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…
One of the fundamental challenges of any serious study of what scholars refer to as the “historical Jesus,” is to sort out the relationship between our three “Synoptic” gospels, which appear in the New Testament as Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They have a clear literary relationship–but the question of “priority”…
I have been working this week on a brand new feature on my Blog–that along with the Jewish Roman World of Jesus, will grow into a really major resource for my readers and subscribers. I am called it “Tabor BookShelf.” It is in the top menu, easy to access anytime.…
The question of how the earliest followers of Jesus viewed Jesus as well as the “God of Jesus,”–that is the One God so central to most forms of Judaism, is a complex one that has been explored extensively in the field of New Testament and Christian Origins studies. I highly…
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. By using these particular links there is no increase in cost to you as the purchaser. Marie: De son enfance juive à la fondation du christianisme (Flammarion, 2020). (Kindle link). This is a translation of the forthcoming English version, The Lost Mary:…
Does the 1980 Talpiot “Jesus Family Tomb” have any likely connection to the historical Jesus of Nazareth and his family? In January of 2008 a group of internationally renowned scholars from a broad range of disciplines met in Jerusalem to discuss that very question. Covering the archaeological facts about the…