I love Dr. Shirley Paulson’s program “The Bible and Beyond,” part of “Early Christian Texts,” and her associated web site and activities. I encourage you to explore her channel and subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@EarlyChristianTexts In this interview I talk about my research on my forthcoming book, The Lost Mary: From the Jewish…
I really enjoyed this recent interview I did with Helen Bond and David Roos on their fabulous podcast “Biblical Time Machine.” Helen and I have been on a lot of TV documentaries together over the years. Here we cover it all, and at the end I reveal what scene I…
If one were filling out the some equivalent of a “birth certificate” for Jesus’ the the best legal category within Jewish tradition for his father would be ” Unknown.” [Hebrew “Hushling” שְׁתוּקֵי] As a historian I work with the obvious assumption that all human beings have fathers. Stated like that,…
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…
Contrary to what is often asserted, by scholars as well as general readers, the early traditions that Jesus had a biological father named “Pantera” has nothing to do with an assertion that Mary was raped by a Roman soldier. Further, the name Pantera was never said to be a pun…
In this 2006 lecture, part of a series on “Lost Christianities,” I talk about the alternative ways in which Jesus was viewed in his own time, in contrast to the Orthodox Trinitarian versions of “Christianity” that triumphed and spread to over two billion people in our own time. Arians, Ebionites,…
Some might think that the “title” of this lecture has to be incorrect–after all, is not Mary the most prominent woman in history? How could one possibly present her as marginalized? In fact, Mary, the mother of Jesus is at once the “best known” and “least known” woman in human…
When I think of Mary and the birth of Jesus, I think of Roman crucifixion—not only the crucifixion of Jesus that took place before her eyes, but the horrifying mass crucifixions she witnessed at age fifteen, her infant son in her arms, just outside Nazareth, as Galilee went up in…
Did you know that Joseph, husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus, is never mentioned in the gospel of Mark? Since Mark is our earliest gospel that seems all the more striking. Mark has no account of the birth of Jesus whatsoever, much less any story of the virgin birth. When Jesus…
Here is a nice review by Éliane Bedu (in English as well as French) of my forthcoming book, The Lost Mary (Knopf, 2021), already out in French: Marie: De son enfance juive à la fondation du christianisme (Flamarrion, March 2020–along with my video presentation of the French version when it was published by Flamarrion…