3,491 texts · Page 5 of 73
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 ...
Buried in a cave near the Dead Sea for two thousand years, the War Scroll (Megillat HaMilchamah, מגילת המלחמה) lays out the most detailed battle plan ever written for the end of th...
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 ...
One of the most mysterious poems in the Thanksgiving Hymns describes a woman in labor during a cosmic storm—and what she gives birth to may be the Messiah. The hymn (column 11) ope...
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-...
The Pesher Habakkuk is one of the first Dead Sea Scrolls ever read by modern eyes, and it introduced the world to a revolutionary method of interpreting scripture. The Hebrew word ...
The Aramaic Levi Document (ALD) is one of the oldest texts found among the Dead Sea Scrolls—parts of it may date to the 3rd century BCE, making it older than most of the books of t...
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 ...
Cain was the first city builder. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, after marrying his wife Qalmana, Cain...
The Hebrew Bible names Adam's famous sons. But the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, names the ones you have never heard ...
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...
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 ...
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...
After Joshua died, Israel had no leader. The people asked God who should fight the Canaanites, and God told them to cast lots. The lot fell on Kenaz, from the tribe of Caleb, who b...
The period of the Judges was an era of divine intervention so direct that storms fought battles and fires executed corrupt leaders. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th...
From the Exodus to the destruction of the First Temple, Israel was exiled eight times. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses...
Two false prophets in Babylon, Ahab ben Kolaya and Zedekiah ben Maaseyah, used their religious authority to commit adultery and fraud. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 1...
The fall of Babylon began with a friendship and ended with a finger. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, G...
God placed seven planets in the firmament and gave each one a distinct personality. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle compiled by Jerahmeel ...
Before every human birth, an angel named Lailah (לילה) receives a direct order from God. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle compiled by Jerah...
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...
Rabbi Joshua ben Levi was walking on the road when he met the prophet Elijah. "Would you like to see the gates of Gehinnom (the place of spiritual purification after death)?" Elija...
Daniel stood before King Belshazzar of Babylon and delivered the verdict no ruler wants to hear. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle compiled ...
The jealous princes of Babylon set a trap with surgical precision. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, the...
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 ...
Cyrus conquered the known world because God strengthened his hand. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, God...
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...
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...
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...
The fourth beast in Daniel's vision had arrived. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle preserved by Moses Gaster in 1899, the kingdom of Rome ro...
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 picture in the vision swayed. From its left side, a heathen people emerged. They fell upon those on the right side, the people of Abraham's seed, and pillaged them. Men, women,...
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,...
While God was still speaking, Abraham suddenly found himself back upon the earth. "O Eternal, Mighty One," he said, "I am no longer in the glory in which I was while on high, and w...
The vision was nearly complete. God spoke His final words to Abraham, circling back from the cosmic future to the personal promise that had started everything. "Therefore hear, O A...
God gave Enoch his mission — and a deadline. "Everything I have told you," the Lord said, "everything you have seen — from the lowest heaven to My throne, all the hosts and all the...
The city was already dead. It just hadn't fallen yet. In the twenty-fifth year of King Jeconiah's reign over Judah, the word of God came to Baruch son of Neriah — the faithful scri...
Baruch stood on Mount Zion. The ruins smoked beneath him. And then a voice fell from the height of heaven like a stone. "Stand on your feet, Baruch, and hear the word of the mighty...
Twelve catastrophes. Stacked on top of each other. Each one worse than the last. This is what God revealed to Baruch about the end of the world — and it reads like a countdown to a...
"Many have been created, but few shall be saved." With those words ringing in his ears, Ezra launched into the most daring prayer in all of Jewish apocalyptic literature — a prayer...
Seven days of fasting. Then, in the dead of night, Ezra dreamed. A wind rose from the sea and churned all its waves. And from the heart of the sea — not its surface, not its shallo...
On the third day, Ezra sat under an oak tree. A voice came from a bush opposite him. "Ezra, Ezra." He rose to his feet. "Here I am, Lord." The voice from the bush was deliberate. U...
Levi, third son of Jacob and Leah, called his sons together when he knew his death was near. It had been revealed to him that he would die. When they gathered, he told them everyth...
Judah, fourth son of Jacob and Leah, gathered his sons and told them everything. His mother had named him Judah, saying, "I give thanks to the Lord, because He has given me a fourt...
Naphtali, eighth son of Jacob, born of Bilhah, was dying in his hundred and thirtieth year. His sons gathered on the first day of the seventh month. He was still in good health. He...
Even the great prophet Elijah, the fiery champion of God, reached that point. Imagine this: Elijah, fresh from his triumph over the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel (I Kings 18), i...
The Book of Ezekiel, one of the most powerful and enigmatic texts in the Hebrew Bible, opens with just such an experience. We find Ezekiel, a priest, in exile, far from Jerusalem, ...
Tzadkiel isn't just any celestial being. He's the one who lovingly clothes each soul arriving in Paradise with garments of incredible purity, woven by the "Bride of God." – the car...
