Essenes - Essenes The Essenes was a Jewish religious sect that flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE. They were opposed to the Pharisees and Saducees. They are discussed in some detail by Josephus and Philo Judaeus. Many scholars have believed that the community at Qumran that allegedly produced the Dead Sea Scrolls was an offshoot of the Essenes, but this theory has been disputed by Norman Golb and other scholars..
Knights Templar - banking system, simply sought to control it for himself. This, and the Templars' original banking of assets for suddenly-mobile depositors, were two of many shifts towards a system of military fiat to back European money, removing this power from Church Orders. The Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem, seeing the fate of the Templars, were also convinced to give up banking at this time. Many kings and nobles supported the Knights at that time, and only dissolved the order in their fiefs when ordered so by Pope Clement V. In particular, Robert the Bruce, King of the Scots, had already been excommunicated for other reasons and was not, therefore disposed to pay any attention to Papal commands. As a result many of the order fled to Scotland and also to Portugal,.
Hebrew calendar - using the lunar calendar since Biblical times, but usually referred to months by number rather than name. During the Babylonian exile, they adopted Babylonian names for months and possibly a regular pattern of intercalating the 13th month. Some sects, such as the Essenes, used a solar calendar. The Hebrew year 1 started on Sunday, September 6, 3761 BC, the traditional Jewish date of Creation. This means that adding 3761 to a Gregorian year number will yield the Hebrew year number (within one year). This actually only works until the Gregorian year 22,203, but it's a fairly good rule of thumb. The Hebrew month is tied to the average time taken by the Moon to cycle from lunar conjunction to lunar conjunction. Twelve lunar months are approx. 354 days while while the.
History of ancient Israel and Judah - Judah, Bejamain, Shimeon, some of Levi, and many from all of the other tribes as well. 729-687 BC. Reign of King Hezekiah of Judah. One of the greatest kings of Judah; He initiated reforms that eliminated idolatry. http://scholar.cc.emory.edu:80/scripts/ASOR/BA/Borowski.html 687-638 BC. Reign of King Manaseh. 638-637 BC. Reign of King Amon. These two kings reversed Hezekiah's reforms and revived idolatry. 637-607 BC. The reign of King Josiah is accompanied by a religious reformation. While repairs were made on the Temple, the Book of the Law was discovered (this was probably the book of Deuteronomy). http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/gerald_larue/otll/chap19.html 612 BC. King Nabopalassar of Babylonia attacks and destroys the Assyrian capitol city of Nineveh and regains Babylonia's independence. The Assyrian empire is destroyed. 587 BC. Babylon, under King Nebuchadnezzar II, seizes Jerusalem. The First Temple is.
History of Christianity - messiah, in which God himself came in the flesh as Jesus, and became the deliverer of both Israel and of all mankind. Christians and Jews have disagreed about which of them has the truer conception of messiah from the time Christianity was born until now, often relying on different interpretations of various passages from the Old Testament or Tanakh. Christianity also continued many of the patterns found in Judaism at that time, such as: adapting the form of synagogue worship to church parishes; use of incense in prayer; use of Psalms and other scriptures; a priesthood; a religious calendar in which certain events and/or beliefs are specifically commemorated on certain days each year; use of chant in hymns and prayer; ascetic disciplines such as fasting and almsgiving. Christians initially adopted the.
Edgar Cayce - the room. This daily sleep session was called a "reading". Over a period of 43 years 14,000 of his readings were recorded on paper by an assistant (at first his wife). Whilst the great bulk of the early readings concerned medical diagnoses and associated treatments (where his approach was holistic), it was soon realised that Cayce apparently had wide and deep abilities (during trance) and later readings range through many issues including the structure of reality, reincarnation e.t.c.. Cayce had difficulty adjusting to and believing some of the views that he was reported to have expressed during trance. For example, having been raised a devout Christian (who read the Bible from start to finish each year of his life), for a long time he was reluctant to accept the opinion (expressed.
