Since I’m not a Bible scholar, I’m not very embarrassed about the theological and historical errors I’ve made while blogging. But since I’m an American citizen, I am extremely embarrassed about the ...

On the holiest day of the year, at the most auspicious time of the day, the afternoon Mincha Services, we read “The Story of Jonah and the Whale.” Our sages tell us that every minute and every second ...

SAN ANGELO — Being a prophet in the Old Testament was hard. Nobody listened to Jeremiah. Hosea had to marry a prostitute. Ezekiel had to chop his hair off, lay in bed for just over a year and two ...

Often unnoticed as the tale of Jonah being swallowed by a whale is read in synagogue on Yom Kippur is a much smaller animal. Jonah, “Yonah” in Hebrew, means a dove. As the two Israeli scholars Menahem ...

Something a little different from me this week! I was once asked to write the story of Jonah in rhyme which was published in a book of stories for children and given to every primary school library in ...

Christian scholars look for ways to connect with Muslims over the shared story of Jonah. Twenty miles south of Beirut is a sandy beach called Jiyeh. It’s a rare interlude in Lebanon’s rocky coastline, ...

The holiest day in the Jewish calendar is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, with its theme of repentance. And one of the synagogue readings for Yom Kippur is the Book of Jonah (in Hebrew, sefer Yonah) ...

The principal character in this small prophecy is Jonah, son of Amittai. We read of him in 2 Kings 14:25, in which the additional information is given that he was from Gath-hepher, in the territory of ...

The Jonah story, traditionally read on Yom Kippur is often explained as being about repentance. However, in truth it’s mostly the tale of a troubled guy who feels called by God, but at the same time ...

From a talking donkey to a man being eaten by a giant fish, the Bible has no shortage of strange stories. In her new book "A Most Peculiar Book: The Inherent Strangeness of the Bible" (Oxford ...

There have been two solar eclipses: The first occurred on August 21st, 2017, and the second one will occur on April 8th, 2024. It appears that these two eclipses mark a giant "X marks the spot" on ...