death of jesus

By: BAS Staff

In the history of crucifixion, the death of Jesus of Nazareth stands out as the best-known example by far. Crucifixion in antiquity was actually a fairly common punishment, but there were no known physical remains from a crucifixion. Then, in 1968, archaeologist Vassilios Tzaferis excavated a Jerusalem tomb that contained the bones of a crucified man named Yehohanan. As Tzaferis reported in BAR, the discovery demonstrated the brutal reality of Roman crucifixion methods in a way that written accounts never had before.

By: Jonathan Klawans

Many assume that Jesus' Last Supper was a Seder, the ritual Passover meal. Examine evidence from the synoptic Gospels with scholar Jonathan Klawans.

By: Jonathan Klawans

Many people still assume that Jesus’ Last Supper was a Seder, a ritual meal held in celebration of the Jewish holiday of Passover. In this exclusive Bible History Daily guest post, Boston University Professor of Religion Jonathan Klawans provides an update to his popular Bible Review article questioning this common assumption.

By: Hershel Shanks

I’ve been reading a new book titled Pseudo-Cyril of Jerusalem “On the Life and the Passion of Christ”: A Coptic Apocryphon by the Dutch scholar Roelof van den Broek.1 In case it has escaped your attention, it provides a new translation of an eighth-century Gnostic gospel in Coptic from Egypt that has been in the Morgan Library in New York since 1908, a gift of J.P. Morgan.

By: Marek Dospěl

The Gospels offer a surprisingly excusatory depiction of Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect of Judea directly responsible for Jesus’ death. While the contemporary sources do not mention Pilate’s fatal involvement with the itinerant rabbi from Galilee, they reveal a governor determined to promote Roman religion in Judea and to ruthlessly suppress any form of dissent.

By: Robin Ngo

AnneMarie Luijendijk has identified a previously unknown Late Antique text containing oracles called The Gospel of the Lots of Mary.

By: Reviewed by Helmut Koester

Helmut Koester reviews "The Last Days of Jesus" by François Bovon, Kristin Hennessy, translator.

By: Reviewed by Urban C. von Wahlde

Urban C. von Wahlde reviews "The Final Days of Jesus: The Archaeological Evidence" by Shimon Gibson.

By: James Tabor

Back to “Jesus Tomb” Controversy Erupts—Again James Tabor, University of North Carolina at Charlotte 1. There was no official “conclusion” made by the participants, nor […]

By: James Tabor

Back to “Jesus Tomb” Controversy Erupts—Again James D. Tabor, University of North Carolina at Charlotte Jodi Magness argues on this web site that the controversial […]