Jesus and the Remains of His Day: Studies in Jesus and the Evidence of Material Culture

Bobby K. of Hendrickson asked me to give this volume* the once over whilst we were in Atlanta for SBL (along with several other volumes I’ve already mentioned).  I’ve gotten around to this one and will first give some indication of what it contains followed by some general remarks concerning those I think could benefit from taking a look at it themselves.  So, the contents:

This book is a collection of thirteen articles on various aspects of how archaeological evidence enlightens our understanding of the life and death of Jesus and the culture in which he lived. Nine of the book’s thirteen essays were published previously, though several of these have been revised or augmented for inclusion in the present book; four of the book’s essays are new. Several of the essays deal with the death of Jesus and the burial practices of his day. Articles in the book include:

1. A Tale of Two Cities: What We Learned from Bethsaida and Magdala
2. A Boat, a House, and an Ossuary: What Can We Learn from the Artifacts?
3. Excavating Caiaphas, Pilate, and Simon of Cyrene: Assessing the Literary and Archaeological Evidence
4. “Have You Never Read?” Jesus and Literacy
5. Shout at the Devil: Jesus and Psalm 91 in the Light of Early Jewish Interpretation
6. “Hang Him on a Tree until Dead”: Hanging and Crucifixion in Second Temple Israel
7. The Family Buried Together Stays Together: On the Burial of the Executed in Family Tombs
8. Death Becomes Him: On the Execution and Burial of Jesus
9. Keeping Up with Appearances: The Talpiot Tomb Façade in Context
10. The Talking Dead: Post-Mortem Beliefs in Pagan, Jewish, and Christian Epitaphs

All of these are the sorts of topics covered in introduction to New Testament courses and/ or introductory courses on the archaeology of the Levant.  But there’s a bit more here than merely introductory materials.  There’s also a good bit of interaction (I am tempted to write ‘polemic’) with current academic trends and ideas.  Chapters 7 and 9 in particular take to task various notions currently floating around in the margins of academic discourse.

The book is excellently produced and features a quite sturdy binding (library quality really) and lovely illustrations (in color) along with a quite thorough bibliography (suitable for any persons interested in digging deeper into the topics covered in the book).

The audience in mind for this volume must surely have been students in graduate courses and that’s precisely the audience which will gain the most from its use.  It would function, ideally in my estimation, as a supplemental text.