Author: Gary Greenberg

Notice to subscribers and visitors

Sometime in the next few days I will be updating this site. It will not only include a new front page design, it will feature a large amount of content based on my writings. More information about my books will be provided and in several cases excerpts will be available to read. I will also post several of my articles and papers and link to some of my earlier academic posts. Additional writings will be added over time.

Updating a site can be a perilous undertaking and I worry that the changes will wipe out the subscriber data base. I will send out a notice when the site is updated. If you don’t receive an “update completed” notice in the next week or so, I hoe you will check back and see if you need to re-subscribe.

When the site is updated and you look around and notice any glitches, I hope you’ll let me know.

Was Mary the Name of Jesus’ Mother? A Source-Critical Perspective

My essay, Was Mary the Name of Jesus’ Mother? A Source-Critical Perspective has just been published on the Bible and Interpretation Web Site. The thrust of the article is that while statistically it is likely that Mary was the name of Jesus’ mother, there is no reliable textual evidence in the New Testament that Mary was the name of Jesus’ mother. The article examines the textual evidence as it relates to this issue. Check it out and tell me what you think.

Who is Nimrod? An Answer

Genesis 10 contains a list of Noh’s descendants through his three sons, Ham, Japheth, and Shem. The roster is divided into three branches, one for each son and lists a series of descendants from each son. Each branch is associated with different geographic territories. According to Genesis 10:32, “These are the families of Noah’s sons, according to their genealogies, in their nations; and from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood.”

A number of the names closely align with the names of ancient nations in the Near East but many, if not most, are obscure and unknown from the historical records. One particularly glaring problem scholars have with the list is that it omits the various Mesopotamian empires that flourished in the first two millennia B.C.E.

There are many other problems with the list, including such issues as when it was composed and what it can tell us about geo-politics at the time of its publication. Here I want to focus on one particular issue. Who does Nimrod represent? The question puzzles biblical scholars and near eastern archaeologists and some academic contortions have been used to resolve the matter. I have a more sensible solution.

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Fine-Tuning Radiocarbon Dating Will Rewrite History!

“A single Northern Hemisphere calibration curve has formed the basis of radiocarbon dating in Europe and the Mediterranean for five decades, setting the time frame for prehistory,” Manning and co-authors write. “However, as measurement precision increases, there is mounting evidence for some small but substantive regional (partly growing season) offsets in the same-year radiocarbon levels.”

A recent study suggests that the current basis for radiocarbon dating in the Middle East may be relying on an erroneous calibration based on sources outside of the Middle East. This site also reports on the study and includes a video on radiocarbon dating.

Who won the war between Moab and Israel

Ataroth is an obscure Transjordanian city, referenced only twice in the Bible. Nevertheless, due to modern archaeological discoveries, it has become a central piece of evidence for reconstructing the history of the Moabite rebellion against Israel and King Mesha’s expansion of the Moabite kingdom described in both 2 Kings and the Mesha Stele.

To read the full essay go here.

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