Lechem Hapanim: Bread in the Presence of YHWH
Each week, twelve fresh loaves of bread were placed before YHWH in the Tabernacle and Temple. What do we know about the practice and its significance?
Ptolemy II’s Gift to the Temple in the Letter of Aristeas
The Letter of Aristeas embellishes its account of Ptolemy’s gift of a table and bowls to the Jerusalem Temple with what Greek rhetoric calls ekphrasis, a graphic description of a thing or person intended to bring the subject vividly to the eyes of the reader. What is the purpose of this embellishment?
The Zer
What exactly is the זֵר (zer), mentioned ten times in the furnishing of the tabernacle? A test case for the importance of archaeology in understanding Torah.