228 myths · Page 2 of 8
Two exiled angels used Jacob's dream ladder to return to heaven, but four empires climbed after them, and Rome would not stop.
The officers of Israel came out of the palace beaten and found Moses at the gate. You have put a sword in their hand to kill us, they said.
Cain killed his brother and then, the rabbis say, invented repentance. Adam heard about it and struck his own face. He had not figured it out yet.
The Book of Tobit opens with Israelites in exile celebrating while the Temple lies in ruins. One man refuses to join them. That refusal is the story.
The flood ended, but Noah would not open the ark until God swore. On dry ground, his grief turned into an accusation against heaven.
An angel handed Levi a sword in a dream. He woke on the mountainside, found a shield of brass in the grass, and told nobody for the rest of his life.
The gold was powder and nobody in the camp would eat. God answered the fasting by calling them His children, then swore their tears would turn to rejoicing.
A headless demon named Envy wanted Solomon's head. Soon Asmodeus wore the king's face, while Solomon begged to be recognized.
Solomon flew on a carpet 60 miles wide and praised his own power. The wind dropped 40,000 men until the king learned one word again.
After seven years of famine, Joel told Israel to plant the last grain. The seed came from ant hills, and the covenant held.
Three days after the sea split, Israel met water it could not drink and learned that confession can sweeten a bitter world.
Moses trembled before the decree after the Golden Calf, then held God to the mercy and humility already written into Torah.
David fled Jerusalem weeping, but a psalm rose from him because punishment still carried signs of mercy, survival, and return.
Elijah held back rain until Ahab repented, but God answered with a dry patch of creation that had waited since the first mist.
Cain answered the verdict with a verse. You carry the whole world, he said, and you cannot carry me? God took half the sentence off.
Three men advised Pharaoh about the Hebrews. One was thrown out for defending them, one said nothing useful, and one of them thought of the river.
David had killed a man and taken his wife. God sent Nathan with a parable of a stolen lamb. The king condemned himself before he knew the accusation.
The angels showed Enoch the rule of the sun and he wrote it down. He did not hand the record to his son. He buried it in the earth before the flood came.
The firstborn was thirty years old when he committed the act. God struck him with a plague in his loins. Jacob's prayer saved his life.
When the king who defiled the Temple fell from his chariot and began to rot alive, he made a vow to God he had spent years destroying. God did not accept it.
Judah's two sons died after marrying Tamar. When he withheld his third son, she took a veil, sat at the crossroads, and waited for him.
On his deathbed Judah named every strength he had possessed, then told his sons what had undone him. The wine did what war never could.
Jethro had been the chief idol priest of Midian. Then he gave the idols back and said nothing about why. The city placed him under a ban.
After the expulsion, Adam stood neck-deep on a stone in the Jordan and asked the fish to grieve alongside him. The river ceased to flow.
Seth's descendants lived near Paradise for generations, pious and untouched. Then they looked down at the Cainites and made a choice they could not take back.
Seven hundred thousand people begged at the ark door and Noah shouted them down. He had been standing outside it himself a moment earlier.
His brothers took the crown off him and put him out of the family. A Canaanite king threw him a feast, and the king's daughter kept his cup full.
Judah saved Joseph from murder but sold him into slavery. His years in Adullam, with dead sons and a dead wife, were the price of a half-done rescue.
Standing before Egypt's Viceroy, Judah invoked the law of companions taken together. Joseph answered that only the one who stole should remain.
Reuben told Jacob he had liver pain. The real sickness was guilt over Bilhah and Joseph. What followed was seven years of grueling, silent penance.
