Encyclopedia Biblica

[Ortiz Ullery]

Itis frequently referenced by other respected Bible-related encyclopedias of the period, such as the Catholic Encyclopedia,[1] and 11th Edition of the Encyclopdia Britannica[2] for example. The Jewish Encyclopedia has some articles ('marriage' for example) which quote large sections from it nearly verbatim. It is also referenced by works such as the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.[3] It is hence, indirectly, also a source for some articles of the English Wikipedia, mainly related to the Judaeo-Christian religion.

A measure of its importance of some of the contributors is gained from the fact that the Jewish Encyclopedia dedicates the majority of the article 'Jerahmeel' to discussing Cheyne's theory of the Jerahmeelites, despite regarding it as arbitrary.

The articles are still of value and interest to modern scholars[4][5] and Islamic writers,[6] however, modern archaeological research and discoveries have made portions of it obsolete, and modern interpretations are of even older material is likely to be very different. For example, the Jerahmeelite/Arabian theory (see below) has long been ignored. It is no longer restricted by copyright and has become available online.

From the foregoing references the natural inference is that the Jerahmeelites were a Judean clan, to the south of whose habitat a part of the Negeb extended. But professor Cheyne put forth a surprising theory concerning the Jerahmeelites. In his view they were a powerful north-Arabian tribe, with which the Hebrews came into conflict on their first approach to the land. A part of the Jerahmeelites was absorbed by the Hebrews, but there were many contests between the Israelites and the main body of the Jerahmeelites all through the period of the Kings. Even among the post-exilic opponents of Nehemiah, the Jerahmeelites appear again. Cheyne believes that echoes of these conflicts once reverberated throughout the Old Testament, but that, owing to the corruption of the Masoretic Text, they must now be reawakened by conjectural emendation of the text.

Carrying out this idea, Cheyne finds the chief elements of Israel's origin, religion, and history in Jerahmeel. Babylonia and Assyria sink into insignificance beside Jerahmeel in so far as influence on the Old Testament is concerned. "Amalekites" is a corruption of "Jerahmeelites"; "Beer-lahai-roi" (Gen. xvi. 14) is a corruption of "Well of Jerahmeel"; "Ephraim" is often a corruption of "Jerahmeel." The epithet of Jericho, "city of palm-trees," is a corruption of "city of Jerahmeel"; the names of Saul, of Kish, his father, and of most of the sons of Saul are held to be corruptions of "Jerahmeel"; and Isaiah's "Maher-shalal-hash-baz" is held to be a corruption of "Jerahmeel will be deserted." "Jerahmeel" has been displaced by "Babylon" in Isa. xiii. and xiv.; and Ezekiel's three wise men were "Enoch, Jerahmeel, and Arab." This list might be continued indefinitely.

The ingenuity of Cheyne's method may be admitted; but the thesis must be rejected as altogether arbitrary. That it has received serious attention is owing solely to the great service rendered by its sponsor in other departments of Old Testament research.

By the same principle, he derives other names from "Rehoboth", "Zarephath", "Mizraim", and "Arab"; he does not equate "Mizraim" with Egypt (the usual interpretation). The vast majority of names of places and people in the bible are connected by Cheyne to Jerahmeel, or one of these.

Cheyne frequently mentions this theory in his Encyclopaedia articles, often appending his view to articles written by people with more mainstream interpretations. He does, however, detail the alternative (and therefore mainstream) views, while doing so. Hence the articles are respected, as long as Cheyne's theory about these names is ignored.

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The Encyclopaedia Biblica is one of the greatest reference works pertaining to scholarly biblical studies. It is a full dictionary of the religion, politics, literature, archaeology, geography, and natural history of the Bible. Also referenced by The Catholic Encyclopedia and The Jewish Encyclopedia, it was composed by many scholarly contributors and has an interdenominational readership. This nineteenth-century work of scholarship is still important and relevant for understanding the aspects of the Bible and using it as a great reference for study and research.

