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#Flavius Josephus7
  • Inset photo: Members of the New England Patriots kneel on the sidelines as the National Anthem is played before a game against the Houston Texans at Gillette Stadium on September 24, 2017 in Foxboro, Massachusetts.
    Inset photo: Members of the New England Patriots kneel on the sidelines as the National Anthem is played before a game against the Houston Texans at Gillette Stadium on September 24, 2017 in Foxboro, Massachusetts.
    Belief section icon
    False Idols

    Talmudic rabbis disagree on whether the action or the intention of veneration or protest is more important. Plus: Is magic holy?

    byAdam Kirsch
  • Francesco Hayez, 'Destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem,' 1867.
    Francesco Hayez, 'Destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem,' 1867.
    Belief section icon
    The Real Lesson of Tisha B’Av

    The holiday frequently brings sermons about Jewish unity, but the story of the destruction of the Temple offers a very different message

    byYoav Schaefer and Jacob Samuel Abolafia
  • Arts & Letters section icon
    Bibliomancy, and the Sacred Lottery of the Vilna Gaon

    How the technique of chancing upon a passage in a Torah scroll or printed Pentateuch came to be a staple of fortune tellers

    byShraga Bar-On
  • (Photoillustration Tablet Magazine; original photo Oregon State University Special Collections/Flickr)
    (Photoillustration Tablet Magazine; original photo Oregon State University Special Collections/Flickr)
    Belief section icon
    Reconstructing the Life of the Temple and Its All-Too-Human Denizens

    In the Talmud’s descriptions of self-glorifying and self-enriching Temple priests, lessons for today’s public officials

    byAdam Kirsch
  • Belief section icon
    In the Talmud, Minds Full of Torah Instead of Bowls Full of Sacrificial Blood

    Daf Yomi: Could Judaism ever go back to now-alien-seeming rituals from before the destruction of the Temple?

    byAdam Kirsch
  • Mosaic of Jesus at the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, Italy.(Wikimedia Commons)
    Mosaic of Jesus at the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, Italy.(Wikimedia Commons)
    Arts & Letters section icon
    Jesus Was a Rebel and a Bandit. What Made Him Also the Christian Son of God?

    Reza Aslan’s powerful new ‘Zealot’ paints a vivid, accessible portrait of Jesus as a Jewish nationalist

    byAdam Kirsch
  • Arch of Titus Vespasian and the Temple of Vespasian.(New York Public Library)
    Arch of Titus Vespasian and the Temple of Vespasian.(New York Public Library)
    Arts & Letters section icon
    Surrender or Die

    A gripping new history of Flavius Josephus portrays a Roman Jewish writer forever wrestling with his identity

    byAdam Kirsch
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