I am most honored and pleased to be invited by the Biblical Archaeology Society to be the host, teacher, and tour guide on their first ever eastern Mediterranean Cruise! The theme of our tour is “The Seafaring Paul in His Jewish Roman World.” This is not a typical “cities of…
https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/ancient-israel/rethinking-the-pool-of-siloam This article speaks for itself but if Szanton is correct we have all been wrong now for several years. Notably, the excavations of the huge pool with the steps have not turned up what everyone expected. I have taken groups there for years, but in 1962 on my first…
In this video I relate the remarkable discovery in 2000 of a Cave west of Jerusalem, at Suba, that has what might be the earliest art work related to the John the Baptist-Jesus movement–right outside John’s village of Ein Kerem. What we found in our excavations (2000-2006) shed some remarkable…
I am using the term “Luke” here advisedly, for the author of the two-volume New Testament work of Luke-Acts. See “Who Wrote the Gospel of Luke?” by Mikel C. Parsons for who the author might have been and what might be said for the tradition view of a companion of…
We are living in the last days, on this LAST GREAT day of Gregorian Year 2023! We had a really wonderful ZOOM meeting yesterday with a mixture of students from both my on-line courses–Mark as well “Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls.” The meeting was recorded and will become part…
The story of Simon of Cyrene carrying the cross of Jesus as related in the gospel of Mark is quite remarkable for both its brevity and its content. It is conveyed in s single verse in Mark 15:21 as Jesus is being led away by the Romans to be crucified.…
Caution: This presentation is 1.5 hours and is for serious students of the historical Jesus–which I believe my Blog readers and subscribers are. In this age of TikTok, Shorts, YT videos that are never supposed to be longer than 12 minutes, it will find its rightful place. It is not…
This is the introduction to an exciting NEW SERIES on my Youtube Channel I am short-titling “Jesus Archaeology.” The idea is to highlight the ways in which scientifically conducted archaeology in the Holy Land has contributed to our historical understanding of the “Jesus Movement” or the rise of early Christianity.…
In this finale to my 25-part series on Bible Prophecy I explore the three major interpretations of “Bible Prophecy Belief” in our own time–Preterist, Continuous Historical, and Futurist–weighing them in the balance and finding them wanting. I discuss the terms: literal, symbolic, poetic, spiritual, and actual as well as the…
Jacob Neusner was one of the best-known scholars of Jewish studies in the 20th century. He reckoned that the three most influential Jews of all time were Moses, Jeremiah, and Yohanan ben Zakkai. Odds are you’ve heard of Moses and Jeremiah. Moses was the great lawgiver. Jeremiah was the great…