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And the story of the Exodus, specifically the crossing of the Red Sea, offers a fascinating glimpse into this idea. Imagine the scene: the Israelites, finally free from slavery, st...
Jewish tradition certainly suggests so. : we're taught that the Torah, God's own wisdom, is something we're meant to grapple with, to interpret, to argue over even! It's not a stat...
The historian Josephus, in his work Against Apion, tackles these accusations head-on. Apion, a Graeco-Egyptian intellectual, throws a real zinger: "If the Jews are citizens of Alex...
It's an age-old problem, and one that the historian Josephus tackled head-on in his work, Against Apion. We're going to delve into one specific accusation hurled against the Jews i...
It comes to us from Apion, a Graeco-Egyptian intellectual who lived in the 1st century CE and who, shall we say, wasn't the biggest fan of the Jewish people. His writings, thankful...
He claimed they swore "by God, the Maker of the heaven, and earth, and sea, to bear no good will to any foreigner, and particularly to none of the Greeks." Now, Josephus, the Jewis...
Every nation on earth traces back to one of three men. That's the claim Josephus makes in the Antiquities, and he spends two chapters proving it—mapping the seventy nations descend...
The Egyptians who chased the Hebrews into the sea did not drown quietly. According to Josephus, the water came crashing back accompanied by storms, rain, thunder, lightning, and th...
Moses struck a rock and a river came pouring out. Not a trickle, not a seep—a full river, bursting from dry stone in the middle of the desert, clear and sweet enough to make an ent...
The moment Joshua and Eleazar the high priest died, Israel began to unravel. Josephus does not soften this. The generation that had conquered Canaan gave way to one that could not ...
Eli the high priest had two sons who were a disgrace to everything he stood for. Hophni and Phinehas served at the Tabernacle in Shiloh, but they used their priestly office as a li...
Saul was desperate. The Philistine army had gathered at Shunem in overwhelming numbers, and for the first time in his reign, God refused to answer him—not through prophets, not thr...
Not a single hammer blow was heard during the entire construction. According to Josephus, Solomon's Temple rose from the earth in total silence—the massive stones fitted together s...
Solomon spent seven years building God's house. He spent thirteen building his own. Josephus does not hide the contrast—the Temple had God's help, he writes, which is why it went f...
She did not trust the reports. The Queen of Sheba—whom Josephus calls the queen of Egypt and Ethiopia—heard endless stories about Solomon's wisdom, but she refused to believe secon...
Solomon had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. And they destroyed him. That is the blunt verdict of Josephus, who watched the wisest king in Israel's history slide i...
Nine hundred and forty-seven years after the Exodus from Egypt, the northern kingdom of Israel ceased to exist. Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, discovered that Hoshea, the last king ...
King Josiah was eight years old when he inherited the throne of Judah. His grandfather Manasseh had been the worst king in the nation's history—a man who slaughtered prophets until...
Daniel was still a teenager when Nebuchadnezzar brought him to Babylon in chains. He and three companions from the royal family of Judah—Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah—were given B...
The story of Esther begins with a drunken king and a queen who said no. King Artaxerxes of Persia hosted a lavish feast—180 days of celebration for his court, then seven more days ...
After Alexander the Great died in 323 BCE, his empire shattered into warring kingdoms. Ptolemy, son of Lagus, seized Egypt—and Jerusalem along with it. Josephus records that Ptolem...
The Tobiads were a Jewish family who became the most powerful tax collectors in the Ptolemaic Empire—and nearly destroyed Judea in the process. Josephus tells the story of Joseph b...
The crisis started from within. Josephus records that after the High Priest Onias III died, a power struggle erupted between his brothers. Jason and Menelaus each bribed the Seleuc...
After Judas Maccabeus fell in battle, everything he had fought for nearly collapsed. Josephus opens Book XIII of his Antiquities with a bleak picture: the lawless and the disloyal ...
When Aristobulus I died after just one year on the throne, his widow Salome Alexandra did something audacious. She released Aristobulus's brothers from prison, where he had kept th...
