The scholars assume that the Dead Sea Scrolls library found in Qumran belonged to Jews who inhabited a nearby settlement. Where did Qumran Jews fit in in the greater Jewish society? What do we know about their practices from the ruins? What do we know about their beliefs from the...
What are the contents of the scrolls found in the caves of Qumran? Why did the scholars debate their translations for so long? What new things did these findings teach us about the Hebrew Bible and other ancient texts? In this 3rd session, I explore the contents of the Qumran...
For generations, the scholars were wrong about the Jewish spirituality of the first century. The evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls found in the Qumran region shows uncanny similarity with some of the teachings found in the New Testament. In this 4th session, I compare the words of Qumran Jews...
You might ask, "What is Anti-Judaism and why would it be in the Gospels?" Or you may think, "Of course, the New Testament is an antisemitic book". Are Anti-Judaism and Antisemitism the same? An unpleasant issue as it may be for both Jews and Christians who...
Is John's gospel anti-Jewish? Not really! But Anti-Judaism can be read into it. And that is how many generations of Christians have interpreted the gospel of John. Try reading John's prologue from an Anti-Judaic perspective and then look deeper into Greek to see that the original...
What if by "the Jews" John does not mean Jewish people in general, not a simple broad reference to those who are Jewish ethnically and religiously. So who are "the Jews" in John's Gospel? What is John has some subgroup in mind? In this...
Who are "the Jews" in John's gospel? In this lecture segment, I explore the third option of how John's term "hoi Iudaioi" - "the Jews" can be read. I consider reading the term as "the world" the cosmos,...
In this segment of my lecture, I propose an experiment of reading the story of Lazarus' resurrection from the vantage point of Anti-Judaism where "the Jews" are just that, a straightforward reference to Jewish people in general. who are "the Jews" who mourned with the...
As we go over John 11 verse by verse I explain what Jewish funerals were like in the first century, what people thought about the resurrection, why "the Jews" came, and stayed around for so long. I wonder what exactly caused Jesus to weep? Needless to say, this...
