Ancient Jewish Pilgrims, and the Friends They Made Along the Way (Jeffrey Garcia)
Episode Summary
When you hear the word “pilgrim,” your first thought might be of the pilgrims who arrived in Plymouth Harbor in 1620, or of English medieval pilgrims. You might be less familiar with the ancient Jewish pilgrims who journeyed to the temple in Jerusalem. CHT fellow Dr. Jeffrey P. Garcia joins Dr. Dru Johnson to discuss this overlooked practice that fills in some historical context of the first-century biblical world.
Chapters
- 0:00 Overlooked Jewish pilgrimage, and sacrificial barbeque?
- 8:05 The historical practice and purpose of Jewish pilgrimage in the first century
- 14:07 The dangers of the pilgrimages
- 16:40 Galilean and Judean pilgrimage to the temple in Jerusalem
- 19:39 The friends who pilgrims made along the way
- 21:50 The Essenes’ disagreements related to pilgrimage
- 27:43 Test case: Does John the Baptist create a pilgrimage?
Transcripts are AI generated and are not guaranteed to correctly reflect the content of the podcast.
Transcript
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Dr. Jeffrey P. Garcia
Dr. Jeffrey P. García is Associate Professor of New Testament and Second Temple Literature at Nyack College. He holds a PhD in Hebrew and Judaic Studies from New York University where he studied under the direction of world-renowned scholar Dr. Lawrence Schiffman. His specializations are the Gospels and the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as Second Temple and Tannaitic (earliest generation of rabbis) texts.He is the author of On Human Nature in Ancient Judaism: Creation, Composition, and Condition (JAJSup 34; Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh; Leiden: Brill, 2020); Understanding the Gospels as Ancient Jewish Literature (Jerusalem: Carta, 2018), and co-editor (w/ R. Steven Notley) of The Gospels in First-Century Judaea (Leiden: Brill, 2016). Jeffrey has also contributed to the Biblical Archaeology Review, Lexham Bible Dictionary (Lexham Press, 2016), and The Routledge Encyclopedia of Ancient Mediterranean Religions (Routledge, 2015). Currently, he is working on Understanding Acts as Ancient Jewish Literature for Carta Publishing, Jerusalem, and preparing a manuscript on charity in the Gospels and ancient Judaism (under contract with Fortress Press).Since 2012, Jeffrey has worked with the Center for Holy Lands Studies as a teaching guide in Israel, Jordan, and Turkey for students, church groups, and lay people. Originally from Spanish (East) Harlem, NYC, he now lives in Baldwin, NY with his wife, Maureen, and their family.
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