Highly recommended by Dr. Scott Stripling, ABR Director of Excavations at Khirbet el-Maqatir, Israel!
This book is a collection of thirteen articles on various aspects of how
archaeological evidence enlightens our understanding of the life and
death of Jesus and the culture in which he lived. Nine of the book's
thirteen essays were published previously, though several of these have
been revised or augmented for inclusion in the present book; four of the
book's essays are new. Several of the essays deal with the death of
Jesus and the burial practices of his day. Some of the chapters in the book include:
1. A Fishing Boat, a House, and an Ossuary: What Can We Learn from the
Artifacts
2. A Tale of Two Cities: What We Have Learned from Bethsaida
and Magdala
3. Jewish Scripture and the Literacy of Jesus
4. Jesus, Healer
and Exorcist
5. Hanging and Crucifixion in Second Temple Israel
6. Excavating Caiaphas, Pilate, and Simon of Cyrene: Assessing the Literary
and Archaeological Evidence
7. The Family Buried Together Stays Together
8. Post-Mortem Beliefs in Jewish and Pagan Epitaphs
The book's
introduction explains the value of material culture (i.e.,
archaeological evidence) for interpreting Jesus and the Gospels and
discusses the limits of such evidence.
Dr. Craig A. Evans
302 pages, hardcover
Level: Semi-technical
Craig A. Evans, PhD, is Payzant Distinguished Professor of New Testament at Acadia Divinity College, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada. He is a frequent contributor to scholarly journals and the author or editor of numerous publications.