I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Chicago, on “Paul’s Ascent to Paradise” under the direction of Jonathan Z. Smith, the late and great Robert M. Grant, and Arthur Adkins. Its focus was the celebrated passage where Paul reports his extraordinary experience, as a “man in Christ” who…
The 2017 Biblical Archaeology Society Publication Awards were just announced in the latest November/December issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. These were carefully selected from hundreds of entries so any or all of them are certainly worthy of purchase and reading. I was honored to serve as one of the judges in…
Michael Servetus (aka Miguel Serveto) is surely one of the most remarkable men of history, though he is largely unknown in general circles. He was born in Spain in 1511 and died in 1553, at age 42, burnt at the stake as a heretic by John Calvin’s Geneva Council. He…
This article, published in the December, 1999 issue of Bible Review magazine remains relevant to this day.
It is difficult for one to imagine a version of Christianity pre-dating Paul with none of the core theological affirmations we find in the Apostles Creed. Yet that is precisely what our evidence indicates. The original apostles and followers of Jesus, led by James and assisted by Peter and John, continued…
So a lively and thought provoking attempt to resolve some of the historical problems that Paul poses–yes. But, sadly, tendentiousness and text-selectivity renders most of the thesis increasingly implausible. James D. G. Dunn, who is the Emeritus Lightfoot Professor of Divinity in the department of theology and religion at Durham…
I am teaching a course this semester called “The End of the World as We Know It” after the REM song of that name. We are examining ideas associated with Biblical prophecy and the Apocalypse, both Jewish and Christian (and towards the end, a bit of Islam), in the…
So the soldiers, out of the wrath and hatred they bore the Jews, nailed those they caught, one after one way, and another after another, to the crosses, by way of jest, when their multitude was so great, that room was wanting for the crosses, and crosses wanting for the…
Happily, I come out of a Christian tradition in which the Hebrew Bible carries as much authority as the New Testament. No different weight is given to one or the other. The Bible is one, Old and New, in my particular tradition. My own interest is far more in the…
I was recently pleased to participate in a wide-ranging conversations with my colleagues at UNC Charlotte as a guest on their ongoing series “Conversations about Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed.” You can listen to or download from iTunes. This program is dated 8/17/2017 but please browse some of the previous ones…