19 myths
A razor moves toward Samson's hair in Delilah's room, and what falls is not a hairstyle but the visible edge of a vow set on him before birth.
Rebekah died with only the disgraced Esau free to walk at the head of her burial, so the family carried her body out at night.
Jethro had served every idol in Midian. He watched Moses judge alone from dawn to dark, then said four quiet words that saved a nation.
Esau hauls Judith back from the mountains of Seir to Hebron the same day, while Jacob waits unmarried at the house of study.
Leah holds Zilpah's newborn son, names him Asher, praise, and says aloud that every mouth will praise her. Why does she dare?
Pharaoh sent wagons painted with idols to carry old Jacob into Egypt. Judah saw the images first, and reached for fire.
Rachel said nothing on her wedding night, Saul said nothing to his uncle, and a thousand years later Esther found the silence she needed.
Haman passes through the gate of Shushan and every back bends but one. Mordecai stays upright, and the court has a taunt ready for him.
Moses waited at the door of the tent for thirty-eight years and no voice came. He had done nothing wrong. The generation under judgment was dying off.
The coat had been enough to close the grave. In Goshen, Jacob sat at the table and watched Joseph eat bread like any living man.
Isaac put a hand on Jacob's head and named Mastema. That night escort angels climbed to match his sleeping face against the Throne.
Joseph cleared the room, looked at eleven men from Canaan, and opened his mouth in a language no Egyptian viceroy should have known.
The beggar said he was king. They set a bowl of grits before him. In Jerusalem a man with hidden feet still sat on Solomon's throne.
She was twelve and she was being held in the prince's house when she overheard what the men downstairs were planning to do to her family.
Jacob engraved the child's whole history on a gold plate and hung it around her neck. Then he left her at the border of Egypt for somebody else to find.
Ash clung to the hills. He closed twenty volumes on eighty-three names, ending with a man chosen by lot who did not know the rites.
A king raised two look-alike boys, one Jewish and one not. A rabbi set out clustered grapes and loose grapes, and watched which hand chose which.
Boys lined the road to the prince and shouted Jew. He threw them gold, and the table went quiet, waiting for a man to explain.
He reached for bread with dry hands in a Jewish house. The kitchen read those hands, and pork arrived on a Jewish plate.
