November 2003

Index: New Testament—General Background

Barry’s Scrolls

Bible Places

Jeff Barry’s Scrolls From the Dead Sea [Index] [Home]

http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/deadsea.scrolls.exhibit/intro.html

This is not the famous songwriter by the same name, but associated with the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The United States Government housed an exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and Barry was asked to provide an Internet website to summarize the exhibit. The links are to Barry’s discussions of various topics that include hyperlinks to maps and scroll images.

Ted Bolen’s Bible Places [Index] [Home]

http://www.bibleplaces.com/

Todd Bolen is Associate Professor of Biblical Studies at the Israel Bible Extension of The Master's College, Santa Clarita, CA. He functions in an extension capacity, living and teaching in Israel. He has compiled an extensive photographic database of biblical sites since 1990. Bolen’s website features photographs and descriptions of sites in Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, and Greece. The focus is on biblical archaeology, geography and history. The goal is to provide better photographs than typical on the web and to include instructive captions to highlight archeological, historical, and geographical details related to each image. Links also are provided to other instructive websites. A full set of these images is offered for sale on CD-ROMs.

Peter Kirby’s Early Christian Writings [Index] [Home]

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/

Useful website, quite extensive in coverage, introducing documents from the first two centuries of the church, including Christian writings in the New Testament, Christian apocrypha, Gnostic writings, and selected Church Fathers. Basic information on each work is provided with links to online versions of that document, as well as links to other sites with related information on that work, including commentaries—a massive amount of information, or where to find out.

Michael Martin’s New Testament Maps and Artifacts [Index] [Home]

http://www.ntimages.com/

This site is maintained by Dr. Michael Martin at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. As a result of his extensive travels in Turkey and Greece, Dr. Martin has shared his digital images of various archeological and historical materials. The information helps to illustrate the general New Testament background, Pauline letters, the Book of Revelation, and the background to the Greek language.

Rusty Russell’s Biblical History: Bible Knowledge Accelerator [Index] [Home]

http://www.bible-history.com/bka/index.htm

Rusty Russell (a layman; education unknown) has a nicely designed and beautifully illustrated website, Biblical History, in which he offers links and his own material to persuade of the Bible’s accuracy through history and archeology. The site is beautifully presented, with a nice use of graphics, fonts, and layout.

Mahlon Smith’s A Synoptic Gospels Primer [Index] [Home]

http://religion.rutgers.edu/nt/primer/

Mahlon Smith is Associate Professor, Department of Religion, Rutgers University. He has produced an “e-textbook” on the Synoptic Problem because of the huge advantage hyperlinks and color coding provide, which would have been cost-prohibitive in print media. Smith covers the history of the literary analysis of the Gospels and provides illustrations using example texts arranged in parallel format for comparison and contrast. The discussion uses Greek (SPIonic font, free download), but Smith also has included an extensive English discussion to make the material accessible to the English only student. The Greek material is based on Nestle-Aland critical editions, while the English uses the RSV because the more literal tendency of that translation helps in this type literary analysis. A “Hyper-Glossary” provides links to “mini-essays” on important topics. Smith favors the two source theory, but is careful to provide links to websites offering countering hypotheses. The web presentation is clean, nicely formatted, and easily navigated. This is an excellent web resource making a technical and complicated discussion accessible and understandable, including hands-on experience with the issues through actual text study.

James Tabor’s The Jewish Roman World of Jesus [Index] [Home]

http://www.uncc.edu/jdtabor/index.html

James Tabor is Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and current editor of the Original Bible Project. He has traveled extensively. His beautiful website features four main areas with links: Hellenistic/Roman Religion & Philosophy, Archeology and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Christian Origins and the New Testament, and Ancient Judaism. The majority of these links are to articles published by Dr. Tabor to the website on that topic, or are the texts of published or soon to be published articles that appear in various publications by Dr. Tabor or in collaboration with others. Some links are to translations of original source material, such as Dittenberger’s Sylloge collection of Greek inscriptions, illustrating the social and religious background of ancient world. This site presents solid work by a respected scholar and is helpful for understanding the New Testament and its background.