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,
The Tosefta is a rabbinic text often unfamiliar to people. There is a perfectly good explanation why. When the text of Mishna, the Jewish oral traditions, was being compiled into writing by Yehudah HaNassi (second century CE), some discussions were
One of the world's foremost experts on the Dead Sea Scrolls provides an authoritative English translation of the two hundred longest and most important nonbiblical Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran. This book is also supplied with introductory
One unique prayer is repeated multiple times daily in Jewish Prayer services besides the Shema (Deut 6:4-9). It's a prayer composed in Aramaic called Kaddish. In modern practice, it is never recited alone, and its ancient
Torah says that Olah was to be brought to the entrance of the tent. Why? Because not every offering is automatically accepted. The priests carefully examined offerings at the entrance, and only then were they presented to God on the
Earlier, in 2023 and 2024, I crafted new translations of 1 Enoch and 2 Enoch. The book's archaic English versions are broadly available across the internet for free. Yet, my goal was to create modern and easy-to-
According to researchers of antiquity driving away bad luck, the evil eye, and, in short, envious people—this was one of the purposes of mosaics in Ancient Rome. You may know of amulets, incantations, but art and specific mosaics were
Are you familiar with Tisha B'Av? On the Jewish calendar, it's a day of fasting and introspection for many reasons. Throughout history, this day has been a day of calamity for Israel as a people at
Sometimes we get tired of fighting for just about everything in life. Moses was at the end of his life, well over a hundred, and yet he was still in a fight. In Numbers 31, Moses was told that he
Though I am interested in other religions beyond Judaism and Christianity, I rarely talk about them because they are outside of my area of expertise. I came across a video that explains how Muslims view the Quran in a very
Midrash Rabbah is a homeletic, ethical, and moral commentary on the Torah expounded by the Rabbis during Talmudic times. The Midrash represents the essence of Judaism, its ethical standards, and its insight into the human heart in a unique literary
For some, reading Midrash is a beloved preoccupation, and others find it frustrating. Midrash can be beautiful and very inspiring, yet for those who lean toward more strict analytical thought, it seems to take way too many liberties in explaining
In Torah, in parsha Shemot (Exodus 6), we read how a new king arose in Egypt, a king who did not know Joseph. This was not great for Jacob's family. His fear of the Unknown (in his case,
