ADULLAM – An old Canaanitish capital in western Judah (Gen. xxxviii. 1; Josh. xii. 15, xv. 35). It was fortified by Rehoboam (II Chron. xi. 7), and was an inhabited city till the end of Old Testament times (Micah, i. 15; Neh. xi. 30; II...
ADULTERY – Woman's Rights Enforced. Sexual intercourse of a married woman with any man other than her husband. The crime can be committed only by and with a married woman; for the unlawful intercourse of a married man with an unmarried...
ADUMMIM – Steep road leading from the plain of Jericho to the hilly country around Jerusalem. It was a part of the boundary between Judah and Benjamin (Josh. xv. 7, xviii. 17). The name refers to the redness of the material of which the...
ADUMMIM – See Coins.
ADVENT OF MESSIAH – See Messiah.
ADVENTISTS – A Christian sect. Among the chief tenets of the Adventist faith are: (1) The restoration of the Jews to the Holy Land (see Bengel, "Gnomon on the New Testament"), and their conversion, based on Rom. xi. 25, 26 (Ritschl, "Gesch....
ÆGIDIUS OF VITERBO – Cardinal and Christian cabalist; born in 1470 at the Villa Canapina, in the diocese of Viterbo, of rich and noble parents. After a course of studies with the Augustinians at Viterbo, he was made doctor of theology, and in 1503...
ÆLIA CAPITOLINA – See Jerusalem.
ÆMILIUS, PAULUS – Hebrew bibliographer, publisher, and teacher; born at Rödlsee, Germany, probably in the first quarter of the sixteenth century; embraced Christianity in Rome; died 1575. He was employed in copying Hebrew manuscripts, and for...
ÆSHMA (ASMODEUS, ASHMEDAI) – His Function. In the Mazdian religion the chief of the dævas, or demons. Though the oldest sections of the Avesta—the Gathas—present Æshma mainly as an abstract conception, still, in passages here and there, he is represented in...
ÆSOP'S FABLES AMONG THE JEWS – India the Probable Source. Recent research has shown an intimate relation between the fables associated with the name of Æsop and the jatakas, or birth-stories of the Buddha. Sakyamuni is represented in the jatakas as recording...
AFANASYEV-CHUZHBINSKI, ALEXANDER STEPANOVICH – Christian Russian author and ethnographer (1817-75); he was an enlightened writer who did justice to the Jews. In his "Poyezdka v Yuzhnuyu Rossiyu" (2 vols., St. Petersburg, 1861-63) he gave a faithful picture of Jewish life in...
AFENDOPOLO, CALEB B. ELIJAH B. JUDAH – Polyhistor, brother of Samuel ha-Ramati, ḥakam of the Karaite congregations in Constantinople and of Judah Bali, brother-in-law and disciple of Elijah Bashyatzi; born at Adrianople before 1430; lived some time at Belgrade, and...
AFFINITY – See Marriage Laws.
AFFRAS RACHMAELOVICH – A Jewish merchant of Mohilev and Riga, who lived about the end of the sixteenth century. Affras figured prominently in Lithuania as an importer of miscellaneous merchandise, and in White Russia as a farmer of taxes and...
AFGHANISTAN – Country of Asia, lying to the northwest of India. The Afghans themselves have a tradition that they are descendants of the lost Ten Tribes. They were carried away by Buktunasar (Nebuchadnezzar) to Hazarah, which they identify...
AFIA, AARON – A physician, philosopher, and mathematician of Salonica, who lived about 1540. He was the teacher of Daniel ben Peraḥyah, whom he assisted in the translation from the Spanish into Hebrew of Abraham Zacuto's "Almanac." He was...
AFIḲOMEN – A piece broken off the cake of unleavened bread, maẓẓah (usually from the middle one of the three cakes called Cohen, Levi, and Israel), at the beginning of the Seder service on Passover eve. It is secreted under the pillow of...
AFRICA – Biblical Age. The Bible has no general name for Africa, any more than it has for Europe or Asia. The word "Ham," from the Hebrew root (to be hot), which is applied in the later Psalms (lxxviii. 51; cv. 23, 27; cvi. 22) to Egypt,...
AFRICANUS, SEXTUS JULIUS – See Julius, Sextus, Africanus.
AGA, BENJAMIN – Leader of the Karaites of the Crimea, who died in 1824. He was the royal treasurer of Selim Ghyrey Khan, the last Tatar ruler of the Crimea, and therefore is called in Karaite literature Ha-Neeman ("the Trusted")—an appellation...
AGABUS – A Jew of Jerusalem; one of the prophets who, after the dispersion of the early followers of Jesus, came to the city of Antioch (Acts, xi. 19-28, xxi. 10). He represents some of the spiritual forces that helped to shape the new...
AGAG – Biblical Data: King of the Amalekites, taken by King Saul after a successful expedition against him (I Sam. xv.). His life was spared by Saul; but the prophet Samuel, who regarded this clemency as a defiance of the will of YHWH,...
AGAI, ADOLF – Physician and journalist; born March 31, 1836, at Jankovacz, Hungary. His father, Joseph Rosenzweig, at the age of thirteen, emigrated from Galicia to Hungary, where he studied medicine, became a physician, and wrote a book on...
AGAPE – The name given to the communion meals of the early Christians, at which the rich and the poor, the master and the slave, sat together at one table, merging all distinctions of rank in fraternal union and fellowship. A good...