March/April 2019 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review (45/2) is now on newsstands

The Biblical Archaeology Society is pleased to announce the publication of the March/April 2019 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review (Vol. 45, No. 2). This issue contains some wonderful articles:

“Resurrecting Easter: Hunting for the Original Resurrection Image”
By John Dominic Crossan and Sarah Sexton Crossan

All of the main events in Jesus’s life are directly described in the New Testament—except for the Resurrection. This central event happens off-screen and is not directly witnessed. As a result, early Christians created two very different depictions of this moment. Join the Crossans as they hunt for the earliest images of Jesus’s resurrection—and attempt to resurrect the original Easter vision.

“Biblical Archaeology 101: The Ancient Diet of Roman Palestine”
By Susan Weingarten

What did people eat in Roman Palestine? Milk and honey? Olive oil and wine? Food historian Susan Weingarten takes readers on a culinary adventure through historical and archaeological remains to reconstruct the diet of the average person in Roman Palestine.

“Purity and Impurity in Iron Age Israel”
By Avraham Faust

Purification practices of ancient Israelite society before the introduction of mikva’ot remain largely unexplored. Recent excavations at Tel ‘Eton, in the southeastern Shephelah, yielded rich data on household life and practices in the tenth through the eighth centuries B.C.E. A large four-room house at Tel ‘Eton offers a rare glimpse of how Iron Age Israelites coped with the issues of ritual impurity, and it enables the author to reconstruct the purification ritual.

“Colossae—Colossal in Name Only?”
By Michael Trainor

The once great city of Colossae in modern Turkey has never been excavated. To the untrained eye, the site may appear unimpressive, but great archaeological treasures lie beneath its surface. Join Michael Trainor on an exploration of this ancient city awaiting the spade!

FIRST PERSON
“Was Pontius Pilate’s Ring Discovered at Herodium?”
By Robert R. Cargill

SITE-SEEING
“Surprising Susa”
By Todd Bolen

BIBLICAL VIEWS
“As in the Days of Noah: The Apocalyptic World of 1 Peter”
By Katie Marcar

ARCHAEOLOGICAL VIEWS
“Jewish Graffiti—Glimpsing the Forgotten Lives of Antiquity”
By Karen B. Stern

REVIEWS
“The Human Drama of St. Paul” Paul: A Biography by N.T. Wright
Reviewed by Joshua McNall

Enjoy! And click here to subscribe to both print and online versions.

Don’t Miss Episode 4 of Bible Secrets Revealed: “The Real Jesus” Tonight on History

Don’t miss episode 4 of the six-part series “Bible Secrets Revealed” on History.

The fourth installment, entitled “The Real Jesus“, debuts Wednesday, Dec 4, 2013 at 10/9c .

The episode explores:

“For billions of people around the world he is known as “The Son of God” — the Messiah — whose teachings have inspired one of the most powerful and influential religions in the world. Nearly everything we know about the life of Jesus comes from the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. But just how accurate are these sacred texts?”

And if you missed the first three episodes, you can watch them for free online at History‘s “Bible Secrets Revealed” website.

Tweet your feedback with the hashtag #BibleSecretsRevealed.

(This has become a lot of fun, as many of the show’s participants are live tweeting the episodes. Don’t miss out on your chance to ask questions and make comments with the over 1.3 million people who watch the show each Wednesday night.)

And send your questions to Bible History Daily, where I’ll be answering some of them and providing more in depth explanations of the material covered in the show.

has mark goodacre solved the gospel of peter’s ‘talking cross’?

Mark Goodacre (Duke) has posted some excellent thoughts reexamining the famous “talking cross” text from the Gospel of Peter. It’s a text that’s made me chuckle for some time, but Dr. Goodacre has pieced together a very nice alternative reading that makes the text a bit more germane to the Gospel of Peter’s resurrection narrative.

His alternative reading is as follows:

And while they were narrating what they had seen, they saw three men come out from the sepulchre, two of them raising up the one, and the crucified one following them (40) and the heads of the two reaching to heaven, but that of him who was being led out by the hand by them reaching beyond the heavens. 41. And they heard a voice out of the heavens crying, ‘Have you preached to those who sleep?’, 42. and from the crucified one there was heard the answer, ‘Yes.’

To see how Dr. Goodacre got to this reading, read his post here.