Are you interested in the amazing and important history of Jerusalem, from the ancient world till today?  I am!  I am pleased to announce a special event being put on by my Department of Religious Studies. a panel discussion of the new book by my colleague Jodi Magness: Jerusalem Through the Ages: From Its Beginnings to the Crusades.  It will be on Sunday November 17, 1:00, remote via Zoom.   I will be moderating the discussion. Many of you will know about Jodi.  She is one of the world's leading experts on the archaeology of ancient Israel, and has been my colleague at UNC since, well, roughly the beginnings of Jerusalem.    In all these years I have never heard her asked a question she could not answer authoritatively. This book is exceptionally good.  The people on the panel are all smart, interesting, and insightful.  If you're interested, here is the brochure announcing the event.  It is a fund-raiser for my department. We have a departmental fund that I myself started years ago called the Robert Miller [...]

A blog member recently asked me if I could post the pop quiz that I used to give t0 my New Testament class on the first day of the semester.  I say "used to" because I have stopped teaching the course, after doing so for 35 years (!), yielding it over to the capable hands of my colleague Hugo Mendez, to allow me to teach small seminar-courses instead here as I progress into geezerhood. I was simply going to refer the blog member to the post where I had given the quiz recently, and ... and I can't find where / when I did!  I'm sure I did! Then again, I'm sure I know where my glasses, keys, and phone are.  But so far as I can tell, it's been years since I did.  So -- well, here it is.  I think this is the post in which I *first* revealed the quiz to interested blog members some ten years ago.  [editor's note: Found it!  My New Testament Pop Quiz].  After some preliminary remarks, I [...]

I will be giving lectures on another glorious tour to some of the Greek Islands this coming May 14-26. This will be fantastic. Some blog members came with me on a similar trip last year, but to different islands. It was life-long-memorable. If it’s humanly possible, think about joining up! Space will be limited – so if you’re interested, check out the brochure I provide below at the bottom of the post. It will give you all the details you would need to know, and I’m happy to address any questions you have. Here is what I say about the trip in the description. ************************* The Greek Islands are some of my favorite places on earth. I’ve been on a number of occasions, and this Thalassa Journey is taking me there again. Wanna come with me? We will be island-hopping to some of the most scenic sites in the world – stunningly gorgeous landscapes and seascapes, incredibly beautiful villages and towns, museums, monasteries, churches, and archaeological sites: some of the oldest remnants of western civilization. [...]

In these massively troubling times (no need for me to itemize the issues) and the incredibly disturbing bifurcation of opinions, views, and perspectives, where very few people have even the slightest interest in listening to someone on "the other side," there is at least one thing that virtually everyone agrees on:  these are massively troubling times with incredibly disturbing bifurcation of ....   Well. right.  We can at least agree it's a mess. And what, I ask you, does that have to do with the blog?  Well, in short, nothing and everything. Over lo these many years, I have tried very hard to allow everyone to express their opinions on matters connected with the blog -- principally, the study of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, the origins of Christianity, the first several centuries of Christian literature and history, and cognate fields such as Hebrew Bible, early Judaism, Greek and Roman religion, with a touch of personal religious views and modern religion, etc. I have also tried very hard not to take sides on the social [...]

Most Christians turn to the Bible to some degree or another for guidance on their ethical views and perspectives on social agendas.  For those who read it closely, the Bible can be problematic ethically.  Most people realize there is a problem with the endorsement of slavery in the Bible (both Old and New Testaments); few have ever seen that there is also a problem with what today we think of a "family values." In my book The New Testament: A Historical Introduction, now in its eight edition with Hugo Mendez (Oxford University Press, 2024), I address these issues very briefly in a couple of those side-bar boxes I've mentioned in the two previous posts.  Here they are! ******************************  Box 22.12  What Do You Think? The New Testament and Slavery Many people who read the book of Philemon simply assume that Paul writes the letter in order to urge Philemon to set his slave Onesimus free.  After all, slavery is, and was, a horrible institution, and surely the apostle would have done everything [...]

10/3/2024 Update: Bart has returned safely home and recorded the below video message for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDM8_jr6qn0&t=108s Original Post: As many of you know, Hurricane Helene swept through the mountains of Western North Carolina over the weekend, leaving significant destruction in its path. On Sunday, we announced a fundraiser to support relief efforts. We're asking for a suggested donation of $50.00, though any amount is appreciated. Those who donate will be invited to attend a lecture by Bart to be given on Monday October 7th at 7:30pm ET on the topic of: Why Do Disasters Hit? The Bible’s Views. All those who donate and register for the event will be sent a recording of the lecture, so please consider donating even if you're not able to attend live. To the many of you who have already donated, we sincerely thank you for your generosity and look forward to seeing you on Monday. If you missed that email, we're sharing the details here as well. ****************************** Hi from Jen, I hope this message finds you safe [...]

How does one decide which books should belong to a collection of ALL the surviving early Christian writings of the first hundred years of the church?  Here I explain my procedure when producing my set of translations with introductions, The New Testament and Other Early Christian Writings: A Reader, 2nd ed. 2004 (Oxford University Press), and explain the other features of book.  This follows on my earlier posts and again is taken from the Introduction to the volume. ****************************** In sum, it is important for modern readers to realize that the book we call the New Testament is actually a collection of books, put together by persons living much later than the actual authors. When "Matthew" wrote his Gospel, he had no idea that someone would eventually combine his book with three others that were more or less like it to form the first section of a canon of Scripture, a canon that was to include a history of the Christian movement, personal letters sent by other early Christians, and an apocalyptic narrative [...]