In the aftermath of Jodi Magness’s recent lecture on the “Burials of James, Jesus, and the Talpiot Tombs” in Bart Ehrman’s course “Archaeoolgy in the Time of Jesus” one thing was clear to me that I had not fully realized. Most treatments of the data on the Talpiot tomb research…
I now have three special Topical Series on Youtube with several in the planning stages. We have a lot of new people joining us in 2024 so I wanted to post these very easy to use links. I invite you to check these out, some of you have followed these…
Caution: This presentation is 1.5 hours and is for serious students of the historical Jesus–which I believe my Blog readers and subscribers are. In this age of TikTok, Shorts, YT videos that are never supposed to be longer than 12 minutes, it will find its rightful place. It is not…
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the FLESH, and the life everlasting. Amen. Πιστεύω εις το Πνευμα το `Αγιον, αγίαν καθολικην εκκλησίαν, αγίων κοινωνίαν, άφεσιν `αμαρτιων, σαρκος ανάστασιν, ξωήν αιώνιον. Αμήν. In the original Greek…
The title of this video is purposely AUDACIOUS…since no respectable academic would ever speak of “What the Bible Really Says” about anything, since the Bible says all kinds of things about everything. And I would like to be considered such… However, the title is not mine–but the brilliant historian of…
Alan Segal, Life After Death: A History of Afterlife in Western Religion (Doubleday, 2004). Alan Segal was a scholar of late Antiquity with a host of influential landmark books, including Rebecca’s Children and Two Powers in Heaven–both laying new ground in understanding the intersections between Jews and Christians. In this…
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…
In this second of the series “Death and Afterlife in the Ancient Western World” I turn to the Sumerian traditions, and particularly the Gilgamesh Epic, going back 4500 years–and comparing it to what we see in the Hebrew Bible traditions we have previously covered. https://youtu.be/wm0ys2wvh1c
I am beginning a new teaching series on Youtube this week on the topic of “What the Bible Really Says About Death, Afterlife, and the Future.” You can download my article by this title free at the link in the description. Here is the short Intro video I recorded yesterday.…
NEW! The Lost Mary: Rediscovering the Mother of Jesus (New York: Knopf, 2025). Kindle and Audio. Also published by HarperCollins UK available on Amazon.co.uk serving United Kingdom, EU, and worldwide A world-renowned historian of early Christianity and ancient Judaism lifts the veil on the life of Mary—revealing her revolutionary role as…