Julius Caesar did something remarkable for the Jews. In a series of decrees preserved by Josephus in his Antiquities (written c. 93 CE), the Roman dictator formally guaranteed Jewi...
Herod had the throne, but the Hasmonean family still haunted him. His wife Mariamne was a Hasmonean princess. Her mother Alexandra was relentless in promoting Hasmonean claims. And...
Caligula declared himself a god and ordered a colossal statue of himself installed inside the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem. The Jews told the Roman general they would rather die, ev...
A queen from Mesopotamia converted to Judaism, moved to Jerusalem, and saved the city from famine. Her name was Helena of Adiabene, and she was one of the most remarkable converts ...
And what they've imagined is According to tradition, within Paradise – also known as Gan Eden (the Garden of Eden, paradise) – lie not just one, but six palaces, each a home for th...
When God told Abraham, "Go to the land that I will show you" (Genesis 12:1), He was deliberately vague. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev reads this vagueness as a divine instructi...
(Ibid. 12:27) "Then you shall say that it is a Paschal sacrifice to the L–rd.": R. Yossi Haglili said: The Jews would have deserved to die in Egypt (if not for the merit of the Pas...
And thus do you find, that whenever Israel is in bondage, the Shechinah is with them, viz. (Exodus 24:10) "And they saw the G��d of Israel, and under His feet, as the work of a sap...
(Exodus 13:17) "And it was, when G–d sent ("shalach") the people": "sending" in all places is accompaniment, viz. (Genesis 18:16) "And Abraham went with them to send them," (Ibid. ...
(Ibid.) "for the L–rd said: Lest the people bethink themselves when they see war": This is the war of Amalek, viz. (Numbers 14:45). "Variantly: "for the L–rd said, etc.": This is t...
And, what is more, with (the casket of) Jacob there went up the servants of Pharaoh and the elders of his household, while with Joseph there went up the ark and the Shechinah and t...
(Exodus 13:19) "For hashbea hishbia the children of Israel": He (Joseph) had made them (his brothers) swear ("hashbea") that they would beswear ("hishbia") their children. R. Natha...
Joseph spoke a prophecy to his brothers before he died: "God will surely remember you" (Genesis 50:25). The Hebrew uses a doubled verb — "pakod yifkod" — and the Mekhilta finds in ...
Joseph's dying request to his brothers included a subtle but legally significant phrase: "And you shall bring up my bones from here with you" (Genesis 50:25). The Mekhilta zeroes i...
And the children of Israel journeyed from Ramses to Succoth, and from Succoth to Eitam, and from Eitam to Pi Hachiroth. On the fifth day (of the week) they journeyed from Egypt, an...
Now the nations will clang to us like a bell, saying: Now if these (Jews), who were under their thumb, they let go and they left, why should we send to Aram Naharayim and to Aram T...
Four "harnessed" with joy: Abraham—(Genesis 22:3) "And Abraham rose early in the morning (for the binding of Isaac), and he saddled his ass." Now did he not have many servants?—(He...
(Exodus 14:7) "And he took six hundred choice chariots": Whence came the horses required for the chariots? If you would say, from Egypt, is it not written (re the plague of pestile...
The Torah describes Pharaoh's pursuit force with the word "shalishim" — a term the Mekhilta unpacks through three different interpretations, each revealing a different dimension of...
Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah taught that God split the Red Sea for the Israelites in the merit of their forefather Abraham. His proof comes from a sweeping passage in (Psalms 105:42-43...
Rabbi Eliezer HaModai preserved one of the most extraordinary statements God ever made about the people of Israel. When Moses cried out at the Red Sea, God responded: "Why do you c...
The students asked their teacher: "Master, you tell us — in what merit did the tribe of Judah attain kingship over Israel?" Rabbi Tarfon gave an answer that has echoed through Jewi...
When God brought judgment upon the Egyptians at the Red Sea, the natural order itself turned upside down. The Mekhilta captures this reversal in a single, devastating image: "In th...
