Jesus was a Jewish teacher who used parables to illustrate important ethical ideas. The main sources of information regarding Jesus' life are the Gospels of the New Testament by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Jesus is the central figure of Christianity. He is commonly referred to as Jesus Christ, where "Christ" is a Greek title meaning "Anointed One" corresponding to the Hebrew "Messiah". Our modern calendar is based on the date of birth of Jesus. "AD" or Anno Domini defines an epoch starting with the birth of Jesus, whereas "BC" refers to the era Before Christ. Christmas is the Christian holiday commemorating the birth of Jesus.
Moses was born approximately in 1391 BC and he died in 1271 BC. He is recognized as the leader who brought the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and provided them with a code of conduct known as the Ten Commandments. The commandments are a list of religious and moral rules which, according to religious tradition, were written by God and given to Moses on Mount Sinai in the form of two stone tablets. They feature prominently in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The Ten Commandments are listed in two books of the Bible: Exodus 20:2-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21.
Abraham is thought to have lived around 1500 BC. He is considered the father of monotheism and a role model for his rejection of idol worship. Abraham is regarded as the founding patriarch of the Israelites whom God chose to bless. He was the principal Biblical patriarch, and he is a central figure in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam which are sometimes referred to as the "Abrahamic religions" because Abraham is in their holy books and plays a role in their beliefs. In Islam, Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) is the friend of Allah and the father of the Prophets Ismail (Ishmael) and Ishaq (Isaac).
Marc Chagall (July 7, 1887 - March 28, 1985) was a Jewish painter born in Vitebsk, Belarus. He was the oldest of nine children. Chagal started studying painting in 1906 and moved to St. Petersburg one year later. He lived for a few years in Paris in order to be near the art community of the Montparnasse district, but returned to Vitebsk in 1914. After the Russian revolution, he moved to Moscow in 1920 and back to Paris in 1923 where he became a French citizen. The memories of his Jewish upbringing and Biblical themes reflecting his Jewish heritage are portrayed in many of his paintings.
Baruch Spinoza was born in Amsterdam, Holland in a community of Portuguese Jews of Sephardic Jewish descent. He worked as a lens grinder and produced lenses for telescopes that were some of the most important scientific instruments of that era. His writings on rationalism, many of which were published posthumously, reveal substantial mathematical training. Spinoza's most influential work was his Ethics, a work that established him as one of the great rationalists of 17th-century philosophy.