• Who was Jesus of Nazareth within his own time, and what can we discover about his life and his earliest followers?
• How might Jesus' earliest teachings be understood in new ways through historical and archaeological research?
• What are the Dead Sea Scrolls, and how are they important for understanding the history of Judaism and Christianity?
• What Jewish writings circulated during those times, but are not now included in our own Bibles?
• Are there additional lost writings from the period that have yet to be discovered? 

At our Princeton, NJ research center, as well as abroad, IJCO pursues these goals in a number of ways. For twenty years, we have funded and published influential studies in Second Temple Judaism and Christian origins, making the latest biblical research available to the public (see Publications).

The Institute also has funded ground-breaking archaeological discoveries in the Holy Land, worked to preserve approximately 30 ancient and medieval biblical manuscripts, and published critical editions and translations of hundreds of Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts.