Iran and Israel: The Ancient Persian Prophecies

The modern relationship between Iran and Israel is often viewed through the lens of present tensions, yet the ancient record tells a far more complex story. In the pages of the Hebrew Bible, the people of Judea and the Persians repeatedly encounter one another at pivotal moments in history. Kings, prophets, and imperial decrees intertwine the destinies of these two peoples in ways that continue to intrigue historians and readers of the biblical text alike.

In this session, we will step back into the ancient world to explore the biblical narratives and prophetic passages that connect Israel and Persia. Rather than focusing on modern politics, we will examine the historical and literary traditions preserved in the Tanakh that reveal a long and surprising relationship between these cultures. By revisiting these ancient accounts and prophecies, we will consider how the biblical writers understood the role of Persia in Israel’s story—and why these texts continue to invite reflection on whether the relationship between these two peoples might one day take a different course again.

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The Torah of David

What was “Torah” in the time of David? When Scripture calls him a man after God’s own heart and the benchmark for Israel’s kings, what does that assume about his relationship to the "Law of Moses?" Did David know the Torah as we know it? Did he read it, cite it, govern by it? Or does the biblical record present a more layered and developing picture than later tradition suggests? In this session, we will examine the narratives and the psalms attributed to David, tracing what they reveal, and what they do not, about Torah and the formation of Israel’s sacred texts.

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What Does God Want?

Is it possible that one verse in the Hebrew Bible summarizes what God wants from humanity? It has been quoted and misquoted, translated and mistranslated. In this session, we take a closer look at a single passage that may come nearer than any other to answering the question: What does God want?

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The Mummified Manuscripts of the Bible

When the first reports of ancient scrolls found near the Dead Sea began to emerge, they included strange and unexpected details. The manuscripts were described as wrapped like mummies, darkened with age, and smelling of funerary aromas. What do these physical characteristics tell us about the world’s oldest biblical texts? And do they demand a reassessment of other mummified manuscript fragments, also discovered in a cave near the Dead Sea eighty years before the discovery of the famous Dead Sea Scrolls?

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The Hebrew Book of the Dead

The Hebrew Book of the Dead explores what the Hebrew Bible reveals about death, the dead, and, if anything, what lies beyond the grave. While other ancient cultures, such as Egypt, produced funerary texts to guide the dead in the afterlife, most famously The Book of the Dead, the Hebrew Bible approaches death differently. Scattered across its laws, narratives, poetry, and prophecies are reflections on mortality, silence, remembrance, and the fate of all living beings. Through careful historical and textual study, this class listens to the Bible’s own voices, sometimes clear, sometimes restrained, to ask how ancient Hebrew writers understood death and life beyond the boundary of the living.

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The Bible's Missing Pieces

The title plays on a double meaning: fragments of ancient history that belong to the Bible's world, yet lie outside its pages, or gaps within the Bible itself, waiting to be filled by external evidence.

In this class, we examine a select group of archaeological inscriptions from the ancient Near East. These independent sources attest to the historical reality of certain biblical figures and events while offering alternative perspectives that confirm, expand, or contrast the narratives in Scripture.

Can archaeology supply the missing pieces? Can foreign voices round out stories we thought we knew?

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The Satanic Scriptures

In this session, we examine how the biblical writers used the Hebrew term satan - שָׂטָן to establish the original idea, enabling us to see how later interpretation and theological imagination found THE DEVIL in the details, thus giving “him” more than his proper due.

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Melchizedek: El Elyon's Eternal Priest

This class examines ancient sources on El Elyon’s enigmatic priest and his “eternal” priesthood, from the Hebrew Bible and Josephus to Hebrews and the Dead Sea Scrolls, to ask what can responsibly be said about Melchizedek based on the surviving sources.

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The Secret to Loving God

Four texts in the Pentateuch command humans to love God. This class traces a long and varied discussion from Moses to Jesus, and through the teachings of their spiritual descendants. A survey of ancient writings reveals the secret to loving God, not in a new commandment, but an ancient one.

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What Do the Shapira Fragments Really Say?

In this session, I argue that we can know with confidence what the Shapira Fragments say—and I show why. Drawing viewers into the earliest efforts to assemble and decipher the sixteen leather strips, we will examine the material and scribal evidence that makes a reliable reconstruction possible. Using charts, graphics, and the firsthand reports of the nineteenth-century scholars who handled the fragments, we will look at their physical features, layout, letterforms, scribal hands, and how multiple copies of the same text were identified. With this foundation in place, we will then turn to what the fragments actually reveal—and why their contents matter for understanding the earliest form of Israel’s sacred tradition.

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