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Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs

(Encyclopedia)Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, an early Jewish work, with some Christian interpolations, reckoned among the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. The work may have been written as early as 1st cent. b.c...

Smith, William Robertson

(Encyclopedia)Smith, William Robertson, 1846–94, Scottish biblical scholar and Orientalist. He studied for the ministry of the Free Church of Scotland. From 1870 he was professor of Oriental languages and Old Tes...

Plumptre, Edward Hayes

(Encyclopedia)Plumptre, Edward Hayes plŭmpˈtrē [key], 1821–91, English clergyman and classical scholar. At King's College, London, he was chaplain (1847–68), professor of pastoral theology (1853–63), and p...

Ophites

(Encyclopedia)Ophites ōˈfīts [key] [Gr.,=believers in the serpent], group of Gnostic sects notorious for extreme cultism and inverted morality. Certain of these sects were known as Naasseni. Almost all that is k...

Matthew, Gospel according to

(Encyclopedia)Matthew, Gospel according to, 1st book of the New Testament. Scholars conjecture that it was written for the church at Antioch toward the end of the 1st cent. Traditonally regarded as the earliest Gos...

Olives, Mount of

(Encyclopedia)Olives, Mount of, or Olivet ŏlˈĭvĕt [key], ridge, E of Jerusalem, mentioned in the Old Testament as the scene of David's flight from the city, Ezekiel's theophany, and Zechariah's prophecy, and in...

Accho

(Encyclopedia)Accho ăkˈō [key], Old Testament variant of Akko. ...

Last Supper

(Encyclopedia)Last Supper, in the New Testament, meal taken by Jesus and his disciples on the eve of the passion. Jesus broke bread and passed a cup of wine among the disciples, identifying himself with the bread a...

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