Teachings & Texts

Texts can carry a question far beyond the life that first gave it voice. Read the scriptures, books, passages, and teachings where ideas were preserved, argued, interpreted, and handed on.

• 1 Corinthians 13Love beyond display · mid-first century CE (composition dating debated)A divided church in the Greek city of Corinth is arguing over spiritual importance, and Paul turns the question toward the quality that must…
• Al-IkhlasFour verses of concentrated tawhid · seventh century CE (traditional dating of revelation)God is One. God is al-Samad—a dense Arabic term often rendered “the Self-Sufficient” or “the one on whom all depend.” God neither begets nor…
• Bhagavad GitaThe song of the Lord · composition history debated; often placed in the last centuries BCE to early centuries CEThe Bhagavad Gita is a Hindu philosophical and spiritual text presented as a dialogue between the warrior Arjuna and Krishna on the eve of b…
• Book of Enoch1 Enoch—scripture in Ethiopia, expansion elsewhereThe Book of Enoch, often called 1 Enoch, is a composite ancient Jewish work. One of its oldest major sections, the Book of the Watchers, tel…
• Dead Sea ScrollsA Second Temple Jewish library · copied and composed in the Second Temple period; discovered 1947 onwardThe Dead Sea Scrolls are a library, not a single book. Found in caves near Qumran beginning in 1947, the manuscripts bring together copies o…
• Four Noble TruthsFrom suffering to a path of practice · early Buddhist teaching; traditional setting after the Buddha’s awakeningAt Sarnath in northern India, tradition remembers the newly awakened Buddha beginning with what hurts. Aging, loss, pain, and the unease tha…
• Sermon on the MountBlessing, enemy-love, and life before God · presented as Jesus’ teaching; Gospel of Matthew composed in the first century CEA crowd gathers on a hillside, and Matthew’s Jesus begins by blessing people ordinary measures of success might pass over: the poor in spiri…
• Tao Te ChingWater does not need to become rigid to endure, and a vessel is useful because it has room within it. The Tao Te Ching—alWater does not need to become rigid to endure, and a vessel is useful because it has room within it. The Tao Te Ching—also spelled Daodejing…