Elkasite - philosophical sects among the Jews. The followers of the first of whom are the Pharisees; of the second the Sadducees, and the third sect, who pretends to a severer discipline, are called Essenes." Josephus further elaborates on the Essene sect by saying that it is divided into two separate orders: "Moreover, there is another order of Essenes, who agree with the rest as to their way of living and customs and laws but differ from them in the point of marriage." Elxai was a prophet of the Essene Occaean sect. He was also accepted by the Nasaraeans and some Ebionites. He was later accepted by the Nazareans who came after him. While Ossaeans had been celibate up to this point in time, Elxai himself was married and, in fact, seems to.
Demon - the pestilence-dealing demon is called = "the destroying angel" (compare "the angel of the Lord" in II Kings xix. 35; Isa. xxxvii. 36), because, although they are demons, these "evil messengers" (Ps. lxxviii. 49; A. V. "evil angels") do only the bidding of God, their Master; they are the agents of His divine wrath. There are indications that popular Hebrew mythology ascribed to the demons a certain independence, a malevolent character of their own, because they are believed to come forth, not from the heavenly abode of God, but from the nether world (compare Isa. xxxviii. 11 with Job xiv. 13; Ps. xvi. 10, xlix. 16, cxxxix. 8). In Jewish rabbinic literature Rabbinical demonology has three classes of, demons, though they are scarcely separable one from another. There were the "shedim,".
Dead Sea scrolls - fortress northwest of the Dead Sea in Palestine (in historical times part of Judea). The texts represent diverse viewpoints, ranging from the beliefs of the Essenes to those of other sects. The contributions of at least 500 individual authors are found among the scrolls and scroll fragments, which include texts written in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin. Important discoveries included the Isaiah Scroll in 1947, the Habakkuk Commentary in 1947, and the Copper Scroll in 1952, among many other works. Israel obtained 4 of the 7 Dead Sea scrolls on February 13, 1955. In 1963 Karl Heinrich Rengstorf of the University of Münster put forth the theory that the Dead Sea scrolls originated at the library of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. This theory was rejected by most scholars during the.
Abbey - the Renaissance. The earliest known Christian monastic communities (see Monasticism) consisted of groups of cells or huts collected about a common centre, which was usually the house of some hermit or anchorite famous for holiness or singular asceticism, but without any attempt at orderly arrangement. Such communities were not an invention of Christianity. The example had been already set in part by the Essenes in Judea and perhaps by the Therapeutae in Egypt. In the earliest age of Christian monasticism the ascetics were accustomed to live singly, independent of one another, not far from some village church, supporting themselves by the labour of their own hands, and distributing the surplus after the supply of their own scanty wants to the poor. Increasing religious fervour, aided by persecution, drove them farther and.
Anan ben David - the swift conquests of the Arabs and the collision of Islam with the older religions and cultures of the world, there arose a large number of religious sects, especially in Persia, Babylonia (Iraq), and Syria. Judaism did not escape this general fermentation; the remnants of early religious schisms—the Sadducees and Essenes—picked up new life and flickered once more before their final extinction. At this time new sects also arose in Judaism; the most important of which were the Isawites (called after their founder Abu Isa), the Yudganites, and the Shadganites (followers of Yudgan and Shadgan). All these groups may have quickly disappeared, or been assimilated by rabbinical Judaism, if not for the actions of Ana Ben David. He succeeded in uniting the heterogeneous anti-rabbinical elements under his leadership, and formed them.
Zealot - people of Judea to rebel against the Roman Empire and expel it from the province by force of arms. Other important factions were the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes and the Christians. One particularly extreme group of Zealots was also known in Latin as sicarii, "daggermen" (sing. sicarius), because of their policy of assassinating Jews opposed to their call for war against Rome. Some have speculated that the name of Jesus' disciple Judas Iscariot is a corruption of this term - "Judas the Zealot". The Zealots were opposed to Roman rule and sought to eliminate it by violent means. At the time of Jesus Christ their activities were limited to raids on Jewish settlements and eliminating Jewish collaborators (tax collectors, like Matthew, were often collaborating with the Romans) Among the Apostles.
