James Tabor

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James D. Tabor is Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte where he has taught since 1989. He previously held positions at Ambassador College (1968-70 while a student), the University of Notre Dame (1979-85) and the College of William and Mary (1985-89).

1 Background
2 Works and Publications
3 Recent Research
4 References
5 Books
6 External Links

[edit] Background

Tabor was born in Texas but lived all over the world as the son of an Air Force officer. He was raised in the Churches of Christ and attended Abilene Christian University where he earned his B.A. degree in Greek and Bible. While earning his M.A. from Pepperdine University he taught Greek and Hebrew for two years while a student at Ambassador College, founded by Herbert W. Armstrong, founder and president of the Worldwide Church of God. Tabor left the WCG in 1970 because they "were not open-minded seekers of God's truth." [1]

Tabor earned his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1971 in New Testament and Early Christian Literature, with an emphasis on Christian origins and ancient Judaism, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, John the Baptist, Jesus, James the Just, and Paul of Tarsus.

The author of several books, he is frequently consulted by the media on these topics and has appeared on numerous television and radio programs.

[edit] Works and Publications

His first book was a study of the mysticism of the apostle Paul titled Things Unutterable (1986), based on his University of Chicago dissertation. The Journal of Religion named it one of the ten best scholarly studies on Paul of the 1980s. Tabor then turned to an analysis of attitudes toward religious suicide and martyrdom in the ancient world, the results of which appeared as A Noble Death, published by HarperSanFrancisco in 1992 (co-authored with Arthur Droge). Although the book is centered on the history of such ideas in antiquity, the results of this research have had immediate application in our current discussion of the ethics of volunteer death and assisted suicide. Prof. Tabor's book has been used as a standard by ethicists, lawyers, and physicians who are participating in the current debate. Tabor has also published a wide variety of scholarly and more popular articles in books, journals, and magazines.

In 1995, he published Why Waco? Cults and the Battle for Religious Freedom in America (University of California Press), which he co-authored with Eugene Gallagher, and which was one of the first books to explore what had actually happened in Waco, Texas. In dealing with the Waco crisis, both during and after the tragedy, Tabor was able to make direct use of his academic specialties in ancient apocalypticism and messianism, religious martyrdom and suicide, and the use of Biblical prophetic texts as applied to the modern situation involving the Branch Davidians. In 1995 he testified before Congress as an expert witness on Waco and has urged both government officials and media spokespersons to drop the use of the prejudicial label "cult," and approach such new religious groups with a combination of critical evaluation and a sympathetic attempt to enter the world view of those involved.

Tabor serves as Chief Editor of the Original Bible Project, an effort to produce a historical-linguistic translation of the Bible with notes. In 2006 Tabor completed an edited volume with Prof. Eugene Gallagher, Crossing the Bounds: Humanity and Divinity in Late Antiquity (E.J. Brill, 2006).

[edit] Recent Research

In 2006 Tabor published a controversial book titled The Jesus Dynasty that interprets Jesus as an apocalyptic Messiah whose extended family founded a royal dynasty in the days before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. He included archaeological data as well as textual interpretations of biblical texts, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and ancient historical sources. The form of Christianity that grew out of this movement, led by the apostle Paul, was, according to Tabor, a decisive break with the Ebionite-like original teachings of Jesus.

More recently Tabor has been involved in research on a tomb found in 1980 in Jerusalem in the area of east Talpiot. It contained ossuaries with the names Jesus son of Joseph, two Marys, a Joseph, a Matthew, and a Jude son of Jesus. In his book Tabor had discussed the possibilities that this tomb might be linked to Jesus of Nazareth and his family. He was a consultant for the film, "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" produced by James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici and shown in March, 2007. Tabor is working on his own formal publication of the results of his three years of research on this tomb.

[edit] References

Dr. James Tabor's CV and interview
UNC at Charlotte

[edit] Books

The Jesus Dynasty: A New Historical Investigation of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity, Simon & Schuster, 2006, ISBN 0743287231 & ISBN 0007220588 (described as "His most ambitious project to date" [2])
Invitation to the Old Testament (with Celia Brewer Sinclair), 2005, ISBN 0687495903
Why Waco?: Cults and the Battle for Religious Freedom in America (with Eugene V. Gallagher), 1995, ISBN 0520208994
A Noble Death: Suicide and Martyrdom Among Christians and Jews in Antiquity (with Arthur J Droge), 1992, ISBN 0060620951
Things Unutterable: Paul's Ascent to Paradise in Its Graeco-Roman, Judaic and Early Christian Contexts, 1986, ISBN 0819156434 & ISBN 0819156442 (based on Tabor's University of Chicago dissertation. Named by the Journal of Religion as one of the ten best scholarly studies on Paul of the 1980s. [3])