Jesus Dynasty / James Tabor

I am in Portland, Oregon this week to give a lecture titled “Who Was Jesus?” as part of the Illahee Lecture Series. This fascinating and prestigious lecture series is in its ninth year and draws a local audience close to a thousand folks. I wanted to mention this since we have readers who live in the Portland area, but also to give some attention to this most interesting endeavor. Each year a different theme is chosen and there is a fascinating archive of past themes, speakers, and topics with full summaries on the content of their talks. The overall theme this year is “Why We Believe What We Believe.” My lecture is the fifth in a series of six covering topics such as “Born to Believe,” “Why We Buy,” “Why We Fight?” “Why We Die for It,” and “Letting Go of God.” My lecture is tonight, Tuesday, at 7:30 at the historic First Congregational Church downtown Portland. A summary will be posted thereafter. I plan to give a comprehensive overview of the Quest for the Historical Jesus and its current state of progress as I understand it.

I am in New York this week filming with Dr. Robert L. Kuhn who hosts the award winning PBS television series “Closer to Truth.” This unique and innovative program approaches “science, religion, meaning, and the future” in a series of in-depth interviews and round-table discussions with the world’s leadings philosophers and scientists. The list of topics covered over three seasons is as broad as it is fascinating. A small selective sample:

What is Consciousness?

When and How Did the Universe Begin?

Can We Imagine the Far Future?

Can We Believe both Science and Religion?

How Does Order Arise in the Cosmos?

The programs produced so far are being archived on the Web site and have been published in two fascinating volumes, Closer to Truth: Challenging Current Beliefs, and Closer to Truth: Science, Meaning, and the Future. The Web site also contains a wealth of archived source material.

I have known Robert Kuhn for nearly 40 years and his many faceted accomplishments are legion. He has a Ph.D. in Brain Research from UCLA, as well as an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School. He produced the PBS documentary “In Search of China” and wrote the best-selling biography of Jiang Zemin, The Man Who Changed China. Whether operating in the business world or in the world of science Kuhn has a passionate and incessant drive to examine the underlying assumptions of our belief systems.

The next three seasons of “Closer to Truth” are focusing on the questions of Cosmos, Consciousness, and God, and Kuhn has completed interviews with over 100 of the top thinkers in all the fields of science and philosophy related to these areas. His ambitious mapping of programs includes 26 half-hour episodes on each topic over three years. Since his approach has been theoretical and philosophical, rather than historical, he recently contacted me to tape a dozen segments on a variety of topics that would bring the “history of ideas” into the picture, particularly how the three Abrahamic Faiths, namely Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, have dealt with some of these “big questions,” and more particularly, what the biblical texts contribute to the discussion. In fact, as it turned out, our sessions today were the last of many grueling months of travel, interviews, and taping.
Kuhn is a person who is always looking ahead so we have been talking this week about where he wants to go beyond the latest series, now just in the editing stages. I have suggested to him that he consider a new series that would adopt and adapt his same probing interview format to questions related to the history of ideas, and more particularly the history of religions, including “science and the Bible.” This would allow the public a glimpse into the results of a historical-critical reading of scriptures, and the contributions of anthropology/archaeology and sociology to our understanding of the development of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

In the interest of showing “honor where honor is due” I pass along this bit of news regarding film producer Simcha Jacobovici. I have seen this documentary called Sex Slaves and I can not recommend it too highly. It was made with courage and at great risk.

Jacobovici is best known now for his controversial film, “The Lost Tomb of Jesus,” but he and his company, Associated Producers, have won many awards over the years including the 1996 and 1997 Emmys for outstanding investigative journalism for The Plague Monkeys, about the Ebola virus outbreak in Zaire, and The Selling of Innocents, about the child sex trade in India. Jacobovici’s best-known film, before The Exodus Decoded and the Lost Tomb of Jesus was his 1991’s Deadly Currents, about the Arab-Israeli intifada. It won a Genie for best feature-length documentary. He also received the coveted Dupont-Columbia award for Broadcast Journalism.

