I just returned from meetings in Jerusalem with Dr. Shimon Gibson and we wanted to give everyone an update in these waning days of 2010 about the exciting plans we have for Mt Zion and related projects in the coming year 2011.  As most of you know we did not actively dig at our Mt Zion site during 2010 as we felt we needed to devote the year to catching up on our post-excavation work as required by the Israel Antiquities Authority and at the same time put in place a “business plan” that would allow for the proper funding of our Projects into 2011 and beyond. Let me first update you on the latest news and then outline our plans for 2011 and beyond:

News in 2010:

1. Please find attached a preliminary report: GibsonMtZion, on the first three years of digging at the Mt Zion site that has just been published, ably produced by Dr. Shimon Gibson. It offers an illustrated overview of our work in which many of you had a part (either directly or through financial support), as well as a special report on the Stone Vessel with the ten lines of cryptic Hebraic text. This will bring everyone up to date as to where we find ourselves at this point in time.

2. This inscribed Stone Vessel is clearly one of the most exciting archaeological finds in recent times. Although it has not yet been fully deciphered it has caused sufficient buzz and interest in Jerusalem that the Israel Museum took charge of its complete restoration (see photos in the article) and it will be featured in a forthcoming article in Biblical Archaeology Review. Shimon Gibson, Stephen Pfann, and I are working directly with editor Hershel Shanks on this. That feature article will also cover the importance of the Mt Zion dig as a whole and should give our dig tremendous public exposure.

3. Recently Shimon Gibson discovered in the Armenian properties on Mt Zion all the finds and field notes from the 1970s Magen Broshi excavations! These had been presumed lost. This means we now have the materials taken from our site before we began our work in 2007, plus lots of other priceless materials from other areas on upper Mt Zion. Gibson has been given custody of these materials and has been sorting through them as the bags and labels are badly deteriorated. This essential work has to be given high priority and the finds are amazing including painted frescos, materials from the Roman 10th legion occupation of Jerusalem, and intact vessels. These are all related to our wider Mt Zion expedition project as we have in mind digging, eventually, not just at our site below Zion Gate, but on the Greek and Armenian properties as well. Many of you have heard me speak of our current site being just a “toehold” for explorations of Mt Zion as a whole.

4. The municipality of Jerusalem is installing a new sidewalk and garden area just adjacent to our site and running along the wall. We have to undertake emergency excavations there by the end of February in order for the building to go forward. They have temporarily halted construction until we can complete our work so we will need to do it with hired workers under the supervision of our Jerusalem team. This is good news because the builder will not only have to replace our fence, which they have partially taken down/damaged during the construction, but it gives us a chance to find the ancient Gate that we know ran just below the tower where the sidewalk was along the wall. This will then be covered over with a walkway, preserving the remains below for tourists to view. We have to pay the costs of the excavation but the rest will be covered by the city of Jerusalem.

Plans for 2011:

1. We will be launching in January, 2011 a newly formed “Friends of Mt Zion” group that will become the main fund-raising arm for the Mt Zion projects as a whole. This will be carried out in full conjunction with our UNC Charlotte Development office and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. This organized campaign will remove the burden from my shoulders of being the primary person to raise funds for the entire project. You will receive information on this early on in the New Year.

2. We have outlined about two dozen grants for which we will be applying in 2011 to try and get outside funding for the Mt Zion projects as a whole so that our financial base can be a combination of grants and individual contributions.

3. Just last week Gibson and I visited our previous excavation at the Suba “John the Baptist” cave and there is some essential work we have to do there in order to complete publication of that seven year excavation. We need to remove more materials inside the cave, down to the floor, just under the drawings of the figures, as well as excavate some recently discovered wine presses–the only 1st century wine presses ever discovered. Because of our need to continue work on the Mt Zion materials, especially the newly discovered finds from the 1970s, we are going to devote our dig season in June, 2011 to Suba rather than Mt Zion. It is important, in terms of the Israel Antiquities Authority that we finish up what we began at Suba, and get it published in 2011, before we produce another season of finds at our current Mt Zion site. The dates are June 10-26, 2011. I will be sending out details the first week of January for those who might want to participate.

4. Our plans call for the publication of three volumes in 2011: A final publication of the Suba cave excavations; a final publication of our Tomb of the Shroud, that includes the only 1st century burial shroud ever found and the first case of leprosy; a preliminary volume on Mt Zion with the newly discovered Broshi materials included from the 1970s. Getting these materials into print will go a long way in terms of establishing our credibility both the the Israelis and the archaeological community more generally. One of the “no-no’s” in this field is to dig and dig and dig and never properly publish.

Our immediate needs require us to pay $2500 a month for storage and curation of Suba and Mt Zion finds, plus another estimated $15,000 for the rescue excavations at the Gate that will be done in February. It seems it is always easier to raise money when a major eight week dig is going on, but more difficult to get folks to realize that the post-excavation work that must be done is every bit as vital. This is the first financial appeal I have made in 2010–and here it is December 29th.

