R. Steven Notley is the Dean of Religious Studies at Pillar College in Newark, New
Jersey. Previously he was the Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Christian
Origins on the New York City campus of Nyack College (2001-2023). He received his
Ph.D. from the Hebrew University, where he studied with David Flusser. Notley lived
sixteen years in Jerusalem with his wife and four children, during which time he was the
founding chair of the New Testament Backgrounds program at the Jerusalem University
College. He has been leading groups of students and laypeople to Israel and the eastern
Mediterranean region for over 35 years. He is the author of many books and articles. He
continues collaborative research and publication with Israeli scholars in the fields of
historical geography, ancient Judaism and Christian origins. Among his list of
publications, he collaborated with Flusser on the historical biography, The Sage from
Galilee: Rediscovering Jesus’ Genius (Eerdmans 2007); with Anson Rainey (Tel Aviv
University) the monumental biblical atlas, The Sacred Bridge: Carta’s Atlas of the
Biblical World (Carta Publishing 2005); with Ze’ev Safrai (Bar Ilan University) an
annotated translation of Eusebius’ important description of Roman Palestine, Eusebius,
Onomasticon: A Triglott Edition with Notes and Commentary (Brill 2005). He rejoined
Safrai for their second work, a pioneering collection and translation of the earliest
rabbinic parables that provide the literary and religious context for the parables of Jesus,
The Parables of the Sages (Carta 2011). Since 2016 he has served as the Academic
Director of the El Araj Excavation Project in its search for first-century Bethsaida-Julias,
the lost city of the Apostles.
Jersey. Previously he was the Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Christian
Origins on the New York City campus of Nyack College (2001-2023). He received his
Ph.D. from the Hebrew University, where he studied with David Flusser. Notley lived
sixteen years in Jerusalem with his wife and four children, during which time he was the
founding chair of the New Testament Backgrounds program at the Jerusalem University
College. He has been leading groups of students and laypeople to Israel and the eastern
Mediterranean region for over 35 years. He is the author of many books and articles. He
continues collaborative research and publication with Israeli scholars in the fields of
historical geography, ancient Judaism and Christian origins. Among his list of
publications, he collaborated with Flusser on the historical biography, The Sage from
Galilee: Rediscovering Jesus’ Genius (Eerdmans 2007); with Anson Rainey (Tel Aviv
University) the monumental biblical atlas, The Sacred Bridge: Carta’s Atlas of the
Biblical World (Carta Publishing 2005); with Ze’ev Safrai (Bar Ilan University) an
annotated translation of Eusebius’ important description of Roman Palestine, Eusebius,
Onomasticon: A Triglott Edition with Notes and Commentary (Brill 2005). He rejoined
Safrai for their second work, a pioneering collection and translation of the earliest
rabbinic parables that provide the literary and religious context for the parables of Jesus,
The Parables of the Sages (Carta 2011). Since 2016 he has served as the Academic
Director of the El Araj Excavation Project in its search for first-century Bethsaida-Julias,
the lost city of the Apostles.