[Why is Israel’s sacred scriptures included their national history where their failures and successes are recorded for all the world to read?  Imagine students and readers of the Hebrew Scriptures expecting to learn about God and how to live His way and yet they get far more than just laws and commandments, but a record of […]

[Have you ever wondered why a book like ‘Song of Songs’ is part of the Hebrew canon?  Even if it is interpreted as a beautiful love song that is a metaphor about divine love for . . . well . . . take your pick, Israel? Church? Humankind? Still, it is most likely skipped by […]

[This is from our MUST READ/MUST OWN book titled: Pentateuch and Haftarahs, ed. Dr. J.H.Hertz; highlights and reformatting added.] ———————- Ruth Jack M. Sasson   The literary analysis of Ruth differs significantly for those who treat it as a folktale with an earlier, oral form and for those who examine the fine elaboration of its literate narrative […]

[As Christians/Messianics, we—Sinaites—must have studied the book of Daniel no less than a dozen times,  because it had been drummed into our clueless minds  that the only way we could and would and should understand the last prophetic NT book of Revelation is by understanding the OT book of Daniel, for the imagery of both are […]

[This continues our series from A Literary Guide to the Bible, a MUST READ book if you are interested in this approach to reading the Hebrew Bible specifically, though the book is based on the Christian Bible, Old and New Testaments. Please be reminded that Sinai 6000 does not regard the Wisdom Books as ‘Divine Revelation’, since […]

[My first exposure to Scripture was through a reading list for a college literature course.  The one and only ‘biblical’ selection was the “OT” book of Job and rightly so.  Aside from theme, poetic dialogue, plot and the age-old question about “why must man suffer,” some of the most breathtaking passages come straight from the […]

Many of these habits of reticence may be plausibly attributed to an underlying aesthetic predisposition. The masters of ancient Hebrew narrative were clearly writers who delighted in an art of indirection in the possibilities of intimating depths through the mere hint of a surface feature, or through a few words of dialogue fraught with implications. […]

[Continued from: The Bible as ‘Literature’ & The Bible as “Literature” – 2 – Introduction to the ‘Old Testament’.  Reformatted and highlighted for post.]   —————–   The evidence of the texts suggests that–  the literary impulse in ancient Israel was quite as powerful as the religious impulse, or, to put it more accurately, that the two were inextricable, so […]

The events recorded in Esther took place primarily in Shushan, the capital of King Ahasueraus‘ empire.  Shushan, is the Hebrew form of the name Susa, which is in the area known as Eilam, in what is now Iran.   Back then, it was called Bavel (Babylonia).   It was part of the empire of Persia […]