In modern Hebrew and Yiddish goy is a term for a gentile, a non-Jew. Through Yiddish, the word has been adopted into English also to mean "gentile", sometimes in a pejorative sense. As a word principally used by Jews to describe non-Jews, it is a term for the ethnic out-group.
Gentile is a word that usually means "someone who is not a Jew". Other groups that claim Israelite heritage, notably Mormons, have historically used the term gentile to describe outsiders. More rarely, the term is used as a synonym for heathen or pagan. As a term used to describe non-members of a religious/ethnic group, gentile is sometimes compared to words used to describe the "outgroup" in other cultures.
Shinar is the name for the southern region of Mesopotamia used by the Hebrew Bible.
The New Chronology is an alternative chronology of the ancient Near East developed by English Egyptologist David Rohl and other researchers beginning with A Test of Time: The Bible - from Myth to History in 1995. It contradicts mainstream Egyptology by proposing a major revision of the established Egyptian chronology, in particular by re-dating Egyptian kings of the Nineteenth through Twenty-fifth Dynasties, bringing forward conventional dating by up to 350 years. Rohl asserts that the New Chronology allows him to identify some of the characters in the Hebrew Bible with people whose names appear in archaeological finds.
Chedorlaomer, also spelled Kedorlaomer, is a king of Elam mentioned in Genesis 14. Genesis portrays him as allied with three other kings, campaigning against five Canaanite city-states in response to an uprising in the days of Abraham.
The Jebusites were, according to the books of Joshua and Samuel from the Tanakh, a Canaanite tribe that inhabited Jerusalem, then called Jebus prior to the conquest initiated by Joshua and completed by King David, although a majority of scholars agree that the Book of Joshua holds little historical value for early Israel and most likely reflects a much later period. The Books of Kings as well as 1 Chronicles state that Jerusalem was known as Jebus prior to this event. The identification of Jebus with Jerusalem is sometimes disputed by scholars. According to some biblical chronologies, the city was conquered by King David in 1003 BCE.
Gilead or Gilad is the ancient, historic, biblical name of the mountainous northern part of the region of Transjordan. The region is bounded in the west by the Jordan River, in the north by the deep ravine of the river Yarmouk and the region of Bashan, and in the southwest by what were known during antiquity as the "plains of Moab", with no definite boundary to the east. In some cases, "Gilead" is used in the Bible to refer to all the region east of the Jordan River. Gilead is situated in modern-day Jordan, corresponding roughly to the Irbid, Ajloun, Jerash and Balqa Governorates.
The Hittites, also spelled Hethites, were a group of people mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. Under the names בני-חת and חתי they are described several times as living in or near Canaan between the time of Abraham and the time of Ezra after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian exile. Their ancestor was Heth.
Elyon is an epithet of the God of Israel in the Hebrew Bible. ʾĒl ʿElyōn is usually rendered in English as "God Most High", and similarly in the Septuagint as ὁ Θεός ὁ ὕψιστος.
Tudhaliya I was a king of the Hittite Empire in c. the early 14th century BC.
Tudhaliya is the name of several Hittite kings. It is not clear how many kings bore that name, and numbering schemes vary from source to source.
Nebaioth or Nebajoth is mentioned at least five times in the Hebrew Bible, according to which he was the firstborn son of Ishmael, and the name appears as the name of one of the wilderness tribes mentioned in the Book of Genesis 25:13, and in the Book of Isaiah 60:7.
Tiras is, according to the Book of Genesis and 1 Chronicles, the seventh and youngest son of Japheth in the Hebrew Bible. A brother of biblical Javan, its geographical locale is sometimes associated by scholars with the Tershi or Tirsa, one of the groups which made up the Sea Peoples "thyrsenes" (Tyrrhenians), a naval confederacy which terrorized Egypt and other Mediterranean nations around 1200 BCE. These Sea People are referred to as "Tursha" in an inscription of Ramesses III, and as "Teresh of the Sea" on the Merneptah Stele.
Teraphim is a Hebrew word from the Bible, found only in the plural, of uncertain etymology. Despite being plural, Teraphim may refer to singular objects, using the Hebrew plural of excellence. The word Teraphim is explained in classical rabbinical literature as meaning disgraceful things, and in many English translations of the Bible it is translated as idols, or household god(s) although its exact meaning is more specific than this, but unknown precisely.
In the Bible, Melchizedek, also transliterated Melchisedech or Malki Tzedek, was the king of Salem and priest of El Elyon. He is first mentioned in Genesis 14:18–20, where he brings out bread and wine and then blesses Abram and El Elyon.
Shuah is the name of one of four minor Biblical figures. It is sometimes used as the name of a fifth. Their names are different in Hebrew, but they were all transliterated as "Shuah" in the King James Version.
The Battle of the Vale of Siddim, also often called the War of Nine Kings or the Slaughter of Chedorlaomer, is an event in the Hebrew Bible book of Genesis 14:1–17 that occurs in the days of Abram and Lot. The Vale of Siddim was the battleground for the cities of the Jordan River plain revolting against Mesopotamian rule.
Tishdal was a Hurrian ruler from the Zagros mountains. According to David Rohl, he is identifiable with Tidal, king of Goyim from the Book of Genesis, 14:1. The word goyim in Biblical Hebrew can be translated as "nations" or "peoples" although some Bible commentaries suggest that in this verse it may instead be a reference to the region of Gutium. Tidal was one of the four kings who fought Abraham in the Battle of the Vale of Siddim.
Since early modern times, a number of biblical ethnonyms from the Table of Nations in Genesis 10 have been used as a basis for classifying human racial and national identities. The connection between Genesis 10 and contemporary ethnic groups began during classical antiquity, when authors such as Josephus, Hippolytus and Jerome analyzed the biblical list.
