My wife Lori often offers comments on my various blog posts, articles, and papers, as one “outside the field,” so to speak. Her field is English Literature but more often than not she sees things that I have missed. Sometimes we who are the so-called “experts” in our fields are…
We are most privileged to have two distinguished Israeli archaeologists visiting our campus at UNC Charlotte on Tuesday, November 13th, Drs. Rona Avissar Lewis and Rafael Y. Lewis, on their way to present at the Denver conferences (ASOR/AAR/SBL/BAR). Rona’s lecture is sponsored by my Dept. of Religious Studies and Rafi’s…
The first week of March, 2019, during our Spring Break, I will make my 69th trip to Israel. Only a few of those trips have been on tours, but the past few years I have been taking small groups of 30 or less on very specialized tours, along with my…
I’ve never been able to find a dichotomy between being an historian and a theologian–or a good historian and a Christian, putting it very bluntly. I do not believe that gods and goddesses or anyone ever comes out from heaven and produces divine babies; I don’t believe it actually happens.…
In April, 2006 I published a trade book called The Jesus Dynasty: The Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity. Now in paperback it has continued to sell moderately but steadily. I wrote it as a popular summary of my own personal lifelong “quest” for the…
In fact the “kerygma” or “preaching” of the apostles according to Luke, as reflected in Peter’s speeches in Acts 2:22-38 and 3:11-26, is pure “Paulinism” in terms of its basic parameters–that Christ was sent from God as Messiah, that he died for the sins of mankind, that he was raised…
This semester I am offering an advanced undergraduate/graduate seminar on “The Dead Sea Scrolls and Earliest Christianity.” In preparation for this course I have been re-reading all of the published Dead Sea Scrolls as well as many of the secondary publications related thereto published over the past three decades. One…
Grafton relies on new evidence taken from Smith’s recently published correspondence with his life-long friend, the great Jewish scholar Gershom Scholem. These letters make it clear beyond any reasonable doubt that Smith could not have forged either Clement’s letter or the passages of “Secret Mark” contained therein. Over the…
From the lovely, elegant, and scholarly 1985 JPS translation, to the unparalleled Oxford maps, the extensive scholarly, well-balanced notes (including academic as well as rabbinic perspectives), the essays, tables, and charts in the back, with additional maps and charts splashed on the pages throughout, printed on high quality “Bible” paper…
I am contacted two or three times a year by various student directors of campus chapters of an international organization called Ratio Christi. Usually these students email me to ask if I would be willing to have a public debate with one of their associates, most often on the topic of…
