This groundbreaking article by the late Bargil Pixner, a Benedictine priest and my dear friend, mentor, and colleague, was published in Biblical Archaeology Review in May/June, 1997 as a cover story. One of my great honors was to edit this article from the German and put it into BAR magazine style…
The Mandeans trace themselves back to the original followers of John the Baptist, who, according to tradition, fled the land Holy Land in the first century, preserving traditions independent of the emerging Christian Church in the subsequent centuries. In June 1999, I was privileged to be a part of a…
I filmed all day yesterday (August 3, 2022) with Derek Lambert of Mythvision Podcast on Youtube, a mini-course on the Gospel of Mark based on what I learned from my teacher, the late, great, Norman Perrin at the University of Chicago and my subsequent study and years of teaching Mark…
The following four essays were in response to a comprehensive essay exam I gave in my Dead Sea Scrolls course. They were written by my student Jeffrey Poplin and used with his permission. I thank Jeffrey for his superb work and happily pass these along to my blog readers: Essay One: Offer…
1. The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered between 1947-1956 in 11 caves (5 by Beduin; 6 by archaeologists) on the upper northwest shore of the Dead Sea. The area is 13 miles east of Jerusalem, and is -1300 ft. below sea level (Jerusalem is +2400 ft. above sea level). 2.…
I have written and lectured a lot on “When Prophecy Fails,” that is how various groups over the past 2500 years, both Jewish and Christian, have had their hopes and expectations dashed by what one might call the “brick wall” of historical reality. In times of global unrest and uncertainty,…
The three hundred year period of Jewish history from 150 BCE to 150 CE was characterized by the utter failure of all apocalyptic expectations of the End of the Age arriving. These failed hopes and dreams shape collectively what might be called “The Great Disappointment.” This included a variety of…
Back in 1996 I began to develop a web site called “The Jewish Roman World of Jesus” to which I uploaded all sorts of original sources and handouts related to my my undergraduate and graduate classes. It was initially hosted and developed by my friend Mike McKinney, at CenturyOne.com.…
Here is a real “blast from the past.” Ernest Martin had released his theories on the Jewish Temple in the time of Jesus not being located up over where the dome of the Rock is today, but to the south in the “City of David” area. In this lecture, given…
Once again “Holy Week” has arrived. Today is Palm Sunday, with Easter one week away. So one might say this week is “doubly holy,” in that it binds together what Jesus as a Jew would have been intimately familiar with his entire life–Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread–and the…