Search the encyclopedia

Search the Bible

42 articles found for “Alexander”

• Alexander the Great

  Alexander the Great (356–323 BC) was a king of ancient Macedonia. He overthrew the Persian Empire and built an empire stretching from Greece to the Indus River. The Greek language and culture spread by his conquests formed the backdrop of the intertestamental period and the New Testament era.

• Alexander (Son of Simon)

  Alexander was a son of Simon of Cyrene, the man who carried Jesus' cross, and the brother of Rufus. He is mentioned by name only once, in Mark 15:21.

• Alexander the Coppersmith

  Alexander the coppersmith is a metalworker mentioned in 2 Timothy 4:14-15. He is recorded as having done Paul "much evil" and as having strongly opposed his teaching.

• Alexander (Jew of Ephesus)

  Alexander was a Jew whom the Jews put forward before the crowd during the riot at Ephesus described in Acts 19. He motioned with his hand to make a defense, but when the crowd recognized him as a Jew, they cried out to Artemis for about two hours, and he was unable to speak.

• Alexander Van Alstyne

  Alexander Van Alstyne (1831–1902) was a blind American musician and teacher of the nineteenth century. He is known as the husband of the hymn writer Fanny Crosby.

• Robert Hardie

  Robert Alexander Hardie (1865–1949) was a Canadian medical missionary and Methodist minister. Known in Korea as Ha Ri-yeong (河鯉泳), he is remembered for leading the 1903 Wonsan Revival.

• Seleucid Dynasty

  The Seleucid dynasty was a Hellenistic dynasty founded by Seleucus I, one of Alexander the Great's generals, after Alexander's death. It ruled Syria and Mesopotamia from about 312 BC to 64 BC and governed Judea during the intertestamental period.

• Hellenism

  Hellenism refers both to the spread of Greek language and culture throughout the eastern Mediterranean and western Asia after the eastern campaigns of Alexander the Great (4th century BC), where they blended with local cultures, and to the era in which this took place.

• Koine Greek

  Koine Greek was the common form of Greek widely used throughout the Mediterranean world after the conquests of Alexander the Great. All twenty-seven books of the New Testament, as well as the Septuagint, were written in this language.

• Hasmonean Dynasty

  The Hasmonean dynasty was a Jewish priestly dynasty that ruled Judea following the Maccabean Revolt of the second century BC. It came to an end when Herod took Jerusalem in 37 BC.

• Maccabean Revolt

  The Maccabean Revolt was a Jewish uprising begun in 167 BC by the priest Mattathias and his sons after Antiochus IV of the Seleucid dynasty outlawed the practice of Judaism. It led to the rededication of the Jerusalem temple and the establishment of the Hasmonean dynasty.

• Alexandrian School

  The Alexandrian School was a theological tradition of the early church centered in Alexandria, Egypt, from the second to the fifth century. It is known for allegorical interpretation, which reads Scripture spiritually and symbolically, and for a Christology that emphasized the divinity of Christ.

• Letter of Aristeas

  The Letter of Aristeas is an ancient Jewish writing that, presented as the work of a courtier of the Egyptian king, recounts how the Pentateuch was translated into Greek at Alexandria by seventy-two Jewish elders. It contains the story from which the name Septuagint derives.

• Antiochus IV Epiphanes

  Antiochus IV Epiphanes was king of the Seleucid Empire from 175 to 164 BC. He defiled the Jerusalem temple and persecuted Judaism, provoking the Maccabean Revolt, and he is frequently mentioned in interpretations of the Book of Daniel.

• Athanasius

  Athanasius (c. 296 or 298–373) was a fourth-century bishop of Alexandria. He defended the full divinity of the Son against Arianism and is known as the first to set forth the list of twenty-seven New Testament books recognized today.

• Imperial Cult

  The imperial cult was the practice in the ancient Roman Empire of honoring the emperor, whether living or deceased, as a god and offering sacrifices to him. Early Christians who refused to take part were persecuted.

• Philo of Alexandria

  Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BC – c. AD 50) was a Jewish philosopher who interpreted the Pentateuch in light of Greek philosophy. Through his allegorical interpretation and his doctrine of the Logos, he influenced the biblical interpretation of the early Church Fathers. His name is also rendered Philon.

• Council of Nicaea

  The First Council of Nicaea was the first ecumenical council, convened at Nicaea in 325 by the Roman emperor Constantine I. It adopted a creed confessing that the Son is consubstantial with the Father and condemned the teaching of Arius.

• Wonsan Revival

  The Wonsan Revival was a spiritual awakening that began in August 1903 at a united missionary prayer meeting in Wonsan, when the Southern Methodist missionary Robert Hardie publicly repented. It is widely regarded as the starting point of the 1907 Pyongyang Great Revival.

• Cyrene

  Cyrene was a Greek city on the northeastern coast of present-day Libya in North Africa. In the New Testament it appears as the hometown of Simon, who carried the cross of Jesus, and as the place of origin of early Christian evangelists who preached the gospel to Gentiles in Antioch.