Our earliest gospel of Mark implies that Jesus left the Galilee and headed for Jerusalem for Passover in the Spring a few weeks before his death. Based on additional textual sources and geographical references it appears he traveled to the Mt Herman area in the far north, then spent his…
I am using the term “Luke” here advisedly, for the author of the two-volume New Testament work of Luke-Acts. See “Who Wrote the Gospel of Luke?” by Mikel C. Parsons for who the author might have been and what might be said for the tradition view of a companion of…
Some years ago in working on the narrative materials in the gospel of John, I ended up flying to Amman, Jordan to look at a specific site that I thought might be referenced in the last verse of John 10: John 10:40 He went away again across the Jordan to…
Those who have done a bit of academic reading about our New Testament gospels have come across the idea of what is most often referred to as the “Q Source.” Over the years I have found that despite lots of discussion about the hypothesis few have in fact sat down…
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”…
In the introduction to this this extended interview with Paul Williams, I update viewers a bit on my activities in April and beyond–including my Zoom meeting on April 30th with students in the Mark course. Paul Williams is the YouTube host of #BloggingTheology, we explore Mark’s view of the figure…
My on-line mini-course on the Gospel of Mark, which was released on January 12th, is really doing well with lots of rave reviews and great questions and responses by those taking it. It is open to the public, non-credit, but lots of learning at your own pace. This course is…
In my on-line course on Mark I try to carefully cover some of the features that make this earliest and first “story of Jesus” unique. The scene halfway through the book of Mark, in chapter 8, where Peter confesses Jesus as the “Christ,” is rebuked by Jesus as representing the…
In this short video I show that the whole idea of “Harmonizing” our four New Testament Gospels is a mistaken idea in the first place. In fact, Mark, the earliest Gospel written was viewed and strongly deficient by Matthew, who used 90% of it, as well as Luke who used…
If you check the dropdown menu at the top of any page on my TaborBlog you will see an emerging new feature titled “The Jewish-Roman World of Jesus.” During my years at UNC Charlotte these materials were on a university web site used by my students in my courses–but since…