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.
God’s Celestial Palace and Enoch’s Commission
And in the vision thus it appeared to me: Behold, clouds called me in the vision, and mists summoned me. Shooting-stars and lightnings urged me on and whirled me along, and in my vision winds gave me…
Saul and the Necromancer
To what was Saul comparable at that time [when he swore by God that no harm would come to the necromancer]? [It is comparable] to a woman who is with her lover and swears by her husband’s life.
Transl…
Em, Abaye’s Teacher
R. Yoḥanan [never saw his parents]. When his mother was pregnant with him, his father died; [and when] she gave birth to him, his mother died. And the same [is true of] Abaye.
[The…
Mishnah Yoma
6. If one is seized by a ravenous hunger, they feed him even impure things until his eyes light up [and he returns to health]. If one was bit by a mad dog, they do not feed him…
Tosefta Ketubbot
They force [a spouse] to move from a town that has a gentile majority to a town that has a Jewish majority, but they do not force [a spouse] to move from a town that has a Jewish majority to a town…
Song of Songs Rabbah
1:1:8. Another explanation: The song of songs, that is what [is meant when] Scripture says: Moreover [ve-yoter], Kohelet was wise (Ecclesiastes 12:9). Had another person composed them, you would have…
Civil War over Hasmonean Succession
The unexpected success won by Aristobulus alarmed his enemies, most notably Antipater, for whom he had a long-standing detestation. Antipater was an Idumaean by birth, and ancestry, wealth, and other…
Olympic Games
Because of this, Herod departed even more from the ancestral customs and gradually corrupted the ancient way of life, which should have been inviolable, through the introduction of foreign practices…
Roman Exposure, Tragedy, and Burning of the Law
After the death of Herod the king of Chalcis, Claudius appointed to the kingship his nephew Agrippa (the son of Herod’s brother Agrippa). As procurator of the rest of the province Tiberius Alexander…
Josephus Rescued from the City
Meanwhile Josephus, still insistently going round outside the city to reiterate his appeals, was struck on the head by a stone and dropped senseless on the spot. The Jews made a dash for his body, and…
Ban on Circumcision
At this time also the Jews began war, because they were forbidden to practice circumcision.
Translated by David Magie.
Epiphanius on a Certain Joseph and the Patriarch
One of them was Josephus—not the ancient Josephus, the author and chronicler, but Josephus of Tiberias, [born] during the old age of the Emperor Constantine of blessed memory. This Josephus…