MARI TABLETS - a major find of tablets discovered at Mari, the capital city of a Semitic state located in northern Mesopotamia. The state of Mari had flourished before the patrirachs lived in Israel but the Mari Tablets have shed light on customs which have some similarities to the customs of the patriarchs in the Book of Genesis.

MASORETIC TEXT - typically refers to the standard Hebrew text of the Hebrew Bible which came from the tradition of the the scribes known as the Masoretes who worked in Tiberias. The text includes the Hebrew consonants, vowel signs, and accents, and usually marginal notes which the Masoretes added to ensure accurate transmission of the text. The Masoretic Text is abbreviated as MT. The Masoretes worked during the latter half of the 1st millennium C.E.

MESOPOTAMIA - term generally employed to describe the land in the area of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. "Mesopotamia" is a Greek term meaning "(land) in the midst of the river(s)" or as is often interpreted "the land between the two rivers." In modern usage the term refers to all of the land between the Tigris and Euphrates from the north all the way down to the Persian Gulf. In biblical times the area described by this later term most likely referred to the northern and central portions of the area.

MONOTHEISM - the belief in and worship of only one god.