Sadducee - especially high degree of purity in those who officiated at the preparation of the ashes of the Red Heifer. The Pharisees, on the contrary, opposed such strictness. They declared that the kindling of the incense in the vessel with which the high priest entered the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement was to take place outside, so that he might be wrapped in smoke while meeting the Shekinah within, according to Lev. xvi. 2; whereas the Pharisees, denying the high priest the claim of such super-natural vision, insisted that the incense be kindled within. They opposed the popular festivity of the water libation and the procession preceding the same on each night of the Sukkot feast. They opposed the Pharisaic assertion that the scrolls of the Holy Scriptures have,.
Sons Aumen Israel - referred to as the Suns Ahman Israel, and The Beni-Aumen Temple Order of the Nasarene Essenes. Sons Aumen Israel believe they are a resurrection of ancient Essene Christianity. They believe that Yeshu (which is what they call Jesus of Nazareth) and Miryai (Mary Magdalene) are co-messiahs, and that Yeshu and Miryai were married and had sexual relations with each other. Their thought has been heavily influenced by Mormonism, Gnosticism (especially Valentinian Gnosticism), Mandaeanism, Manichaeism, and New Age ideas. They do not consider themselves to be Mormons, but they accept Joseph Smith, Jr as a prophet, as well as various other prophets. They believe that much of their theology derives from the "sealed portion" of the Golden Plates, which they call the "Oracles of Mohonri". The word "Aumen" or "Ahman" refers to.
Pharisee - in the interpretation of the law. This sect was present in the days of Jesus. Christians have traditionally seen Jesus as an opponent of the Pharisees, accusing them of being only outwardly religious, rather than inwardly observant of the Law. Jesus was opposed to the Pharisees emphasis on observance of religious purity laws. Some modern day scholars argue that this reading is no longer tenable, and that when the New Testament is read in its historical context, Jesus's attitude towards the law was more like a liberal offshoot of Pharisee thought. While during the first century CE and earlier, the Pharisees were faced with opposition from other Jewish groups such as the Essenes and the Sadducees, they were eventually triumphant; rabbinic Judaism as it is known today is descended from them..
Pharisees - "pious"), a party that originated in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes in revolt against his heathenizing policy. The first mention of them is in a description by Josephus of the three sects or schools into which the Jews were divided (B.C. 145). The other two sects were the Essenes and the Sadducees. In the time of our Lord they were the popular party (John 7:48). They were extremely accurate and minute in all matters appertaining to the law of Moses (Matt. 9:14; 23:15; Luke 11:39; 18:12). Paul, when brought before the council of Jerusalem, professed himself a Pharisee (Acts 23:6-8; 26:4, 5). There was much that was sound in their creed, yet their system of religion was a form and nothing more. Theirs was a very lax morality (Matt. 5:20; 15:4,.
Philo's Works - also specially fitted to announce it to others, after having received it in the form of the Commandments (ib. iii. 4 [i. 89 et seq.]). "De Decalogo," the introductory treatise to the chief ten commandments of the Law. "De Specialibus Legibus," in which treatise Philo attempts to systematize the several laws of the Torah, and to arrange them in conformity with the Ten Commandments. To the first and second commandments he adds the laws relating to priests and sacrifices; to the third (misuse of the name of God), the laws on oaths, vows, etc.; to the fourth (on the Sabbath), the laws on festivals; to the fifth (to honor father and mother),the laws on respect for parents, old age, etc.; to the sixth, the marriage laws; to the seventh, the civil.
Kabbalah - continuous line of development from the same mystical roots and elements. As such, these scholars feel that it is appropriate to use the term "Kabbalah" to refer to Jewish mysticism as early as the first century of the common era. Orthodox Jews disagree with both schools of thought, as they reject the idea that Kabbalah underwent significant historical development and change. Antiquity of esoteric mysticism Early forms of esoteric mysticism existed over 2,000 years ago. Ben Sira warns against it in his saying: "You shall have no business with secret things" (Sirach) iii. 22; compare Talmud Hagigah 13a; Midrash Genesis Rabbah viii.). Apocalyptic literature belonging to the second and first pre-Christian centuries contained some elements of later Kabbalah, and as, according to Josephus, such writings were in the possession of the.
