In the center of the room, under glass, a Hebrew Bible lies open to the Book of Psalms. Gold leaf glimmers on the borders; red dragons grasp a blue shield while green and blue birds perch on curling ...

We should read it not as an assortment of poems and songs but as a single rhapsody on God’s covenant promises. Late in the fourth century, a man named Palladius of Galatia left his home (somewhere in ...