I dedicate this video to my University of Chicago teacher, the late Jonathan Z. Smith, from whom I learned more about ancient religions than anyone in my academic career. In this lecture I explore what I have called the greatest transformation in human thought in Western history–namely the shift from…
Some of you perhaps know the richly informative web site Bible and Interpretation with the by-line: “News and Interpretations on the Bible and Ancient Near East History.” If you don’t know it I encourage you to take a look–and be sure to notice the two books featured on the web page–upper…
To be a fundamentalist, you have to have a book. And you have to forget the book has a history. I normally post on matters in my areas of expertise, namely, late 2nd Temple Judaism and earliest Christianity in the Greco-Roman period (“Augustus to Constantine” as my revered Chicago Professor…
A few weeks ago I posted an article I had published back in the year 2000, on “Salvation” in the Encyclopedia of Millennialism and Millennial Movements, edited by Richard Lances. Here is another dealing with Millennialism in the Ancient World–by that I mean the ancient Near East/Mediterranean world. I tried my…
Many years ago I when I was studying the history of religions I was taught to ask about the various religions of “salvation” that so thickly filled the Hellenistic-Roman world (400 BCE-300 CE) to pose the following probing questions of any text or system of religious thinking about humanity and…
I have written a lot about the April 1993 tragedy outside Waco Texas where the apocalyptic group we came to know as the Branch Davidians were confronted by the BATF. Most experts now agree, including the conclusions of several Congressional hearings, that the whole thing was unnecessary from start to…
I am posting here this morning a most informative document from my friend and fellow-scholar Greg Doudna, whose Ph.D. deals with the history and archaeology of the Dead Sea Scroll sectarian community (you can see some of his publications at this link). In January 1985, Greg visited and interviewed Dr.…
And no man having drunk old wine desireth new; for he saith, The old is good –Jesus somewhere in Galilee around 28 CE I had a wonderful teacher at Chicago, the Late Great Robert M. Grant, who always said the best New Testament and Early Christian Literature scholarship was done…
There has been a lot of discussion over the past 45 years regarding the late Columbia University historian Morton Smith and his discovery, publication, and interpretation of a so-called “Secret Gospel of Mark” in 1973. According to Smith, fifteen years earlier he had come across, quite by accident, a copy…
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.…