If you can help us with these immediate needs you can contribute instantly through Paypal with a credit card or Paypal account at our regular Donate link: http://digmountzion.com/information/ (you will receive a 2010 letter of acknowledgment from our partner The Foundation for Biblical Archaeology). Alternatively you can mail a check made out to UNC Charlotte Foundation/Mt Zion directly to me at (James D. Tabor, Dept. of Religious Studies, UNC Charlotte, Charlotte, NC 28223). Either way your contribution will be acknowledge promptly and is IRS tax deductible. Contributions made on or before December 31st will count for 2010.

Looking forward to staying in touch in 2011 and I hope to hear from many of you before 2010 has past!

My main university Web page that has been used by many thousands of folks over the years (the counter reset to zero at 1 million some years ago) has been moved. If you have linked it anywhere please note the change and update your records. I am working with our Web people at the university to see if there can be a “redirect” message:

The old URL was: http://religiousstudies.uncc.edu/JDTABOR/indexb.html

The new one is: http://religiousstudies.uncc.edu/people/jtabor/

This site contains a wealth of materials related to Jesus, Christian Origins, 2nd Temple Judaism, and the religion and culture of the ancient Mediterranean world. I use it in all my classes and welcome any of you who teach to make use of these materials so long as credit is given.

My special thanks to Prof. Dennis Duling for allowing me to make his masterful essays on the Jewish and Roman World of Jesus available, originally published in his co-written The New Testament: An Introduction, with the late Norman Perrin.

Fresco Identified as Paul in St. Tekla Catacomb

I think July, 2010 might be the only blank month in my blogging history that goes back to The Jesus Dynasty Blog that I began with the publication of my book by that name in April, 2006. So why the hiatus? I wanted to take time to explain to my loyal readers who might have stopped by the site numerous times, only to find “nothing new” posted since late June.

The answer is a simple one. Essentially I “went underground” from about June 17 through August 17 writing almost nonstop to complete  my new book on Paul, with trips to Rome and Jerusalem included. As some of you know, Paul has been in the news of late, with stories about his tomb in Rome being validated, as well as the newly uncovered portrait of Paul in the catacomb of St. Tekla. I have been working on the Paul book since late 2008 when I signed a contract with Simon & Schuster. There was a time when I expected it might be out by Spring, 2010 but as I got deeper into my work I began to develop my ideas in directions I had not originally anticipated, so I have ended up taking most of 2010 to complete the manuscript. The book has been listed on Amazon now for over a year with the fetching title: Paul Untitled and still no cover image. I know many of my readers have pre-ordered it, and I appreciate your patience. The pre-orders do count, and when the book is released they can give it a great send-off, so if any of you are willing to “stand in that Amazon line,” I thank you for it. My editors and I are still talking about a final decision on a title, as well as the cover art, and I hope it will appear soon. I will let everyone know.

What I think I can safely say is that the book will be worth the wait! I don’t know of another book on Paul by a scholar in the field that is like this one, either in ideas, approach, or style. I did my Ph.D. dissertation on Paul at the University of Chicago (1982), directed by the incomparable Jonathan Z. Smith. It was published as a monograph in the Brown University Judaic Studies series in 1985 titled Things Unutterable. It has long ago gone out of print though an unbound facsimile edition is available on Amazon. For the past 30 years, teaching at three universities (Notre Dame, William & Mary, UNC Charlotte) I have continued to think deeply about Paul, covering him in my courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels.

So far as books on Paul go, I think they must outnumber the books on Jesus, but almost without exception the academic study of Paul is pretty much an “in-house” enterprise with most of the scholars who specialize and write about Paul producing endless books primarily intended for their colleagues.  Most of the writings on Paul are highly technical, very theological in orientation, and full of jargon particular to the field. “Pauline Studies,” is such a vast field right now it is impossible for all but the most devoted, who rarely work on anything else, to keep up. I am not one of those people and though I have published and written about Paul along the way.  My concentration has been much broader–namely trying to analyze the many ways of understanding “salvation” in ancient Mediterranean religions, particularly in late 2nd Temple Judaism and earliest Christianity–with apocalypticism as my main focus. Such a general description certainly pulls in Paul, but in a broader way that most Pauline scholars deal with him.

What I hope I have produced is a readable and accessible book on Paul, but one that offers an analysis of his mission and message that I have not seen anywhere else. Mine is neither a Paul-bashing nor a Paul-applauding book. I guess you might call it “Paul in His Own Words,” in that I try as best I can to let Paul speak for himself, based on the seven “authentic” letters we have from his hand. And speak he does! I think I have succeeded, at least on an introductory level, to offer readers a clear, refreshing, and provocative look at the Apostle.

I thought I would paste the Table of Contents in here, just to whet a few appetites, and I plan to begin a series of blog posts over the next few weeks that will explore various aspects of Paul and his thinking–as a kind of prelude to the book itself–so check back here often.

