IsraelIsrael (ˈɪzri.əl,_-reɪ-; יִשְׂרָאֵל Yīsrāʾēl jisʁaˈʔel; إِسْرَائِيل ʾIsrāʾīl), officially the State of Israel (מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl mediˈnat jisʁaˈʔel; دَوْلَة إِسْرَائِيل Dawlat Isrāʾīl), is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Lebanon to the north, by Syria to the northeast, by Jordan to the east, by the Red Sea to the south, by Egypt to the southwest, by the Mediterranean Sea to the west, and by the Palestinian territories - the West Bank along the east and the Gaza Strip along the southwest.
JewsJews (יְהוּדִים, Yehudim, jehuˈdim) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group, nation or ethnos native to the Levant, originating from the ancient Israelites and Hebrews of historical Israel and Judah. Jewish ethnicity, nationhood, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the ethnic religion of the Jewish people, although its observance varies from strict to none. Jews take their origins from a Southern Levantine national and religious group that arose towards the end of the second millennium BCE.
Hebrew languageHebrew (; ʿÎbrit; ) is a Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic language family. It was natively spoken by the Israelites and remained in regular use as a spoken language by their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans, before dying out after 200 CE. However, it was largely preserved as a liturgical language, featuring prominently in Judaism (since the Second Temple period) and Samaritanism. Having ceased to be a dead language in the 19th century, today's Hebrew serves as the only successful large-scale example of linguistic revival.
SyriaSyria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It is bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east and southeast, Jordan to the south, and Israel and Lebanon to the southwest. Cyprus lies to the west across the Mediterranean Sea. It is a unitary republic that consists of 14 governorates (subdivisions).
TiberiasTiberias (taɪˈbɪəriəs ; טְבֶרְיָה, ; Ṭabariyyā) is an Israeli city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. A major Jewish center during Late Antiquity, it has been considered since the 16th century one of Judaism's Four Holy Cities, along with Jerusalem, Hebron, and Safed. In , it had a population of . Tiberias was founded 20 CE by Herod Antipas and was named after Roman emperor Tiberius. It became a major political and religious hub of the Jews in the Land of Israel after the destruction of Jerusalem and the desolation of Judea during the Jewish–Roman wars.
JesusJesus (6 to 4 BC - AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and several other names and titles, was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the central figure of Christianity, the world's largest religion. Most Christians believe Jesus to be the incarnation of God the Son and the awaited messiah, the Christ that is prophesied in the Hebrew Bible. Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed historically.
JosephusFlavius Josephus (dʒoʊˈsiːfəs; Ἰώσηπος, ; AD 37 – 100) was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing The Jewish War, he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of priestly descent and a mother who claimed royal ancestry. He initially fought against the Roman Empire during the First Jewish–Roman War as general of the Jewish forces in Galilee, until surrendering in AD 67 to the Roman army led by military commander Vespasian after the six-week siege of Yodfat.
IsraelitesThe Israelites (ˈɪzrəlaɪts,_-riə-; , Bənēy Yīsrāʾēl, ) were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan. The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt, dated to about 1200 BCE. According to the modern archaeological account, the Israelites and their culture branched out of the Canaanite peoples and their cultures through the development of a distinct monolatristic—and later monotheistic—religion centred on the national god Yahweh.
New TestamentThe New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christianity. The New Testament's background, the first division of the Christian Bible, is called the Old Testament, which is based primarily upon the Hebrew Bible; together they are regarded as sacred scripture by Christians. The New Testament is a collection of Christian texts originally written in the Koine Greek language, at different times by various authors.
DruzeThe Druze ('druːz; دَرْزِيٌّ, or دُرْزِيٌّ , () دُرُوزٌ, ) are an Arab and Arabic-speaking esoteric ethnoreligious group from Western Asia who adhere to the Druze faith, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, syncretic, and ethnic religion whose main tenets are the unity of God and the belief in reincarnation and the eternity of the soul. Adherents of the Druze religion call themselves simply "the Monotheists" (al-Muwaḥḥidūn). Most Druze religious practices are kept secret. The Druze do not permit outsiders to convert to their religion.