Josephus mentions a dozen or more “messiah” figures beginning with Hezekiah/Ezekias c. 45 BCE whom the young Herod defeated whom he variously labels as “brigands” (ληστής) or “imposters” (γόης)—though he calls Judas the Galilean a “wise man” (σοφιστής) and credits him with the founding a the “fourth philosophy” (Jewish Antiquities18.23).…
Of the hundreds of books that are written in biblical scholarship every year, few make a long term impact and have an extended shelf life. Very few indeed deserve to be read and reread thirty-five years after their original appearance. Morton Smith’s Jesus the Magician is one of them, a…
This post is continued from the previous one here. Here are the last three in this two-part posting. You will find a full exposition of these ideas, chapter by chapter, in my book Paul and Jesus. At the Recently Discovered “Tomb of Paul” in Rome 4) Already but Not Yet.…
In April, 2006 I published a trade book called The Jesus Dynasty: The Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity. Now in paperback it has continued to sell moderately but steadily. I wrote it as a popular summary of my own personal lifelong “quest” for the…
This semester I am offering an advanced undergraduate/graduate seminar on “The Dead Sea Scrolls and Earliest Christianity.” In preparation for this course I have been re-reading all of the published Dead Sea Scrolls as well as many of the secondary publications related thereto published over the past three decades. One…
So much has been in the media over the past two decades on the 1993 Waco tragedy with a plethora of new TV specials marking the 25th anniversary in 2018. Sorting through the mass of information is a daunting task. In terms of the older productions I recommend in particular…
In terms of perspectives on the 1993 Waco disaster I would particularly recommend the following in order for anyone who wants to get up to speed on what went on, right and wrong. The first chapter of Why Waco is available on-line: https://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520208995 but the rest of the book gives the whole story.…
I have been invited to join Mike Collins “Charlotte Talks,” on WFAE our local NPR station, this Monday, Feb 12th, at 9am, for a Waco Redeux, with the “real” characters, namely survivor David Thibodeau and FBI chief negotiator Gary Noesner—both of whom have published books on the subject. The show is…
January seems to be the month for a host of retrospective TV documentaries and specials looking back on the disasterous events outside of Waco, Texas during the 51 day siege of the Branch Davidian Mt Carmel Center in 1993. As a result David Koresh and 80 of his followers died,…
To understand Jesus and the movement that developed after his death we need to have a handle on a way of thinking that I call messianic apocalyptic eschatology. This is a way of describing a certain expectation and outlook on the world and human history that was characteristic of certain…