A Preliminary and Expanding Bibliography and Reading List I am beginning to upload all sorts of new materials and resources to my blog–publications, documents, resources, maps, photos, links, and so forth. Here is the first of several between now and the end of the year. I want to share more…
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…
This is a kind of “last call” as registration ends tonight, Wednesday, October 21st, at midnight. I hope many of my blog readers will join us this weekend for the 23rd Annual Bible and Archaeology Fest sponsored by the Biblical Archaeology Society. It is truly a Who’s Who of engaging speakers…
I am sometimes asked, “what is your greatest discovery or insight in the world of biblical archaeology?” I have been involved in or stumbled upon quite a few things over the past thirty years, including the “Tomb of the Shroud,” with Shimon Gibson, and our ground-breaking DNA and ancient disease…
I know many of my readers either speak or read French. I am most pleased and gratified to let everyone know that the French edition of my new book, The Lost Mary: From Jewish Mother of Jesus to Virgin Mother of God (Knopf, 2021) has just been published in French by…
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…
Press Release via Eureka Alert: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-08/uonc-eot080819.php Researchers digging at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte’s ongoing archaeological excavation on Mount Zion in Jerusalem have announced a second significant discovery from the 2019 season – clear evidence of the Babylonian conquest of the city from 587/586 BCE. [See Evidence for 1099…
This incredible 13 x 17 foot zinc model of 19th century Jerusalem created was created by Hungarian Catholic Stephan Illes in the 1870s. It was first exhibited in 1873 at the Vienna International Exhibit, then lost and forgotten until the 1980s until tracked down by an enterprising Hebrew University instructor…
In March, 2007, when all the publicity on the Talpiot Jesus tomb broke, I wrote a blog post that summarized what we knew at the time regarding the 1980 discovery and excavation of the “Jesus tomb,” and perhaps more important, what we did not know. It is still worth reading for…
The east Talpiot tomb, exposed to view by demolition by the the Solel Boneh construction crew, was reported by engineer A. Shochat to the Israel Department of Antiquities on March 27, 1980. That was a Thursday. Neighbors, including local children, visited the tomb that afternoon and also called the Department…