9,687 related texts · Page 63 of 202
The teacher calls out the letter Bet. Ben Sira responds with a proverb that could have come straight from the book of Proverbs itself: "By the appearance of a beautiful woman have ...
The letter Chet opens with Ben Sira's most provocative proverb so far: "Males are dear to all, but woe to fathers of females." Let's be clear about what this is. The Alphabet of Be...
The letter Tet continues the theme of fatherhood and daughters with a proverb that's as bleak as it is brief: "A daughter is a false image to her father. Out of fear of her, he doe...
The letter Yud picks up exactly where the previous proverb left off, and it doesn't hold back: "The watchman does not sleep. When she is a minor—lest she be seduced or assaulted in...
The letter Kaf pushes the father's worry even further into the future: "When you marry the daughter, you worry about her the most—lest she not have children. And when you are older...
The letter Mem—which in Hebrew also means "water"—brings a proverb built entirely around that elemental image: "The waters of a virgin wife are sweet and add strength; the waters o...
"Acquire for yourself gold coins, and all money, but do not tell your wife where the money is, even if she is good." And with that, the alphabetical proverbs of the Alphabet of Ben...
Ben Sira's teacher is freaking out. The boy has just rattled off proverbs for every letter of the Hebrew alphabet with the confidence of a seasoned sage, and his educator can only ...
Nebuchadnezzar's first question to Ben Sira is bizarre. "How does the rabbit shave her head?" The answer Ben Sira gives connects this strange question to one of the most famous enc...
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had questions. Ben Sira had answers. And in the Alphabet of Ben Sira, a satirical medieval text composed between 700 and 1000 CE, no question was t...
Gnats live for a single day. They're born, they swarm, they die. New ones replace them. So why do they exist at all? Nebuchadnezzar wanted to know, and Ben Sira had a two-part answ...
King David once watched a wasp devouring a spider while a fool chased them both with a stick. And he complained to God about it. Why create wasps that sting for no benefit? Why cre...
The Alphabet of Ben Sira, a medieval text composed between 700 and 1000 CE, tells the longest and wildest origin story for why dogs and cats can't stand each other. It goes all the...
Any cat owner knows the feeling: your cat looks right through you like you're a stranger who happens to operate the food dish. According to the Alphabet of Ben Sira, composed betwe...
Look closely at a mouse's face and you'll notice fine lines running along its cheeks, almost like tiny stitches. The Alphabet of Ben Sira, a medieval text composed between 700 and ...
The opening columns of the Community Rule describe a yearly covenant renewal ceremony that reads like a cross between a monastic initiation and an ancient Israelite oath of allegia...
The Thanksgiving Hymns (Hodayot, הודיות) are a collection of intensely personal poems found in Cave 1 near Qumran, composed sometime in the 2nd or 1st century BCE. Several of them ...
While the dream sequence in the Book of Giants gets most of the attention, the scroll also describes something the Watchers tradition in 1 Enoch only mentions in passing: the Nephi...
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 Temple Scroll does something no other Dead Sea Scroll attempts—it rewrites biblical law. And one of its most striking revisions concerns the Israelite king. (Deuteronomy 17:14-...
4QInstruction (Musar LeMevin, מוסר למבין, meaning "Instruction for the Understanding One") is one of the longest and most philosophically sophisticated texts found at Qumran. Prese...
The second half of the Pesher Habakkuk turns from cosmic prophecy to personal vendetta—and the story it tells has haunted historians for decades. According to the pesher, a figure ...
Near the end of the Thanksgiving Hymns collection comes a poem that captures the theology of the Qumran community in its purest form. The speaker—whether the Teacher of Righteousne...
The dead do not simply lie still. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, the righteous dead have a vast habit...
The night Abraham was born, a star appeared in the sky and swallowed four other stars from the four corners of heaven. Nimrod's astrologers saw it and rushed to the king with a war...
When Amram separated from his wife after Pharaoh's decree to drown all Hebrew boys, it was his young daughter Miriam who brought them back together. The Spirit of God came upon the...
Jephthah the Gileadite made a vow before battle: whatever came out of his house first to greet him upon his victorious return would be offered as a sacrifice to God. He crushed the...
The destruction of the Temple happened on the eve of the ninth of Av, on the outgoing of the Sabbath, in a Sabbatical year. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century...
The most detailed account of the lost tribes of Israel comes from Eldad the Danite, a traveler whose report is preserved in the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chron...
On the third day of creation, the earth was a flat, featureless plain submerged under water. Then God spoke. Mountains erupted upward and scattered across the surface. Valleys tore...
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...
All of a person's sins are engraved on their bones. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle compiled by Jerahmeel ben Solomon, Rabbi Isaac ben Par...
Paradise has two gates made of carbuncle, and sixty myriads of ministering angels guard them. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle compiled by ...
The contest before King Darius began with the first prince arguing that nothing on earth is as powerful as a king. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew c...
Zerubbabel won the riddle contest, but when King Darius offered him any reward up to half the kingdom, he asked for something no treasure could buy. According to the Chronicles of ...
Esther stripped off her royal garments and the ornaments of her majesty. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 189...
Haman wrote one of the most chilling documents in Jewish legend. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, Haman...
On the night King Ahasuerus could not sleep, something far stranger was happening in heaven. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle preserved by ...
The story of Israel's return from exile reads like a cascade of empires, each rising and falling at breathtaking speed. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Heb...
Walking home from the river, Abraham could not silence his own mind. "What evil is my father doing?" he thought. "He carves these gods with his own chisels and lathes. He shapes th...
Abraham arrived home, watered the donkey, set out hay, and placed the silver from the idol sale into his father's hand. Terah was delighted. "Blessed are you, Abraham, by my gods! ...
Abraham had demolished the idols. Now he turned his mind to the elements themselves. "Fire is more worthy of honor than all things formed," he reasoned, "because even that which is...
Abraham was still speaking to his father Terah in the courtyard of the house when a voice came down from heaven. Not a whisper. Not an intuition. A voice, falling from the sky in a...
The voice came again. Twice it called his name: "Abraham, Abraham!" "Here I am." "It is I. Fear not, for I am before the worlds, a mighty God who has created the light of the world...
Abraham could no longer contain himself. "O Mighty, Eternal One, hallowed by Your power! Be favorable to my petition. As you have brought me up to your height, so make known to me,...
After the ten plagues, after the final convulsions of the dying age, God revealed to Abraham the moment everything would change. "Then I will sound the trumpet out of the air and w...
The seventh heaven nearly destroyed him. The two angels lifted Enoch upward once more, and what he saw stole the breath from his body. A very great light — not sunlight, not fireli...
