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,
This series of lectures on Paul’s Letter to the Romans raises multiple questions that some may consider controversial, as the apostle's words are not explained in a traditional manner. The lectures are built on a presupposition of
In Deuteronomy Moses recounts the events that have already happened. He gives a summary of events that have transpired during many years in the wilderness. At the very beginning of his speech, he admonishes the Israelites to take possession of
The Letter to the Romans emerges from a complicated social world shaped by Roman imperial politics, shifting relationships between Jews and Gentiles, and the trauma of Jewish diaspora being expelled and later readmitted to Rome. Behind Paul’s letter, which
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This series of lectures addresses key passages and themes in Paul’s Letter to the Romans, a pivotal book for Christian theological understanding. They were delivered live to a mixed audience at a Messianic Synagogue. As such, they express a
When you sign up at PSHIR.COM, your free account gives you access to piles of resources in Jewish and Biblical studies, select audio and video segments, and many extended topic previews. At PSHIR.COM, you don't have
I wanted to share with you a video I made recently for my YouTube channel. I created several similar videos where I like to present samples of ancient Jewish compositions people might have never read that I have translated. I
In Torah, in Numbers, we encounter an insightful story of how bad news was brought back to the Israelite community. Ten investigators of the Land of Promise were thoroughly pessimistic about the prospects of the sons of Jacob conquering Canaan.
Curiosity drives many of us. Knowledge is often sought after because it opens new opportunities and allows us to comprehend the world around us in a deeper and more nuanced sense. But not all doors we encounter are meant to
Jesus, or as he was known to his family and friends, Yeshua, was a teacher of Torah's wisdom, a first-century rabbi. And he was surrounded by other rabbis with similar and sometimes alternative ideas that the gospels
Anyone familiar with stories about Jesus, even those who have never read the gospels for themselves, has heard of Pontius Pilate, who ordered the crucifixion. Some see him as a villain, others as a calculating administrator of Roman affairs caught
The themes of ruin and restoration are at the core of the Jewish apocalyptic genre. Even the most bitter laments are accompanied by hope when one is tethered to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That is precisely what
