Gath An inland city, south of Ekron but still in the northern region of Philistine territory. The people of Ashdod sent the captured ark of the covenant to Gath after God brought disease and devastation on their city. When the same happened in Gath, they sent it to Ekron (1 Sam. 5). Gath may be best known as the city from which Goliath, the Philistine mercenary whom David defeated, came (1 Sam. 17:4). Later, though, David fled to Gath to escape Saul, who wanted to murder him (1 Sam. 21:10–22:1; 27:1–30:31). See also Ashdod; Ashkelon; Ekron; Gaza; Philistia.
Gaza The southernmost of the five principal cities of the Philistines. Samson visited a prostitute in Gaza. While he was there, the Philistines tried to kill him, but he escaped by tearing down the city gate and using it as a shield (Judg. 16:1–3). See also Ashdod; Ashkelon; Ekron; Gath; Philistia.
gehenna From a Greek transliteration (geenna) of the Hebrew phrase gê [ḇen] hinnōm, meaning the “valley of [the son of] Hinnom” (Josh. 15:8; 18:16; Neh. 11:30). The valley is on the south side of Jerusalem and was sometimes used during the period of the monarchy for the horrific practice of sacrificing sons and daughters to the Canaanite gods Baal and Molech (2 Chron. 28:3; 33:6; Jer. 7:31; 19:5–6; 32:35). King Josiah of Judah put an end to the practice by defiling the place (2 Kings 23:10), and it became a garbage dump. Because of its terrible past and the nauseating burning of garbage, during the Second Temple period the name came to be associated with hell, a place of judgment and torment. The Greek word occurs twelve times in the NT and is usually translated “hell” (Matt. 5:22, 29, 30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:15, 33; Mark 9:43, 45, 47; Luke 12:5; James 3:6). Other words for the place of judgment and torment in the NT are hadēs (10x), which can sometimes mean simply “death”; tartarus (2 Pet. 2:4); and the “lake of fire” (Rev. 20:14). See also hades; Sheol.
Gemara See rabbinic literature.
General Epistles See Catholic (or General) Epistles.
Geneva Bible See King James Version (KJV).
genizah A storage area for aging manuscripts. The most famous genizah is the Cairo Genizah located in the synagogue in Cairo and discovered in the 1870s. It contained Jewish manuscripts written in Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic on paper and papyrus that date from AD 870 to the nineteenth century. These include biblical, religious, and secular texts. See also Damascus Document.
genre A technical term for a literary form or category of composition, such as a poem, a narrative, a proverb, or a letter. Different genres have different communicative functions and so require specific methods of interpretation.
Geschichte, Historie The German term Geschichte (“interpreted history”) is sometimes contrasted with Historie (“the events themselves”). Geschichte is understanding events in terms of God’s ongoing actions within history. See also Heilsgeschichte.
Gezer Calendar Discovered in 1908 at the site of Gezer to the west of Jerusalem, the Gezer Calendar is one of the earliest examples of indigenous writing in ancient Palestine, dating to the tenth century BC. The language is not specifically Hebrew but a related language, perhaps a southern Canaanite dialect. The contents give a calendar of agricultural activities through the year.
Gilgamesh Epic Epic story featuring King Gilgamesh of the Sumerian city of Uruk, who was a real king whose story was aggrandized in the years following his reign (twenty-fifth century BC). Within two hundred years there was already a cycle of stories written in Sumerian about this king. Biblical scholars are particularly interested in the Old Babylonian and neo-Assyrian version of the story about Gilgamesh because of certain biblical parallels, most notably the account of the flood. At the beginning of the story, Gilgamesh is a young, immature king of a city whose citizens appeal to the gods to help them against his thoughtless abuses. The gods respond by creating Enkidu, a primeval man, who is lured into the city by a prostitute. He fights Gilgamesh but loses. Still the people’s prayers are answered when Gilgamesh and Enkidu strike up a friendship and go out on adventures together. During their journeys, Gilgamesh insults the goddess Inanna, who complains to her father, who responds by killing Enkidu. As Enkidu dies in the arms of Gilgamesh, the king realizes that he too is mortal, and so he sets out in search of life. This search brings him to Utnapishtim, the only human being who has been granted eternal life. Gilgamesh asks him how he achieved such an enviable status, and this question leads Utnapishtim to tell him the story of the flood. The account bears close similarity to the biblical account found in Genesis 6–9 and has engendered different theories about their relationship. In any case, by relating the story of the flood, Utnapishtim is telling Gilgamesh that the king cannot find eternal life in that way. At the end of the epic, Gilgamesh returns home, and as he sees the walls of Uruk, he realizes that his lasting fame will come about if he is a good king to that city. See also Akkadian; Enlil; Sumer.
gloss A term that carries various senses in biblical studies. In textual criticism a gloss is a marginal or in-text note added by a scribe to a manuscript. The gloss often clarifies or explains the meaning of the text. In translational studies, a gloss refers to the rendering of a word or lexeme in a particular context. The term is commonly used to avoid the exact identification of a word in one language with a word in another. For example, it is not correct to say that the Greek word sarx means “flesh,” since flesh is only one possible sense within the Greek term’s large semantic range. “Flesh” is instead a gloss used to roughly approximate the sense of sarx in a particular context. See also textual criticism.
glossolalia Greek term meaning “speaking in tongues,” or “speaking in other languages.” As one of the so-called sign gifts, speaking in tongues appears prominently in the book of Acts (2:3–4, 11; 10:46; 19:6) and Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (chaps. 12–14). While tongues in Acts 2 appear to be human languages, elsewhere the phenomenon resembles an ecstatic prayer language. Speaking in tongues sometimes accompanies an individual’s initial reception of the Holy Spirit (10:45–46; 19:6). In 1 Corinthians, Paul calls on the church to practice tongues in an orderly and disciplined manner, which builds up the church rather than causing disorder and conflict. The gift of tongues has been controversial in the history of the church, especially with the modern growth of Pentecostalism and the charismatic movement.
