Grafton relies on new evidence taken from Smith’s recently published correspondence with his life-long friend, the great Jewish scholar Gershom Scholem. These letters make it clear beyond any reasonable doubt that Smith could not have forged either Clement’s letter or the passages of “Secret Mark” contained therein. Over the…
I am contacted two or three times a year by various student directors of campus chapters of an international organization called Ratio Christi. Usually these students email me to ask if I would be willing to have a public debate with one of their associates, most often on the topic of…
I want to recommend to my readers this wonderful and important article by David Bentley Hart. I thank my colleague Dr. James Philip Arnold of Reunion Institute in Houston, TX for pointing it out to me. Philip earned his Ph.D. from Rice University and wrote his dissertation on Paul–so he…
Given my chosen field of study, namely “Christian Origins,” I am often asked by students and attendees at my lectures whether there are any reference to Jesus and the early “Christian” movement outsidethe New Testament. The following references, from a diverse collection of Roman writers around the time of the…
I have posted quite a few things lately on the relationship between the gospels of Mark and the gospel of John. I want to strongly recommend Paul Anderson’s recent piece with the fascinating title, “A Bioptic Hypothesis: A Theory of Influentiality Between the Johannine and Markan Gospels,” along with the…
This week I am giving Ten Lectures at the Biblical Archaeology Society Seminar at St Olaf College in Northfield, MN. I will post my slides each day, which have hyperlinks to more materials and references to books and further reading, for those who want to delve into these subjects a…
I have written several posts recently on the different Jesus traditions reflected in Mark, our earliest gospel, and John, our latest, namely on The Last Days of Jesus, A Wedding at Cana, The First Burial of Jesus, and Comparing our Earliest and Latest Sources. If you missed any of these and…
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…
Dear Reader:This is one of the most thorough and complex blog posts I have ever done based on years of careful textual work. It is not something to breeze through, though it is written clearly and simply. You will need your Bible out and a pad of paper but your…
Gary Greenberg was kind enough to send me a copy of his fascinating new book, Proving Jesus’ Authority in Mark and John: Overlooked Evidence of a Synoptic Relationship (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018). I am just beginning to read it, so I will not attempt any kind of overview or review at this…