Such a sad day. As Leonard Cohen put it, The Day They Wounded New York. Those of us who were alive and lived through it remember precisely where we were when we heard the news. I was pulliing into our main campus entrance for my 9am Intro to New Testament…
WRITTEN IN SEPTEMBER 2015. I just heard via Jack Sasson the sad news of Prof. John Howard Schütz’s passing. John was professor Emeritus in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His obituary from the Raleigh News and Observer is archived here. What…
I recently came across the photo of Geza Vermes below taken at Qumran, the site of the Dead Sea scrolls community. I was reminded of my time with him in January 2008 in Jerusalem. Here is what I wrote in 2013 upon hearing of his death. Geza Vermes, famed scholar…
I can hardly believe it has been a year. There is nothing I could say that would improve on what I wrote last year, a week after David’s death. I am posting it again here as I want alll of you to know what an extraordiary person he was and…
I just happened to see on the Society of Biblical Literature web site that Jimmy Dunn has died. We were academic “friends” and he reviewed my book Paul and Jesus, for Biblical Archaeology Review in 2013. You can read his review and my response here on the blog. We sharply disagreed, but I…
Clearly in Mark the Twelve male disciples are complete failures and are never presented as heroes, even at the end. However, what we do find in Mark, in stark contrast to this chosen group, are three unnamed women who become Mark’s heroines and carry the core message of the entire…
My dearly beloved oldest son, David Tabor, age 51, lost his battle with cancer after a long struggle on Friday morning August 30th. He died at MDAnderson Cancer Center in Houston, so he had access to the best most innovative care, but things were too advanced by the time he…
I am posting here this morning a most informative document from my friend and fellow-scholar Greg Doudna, whose Ph.D. deals with the history and archaeology of the Dead Sea Scroll sectarian community (you can see some of his publications at this link). In January 1985, Greg visited and interviewed Dr.…
I met Billy Graham two times. The first was on his first London Crusade in March, 1954. It was his first crusade abroad and he went on to Holland, France, and Germany. I had just turned eight years old but I remember it well. In addition to preaching at Wembley…
I loved this essay by Bret Colasacco, one of J. Z. Smith’s undergraduate students in years before he retired. I found it quintessentially “Smith” and those of us who have taken that elevator ride to his office, or sat in one of his amazing courses, will identify with every part…