key], the religious beliefs and practices and the way of life of the Jews. The term itself was first used by Hellenized Jews to describe their religious prac...

Midrash

(Encyclopedia)Midrash mĭdˈräsh [key] [Heb.,=to examine, to investigate], verse by verse interpretation of Hebrew Scriptures, consisting of homily and exegesis, by Jewish teachers since about 400 b.c. Distinction...

Leviticus

(Encyclopedia)Leviticus lĭvĭtˈəkəs [key], book of the Bible, 3d of the five books of the Law (the Pentateuch or Torah) ascribed by tradition to Moses. It is in essence a collection of liturgical legislation wi...

Amoraim

(Encyclopedia)Amoraim äˈmōräˈĭm [key] [Heb. amar=to interpret], in Judaism, term referring to those scholars, predominantly at Caesarea and Tiberias in Palestine (c.a.d. 220–c.a.d. 375) and in Babylonia (c....

Zealots

(Encyclopedia)Zealots zĕlˈəts [key], Jewish faction traced back to the revolt of the Maccabees (2d cent. b.c.). The name was first recorded by the Jewish historian Josephus as a designation for the Jewish resist...

Neusner, Jacob

(Encyclopedia)Neusner, Jacob, 1932–2016, American scholar and historian of Judaism, b. West Hartford, Conn, B.A. Harvard, 1953, M.A. Jewish Theological Seminary, 1960), Ph.D. Columbia, 1960. Regarded as the world...

Baruch, book of the Septuagint and of the Apocrypha

(Encyclopedia)Baruch, early Jewish book included in the Septuagint, but not included in the Hebrew Bible and placed in the Apocrypha in the Authorized Version. It is named for a Jewish prince Baruch (fl. 600 b.c.),...

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