Category: Scientific Examinations of Religion
Religious Belief and the Logic of Historical Inquiry
The two great intellectual revolutions in modern Western culture were the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century and the awakening of the historical consciousness in the nineteenth century. The themes of the first are familiar to us all: the notion of natural rights, the emphasis on reason rather than faith, freedom of the press, and the …
Who Published the New Testament?
In the fall of 2000, Oxford University Press published The First Edition of the New Testament, the English version of my German postdoctoral thesis. In it, I tried to determine when the New Testament was first published. I concentrated my efforts on studying the manuscript tradition. The result was surprising and differed considerably from the …
The (Almost) Perfect Fake and/or the Real Thing
The following discussion is about the two most notorious inscriptions that have turned up in recent years: the Proclamation of King Jehoash of Judah (putatively ninth century b.c.e.) and the Ossuary of Jacob (James) the Son of Joseph and the Brother of Jeshua (Jesus) (putatively first century c.e.).1 The former is written in Classical (Biblical) …