Our Last Event:

James Tabor, Ph.D.

Dr. James D. Tabor, Professor of Early Christian Origins
at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte,
noted author and a favorite lecturer, will present a lecture for
The Reunion Institute on on the Rice University campus.

JOHN THE BAPTIZER
The Shadow Figure of Earliest Christianity

Why has John the Baptizer, whom Jesus called a “bright and shining light” and the greatest man of his generation, been largely ignored and forgotten in standard accounts of Christian Origins? What can we know about the historical John the Baptist? What happened to his followers after his death and that of his cousin, Jesus? How do his modern followers, the Mandeans of Iraq and Iran, contribute to this reconstruction? Prof. Tabor will consider texts from a Hebrew version of Matthew, Slavonic Josephus, and Mandean materials that shed light on this important subject. He will also offer a firsthand report on the Harvard Conference on the Mandeans held in June of this year. This will include slides illustrating the ancient Mandean rite of baptism, carried out by Mandean priests in the Charles River in Boston, as part of the Harvard conference.

About Dr. Tabor:

James D. Tabor is a Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. His Ph.D. is from the University of Chicago in the area of Christian Origins and ancient Judaism with a specialty in apocalyptic Systems of thought, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, Jesus and Paul, and related ancient Mediterranean religious movements. His current research involves the newly released Dead Sea Scrolls and he has combined extensive field work with his textual research: the 3rd Judean Desert Expedition in which radar ground scan methods were used at Qumran; survey of Wadi el-Yabis (Wadi Cherith) in Jordan, 1992 & 1996; field research at Masada in 1994; New Qumran excavations, January 1996; and ancient desert fortress survey in Israel and Jordan in 1997. In 1996 he participated in the archaeological excavations at Sepphoris, near Nazareth in the Galilee, in the ongoing efforts directed by Prof. James Strange of the University of South Florida, as well as Survey and radar ground scan efforts at Christian Mt. Zion in Jerusalem, also with Prof. Strange. Dr. Tabor Serves as Chief Editor of the Original Bible Project, a decade-long effort to produce a historical-linguistic translation of the Bible. He is currently working on a new book, Last Days in Jerusalem: Jews and Christians at the Crossroads, that deals with the apocalyptic events surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E.