Toronto’s Associated Producers wins the prestigious Edward R. Murrow Award from The Overseas Press Club of America

NEW YORK CITY (April 26, 2007)
The Overseas Press Club of America (OPC) has awarded their prestigious Edward R. Murrow Award for Best Television Documentary on international affairs to Toronto based film production company Associated Producers for Sex Slaves, an investigation into the multi-billion dollar world of sex trafficking of women from the former Soviet Union. According to the OPC, the documentary was recognized for its “first-rate reporting and forceful storytelling”.

On Thursday, April 26, 2007, hundreds of members of the international press gathered at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in New York City to honor the recipients of this year’s OPC awards. This year, the awards were presented by CBS anchor Katie Couric. In awarding Associated Producers the Edward R. Murrow prize, the OPC stated:

“Sex Slaves represents everything a winner should have; a strong dramatic story, riveting characters, amazing access, good journalism, and professional execution. This portrait of modern day slavery is made possible by the most compelling use of undercover cameras in recent memory. Worthy of the name Murrow.”

Sex Slaves aired on Frontline on Feb.7, 2006 to the highest ratings since the Iraq war. The film premiered on the CBC and Channel 4 in the UK and has since aired in over 30 countries. The company recently made international headlines with The Lost Tomb of Jesus, an investigation into a first century Jerusalem tomb purported to belong to Jesus of Nazareth.

Sex Slaves director, Ric Esther Bienstock said “Felix Golubev, Simcha Jacobovici and I are all so proud to be the recipients of this award, which bears the name of one of the most respected journalists in history; a man who symbolized freedom of the press. It is humbling to be in a room with so many notable journalists working for the most influential publications on the planet. We were determined to put sex trafficking in prime time and we have been overwhelmed by the incredibly positive response to the film.”

Sex Slaves has screened at over 20 international film festivals and has already garnered numerous international awards including the British Broadcast Award for Best Documentary, a Royal Television Society Award, a Gracie Award and Best of the Festival at the U.N. Documentary Film Festival. The film was also nominated for the British Academy Award for Best Documentary.

Sex Slaves was written and Directed by Ric Esther Bienstock, and produced by Bienstock, Felix Golubev and Simcha Jaxcobovici. Executive Producers are Simcha Jacobovici and Brian Woods. Produced for PBS by David Fanning and Ken Dornstein.

I just arrived in California for the Scripture and Skepticism conference this weekend at University of California at Davis. Judging from the program and backgrounds of the participants it looks to be a very thoughtful and interesting group with lots of diverse perspectives. It is open to the public so maybe I will run into some of my Blog readers. Even though the program is weighted toward Jesus and Christian Origins there are significant contributions dealing with the issue of a critical approach to Islam and the Koran. This might indeed prove to be one of the more interesting aspects of the conference.

For me it is a time to see some old friends, hear some whom I have never heard, and contribute some small token of well deserved analytical remembrance to the work of Albert Schweitzer on the historical Jesus. My topic is: “Standing in the Shadow of Schweitzer: What Can We Say About an Apocalyptic Jesus? As readers of The Jesus Dynasty know, my book was published on the 100th anniversary of the publication in German of Schweitzer’s monumental work, titled (in English) The Quest for the Historical Jesus. I have read Schweitzer’s work a half-dozen times over the years but yesterday I took advantage of my five hours in flight from North Carolina to California to read through my MacMillan 1955 edition yet again. As we landed I closed the book with a refreshed awe and respect for the sharp and keen insights Schweitzer expressed in 1906. We have come a long way since Schweitzer in the study of Chistian origins, but there is another sense in which we have been dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s of many of his major insights. He had no Dead Sea Scrolls, no complete editions of the Pseudepigrapha, no Nag Hammadi texts, and shared none of our more sophisticated and nuanced understandings of the diverse forms of Judaism in the wider contexts of the ancient Mediterranean world. Yet instinctively he seems, in my view at least, to be “right on target so direct,” on issue after issue.

