Abuk
The Dinka people of Sudan in Africa have a story of the first parents that is reminiscent of the story of Adam and Eve. Abuk, the first woman, broke the ...
Ancestor cults
In many cosmogonies of Asia, as in similar myths in other parts of the world, the creation of the world is followed by the creation of beings who become the ...
Androgynes
Androgynes (from the Greek andros, meaning “man,” and gune, meaning “woman”) are half male and half female. In mythology they can appear as hermaphrodites—usually with female breasts and male ...
Apocalypse
The complete final destruction of the world, especially as described in the biblical book of Revelation. The word is recorded from Old English, and comes ultimately, via Old French and ecclesiastical ...
Biblical creation
The creation myth of Genesis in the Torah, the first part of what Christians call the Old Testament section of the Bible, is, in fact, at least two myths influenced ...
Cain
The elder son of Adam and Eve. Cain offered fruits of the earth (he was a farmer) to the Lord, but they were rejected; whereas his brother Abel offered meat, which was accepted (Gen. 4). How the ...
Central Asian mythology
Little is known of pre-Buddhist, pre-Muslim Central Asian mythology. But from shamanistic practices remaining among several groups—for example, the Samoyed and Buryat peoples—it seems clear that ...
First man and woman
Many creation myths establish the existence of a first man—for instance, Pelasgus in Greece and Erlik in central Asia and First Man among the Papago of Native North America. More ...
Flood
The biblical flood said in Genesis ch. 6–9 to have been brought by God upon earth because of the wickedness of the human race, and from which only Noah and his family were saved; in extended usage, ...
Folly in Christ
(SALOS)The word salos designates in Greek the fool, the spiritually simple. The originality of the Eastern Church is to have made it a distinct type of Sanctity. The reference ...
Genesis
The first book of the Bible, which includes the stories of the creation of the world, Noah's ark, the Tower of Babel, and the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.The name, recorded from late ...
God
Buddhism is atheistic and does not believe in the existence of a Supreme Being or Creator God. However, it acknowledges the existence of a wide range of supernatural beings known as devas.many of ...
Heroic monomyth
Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Theseus, Glooskap, and King Arthur are heroes to their cultures; they are, to varying extents, culture heroes. But as Joseph Campbell has demonstrated, when we consider heroes ...
Jacquerie
A communal uprising or revolt, especially the revolt of the peasants of northern France against the nobles in 1357–8; the term is recorded from the early 16th century, and comes from Old French, ...
Jataka
Any of the various stories of the former lives of the Buddha found in Buddhist literature. The name comes from Sanskrit jātaka ‘born under’.
John Ball
(died 1381)English rebel. Ball was a Wycliffite priest who preached an egalitarian social message. He was excommunicated and imprisoned for heresy, but released in June 1381 during the Peasants' ...
John ibn Sabbā '
(14th c.)Copto-Arab author of the 14th c., whose life is virtually unknown. We know only that he wrote a short Encyclopedia of the religious sciences, entitled the Precious pearl ...
Ka'bah
(Arab., ‘cube’).The building, deeply revered by Muslims, in the centre of the great mosque at Mecca, in the eastern corner of which, about 5 feet from the ground, is ...
