The name of the fifth month in the Hebrew calendar, the month beginning in our July. The name is Persian, and is one of the many Persian marks in the Book of Esther.
A SHEPHERD
Having refused, along with his friends, to eat the provisions of the king’s table, he was fed and flourished upon pulse and water. Having successfully passed his examinations and escaped the death with which the wise men of Babylon were threatened, he was appointed at the request of Daniel along with his companions over the affairs of the province of Babylon (Daniel 2).
A WORSHIPPER
A RIGHTEOUS MAN
His evil works and hatred of his brother culminated in the act of murder, specifically evoked by the opposite character of Abel’s works and the acceptance of his offering.
A MARTYR
A TYPE
A name given to “the threshing floor of Atad,” East of the Jordan and North of the Dead Sea, because Joseph and his funeral party from Egypt there held their mourning over Jacob (<015011> . Genesis 50:11). The name always has the article, and the best expression of it in English would be “the Acacias.” `The valley of the Acacias’ (<290318>.
THE BIBLICAL ACCOUNT
The list in 1 Chronicles 9 leads up to the Korahite porters of the time of Nehemiah. The two men are mentioned together as high priests eight times in the narrative of the rebellion of Absalom (<101524>.
CRITICAL OPINIONS CONCERNING ABIATHAR
Not even in the account’ of the battle of Gilboa is mention made of him. The New Testament equivalent of the noun is [bde>lugma, bdel-ug-ma] = “detestable,” i.e.
THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Thus, two opposing parties were developed: the Hellenistic, and the party of the Pious, or the Chasidim, [chacidhim] (Hasidaeans, 1 Macc who held fast to the strict ideal of the scribes. This was the situation when Antiochus Epiphanes set out to suppress the last vestige of the Jewish cult by the application of brute force.
ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES
Ezra had given a new significance to the [Torah] by having it read to the whole congregation of Israel and by his vigorous enforcement of the law of separation from the Gentiles. His emphasis of the law introduced the period of legalism and finical interpretation of the letter which called forth some of the bitterest invectives of our Saviour.
THE SUPPRESSION OF THE JEWISH CULT
Christ applies the phrase to what was to take place at the advance of the Romans against Jerusalem. In the Old Testament they most frequently stand for some form of the stem [rabh], signifying.
NAME
ZATW Analogy proves that this is in the Babylonian fashion of the period, and that judging from the various writings of this and similar names, its pronunciation was not far from [’abh-ram]. In the form ‘abh-raham his ear caught the echo of some root (perhaps r-h-m; compare Arabic ruham, “multitude”) still more suggestive of the patriarch’s extensive progeny, the reason (“for”) that accompanies the change of name <011705>.
KINDRED
CAREER
The theophany that symbolized outwardly this climax of the Divine favor serves also for an intercessory colloquy, in which Abraham is granted the deliverance of Lot in the impending overthrow of Sodom. The first of these was in the district of Gerar, with whose king, Abimelech, Abraham and his wife had an experience similar to the earlier.
CONDITIONS OF LIFE
The death of Sarah became the occasion for Abraham’s. acquisition of the first permanent holding of Palestine soil, the nucleus of his promised inheritance, and at the same time suggested the probable approach of his own death. Social relations outside of the family-tribe may best be considered under the next heading.
CHARACTER
The usual accompaniment of sacrifice, a professional priesthood, does not occur in Abraham’s family, yet he recognizes priestly prerogative in the person of Melchizedek, priest-king of Salem (<011420> . Genesis 14:20). Abraham’s biographer, but we are left in the dark as to Abraham’s sense of moral obliquity.
SIGNIFICANCE IN THE HISTORY OF RELIGION
The way in which Abraham responded to this peculiar goodness of God makes him the type of the Christian believer. As in the Bible so in the Koran Abraham is the recipient of the Divine covenant for himself and for his posterity, and.
INTERPRETATIONS OF THE STORY OTHER THAN THE HISTORICAL
A new phase of this mythical theory has been developed in the elaboration by Winckler and others of their astral-theology of the. Similar idiomatic translations of the King James Version have been replaced in the Revised Version (British and American) by those more literal, as in.
A GENERAL FAVORITE
One of the stations of Israel in the wilderness on the march from Sinai to Kadesh — the station next before that at Ezion-geber on the eastern arm of the Red Sea (<043334> . Numbers 33:34,35).
IN EXILE
REBELS AGAINST HIS FATHER
DAVID’S FLIGHT
Hushai, too, was sent back to Jerusalem, where he falsely professed allegiance to Absalom, who by thins time had entered the royal city and had assumed control of the government (<101532> . 2 Samuel 15:32 ff). Had he acted upon the shrewd counsel of Ahithophel, David’s army might have been conquered at the outset.
ABSALOM’S DEATH AND BURIAL
Hushai, the priests and a few people less conspicuous performed their part well, for the counsel of Ahithophel, who advised immediate action and advance upon the king’s forces, while everything was in a panic, was thwarted (<101701>. Thomson reforms us that Syrian people to this day cast stones upon the graves of murderers and outlaws (LB, II, 61).
