I am teaching an advanced undergraduate/graduate course this semester on the “Archaeology of Earliest Christianity,” probing the question of what archaeology provides as a context for understanding Jesus and his movement. Those of us who work on “Christian origins” understandably focus primarily on texts, particularly the texts of the New Testament,…
James F. Strange died on March 23rd. I got the sad news via a text message while traveling in the deserts of Jordan. I loved him dearly, considered him my “archaeological” mentor, excavated with him for three seasons at Sepphoris in the 1990s. We differed sharply in our views of…
So once again Holy Week has arrived–the “final days of Jesus” with the Last Supper, Passover, and Easter falling in a back-to-back cluster this weekend, just like they did in the time of Jesus. Just about everything about this week is controversial. Did Jesus eat his last Supper on a…
I consider the following to be the top twenty “fictions” related to the discussion of the Talpiot tomb separated into six basic categories. Since the Talpiot “Jesus” family tomb came into public attention in 2006 there has been an avalanche of media coverage and Internet discussion. A simple Google search…
Everyone seems to “love” the Dead Sea Scrolls though I fear, much like the Bible, few seem to have actually read them. Some years ago I remember a very enthusiastic woman who came up to me after one of my public lectures on this scrolls, exclaiming, “Dr. Tabor, I just…
The “Tomb of the Shroud,” that was discovered and investigated in 2000 by Shimon Gibson, Boaz Zissu, and me, with a team of our UNC Charlotte students in the summer of 2000, continues to yield up many scientific secrets about life and death in Jerusalem in the time of Jesus.…
The braided hair of a Jewish woman was found at Masada but until recently no example of preserved hair from a Jewish male had ever been found from the late 2nd Temple period. This discovery is one of the many fascinating, but less publicized finds of the 1st century “Tomb…
Start the New Year off right. This is not a commercial! Biblical Archaeology Society lecturers do not get royalties for our lectures; we donate our time and expertise as a public academic service. BAS is a non-profit organization. If you become a Biblical Archaeology Society Library member for 2018 you…
In my 2006 book, The Jesus Dynasty, (pp. 235-237) I published a photo of an fragment of an 1st century CE limestone ossuary, or burial box, inscribed with the name “Simon bar Jonah,” a rare patronym used by Jesus one time in Matthew 16:17 to refer to Simon Peter: And…
One of the special perks of having Dr. Shimon Gibson as our director at our UNC Charlotte sponsored Mt. Zion excavations is having him guide us about the Old City of Jerusalem. Dr. Gibson, or “Shimon,” as we affectionately call him, is not only an expert on the archaeology of…