This book captures many ancient voices, a collection of literary excerpts from ancient Jewish books: Jubilees, Josephus, 4 Ezra, Qumran Scrolls, Talmud, Enoch, Baruch, Maccabees, Mishna, Judith, Apocalypse of Moses, Philo, Mishna, Ben Sira, and many others, fifty passages to be exact. The excerpts are mostly short, sometimes even intentionally
Apostle Paul was a first-century religious Jew, trained at the feet of the best rabbis of his time. Though he addresses primarily non-Jewish audiences, Shaul often writes as a rabbi, resorting to midrash and employing metaphors to illustrate his ideas. Sadly, his readers are not used to this
I wanted to share with you a Morning Prayer and, more specifically, a musical piece I created based on it. The words of this song are inspired by the words of the traditional morning blessings found in the Siddur (Jewish Prayer Book). The person who is praying in the early
What is this Sign of Jonah? The traditional thinking is that it's Jesus' resurrection, three days and three nights... But the passage may not be so simple as it appears on the surface. Interested in taking a closer look and discovering another way to read the text?
Over the years of teaching, I have often referred my students to the books of Enoch. But most of the time, I did so with some reservations. I knew that the broadly distributed copies they would likely come across would be littered with archaic and hard-to-digest language. Finally,
Below is a lecture by Shaye J. D. Cohen, who is a Professor of Hebrew Literature and Philosophy in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. He is a well-known historian who also holds a
In Numbers 29, the Torah speaks of sacrifices that should be brought on a very special day, on Yom Kippur. The day is called a day of purification because that is what these sacrifices are supposed to represent. Numbers 7-
In Chapter 6, Prophet Micah asks a question… How should one come before Hashem? Should one come with an olah, a burnt offering, yearling calves? Does God really want thousands of rams or ten thousand rivers of oil? Do I
Leviticus 23:23-25 tells us that on the first day of the seventh month, Israelites are to blow trumpets. This day is called Yom Teruah, "the day of the alarming sound." Besides the proper festival sacrifices, the
The title mentions "unheard wisdom” because the spiritual texts presented in this book are not well known to the masses. Inside are modern, updated, and easy-to-read English translations of four Jewish texts: The Letter of Aristeas, The
From time to time, I hear beautiful spiritual teachings drawn from the apostolic writings that are sadly misunderstood by modern readers of the New Testament. Misunderstandings repeated often enough eventually harden into “obvious truths,” and over time, they can even
In Joshua, we learn why a Canaanite prostitute saved the lives of Israelite spies. She saw something many Israelites did not see about themselves. In Joshua 2:9, she said, Ki natan ADONAI lekhem et ha-arretz “Hashem gave you
This teaching delves into the ongoing human struggle between the choice to serve God wholeheartedly and the temptation to serve personal ambitions. We follow the story of the Hasmonaean priestly family that led an uprising against Hellenistic oppression in the
I recently published a new book that has been "in the works" for a couple of years. I sat on it for a while because I kept making editorial changes that altered its overall flow. Those who know
For anyone who follows Middle Eastern politics and history even a little, the cycles of aggression and conflict between different groups in the region never end. Frankly, that is not new. It has been this way ever since the beginning.
I want to share my recent musical reworking of Psalm 95. It's meant to be a meditative call to worship that is built solidly on the message of this ancient psalm that moves from Hebrew to English and
Do you ever feel stressed or pressured, feel like running away? It's a common response to encountering stress. The world we live in is not for the faint of heart. For people of faith, for those who look
