Maurice Casey responds to Thomas Thompson

James Tabor wrongly refers to an “all-out war among the experts” regarding the question “Did Jesus exist?” At present, the only person who can be considered an expert in New Testament in any sense, and who has disputed the existence of a historical Jesus in academic publications, is Robert M. Price. He teaches at an [...]

Was the Historical Jesus on Facebook?

A piece of news has been getting attention today, about a study of classic myths, some of which we know from archaeological evidence were based on real people or events. The study suggests that the degree to which the relationships in the story mirror real ones – including those one can observe today in social [...]

An Odd Diatribe from Thomas L. Thompson

In the latest issue of The Bible and Interpretation, Thomas L. Thompson offers a very odd rebuke to Bart Ehrman. Thompson mentions things like Philo's love of allegory and Qoheleth's assertion of our lack of novelty, as though these somehow will allow one to open the door to any and all interpretations of texts, including [...]

Two Nazarenes

Our tour guide Baligh’s local tour organization which EF works with is called “Nazarene Tours” because Baligh himself is from Nazareth. He made an amusing comment on the first day about the fact that he is more of a Nazarene than Jesus for two reasons: Jesus was born in Bethlehem and lived in Nazareth for [...]

Letter from Ned Ludd to the Mythicists

This important historical document seems to me to be relevant to something mythicists often say, and so I thought I would share it… Dear mythicists, I, Ned Ludd, am writing to request that you kindly stop using my name as though it provided support for your nonsensical ideas. If you don’t, I expect that I [...]

Review of Bart Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist? Part One

I’m grateful to have been given the opportunity to participate in the blog tour about Bart Ehrman’s latest book, Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. Ehrman emphasizes that many mythicists appear to approach the question of Jesus’ existence in the manner of conspiracy theorists, and since such people refuse to change [...]

Into and Out of Tombs Round-Up

Blogging about the Talpiot tombs and the historical Jesus blends into other topics that come up in particular during the week before Easter. And so a range of those intersecting subjects appear in posts to which I link below. Mark Goodacre highlights some successes in getting corrections made to information on the Jesus Discovery web [...]