NT D-H

New Testament vocabulary encompassing words from D-H

Daimonia

category of divine beings in the Greco-Roman world widely thought to be less powerful than the gods but far more powerful than humans and capable of influencing human lives

Dead Sea Scrolls

ancient Jewish documents from the period of Christian origins, found near the Dead Sea.

Decalogue or Ten Commandments

the name given the ten words Moses received, according to tradition, from God on Mt. Sinai

Demeter

the Greek and Roman goddess of grain, worshipped in a prominent mystery cult in Eleusis, Greece

Deutero-Pauline Epistles

the letter Ephesians, Colossians, and 2 Thessalonians, which some claim to have a secondary standing in the Pauline corpus

Diaspora or dispersion

the Jewish community scattered outside the holy land of Palestine. This dispersion originated in the Babylonian exile of 587 B.C.

Didache

or teaching of the twelve apostles: an anonymous second-century Christian manual for church life

Disciple

a follower, one who is taught (as opposed to an apostle, one who is sent as an emissary)

Divination

any practice used to ascertain the will of the gods

Docetism (Greek dokein, to seem)

an early Christian heresy in which Jesus only seemed to suffer and die

Ebionites

a group of second-century Adoptionists who maintained Jewish practices and Jewish forms of worship

Epistle

a letter of a formal or didactic nature; the term is traditionally applied to the New Testament letters

Eschatology

discourse about last things (Greek eschatos, last)

Essenes

an ascetic, Jewish religious group existing at the time of the New Testament. They stressed radical obedience to the Jewish law

Ethics

a broad term applied to such related matters as moral codes and practices, theories of value, and the imperatives of Christian faith as they pertain to relations of one person to another

Eucharist

derived from the Greek word meaning thankfulness and used of the sacrament of the Lord’s supper

Exegesis

the critical interpretation of a text. Literally the term means to lead out the meaning from the text

Expiation

making right, by means of some act or rite, the offense done by one party to another, especially the expiation for sin before God

Form Criticism

the classification of the forms in which the tradition, especially the Gospel tradition circulated before being written down

Gamaliel

a famous rabbi of the first-century C.E. Judaism

Gematria

Jewish method of interpreting a word on the basis of the numerical value of its letters (in both Greek and Hebrew, the letters of the alphabet also serve as numerals)

Genre

the literary type of form of a document

Gentile

a non-Jew

Gnosticism

a religious movement or attitude widespread about the time of the emergence of the Christian faith. Believers possessed a secret knowledge (gnosis) and sought to escape the ephemeral earthly world for the eternal heavenly world

Gospel

originally the message of good news that God has revealed himself as gracious in the event of Jesus Christ. the term later came to designate also the literary form in which the good news of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection is narrated

Greco-Roman World

the lands (and culture) around the mediterranean from the time of Alexander the Great to the Emperor Constantine, roughly 300 B.C.E. to 300 C.E.

Haggadah

a Hebrew term designating rabbinic traditions, usually in narrative form that illustrate the moral teaching or the Torah

Halakah

a Hebrew term (meaning to walk) designating rabbinic tradition regulating conduct

Hasmonean

the actual family name for the Maccabees, leaders of the Jewish revolt against Syria

Hellenization

the process or result of the spread of Greek language and culture in the Mediterranean after Alexander the Great

Hermeneutics

the science dealing with the interpretation and determination of the meaning of texts

Heresy

any worldview or set of beliefs deemed by those in power to be deviant, from a Greek word meaning choice

High Priest

prior to 70 C.E. the highest-ranking authority in Judaism in charge of the operation of Jerusalem Temple and its priests

Historiography

the literary reconstruction of historical events; the writing of history; and the study and analysis of historical narrative

Historical Criticism

method that approaches the Bible with historical questions. typically, its goal is to understand the historical setting of the Bible

Holy

that which has to do with, is set apart for, God or the divine power & majesty