Joan E. Taylor

Joan E. Taylor (born 13 September 1958) is a New Zealand writer and historian of Jesus, the Bible, early Christianity, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Second Temple Judaism, with special expertise in archaeology, and women's and gender studies.

Joan completed a three-year postgraduate degree in Divinity at the University of Otago, and then went to the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem (Kenyon Institute) as Annual Scholar in 1986.

In 1995 she won an Irene Levi-Sala prize in archaeology for the book version of her PhD thesis, Christians and the Holy Places (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993, rev.

She joined the staff of King's College London, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, in 2009, and in 2012 became Professor of Christian Origins and Second Temple Judaism.

This view further supported the contribution of feminist observations to historical investigation, according to Annewies van den Hoek of Harvard Divinity School.

[13][14] John's baptism rid the body of ritual impurity after the inner being had been cleansed by repentance, action and forgiveness, preparing people for the eschatological arrival of a coming figure.

Taylor organised an international conference focusing on the new hermeneutic of reception exegesis, by considering the historical Jesus through the lens of Monty Python’s Life of Brian in June 2014,[18] involving the participation of John Cleese and Terry Jones, who were interviewed as part of the event.

With Helen Bond, Taylor initiated a project that culminated in the 2018 documentary ‘Jesus Female Disciples: The New Evidence’, made by Minerva Productions (Jean-Claude Bragard), commissioned by UK's Channel 4, directed and produced by Anna Cox.

Taylor and Bond then went on to write a popular book: Women Remembered: Jesus' Female Disciples (2022), expanding on their studies, with associated interview podcasts, including for the Spectator.

[23] A review in the New Zealand Herald called it 'a feverishly colourful story' and noted her historian's eye: 'The reader can be impressed by the perfect chronology of the events, but layering on a cast of factual and fictitious characters relies on impeccable social research and imagination.'