I will post some updates and reports on the conference through the weekend including a summary of my own paper on Schweiter. Stay tuned, more to come…

I mentioned the news article on “The Jesus Project” in connection with the upcoming “Scripture and Skepticism” conference at the UC Davis next week. I hope to see some of you there. Joseph Hoffmann has provided this very helpful description and clarification. Feel free to circulate this as you wish:

The conference entitled “Scripture and Skepticism” (University of California at Davis, 25-28 January 2007) was called to consider comparative approaches to sacred scripture in the three book religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The conference is also a frank acknowledgement that the historical-critical method, which has enormously enlarged our understanding of the origins and development of biblical and koranic materials, needs to be asserted and defended in every generation.

At the conclusion of the three-day conference, Dr R. Joseph Hoffmann, the current head of CSER (Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion, the sponsoring organization) will announce plans for a new venture called the “Jesus Project.” The emphasis of the new project is to examine the shreds of tradition which bear on the historicity—the historical existence–of Jesus of Nazareth. The Jesus Project is not “a successor” to the Jesus Seminar. The ambitious work of the Westar Institute winds on. The Jesus Project does however acknowledge a certain incompleteness in the work of the JS, since, inevitably, when the sayings of Jesus have been pared down to just under twenty, or some 18%, of those attributed to him in the canonical gospels, questions inevitably arise not just about the fate of the others, but the historicity of the man himself. The Jesus Project is funded entirely by the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion, its affiliates, and private donors.

It should be stressed that the JP, contrary to some advance media speculation, is not an attempt to disprove the historical Jesus. By he same token, its goal is not to create a historically plausible figure from the bits of evidence available, but rather to assess the nature and weight of the evidence itself. Attempts in the 19th and twentieth century to discredit all elements of the gospel record were pronounced a failure, though largely by a theologically driven method of inquiry. The JP will solicit the skills of New Testament scholars, historians, and social scientists in its deliberations. It acknowledges the bias and partiality of previous efforts to address this question, but regards the question as significant and deserving of greater attention than has been given it in previous decades. The proliferation of new theories of the non-historicity of Jesus, whatever their merits, and defenses of the historical Jesus whatever their weaknesses, make this an important area of investigation in the new millennium.

CSER wishes to stress that the members of the seminar will be selected by a vetting process, to be published in the form of announcements to universities, colleges and seminaries in March 2007. The davis conference does not constitute a session of the Project and speakers at this CSER conference have no formal connection to the Project.

The Seminar will meet twice a year—once in Amherst New York, and in Los Angeles California. Other venues may be announced as its work progresses and its conclusions are documented.

For further information, or to be considered as a project associate, please contact the Project administrator, Gwyneth MacRae.

R.. Joseph Hoffmann, PhD
Senior Vice President - Academic
Center for Inquiry International
PO Box 741
Amherst, NY 14226
(716) 636-7571
www.centerforinquiry.net/cser/

I was a little surprised to see the following story circulating in the press this week:

Scholars to debate if Jesus existed, Group to discuss, test truth of Bible

Jennifer Green
The Ottawa Citizen

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Internationally recognized biblical scholars are set to launch The Jesus Project, a new endeavour to examine the historical existence of Christ.

The project is intended to pick up where the controversial Jesus Seminar left off in its research into the veracity of Jesus’s words and deeds in the Bible.

The seminar has lost momentum in recent years, but in its heyday, about 200 scholars met regularly to discuss whether Jesus really behaved as the Bible says he did.

The scholars voted using a system of beads — red for accurate, pink for probable, grey for possible but unreliable, and black for improbable — and found 82 per cent of Jesus’s sayings, and 84 per cent of his deeds were unreliable to improbable.

Conservative Christians and many scholars of all stripes were outraged. Some theologians believed the seminar drove a wedge further between faith and reason, while others in more liberal churches said their faith was, in fact, bolstered by the research.

Now, the Jesus Project “will take off where the Jesus seminar left off,” says Nathan Bupp, spokesman for the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion, the group sponsoring the conference at the University of California this month. “It will breathe new fire into it. We will not close the door on free inquiry.”

