Quintessential JZ Smith…if you never had the pleasure of hearing him…his Plenary Address to the American Academy of Religion in 2010. https://vimeo.com/20286150 You can read an informal fascinating interview with Mr. Smith (as Chicago professors are called–no titles please!) published in The Chicago Maroon in 2008 here. Don’t miss this one!…
I have existed from the morning of the world and I shall exist until the last star falls from the night. Although I have taken the form of Gaius Caligula, I am all men as I am no man and therefore I am God. Millions of my generation will remember,…
Our Gospels present us with not only a profoundly “male” story, but it is also a profoundly asexual one. Theology is one thing, history is another, and on these matters of sex, birth, and death there can clearly be a conflict but little contest. I have written a variety of…
Tonight at sundown begins the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah, followed by Christmas Eve on December 24th, just 12 days later. The two celebrations often fall close together, sometime even the same week. This festival of Dedication, more popularly known as Hanukkah–is also called the festival of Lights. This special Jewish…
I explore this question from a biblical perspective with Dr. Robert L. Kuhn, host of the acclaimed PBS Series “Closer to Truth,” along with a host of perspectives from historians, scientists, philosophers, and theologians. You may view the whole series here, “Is This the End Time?”
Here is a lecture I did over 20 years ago at Emmanuel Study Center in Athens, TN. The audience was very mixed in composition, a group of Rabbis, Jews, Torah oriented Gentiels, and Christians. It is a bit of a teaser but the complete lecture with Q&A is available through…
Few readers of the English Bible realize that the name “James” actually comes from the Hebrew name Jacob or Yaaqov, which adds to the confusion over the various “Jameses” mentioned in the New Testament. There is, of course, Jacob the Patriarch, grandson of Abraham; James the Apostle, the fisherman brother…
I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Chicago, on “Paul’s Ascent to Paradise” under the direction of Jonathan Z. Smith, the late and great Robert M. Grant, and Bernard McGinn. Its focus was the celebrated passage where Paul reports his extraordinary experience, as a “man in Christ” who…
Here is a short interview on Paul done nearly twelve years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXrQBUwOJ-A&feature=youtu.be That was then, and here is now, see here and of course my book Paul and Jesus. In fact I still agree with much of what I say here.
For several months millions around the globe have been focused on a particular solar-lunar-stellar-planetary configuration of the constellation Virgo that appeared in the sky on September 23, 2017, see my post, “What Is Going to Happen on September 23, 2017–A Prediction of My Own!” Expectations ranged from the secret Rapture,…