Here is the first of my new mini-series on Youtube dealing with Holy Week. You will find all sorts of supplementary materials at this blog post–if you want to use the occasion of Holy Week to delve deeply into some of the issues I will cover. My central question is:…
In this finale to my 25-part series on Bible Prophecy I explore the three major interpretations of “Bible Prophecy Belief” in our own time–Preterist, Continuous Historical, and Futurist–weighing them in the balance and finding them wanting. I discuss the terms: literal, symbolic, poetic, spiritual, and actual as well as the…
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…
Did you realize there are ONLY ten passages in the Hebrew Bible that predict his arrival and what he is supposed to do. The title to this post is not cynical….it is meant to be quite straight forward and direct? Christian and Muslims believe Jesus is THE Messiah of…
In this 2nd in my new Youtube series on “Bible Prophecy Through the Ages.” I take a look at the First Messiah in Jewish history–the Messiah BEFORE Jesus, who flourished in the late 2nd Temple period–100 years before Jesus and his movement. We don’t even know the name of this…
Okay, ready, set, go! I just launched the new series on YouTube titled “Interpreting Bible Prophecy through the Ages”… I think this will be of great interest and benefit to lots of folks. It is so needed today, amidst all the craziness. Here is Part I. I take a broad…
Some Oral Remarks by Prof. James Tabor reflection on Qumran down to WacoPlenary Session: When Prophecy Fails Delivered at the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, 1997 English translations of the Dead Sea Scroll quotation here are from Geza Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English. Note: As an Amazon…
I am convinced that the historical figure of Jesus began to pore over key prophetic passages in the Hebrew Bible, especially in the Isaiah and the Pslams, where he became convinced that both his identity and his destiny was laid out. After the death of his cousin John the Baptist,…
Few Bible students realize that some of the key texts in the Hebrew Bible about the “wilderness” or “desert” are specific references to what is called in Hebrew, the “Arava,” the rift valley that runs down to the Dead Sea–the lowest spot on earth–all the way into Africa. For example,…
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…