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,
Ancient Scrolls found in Israel, in the caves of Qumran region near the Dead Sea in the 1940s were the find of the century 20th century. An impressive collection of ancient Jewish writings contained what is now the oldest known
The scholars assume that the Dead Sea Scrolls library found in Qumran belonged to Jews who inhabited a nearby settlement. Where did Qumran Jews fit in in the greater Jewish society? What do we know about their practices from the
What are the contents of the scrolls found in the caves of Qumran? Why did the scholars debate their translations for so long? What new things did these findings teach us about the Hebrew Bible and other ancient texts? In
For generations, the scholars were wrong about the Jewish spirituality of the first century. The evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls found in the Qumran region shows uncanny similarity with some of the teachings found in the New Testament. In
If you're heading to a Passover Seder, it helps to know a little bit about what to expect. This video explains the basics, from the props on the table to the songs people sing.
It's one of America's favorite holidays, but what's the real story behind the tricks and treats of Halloween? For Jews Haloween is foreign and pagan, clearly prohibited by Torah. Many Christians feel uneasy with
Anyone familiar with stories about Jesus, even those who have never read the gospels for themselves heard of Pontius Pilate who ordered the crucifixion. Besides the New Testament Pilate was also mentioned by Josephus at the end of the 1st
Dr. Mark Kinzer is one of the most prominent Messianic Jewish theologians. And Dr. Wright is a very well-known author and theologian, a retired archbishop of the Church of England who authored a long list of theological books. This
There is a long-standing debate over Sunday and Saturday among Christ-followers, both Jewish and non-Jewish. The institution of Sunday in historical Christianity is a well-known fact and for many Christians, their very identity is tied to
Researchers from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the Israel Antiquities Authority and Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, believe they have discovered the Philistine town near Kiryat Gat, immortalized in the Biblical narrative. Ziklag is mentioned multiple times in the Bible
From time to time, I get asked to recommend some good websites for studying Biblical texts and for free research resources. So in this article, I decided to offer a collection of links with some brief annotations. If you are
Archaeologists in Jordan have uncovered a Roman-era tomb decorated with spectacular frescoes (Aramaic Comics) that include some very elaborate drawings. The unique feature of the frescoes is that the titles and descriptions were written in Aramaic, but using the
