I recently gave my first lecture on the Historical Mary, mother of Jesus, to a Roman Catholic audience–in this case the Sisters of Maryknoll Institute. This is very in-depth with slides–for those who want to explore in more details the texts, archaeology, and history that shed precious light on the…
In this introductory clip from my on-line course, “Quest for the Historical Paul” we go deep into a full historical consideration of what we know of the mission, message, and texts of the 13th Apostle. The two mystery texts here are Genesis 15:6 and Habakkuk 2:4. You can take a…
The ancient group of Jesus followers referred to as the “Ebionites” or “Nazarenes” were slandered, damned, and declared heretics by the mainstream Christian Orthodox Church Fathers. In this dialogue with filmmaker Kameron Waters, I argue that they may well be one of our best clues to recovering what the original…
In this interview with Jacob Berman, host of the YouTube channel “History Valley,” we talk about the confusing mix of names used for various Jewish and Jewish-Christian groups from the Dead Sea Scroll group to those oriented around James the brother of Jesus and his successors in the first and…
My lates blog post in The Times of Israel. Whatever you might have thought you had figured out about Pentecost, the Festival of Weeks, or in Hebrew Shavuot–this post will likely complicate things a bit. However, the past point might be the most important in the entire post. https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-shifting-meanings-of-shavuot-pentecost/
In this illustrated reading of the Preface to my book Paul and Jesus: How the Apostle Transformed Christianity (Simon & Schuster 2012) I present a very personal overview of how I view and understand “The Thirteenth Apostle” since I first encountered him at age 17 in my Testament Greek course…
Whether you have watched this one before or not, I think you will find it fairly unique and of value. I did! I just rewatched it in choosing what to post as Easter Sunday fades into our past this evening. I had forgotten just how thorough it was. The description…
As we move from Thursday through Sunday morning, observed as Easter tomorrow, this 30 minute overview of the events surrounding Jesus’s crucifixion and burial takes you on the ground with plenty of archaeological evidence. I wanted to share it with you all this Saturday night–when I think Jesus’ corpse was…
In this long form interview with notes and maps I discuss who were the Ebionites? Were John the Baptist, Jesus, and James part of a “stream” of faith and piety that traced back to the Dead Sea Scroll group, and down through a so-called “Christianity,” before, during, in contrast to…
As we move along into what Christians traditionally call “Holy Week”–with both Passover and Easter ahead, I wanted to share a blog post I did back in 2022– with links to just about every aspect of the main events from Palm Sunday through Easter–and thereafter. Here is the main link…