Five of my most recent best-selling books are on sale this Holiday Season at significantly reduced prices on Amazon–this includes all formats whether paperback, Kindle, hardcover, or audio–as available. You can check out the details at the links below. Whether Christmas, Hanukkah, or just a gift for yourself, a family…
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…
To be a fundamentalist, you have to have a book. And you have to forget the book has a history. I normally post on matters in my areas of expertise, namely, late 2nd Temple Judaism and earliest Christianity in the Greco-Roman period (“Augustus to Constantine” as my revered Chicago Professor…
Both Kindle and Print Versions Now Available on Amazon Worldwide “I have worked in linguistics for 25 years now and have been a lay reader of the Bible. Reading the new translation of Genesis is at once familiar but also like reading something I’ve not read before. There’s an…
Happy Biblical New Year, Nisan/Aviv 1, the 1st day of the 1st month…Exodus 12:1 “This new [moon] shall be the beginning of the months [news moons] for you…A time to think back and forward and begin afresh, with Spring Sprung and the early “harvest” getting ripe. Aviv means “spring” or…
From the lovely, elegant, and scholarly 1985 JPS translation, to the unparalleled Oxford maps, the extensive scholarly, well-balanced notes (including academic as well as rabbinic perspectives), the essays, tables, and charts in the back, with additional maps and charts splashed on the pages throughout, printed on high quality “Bible” paper…
This summer will mark my 68th trip to the Holy Land since my first visit with my family in the summer of 1962 at age 16. All but two of these trips have been since 1990. I find the number astounding looking back. By far most of these trips have…
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,…
Recent polls indicate that up to 70% of Americans, both Black and White, approve of some form of corporeal punishment of children–with Evangelical Christians coming in at over 85%. 15 States in the USA explicitly permit some form of “paddling” in public schools, with 7 States not prohibiting it, leaving…