Sumerian clay worshippers from Tell Asmar West Asia has been the home of many of the world's most popular religions, and has always been a hotbed of new religious ideas. Religions may have gotten started in West Asia because empires got started there. Some historians think that centralized, organized religions form as a kind of [...]
West Asian people: Ur-Nanshe, the king's chief musician in Mari, 2400s BC Oppression of women What we notice most about the way people lived in West Asia is the widespread oppression of women. As compared to their neighbors in Sudan, Egypt, Central Asia, the Roman Empire, or even India, West Asian women were [...]
Pope Gregory the Great writing, from the 900s AD. Ivory, probably from Kenya. (Now in Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum) A theologian (thee-oh-LOW-gin) is a person who studies religion. The word comes from the Greek word for god "theos" and the Greek word for writing "logos". So a theologian is someone who writes about God. Usually when people say [...]
Apples For thousands of years, the Jews celebrated their New Year around the beginning of spring, just like everybody else in West Asia. Passover was probably port of this old New Year celebration. Sometime before 100 AD, though, the Jews split off from this ancient tradition and began to celebrate a different new year, the holiday of Rosh Hashanah, [...]
The Mishnah is at the top center, the Gemara is in the center of the page, Rashi is on the right, and other later commentators are on the left and bottom. About 200 AD, rabbis from all over West Asia, some living under Roman rule and some under Sassanian rule, began to write down their discussions of how [...]
The remains of the Second Temple in Jerusalem Synagogue in Greek means a place for coming together, a meeting place, and that is what a synagogue (SIN-ah-gog) is. It is a building where Jews come together and pray to their God. In this way it is a lot like a Christian church. The most important difference is that [...]
Sukkah - a temporary house just for the holiday People along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea first began celebrating Sukkot probably at least six thousand years ago, when they were beginning to be farmers. Like Passover and Hanukkah, Sukkot was a harvest festival. After plowing, planting, pulling weeds, watering, and worrying about whether diseases or storms would wreck the [...]
Lot's wife turns to a pillar of salt as God destroys Sodom and Gomorrah. Morgan Bible, France, 1250s AD (commissioned by Louis IX) One story from the Bible about how nomads were good and cities were bad is about the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. In the time of Abraham, after the Jews had moved to [...]
The Roman emperor Hadrian, 117-138 AD (now in the British Museum) During the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, the Jews once again tried to get free of Roman rule. But like the First Jewish Revolt, this revolt failed as well. In addition, Hadrian hated the Jews. Hadrian was really into anything Greek, including Greek religion. [...]
Samson and Delilah story: Samson (or David?) wrestles the lion. Silk tapestry, probably from Syria, in the 600s AD Backstory of Samson and Delilah Just as the Jews were finally getting rid of the Canaanites, around 1100 BC, the Bible says that a new enemy came to Israel. These were the Philistines (FILL-uh-steens). (More about the Philistines) [...]
