Just a quick announcement that my new course titled: “The Quest for the Historical Paul: Apostle or Apostate,” is out at last. I will be launching a wider wave of publicity later this week but wanted you all to have the link first, if you are ready to dive in.…
I learned this single CORE idea from Jonathan Z. Smith, the greatest historian of religion of our time, during the first week of the first class I had from him at the University of Chicago called simply “Hellenistic Religion.” It remains the case that very few in my academic field…
Here is an much expanded version of some of what I presented at the Ehrman NINT conference on Paul over the weekend. it is quite long and goes deeply into many important texts, tailor made for a group such as ours, made up of those who have searched the historical…
Yesterday I did an interview with Prof. Robyn Faith Walsh, one of the ten participants in this upcoming special conference on the Apostle Paul: New Investigations on the New Testament(NINT). I found her insights and approach to the texts insightful and fascinating. You won’t want to miss this one! This…
A careful look at Zechariah 14 that predicts a final “battle against Jerusalem” between all the nations of the world, manifestation of the LORD on the Mt of Olives. Christians frequently refer to this and apply it to Jesus as the Messiah. But what does the original Hebrew text in…
This is a long and serious study based on a lecture I recently gave to my students in the “Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls” course–which is still open to join. We went through a much neglected text–the WAR SCROLL–found in 1947 and seldom mentioned. As it turns out it…
Here we see a very young David Koresh in his defensive mode…this is before his “New Light” Revelation came, making him the Lamb of Revelation, who opens the Seven Seals, a sinful Messiah, fulfilling Psalm 45–the “Rider on the Wbute Horse-, with many wives and children, right before the End…
In this short video I try to put my finger on the single FATAL flaw underlying all modern interpretations of “Bible Prophecy” that plot a countdown of events leading up to the end of the World. The key is a historical reading and understanding of the texts in their original…
For the past 100 years a new form of popular Christian Prophecy belief took over much of evangelical Christianity. This interpretation rendered all the predictions of apocalyptic signs leading up to the end of the world, “Failure Proof” by a Double “Coming of Christ” idea. This essentially allows for perpetual…
Many Bible readers assume that “Bible Prophecy” refers to the FUTURE–what is called “eschatology.” In fact, as the very makeup of the Hebrew Bible demonstrates, such is not the case. Even the book of Daniel, that many would consider quintessentially “prophetic,” is not included among the Biblical Prophets. Jesus, Paul,…