10,602 related texts · Page 90 of 221
That’s the kind of artistry we encounter in the Letter of Aristeas, a fascinating document that purports to describe the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, creating what w...
The Letter of Aristeas, a fascinating text attributed to an official in the court of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285-247 BCE), gives us a glimpse into just such a scene. It describes,...
The Letter of Aristeas, a fascinating historical text, gives us a glimpse into just such a moment. It recounts the story of how the Septuagint – the Greek translation of the Hebrew...
In the Letter of Aristeas, we get a glimpse into just such a place – likely referring to the Temple in Jerusalem. The text describes the elaborate security measures in place. It wa...
But this isn’t just any crossroads. As the Letter of Aristeas describes, the path is divided. Some people are always going up, and others down. What’s happening? Well, it all comes...
It might sound strange, but bear with me. The Letter of Aristeas, an ancient text attributed to someone named Aristeas, though its true authorship is debated, gives us a glimpse in...
But tucked within this letter are some intriguing observations about the land itself. One thing that really stood out to the author was the importance of population distribution. T...
The Letter of Aristeas, a fascinating text that purports to describe the translation of the Torah into Greek, offers a glimpse into this very question. It suggests that these seemi...
It's easy to dismiss them as arbitrary, ancient dietary restrictions. But what if there's something much deeper going on? Something about character, about virtue, about becoming th...
This ancient text, purporting to be a letter from Aristeas, an official in Ptolemy's court, describes the remarkable story of how the Septuagint – the Greek translation of the Hebr...
The Letter of Aristeas, a fascinating text from the Hellenistic period, gives us a peek into the minds of Jewish sages grappling with questions of wealth, power, and virtue. It's f...
The ancient world wrestled with these questions too, and sometimes, we find their wisdom tucked away in unexpected places. Take the Letter of Aristeas, for example. It’s not exactl...
The Letter of Aristeas, a fascinating ancient text, gives us some clues. It recounts the story of how the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek – the Septuagint – but tucked away ...
This wasn't just any translation; this was the creation of the Septuagint, a pivotal moment in Jewish history and its interaction with the Hellenistic world. But amidst this grand ...
This letter, which details the translation of the Torah into Greek (the Septuagint), offers a glimpse into the intellectual life of the Hellenistic world, and, surprisingly, a king...
The Letter of Aristeas gives us a fascinating glimpse into this world. Our story picks up with Demetrius, the chief librarian of Alexandria. Imagine him, a man surrounded by scroll...
Take hand-washing, for example. We do it all the time, but have you ever stopped to think about what it really means? The Letter of Aristeas gives us a glimpse into just that. This...
But that’s exactly the kind of tale that swirls around the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, a story preserved for us in the Letter of Aristeas. The Letter of Aristeas, i...
The Letter of Aristeas tells us all about it. Our story involves Ptolemy Philadelphus, the King of Egypt in the 3rd century BCE, and his grand plan to include Jewish law in his fam...
This is the world Megillat Antiochus throws us into. The story begins with a chilling proposition, whispered amongst the advisors of King Antiochus. "Come now," they urged, "let us...
But that lifeline comes with a catch – a compromise of everything you hold sacred. That’s the agonizing dilemma faced by the Jews in Megillat Antiochus, a scroll recounting the eve...
Manasseh, King of Judah. Not exactly a role model. The Bible paints a pretty grim picture: idol worship, child sacrifice, all sorts of wickedness. You can read about it in 2 Kings ...
We pick up the story after the desecration of the Temple in Jerusalem and the persecution of the Jews by the Seleucid Empire. Things looked bleak. Really bleak. But then, a spark i...
That feeling isn’t new. It’s woven into the very fabric of our stories. Let's turn the clock back to a pivotal moment in Jewish history, recounted in the Book of Maccabees I. We're...
He was a king, a ruler, a figure of immense power. But even kings can't escape the consequences of their choices. The Book of Maccabees I 6 opens with a stark image: Antiochus, con...
Let me tell you about Jonathan and Simon, two brothers from the Maccabee family, and a wedding that went horribly, horribly wrong. Now, we all know weddings are supposed to be joyo...
That feeling, that primal fear, is something Jonathan Maccabeus and his forces knew all too well. Let's set the scene. We're in the tumultuous times described in the Book of Maccab...
We're right in the middle of the story of Jonathan Maccabeus, one of the leaders of the Maccabean revolt. He and his men are gearing up for a battle, and what happens? Their advers...
Forget Twitter and press conferences. Imagine messengers, lavish displays of wealth, and demands for…silver. Lots of it. That's the scene in 1 Maccabees 15. We're right in the midd...
Her story, found in The Book of Susanna, is a powerful one. It all unfolds with a chilling simplicity. The text tells us "the people of the house heard her cry and ran to the viney...
Like your thoughts aren't just floating around in your head, but somehow... accountable? The Book of Wisdom, a powerful Jewish text from the Second Temple period preserved in the S...
The Book of Wisdom, one of the fascinating texts in the Apocrypha (writings related to the Bible but not included in the Jewish or Protestant canons), grapples with these very ques...
The version we're looking at today is a medieval text that claims to be that lost book. Think of it as a kind of ancient historical fiction, filling in gaps and offering its own un...
Book of Jasher, a fascinating, albeit non-canonical, work that expands upon biblical narratives. According to Jasher, Jacob lived in Egypt for seventeen years, reaching the ripe ol...
There are so many fascinating texts that offer different perspectives and details on familiar narratives. Today, we're diving into a chapter from one of these books: the Book of Ja...
We know him as the great leader, the lawgiver, the one who led the Israelites out of Egypt. But what about his birth, his infancy, those perilous first months? The Book of Jasher, ...
According to the Alphabet of Ben Sira, a strange and satirical medieval text composed between 700 and 1000 CE, three people in all of history were born without their parents having...
The Alphabet of Ben Sira, a satirical and provocative medieval text composed between 700 and 1000 CE, doesn't shy away from blunt advice about marriage. In this proverb, tied to th...
"Acquire for yourself money, and a good wife, fear of God, and accumulate sons for yourself, even a hundred of them." The letter Kuf (ק) in the Alphabet of Ben Sira delivers a prov...
The Alphabet of Ben Sira, composed between 700 and 1000 CE, doesn't shy away from the crudest questions about the natural world. When Nebuchadnezzar asked why donkeys urinate on on...
The Community Rule (Serekh HaYachad, סרך היחד), one of the first seven scrolls discovered in Cave 1 in 1947, contains what may be the most startling theological statement in all of...
At nearly nine meters long, the Temple Scroll (Megillat HaMikdash, מגילת המקדש) is the longest of all the Dead Sea Scrolls. Found in Cave 11, it may date from the late 2nd century ...
The Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, preserves an unusual parallel timeline linking the rise of Rome with the suffering ...
Nebuchadnezzar's transformation was not a complete change from man to animal. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster i...
When a person is about to die, the angel assigned to them delivers a devastating eulogy. Not a eulogy of praise. A eulogy of regret. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12t...
Three men approach death. Each begs their family for something to bring to the next world. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle compiled by Jer...
Haman did not just plot in the Persian court. He plotted in heaven. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, Ha...
Solomon's throne was not a chair. It was a machine—a towering structure of ivory, gold, and living mechanisms that no king could ever replicate. According to the Chronicles of Jera...
