Most of the important archaeological discoveries of of time have been almost wholly accidental. Those who look, never find, and those who are not looking, hit upon something amazing! The following is one of the greatest examples of that in my own 30 years of doing archaeology in the Holy…
Parallels Between A New Dead Sea Scroll Fragment (4Q521) and the Early New Testament Gospel Tradition One of the more intriguing of the Dead Sea Scrolls released in the 1990s, after being held by the DSS committee for decades, is a fragment that most now title “Messianic Apocalypse” (4Q521).…
I wanted to welcome several hundred new subscribers to my Blog that have come our way via my growing Youtube Channel. I have plans to more and more integrate this blog with Youtube videos–lectures, interviews with various scholars, and the latest treatments of a long list of topics I have…
This groundbreaking article by the late Bargil Pixner, a Benedictine priest and my dear friend, mentor, and colleague, was published in Biblical Archaeology Review in May/June, 1997 as a cover story. One of my great honors was to edit this article from the German and put it into BAR magazine style…
On May 3, 2022 I taught my last college class after a 43 year career at three universities: Notre Dame, the College of William and Mary, and UNC Charlotte. Over the years many of my blogs readers have said they wish they could take one of my courses. In the…
The Mandeans trace themselves back to the original followers of John the Baptist, who, according to tradition, fled the land Holy Land in the first century, preserving traditions independent of the emerging Christian Church in the subsequent centuries. In June 1999, I was privileged to be a part of a…
This groundbreaking article by the late Bargil Pixner, a Benedictine priest and my dear friend, mentor, and colleague, was published in Biblical Archaeology Review in May/June, 1990. For me it was a most important article–groundbreaking! Other than Jim Strange and Shimon Gibson, there is no one from whom I have learned…
I am honored to post as a guest celebrating the 10th anniversary of Bart Ehrman’s popular and informative blog today–highlighting my translation of the Book of Genesis,as well as the Transparent English Bible more generally. Normally Bart’s blog requires a subscription, which is a nominal fee, the proceeds of which…
I filmed all day yesterday (August 3, 2022) with Derek Lambert of Mythvision Podcast on Youtube, a mini-course on the Gospel of Mark based on what I learned from my teacher, the late, great, Norman Perrin at the University of Chicago and my subsequent study and years of teaching Mark…
The following four essays were in response to a comprehensive essay exam I gave in my Dead Sea Scrolls course. They were written by my student Jeffrey Poplin and used with his permission. I thank Jeffrey for his superb work and happily pass these along to my blog readers: Essay One: Offer…
