Is there inscriptional proof of the empty tomb of Jesus? Some scholars say yes. The epigraph to which they point is the so–called Nazareth Inscription, which is a Greek epigraph, dated to the first century BCE to first century CE by paleographic means, that supposedly came from Nazareth, Jesus’s hometown (for more on the Nazareth Inscription’s history see my first podcast on the subject by clicking here). The epigraph itself is an edict from a “Caesar” that references the desecration of a tomb by the removal of a corpse and proscribes any further such behavior (for the Greek and my translation of the Nazareth Inscription click here). Given that the text supposedly came from Nazareth, that its date coincides with Jesus’s crucifixion (30–33 CE), and that it mentions the removal of a corpse, not a few Biblical scholars and some Christian apologists conclude that the Nazareth Inscription is connected to the empty tomb of Jesus and at the very least to the early Christian movement (for more information see my first podcast on the Nazareth Inscription by clicking here).

However, a recent scientific study of the marble of the Nazareth Inscription demonstrates once and for all that the epigraph is neither connected to Nazareth nor Jesus’s empty tomb (see Kyle Harper, Michael McCormick, Matthew Hamilton, Chantal Peiffert, Raymond Michels, and Michael Engel, “Establishing the Provenance of the Nazareth Inscription: Using Stable Isotopes to Resolve a Historic Controversy and Trace Ancient Marble Production,” Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 30 [2020]: 102228). Rather, the marble is almost certainly from the island of Cos, about 1000 km or 690 miles from ancient Palestine. For a discussion of this new revelation click here to hear my latest podcast.

Due to the financial strain of the COVID-19 crisis, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary has decided to close the largest evangelical archaeology graduate program in the world, the Tandy Institute of Archaeology. In the process, the school is firing five full time professors and tossing to the wind more than 25 students who were in the process of earning graduate degrees in archaeology.

The justification for this move, according to the school’s administration, is that it is part of an institutional reset. To this end, they decided that graduate degrees in archaeology are “incongruent” with the school’s mission of training of pastors.

In my opinion, this decision is nearsighted and the notion that ministers need not be concerned about archaeology could not be further from the truth.

In 2016, I participated in an excavation on the island of Cyprus that the Tandy Institute hosted. Although I was (and am) not an evangelical or a Southern Baptist, the archaeologists and budding archaeologists on that excavation were top notch, respectful, and so gracious to me. I learned so much from them about archaeology and Cyprus and I consider Tom Davis (acting director of the Tandy Institute) and some of his students friends. My heart hurts for the former faculty members and students of the Tandy Institute and their families.

For more information on this sad and terrible announcement see Christianity Today.

We are in the midst of a global crisis. COVID-19 has spread to 195 countries, including our own, the US. The numbers of Americans infected and those who have died from their symptoms continue to climb. As of 2:36 PM on March 23, 2020, 41,424 Americans have tested positive for COVID-19 and 498 have died. According to the US Surgeon General Jerome Adams, this week, March 22-28, “it’s going to get bad.” Our federal and state governments have issued guidelines asking us to practice social distancing, telling us to stay home and to leave our houses only for groceries or emergencies. Why? Because we can save lives.

Despite these warnings, many Americans, some of whom are Christians, are failing to heed the advice and, in some cases, orders of federal and local governments. We all have that family member or friend who thinks that they are invincible, that this crisis is a hoax, or that there is no chance that they will get the virus. This situation gave me pause to stop and to consider: what would the apostle Paul say to such individuals who fail to practice social distancing? The answer is simple: he would tell them to stop being selfish and to look out for the interest of others, especially the vulnerable, and thus follow Jesus’s example.

In the mid-50s CE, Paul wrote a letter to his converts in Philippi (a city in northwest Greece: see the map below) to address the selfish attitudes of some Christians that were causing problems within the Philippian Church.

Paul tries to accomplish this task by reminding the Philippian Christians of Jesus’s example in what Michael Gorman rightly calls Paul’s “master story,” Phil 2:6-11 (see Michael Gorman, Participating in Christ: Explorations in Paul’s Theology and Spirituality [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2019], 33-34). Philippians 2:6-11 may be an early Christian hymn or poem and Paul prefaces it with an admonition for his converts to fulfill his joy by being focused on the same thing (Phil 2:2). The apostle goes on to define what this same thing is. It involves adopting an attitude of humility, regarding other people as more superior than yourself, and being concerned about the affairs of others (Phil 2:3-4). Paul wants his converts to consider how their actions affect others.

To drive this point home, he appeals to Jesus’s self-sacrificing example (Phil 2:5) and then quotes this likely hymn or poem, saying of Jesus

who existed in the form of God and did not regard equality with God as something to exploit. Rather, he emptied himself by taking on the form of a slave. He was made in the likeness of humans and he was found in form like a man. He humbled himself by becoming obedient unto death, even death produced by a cross. Therefore, God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that at Jesus’s name every knee in heaven, on earth, and under the earth might bow and every tongue might confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to God the Father’s glory (Phil 2:6-11; my translation).

Paul uses Jesus as the self-sacrificing example par excellence. Before the incarnation, he lived in heaven where he existed in the form of God. The English verb that I have translated “existed” is a translation of the Greek participle ὑπάρχων (hyparchōn). I have rendered this participle as literal as possible as the KJV and the NIV do:

Who, being (ὑπάρχων) in the form of God . . . (KJV)

Who, being (ὑπάρχων) in very nature God . . . (NIV)

However, the participle must be interpreted. One of the most common interpretations of ὑπάρχων (hyparchōn) is that it is concessive:

Who, though (ὑπάρχων) he was in the form of God . . . (RSV)

Who, though (ὑπάρχων) he was in the form of God . . . (NRSV)

Who, though (ὑπάρχων) he was in the form of God . . . (ESV)

There is, however, another, and I would argue, better translation of ὑπάρχων. The participle is causal. Thus, ὑπάρχων should be rendered as follows:

because he was in the form of God . . .