gnosticism, gnōsis Gnosticism is the designation given to a variety of religious movements arising in the late first and early second centuries that shared the same general worldview and certain core beliefs. The gnostic belief system arose from the philosophical foundation of Platonism, a dualistic perspective that contrasted the pure spiritual realm and the material world. The gnostic foundation myth concerned the supreme god, or plērōma (meaning “fullness”), who was wholly transcendent and pure spirit. Emanating from this god were many aeons, or lesser spirit beings. One of these (sometimes called the demiurge), created the fallen material world. In contrast to Judaism and Christianity, where God’s physical creation is good and human beings bear the image of God, gnosticism saw the material world as evil and the physical body as something to escape. Gnostics taught that a person gained salvation through secret “knowledge” (gnōsis) of their true spiritual identity and heavenly origin. Salvation is not a gift from God on the basis of Christ’s death on the cross, as Christianity teaches, but is the discovery within oneself of this true spiritual identity. The goal of gnosticism is to return to the realm of pure spirit.
Jesus Christ became in gnosticism one aeon or emanation, sent to teach humans about their true spiritual nature. Gnostics rejected the incarnation of Christ (that God became a human being) and the saving significance of his death on the cross. Salvation does not come through sacrifice and atonement but through gnōsis, secret knowledge. Gnosticism became a major rival to Christianity in the second and third centuries. The most influential gnostics were the Valentinians, whose beliefs arose from the teachings of Valentinus (ca. 100–153), a prominent second-century leader in the church at Rome. A number of early church writers labeled the movement heretical and wrote against it, including Justin Martyr (ca. 100–168), Irenaeus (ca. 130–202), Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150–216), Tertullian (ca. 155–230), and Origen (ca. 182–251). Until the twentieth century, most of our knowledge about gnosticism came from these opponents. The Nag Hammadi Codices, discovered in 1945 in Egypt, provide primary-source accounts of their beliefs. See also Nag Hammadi Library.
Good News Translation (GNT) The NT of this version, published in 1966, was originally called Today’s English Version (TEV) and Good News for Modern Man. The NT was translated by Robert Bratcher in consultation with the American Bible Society. The whole Bible was published in 1976 as the Good News Bible and eventually renamed the Good News Translation (GNT). The TEV was the first English version to consciously adopt the functional (dynamic) equivalent method of translation being developed by Eugene Nida and his colleagues at Wycliffe Bible Translators and the United Bible Societies. See also functional equivalent translation.
gospel/Gospel Lowercase “gospel” refers to the message of salvation made available through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For example, the apostle Paul often speaks of the “gospel” he preached (1 Thess. 2:2, 4, 8, 9). The English term translates the Greek euangelion, which means “good news.” Uppercase “Gospel” refers to a book recounting the story of Jesus of Nazareth. The term is chiefly used of the biblical Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—but is also used of the nonbiblical “apocryphal” gospels (often with a lowercase g in reference to noncanonical works).
Gospel of Peter An apocryphal gospel written pseudonymously in Peter’s name, probably in the mid-second century AD. The work, only part of which has survived, recounts the story of Jesus from the end of his trial to the resurrection appearances. It appears to be dependent on the canonical Gospels and other sources. It has a strong anti-Jewish and apologetic focus, defending the reality of the resurrection against contrary claims. The author speaks in the first person, eventually identifying himself as Simon Peter, the brother of Andrew (14.60). Various early Christian writers refer to the work, some rejecting its authenticity and treating it as docetic (see docetism). The gospel was known to have existed from references to it in the early church fathers, but it was rediscovered in 1886 by the French archaeologist Urbain Bouriant.
Gospel of Thomas An apocryphal gospel written pseudonymously in Thomas’s name, probably in the second century AD. A copy of the Gospel was discovered in Egypt in 1945 together with other works known as the Nag Hammadi Library, a mostly gnostic collection. The Gospel includes 114 sayings of Jesus, some of which have parallels in the Synoptic Gospels and many of which reflect gnostic theology. Though the work was written in Coptic, the ancient language of Egypt, fragments of a Greek text were discovered at Oxyrhynchus, and most scholars believe the Gospel was originally written in Greek. The Gospel begins, “These are the secret words which the living Jesus spoke, and which Didymus Judas Thomas wrote.” Thomas is likely the earliest and is widely considered the most important of the apocryphal gospels. The Gospel of Thomas should not be confused with the somewhat-later Infancy Gospel of Thomas, one of the legendary tales of the childhood of Jesus. See also gnosticism, gnōsis; Nag Hammadi Library.
Gottwald, Norman K. (1926–) American professor of OT who taught for many years at Union Theological Seminary in New York City from a Marxist interpretive perspective. He was an early practitioner of the social-scientific method of study of the OT. He is best known for his advocacy in favor of the revolutionary model of the conquest. See also Marxist interpretation; social-scientific interpretation.
Griesbach hypothesis See Synoptic problem.
Gunkel, Hermann (1862–1932) One of the most influential shapers of historical-critical methodology in the early twentieth century. Gunkel was a German OT scholar credited particularly with the development of form criticism. He was a leading member of the history of religions school, which was current in this day. His primary work was focused on Genesis and Psalms. See also form criticism (Formgeschichte); historical criticism; history of religions school (Religionsgeschichtliche Schule).