Biblical Archaeology Review

Tosephta.Megillah IV.23.

Capernaum is the Latinization of the Hebrew Kfar Nahum which means the village of Nahum.

The five megilloth are The Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther.

(Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia, 1982) 624 pp., $10.95, blue cloth; $17.50, black leather.

(Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, 1982) 236 pp., $12.95, $29.95, $39.95.

The Torah is the Pentateuch or first five books of the Bible.

“The Eridu Genesis,” by Thorkild Jacobsen, Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 100, No. 4, December 1981, pp. 513–529.

Nazi authorities were greatly concerned as to whether the Karaites were Jews. They posed this question to three rabbinical authorities who, in order to save the Karaites, all gave the opinion that Karaites were not of Jewish origin. The Karaites were spared by the Nazis.

Even before Solomon Schechter published the Damascus Document, scholars of Karaite history noted the similarities between the Essenes and Karaites. The Jewish Encyclopedia of 1902–1905 states that the Karaites “borrowed” from the Essenes. Other scholars reject this contention, however, arguing that “nowhere in early Karaite literature so far known is there mention of the discovery of pre-Karaite documents confirming the righteousness of the Karaite teachings” (Encyclopedia Judaica, Vol. 10, p. 762 (1972)).

Others read the passage from Amos as ordering the exiles to Damascus. In either case, the symbolism is the same. Damascus is used for Babylon.