Click on the headings to see research links for that passage.
“Some scholars view it as menorrhagia; others as hemorrhoids.” Wikipedia, entry for “Jesus healing the bleeding woman.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_healing_the_bleeding_woman
Leviticus 15:25-28 covers purity rules for women with ongoing discharges. Leviticus 15:19-33 covers female discharges in general, while the regulations for men with a discharge are in Leviticus 15:1-18.
https://biblehub.com/leviticus/15-25.htm
“....this woman had probably never married, or (if the sickness began after marriage) had divorced and remained single.”
IVP Bible Background Commentary
“Procure three kapiza of Persian onions, boil them in wine, make her drink it, and command, ‘Cease your discharge!’” Zondervan Illustrated Bible Background Commentary
“Out of 613 biblical commandments, 213 are related to health or matters of hygiene…”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1044389/pdf/medhist00010-0065.pdf
“Patients visited the physician in his home and not, as in Greece, in the marketplace…anyone renting premises to a physician [must] obtain the prior agreement of his neighbors, since the cries and noise of visiting patients might disturb them.” https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/medicine
“Concerning the Yonah—Zebedee cooperative, G. H. R. Horsley concludes that: ‘the families of Peter and Andrew, and of James and John, must have been of at least moderate means, since each owned a boat and other fishing equipment; furthermore, these families were able to release two sons for a three-year period.’”
https://www.kchanson.com/ARTICLES/fishing.html
“Capernaum’s streets and alleys were not originally laid out on a grid system, leaving them to evolve with the organic growth of the village’s domestic structures.”
https://rsc.byu.edu/ministry-peter-chief-apostle/simon-peter-capernaum-archaeological-survey-first-century-village
“The walls of homes tended to be at least ten feet high, with only a few windows at the top. This is because one generally entered a home by walking into an open courtyard off the street.”
http://blog.adw.org/2017/03/villages-like-jesus-day/
“The distinctive function of the archisynagogus was to select suitable men for the reading of the Law, the reciting of prayers, and for preaching…” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archisynagogue
Synagogues conducted discipline: “Paul was beaten ‘by the Jews’—in the synagogues—five times with thirty-nine lashes.” https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-47/synagogue-life.html
“Rabbi Judah says, ‘Even the poorest [man] in Israel must not furnish less than two flutes [i.e., flute players] and one woman wailer [at the funeral of his wife].’” Kethuboth 4.4
https://bible.org/article/mishnaic-commentary-matthew-9:23-24
“The ash left from ancient fires…was mixed with dirt to pave the streets… When the mourner speaks of pouring dust and ashes on himself, he could do so by the handful whenever he sat in the street.”
https://www.baslibrary.org/biblical-archaeology-review/1/2/6
“[Sackcloth] was a type of cloth made of black goat’s hair that was thick, rough, and coarse material.” https://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/topical-studies/why-did-people-wear-sackcloth-and-ashes-when-they-grieved.html
“The mourning period, according to the Talmud, is divided into four periods. The first three days are given to weeping and lamentation; the deceased is eulogized up to the seventh day…” https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11191-mourning
“Not each source of Tumah [impurity] is created equal. A corpse is the highest level of Tumah and is called an Avi Avos HaTumah (the ultimate source of Tumah).” https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/222382.1?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en
“…those persons who were defiled by the dead and who had not yet purified themselves by the ashes of the red heifer followed by immersion in a ritual bath were prohibited from entering the Court of the Israelites.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpse_uncleanness
“Since the ritual of the red heifer has not been conducted since the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD, there is no way to become purified of this impurity. All Jews are today considered to be ritually impure.”
https://www.religiousrules.com/Judaismpurity03corpse.htm#Heifer
“Interestingly, Jairus himself might have been the one to pronounce the verdict and ask her to keep her distance from the community.”
https://harvardichthus.org/2015/03/jesus-jairus-and-jairus-daughter/
“The distinctive function of the archisynagogus was to select suitable men for the reading of the Law, the reciting of prayers, and for preaching…” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archisynagogue
Synagogues conducted discipline: “Paul was beaten ‘by the Jews’—in the synagogues—five times with thirty-nine lashes.” https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-47/synagogue-life.html
“Torah readers sat in a special place called the Moses’ Seat (or Seat of Honor), so named because they were reading Moses’ words.” https://www.thattheworldmayknow.com/synagogues-of-jesus-time
“Synagogues were a ‘town hall with torah.’”
https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/articles/jesus-and-early-synagogues
“The Greek term synagogue could refer to ‘a group of people, a community’ or ‘a building, an institution’ in the first century.”
