The Dead Sea scrolls consist of about 900 documents, including texts from the Hebrew Bible, discovered between 1947 and 1956 in eleven caves in and around the Qumran Wadi near the ruins of the ancient settlement of Khirbet Qumran, on the no...

Emperor Augustus of Rome was born with the given name Gaius Octavius on September 23, 63 B.C. He took the name Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (Octavian) in 44 B.C. after the murder of his great uncle, Julius Caesar. In his will Caesar had a...

Strabo was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher. Strabo is mostly famous for his 17-volume work Geographica, which presented a descriptive history of people and places from different regions of the world known to his era. Although...

Juba II or Juba II of Numidia (52/50 BC – AD 23) was a king of Numidia and then later moved to Mauretania. His first wife was Cleopatra Selene II, daughter of Greek Ptolemaic Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt and Roman triumvir Mark Antony. J...

Publius Ovidius Naso, known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet best known for the Metamorphoses, a 15-book continuous mythological narrative written in the meter of epic, and for collections of love poetry in elegiac co...

Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (or Tiberius I), was the second Roman Emperor, from the death of Augustus in AD 14 until his own death in 37. Tiberius was one of Rome's greatest generals, whose campaigns in Pannonia, Illyricum, Rhaetia and...

Mary of Nazareth often referred to by Christians as the Virgin Mary or Saint Mary, was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee, identified in the New Testament as the mother of Jesus Christ. Muslims also refer to her as the Virgin Mary or Sye...

Aulus Cornelius Celsus was a Roman encyclopaedist, known for his extant medical work, De Medicina, which is believed to be the only surviving section of a much larger encyclopedia. The De Medicina is a primary source on diet, pharmacy, surg...

Philo, known also as Philo of Alexandria, Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia and Philo the Jew, was an Hellenistic Jewish philosopher born in Alexandria. Philo used allegory to fuse and harmonize Greek philosophy and Judais...

Claudius was Roman emperor from 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, he was the son of Drusus and Antonia Minor. He was born at Lugdunum in Gaul, the first Roman Emperor to be born outside Italy. Because he was afflicted with a...

Mary Magdalene is described, both in the canonical New Testament and in the New Testament apocrypha, as a devoted disciple of Jesus. She is considered by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglican churches to be a saint, with a feas...

Bartholomew was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. He has been identified with Nathanael, who appears in the Gospel according to John as being introduced to Christ by Philip (who would also become an apostle), although some modern comment...

John the Apostle was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. Christian tradition identifies him as the author of several New Testament works: the Gospel of John, the Epistles of John, and the Book of Revelation. Many modern scholars believe th...

Jesus (6–4 BC to 30–33 AD), also referred to as Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus of Galilee, is the central figure of Christianity, whom the teachings of most Christian denominations hold to be the Son of God. Christianity regards Jesus as the a...

John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure in Christianity, Islam (known as Yahya ibn Zakariyya), the Bahá'í Faith, and Mandaeism. John is described as having the unique practice of baptism for the forgivenes...