Search Results: Abraham, the Patriarch

In Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Abraham is a venerated patriarch whose relationship with God provides the foundational story for God's beneficial relationship with humanity. According to biblical tradition (and some say myth), Abraham...

The Book of Genesis is the first book of the Jewish scriptures and the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. Genesis takes its name from the opening line in Hebrew – beresit, ("in the beginning") – later translated into Greek as genesis ("origin"...

Young Tsar Alexis (Alexei) Praying Before the Relics of Metropolitan Philip in the Presence of Patriarch Nikon, oil on canvas by Alexander Litovchenko, 1886. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

Old Testament is the Christian name for the books of the Jewish scriptures that constitute the first half of the Christian Bible. "Old" in this sense was a means to distinguish Judaism from Christianity at the creation of the New Testament...

Tsar (also czar) is a Slavic term derived from the Latin caesar. Ivan III (Ivan the Great) (r. 1462-1505) was the first Russian ruler to begin using the title of tsar during his reign instead of the title Grand Prince of Moscow. His grandson...

Sarah Presenting Hagar to Abraham by Louis Jean Francois Lagrenee Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

God' is the common word for the identity of a higher being in the universe beyond our world, the creator of all known existence, and who rules in conjunction with lower gradients of divinity (angels). In Greek, theikos ("divine") meant to...

Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) was a Danish philosopher and is considered to be the first existentialist, influencing such notable philosophers as Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) and Martin Heidegger (1889-1976). His works are a reflection of...

Stained glass from St Edmundsbury Cathedral.

Canaan was the name of a large and prosperous ancient country (at times independent, at others a tributary to Egypt) located in the Levant region of present-day Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Israel. It was also known as Phoenicia. The origin...