| Ancient monasteries in the Holy Land | This lecture is an overview of the monasteries of the Judean Desert and their role in preventing and containing infectious disease during the Early Christian period. This is geared primarily to a Christian audience as it puts early Christianity in a very positive light. | |
| Crucifixion and the Dead Sea Scrolls
An Anthropological Perspective |
The historical/anthropological and theological debates around this well known but poorly understood subject has made this one of the most requested lecture topics over the years. Along with this subject would be a few words on the famous Shroud of Turin, as well as an overview of our current research attempts to use DNA to help decipher the relationships between the thousands of ancient scroll fragments found at Qumran and the Judean Desert. | |
| Health and healing in Antiquity | This lecture is an overview of disease and man's attempts over several millennia to alleviate human suffering. This includes dentistry, surgery, parasites and infectious disease as well. The lecture is geared to the public in that it can be presented before medical audiences in a very clinical scientific manner or can be presented before a general audience in a light and amusing style. This lecture can be presented as a series in two one-hour segments. | |
| High in the Holy Land | This is a historical and anthropological analysis of drugs in antiquity. It focuses on the use and history of drugs, both as a mendicant and for recreational use in the ancient Near East. It would include a demonstration of a popular "do it yourself" testing kit used by forensic specialists to determine traces of drugs on personal objects. This presentation would be suitable for fund raising in connection with substance abuse programs. | |
| Masada | The story behind the myth of how human skeletal remains from the first century AD, found at Masada, were deemed (mistakenly) to be the last defenders of the heroic battle between the Roman forces and Jewish zealots. | |
| Messages from the Other World
What Happens When You Mix Religion and Archaeology |
This lecture is a collection of vignettes involving true, yet bizarre and hilarious incidents which are part and parcel with being a biblical archaeologist in the Holy Land. Lay people with "dreams and visions" of where to dig and what to find, are a constant source of amusement to one in the profession. This lecture deals in a light-hearted, humorous way, with several of these dreams and visions. |