This 45-day reading tool will guide you through the Deuterocanon/Apocrypha, books accepted by the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox traditions. Download this resource Day 1 Tobit 1.1-22 Tobit Is Taken Prisoner to AssyriaDay 2 Tobit 2.1—3.17 Tobit Goes BlindDay 3 Tobit 4.1-21 Tobit… Read More

Jews have celebrated this festival for thousands of years. Find out the significance of this celebration and why it has endured. In ancient rabbinic tradition, Sukkot, sometimes called the “Feast of Booths,” is referred to as he-chag, or The Holiday. Today, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are viewed by the… Read More

Alexander the Great spread Hellenism throughout the ancient world. But what did he have to do with the Bible? Find out here. Alexander III of Macedon, known as “Alexander the Great” lived from 356 to 323 B.C. and is remembered as one of the greatest military leaders in history. Read More

They weren’t priests, but they weren’t commoners. So who were the Pharisees and what was their role in Jewish life? Find out here. By Jesus’ day, it was common for Jewish people to meet in private homes for worship and to study the Scriptures. This practice… Read More

They were the rebels of Palestine. Read about who they were and what they believed in. The Maccabees, as discussed earlier, insisted that the Jewish people have their own king. They were defeated when the Romans took over the land in 63 B.C. Later attempts to win freedom and… Read More

Everything in changes. In the years before Roman rule, Palestine changed frequently. Find out what these changes were and how they affected New Testament society. The centuries leading up to Jesus’ birth were not politically stable in the area known as Palestine. The Jewish people who returned to Judah… Read More

When the Jews returned to their homeland after the exile things changed. Find out about the factors that influenced the Jews after they returned to Judea. In Babylon  The Bible provides little information about the years in the sixth century B.C. when many of the Israelite people lived in exile… Read More

Find out what different faith traditions in Western Christianity say about the Deuterocanonical books and what role these books play in the Old Testament canon. The term “apocrypha” is Greek for “hidden or secret (things).” When Jerome translated the Scriptures into Latin in the late fourth century, he noted… Read More

Alexandria was a major center of learning and Jewish scholarship. Read more about this ancient city and its influence on the Hellenized world. At the height of the Roman Empire, Alexandria in Egypt was the largest city in the empire after Rome. Its population of close to one million… Read More

First century Judaism revolved around the temple. So did the Sadducees. Read about what these Jewish leaders believed and why they eventually disappeared. This group’s name may come from Zadok, the high priest of Israel at the time of King David. The Sadducees may have also been descendants… Read More