including headings Semitic tribes in the Middle East, Abraham's people, From Egypt to Canaan, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, The kingdom of Israel, ...
The Bible (from biblos, Greek for 'book') is the basis of two great religions, Judaism in the Old Testament and Christianity in the New Testament. In each case it brings together a group of documents to tell the s...
In the Jewish and Christian tradition Elijah and Elisha are inspiring examples of godly hermits, and Judaism provides the earliest known order of monks in the Middle East - the Essenes. It is likely that they first opt o...
Muslims are instructed in the Qur'an to be tolerant of the two older and closely related religions, Judaism and Christianity, which share with Islam the essential characteristics of monotheism and a sacred book; they are...
With the rise of Islam, dating from the Hegira in622, the world's third great monotheistic religion becomes established. It follows in the tradition of Judaism and Christianity. Muslims believe that Islam completes the r...
In the 7th century Arabia becomes the cradle of the world's third great monotheistic religion. All three have begun within a small area of southwest Asia. First Judaism, somewhere in the region stretching up from the Red...
Two great reservoirs of source material for European literature (and indeed for all European art) are recorded for posterity in regions bordering the eastern Mediterranean during the centuries after 1000 BC. The...
The wish for a reasonable Christianity is an understandable reaction against the passionate intolerance which has characterized the 16th and 17th centuries. But reasonable faith is not necessarily the kind which most peo...
The great Christian cities of Syria and Palestine fall to the Arabs in rapid succession from635. Damascus, in that year, is the first to be captured. Antioch follows in 636. And 638 brings the greatest prize of all, in M...
Josephus claims that Titus, no doubt aware of the Temple's contents, attempts to save it from harm. He says that Jewish partisans first set fire to the Temple colonnade after enticing Roman soldiers into a trap. Whatever...
The five books of the Torah, made up of passages composed at various times from the reign of David onwards, are amalgamated and amplified by the priests in about 400 BC. They attribute all five books to Moses, inspired...
The heresy associated with the name of Arius, a priest in Alexandria, is the most significant in the history of Christianity. It concerns the mystery at the very heart of the religion - the Trinity. ...
