James Daniel Tabor (born 1946) is an American Biblical scholar and retired Professor of Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he taught from 1989 until 2022 and was chair from 2004 to 2014.
from Pepperdine University he taught Greek and Hebrew part-time at Ambassador College, founded by Herbert W. Armstrong, founder and president of the Worldwide Church of God.
In 1992 Tabor turned to an analysis of attitudes toward religious suicide and martyrdom in the ancient world, the results of which appeared as A Noble Death, published by HarperSanFrancisco in 1992 (co-authored with Arthur Droge).
Cults and the Battle for Religious Freedom in America (University of California Press), which he co-authored with Eugene Gallagher, which explored what had actually happened during the Waco siege.
The form of Christianity that grew out of this movement, led by the apostle Paul, was, according to Tabor, a decisive break with the Ebionite-like original teachings of John the Baptist and Jesus.
[5] Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte from the Theological University of Kampen writing in the Society of Biblical Literature Review of Biblical Literature (June 2007) was highly critical of the book saying, New Age author Jeffrey Bütz in The Secret Legacy of Jesus (2010), says that The Jesus Dynasty is Tabor is chief editor of the Original Bible Project, an effort to produce a historical-linguistic translation of the Bible with notes.