Messiah: Did you mean...?

In the canon of the New Testament, the fourth gospel of John is uniquely different from the other three, known as the Synoptics ("seen together"). Mark, Matthew, and Luke have parallel ministries and methods of relating the story of Jesus...

The book of Job in the Hebrew Bible is found among the books designated Ketuvim ("writings"), along with Ecclesiastes and the Book of Proverbs. All three belong to a genre known as wisdom literature. The books share a common ancient cultural...

Richard Strauss (1864-1949) was a German conductor and composer of both innovative late-Romantic and Modernist music. He is best known for his symphonic poems and operas like Salome and Elektra, both of which caused a sensation. Strauss gained...

As a youngster, David (the later king of Israel), slew Goliath, a giant, who was the champion of Israel’s enemy, the Philistines. "David and Goliath" became a metaphor for an underdog who nevertheless is victorious over a more powerful opponent...

The estimated expanse of the Achaemenid Empire at its height c. 500 BCE was two million square miles. Most of this territory was conquered by Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Empire, who reigned from 559 to 530 BCE, the fourth king in...

The siege of Khartoum from March 1884 to January 1885 was the most dramatic episode of the Mahdist War (1881-99) in Sudan when an army led by the inspirational Muslim leader, Muhammad Ahmad, the self-proclaimed Mahdi, rebelled against colonial...

The Battle of Omdurman on 2 September 1898 saw General Kitchener lead an Anglo-Egyptian-Sudanese army to victory over 50,000 Mahdists in Sudan. The death of General Gordon during the siege of Khartoum 13 years before, had finally been avenged...

The Rites of Eleusis, or the Eleusinian Mysteries, were the secret rituals of the mystery school of Eleusis and were observed regularly from c. 1600 BCE - 392 CE. Exactly what this mystic ritual was no one knows; but why the ancient Greeks...

The concept and function of angels in ancient Judaism were some of the many elements incorporated from contemporary cultures and religious views. The Hebrew malakh was translated into the Greek angelos, both of which indicated not their nature...

According to Luke's Acts of the Apostles, the last thing Jesus did before he bodily ascended to heaven was to commission the disciples to 'witness' to his teachings. 'Disciple' meant 'student' and was derived from the various schools of philosophy...