Some years ago in working on the narrative materials in the gospel of John, I ended up flying to Amman, Jordan to look at a specific site that I thought might be referenced in the last verse of John 10: John 10:40 He went away again across the Jordan to…
By the “Jesus Apocalypse” I mean the core text of Mark 13 in which Jesus is said to have laid out a scenario for his final generation. In this video I compare two rewritten accounts, found in Matthew 24 and Luke 21–both very different and going in opposite ways. The…
I have been fascinated with the “Year of the Four Emperors” for since graduate school days. I got convinced years ago, reading S. F. F. Brandon’s classic work, The Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church: A Study of the Effects of the Jewish Overthrow of 70 AD on Christianity,…
In this video I offer an informal account of my thirty-year history of research on the Dead Sea Scrolls, beginning in 1992 when our team spent a month surveying the site, doing radar ground scan, and surveying caves from Qumran to Ein Gedi. My new course, “Jesus and the Dead…
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…
I know many of my blog readers have been anticipating the release of my new online course titled “Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls.” I have worked on this for several months and I am excited about its content and quality. It comes with a hefty course pack of study…
I began a new series on Youtube dealing with interpretations of Bible prophecy from ancient to modern times–a kind of history and analysis of “apocalyptic” dreams and schemes through the ages. We are up to episode seven–and I did five segments on the most influential book of all in this…
I would love to meet and spend time with some of my blog readers this Fall in San Antonio, November 17-19 for the “26th annual “Bible and Archaeology Fest.” Click on the link for all the details. I have been at these for all but two of the 25 years!…
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,…
Sorry, this tour is FULL…after four days…I will keep you informed about future tours… A personal note: I am thrilled to see such interest in my May 2024 “Tracking Jesus” tour…I only announced it here on August 25th–three days ago! Apparently there is quite a bit of interest. I…
