Hershel Shanks is the founder of the Biblical Archaeology Society, based in Washington, D.C., and editor of the society’s publication, the Biblical Archaeology Review. Shanks and the BAR are alternately praised and pilloried for efforts to “popularize” biblical archaeology. They were a driving force behind efforts to promote the so-called James ossuary in 2003.

Eric M. Meyers is the Bernice and Morton Lerner Professor of Judaic Studies at Duke University in Durham, N.C., and a widely published author on biblical archaeology.

The Rev. Daniel Harrington is a Jesuit priest and a prominent biblical scholar at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Mass.

Paula Fredriksen is William Goodwin Aurelio Chair Emerita of the Appreciation of Scripture at Boston University. She specializes in the social and intellectual history of ancient Christianity, from the Late Second Temple period to the fall of the Western Roman Empire. She has written and commented widely on modern biblical controversies.

Mark Anthony Lord is a spiritual leader of the Center for Spiritual Living in Chicago, which is in the tradition of the New Thought movement.

Elizabeth A. Clark is a professor of Christian history at the religion department at Duke University in Durham, N.C. She is an expert on ancient Christianity and is past president of the American Academy of Religion and the American Society of Church History.

The Rev. Bruce Chilton is an Episcopal priest and executive director of the Institute of Advanced Theology at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y. Chilton is the author of Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography, Rabbi Paul: An Intellectual Biography and other books aimed at popularizing the latest historical research on the Bible. Chilton is also rector of the Episcopal Church […]

John A. Saliba teaches world religions and other liberal arts topics at the University of Detroit-Mercy and is an authority on the relationship between Christianity and New Age religions. He participated in a lengthy Vatican study of New Religious Movements, and he wrote the scholarly book Understanding New Religious Movements and Christian Responses to the New Age Movement: A […]

Jerry Park is an assistant professor of the sociology of religion at Baylor University in Waco. His specialty is in racial, ethnic and religious identity. Ask about his research into religious consumption – he delivered a paper, “What Would Jesus Buy: American Religious Consumption in the 21st Century,” to the 2006 conference on the Scientific […]