Judah (biblical person)

Judah (Hebrew: יְהוּדָה‎, Standard Yehuda Tiberian Yəhūḏāh) was, according to the Book of Genesis, the fourth son of Jacob and Leah, and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Judah. By extension, he is indirectly eponymous of the Kingdom of Judah, the land of Judea and the word "Jew".

According to the narrative in Genesis, Judah with Tamar is the patrilinear ancestor of the Davidic line. The Tribe of Judah figures prominently in the Deuteronomistic history, which most scholars agree was reduced to written form, although subject to exilic and post-exilic alterations and emendations, during the reign of the Judahist reformer Josiah from 641-609 BC. Some biblical scholars view the biblical narrative of Judah as a postdiction providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation.

Etymology

The Hebrew name for Judah, Judairmo (יהודה), literally "thanksgiving" or "praise," is the noun form of the root Y-D-H (ידה), "to thank" or "to praise." His birth is recorded at Gen. 29:35; upon his birth, Leah exclaims, "This time I will praise the LORD," with the Hebrew word for "I will praise," 'odeh (אודה) sharing the same root as Yehudah.

Person

A person is a being, such as a human, that has certain capacities or attributes constituting personhood, which in turn is defined differently by different authors in different disciplines, and by different cultures in different times and places. In ancient Rome, the word persona (Latin) or prosopon (πρόσωπον; Greek) originally referred to the masks worn by actors on stage. The various masks represented the various "personae" in the stage play.

The concept of person was developed during the Trinitarian and Christological debates of the 4th and 5th centuries in contrast to the word nature. During the theological debates, some philosophical tools (concepts) were needed so that the debates could be held on common basis to all theological schools. The purpose of the debate was to establish the relation, similarities and differences between the Λóγος/Verbum and God. The philosophical concept of person arose, taking the word "prosopon" (πρόσωπον) from the Greek theatre. Therefore, Christus (the Λóγος/Verbum) and God were defined as different "persons". This concept was applied later to the Holy Ghost, the angels and to all human beings.

Anglo-Saxons

The Anglo-Saxons were a people who inhabited Great Britain from the 5th century. They comprised people from Germanic tribes who migrated to the island from continental Europe, their descendants, and indigenous British groups who adopted some aspects of Anglo-Saxon culture and language. The Anglo-Saxon period denotes the period of British history between about 450 and 1066, after their initial settlement, and up until the Norman conquest.

The Anglo-Saxon period includes the creation of an English nation, with many of the aspects that survive today including regional government of shires and hundreds; the re-establishment of Christianity; a flowering in literature and language; and the establishment of charters and law. The term Anglo-Saxon is also popularly used for the language, in scholarly use more usually called Old English, that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons in England and eastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century.

Jesus

Jesus (/ˈdʒiːzəs/; Greek: Ἰησοῦς Iesous; 7–2 BC to AD 30–33), also referred to as Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus Christ, is the central figure of Christianity, whom the teachings of most Christian denominations hold to be the Son of God. Christians believe Jesus is the awaited Messiah (or Christ, the Anointed One) of the Old Testament.

Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed historically, and historians consider the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) to be the best sources for investigating the historical Jesus. Most scholars agree that Jesus was a Galilean, Jewish rabbi who preached his message orally,was baptized by John the Baptist, and was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate. In the current mainstream view, Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher and the founder of a renewal movement within Judaism, although some prominent scholars argue that he was not apocalyptic. After Jesus' death, his followers believed he was resurrected, and the community they formed eventually became the Christian church. The widely used calendar era, abbreviated as "AD" from the Latin "Anno Domini" ("in the year of our Lord") or sometimes as "CE", is based on the birth of Jesus. His birth is celebrated annually on December 25 as a holiday known as Christmas.

Parable of the Lost Sheep

The Parable of the Lost Sheep is one of the parables of Jesus. It appears in two of the Canonical gospels of the New Testament, as well as in the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas.

According to the Gospels of Matthew (18:12–14) and Luke (15:3–7), a shepherd leaves his flock of ninety-nine sheep in order to find the one which is lost. It is the first member of a trilogy about redemption that Jesus tells after the Pharisees and religious leaders accuse him of welcoming and eating with "sinners." The two parables that follow (in Luke's Gospel) are those of the Lost Coin and the Prodigal Son. The parable of the Good shepherd, a pericope found in John 10:1-21, derives from it.

Narrative

In the Gospel of Luke, the parable is as follows:

Interpretation

The parable shares themes of loss, searching, and rejoicing with the Parable of the Lost Coin. The lost sheep or coin represents a lost human being.

As in the analogy of the Good Shepherd, Jesus is the shepherd, thus identifying himself with the image of God as a shepherd searching for stray sheep in Ezekiel 34:11–16.Joel B. Green writes that "these parables are fundamentally about God, ... their aim is to lay bare the nature of the divine response to the recovery of the lost."