As you leave Jerusalem and go to the south and to the east, toward the Dead Sea, the terrain changes rapidly and starkly. You move off gradually from [the] ... rolling hillside, through the ravines, ...

What are the origins of Christianity? Most people would say it begins with Jesus. But Jesus and at least some of his disciples were influenced by, or followers of, people who called themselves “the ...

The Essenes’ concept of messianism, therefore, was not a Jewish response; Judaism emphasized a deeper awareness of Godliness as the essence of human relationships. It was not belief that marked ...

Biblical scholars have long argued that the Dead Sea Scrolls were the work of an ascetic and celibate Jewish community known as the Essenes, which flourished in the 1st century A.D. in the scorching ...

Western biblical scholars have long discussed and debated the work of biblical scholars living in Israel, amid the scorching deserts of the Middle East. Now a prominent expert disputes that one of ...

In Luke 1:31-35, an angel tells the Virgin Mary, “And now you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the son of the Most High, the ...

Early Christianity was extremely diverse and often contradictory in its beliefs and practices. What do we know of the 'Christianities' that fell by the wayside? The once entrenched idea that early ...