In 2010, in a sealed tomb in Jerusalem, I was involved, along with Emmy award winning filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici and archaeologist Rami Arav, in an unprecedented set of new discoveries. We immediately called in James Charlesworth and a number of other prominent scholars as consultants. This tomb, less than 200 feet away from the controversial Talpiot “Jesus Family tomb,” the subject of the 2007 Discovery television documentary, a best-selling book, The Jesus Family Tomb, and treated in my own 2006 book, The Jesus Dynasty. The trade paperback of The Jesus Dynasty was published in 2007, after the airing of the Discovery film, so that it includes updated material as well as an Epilogue on the Talpiot Jesus tomb. For that reason, if you are interested in this book it is better (and cheaper) to get the paperback.

What we discovered, through a sophisticated remote camera probe, is evidence of the earliest faith in Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, but in a family tomb adjacent to one in which the bones of a “Jesus” and his family were put to rest. The Jesus Discovery puts together the entire story of these two Talpiot tombs and the potential implications for our understanding of the earliest days of the Jesus movement. The book is scheduled to come out February 28, 2012 and is now available on Amazon for pre-ordering: The Jesus Discovery: The New Archaeological Find that Reveals the Birth of Christianity. The discoveries themselves will also be part of a special two-hour documentary on Discovery Television.

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.