170 myths · Page 5 of 6
Abraham held the world and still asked for the Temple. Jacob's pillow stones became beams. Solomon's house built itself.
Love climbed past every title. God named Israel daughter, then sister, then mother, while Israel's heart stayed awake in exile's sleep.
Hadrian stopped on the road to mock an old man planting fig saplings. Three years later the old man walked into camp with a basket.
Solomon multiplied wives, horses, and gold against the king's law. Heaven sent an angel wearing his face, and the real king ate grits.
A king first called his girl daughter, then sister, then mother as love grew. Rabbi Elazar mapped that climb onto God and Israel, and earned a kiss.
Hirom's scribes set the Temple 143 years before Carthage rose. Solomon's copper altar left service the day a greater house opened.
For a long stretch only God knew what would become of the House. Then He told a fugitive asleep on a rock, who woke at dawn and poured oil over the stone.
The Great Assembly moves to lock Solomon out of the World to Come until David's likeness bows, fire leaps, and a bat kol, a heavenly voice, forbids the ban.
Nebuchadnezzar climbs Solomon's golden steps and a lion paw shatters his thigh. Only Cyrus sits whole on the seat that once judged beasts.
Solomon's feast stalls when one bird is missing. The wild rooster returns from the east with news of a queen and a city of gold dust.
Solomon read the death dates off a work crew Pharaoh sent him. Then he opened the law of the red heifer and could not get anywhere with it.
The demon king strips Solomon of power and flings his ring into the deep, until a fish on a foreign table returns the throne with the meal.
Temple spice filled the earth on dedication day. Solomon wept for coming ruin while cedar beams woke and bore fruit for priests' children.
A barefoot widow ran out of her hut and begged the chained prisoner not to lean on her wall. He bent away so hard he snapped one of his own bones.
Solomon sang the gates open for the King of glory. They mistook him for that King and lowered their lintels to crush him.
Asahels name broke Davids casualty list. Pharaoh's daughter broke Solomons list of loves. That wedding day Gabriel planted a reed in the sea, and Rome rose.
A rabbinic court drew up a list of men shut out of the world to come and moved to add the king who built the Temple. Then the Presence stood up to argue.
Nebuchadnezzar asked how a rabbit shaves her head. Ben Sira answered with Solomon, quicklime, and a queen whose hair fell before Babylon's line began.
A son told his father that day laborers from Abraham's line could not be fed enough, even at the daily scale of Solomon's kitchen.
Nathan told David his hands had spilled too much blood to build the House. Better the anger fall on stone and cedar than on people, God said.
When Solomon shrugged at the ban on many wives, the tiny letter yod sued before God, and Pharaoh mocked Moses for arriving without a crown.
Two women claim one living infant before Solomon's throne. He calls for a sword to split the child, and the true mothers cry stops the blade.
The real king wandered from study house to study house saying he had once ruled Israel. People beat him with a reed and set porridge in front of him.
Moses blessed Asher to dip his foot in oil. Generations later a Roman bought one household crop for eighteen thousand zuzim and still left oil on the ground.
Water mixed into wine. Poppy oil into olive oil. A scale beam long on one side and short on the other. Students wrote while their stomachs turned.
Unlike jealous kings, the King of Glory shared staff, whirlwind, throne, and even name, binding Israel to Heaven through Moses the joiner.
Crowned without a single horse, Solomon later filled stables and courts, still able to unmask a weeping liar with three quiet questions.
A youth who understood bird speech told a king his throne would fall, then learned that one lie can crack a city built on truth.
Cyrus funded Jerusalem's house and ordered wood set low in the walls. Solomon had set cedar high. The sages heard a king planning for a future fire.
Sages nearly suppressed Ecclesiastes as heresy. A final clause on judgment, and wisdom answering at the gates, kept the scroll open.