The original seminar may have been reluctant to follow where the evidence led, says R. Joseph Hoffman, committee chairman and author of Just War and Jihad: Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

He says the goal is not to prove that Jesus never existed, but to acknowledge that it is a legitimate field of inquiry that needs to be examined objectively.

“When you have pared the sayings of Jesus down to fewer than 20, one begins to wonder about the survivors. Moreover, the Jesus Seminar was not successful in papering over fatal disputes about the authenticity of even those.”

Among those attending the conference are some of the biggest names in biblical studies today:

- James D. Tabor, chairman of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, and author of The Jesus Dynasty: A New Historical Investigation of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity.

- Elaine Pagels, a professor of religion at Princeton University, who was awarded the Rockefeller, Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellowships.

- Van Harvey, professor emeritus of religious studies at Stanford University and author of The Historian and the Believer.

- John Dominic Crossan, leading member of the Jesus Seminar

Two Canadians will also be presenting papers: Islamic specialist Andrew Rippin of the University of Victoria, and Philippa Carter of McMaster University.

The conference will also look at the origins of the Koran, biblical and Koranic mythology, modern developments in examining ancient texts and the role of skepticism in examining religious texts.

The committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion is not tied to any school, but is a project of the Centre for Inquiry, in Amherst, New York, a group that defends secularism and reason, science, and freedom of inquiry.

© The Ottawa Citizen 2007

Although I am quite happy to be ranked among my superiors as “some of the biggest names in biblical studies today,” I think there is a bit of confusion between the upcoming conference, Scripture and Skepticism, at the University of California at Davis, and the formation of a group called The Jesus Project. Although I and lots of others will be reading papers or giving responses at the conference, this is the first I have heard of any Project of this description. I do think those involved will need to choose a new name since “The Jesus Project” as well as “The Jesus Film Project” are both efforts of evangelical Christian groups trying to carry out worldwide evangelism.

Greg Doudna, an old friend going back 30 years, and also an accomplished and published Dead Sea Scrolls scholar in his own right, recently posted something on the YahooJesusDynasty discussion list that I thought might be of more general interest, especially his report of visiting Dr. Hugh Schonfield in the 1980s. He also refers to my departed lifelong friend, Olof J. Ribb, whom I mention in the Acknowledgments in The Jesus Dynasty. I also recommend Greg’s new book, Showdown, a personal testimony to his own experiences and lifelong Quest, but maybe of interest to many of wider circles. For more on this book itself there is also a Website, The Scrollery, which I encourage interested readers to visit. Anyway, here is Greg’s post in whole:
A propos of James Tabor’s mention of the impact of Hugh Schonfield’s
books: I can also attest to that. I visited Schonfield in 1985 when he
was age 83, in his flat in London. He seemed in some ways a lonely
figure, reviled from both Jews and Christians because of his
insistence in holding to Jesus as a non-divine, solely-human messiah
of the world. He openly said that Jesus and Jesus’s early followers
had it wrong concerning expectations of the end of the age, signs
in the heavens, and all of the miraculous expectations. He had no
notion that Jesus had risen from the dead or had gone to heaven.
Yet he still believed that the idea of Jesus would save the world through
what he called “the Servant Nation,” which was his idea of a 20th-21st
century equivalent to “the Jesus party” anciently. He envisioned a
citizenship of the Servant Nation that would have its own passports
and be independent of existing nation-states and ultimately gain
United Nations recognition even though without controlling territory
or having an army. He told me that during the Cuban missile
crisis of 1962 when the world came close to nuclear war he had
written letters to both Kennedy and Khrushchev and that he wondered
if that had played some small role in that crisis’s resolution without
further escalation. Sure his Servant Nation idea seemed quixotic.
But Schonfield gave it his all.

Tabor’s post reminded me of these things, and even earlier of my first
acquaintance with Schonfield’s writings, which was early 1970s when a
faculty member at a small college in Texas I was attending gave me
Schonfield’s book _Those Incredible Christians_ and recommended it.
That book struck me and changed me, much as Schonfield’s writings
struck Tabor. I was 18 at the time. I was able to later tell
Schonfield personally in his living room of the impact of his book on
me when I was 18, and he just seemed gratified, as if it was this
kind of feedback that was his greatest reward in writing his books.

