7,771 related texts · Page 199 of 864
Our guide for this adventure is Flavius Josephus, the first-century Romano-Jewish scholar and historian, and the story comes from his work, Against Apion. This book is essentially ...
He's responding to the claims of a writer named Apion, who seems to have a real bone to pick with the Jews of Alexandria. Apion, you see, is going after the Alexandrian Jews, criti...
Seems a little... roundabout, doesn't it? That’s exactly the kind of thing that got the Rabbis thinking, and us too! What’s really going on behind those words? Why not just say, "H...
(Genesis 2:7). It’s such a simple phrase, yet it's pregnant with meaning. The Midrash, that rich tapestry of Jewish storytelling and interpretation, wrestles with this very questio...
Specifically, I’m thinking of Genesis 2:14. It's not just that the Euphrates river is mentioned. Oh no, we also get that the Pishon "goes round all the land of Evilat," the Gihon "...
God had just created Adam, this perfect being, in this perfect garden. What was missing? Well, the Midrash of Philo, a collection of ancient Jewish interpretations and elaborations...
There’s a fascinating little corner of Jewish thought that suggests a truly different picture of those early days. It’s tucked away in the Midrash of Philo, a collection of interpr...
It's easy to see him as just a sneaky snake, but Jewish tradition, especially in the writings we call midrash, often sees things on a deeper, symbolic level. Philo, the 1st-century...
The verse that phrase alludes to, of course, comes from Genesis 3:19, part of the consequences faced by Adam after eating from the Tree of Knowledge. God tells him, "Till you retur...
