COIMBRA, Portugal (JTA) — From its mountaintop perch, the University of Coimbra towers majestically over the downtown square that used to be the regional headquarters of the Portuguese Inquisition. It’s a fitting location for the 737-year-old university, the seventh oldest in the world, which outsmarted and outlived the campaign of persecution against Jews and freethinkers…
The new Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., is chock full of Torahs and cutting edge technology, but lacks the evangelical touch that many were expecting, the Washington Post reported. The $500 million museum, which opens next month, is funded primarily by the Green family, which owns Hobby Lobby, a conservative Christian group that…
Genesis famously offers two “versions” of Adam and Eve’s creation. The first, in the first chapter of Genesis, is a broad overview: “And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” The second chapter of Genesis presents a more detailed narrative: God forms…
Noah’s Ark was used to save the world’s animals from perishing in a flood. Its to-size replica, opened in 2016, may be used to save its parent organization from paying taxes. Ark Encounter, a museum with a life-size replica of the biblical Noah’s Ark, is engaged in an escalating dispute with the city council of…
Archaeologists funded by Christian organizations are taking a shovel — again — to Tel Shiloh, an archaeological site that was a major center of worship for ancient Israelites. They’re looking for the ark of the covenant, the holy chest containing the two stone tablets on which Moses is said to have written the Ten Commandments,…
Researchers from Cambridge have identified the author of an 10th century collection of biblical scriptures: Samuel ben Jacob, the same scribe who penned the Leningrad Codex. The Codex is the main Hebrew copy of the bible on which most modern translations are based. The manuscript contains sections from Prophets, Judges and Kings, and was likely…
If you’re looking for some light weekend reading, well, the Cambridge Digital Library has got you covered — that is, if you can read ancient Hebrew text. As Open Culture reports, the Library digitized the Nash Papyrus, “a second-century BCE fragment containing the text of the Ten Commandments followed by the Šemaʿ,” back in 2012….
An ultra-Orthodox group filed a complaint with Jerusalem police after HaGefen, a Messianic Jewish publisher, offered a new translation of the Bible to teenagers at Israel’s annual Hebrew Book Week. Yad L’Achim, a prominent activist group that has been known for harassing Christian missionaries to Israel and voicing opposition to Arab-Israeli marriages, complained that the…