I did not know it all this time until two or three months ago, but James
Tabor was personally responsible for that book coming into my hands
so long ago when I was 18, even though I did not know James Tabor’s
name at that time and Tabor was then many states away. For the faculty
member who passed on Schonfield’s _Those Incredible Christians_ to me was
Tabor’s friend Olof J. Ribb, and Olof Ribb had been told of that
book by Tabor. That was how Ribb had the book to pass on to me.

And by another coincidence, Tabor’s post on this appears the same
week, this week, that my own book, _Showdown at Big Sandy_ (2006)
is released and now publicly available, which on its pages 19-20 tells
this story of the impact of Schonfield’s book which happened
because of the unknown role of Tabor so long ago. (Description
and sample pages of _Showdown_ can be seen at the Web site.

And so the world turns…

Greg Doudna

I am en route to Bloomington, IL this morning, to do a reading, book signing, and lecture on The Jesus Dynasty at Illinois Wesleyan University. This highly rated and venerable University, founded in 1850, has quite an illustrious history with a Who’s Who’s of famous alumni. It is located in the heart of “Lincoln Country” and both Lincoln and Grant were from this area.

I go at the invitation of Dennis Groh, a notable scholar and professor of Early Christianity, and retiring University Chaplain. Denny and I go back a long way, first during my Chicago days when he was at Northwestern and I was finishing up at the University of Chicago and later teaching at Notre Dame. In the 1990s we dug together at Sepphoris and Denny has served as a an associate director of that excavation along with Tom Longstaff (retired from Colby College) and Tom McCollough (Centre College), under the supervision of Jim Strange (University of South Florida).

This is not my first visit to Illinois Wesleyan, nor my only contact with students and faculty there. In fact my associations there are thick and rich. I did a lecture there back in Y2K days, mostly summarized now in my published article: Why 2K? The Biblical Roots of Millennialism, published in Bible Review. I also met many Illinois Wesleyan students who came with Dr. Groh to dig at Sepphoris and some of them have kept up with me over the years, as well as with some of my UNC Charlotte students. April DeConick, with whom I have done two Biblical Archaeology Society Seminars now on “Lost Christianities,” was formerly at Illinois Wesleyan and Denny Groh is the one who first put me in touch with her. She now holds the Chair of Early Christianity at Rice University. Carol Myscofski, who was a fellow student of Jonathan Z. Smith during my University of Chicago days is also at Illinois Wesleyan, serving as Chair of the Religion Department.

BTW, April DeConick is the one who has just published a very important book, Recovering the Original Gospel of Thomas, arguing that in its original form, before subsequent development, this important work reaches back to the Jerusalem Jesus movement led by James the Just, brother of Jesus. I hope to write more on this when I finish reading her book.

What I think is rather notable about this particular trip/lecture is that I will address the Thursday morning Chapel Service at the University speaking about the “historical Jesus” as I understand him, and his relevance for Christian faith today. It is surely a credit to Dr. Groh, who does not agree with all my conclusions in The Jesus Dynasty, to invite me to initiate such a dialogue. Dr. Groh is a church historian, an archaeologist, and a Christian theologian, so I could hardly ask for a richer context in which to explore some of the key ideas in my book. I am arriving with a fair amount of publicity, in that the local NPR station has carried an interview with me and Dr. Groh has done a good deal of promotion himself, including a nicely done critical review of my book which he privately circulated among his students. I am looking forward to a very stimulating time and I relish the opportunity to get into some of the issues that I anticipate this sharp and keen group of faculty and students will raise with me.

