The Hebrew Scriptures, known to non-Jews as "the Old Testament," is literally a library of ancient texts and sources. The first part to crystallize was the Five Books of Moses. Soon thereafter the books of the Prophets were joined to them. Slower to develop was the concept that certain books of wisdom—what we now call the Writings—should also be considered sacred.

Examining these books, one by one, we discover why each became indispensable for teachers of Jewish, and also Christian, belief. From later histories like Chronicles and Ezra and Nehemiah, to Psalms and Proverbs, to the novels of Ruth and Esther, to the blood-soaked Book of Lamentations and the social criticism of Ecclesiastes, from the erotic poetry of Song of Songs to the monumental theology of the Book of Job and the messianic aspirations of the Book of Daniel, we delineate the development of the Writings through the eyes of those who included them in the corpus of Scriptures.

Surely, it is not by accident that these rich treasures of literature and belief are known to us, even to this day, as the wisdom literature of the Bible.

Discover

The making of the Biblical Canon and why it led to the inclusion of the Writings

The development of writing itself in the ancient Near East

The evolution of  makeup and the kinds of cosmetics used in ancient times

The mysteries of the Book of Daniel

How the Book of Jonah has been interpreted through the ages

The real arguments put forward in the Book of Job

The evolution of the the Book of Proverbs from Mesopotamian and Egyptian sources

How the Writings have been portrayed by artists through the ages & how they are being portrayed today

The Bible’s most blatant book of erotica, Song of Songs, and the tradition of erotic writing and sculpture in the ancient Near East