In reports filed online yesterday, it seems archaeologists may have found remains of the fortress built just before the time of the Maccabees (2nd century BCE) that once overlooked the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. (For one report, go to: http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/04/middleeast/israel-acra-discovery/.) Remains of the citadel and tower (Photographic credit: Assaf Peretz, courtesy of the Israel …
Author: David Christian Clausen
Women in the Earliest Church, Part 1
The Acts of the Apostles is one of those New Testament texts that is often overlooked in favor of the gospels or letters of Paul. Nevertheless, it is a fascinating document, full of history, mystery, and hidden clues as to the activities and personalities within the early Jesus community. From a historian’s point of view, …
Paul’s First Preaching Mission?
The first-century travels of Paul as outlined in the New Testament Acts of the Apostles help to shed light on the formation of some of the earliest Christian house churches in the world. Certainly Acts uses some fanciful imagery and supernatural events to combine tradition with evangelization but this need not stop us from gaining …
Fraud in the Search for Christian Origins?
Our ability to shed light on the origins of Christianity depends almost entirely on ancient sources. These can be either documents or archaeological artifacts. Each discovery can potentially reveal new information to help us understand a people and a period of time so far removed from our own. But what happens to the public’s confidence …
The Didascalia Apostolorum or “Teaching of the (Twelve) Apostles”
In my last post regarding the origins of Christianity in Syria, I mentioned a number of early Christian texts believed to have been authored somewhere within the Roman imperial province. One of those is the Didascalia Apostolorum, Latin for “Teaching of the Apostles.” Most scholars believe the DA was authored in Greek in the third …
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Syria: A Thriving Center for Early Christianity?
Most astute readers of the New Testament understand that Jesus and his first followers were Jews who came from Palestine, specifically the Roman province of Judea as well as the Herodian tetrarchy that included Galilee. But after Jesus’ crucifixion, the new Jewish sect of the Nazarenes quickly spread beyond the traditional borders of Israel into …
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The Meaning behind Jesus’ Parable of the Unjust Steward
One of the story forms Jesus used to communicate his message, according to the gospels, was the parable. Nearly all scholars acknowledge the authenticity of this characteristic of Jesus' teaching. Some of the parables we encounter in the gospels, however, are enigmatic to say the least. In fact, Jesus is even quoted as saying that …
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Are the Nativity Stories of Jesus based on those of John the Baptist?
Scholar Hugh J. Schonfield thought so. In his monograph published in 1929, Schonfield suggested that the scattered remains of a lost “Book of the Nativity of John” show that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke borrowed thematic elements from this hypothetical text for their compositions of the birth stories of Jesus. Schonfield found references to, …
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Is the Apostle Peter Buried Beneath St. Peter’s Basilica on the Vatican?
This question has recently come up again as Pope Francis announced in November, 2013, that the relics believed to be the very bones of St. Peter were to be put on public display. Are there any facts to substantiate either Peter’s stay in Rome or his death there? Surprisingly, there is a great deal of …
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The Barabbas Event Revisited: A Review
“The Release of Barabbas Revisited” by Roger David Aus. Pages 135-170 in “Caught in the Act,” Walking on the Sea, and the Release of Barabbas Revisited. South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism No. 157. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998. In chapter three of his book “Caught in the Act,” Roger David Aus revisits the …
David Christian Clausen 