Today is the Jewish Festival popularly known as Rosh HaShanah, literally “head of the year.” I am in Chicago this weekend, looking out this morning over Lake Michigan from the 30th floor of a hotel and I have been thinking of the significance of this day. Around the world Jews are gathering in Synagogues, as this day begins the coundown of the Ten Days of Awe, leading to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement or literally “Covering.” Yet, Rosh HaShannah is the 1st day of the SEVENTH month, not the first day of the first month. Judaism really has two “years.” The biblical New Year is of course the first day of the first month, in the Spring, as Exodus 12: 1 plainly says: This Moon/month shall be to you the beginning of months.” That day is very significant in biblical and Jewish history and many things have taken place on Nisan 1st–the biblical New Year. It signals “new beginnings.”

But the 7th month/moon is also the first of a kind of “civil year,” that had to do in ancient times with certain calculations regarding the Jubilee, the redemption of bond-servants, and so forth. It is more of a societal New Year, much like our July and Oct “fiscal years” in our world today. And within later Jewish tradition the 1st day of the 7th month came to be remembered as a kind of “birthday of the world,” in that the Rabbis passed on the tradition that Adam was created on the 1st day of the 7th month, in the Fall, on this very day (September 22nd)–the Autumnal Equinox (though a minority view still held to Nisan 1st in the Spring).

In the Torah itself, this holy day is never called Rosh HaShanah. Rather it gets a different name–Yom Teru’ah, that is “day of the blast.” Teru’ah in Hebrew refers to raising up a loud noise, whether a shout or the blast of the trumpet or Shofar. The meaning of the day is never specified in the Bible but the blowing of the Shofar seems to function as a kind of herald or clarion call, announcing the end of one period and the beginning of another.

What is all the more interesting about this day is that by some calculations (see Jack Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology) Jesus was born on or very near the 1st day of the 7th month–based on the chronology given in the book of Luke. The calculations are complex but have to do with the time in which Zechariah, father of John the Baptizer, served in the Temple (Luke 1:8), as the “section” of priests in which he was part went on duty at a specific time of year. From that window calculations can be made as to the birth of John, followed by the birth of Jesus six months later. My own calculations based on a computer program I use puts the birth of Jesus in 5 B.C. very close to Rosh HaShanah, or September 22nd on the Gregorian Calendar, corresponding to the Autumnal Equinox. It just so happens that today, in 2006, the 1st day of the 7th month, Rosh HaShanah, also corresponds to the Equinox–that is today, September 22nd/23rd (Rosh HaShanah began at sunet last night, Sept 22nd).

There is a fascinating Roman civic inscription dating to the year 9 B.C. that was passed by the cities of Asia to celebrate the birthday of the Emperor Augustus. It reads in part: “Whereas, finally, that the birthday of the god (i.e. Augustus) has been for the whole world the beginning of the gospel (euangelion) concerning him, therefore, let all reckon a new era beginning from the date of his birth, and let his birthday mark the beginning of the new year.”

It is surely more than ironic that the birth of Jesus, an insignificant Galilean peasant, living under the brutal boot of Roman occupation, just a few years later, did indeed lead to a new era, a kind of “birthday of the world,” that has paled into insignificance the birth of the celebrated Emperor Augustus.

So today in particular it seems has a double meaning, as the “birthday of the world” within Rabbinic Judaism, but for Christians, and really our entire society, the birthday of a new era, in that Jesus himself was born on or very near this day.

I wanted to call attention to the upcoming Biblical Archaeology Society Seminar in Austin, Texas in September. Details are below, or visit the Biblical Archaeology Society Web site. I have been doing these BAS Seminars now since 1990 and I find them among the most enjoyable and meaningful things I do outside my classes. Participants come from all over the country, drawn by the speakers and the topics, representing a rich mix of ages, experiences, backgrounds, and interests. Everyone is welcome and there is ample opportunity for attendees to have interchanges with the scholars, both in formal sessions and outside.
Dr. April DeConick has just moved to Rice University to take the Chair in New Testament there. Dr. Charles Hedrick is a marvelous scholar retired from Missouri State. I have worked with both of them before and they are not to be missed. I think the topics of this particular seminar are among the most fascinating I have ever seen on such a program. I hope to see some of you there.

