Unearthing Texts: Biblical Archaeology Seminar Coming to San Antonio

Biblical Archaeology Society has asked Professor James Tabor (Chair of Religious Studies at UNC, and author of The Jesus Dynasty book and blog) and I to hold a 2-day seminar in October. It is called Unearthed Texts: Do recently discovered manuscripts tell us anything new about Jesus and Early Christianity?

The seminar will take place at the Sheraton Gunter Hotel in San Antonio, Texas, October 19-20, 2007. If you are interested in attending, here is the link to the Biblical Archaeology Society website.

I have been part of this seminar series for a few years now, and it has been a great time each time. This seminar is meant to provide a public forum to talk about the new discoveries, how the media covers them (or not), and whether they honestly make any difference to what we can and can't know about Jesus and early Christianity.

So here is a short description of the goals of the Unearthed Texts seminar:

What can we learn from Christian communities that did not survive and from texts that did not become a part of the New Testament canon? Do recently publicized manuscripts shed light on these issues or are they a case of media hype? Have some of these manuscripts been misinterpreted? Can we recover early Christian voices that have been long lost or were silenced, voices that were often those of women and the disenfranchised? These and other fascinating issues will be explored.