When I was a freshman in college at Abilene Christian University in the mid-1960s I decided early on to focus on the Bible and early Christianity–basically New Testament Studies. I had returned from a trip to the Holy Land the previous summer, and I was fired up with the idea–at…
Okay…here it comes…This is the 7th in my ongoing series on ideas of “Death and Afterlife” in the ancient Western world.” BUT NOTE: In this one hour in-depth study I question many of the most common assumptions regarding what our earliest textual evidence in fact says about the idea of…
Peter Schäfer, Jesus in the Talmud (Princeton University Press, 2009) (Kindle and Hardcover links). There is no end of confusion regarding texts about the figure of Jesus of Nazareth and whether he is or is not referenced in the Talmuds and Rabbinic literature, and if so whether such references offer anything…
I officially began this new series of special classes on “Death, Afterlife, and the Future” in the ancient Western World. I plan to cover the following topics–the link below is the first: The Ancient Hebrew Ideas of Death and Afterlife Ancient Babylonian Ideas: Gilgamesh Homer and Ancient Greek Ideas Ancient…
I am beginning a new teaching series on Youtube this week on the topic of “What the Bible Really Says About Death, Afterlife, and the Future.” You can download my article by this title free at the link in the description. Here is the short Intro video I recorded yesterday.…
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases with no extra cost to buyers Back in 1989, as I was beginning my career as a young assistant professor, I was asked to contribute a chapter to this most interesting topical volume: Morton Smith and R. Joseph Hoffmann, eds. What the…
The question of how the earliest followers of Jesus viewed Jesus as well as the “God of Jesus,”–that is the One God so central to most forms of Judaism, is a complex one that has been explored extensively in the field of New Testament and Christian Origins studies. I highly…
Some Oral Remarks by Prof. James Tabor reflection on Qumran down to WacoPlenary Session: When Prophecy Fails Delivered at the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, 1997 English translations of the Dead Sea Scroll quotation here are from Geza Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English. Note: As an Amazon…
The treatise attributed to Jesus’ brother James in the New Testament was not even considered “Christian” by many Protestant theologians such as Martin Luther. And yet this James was the leader of the followers of Jesus after the crucifixion–and held that position until his own brutal death in 63 CE…
The on-line magazine, Popular Archaeology, which I highly recommend, recently circulated its “Top Ten” feature stories of the past decade. I was honored and pleased that one of the ten stories that my research on the historical Jesus, as related to material and textual evidence, was chosen as one of…