https://news.ag.org/features/exploring-the-practices-and-customs-of-the-first-century-synagogue
“Few Christians are aware that each synagogue usually had its own elementary school, or bet-sefer, and its own school, or bet-midrash.” https://www.biblescholars.org/2013/05/study-shows-jesus-as-rabbi.html
Here is a Google Street view of the Magdala synagogue. Floor 1 (button at lower right) is the excavation; floor 2 is a beautiful 3-d rendering of the synagogue as it was in Jesus’ day that you can walk through (courtesy of Scripture Central). https://maps.app.goo.gl/UFHQQveivLXqSCNg7
“The best-known history of the title ‘rabbi’ is contained in a letter to the community of Kairwan written by Sherira Gaon in the tenth century.” https://www.jstor.org/stable/1453387
“Right around the time of Jesus, there was a change in how the word ‘rabbi’ was used.” https://ourrabbijesus.com/articles/can-we-call-jesus-rabbi/
“A disciple could not contradict his rabbi in public or rule against his rabbi in matters of the Torah.”
https://renew.org/rabbis-and-their-disciples-between-the-1st-century-b-c-and-the-2nd-century-a-d/
“There was a smaller group of Rabbi’s – known to have s’mikhah – (pronounced Smee-KAWK … Hebrew throat slur). ‘Walking in the authority of God.’” https://inspiredfountain.com/2021/01/09/what-is-the-yoke/
“God was Jesus’s second witness, and Jesus now had s’mikhah.”
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/2154-authority-rabbinical
“If you were to compile a list of a particular rabbi’s interpretations of the law, the prophets, and the writings, the list you would end up with was called that rabbi’s ‘yoke.’” https://themcneal.com/tag/smikhah/
“The Jews eventually also used [these pits] for secreting their wares—aka tax evasion—and even themselves during the Great Revolt of 66 CE.” https://www.timesofisrael.com/listen-what-do-we-know-about-nazareth-in-jesus-time-an-archaeologist-explains/
“Found just below the Greek Orthodox Church of St Gabriel in modern-day Nazareth, [Mary’s well] was until recently fed by an aqueduct connected to a spring.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary%27s_Well
“[Nazareth] was an agricultural community with a population following a strict interpretation of Second Temple Judaism. The settlement is associated with quarrying…and the number of quarries close to Nazareth suggests that quarrying might have been an unusually important characteristic of the local economy.” https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/articles/archaeology-nazareth-early-first-century
Key Book: Entertaining Angels: Early Christian Hospitality in its Mediterranean Setting by Andrew Arterbury
“In the lands of the East, when a host accepts a man to be his guest he thereby agrees at whatever the cost to defend his guest from all possible enemies during the time of his entertainment.”
https://www.ancient-hebrew.org/manners/the-sacred-duty-of-hospitality.htm
“[At the great feasts] no person ever remarked to another, ‘I couldn’t find a bed to sleep on in Jerusalem.’” https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/jewish-hospitality/
“…that leaves between 135,000 and 160,000 persons living in villages and towns in both Upper and Lower Galilee spread among the 204 towns and villages…” https://jamestabor.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Fiensy-and-Strange-Galilee-Vols-1-2-Conclusions.pdf pg. 5
“In November of 26/27, Jesus sends out the twelve. In March of 27/28 they return.”
https://www.academia.edu/24267678/A_Chronology_of_Jesus_Ministry pg. 21-22
“If they left after the Feast of Tabernacles, then their two-by-two missions possibly spanned a little over 4 months (Oct. - Feb.) If they left after the sowing season (Nov. thru Dec.), then their missions may have spanned about 6–9 weeks (Jan. - Feb.)” https://ex2x2.info/2023/07/27/chronology-of-jesus-public-ministry/
“Matthew and Luke seem to agree that Jesus prohibited the disciples from taking a staff on their journeys, while Mark appears to give them permission to take one.”https://apologeticspress.org/take-it-or-leave-it-295/
“Sticks and staves were among the objects most commonly and constantly portrayed in use in ancient Egypt.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1296463/pdf/jrsocmed00037-0040.pdf
A video on all the steps of hand-making linen cloth from flax using traditional methods:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JKhhtoe9v4
“It took 760 hours for hand weavers to reproduce the tunic from scratch using old-fashioned techniques.”
“The dust of a gentile land was equivalent to the defiling brought about by coming into contact with a corpse…”
https://www.studylight.org/language-studies/difficult-sayings.html?article=445
