Patriarch

A patriarch is the male head of a family. The patriarch of a family is usually in charge, or has the most power. In more important terms, a patriarch is also usually thought of as the founder of something (a class, a religion...). In biblical terms, patriarch means two different things. The first is any biblical figure who is regarded as one of the founders of the human race, such as Adam and Noah. The other meaning refers to any of the three most important founders of the Israelites: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They are thought of as patriarchs because they were essentially the heads or founders of the tribes of Israel. They all were the fathers of the Jewish religion, which makes them the patriarchs of all Jewish people. For example, Abraham was the first person that God gave the idea of Judaism to, so he was basically the founder of the Jewish religion, earning him the name of a patriarch.

Sources:

http://dictionary.infoplease.com/patriarch

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/abraham.html

Picture: http://frmarkdwhite.wordpress.com/2010/02/20/instructions-for-lent/

-Julia Giordano