Mount Gilead

Mount Gilead may refer to:

See also

Mount Gilead, North Carolina

Mount Gilead is a town in Montgomery County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 1,181 at the 2010 census.

Geography

Mount Gilead is located at 35°12′57″N 80°0′19″W / 35.21583°N 80.00528°W / 35.21583; -80.00528 (35.215793, -80.005252).

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 3.3 square miles (8.5 km²), all of it land.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there were 1,389 people, 502 households, and 367 families residing in the town. The population density was 424.2 people per square mile (164.0/km²). There were 553 housing units at an average density of 168.9 per square mile (65.3/km²). The racial makeup of the town was 46.29% White, 50.04% African American, 0.50% Native American, 2.16% Asian, 0.29% from other races, and 0.72% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.58% of the population.

There were 502 households out of which 31.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 49.8% were married couples living together, 20.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 26.7% were non-families. 25.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 13.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.64 and the average family size was 3.14.

Gilead

Gilead or Gilaad (Hebrew: גִּלְעָד), (/ˈɡɪl.i.əd/), is the name of three persons and two geographic places In the Bible.

Places

Gilead was a mountainous region east of the Jordan River divided among the tribes of Gad and Manasseh, and situated in modern-day Jordan. It is also referred to by the Aramaic name Yegar-Sahadutha, which carries the same meaning as the Hebrew (Genesis 31:47). From its mountainous character, it is called the mount of Gilead (Genesis 31:25).

It is called also the land of Gilead (Numbers 32:1), and sometimes simply Gilead (Psalm 60:9; Genesis 37:25). As a whole, it included the tribal territories of Gad, Reuben, and the eastern half of Manasseh (Deut 3:13; Num 32:40). In the Book of Chronicles, Segub controlled twenty-three towns in Gilead.1 Chronicles 2:21-22 It was bounded on the north by Bashan, and on the south by Moab and Ammon (Genesis 31:21; Deut 3:12-17).

"Half Gilead" was possessed by Sihon, and the other half, separated from it by the river Jabbok, by Og, king of Bashan. The deep ravine of the river Hieromax (the modern Sheriat el-Mandhur) separated Bashan from Gilead, which was about 60 miles in length and 20 miles in breadth, extending from near the south end of the Lake of Gennesaret to the north end of the Dead Sea. Abarim, Pisgah, Nebo, and Peor are its mountains mentioned in Scripture.

Gilead (tribal group)

Gilead was a tribal group mentioned in Biblical passages which textual scholars attribute to early sources. In these sources, for example the Song of Deborah, the Gilead group is treated with equal status to the other Israelite tribes, while certain other tribes, including the Tribe of Manasseh, are absent. An eponymous Gilead is mentioned in the biblical genealogies as fratter a descendant of Manasseh, presumably implying that the Gilead group was part of Manasseh, and since Gilead is also the name of a specific part of the land east of the Jordan River, the Gilead tribal group presumably refers to the half tribe of Manasseh which resided on this side of the Jordan. The identity as part of a single tribe named Manasseh, doesn't appear to have been fully accurate in practice, since there was very little geographic connection between the two half tribes, only just touching at a corner of each, and according to the Book of Chronicles each half tribe historically had always had separate tribal rulers.

Gilead (novel)

Gilead is a novel written by Marilynne Robinson that was published in 2004. It is her second novel, following Housekeeping, which was published in 1980. Gilead won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award. Gilead is an epistolary novel that is the fictional autobiography of the Reverend John Ames, an elderly congregationalist pastor in the small, secluded town of Gilead, Iowa, who knows that he is dying of a heart condition. At the beginning of the book, the date is established as 1956, and Ames explains that he is writing an account of his life for his seven-year-old son, who will have few memories of him.

Plot

The book is an account of the memories and legacy of John Ames as he remembers his experiences of his father and grandfather to share with his son. All three men share a vocational lifestyle and profession as Congregationalist ministers in Gilead, Iowa. John Ames describes his vocation as "giving you a good basic sense of what is being asked of you and also what you might as well ignore", explaining that your vocation is something both hard to fulfill and hard to obtain. He writes that this is one of the most important pieces of wisdom he can bestow to his son. Ames's father was a Christian pacifist, but his grandfather was a radical abolitionist who carried out guerrilla actions with John Brown before the American Civil War, served as a chaplain with the Union forces in that war, and incited his congregation to join up and serve in it; as Ames remarks, his grandfather "preached his people into the war." The grandfather returned from the war maimed with the loss of his right eye. Thereafter he was given the distinction that his right side was holy or sacred in some way, that it was his link to commune with God, and he was notorious for a piercing stare with the one eye he had left.