With the Encyclopaedia Biblica, your Logos library becomes a more comprehensive resource for all your academic, pastoral, or personal research needs. Searches in Logos will pull results from the thousands of articles and images in the Encyclopaedia Biblica. Scripture references within the encyclopedia link directly to the original-language texts and English Bible translations in your library. Anyone wanting to study Scripture more deeply will appreciate this critical and historical reference.

Eichler's major research and teaching interests focus on cultural inter-relationships between biblical and ancient Near Eastern civilizations, with primary interest in the field of ancient law. He has taught Mesopotamian, Biblical and Jewish law at the Penn Law School. His other major area of interest is Mesopotamian literature and lexicography, which related directly to the NEH funded Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary Project.

Eichler has held fellowships at Yale University, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and Penn's Center for Advanced Jewish Studies. He has been the recipient of research grants from the Council of Learned Societies and the University Research Foundation.

Eichler is the author of Indenture at Nuzi (Yale Near Eastern Researches, 5) and has edited several volumes. He has written dozens of scholarly articles and reviews, contributing to the Encyclopedia Biblica, Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, Harper's Dictionary of the Bible, the Oxford Companion to the Bible, the Encyclopedia of Religion, Religions of the Ancient World and the Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology of the Near East and the Reallexikon der Assyriologie.

N2 - "The Ayādgār ī Jāmāspīg (the Memorial of Jāmāsp) is one of the most popular Zoroastrian literary texts. In all likelihood, it was designed as a layman's encyclopedia. The text has been preserved in three manuscript traditions: Pahlavi, Pāzand and Pārsi. Based on the Pārsi manuscript tradition, the best preserved of the three, Agostini presents a new and complete philological edition of this work. This rich contribution includes a commentary on the most problematic and interesting historical and religious topics that have shaped the work's narrative."--Publisher description.

AB - "The Ayādgār ī Jāmāspīg (the Memorial of Jāmāsp) is one of the most popular Zoroastrian literary texts. In all likelihood, it was designed as a layman's encyclopedia. The text has been preserved in three manuscript traditions: Pahlavi, Pāzand and Pārsi. Based on the Pārsi manuscript tradition, the best preserved of the three, Agostini presents a new and complete philological edition of this work. This rich contribution includes a commentary on the most problematic and interesting historical and religious topics that have shaped the work's narrative."--Publisher description.

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Encyclopedias are probably not the best barometers of social and intellectual change, but I thought it might be interesting to track how the Encyclopdia Britannica adapted over time in treating Biblical chronology and specifically, the date of the creation of the world. At one time, the Encyclopdia Britannica said that the world was created around 4000 B.C., and then it did not. When did this change occur?

As early as 1803, the 23-year-old Chalmers recognized that recent geological findings might be thought to threaten the authority of the Biblical narrative. In a course he taught on chemistry, Chalmers included a discussion on geology and observed,

While Chalmers concedes that the Earth might be much older than the Mosaic chronology implies, the age of the human race remains about 6,000 years old. Chalmers does not at this time reveal how this discrepancy might be reconciled with Genesis.

All of the editions of the Encyclopdia Britannica up through the famous 11th are available online, allowing a survey from the late 18th century to the early 20th. They reside in various places, but beginning with the 4th edition, I've used Google Books despite the chaos of its collections, primarily because of the simplicity of its -Chronology-and-the-Encyclopdia-Britannica.html query strings, and the ease of its on-screen viewer. In transcribing passages, I've attempted to maintain typography and spelling (such as the ash, or ) but not the long s's common in the 18th century. My proof-reading is undoubtedly faulty in spots.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, encyclopedias weren't published all at once. The individual volumes came out as they were ready, and often pieces of the volumes were published monthly or even weekly. This means that each edition has a range of publication dates, but often each volume has a specific publication date within that range. For information about these editions, I've used The Great EB: The Story of the Encyclopdia Britannica by Herman Kogan (University of Chicago Press, 1958) and Wikipedia articles.

As far as I can tell, the 2nd Edition is only available through the Gale Eighteenth Century Collections Online, which seems to require that you log in through a library. I got access through the New York Public Libary card catalog entry, clicking the "E-book" link, and entering my NYPL pin number. The page arrived at on the Gale site lists all 10 volumes.

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