James Tabor

The Biblical Archaeology Society Seminar on “Lost Christianties”
September 14-16, 2006 in Austin, Texas

Presenters:

April DeConick
James Tabor
Charles W. Hedrick

Back by popular demand! Our Lost Christianities seminar last fall received rave reviews, so we’re bringing it back in a new venue. One hot new topic has been added: “What’s the Flap about the Gospel of Judas?” a talk by Charles Hedrick. Also sure to draw lots of attention will be speaker James Tabor, author of the New York Times bestseller, The Jesus Dynasty; the book was the subject of a recent cover story in U.S. News & World Report.

Join fellow Biblical archaeology enthusiasts at the Biblical Archaeology Society’s 3-day seminar at the downtown Austin Holiday Inn, situated on the scenic shores of Town Lake on the “hike and bike” trail. Enjoy downtown leisure activities galore within walking distance of the hotel. Spend three days in this stimulating environment learning from eminent Bible scholars and archaeologists. Bring your questions, curiosity and a desire to take advantage of this exciting opportunity!

(P.S. The big Austin City Limits Music Festival is taking place this very weekend, so plan ahead to enjoy the music after the BAS seminar.)

Program Schedule

Thursday, September 14
7:30 AM • Registration and continental breakfast
9:00 AM • Charles Hedrick, “Orthodoxy and Its Earliest Competitors”
10:15 AM • Break
10:45 AM • April DeConick, “What Can the Gospel of Thomas Tell Us about the Jerusalem Church and the First Aramaic Christians?”
12 Noon • Lunch on your own
2:00 PM • James Tabor, “Hebrew Versions of Matthew and What They Tell Us about Lost Christianities”
3:15 PM • Break
3:45 PM • April DeConick, “The Road Not Taken: The Mystical Gospel of Thomas”
5:00 PM • Evening free

Friday, September 15
7:30 AM • Continental breakfast
9:00 AM • James Tabor, “The Lost Followers of John the Baptist (and Jesus!)”
10:15 AM • Break
10:45 AM • Charles Hedrick, “Rewriting the Gospel: John’s Revisionist Heresy”
12 Noon • Lunch on your own
2:00 PM • April DeConick, “A Gnostic Catechism: Who? What? Where?”
3:15 PM • Break
3:45 PM • Charles Hedrick, “Secret Mark: Ancient Fiction or Modern Forgery?”
5:45 PM • Cash bar
7:00 PM • Banquet for all participants with lecture by James Tabor, “James and the Boys: The Mostly Forgotten Family/Dynasty of Jesus”

Saturday, September 16
8:00 AM • Continental breakfast
9:00 AM • James Tabor, “Disparaging Jesus: Roman Gossip and Jewish Legend”
10:15 AM • Break (short)
10:30 AM • April DeConick, “Where Were the Women? The Gospel According to Mary Magdalene”
11:45 AM • Break (short)
12:00 PM • Charles Hedrick, “What’s the Flap about the Gospel of Judas?”
1:00 PM • Conclusion of seminar

About the Lecturers

April D. DeConick
April DeConick is Associate Professor of Religion at Illinois Wesleyan University. Her area of expertise is Second Temple Judaism and Early Christian History and Literature, with specialties in New Testament and apocryphal literature, early Jewish and Christian mysticism, and Gnostic traditions. Her books include: Seek to See Him: Ascent and Vision Mysticism in the Gospel of Thomas (Brill, 1996); Voices of the Mystics: Early Christian Discourse in the Gospels of John and Thomas and Other Ancient Christian Literature (Sheffield, 2001); and Recovering the Original Gospel of Thomas: A History of the Gospel and Its Growth (T & T Clark, 2005). The companion volume, The Original Gospel of Thomas in Translation, with a Commentary and New English Translation of the Complete Gospel (T & T Clark) will appear later this year. DeConick has co-edited (with Jon Asgeirsson and Risto Uro) a collection of papers entitled Thomasine Traditions in Antiquity: The Social and Cultural World of the Gospel of Thomas (Brill, 2005) in the prestigious Brill series, Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies, and has edited Paradise Now: Essays on Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism (Society of Biblical Literature and Brill, 2006).

