Breaking News: Family Radio Prepared to Admit it was Wrong about the Rapture
Via Joel Watts and Peter Kirk I learned that Family Radio, Harold Camping’s organization, has said that if the Rapture has not occurred by midnight Jerusalem time tonight, they were wrong.In related...
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Review of Holger Michael Zellentin, Rabbinic Parodies of Jewish and Christian...
I’m grateful to Mohr Siebeck for having sent me a free review copy of Holger Michael Zellentin’s new book, Rabbinic Parodies of Jewish & Christian Literature (Texts & Studies in Ancient...
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From Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to Bethlehem and Hebron
Scheduling issues meant that I headed straight to a tour of the West Bank my first day in Jerusalem. Fortunately I was able to at least see the Old City briefly and step inside it’s gates. Jerusalem...
View ArticleJerusalem and the Holy Land: A Spectacular Aerial Journey
Click here to view the embedded video.Thanks to Stephen Cook for pointing out this video, which is just a sample of a 3D IMAX movie that is scheduled for release in 2013. Even, or perhaps especially,...
View ArticlePeace for Palestine: A Serious and a Humorous Perspective
On the serious side, the leaders of the Christian churches in the Holy Land have issued a communiqué (via Dănuţ Mănăstireanu):Looking ahead to the upcoming General Assembly of the United Nations this...
View Article360 Degree Virtual Visits to Israel (and 2D Virtual Dead Sea Scrolls)
Via William Hamblin, I learned of the 360 degree panoramic virtual visits to Israel and many other places that are available online. You can visit the Church of the Holy Sepulcher or experience a...
View ArticleJerusalem in Video: 1896-2012
A bit of historic footage from Jerusalem in 1896 has appeared on YouTube (HT John Byron):Click here to view the embedded video.And from Dănuţ Mănăstireanu, the first in a planned series of videos from...
View ArticleJerusalem and Israel: An Aerial View
This trailer for an upcoming IMAX movie about Jerusalem gives an aerial view of a number of major sites. I hope it will generate enthusiasm among students for the Israel trip I’ll be leading in...
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Jericho, Qumran and the Mount of Olives
This morning we traveled from Haifa across Galilee to the Jordan Valley. We entered the West Bank traveling southward along the Jordan river valley. The students were surprised at how imperceptible it...
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Old City of Jerusalem
Today most of our time was spent in the old city of Jerusalem. We started at the Kotel, the Western Wall or Wailing Wall, which is the last remaining wall of the second temple, i.e. the temple that...
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Second Temple Model
I bought my son a wooden model kit of the Second Temple from the bookstore and gift shop at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Today he finished work on the construction, and so I thought I’d share photos...
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From the Moon to Jerusalem
Given my interest in religion and science (I’m even teaching my class on the subject this semester) this quote which Menachem Mendel shared, and which apparently comes from Thomas Friedman’s book, From...
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The First Occupy Wall Street?
When I shared images suggesting that Jesus might have been a liberal Jew or Jewish liberal, it generated interesting discussion. So I thought I would share these and see what people think of them: I...
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Christ of Jerusalem Lost the Election
The New York Times has an article today about the tendency of candidates in Brazil to adopt creative and at times outlandish pseudonyms. From that article I learned that “Christ of Jerusalem” lost an...
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Jerusalem in the Mandaean Book of John and the Origins of Gnosticism
Mandaean texts like the Book of John make reference to Jerusalem quite often – more often than one would expect if this religion had its origins in Mesopotamia, and so the very attention given to...
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Assyrian Dalek
HT Stephen Savage on Facebook. If Sennacherib had at least one Dalek and he couldn't take Jerusalem, does that mean that God sent the Doctor to help king Hezekiah? (For a more mundane explanation of...
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Authorship of Isaiah
My course on the Bible focuses a lot of attention on the identification and use of reliable sources. When students try to tackle an assignment on the authorship of the Book of Isaiah, they consistently...
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Jerusalem’s Construction and Destruction (Right Ginza 15.11.328-333)
This is a quick translation of this passage from the Great Treasure (Ginza Rba), the Mandaean sacred text. It relies heavily on Lidzbarski’s German translation, cross-referenced with the online Ginza...
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Did Paul Have a Distinctive Christology? Did He Think of Jesus as a...
In a recent blog post, Larry Hurtado noted Morton Smith's observation that Christology never turns up as an issue between Paul and the more conservative Jewish Christian groups that he interacted with...
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Conference Papers (ARAM Conference on the Mandaeans, Morning Session, 8 July...
The ARAM conference on the Mandaeans started this morning, and my paper was in the first session. It was well received and generated interesting discussion and questions. I will share the paper at...
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