Introducing the Co-Head of Global Jewish Studies: Dr. Kenneth Hanson

As part of our commitment to bringing you the latest social-scientific research on religion, GCRR is proud to introduce the Co-Head of our "Jewish Studies" division, Dr. Kenneth Hanson.

Dr. Hanson is an associate professor in the University of Central Florida Judaic Studies Program. He earned a Ph.D. in Judaic Studies from the University of Texas at Austin, in 1991. He has since published five books, including: Dead Sea Scrolls: The Untold Story (San Francisco, Council Oak Books, 1997), Kabbalah: Three Thousand Years of Mystic Tradition (San Francisco, Council Oak Books, 1998), Words of Light: Spiritual Wisdom from the Dead Sea Scrolls (San Francisco, Council Oak Books, 2000), Secrets from the Lost Bible (San Francisco, Council Oak Books, 2005), and Blood Kin of Jesus (San Francisco, Council Oak Books, 2010). He has also published a number of scholarly articles focusing on the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Judaism of late antiquity. His research was featured in the 2007 History Channel documentary, "Banned from the Bible II." Dr. Hanson continues to give public lectures in multiple venues. He teaches a wide range of Judaic Studies courses, including Jewish history and culture, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Hebrew Bible.

Hear Dr. Hanson Lecture at the Religion and Holocaust Academic eConference!

You can watch Dr. Hanson give a lecture on the "The Shoah and Jewish Faith: Voices from the Midst of the Tragedy" at this year's International eConference on Religion and the Holocaust. Tickets to the virtual academic conference are available now.

We highly recommend checking out some of Dr. Hanson's latest publications:

Bringing together recent archeological discoveries and the best contemporary scholarship, Kenneth Hanson, PhD, tells the fascinating, often-ignored story about the ultimate fate of Jesus’s mother, brothers, sisters, and closest followers. The story of the Jerusalem Church led by Jesus’s brother James was dropped from the New Testament as the scriptural spotlight followed the ministry of Paul. Now, using the latest discoveries, including some of his own original research, Kenneth Hanson picks up the story where the Bible leaves off, answering a question that many Christians have long asked: Whatever happened to Jesus’s family and the original Christian movement based in Jerusalem?

Ancient scriptures, hidden from the world for centuries, were found among the ancient library of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Others include assorted mystical writings known as Kabbalah, and a host of books that never made it into the Bible, called Apocrypha and the Pseudepigrapha by those who suppressed them. Additionally, there are the Gnostic texts of Nag Hammadi—a location in Egypt where a treasure trove of lost books was discovered in the middle of the 20th century. Collectively, they comprise the “Lost Bible.” For centuries, these manuscripts were systematically suppressed because their liberating messages of individual power and worth challenged the authority and pet philosophies of political and religious leaders.