Books : Simon J. Joseph, Ph.D.

Jesus, the Essenes and Christian Origins = New Light on Ancient Texts and Communities by Simon J. Joseph, PhD

Jesus, the Essenes, and Christian Origins is a critical, comparative study of the historical Jesus and the Essenes. Here I propose that the early Jesus tradition can be “mapped” onto a literary, social, and religious world familiar and co-existent with the Essenes of Judea, the Qumran sect, and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Cover for book A Social History of Christian Origins by Simon J. Joseph, PhD.

A Social History of Christian Origins explores how the Jewish rejection of Jesus – a mythic narrative embedded in Paul’s letters and the New Testament Gospels – represents the ethnic, social, cultural, and theological conflicts that facilitated the construction of Christian identity.

My Grandfathers Altar - Five Generations of Lakota Holy Men - edited by Simon J. Joseph, PhD

My Grandfather’s Altar is an oral history memoir by Lakota spiritual leader Richard Moves Camp. Richard is the great, great grandson of Wóptuȟ’a (“Chips”), the wičháša wakȟáŋ (“holy man”) remembered for providing his friend, Crazy Horse, with war medicines of power and protection.

Jesus and the Temple- the Crucifixion in its Jewish content by Simon J. Jospeh

Jesus and the Temple is a critical examination of the so-called “Temple Incident” described in the four Gospels of the New Testament analyzed through the critical comparative study of sacrifice in the ancient world.

Jesus, Q and the Dead Sea Scrolls - by Simon S. Joseph, PhD

Jesus, Q, and the Dead Sea Scrolls is a revised version of my 2010 Ph.D. dissertation, a critical comparative study of early Jewish texts and traditions.

The Nonviolent Messiah - Jesus, Q, and the Enochic Tradition by Simon J. Joseph, PhD

The Nonviolent Messiah explores the early Jesus tradition’s paradoxical combination of messianic themes and motifs alongside its pronounced emphasis on “nonviolence” as an ethical, interpersonal, and political strategy within a predominantly violent world.

The Synoptic Problem 2022 is a co-edited (with main co-editor, Olegs Andrejevs) collection of essays addressing and exploring various contemporary solutions to the Synoptic Problem.

The Master is the story of the man, Jesus. The result of over twenty years of research and publication in Jesus studies, this book provides a coherent, compelling, and accessible account of the man from Nazareth for a general audience.

Anthropos - book by Simon J. Joseph, Ph.D.

Anthropos explores the intersections between myth, religion, history, and New Age pseudoscience in popular fascination(s) with the “lost civilizations” of Plato’s Atlantis and pre-Dynastic Egypt as keys to an alternative narrative of human origins.