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:…
The treatise attributed to Jesus’ brother James in the New Testament was not even considered “Christian” by many Protestant theologians such as Martin Luther. And yet this James was the leader of the followers of Jesus after the crucifixion–and held that position until his own brutal death in 63 CE…
The on-line magazine, Popular Archaeology, which I highly recommend, recently circulated its “Top Ten” feature stories of the past decade. I was honored and pleased that one of the ten stories that my research on the historical Jesus, as related to material and textual evidence, was chosen as one of…
In this three-part multi-series interview with Paul Williams, who hosts the widely popular Youtube Channel @bloggingtheology, we explore in some depth an overview of my decades long work trying to come to terms with the historical Jesus, the apostle Paul, and the emergency of something that could be distinctively called…
This lecture focuses on Jesus and his “band of brothers,” whether members of his own family or apostles or both. Sorting it all out is quite a challenge. I had uploaded a private camera version of this lecture before but this one has the slides–they are not the best quality…
One of the enduring questions historians of early Christianity struggle with is the issue of when we can properly speak of the “new religion” of Christianity, as contrasted with a variety of forms of Judaism in the decades following the death of Jesus the Jew. The title of Paula Fredriksen’s book, When…
One of the most controversial chapters in my book Paul and Jesus is the idea I present in chapter 9, “The Battle of the Apostles,” that despite the early attempts of Paul and the Jerusalem apostles to reconcile their differences in the end they broke with one another over sharp differences. I…
There is a new scientific paper published just this week by a distinguished team of international geologists, chemists, and earth scientists, titled “The Geochemistry of Intrusive Sediment Sampled from the 1st Century CE Inscribed Ossuaries of James and the Talpiot Tomb,” that is now available on-line. Based on extensive soil…
In March, 2007, when all the publicity on the Talpiot Jesus tomb broke, I wrote a blog post that summarized what we knew at the time regarding the 1980 discovery and excavation of the “Jesus tomb,” and perhaps more important, what we did not know. It is still worth reading for…
The east Talpiot tomb, exposed to view by demolition by the the Solel Boneh construction crew, was reported by engineer A. Shochat to the Israel Department of Antiquities on March 27, 1980. That was a Thursday. Neighbors, including local children, visited the tomb that afternoon and also called the Department…