Jacob Neusner was one of the best-known scholars of Jewish studies in the 20th century. He reckoned that the three most influential Jews of all time were Moses, Jeremiah, and Yohanan ben Zakkai. Odds are you’ve heard of Moses and Jeremiah. Moses was the great lawgiver. Jeremiah was the great…
Nice when this happens…please comment at the Times of Israel site, if you are of a mind. You just have to register with email and PW…it really helps, and share the link if you will…Thanks! https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/standing-with-the-jewish-people-my-twenty-four-hour-odyssey/
Tuesday morning, November 14th, I left the house at 2:30am–yes, you read that right, to rendezvous with the various buses here in Charlotte associated with the Jewish Community as we headed up to the March for Israel rally in Washington, D.C. I arrived back home at 2:30am Wednesday morning, 24…
When it comes to the thousands of books and millions of articles on the so-called “Arab-Israeli” conflict–and I know I have read at least fifty of the main ones over the years–I recommend two things: Maps and Documents. As the best single course for understanding the minute details of what…
Over the decades I have heard dozens of interviews with John Crossan, listened to his lectures, read his books, and spent time together in Jerusalem in 2007 with him and his wife Sarah, in endless conversation, visiting some of the “off the beaten tourist paths” places with Shimon Gibson. He…
Ross Nichols has just uploaded on a very balanced and reasonable set of reflections on the “Jerusalem stone” inscription and the resulting controversies that broke over the weekend–see my “Breaking News and Updates” posted here on my blog this morning–with quite a few links that fill in the backstory on…
This post from Friday, March 11th is now looking doubtful–as Israel and Turkey are apparently not in agreement. Here is the latest from the Jerusalem Post. We will continue to follow this developing story but the links below to Nichol’s work on the Moses Shapira connections remain as the main point…
One of my main areas of focus and expertise over the decades has been the broad understanding of what might be called “Biblical Prophecy Belief,” from ancient to modern times–let’s just say from the Dead Sea Scrolls through contemporary Christian and Jewish interpretations in the 21st century. I gave this…
Tonight at sundown begins the festival of Dedication, more popularly known as Hanukkah–the festival of Lights. This special Jewish festival that non-Jews often mistakenly think of as the “Jewish Christmas,” has its origins in the revolt of the Maccabees against the infamous Greco-Syrian ruler Antiochus IV (aka Epiphanes) in 167…
Daniel chapter 11 might well be the longest “continual” prophecy in the Hebrew Bible. Indeed, it appears to be referred to in Daniel 10:21–the chapter leading up to the Daniel’s most disturbing vision–as the “book of truth.” It is surely one of the most influential in terms of firing up…