James F. Strange was a pioneering New Testament archaeologist and Distinguished
University Professor in Religious Studies at the University of South Florida, where
he taught from 1972 until his death in 2018. His personal letters from the field,
written over the nearly five decades in which he excavated in Israel, illuminate the
intersection of his scholarship in Christian Origins and post-Biblical Judaism with
his deep faith in a personally knowable, loving God. They comprise a collection of
entertaining, insightful, and sometimes poignant stories about the people on his dig,
explanations of archaeological findings, and glimpses into the social workings of
modern-day Israel.