66 myths · Page 2 of 3
Two thousand scorpions crossed the backs of the sinners, each sting matched to a different sin. Higher up, angels bathed in a river of fire and came out new.
Seven fiery chambers where lions eat the dead and begin again, traitor-kings warden the nations, and scorpions with countless mouths lash the prostrate.
A voice opens the ground like a lid and takes a traveler down through Tevel, the mountain of the dead, and the edge of Gehinnom.
God walled three directions and left the north open, stacking fire and ice beside the pit, while one man climbed past the sky to argue.
An angel walks a trembling soul down seven descending floors of fire, where the gates lock the feet and each punishment is cut to fit the sin.
Two robbers cry favoritism, a wicked man buys eternity with one hour, and in Ashkelon two funerals carry the wrong men to the wrong graves.
A rich man warns his wife never to open one door. The hand that pulls her through leads into Gehinnom, the afterlife of judgment, and its burning floors.
Two sages traced the dark that pinned Egypt to the blackness God hides behind, a coin-thick scoop of the deep that doubled once it was loosed.
Two scribes write every name over a place in fire and in the garden before the soul is judged, and the verdict only decides which room you keep.
He had never given a crust. Dying, he sent his last egg to the beggar at the door. That egg outweighed the mountains.
A nation that kindles a great stake at dawn and dusk meets the demon their fire was feeding, and Samriel opens the gate.
Adam's beauty broke into shards, and each man who caught one wore it like a crown until the same gift became the thing that killed him.
Before circumcision Abraham fell on his face at every word from heaven. After the covenant he stood, and the gate of Gehinnom (afterlife of judgment) closed.
A suspected wife drank bitter water under oath and curse. If pure, she left unharmed, sometimes to conceive, while fire waited for the guilty.
God measured the earth before Sinai. Nations refused, Israel accepted, and only the living received laws of food and a call to be holy.
An angel walks a new soul past fire-lions and scourges in Gehinnom (afterlife of judgment), naming the damned as once-living people who ignored Torah.
Sun and moon climb to Zebul and refuse to shine until God judges Korach, while smoke from the chasm still answers travelers.
Between the pieces Abraham sees two futures, empire's yoke or Gehinnom (afterlife of judgment)'s oven. He sits all day, then chooses exile over the fire below.
Nargesanel asked for Israel's names as fuel. God closed the book. Even the fire under the earth stills when the King approaches on Friday.
The air itself chewed. He wanted erasure. The angel opened a ledger, and the blank lines meant the burning was not done.
Raiders entered the town. Levi climbed to the roof with a Torah scroll and staked his life on never having dropped a word of its practice.
Two companions vanished at the gates. He hid under a tallit to slip out. He woke coughing, and the cough never left him.
The valley opened under Moses like a court. Heat without a horizon. He asked who entered it, then stepped back from the fire.
The old man asked where the chickens came from. His son told him to shut up and eat the way a dog eats scraps from the floor.
Dust rose off the road outside Tiberias. Three men waited in the brush for a cart. Resh Lakish held the rope. The others kept their knives.
Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai wept on his deathbed while disciples begged a blessing, and Sarahs bier taught whom a eulogy truly honors.
Blind Isaac held his hands above the wool and would not set them down. He had just watched a man walk out of the Temple with the lampstand.
The shell clicked in the dish while a beggar waited at the threshold. The dying man gave the egg away. He never opened his eyes again.
Enemies scattered both processions in the same street. The town buried the tax collector in the sage's tomb. The disciple stayed by the wrong bier.
A closed booklet held names no one should speak. Ninety-seven forces of impurity hid in two Torah words, and Gehenna (afterlife of judgment) shook for the.
