The Library
1780 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.
700–601 BC
1 work
691 BC
Akkadian
The Taylor Prism
The court of Sennacherib
A six-sided clay prism recording the king's campaigns, including the third: forty-six walled cities of Judah taken, two hundred thousand people counted as spoil, and Hezekiah himself shut up in Jerusalem like a bird in a cage.
301–400
1 work
c. 350–373
Syriac
Carmina Nisibena
Ephrem the Syrian · c. 306 – 373
Seventy-seven hymns, the first written during three Persian sieges of Nisibin and the rest after the city was surrendered to Shapur and its Christians walked out. The later hymns stage a long dispute between Death and Satan over which of them has ruined more, each boasting and each finally beaten at the tomb.
601–700
1 work
c. 610–680s
Greek
John of Thessalonica and an anonymous continuator
The patron of Thessalonica defends his city through plague, famine, and a series of Slav and Avar sieges — appearing on the walls in white, capsizing boats, and turning back siege engines. The narrator was inside for several of them.
3 of 1780 works