bock's blog

We have just posted a story on CNN about the route of Jesus from Pilate's tiral to the cross. It is a reminder of the key events that are a part of the reflection of the Easter season. So we wish all of you a Happy Resurrection Day weekend. As for the dispute over the proper route, this is one Easter Jesus report that may well be true. We just completed filming of an eight part TV series on Jesus for Day of Discovery (see www.dod.org for live streaming of these shows).

The Essenes are one of four groups attested as a Jewish sect by the first century Jewish Historian in Antiquities
18.18-22 (Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots are the others). The other
groups attested by Josephus there all existed, so there is no reason to
think Josephus created this group as has been recently claimed,
especially since there is no good reason for him to create such a group
and references in Philo predate Josephus. So besides Josephus, the

Easter approaches and so do stories about our Judeo-Christian roots. Time has a story on an Israeli scholar denying the Essenes existed (of course the other groups noted in Antquities 18 existed and were not legendary as she claims). There are numerous references to such a group and her "renegade sons of Zadok" are very much what the Essenes are described as being. What we may be dealing with here is a name that the group itself did not prefer and so it does not appear in the Scrolls. The reply by Charlesworth on the matter in Time is short and to the

The following duplicates a post I did on my own blog today. It was written while I sat in Singapore airport returning from a trip to Indonesia. I am now in Tokyo and can post it for Primetime. I anticipate others posts on this topic as well.

This blog will be brief. Day of Discovery is broadcasting a series
on the IBR Jesus Group's work on the historical Jesus. This is a decade
long project involving several evangelical scholars. We filmed these
shows last summer as we were wrapping up our work for publication later
this year. It is eight shows, two of which are now up on the net for
streaming broadcast. Please take advantage of this opportunity to see a
report on a project that was a decade in the making and let us know what
you think.

Just a brief note to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and Happy 2009.

The PrimetimeJesus.com crew

Just a short bit of houskeeping here.

We will not post responses that advertise or that are too disrespecful of those who post or those who respond. 

I have had to cull several responses for crossing the line here. Engage and disagree but do so with respect.

Also this is not a site for independent submissions of material. That also will not get posted.

dlb

I did an interview for ABC's Good Morning America a few nights ago on the date of Christmas. It was triggered by an astronomer's claim to have nailed down the date to a day in June. The origins of this date are worth discussing, since the gospels do not give us a specific day or even the season Jesus was born. The most we can get for the biblical data is a range of years. Here is the gist of what I told ABC in an email before the interview: