Pontius Pilate and the Imperial Cult in Roman Judaea

New Testament Studies

While Pontius Pilate is often seen as agnostic, in modern terms, the material evidence of his coinage and the Pilate inscription from Caesarea indicate a prefect determined to promote a form of Roman religion in Judaea. Unlike his predecessors, in the coinage Pilate used peculiarly Roman iconographic elements appropriate to the imperial cult. In the inscription Pilate was evidently responsible for dedicating a Tiberieum to the Dis Augustis. This material evidence may be placed alongside the report in Philo Legatio ad Gaium (299–305) where Pilate sets up shields – likewise associated with the Roman imperial cult –honouring Tiberius in Jerusalem.

On the Testimony of Women in 1QSa

co-authored with Philip Davies, Dead Sea Discoveries 3 (1996)

Qumran Textiles in the Palestine Exploration Fund, London

Palestine Exploration Quarterly 137 (2005) 159-167

On Pliny, the Essene Location and Khirbet Qumran

Dead Sea Discoveries 16 (2009), 1-21

Qumran in Context: Reassessing the Archaeological Evidence

Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society 25 (2007), 171-83

This article reviews the arguments made by Yizhar Hirschfeld in his important book, Qumran in Context: Reassessing the Archaeological Evidence (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2004).

Therapeutae

Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd ed. vol. 19, 699-701

Ein Fashkha

(aka Ein Feshkha) Encyclopaedia Judaica , 2nd ed. vol. 6, 255-6.

The Garden of Gethsemane (subject)

Go to: http://www.bib-arch.org/online-exclusives/easter-03.asp Garden of Gethsemane  Not The Place of Jesus' Arrest,’ Biblical Archaeology Review 21/4 (July-August, 1995), 26-35. This article is also on CD-Rom, as one of 50 articles from the archives of BAR. Reprinted as ‘Where was Gethsemane?’ in Molly Dewsnap Meinhardt (ed.), Jesus the Last Day (Washington: Biblical Archaeology Society, 2003), 23-38 as well as in Hershel Shanks (ed.), Where Christianity was Born (Washington: BAS, 2006), 116-27.

The Garden of Gethsemane is a slight amalgam of two different gospel traditions. In one there is a 'place' called 'Gethsemane', and in another there a garden. In fact, the 'place' called Gethsemane was most likely an oil-pressing installation within a cave, and earliest Christian tradition rightly identifies it as such. On the cold night on which he was betrayed, Jesus left his disciples on guard in the secure warmth of the cave in order to go out to pray alone, returning to find them sleeping.

Roads and Passes Round Qumran

with Shimon Gibson, Palestine Exploration Quarterly 40 (2008), 225-7

Spiritual Mothers: Philo on the Women Therapeutae

Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 23 (2002), 37-63.

The Cemeteries of Qumran and Women's Presence at the Site

Dead Sea Discoveries; Nov 99, Vol. 6 Issue 3

Attempts to prove that women were included in the population of the group that inhabited Khirbet Qumran from the second century BCE to the first century BCE by citing the excavation of women's graves in the cemeteries of the site in the 1950s. Information on the cemeteries of Qumran; Cemeteries that may be understood as being related to the Qumran ruins; Explanation on the presence of women and children in the cemetery.

Date Palms and Opobalsam in the Madaba Mosaic Map

Co-authored with Nigel Hepper, from the Palestine Exploration Quarterly 136 (2004), 35-44

The botanical images of the Madaba mosaic map are identified and the importance of date palms and opobalsam (Judaean balsam) in the Dead Sea region is explored.

Golgotha: A Reconsideration of the Evidence for the Sites of Jesus' Crucifixion and Burial

New Testament Studies 44 (1998) 180-203

In this study Golgotha is defined as the area of a disused quarry, west of first-century Jerusalem. The site of the crucifixion of Jesus and the site of his entombment are distinguished as separate localities within this region. It is proposed that while Jesus was executed close to Gennath Gate and two main roads, he was buried some 200 m. further north in a more isolated area. Addressing archaeological and historical evidence, I review my previous scepticism regarding the traditional tomb of Jesus, and propose instead that it is authentic, though the locus of the crucifixion was slightly further south.

‘The Asherah, the Menorah and the Sacred Tree,’

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 66 (1994)