Here is some original archive footage, unedited, made by my team who visited there on September 15, 1996. The quality is not the best, having been filmed nearly 30 years ago with a video camera. Is this a forgery or might it go back to ancient times? There is a…
Just a quick announcement that my new course titled: “The Quest for the Historical Paul: Apostle or Apostate,” is out at last. I will be launching a wider wave of publicity later this week but wanted you all to have the link first, if you are ready to dive in.…
This is a continuation of the topic I explored in the previous post. The assumption of many scholars is that Paul, even in his preaching of what he calls “his Gospel” to the Gentiles, was just reflecting a more open version of the core message of Jesus, the Twelve, and…
I gave this short overview lecture recently to a group of my students and patrons members and wanted to share it with all of you. It explores the possible break between Paul and his “Gospel” and that of the Jerusalem followers of Jesus led by James the Just. You may…
I posted this some months ago but we have many new people joining this Blog Community, and for those who remember it I wanted to call you attention to it again. This is a long, very informal study of what traditions we can trace in the Torah about the “Box,”…
As some of you know, even though my academic field is ancient Mediterranean religions, including Christian Origins and late 2nd Temple Judaism, I have ended up wearing a few extra “Hats” so to speak. I would include here the archaeological side of my research along with the textual studies typical…
This is an unedited “outtake” from a wide-ranging interview from 2007, hosted by Ted Koppel. Simcha Jacobovici and James Cameron had just released their documentary on Discovery Channel “The Lost Tomb of Jesus ” available Youtube. Don’t Miss this One! It was right out of the gate. https://youtu.be/R9WSQYvp88c For an…
The entire tale in the book of Genesis of Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil has been portrayed as the FALL OF Humanity from God’s Grace and Favor. It is quite the opposite. In this video I examine the…
I learned this single CORE idea from Jonathan Z. Smith, the greatest historian of religion of our time, during the first week of the first class I had from him at the University of Chicago called simply “Hellenistic Religion.” It remains the case that very few in my academic field…
Here is an much expanded version of some of what I presented at the Ehrman NINT conference on Paul over the weekend. it is quite long and goes deeply into many important texts, tailor made for a group such as ours, made up of those who have searched the historical…
