When Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem, the site of what would one day be the Holy Sepulchre Church was an abandoned stone quarry. A catacomb cut into the western side of the quarry attests that the quarry had fallen into disuse. The innermost chamber of the catacomb contains kokhim tombs. These deep recesses into the rock, typical of the first centuries B.C. and A.D., can still be seen behind the Syrian Chapel in the Holy Sepulchre Church today.

032033 The Latin words Via Dolorosa mean the “Sorrowful Way.” They were first used by the Franciscan Boniface of Ragusa in the second half of the 16th century as the name of the...

034 Controversy over the burial of James, the brother of Jesus, is nothing new. As early as the fourth century A.D., the location of James’s tomb was disputed. In the words of the church father Jerome, writing in 392 A.D.: “Some monks think James...

Three gospels tell of the devil testing Jesus in the wilderness, an incident so remarkable as to seem almost certainly unreal. But is it? Our author suggests a historical core to the tale, a substratum reflecting struggles Jesus faced in his lifetime.

About Paul’s missionary journeys to the west much has been written. But almost nothing has been said of his trip to Arabia. No wonder; it is barely mentioned, almost as an aside, in Galatians 1:17: “I went away into Arabia, and again I returned to Damascus.” Few commentators who...

054 On November 7, 1889, the Northern Christian Advocate (Syracuse, New York) published a note from an anonymous correspondent in Jerusalem: “There are strange rumors afloat about an inscription found at St. Stephen’s [St. Étienne’s...

041 040 Steve Mason has probably made the best case possible that we should adopt an “agnostic” position regarding the birthplace of Jesus. But although Mason has examined the literary data...

020 021 Why did Jesus go back to preach in Galilee? The question may seem a silly one. After all, he was a native of Nazareth in Galilee, and it was natural that he should preach to his own...

What sorts of men were Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John—crude, ignorant laborers or savvy and practical men of the world? The reliability of much of the Gospels rides on the answer.

028 029 The scene has stimulated the imagination of great painters. The light of a full moon accentuates the shadows in a garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives. A lonely figure prays in...

0008009 In the Gospel miracle stories, Jesus does wonderful things. But the divine power that he dispenses flows through his person while leaving him untouched. In the Transfiguration episode,...

014 We are told that God hears our prayers. Then why doesn’t he listen? The most consoling words in the New Testament are, “Ask and you will receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7 = Luke 11:9). The...

038 In the Acts of the Apostles, we are told that Paul made three missionary journeys. In almost every introduction to the New Testament I have seen, the author discusses St. Paul’s journeys in terms of places and dates; his concern is to...