I have continued my series on Youtube dealing with ideas of Death and Afterlife in the Ancient Western world. The level of interest is a total surprise for me. The first episode alone, on “Ancient Hebrew Views,” has over 200,000 views! In this tenth segment of the series I try…
When I was a freshman in college at Abilene Christian University in the mid-1960s I decided early on to focus on the Bible and early Christianity–basically New Testament Studies. I had returned from a trip to the Holy Land the previous summer, and I was fired up with the idea–at…
When people want to talk to me about what I believe about Jesus and early “Christianity,” I often tell them–read Those Incredible Christians first and then we can talk. The late Hugh Schonfield was a brilliant scholar who came to international fame in 1965 with the publication of his controversial and best-selling…
Peter Schäfer, Jesus in the Talmud (Princeton University Press, 2009) (Kindle and Hardcover links). There is no end of confusion regarding texts about the figure of Jesus of Nazareth and whether he is or is not referenced in the Talmuds and Rabbinic literature, and if so whether such references offer anything…
The short answer is “It’s Complicated.” So much depends on what one means by “Essene” and what sources have gone into this or that use of the term–whether ancient or modern. In this interview with YouTube host Neal Sendlack (@GnosticInformant), we explore the core issues and many others related thereto,…
I officially began this new series of special classes on “Death, Afterlife, and the Future” in the ancient Western World. I plan to cover the following topics–the link below is the first: The Ancient Hebrew Ideas of Death and Afterlife Ancient Babylonian Ideas: Gilgamesh Homer and Ancient Greek Ideas Ancient…
In this post I want to focus on three very fine volumes on the so-called New Testament Apocrypha. Plus a class German work by Henneke-Schneemelcher The terminology in my field of New Testament Studies is a real nettle bush. Am I a “Biblical Scholar,” a specialist in “Christian Origins,…
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases with no extra cost to buyers Richard Bauckham, Jude and the Relatives of Jesus in the Early Church (T&T Clark, 2000). I love the careful scholarship of Richard Bauckham and highly recommend this incredibly valuable volume. Too often mainstream New Testament scholarship…
Ken Dark, Archaeology of Jesus’ Nazareth (Oxford, 2023) (Kindle link), is a marvelous little “must have” volume for anyone interested in the a readable summary of the evidence. The archaeology of ancient 1st century CE Nazareth has been controversial over the years, with some even claiming there was no such…
Contrary to what is often asserted by scholars as well as general readers, the early traditions that Jesus had a biological father named “Pantera” has nothing to do with an assertion that Mary was raped by a Roman soldier. Further, the name Pantera was never said to be a pun…