Things have been quiet this summer here at the blog but are already picking up quickly.

I will be presenting my paper discussing the question of whether the Upper Room in Jerusalem was ever a Jewish synagogue at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature in San Antonio on November 19 at 11:00 a.m. I will be on a panel with a number of great scholars such as Drs. F. Stanley Jones, Simon Mimouni, and others. The paper is called “Was the Tomb of David Built as a Synagogue? Further Evidence from Archaeology.”

An article on the Upper Room which I wrote for Biblical Archaeology Review will be featured in their “Archaeology Views” column in the January/February issue in 2017. It will be an attempt to bring readers up to date with where we are in Cenacle research. If you are not a subscriber to this wonderful publication and are interested in the historical aspects of the Bible, I strongly encourage you to subscribe. The rates are eminently reasonable for this colorful publication. And readers may attend a companion seminar that is always offered in tandem with the AAR/SBL meeting as noted above. So this year it will be held in San Antonio on the same dates. The BAR seminar features the very best Biblical scholars all targeting their presentations toward the discriminating non-professional.

I will likely be returning to Jerusalem during spring break 2017. This time I will be accompanied by a number of scholars from UNC Charlotte who will be examining various sections of Mount Zion using the latest technology to begin to assemble a picture of the area as it looked in the first century. Stay tuned for further developments.

And, as has become standard now, I am once again teaching a whole crop of new UNCC students the basics of New Testament history and textual criticism. I am looking forward to a very productive year.

With the next post, I hope to update you on some wonderful books I have been reading that I can recommend to my blog readers. Til next time…