‘The Jewish Roman World of Jesus’ is his university website with many papers.
Tabor’s “Thoughts on Some Monday…”
Paul Tillich once said, I don’t pray, I meditate. I would head in that direction, but with this change: I neither pray, nor meditate, but I try to “atune,” through most of my waking moments, to the greater ordered PROCESS that has given rise to my very being. I am particularly fond of “naming” that personal conscious Process/Force as “HaShem,” the unnamed name who cannot be limited by any diminishing proper noun.
If I have to offer anything more specific, it might be something along the lines of “The Great Orchestrator…” Not of massive events, miracles, magic tricks, or anything noticeable or dramatically impressive, but somehow, the Force of all Forces, in which our very being is grounded, witnessed by the emergence of self-consciousness and the values of justice, truth, compassion, and kindness, and connecting the dots and circuits of our lives between the millions of humans who are somehow “tuned in” to have “ears to hear,” and a “heart to understand.” There is a cosmic clear channel always open. This unfolding must involve chance and necessity, circumstance, contingency, serendipity, congruence, and all obvious realities of tragedy, suffering, joy, and love. Who we connect with in our lives. What chance idea or inclination we seem to grab out of thin air, that ends up co-ordinating with something else, that in turn unfolds in this or that course or direction, too complex for even an imaginary future Quantum Computer to factor out…but nonetheless operating at all times end places in history. The goal is to promote the good, the beautiful, the creative, the just, and the compassionate–and the outcome, finally, is pure joy.
Near the end of this video he talks about his beliefs and that he is a “process theist”.
Links
The Ten Tombs – Article in Popular Archeology magazine. Of particular note here is video no. 1, entitled Ten Jerusalem Tombs from the Time of Jesus [from video series Tabor entitles “Jesus Archaeology” Here, Tabor reviews and summarizes, with photographic images and illustrations, ten extraordinary burial cave tomb discoveries in the Old City area that relate to the context and events around the time of the Late Second Temple,
New Testament Texts on the Imminence of the End – There is absolutely clear evidence running through the New Testament documents that the early followers of Jesus (Nazarenes) were convinced that they were living very close to the end of the Age. They expected the “Parousia”…. Includes lists of scriptures.
“Standing in the Shadow of Schweitzer: What Can We Say About an Apocalyptic Jesus?” The Review of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion. This is a great paper.
The Three Most Important Women in Mark’s Gospel—All Unnamed – Clearly in Mark the 12 male disciples are complete failures and are never presented as heroes, even at the end. However, what we do find in Mark, in stark contrast to this chosen group, are three unnamed women who become Mark’s heroines and carry the core message of the entire book for those readers with eyes to see and ears to hear.