DAVID’S LAMENT
ABSALOM’S TOMB
It may be defined as a self-discipline which consists in the habitual renunciation, in whole or in part, of the enjoyments of the flesh, with a view to the cultivation of the life of the spirit. In its most extreme forms, it bids men. to stifle and suppress their physical wants, rather than to subordinate them in the interest of a higher end or purpose, the underlying idea being that the body is the foe of the spirit, and that the progressive extirpation of the natural desires and inclinations by means of fasting, celibacy, voluntary poverty, etc., is “the way of perfection.”.
PUBLIC FASTS
It appears according to Jewish accounts, that it was customary to hold them on the second and fifth days of the week, for the reason that Moses was believed to have gone up to Matthew. Sinai on the fifth day of the week (Thursday) and to have come down on the second (Monday) (compare Didache, 8; Apostolical . Constitutions, VIII, 23).
PRIVATE FASTS
Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house.
DEGREES OF STRICTNESS IN ABSTINENCE
ABSTINENCE AMONG DIFFERENT KINDS OF ASCETICS
In the fragments of his sermons which are preserved in the Gospels there is no trace of any exhortation to ascetic exercises, though John’s disciples practiced fasting (<410218> . Mark 2:18). There were many pious Jews, men and women, who practiced asceticism of a less formal kind.
ABSTINENCE AS VIEWED IN THE TALMUD
The asceticism of the Pharisees was of a kind which naturally resulted from their legal and ceremonial conception of religion. But there were not a few humble, devout souls in Israel who, like Anna, the prophetess, served God “with fastings and supplications night and day” (<420237>.
THE ATTITUDE OF JESUS TO FASTING
He says fasting, as a recognized sign of mourning, would be inconsistent with the joy which “the sons of the bridechamber”. To the form of fasting He attaches little importance, as is seen in the succeeding parables of the Old Garment and the Old Wine-skins.
THE PRACTICE AND TEACHING OF THE APOSTLES
But the events that followed the conquests of the Saracens, leading to the Crusades, brought it into great prominence. It continued in the hands of the Egyptians until 1840 when it was restored to the Ottomans by the English whose fleet nearly reduced it to ruins in the bombardment.
INTRODUCTORY
It has recovered somewhat since then and is now a town of some 10,000 inhabitants and the seat of a Mutasarrifiyet, or subdivision of the Vilayet of Beirut. It contains one of the state prisons of the Vilayet, where long-term prisoners are.
ACCOMMODATED APPLICATION OF SCRIPTURE PASSAGES
Important issues are involved in the discussion of this subject in each of the three divisions thus naturally presented to us in the various uses of the term. In the article on QUOTATIONS IN New Testament (which see) this use of the term accommodation, here treated in the most general terms, is dealt with in detail.
DOUBLE REFERENCE IN SCRIPTURE
So far as the patriarch was concerned the immediate, contemporary value of the promise lay in the fact that it concerned him not alone but in relationship to the future and to mankind. For example, the ideas embodied in the Messianic Kingship and the conception of the Servant of Yahweh could be known only in the light of history.
ACCOMMODATION IN REVELATION
SCRIPTURAL PRINCIPLES
So says Paul in a passage which is one of the profoundest discussions on the subject of accountability, and with his sentiment agrees exactly the word of our Lord on the same subject, in <421247>. In the full light of the gospel human beings are far more responsible than they were in earlier stages of intellectual and spiritual development, and the.
CONNECTION WITH IMMORTALITY
In this connection the Parable of the Talents is of special significance; but it is by the grandiose picture of the scene itself, which follows in the same chapter of the First Gospel, that the mind of Christendom has been most powerfully. Reference has already been made to the discussions at the commencement of the Epistle to the Romans in which our subject finds a place.
JOINT AND CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY
These cities were on the coast and formed a confederation of smaller communities, which in the last century of the independent history of Greece attained to great importance (Achaean League). Achipha]), in the Apocrypha (1 Esdras 5:31) head of one of the families of the temple-servants, who returned with Zerubbabel, same as the Old Testament HAKUPHA (<150251>.
LOCATION
HISTORY
PRESENT CONDITION
Four lines seem to have been allotted to each letter in the original form of the poem. Finally A2 EGH give it in the form “Acts of the Holy Apostles” (Praxeis ton Hagion Apostolon).
TEXT
The chief modern revolt against theories of Westcott and Hort, The New Testament in Greek is the new interest felt in the value of the Western type of text. Leclerc, a Dutch philologist, had suggested the notion as early as the beginning of the 18th century.
UNITY OF THE BOOK
This brief sketch of Harnack’s experience may take the place of detailed presentation of the arguments for the unity of the book. Harnack sets forth in great wealth of detail the characteristic idioms of the “we” sections side by side with parallels in other parts of Acts and the Gospel of Luke.
THE AUTHOR
So Galen, Deuteronomy Typis 4 (VII, 467), uses it “of fever fixing on parts of the body.” Compare. The interest of the writer in matters of disease is also another indication, compare <420843>.
