The Life of Jesus in History and Archaeology

Dr. R. Steven Notley is Professor and Dean of Religious Studies at Pillar College, Newark, NJ. He is also a Senior Leon Charney Fellow at the Yeshiva University Center for Israel Studies. Since 2016, he has served as the academic director of the el-Araj Excavation Project in its search for first-century Bethsaida-Julias, the lost city of the apostles. He received his PhD from the Hebrew University, where he studied with David Flusser. Dr. Notley lived for 16 years in Jerusalem with his wife and four children, during which time he was the founding chair of the New Testament Studies program at the Jerusalem University College. He has been directing groups of students and laypeople to Israel and the eastern Mediterranean region for 30 years. He is the author of many books and articles and continues collaborative research and publication with Israeli scholars in the fields of historical geography, ancient Judaism, and Christian origins. Among his list of publications, he collaborated with Flusser on the historical biography, The Sage from Galilee: Rediscovering Jesus’ Genius; with Anson Rainey on the monumental biblical atlas, The Sacred Bridge: Carta’s Atlas of the Biblical World; and with Ze’ev Safrai on an annotated translation of Eusebius’s important description of Roman Palestine, Eusebius, Onomasticon: A Triglott Edition with Notes and Commentary. He rejoined Safrai for their second work, a pioneering collection and translation of the earliest rabbinic parables that provide the literary and religious context for the parables of Jesus, The Parables of the Sages.

Dr. Jordan Ryan was born and raised in the multicultural city of Toronto, Canada. His parents worked with the unhoused youth population in the inner city, and he grew up in the heart of the city in community with some of its most marginalized people. These experiences contributed to his formation and continue to shape his thought and teaching, giving him an interest in Jesus’s proclamation of the Kingdom of God in the Gospels.

Dr. Ryan’s current research has two main trajectories. The first is situating the New Testament in its ancient Jewish and Roman background, which includes the archaeology of Roman Galilee and Judea. Archaeology plays a particularly important role in that endeavor, as it provides a window into daily life and local institutions and presents the lives of the non-elites of the biblical world, whose voices may not be preserved through text. He has been a member of the excavations at Magdala and is currently a staff member of the Tel Shimron excavations. Some of his work has involved the study of ancient synagogues and ancient churches. The second trajectory is Filipino American and Asian North American contextual interpretation of the New Testament. As a half-Filipino (Tisoy) scholar hailing from the urban center of Toronto, Dr. Ryan is interested in biblical interpretation and scholarship done for and from diaspora Asian Christian communities in the United States and Canada. He has recently published a commentary on Acts from a Filipino North American perspective in The New Testament in Color (Intervarsity Press).

Dr. James Strange received the Charles Jackson Granade and Elizabeth Donald Granade Chair in New Testament in the fall of 2017. He is a 2015 recipient of the Dean’s Award for Research, Howard College of Arts and Sciences, and a member of Phi Kappa Phi honor society. Strange is Director of the Shikhin Excavation Project in Israel and researches archaeology of Palestine in the Hellenistic through Byzantine periods, early Christianity and post-biblical Judaisms. He teaches courses in New Testament, ancient Greco-Roman Religions, and the archaeology of Palestine.

Strange received his BA in Classics from Furman University, an MDiv from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, an MA in Formative Christianity and Judaism from the University of South Florida, and his PhD in New Testament and Formative Christianity from Emory University. Publications include: (with David A. Fiensy) Galilee in the Late Second Temple and Mishnaic Periods, Volumes 1 and 2 (Augsburg Fortress Press 2014 and 2015), The Moral World of James (Peter Lang, 2010), The Emergence of the Christian Basilica in the Fourth Century  (Global Publications, 2000), and articles for journals, volumes of essays, and dictionaries and encyclopedias. He is a member of Shades Crest Baptist Church and enjoys speaking to a variety of community groups about the New Testament and the archaeology of ancient Galilee. During his free time, he enjoys cooking, singing, karate, and a good mystery novel, rarely all at once.

Dr. Glenn J. Corbett is editor-in-chief of Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR) magazine and a specialist in the archaeology of the lands of the Bible, with more than two decades of excavation and field experience working on projects in Jordan, Turkey, and Israel. Prior to joining BAR, Glenn was associate director of the American Center of Research (ACOR) in Amman, Jordan, where he directed the award-winning Temple of the Winged Lions project in Petra. In addition, while working as program director for the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, he spearheaded efforts to help preserve threatened archaeological sites and museums in Yemen and other countries ravaged by conflict.

Dr. Robert "Bobby" Duke (University of California, Los Angeles) serves as the Chief Curatorial Officer and as the Director of the Scholars Initiative at Museum of the Bible. He is also a professor in the Honors College and former dean of the School of Theology at Azusa Pacific University. He is the author of The Social Location of the Visions of Amram (Peter Lang) and Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic Dictionary (Zondervan). 

Bobby earned both his PhD and MA in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures from UCLA, as well as an MA in Hebrew Bible from Jerusalem University College and a theology degree from Multnomah University. He was also the recipient of a fellowship from the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem to work on his dissertation, which focused on Aramaic documents from Qumran. His scholarly writing — especially Dead Sea Scrolls research — is widely respected. Before beginning graduate studies at Hebrew University and UCLA, Duke taught 6th and 7th grade in Southern California. From 2009–2012, he also chaired the Service-Learning and Biblical Studies workshop at the annual Society of Biblical Literature meeting.