The term Hell or Hell-fire has come to mean eternal torture to most in our times–especially to those exposed to fundamentalist Christian or Muslim ideas and concepts. One of my favorite bloggers, Alex Finkelson, has a most informative post up at his “Scribes of the Kingdom” site. As always, what…
Last summer I revised my published University of Chicago Ph.D. dissertation that was titled Things Unutterable: Paul’s Ascent to Paradise, long out of print and selling for $250-$750 used on Amazon! I had had so many requests for it over the years, so, since used booksellers were ripping people off like…
The question of who killed Jesus has been the subject of countless academic books and articles over the past 100 years. Scholars are largely agreed that despite several passages in the New Testament that appear to collectively blame “the Jews,” the historical fact is that Jesus died by Roman crucifixion,…
What a way to start off my Blog for 2021–I am honored, humbled, and flattered… Popular Archaeology Magazine is pleased to announce the publication of the 10-year Anniversary Issue, featuring the top 10 stories of the magazine’s first 10 years. These stories exemplify the excitement and adventure of archaeological exploration…
Millions around the world viewed the “Great Conjunction” of Jupiter and Saturn in the southwest sky Monday evening as Jupiter “caught up with” and passed Saturn, appearing as one bright star from our earthly vantage point even though their orbits are millions of miles apart. This close a conjunction between…
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…
A Preliminary and Expanding Bibliography and Reading List I am beginning to upload all sorts of new materials and resources to my blog–publications, documents, resources, maps, photos, links, and so forth. Here is the first of several between now and the end of the year. I want to share more…
This semester I have a class of 50 in my Religious Studies 1201 course: Introduction to Religion. For our final exam we are doing essays integrating the content of these six programs from the PBS “Closer to Truth” series with Dr. Robert L. Kuhn. You can watch these and many…
One of the more intriguing of the Dead Sea Scrolls is a fragment now titled “Messianic Apocalypse” (4Q521). This text contains three rather striking features that are of particular significance for comparing the apocalyptic beliefs and expectations of the Qumran community with the emerging early Christian movement. First, the text…
Tonight at sundown begins the festival of Dedication, more popularly known as Hanukkah–the festival of Lights. This special Jewish festival that non-Jews often mistakenly think of as the “Jewish Christmas,” has its origins in the revolt of the Maccabees against the infamous Greco-Syrian ruler Antiochus IV (aka Epiphanes) in 167…
