The Library
1774 works catalogued century by century, from the literature the Bible was written among to the present — each with a note on what it is, why it lasted, and where to read it.
500–401 BC
1 work
c. 495–399 BC
Aramaic
The Jewish garrison at Elephantine
The archive of a Jewish military colony on an island in the Nile: marriage contracts, loans, slave sales, a Passover letter, and a petition to the governor of Judah asking permission to rebuild their temple to Yahu after the priests of Khnum tore it down.
200–101 BC
1 work
c. 150–100 BC
Hebrew
11QT
Anonymous
The longest of the Dead Sea Scrolls, rewriting the law with God speaking in the first person throughout — no Moses as intermediary. It specifies a temple with three concentric courts that was never built, a calendar of new festivals, and a law for the king limiting his army and forbidding him more than one wife.
1–100
1 work
c. 75
Greek
Bellum Judaicum
Flavius Josephus · c. 37 – c. 100
Seven books on the revolt of 66–73 by a man who commanded in Galilee, surrendered, and then watched the siege of Jerusalem from the Roman side. It ends with the burning of the temple and the last stand at Masada.
101–200
1 work
c. 150–200; survives in one leaf
Greek
Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 840
Anonymous
A miniature parchment leaf, small enough to be worn as an amulet. A chief priest challenges Jesus for entering the temple court unwashed, and Jesus answers that the priest has bathed in water dogs and pigs lie in, while he and his disciples have been washed in living water from heaven.
4 of 1774 works