The Browser - Books and Hoaxes

Becoming A Religion Of The Book

Konrad Schmid and Jens Schröter | Lapham's Quarterly | 13th December 2021

It was only after the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70CE that Judaism became a religion focused on the study of sacred texts, ie a "religion of the book". Prior to that, it had been for centuries a faith centred on places of worship, with a supplementary oral culture of stories, proverbs, songs and prayers. Some traces of these lost texts can still be discerned in the Bible (1,898 words)

🦒:  Beard, Hoax, Democracy, Soul, Dating

Abe Callard | The Viewer | 11th December 2021

At our sister publication The Viewer, Abe Callard selects and summarises five outstanding videos each week. For example, on cryptid hoaxes: P.T. Barnum creates a monkey-fish mermaid, an amateur scientist tricks the world with a human cranium joined to an orangutan jawbone, and "a disgraced actor glues a toy dinosaur head to a toy submarine and photographs the "Loch Ness monster"" (382 words)

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