Samaria (ancient city)Samaria (שֹׁמְרוֹן; Σαμάρεια, Samareia; السامرة, as-Samira) was a city in the historical region of Samaria that served as the capital of the northern Kingdom of Israel during the 9th and 8th centuries BCE. Towards the end of the 8th century BCE, possibly in 722 BCE, Samaria was captured by the Neo-Assyrian Empire and became an administrative center under Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian rule. During the early Roman period, the city was expanded and fortified by Herod the Great, who renamed it "Sebastia" in honor of emperor Augustus.
Shiloh (biblical city)Shiloh (ˈʃaɪloʊ; שִׁלֹה, שִׁלוֹ ,שִׁילֹה, and שִׁילוֹ, variably, Šīlō) was an ancient city and sanctuary in Samaria. According to the Hebrew Bible, Shiloh was one of the main centers of Israelite worship during the pre-monarchic period, before the First Temple in Jerusalem was built. After the Israelite conquest of Canaan, the Tabernacle was moved to Shiloh, and remained there during the period of the biblical judges. Shiloh has been positively identified with modern Khirbet Seilun, a tell known in Modern Hebrew as Tel Shiloh.
Herodian dynastyThe Herodian dynasty was a royal dynasty of Idumaean (Edomite) descent, ruling the Herodian Kingdom of Judea and later the Herodian Tetrarchy as a vassal state of the Roman Empire. The Herodian dynasty began with Herod the Great, who assumed the throne of Judea, with Roman support, bringing down the century-old Hasmonean Kingdom. His kingdom lasted until his death in 4 BCE, when it was divided among his sons as a tetrarchy, which lasted for about 10 years.
AshdodAshdod (ʾašdōḏ, ʔaʃˈdod; ʾasdūd, ʔasˈduːd, or ʾisdūd ʔɪsˈduːd; Philistine: , romanized: *ʾašdūd) is the sixth-largest city in Israel. Located in the country's Southern District, it lies on the Mediterranean coast south of Tel Aviv and north of Ashkelon. The city was named after the historical town of Ashdod, located c.6 km southeast, which dates originally to the 17th century BCE as one of the five Philistine city-states. The ruins of Ashdod-Yam also lie on the coast to the southwest of the city center and adjacent to the city's expanding suburbs.
SoferA sofer, sopher, sofer SeTaM, or sofer ST"M (סופר סת״ם, "scribe"; plural of is , סופרים) is a Jewish scribe who can transcribe Sifrei Kodesh (holy scrolls), tefillin (phylacteries), mezuzot (ST"M, סת״ם, is an abbreviation of these three terms) and other religious writings. By simple definition, soferim are copyists, but their religious role in Judaism is much more.
MoriahMoriah mɒˈraɪə (Hebrew: , Mōrīyya; Arabic: مروه, Marwah) is the name given to a mountainous region in the Book of Genesis, where the binding of Isaac by Abraham is said to have taken place. Jews identify the region mentioned in Genesis and the specific mountain in which the near-sacrifice is said to have occurred with "Mount Moriah", mentioned in the Book of Chronicles as the place where Solomon's Temple is said to have been built, and both these locations are also identified with the current Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
HolonHolon (חוֹלוֹן ) is a city on the central coastal strip of Israel, south of Tel Aviv. Holon is part of the metropolitan Gush Dan area. In it had a population of , making it the tenth most populous city in Israel. Holon has the second-largest industrial zone in Israel, after Haifa. Its jurisdiction is 19,200 dunams and its population is about 194,273 residents as of 2018 according to CBS data. The name of the city comes from the Hebrew word holon, meaning "(little) sand".
Elephantine papyri and ostracaThe Elephantine Papyri and Ostraca consist of thousands of documents from the Egyptian border fortresses of Elephantine and Aswan, which yielded hundreds of papyri and ostraca in hieratic and demotic Egyptian, Aramaic, Koine Greek, Latin and Coptic, spanning a period of 100 years in the 5th to 4th centuries BCE. The documents include letters and legal contracts from family and other archives, and are thus an invaluable source of knowledge for scholars of varied disciplines such as epistolography, law, society, religion, language and onomastics.
Samaritan scriptThe Samaritan script is used by the Samaritans for religious writings, including the Samaritan Pentateuch, writings in Samaritan Hebrew, and for commentaries and translations in Samaritan Aramaic and occasionally Arabic. Samaritan is a direct descendant of the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, which was a variety of the Phoenician alphabet. Paleo-Hebrew is the alphabet in which large parts of the Hebrew Bible were originally penned according to the consensus of most scholars, who also believe that these scripts are descendants of the Proto-Sinaitic script.
IoudaiosIoudaios (Ἰουδαῖος; pl. Ἰουδαῖοι Ioudaioi) is an Ancient Greek ethnonym used in classical and biblical literature which commonly translates to "Jew" or "Judean". The choice of translation is the subject of frequent scholarly debate, given its central importance to passages in the Bible (both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament) as well as works of other writers such as Josephus and Philo. Translating it as Jews is seen to imply connotations as to the religious beliefs of the people, whereas translating it as Judeans confines the identity within the geopolitical boundaries of Judea.
