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In this course I found myself most interested in the actual application of the archaeological findings, the material culture, which was shared. At the start of the course Dr. Evans shared the idea of archaeology as a discipline, and this was helpful in the sense of providing guidelines regarding what is reasonable to expect from archaeology (and so, too, what is not). This task disposed of, he moved through some very interesting areas where the discipline is able to provide helpful information for Jesus’ followers (because shedding light on the world that He lived in). The areas explored in the course are the synagogue, literary findings, society’s leaders, and burial traditions from the time (with one unit devoted to divulging the customs, and another relating these customs to Jesus’ situation. As mentioned, I was particularly interested in the specific situations where archaeology illumines the Biblical text in some way. I was interested to learn about some of the work that’s gone into finding various locations from the gospels: sometimes urban centres and sometimes specific buildings within those centres; places like Capernaum, Magdala, Cana, and so on; places like Peter’s house, Jesus’ tomb, the synagogues in a number of settlements. I had heard the hypothesis that perhaps Jesus had been heavily influenced by Greek culture in nearby Sepphoris (a cynic?) before, but was pleasantly surprised to learn that archaeology has been able to show that craftsmen from Nazareth wouldn’t have needed to go to Sepphoris for work – Nazareth was a large enough centre in its own right, to employ people; and that the Galilean Jews in Sepphoris were quite observant (the example given was the lack of pig bones in their dump), and so Sepphoris wasn’t a huge centre for Hellenizing the Jewish population. I appreciated that He still may have been exposed to the theatre, and the idea of actors (hypocrites) in that city. The large section at the end, which was devoted to burial customs, was also of particular interest to me, and will probably continue as the most helpful part of the course in years to come. The light shed on Jewish funeral rites, and Roman attitudes towards them, was so helpul. I am not sure I’m convinced that the would-be disciple on the road who wanted to bury his father was referring to the second burial – but Dr. Evans does make a case for it, and it does make sense in the culture as he’s presented it. The criteria surrounding the burial of a criminal were helpful, and will be something I look into more (probably more so as Easter approaches). I would recommend this course to a friend, or fellow disciple, as a course that would help them to wrestle with the Gospel and history and truth. And to reconcile the three.