The passion of the Hebrew prophets
Their soaring visions braced the Jews for the coming of their Messiah. In the same tradition came the greatest Jewish prophet, a carpenter from Nazareth
This is Who made our minds?, my Thursday essay probing the greatest, cruellest and most beautiful minds of the past 5,000 years, inspired by my book, The Soul: A History of the Human Mind (Penguin 2024).
Next Thursday: Traces of Christ (the first of several essay on Christianity)
ON THE EAST BANK of the Jordan River, Moses pulled up at the head of the children of Israel. On the West Bank lay Canaan, the Promised Land, promised by God to his ‘Chosen People’.
Exhausted and near death, Moses prepared to perform his last act: to deliver the children of Israel to their God-given home. He would thus reinforce the divine law and fulfil the terms of the Abrahamic covenant.
Before he expired, Moses offered grave words of warning to the Israelites. They would lose their Promised Land, he said, this land they prepared to ‘enter and occupy’, if t…