A major part of the success of the blog is the corps of faithful volunteers who do a variety of tasks, some to make the blog much better and some to make it even possible.   The only perk that volunteers get, in addition to knowing they've helped advance the spread of biblical knowledge to a wider audience and raised significant funds for charity in doing so, is a monthly webinar with me on a topic of their choice.  Those are a blast.   But for the most part, volunteers volunteer because they believe in the cause and are unusually generous human beings. We need another volunteer, someone who is qualified to file our state and federal taxes. We are, as you know, a non-profit, and our long-devoted and highly-capable books-person has recently had to bow out from the position.  We need someone with experience in this kind of thing.  Anyone with experience will not find ours a tough-case.   You interested? If so, please email us at [email protected] to let us know, and tell us a bit about [...]

The blog has done extremely well this past year, thanks to you the members and the core of people who work to keep it going.  Here on our annual last day I’d like to take look back on what has happened and talk a bit about what lies ahead. I’m particularly pleased that we have continued to meet our two goals for the blog, which drove us to start it over eleven years ago now: To provide scholarly knowledge about the historical Jesus, the New Testament, and the other Christian writings of the first three or four centuries to a broad non-scholarly audience. To raise money for charities while doing it, highly reputable, responsible, and effective organizations that deal with hunger, homelessness, disaster relief, and literacy. To start with the charity: once more we have done extremely well, having distributed (as of today) just over $480,000.  To put that into a bit of perspective, our first full year of operation, exactly ten years ago, we raised $54,000.  I’m no mathematician, but by my count that’s [...]

As you probably know, we have audio versions of all the blog posts that are available for all Gold and Platinum level members.  The audio versions go out on the same day as the written posts themselves.  It's a great benefit (if you're not Gold level yet: consider it!).  But it takes a lot of work by volunteers who are very generous with their time.  The volunteers record each post, and they are then produced and published by our audio volunteer Anthony (hail, Anthony!). We have two volunteers currently alternating in their reading of the posts, and we need to add another in order to keep the operation running smoothly.   Would you be interested?   To be considered, you would need to fill out a form and then submit an audition recording (all explained in the link below). We are looking for someone with a very good reading voice.  The position would take time and commitment, but the position does NOT require a lot of technical expertise.  You will need a computer on which to record [...]

Here is a provocative and intriguing post on a topic not widely known outside the realm of Roman historians: the miracles attributed to the Emperor Vespasian (which sure sound a lot like the miracles attribued to Jesus, written in Gospels produced just at the time of or after his reign.) The post is by Platinum member Ryan Fleming.  Platinum members are allowed to write posts for other Platinum members.  It's a great perk of the highest level of blog membership!  And when we have a few in the bag, Platinum members vote for which of them can appear on the main blog. This is the current winner.  It raises a number of intriguing possibilities about this little-known set of narratives of obvious importance to understanding Jesus and the Gospels.  What do you think?   **************************** Roman historian Tacitus (56 CE to 120 CE) in The Histories, Book IV, Section 81, and Suetonius (69 CE to 122 CE) in The Lives of the Twelve Caesars wrote of miracles Vespasian performed in the temple of Serapis in [...]