Q. Jesus’ choice of the particular 12 he did choose—four fishermen, one or two tax collectors, one or two former zealots of some sort seems in itself an unlikely grouping of persons, indeed a grouping of persons already at odds with one another. Would you see this as some sort of statement of ‘can’t we all just get along’ and love our neighbors even our enemies? In short, would you see this as an enacted parable of what the kingdom... Read more

We’ve already had occasion to laud the new Top Gun movie which came out last month, and so far is the best summer action movie of all those on offer.  This blog post will focus on Downton Abbey and the Professor and the Madman. The latter was doomed by Covid to not show up in the theaters in 2020-21, and so I saw it on the plane coming home from Istanbul.  It involves a true story about how the OED,... Read more

Q. Jesus’ concern for the least, the last, and the lost has sometimes been interpreted to mean that he endorsed some form of communism (in some liberation theological texts), not merely communalism. The problem with that notion is severalfold: 1) Jesus is not endorsing a governmental program of the redistribution of goods, he is calling his own disciples to follow what the OT already said about taking care of the widows, the orphans and the poor, and he believes he... Read more

Q. As for the Son of Man material I remember Charlie Moule saying that we should not equate the phrase ‘the Son of Man’ with more generic uses of the phrase ‘ben Adam’ etc. not least because the phrase is actually bar enosh, in Aramaic and does not seem to be an allusion to Adam like the phrase ‘a son of humanity’ can be. He argued that the definite article in front of the phrase was retrospective referring to ‘the... Read more

Q. As time has gone on, I have found the translation as kingdom for malkuta/baseleia less and less plausible and helpful. The English word always conveys a place, whereas often the word seems to refer to an activity, on Jesus’ lips the final divine saving activity at last breaking into human history, particularly the history of God’s people. I don’t find the term ‘reign’ which is more static as helpful as ‘saving activity’ because the term is not talking about... Read more

Q. At the end of day, do you think John the Baptizer was originally a member of the Qumran community but then later went solo?   A. Yes, I think I do. At least I imagine that John spent some time with the Qumran community, perhaps as one of their young trainees! But then he evidently had a more specific prophetic calling to go and to summon people to prepare for the arrival of God’s promised salvation by repentance and... Read more

Q. Sometimes scholars tend to say that history and archaeology can help us with the context of Jesus, but not with the content of his story. I don’t agree with this limitation, but I will say that there are not a lot of direct connections between persons mentioned in the stories about Jesus, and archaeological evidence such as the Pilate inscription, but there are some. I’m still convinced the inscription on the James ossuary is genuine, as the epigraphers continue... Read more

Q. One of the more interesting historical nuggets in your book is about how Nazareth seems to have been a resettlement town for Judean Jews. Interestingly, the name of the town ‘Branch town’ or something like it, might suggest a connection with Bethlehem. Had you thought about that? I quite agree that the old chestnut that Jews in Galilee were more Hellenized and less pious seems to be clearly refuted by all the mikvehs that are being found in Galilee.... Read more

Q. Who do you see as the audience for this book? I ask because it has a very clear historical orientation in terms of focusing on what we can know with reasonable certainty about the historical Jesus. It is neither an exercise in apologetics nor in skepticism. A. I suppose I saw it as a course book for college students doing a course on ‘Religion, Philosophy and Society’, giving basic information about what we know about Jesus and about scholarly... Read more

  Q. David what prompted you to write this book, and particularly at this point in time when the pace of the publication of Jesus books seems to have slowed down considerably now that the Jesus Seminar is long gone and the rebuttal books seem fewer in number? A. The prompt was a completely unexpected invitation from the editors of the Cambridge University Press series Cambridge Studies in Religion Philosophy and Society – Professors Paul Mose and Chad Meister –... Read more