Preface: Discovering Paul

Introduction: Paul and Jesus

The Quest for the Historical Paul                                                           

Chapter 1: After the Cross

Chapter 2: Reading the New Testament Backwards

Chapter 3: A Forgotten Brother, A Lost Christianity

Chapter 4: A Cosmic Family and a Heavenly Kingdom

Chapter 5: A Mystical Union with Christ

Chapter 6: Already but Not Yet

Chapter 7: The Torah of Christ

Chapter 8: The Battle of the Apostles

Conclusion: Does God Care for Oxen?

FIVE KEZAR PONDS, ME — Ronald Arthur Gestwicki, 71, of Five Kezar Ponds, Maine and Sanibel, Florida died at Stephens Memorial Hospital on Tuesday, May 18th, 2010 after a nearly three year fight with mesothelioma, and one week after his return to his beloved ponds. He was born on January 19, 1939, in Dunkirk, New York, to Earnest and Beatrice Gestwicki and attended schools in Dunkirk. He graduated from the University of Buffalo in 1960 with a BA in chemistry, awarded the T. R. McConnell award as the outstanding graduate. He spent the year following graduation in New York City as a special student at Columbia University, a laboratory technician at Mount Sinai Hospital, and the summer in London, England in the Winant Volunteer Student Program. He then attended General Theological Seminary in New York City, graduating in 1964 with a Master of Divinity. In 1966 he enrolled at Drew Graduate School to study for a Ph.D. in religion and modern literature. After transferring to Syracuse University in 1968, he received his Ph.D. in 1971. As a college professor, he taught at Hobart and William Smith from 1970-1972. Most of his academic career was spent teaching in the Religious Studies department at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, from 1972 until retirement in 2001. While teaching full-time, he also worked part-time as an Intensive Journal Consultant, then as Director of Advanced Studies in Holistic Depth Psychology for Ira Progoff’s Dialogue House Program in New York City. After retirement, he attended Antioch New England Graduate School, graduating in 2003 with a Master of Science in Environmental Studies. His last work was a field biologist for the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, 2001-2007. He was the author of two books: Santa Claus, The Tooth Fairy and Other Stories: A Child’s Introduction to Religion (1978), and A Life Study of Franz Kafka: Using the Intensive Journal Method by Ira Progoff (1992).

He was married to Carol Louise Findlater of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada in 1964. They met in Kenya on Operation Crossroads Africa during the summer of 1962, and spent the first two years of marriage working for the Episcopal Church in German South West Africa, now Namibia. He was an involved and loving father for sons Timothy Scott, born in 1965, and Jay Douglas, born in 1971. Beyond his professional and family life, Ron loved the outdoors, and was a passionate environmentalist and conservationist, serving on the board of the Greater Lovell Land Trust, and as President of the Five Kezar Ponds Watershed Association until his illness. He was a competitive runner, a social activist, and a lover of good times. He will be remembered by family and friends as a man with strong convictions and opinions.

He is survived by his wife of 45 years, Carol, his sons Tim and Jay, both of Charlotte, and granddaughters Lila and Rose.

There will be a graveside burial ceremony on Sunday, May 23, 2010 in Woodlawn Cemetery, North Waterford, Maine, followed by a reception in the family cottage, 114 Five Kezar Ponds, Rd. In lieu of flowers remembrance donations may be made to the Greater Lovell Land Trust, P. O. Box 181, Center Lovell, ME 04016, with the designation ‘Ron Gestwicki Memorial.’

Arrangements are under the direction of Weston-Chandler Funeral Home 45 Main St., South Paris. Online condolences may be shared with his family at www.westonchandler.com
Published in Charlotte Observer on May 21, 2010

There is a most impressive new website just up dealing with the Talpiot “Jesus” tomb in all of its aspects at talpiottomb.com. It is sponsored by JTERP (Jesus Tomb Education and Research Project), headed by Jerry Lutgen who works in the informatics health care field. You can read more of him as well as JTERP, its history and its purposes here. Some of my readers might remember Mr. Lutgen from his published article “The Talpiot Tomb: What are the Odds?” published at Bible & Interpretaton, that dealt with why the various studies using statistics differ so wildly in their conclusions. Lutgen also has a most interesting new study titled “Did the Set of Names from the Talpiot Tomb Arise by Chance,” which you can download at this new website.

I must say I am highly impressed. It looks to me like Mr. Lutgen has drawn together just about every major source related to the discussion of the Talpiot tomb since it first caught the public attention in 2006-2007, with all the resulting heat and light that has followed. The site “thick” with information, ranging from a summary of the basic issues to a rich and ever expanding bibliography, with an emphasis on materials that can be accessed on-line. He even offers a “survey” for readers to give their views, a new Facebook group one can join for discussion, and a section where one can use an Excel spreadsheet to turn one’s views of Talpiot (based on seven key arguments) into a quantifiable percentage! I can see how anyone interested in the Talpiot tomb will spend a lot of time at this site, bookmark it, and return often, as Mr. Lutgen promises to keep us up with all the latest–including new research just now emerging that might inform our overall body of evidence.