How did it happen that the way Jesus came into the world, and how he left—Christmas and Easter—came to define Christianity itself? I have spent my forty-year career as a scholar of Christian Origins investigating the silence between two back-to-back statements of the Apostles’ Creed, namely that Jesus was: “Conceived…
In this photo is represented the past 30 years of my life, including 67 trips to Israel since 1990, tracking Jesus, with most of my work related to this panorama of the City…
This incredible 13 x 17 foot zinc model of 19th century Jerusalem created was created by Hungarian Catholic Stephan Illes in the 1870s. It was first exhibited in 1873 at the Vienna International Exhibit, then lost and forgotten until the 1980s until tracked down by an enterprising Hebrew University instructor…
In March, 2007, when all the publicity on the Talpiot Jesus tomb broke, I wrote a blog post that summarized what we knew at the time regarding the 1980 discovery and excavation of the “Jesus tomb,” and perhaps more important, what we did not know. It is still worth reading for…
The east Talpiot tomb, exposed to view by demolition by the the Solel Boneh construction crew, was reported by engineer A. Shochat to the Israel Department of Antiquities on March 27, 1980. That was a Thursday. Neighbors, including local children, visited the tomb that afternoon and also called the Department…
As many of my readers know I have been working on my new book, The Lost Mary: How the Jewish Mother of Jesus Became the Virgin Mother of God now for three years! I am still doing final re-writing and editing and it won’t be published until 2020. I hope it…
This post is continued from the previous one here. Here are the last three in this two-part posting. You will find a full exposition of these ideas, chapter by chapter, in my book Paul and Jesus. At the Recently Discovered “Tomb of Paul” in Rome 4) Already but Not Yet.…
Historically most interpreters of Paul have understood his teaching of “justification by grace through faith” based on the atoning blood of Jesus Christ as his greatest and most central insight. From Augustine to Luther, through Bultmann and Barth, the banner of the “Reformation” was centered on this fundamental precept. Wayne Meeks…
I recently posted detailed information on the area south of Jerusalem, today called East Talpiot, where the so-called “Jesus family tomb” was discovered in 1981, with maps and diagrams of the modern streets and apartments in the area, see “Where are the Talpiot Tombs Located?” Apparently, judging from the thousands…
One thing historians of religions often emphasize is that no religious tradition is a static monolithic entity. Whether we are talking about Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, or Islam, the varieties and diversity within each tradition as it develops at the beginning, and over time, are rich and complex. Judaism is no…
