A Critique of Ken Dark’s Nazareth Archaeology — Pt. 1

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This critique was suggested to me a couple of months ago by Neil Godfrey over at Vridar (thanks, Neil). I had no idea at the time (March 2026) that it would grow into a mammoth 40-page article—but, then, in the last decade Ken Dark has produced no less than three books on Nazareth archaeology: • Roman-Period and Byzantine Nazareth and its Hinterland. Palestine Exploration Fund Annual XV 2019 (hereafter: “Dark 2020,” the year the book was actually published — this is the system Dark himself uses); • The Sisters of Nazareth Convent: A Roman-Period, Byzantine, and Crusader Site in Central Nazareth. Palestine Exploration Fund Annual XVI 2020. London: Routledge (hereafter: “Dark 2021”); • Archaeology of Jesus’ Nazareth. London: Oxford Univ. Pr., … Continue reading →

AI: Jesus mythicists beware!

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Recently I had some time to spare and wondered how artificial intelligence—now revolutionizing everyone’s information landscape—deals with Jesus mythicism. I use Copilot, owned by Microsoft, and began to type in the question: “What is the general opinion today regarding Jesus mythicism?” But I can pretty much guess the answer to that question, so I decided to get specific and instead asked Copilot about the uproar that took place almost twenty years ago, after BAIAS (Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society) published my paper critical of then-current fieldwork in Nazareth. (TOC and entire 2008 volume available for download HERE.) My paper elicited several published reactions in the same issue. What follows is the Nazareth-related material in the BAIAS 2008 issue: • René … Continue reading →

Blog returning to sleep mode…

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I will be taking a break from regular blogging once again, the last time having been a little over two years ago. I hope to return to blogging in the future, but the essentials of my case regarding Yeshu haNotsri have been pretty much set out in the many posts on this site, together with chapter 14 of NazarethGate. Essentially, I am proposing not only a new (i.e. ‘virtually unknown’) figure at the incipience of Christianity, but also an entirely new chronology, one that moves the chronological goal posts back a whole century. I propose also that intimate connections existed between original (gnostic) Christianity and Buddhism. These novel theories will take time to be heard, understood, and digested. The radical … Continue reading →

In favor of the “one state solution” in Palestine

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While many good people are Jews, and many Jews are indeed good people, the Zionist experiment of the last seventy-five years is an apartheid venture based upon exclusion, oppression, and ethnic cleansing. A political entity for Palestinians was never Israel’s aim, as we latterly see from that state’s aggressive settlement policies. The two-state solution is now dead. The only viable path forward is the one state solution. That state will not be religiously aligned but one in which Jews, Muslims, Christians, and others live together in peace and security. While both Jews and Muslims claim rights to the same land, the problem is not the claim but the exclusivity of the claim coming from either side. This exclusivity was never … Continue reading →

The demise of the Naṣarenes: From Christians to heretics

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The First Christians / pt. 14 I bring this series of posts to a close with the migration of the Naṣarenes out of the land of Palestine. This was the watershed event that began the gradual decline of the first Christians, for after the so-called “flight to Pella” the early community no longer had a central authority—cf. the early reputation of James the Just in Jerusalem, referenced in GTh 12, Gal 1-2 and also by the Church Fathers. The flight to Pella It is unfortunate that we do not have precise details as to when that migration took place, for such historical information would help date “pre-migration” and “post-migration” texts. Scholars suspect that many gnostic “Jewish Christian” writings—such as the Gospel of … Continue reading →

The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (conclusion)

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The First Christians / pt. 13 In the last couple of posts we have looked (here and here) at the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (T12P), a work written in the last half of the first century BCE and later edited and interpolated by Catholic Christians. Here I signal one more passage of interest and then will conclude this particular discussion with a some closing observations on T12P and the New Testament. Testament of Benjamin, chp. 11 2/ And in later times there shall rise up the beloved of the Lord, from the lineage of Judah and Levi, one who does his good pleasure by his mouth, enlightening all the nations with new knowledge. The light of knowledge will mount up in … Continue reading →

Levites and early Christians

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The First Christians / pt. 12 We have recently looked at the Testament of Levi as a Naṣarene-inspired work. Another work, one found at Qumran (1Q21) and known as “The Words of Levi,” seems to have been an earlier version of Test. Levi and has a similar tone. The Naṣarenes and Qumran were antagonists (as were Yeshu and the Teacher of Righteousness), and the fact that some Naṣarene writings were found in the Qumran caves suggests to me that the DSS was a library and not the repository of a single sect. Levi—the third son of Jacob and Leah—is accorded particular reverence in a number of works, including the Naṣarene Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (T12P), where two patriarchs are accorded special … Continue reading →

An early Christian poem

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The First Christians / pt. 11 A remarkable poem from the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (T12P) invites commentary. I give the passage in full below, which comes from the Testament of Levi. We have seen that the author of T12P singled out Levi and Judah for special recognition. Among the Jews, these two tribes held religious power and royal power respectively. Yeshu haNotsri was a Levite (as were all males in the Hasmonean line) and thus was a priest by birth. Historically, the poem below has been routinely interpreted through Catholic lenses. Today, conservative scholarship assumes it (and much of T12P) refers to Jesus of Nazareth and accordingly dates the entire work to late I CE+. However, the consensus of scholarship … Continue reading →

The heart of the matter

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From time to time on this website I have reiterated the essence of the Christian religion: baptism, a sacrament involving immersion in running water where “water” symbolizes gnosis and “baptism” signifies conversion, enlightenment, and resurrection all in one. Baptism was the first Christian sacrament and for a long time the only one. It appeared among the Naṣarene Christians once the symbolic equivalence water = gnosis was firmly established, probably by the turn of the era. However, conversion, enlightenment, and resurrection are (and can only be) private. Originally, the sacrament of baptism was a ritual, a public acknowledgment, affirmation, and celebration of those all-important private transformations. Only later was baptism itself endowed with quasi-magical properties when it became a ceremony of … Continue reading →

The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs

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The First Christians / pt. 10 The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (T12P) is a long work made up of deathbed testaments of the sons of Jacob, they being the patriarchs of the twelve tribes of Israel. The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha edition (1983) suggests a dating shortly after 150 BCE (I.778), loosely based on suspected parallels with Qumran literature. However, in recent decades the dating of Qumran has itself moved several generations later (DeVaux’s early Period 1 is doubtful), with the result that those suspected “Essene” parallels should now be moved up to a century later. This revised dating conforms with my own research that places both the heyday of the DSS and that of Naṣarene literature in the middle to the … Continue reading →