Left to right: George T. Zervos, Dan Bahat, James H. Charlesworth, Gary Rendsburg, John W. Welch.
James H. Charlesworth is Princeton Theological Seminary’s George L. Collord Professor of New Testament Language and Literature. He specializes in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old and New Testaments, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Josephus, Jesus research, and the Gospel of John. As director of the Seminary’s Dead Sea Scrolls Project, he has worked on the Qumran Scrolls to make available, in cooperation with more than fifty international specialists, an accurate text with apparatus criticus, an English translation, and an introduction. He has excavated at Migdal, Bethsaida, Nazareth, Jerusalem, Khirbet Beza, Qumran, and elsewhere. Charlesworth has taught at Duke University, Hebrew University and the Albright Institute, both in Jerusalem, and the University of Tübingen. He served as distinguished visiting professor at Naples University and McCarthy Professor of the Pontificia Università Gregoriana in Rome. He has two honorary doctorates, honors from more than 18 countries, and numerous medals, including the medal from Brancoveanu Monastery in Sâmbãta de Sus, the Distinguished Achievement Citation from Ohio Wesleyan University; the Comenius Medal from Charles University, Prague, and the Pentecost Medal, presented by His Beatitude, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, Theophilus III. An ordained minister in The United Methodist Church, he serves as advisor to the denomination’s World Missionary Council and preaches and lectures globally.
Dan Bahat is an Israeli archaeologist especially known for his excavations in Jerusalem. Bahat was born in Poland to parents who were citizens of Mandatory Palestine. The family moved to Tel Aviv in 1939 and became Israeli citizens in 1948. He served in the IDF from 1956 to 1958. In 1964 he gained a Bachelor’s degree in archaeology and Jewish history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He finished his Master’s degree in 1978. In 1990 he obtained the PhD degree from the Hebrew University on the topic “Topography and Toponymy of Crusader Jerusalem” under the supervision of Joshua Prawer. Dan Bahat served as Jerusalem district archaeologist from 1978 to 1990; for a dozen years before that, he was district archaeologist for the Galilee. Bahat has directed digs at Tel Dan, the Beth-Shean synagogue and Herod’s Palace in Jerusalem. In 1989 he became only the third person to receive the Jerusalem Archaeology Award. He is now an associate professor of theology at University of St. Michael’s College, University of Toronto.
Gary Rendsburg
Gary Rendsburg serves as the Blanche and Irving Laurie Professor of Jewish History at Rutgers University, and holds positions in the Department of Jewish Studies and the Department of History. His teaching and research focus on ‘all things ancient Israel’ – primarily language and literature, though just as importantly history and archaeology. His academic pursuits also expand into the post-biblical and medieval periods, with special interest in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Cairo Geniza documents. The author of six books and approximately 120 scholarly articles (many available on his website), Dr. Rendsburg is perhaps best known for his general survey of the biblical world entitled The Bible and the Ancient Near East (1997), co-authored with his teacher, Cyrus H. Gordon. His most recent book is entitled Solomon’s Vineyard: Literary and Linguistic Studies in the Song of Songs (2009), co-authored with his student Scott B. Noegel. Dr. Rendsburg has also embraced multi-media instruction, developing “The Bible and History” for the Rutgers Jewish Studies Online program, as well as two courses produced by the Teaching Company: “The Book of Genesis” (2006) and “The Dead Sea Scrolls” (2010). Dr. Rendsburg takes particular pride in his work with graduate students, many of whom now hold teaching positions at institutions such as the University of Washington, Peking University, Pyeongtaek University, Wake Forest University, and Louisiana State University. He earned a B.A. degree in English from the University of North Carolina, and an M.A. and Ph.D. degrees (1977, 1980) in Hebrew Studies from New York University.
George Zervos
George T. Zervos is associate professor of philosophy and religion at University of North Carolina, Wilmington. He received a B.A. from University of North Carolina at Greensboro, his M. Th. from the University of Athens and his Ph.D. from Duke University. His areas of expertise include early Christianity, New Testament studies and New Testament Greek. In 2013, he used his expertise as chair of UNCW’s Department of Philosophy and Religion to be a consultant for the locally filmed horror movie ‘The Conjuring’. Additionally, he used his experience as a former Greek Orthodox priest to play the role of catholic priest/exorcist in the movie.