CANONICITY
DATE
Harnack (The Acts of the Apostles, 291 f) admits that the arguments in favor of the date 70 to 80 are by no means. The whole tone of the book is that which one would naturally have before 64 AD.
SOURCES USED BY LUKE
The Gospel of Luke will then naturally belong to the period of Paul’s imprisonment in Caesarea. Luke could have taken notes of Paul’s addresses in Jerusalem (Acts 22) and Caesarea (Acts 24 through 26).
THE SPEECHES IN ACTS
The short speech of Tertullus (Acts 24) was made in public, as was the public statement of Festus in Acts 26. How Luke got hold of the conversation about Paul between Festus and Agrippa in Acts 26 is more difficult to conjecture.
RELATION OF ACTS TO THE EPISTLES
But in Acts 15 it is precisely this struggle for Gentile freedom that is under discussion. In Acts there is no allusion to the visit to Arabia, just as there is no mention of the private conference in Acts 15.
CHRONOLOGY OF ACTS
But Ramsay (chapter xiv, “Pauline Chronology,” in Pauline and Other Studies) cuts the Gordian knot by showing an error in Eusebius due to his disregarding an interregnum with the reign of Mugs Ramsay here follows Erbes (Todestage Pauli und Pertri in this discovery and is able to fix upon 59 as the date of the coming of Festus. Harnack (The Acts of the Apostles, chapter i, “Chronological Data”) has worked out a very careful scheme for the whole of Acts.
HISTORICAL WORTH OF ACTS
In most of the items given above Luke’s veracity was once challenged, but now he has been triumphantly vindicated. It is true that in the earlier portions of the Acts we are not able to find so many geographical and historical corroborations.
PURPOSE OF THE BOOK
Luke’s conception of the apostolic history is that it is the work of Jesus still carried on by the Holy Spirit (<440101> . Acts 1:1 f). It is in reality the Acts of the Holy Spirit as wrought through these men.
ANALYSIS
But after Acts 15 they drop out of the narrative, for Luke follows the fortunes of Paul. In the Acts Luke records the waiting, the coming of the Holy Spirit, the planting of a powerful church in Jerusalem and the expansion of the gospel to Samaria and all over the Roman Empire.
The connection between the work of the apostles and that of Jesus ( <440101>
Luke’s conception of the apostolic history is that it is the work of Jesus still carried on by the Holy Spirit (<440101>. Luke had no doubt whatever of the future of a gospel with such a history and with such heroes of faith as Peter and Paul.
The compulsory extension of the gospel to Judea, Samaria and the neighboring regions ( <440801>
The conversion of Saul changes the whole situation for Christianity ( <440901>
The compulsory extension of the gospel to Judea, Samaria and theneighboring regions (<440801>. b) The appeal from Cornelius in Caesarea and Peter’s response (Acts 10).
Persecution from the civil government (Acts 12)
The Gentilepropaganda from Antioch under the leadership of Barnabas and Saul (Acts 13 through 14)
Ewald, History of the Apostolic Times (translation, Vol VI in History of Israel); Farrar, Early Days of Christianity (1887); Fisher, The Beginnings. Lightfoot, Hebrew and Talmudical Exercitations on the Acts of the Apostles (1768); Paley, Horae Paulinae (Birks edition, 1850);.
USAGE AND ETYMOLOGY
ADAM IN THE NARRATIVE OF GENESIS
TEACHINGS OF THE NARRATIVE
ADAM IN APOCRYPHA
The account, which belongs mostly to the oldest stratum of the Genesis story (Jahwist) merits careful attention, because evolutionary science, history, and new theology have all quarreled with or rejected it on various grounds, without providing the smallest approach to a satisfactory substitute.
WHAT THE WRITER MEANT TO DESCRIBE
The account of the creation is twice given, and from two very different points of view. And this provokes the inquiry whether the author himself intended the account of the Edenic state and the Fall to be taken as literal history or as exposition.
HOW THE STORY LOOKS TODAY
Thus, in the conjugal relation the potency of the highest and broadest spiritual value is made intrinsic. By the nature of the case, however, he was committed to the fallibility and lack of wisdom of his own untried nature;.
HOW ADAM IS RECOGNIZED IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
Look unto Abraham your father,” and Ezekiel has told his people (<261603> . Ezekiel 16:3), “The Amorite was thy father, and thy mother was a Hittite.” The historical consciousness of the prophets seems to have been confined to the history of the Israelite race. The name of Adam occurs nine times (in five different passages) in the New Testament, though several of these are purely incidental.
GOSPELS
ADAM IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. Ada>m, Adam]): The name of Adam occurs nine times (in five different passages) in the New Testament, though several of these are purely incidental.
EPISTLES
CONCLUSIONS
The Testament of Adam is a portion of the Vita Adami (published by Renan in 1853) and so probably is the Diatheke ton Protoplaston (Fabricius, II, 83). The name appears in the Assyrian records as that of a north Arabian tribe residing somewhere Southwest of the Dead Sea.
