Shimon Gibson is a British-born archaeologist living in North Carolina, where he is a Professor of Practice in the Department of History at University of North Carolina at Charlotte.[1]
Life
Gibson was the lead archaeologist excavating a wilderness cave he associated with John the Baptist in 2000 and later wrote The Cave of John the Baptist.[2] Such claim has been criticized by other scholars and, according to Hershel Shanks, "few, if any, scholars in Israel think this cave has anything to do with John the Baptist".[3][4][5] He later led a team that found a 10-line ritual cup at Mount Zion.[6][7]
He is the editor of The Illustrated Dictionary & Concordance of the Bible[8] and was co-editor with Avraham Negev of the Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land.[9] In his The Final Days of Jesus: The Archaeological Evidence (2009)[10] he advanced the theory that Jesus was killed for acts of healing.[11]
Gibson has appeared in a number of biblical archaeology documentaries.[12]