Sample Sources
The sources below are those contained in our three curated collections—covering themes of Passover, Gender Roles, and Holocaust Resistance. They represent a fraction of the thousands of sources that will be available when the full site launches in 2024.
Origen’s Challenge to the Patriarch’s Authority
But what, then, is to be said of this, that the prophets had foretold beforehand of him that Rulers will not cease from Judah, nor leaders from his loins, until he should come, for whom it is reserved…
Judaism as the Demonic Opposite of Zoroastrianism
He made the Torah, the fundamental book of Judaism, and built Jerusalem in order to keep [the Torah?] in it. Dahāg first came to Abraham, the chief of the Jews, and from Abraham to Moses, whose bond…
Hasmonean Victory and Hanukkah
What is Hanukkah? Our rabbis taught that on the twenty-fifth of Kislev [begin] the days of Hanukkah [lit., “dedication”], which are eight. One should not eulogize during them nor fast during them…
Hillel’s Appointment as Patriarch
One time the fourteenth day [of the month of Nisan, when the Passover offering was cooked,] coincided with the Sabbath. [The people] asked Hillel the elder, “Does the Passover offering override the…
Pharisees and Sadducees Debate Halakhah
5. The Aramaic sections in Ezra and Daniel defile the hands. An Aramaic section written in Hebrew, or a Hebrew section written in Aramaic, or [Hebrew written in] Hebrew script does not defile the…
Poems of Lament
[ . . . ] Do not give our inheritance to foreigners, nor our produce to the sons of foreigners. Remember that [we are the removed one]s of your people and the forsaken ones…
“Testimonium Flavianum” of Josephus
Now Jesus, a wise man, was living around this time—if indeed one should properly call him a man. For he was a performer of incredible works, a teacher of those men who receive the truth with pleasure…
Polemic against the Sabbath
“Since you, Trypho, admit that you have read the teachings of him who is our Savior, I do not consider it out of place to have added those few short sayings of his to the quotations from…
Moses Establishes the Gerousia
For it is not fit that causes should be openly determined out of regard to gain or to the status of the suitors, but rather, the judges should esteem what is right before all other things. For…
Pompey’s Conquest
His triumph had such a magnitude that, although it was distributed over two days, still the time would not suffice, but much of what had been prepared could not find a place in the spectacle, enough…
A Wisdom Poem
Hear the commandments of life, O Israel;
give ear, and learn wisdom!
Why is it, O Israel, why is it that you are in the land of your enemies,
that you are growing old in a foreign…
Scribes Slain by Seleucids
Then there came to him [Demetrius son of Seleucus] all the renegade and godless men of Israel; they were led by Alcimus, who wanted to be high priest. They brought to the king this accusation…