Jewish Texts

Although modern traditionalist Judaism uniformly affirms the divinity of the Torah, classical sources disagree on what role Moses had in its production.

Together with the Mishnah, these texts make up what is known as Rabbinic Judaism.

The rabbis imagined the Bible's Vashti as both evil villain and tragic heroine.

Essential vocabulary for understanding the Talmud.

A book that challenges the rest of the Bible by asking how a good God can permit so much suffering.

A warrior and prophetess, she's the only woman in the Hebrew Bible with hard political power who is portrayed positively.

Isaac's wife and Jacob's mother, the second matriarch survived a difficult pregnancy and engineered the future of the Jewish people.

A story about prophecy and repentance—but not in the way you think.

He could kill a lion or topple a temple with his bare hands, but succumbed to the love of a treacherous woman. Many wild traditions circulated about the first Jewish superhero.

Israel’s third patriarch was born into great dysfunction, but found ways to create the first cohesive family in the Bible.

The first wife of Jacob endured a loveless marriage, but her story is one of perseverance.

One of the Bible’s many barren women, she had the grace and grit to become mother to the "Jewish Hercules."