Product Code Database
James Daniel Tabor (born 1946) is an American Biblical scholar and retired Professor of Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he taught from 1989 until 2022 and was chair from 2004 to 2014. He previously held positions at Ambassador College (1968–70 while a student at Pepperdine University), the University of Notre Dame (1979–85), and the College of William and Mary (1985–89). Tabor is the founder and director of the Original Bible Project, a non-profit organisation aimed to produce a re-ordered new translation of the Bible in English.
Tabor earned his PhD at the University of Chicago in 1981 in New Testament and Early Christian literature, with an emphasis on the origins of Christianity and ancient Judaism, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, John the Baptist, Jesus, James the Just, and Paul the Apostle. The author of six books and over 50 articles, Tabor is frequently consulted by the media on these topics and has appeared on numerous television and radio programs.
During the Branch Davidian Waco siege in Waco in 1993, Tabor and fellow religion scholar J. Phillip Arnold "realized that in order to deal with David Koresh, and to have any chance for a peaceful resolution of the Waco situation, one would have to understand and make use of these biblical texts." After contacting the FBI, they sent Koresh an alternative interpretation of the Book of Revelation which persuaded Koresh to leave the compound when he had finished a document on 'the seven seals', but left the FBI skeptical, and had the compound stormed by Federal forces.
In 1992 Tabor 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).
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, which explored what had actually happened during the Waco siege. In 1995 he testified before Congress as an expert witness on the siege.
Richard Wightman Fox, professor of history at the University of Southern California, writing in Slate (April 2006) said,
An extensive popular review by Jay Tolson appeared in the April 9, 2006, issue of U.S. News & World Report.
Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte from the Theological University of Kampen writing in the Society of Biblical Literature Review of Biblical Literature (June 2007) was highly critical of the book saying,
New Age author Jeffrey Bütz in The Secret Legacy of Jesus (2010), says that The Jesus Dynasty is
Tabor has been involved in research on Talpiot 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 the book, The Jesus Dynasty, 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. In 2012 Tabor published, with co-author Simcha Jacobovici, The Jesus Discovery: The New Archaeological Find That Reveals the Birth of Christianity (Simon & Schuster), which documented the exploration of a sealed tomb in East Talpiot by remote robotic cameras, less than 200 feet from the first tomb. They claimed that the 2,000-year-old cave might be the burial site of Jesus's disciples—a claim which the majority of scholars reject.
Tabor has also appeared in all 3 seasons of The Naked Archaeologist, with Simcha Jacobovici. Tabor's works are promoted by the educational charity United Israel World Union. He co-hosts tours of the Holy Land which are conducted by this organization.
|
|