Charles W. Hedrick
Charles Hedrick is Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at Missouri State University. A retired U.S. Army Reserve Chaplain (Colonel) and Juvenile Probation Officer, Los Angeles County Probation Department, he has served as pastor of churches in Mississippi, California, and New York City. Hedrick was a member of the international team (UNESCO) of scholars who worked for several years in Cairo, Egypt, reconstructing and translating the Nag Hammadi Codices and later excavated at the site of the Nag Hammadi discovery. He is a distinguished author, translator and teacher in the academic study of religion. He is the author of numerous books and articles including Many Things in Parables: Jesus and His Modern Critics (Westminster John Knox, 2004), The Gospel of the Savior: A New Ancient Gospel (with Paul Mirecki, Polebridge Press, 1999) and When History and Faith Collide: Studying Jesus (Hendrickson Publishers, 1999).

James D. Tabor
James Tabor (Ph.D. 1981, University of Chicago) is Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He is professor of Christian Origins and Ancient Judaism. He has combined extensive field work in archaeology in Israel and Jordan with his work on ancient texts, including work at Qumran, Sepphoris, Mt. Zion in Jerusalem, Masada, Wadi el-Yabis, and with Shimon Gibson, the “John the Baptist” cave at Suba, and the recently discovered “Tomb of the Shroud” in Jerusalem. He is chief editor of the Original Bible Project that is producing a new scholarly translation of the Bible. Among his publications are Things Unutterable (Univ. Press of Amer., 1985), A Noble Death (with Arthur Droge, HarperSanFrancisco, 1991) and Why Waco: Cults and the Battle for Religious Freedom in America (with Paul Gallagher, Univ. of California Press, 1995). His latest book (Simon & Schuster, April, 2006) is titled The Jesus Dynasty: A New Historical Investigation of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity.

Location

The Holiday Inn Austin Town Lake is a recently renovated full service hotel located conveniently on the scenic shores of Town Lake near Austin’s central business district. Amenities include complimentary transportation from Bergstrom Airport (6 miles away), complimentary covered garage parking, Pecan Tree Restaurant, sports bar, jogging/hiking/biking trail, fitness room, rooftop heated pool, high speed wireless internet, coffee-makers and more.

Cost and General Information

PROGRAM COST
Registration by August 18, 2006: $385
After August 18, 2006: $485

FEE INCLUDES
All lectures, continental breakfasts, banquet on Friday evening and Continuing Education Units.

FEE DOES NOT INCLUDE
Transportation to and from the Holiday Inn Austin Town Lake, accommodations, meals (except where stated) and items of a strictly personal nature, such as phone, liquor, laundry, etc.

PAYMENT
$100 deposit (payable by check, money order, VISA, Master Card or AmExpress) is due with registration form. Balance is due by August 18, 2006.

REFUND POLICY
Full refund, less $60 per person for administrative costs, if registration is cancelled more than 5 business days prior to the seminar; less than 5 days, some nonrefundable fees may be charged. Cancellation requests must be in writing.

ACCOMMODATIONS
For those who would like accommodations at the hotel, the rate per night is $105 (single or double) plus taxes of approximately 15%. A limited number of lakeview rooms are available for a per night rate of $119 (single/double) plus taxes.

NOTE: BAS will make reservations for those who desire accommodations at the hotel, but payment for rooms is the responsibility of the participant at the time of checkout. We will convey your room-type preference to the hotel but this is not guaranteed. Room availability and group rate may be limited after August 18, 2006 or sooner depending upon demand. Please register early to avoid disappointment.

If you anticipate a need for special services for disabilities or if you have dietary restrictions or food allergies, please send a note with registration or call us.

REGISTER ONLINE NOW!

For More Information
Call: 1-800-221-4644 x221 or Fax: 202-364-2636
Email: travelstudy@bib-arch.org
Biblical Archaeology Society
Travel/Study Department
4710 41st Street, NW
Washington, DC 20016