One of the more intriguing of the Dead Sea Scrolls is a fragment now titled “Messianic Apocalypse” (4Q521). This text contains three rather striking features that are of particular significance for comparing the apocalyptic beliefs and expectations of the Qumran community with the emerging early Christian movement. First, the text…
For the next few weeks I plan to post many of my previously published articles that have fallen off the radar of many of my readers. Some, but not nearly all, are available as PDFs on this Blog site under “Publications and Papers,” in the dropdown menu above labeled “Academic.”…
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…
In this informal round-table discussion with 1950s Davidian spokesperson Dudley Goff, Dr. James D. Tabor (UNC Charlotte), and Dr. Philip Arnold (Reunion Institute, Houston, TX) explore the origins of the Millerites, the Seventh Day Adventists, and the early Davidian movement led by Victor Houfeff, that flourished from 1935-1959 outside Waco,…
The big news this morning, as I woke up thinking about April 19th–as I have done for the past 26 years–was that the gripping new scripted six-part mini series titled “Waco” starring Taylor Kitsch as David Koresh and Michael Shannon, as FBI negotiator Gary Noesner, produced by Paramount Pictures in 2018,…
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…
Daniel chapter 11 might well be the longest “continual” prophecy in the Hebrew Bible. Indeed, it appears to be referred to in Daniel 10:21–the chapter leading up to the Daniel’s most disturbing vision–as the “book of truth.” It is surely one of the most influential in terms of firing up…
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.…