059 If I had a little sister, Rachel with sparkling eyes, wooed for seven years and loved by him, I’d swathe myself in her mantle, enwrap myself in her night. … One single night! Rachel, to taste his tender touch till day unmasks. One single...

018 Scholars know it, but most lay people don’t. The first two and a half verses of the Book of Ezra (Ezra 1:1–3a) are identical to the last two verses of the second Book of Chronicles (2 Chronicles 36:22–23). These repeated verses at the end of...

030031 031 Archaeological artifacts do not interpret themselves. Here’s a case in point: Some 40 relatively small altars were found in at...

042 In some ways—oddly enough—the more than 200 biblical manuscripts in Hebrew found among the Dead Sea Scrolls have elevated the authority of the Greek Septuagint at the expense of the Masoretic text, the received Hebrew version preserved by the...

018019 020In the last century, especially in the last few decades, historians of Christianity have increasingly understood Jesus of Nazareth...

018019 019Try to imagine flying to a non-existent island on an airplane that has not yet been invented. Even if this impossible trip were to...

028 Among the oft-derided Christian literalists, it is said that the Bible is the wholly inspired and inerrant Word of God, and that Holy Spirit guided the mind and hand of its human authors. Orthodox Jews are even more extreme in their...

036 Thirty million copies sold. Published in 40 languages. A ten-million-dollar advertising budget, including prime-time television. All royalties going to a charitable foundation. The Living Bible, completed in 1971 and having appeared in...