Here is my CORE view of Easter morning, based on a careful historical investigation of our sources. This is not the typical “skeptical” or “atheistic” view of things–but a careful analysis of how faith that Jesus was “raised from the dead” arose among his followers–not in Jerusalem on Easter, but…
In this fourth of the mini-series for Holy Week I take things from the death of Jesus to his double burial, and the bare beginnings of resurrection faith as hinted at by Paul. In the 5th and final episode I will examine how resurrection faith move from a glorified spiritual…
In this continued narration of the final days of Jesus we take a more historical look at what we can reliably reconstruct through the fog of theological overlay, regarding Jesus’s final meal, arrest, various “trials,” and his crucifixion. Be sure and see Parts 1 and 2 uploaded before this one…
The Drama continues…Jesus stages a non-violent Temple Takeover,” denouncing the religious establishment and its corrupt leaders for running a den of slaughter and commerce and focusing on the Two Great Commandments as more than Temple or Sacrifice. The Plot to Kill is hatched https://youtu.be/hOgDW-maeG0
With Passover and Easter ahead it is time to dive deeply into the historical evidence for the Last Days of Jesus–leaving aside theology and church dogma and tradition. What do we really know and how do we know it? Holy Week is Here–Digging Deeply into the Sources: For much more…
This might sound at first like a trivial or even silly question. Believe it or not, it has profound implications, as I show in this short video. Christian apologists insist on a physical body walking out of the tomb, but our earliest evidence shows clearly that was NOT the original…
In this Preface I lay out a bit of autobiographical history that took me from my evangelical Christian college days as a Greek and Biblical Studies major to where I find myself now, many decades later, in my quest for a better historical understanding of the Mary/John the Baptizer/Jesus/James “movement”…
In this video I examine textual evidence in the New Testament, the Didache, and the Dead Sea Scrolls that points to a completely different tradition of the Sayings of Jesus at the Last Supper. Neither the eating of his body, nor the drinking of his blood–even sacramentally or symbolically–but rather…
This is Part 2 of my lecture on the DIDACHE that I recently prepared for my “Tabor Research Community for our upcoming monthly Zoom meeting. This ancient manuscript, lost in ancient times and re-discovered in 1873, dates as early as 100 AD. It contains the earliest record of the “Teachings”…
This is Part 1 of an edited shortened version of a lecture on the DIDACHE that I recently gave to my “Tabor Research Community in our monthly Zoom meeting. This ancient manuscript, lost in ancient times and re-discovered in 1873, dates as early as 100 AD. It contains the earliest…