About the Event
Title: “Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus” with Dr. Jodi Magness, the Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Description: In this slide-illustrated lecture, Dr. Magness will survey the history and archaeology of Jerusalem in the Late Second Temple period (late first century BCE – first century CE), ending with the city’s destruction by the Romans in 70 CE. The presentation will focus mainly on Herod the Great’s reconstruction of the Second Temple and Temple Mount, and Jesus’s final days in Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the subject of Magness’s most recent book, Jerusalem Through the Ages: From Its Beginnings to the Crusades (New York: Oxford University Press, 2024).
Date and Time: Wednesday, September 10, 2025, at 7 p.m.
Lecture Location: Turchin Center for the Visual Arts 1102
Online Location: To join via Zoom, register at bit.ly/JMagness.
Sponsors: The Center for Judaic, Holocaust and Peace Studies (CJHPS) and the departments of Anthropology, History, and Philosophy and Religion
Audience: The lecture is free and open to the public. For a disability accommodation, visit odr.appstate.edu.
Questions? Contact CJHPS Director Dr. Davis Hankins by email at hankinscd@appstate.edu or by phone at (828) 262-6610.
About Dr. Jodi Magness
Dr. Jodi Magness is a Classical and Biblical archaeologist specializing in ancient Palestine from the time of Jesus up to the tenth century. Her research interests include Jerusalem, Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient synagogues, Masada, the Roman army in the East, ancient pottery, the Byzantine-early Islamic transition, and Diaspora Judaism in the Roman world.
Magness has participated in over 20 excavations in Israel and Greece, including co-directing the 1995 excavations in the Roman siege works at Masada. Since 2011, she has directed excavations at Huqoq in Israel’s Galilee, which are bringing to light a monumental Late Roman synagogue paved with stunning mosaics.
Magness is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Past President of the Archaeological Institute of America.