In his recent book Participation in Christ, Gorman argues for this translation and concludes that for Paul:

“. . . Christ did what he did not merely in spite of being in the form of God and equal with God but also precisely because he was in the form of God and equal to God” (Gorman, Participation in Christ, 37).

Thus, it was because of Jesus’s pre-incarnate status that he emptied himself, took on the form of a slave, and died a cruel death on the cross. In short, it was because Jesus had power and status that he used that power and status to help others, thereby making him the perfect example of someone who “paid attention not to his own affairs but to the affairs of others” (Phil 2:4). In the process, he left us this wonderful example to follow.

What does all this have to do with social distancing during the COVID-19 crisis? Because we have the ability and freedom not to practice social distancing, we should follow Jesus’s example, forgo that ability and freedom, and consider the health and safety of the vulnerable in our society. In short, Paul would say to all those not practicing social distancing to stop being selfish, to get over themselves, and to be like Jesus: pay attention to those with less power than you and serve them.

Who knows? Your actions might result in the most Christ-like act of all, saving the lives of others.

I am delighted to announce that I have signed a contract with the Berlin publishing house de Gruyter to publish a revised version of my dissertation in its Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft series. This work is tentatively entitled Christ’s Enthronement at God’s Right Hand & Its Greco-Roman Cultural Context. In this book, I probe the reason why one particular verse from the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Psalm 110:1 (“The LORD said to my lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet’”) became the Christian text par excellence for articulating Jesus Christ’s exaltation to heaven. The answer, I argue, lies in the fact that the concept of a sovereign sitting next to a god is a Greco-Roman cross-cultural reward for a beneficent, pious, and divinely appointed monarch, which explicates widespread early Christian use of Psalm 110:1. This book is expected to appear late in 2020 or early 2021, just in time for Christmas 2020!

(Disclaimer: this post contains an ancient artistic depiction of a sexual act)

By and large, research into earliest Christianity and its historical and social context is often based on ancient literary sources. In some sense, this focus on written texts is understandable. The earliest Christians were people of the book (what we call the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible) and scholars of earliest Christianity, many of whom are Christians or used to be, are indebted to that legacy. In addition, modern historical methods came to fruition in the nineteenth and early twentieth century either before the development of or during the infancy of the sciences of archaeology, epigraphy, numismatics, and art history. However, there are a plethora of non-literary sources from the world of earliest Christianity such as archaeological artifacts, which can supplement, challenge, and nuance the testimony from ancient literature and our historical reconstructions based on that testimony. In this post, my purpose is to demonstrate how one artifact can illuminate an aspect of the world of Paul’s letter to the Romans, female same-sex acts.

In Romans 1:18-3:20, Paul’s rhetorical aim is to demonstrate that all, both Jews and non-Jews, have sinned, fallen short of God’s glory, and are in need of the cosmic restorative righteousness that God offers in the gospel that Paul preaches (Rom 1:2-4). In the process, he lists what he calls examples of ungodliness and wickedness that Jews and non-Jews are guilty of and against which God’s anger is being revealed from heaven. The main sin of non-Jews in Rom 1:18-32 is their refusal to glorify and honor the God of Israel who is their creator (Rom 1:19-22), which led to idolatry (Rom 1:23). In addition, God handed over non-Jews to their own desires, one of which gives historians reason to pause, same-sex female activity:

“Their women exchange the natural use [of men] for what is contrary to nature” (Rom 1:26)

Most discussions of this reference to female same-sex activity in Romans mention the paucity of ancient Jewish and pagan sources that refer to it. For example, in his full length treatment of homosexuality and the New Testament, Robin Scroggs notes in an appendix on female same-sex activity, “One of the most surprising things a researcher in this area learns is that there is virtually nothing in the texts [of the Greco-Roman world] about female homosexuality” (Robin Scroggs, The New Testament and Homosexuality [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983], 140).

The problem of a lack of sources that Scroggs points out relates to his dataset. He focuses solely on Greco-Roman literature. To return to his words, “there is virtually nothing in the texts . . .” If, however, one looks outside Greco-Roman texts, one sees that there are ancient artifacts that provide more Greco-Roman references to female same-sex acts, albeit visual references. To provide one example, a first century CE terra-cotta lamp from Asia Minor that is currently in the British Museum visually depicts a female same-sex act.

(Museum # 2005,0921.1; © Trustees of the British Museum)

The lamp pictures one nude woman performing cunnilingus (or oral sex) on another nude woman. It is clear that this lamp was made to be used and that someone used it, for soot is still visible on its neck and spout. What is more, this lamp is made from a mold, which indicates that it, along with this visual depiction of a female same-sex act, was mass produced. There is no way to know how many lamps were made from this mold or who acquired them. Nevertheless, this is one of numerous concrete artifacts that are available for the study of female same-sex activity in the Greco-Roman world. In short, this one lamp suggests that same-sex female activity was more prevalent than surviving Greco-Roman literature evinces. Such visual information as well as other artifacts have the potential for a better contextualization of Paul’s reference to same-sex female activity in Romans.