Shimon Gibson is a British-born archaeologist working in Israel and the Palestine Authority territories. He studied at the Institute of Archaeology, University College, London, where he also completed his Ph.D. on ancient landscapes in the Levant. He is currently in charge of excavations on Mount Zion. He is the author of The Cave of John the Baptist, published in 2005, which unveils the first archaeological evidence of the historical reality of the Gospel story. In 1980, he was one of the first archaeologists inside the Talpiot tomb. He assisted in the excavation of the Talpiot tomb and in mapping its interior.

François Bovon was a professor from 1967 to 1993 at the University of Geneva, in its Divinity School, which was founded by John Calvin in 1559. He was dean there from 1976 to 1979, and is still an honorary professor of the University of Geneva. He began teaching New Testament and early Christian literature at Harvard in 1993, and was chair of the New Testament Department from 1993 to 1998, and again in 2001-02. In recent years he has developed his teaching and research in two directions: the exegesis of New Testament texts, particularly the Gospel of Luke, and the publication and interpretation of non-canonical Acts of the Apostles, particularly the Acts of Philip, legends on Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and apocryphal fragments. His critical commentary on Luke, in four volumes, will soon be completed in German, French, Spanish, and Italian. The first volume in English appeared in Hermeneia, published by Fortress Press, in 2002. The second and the third, published together, are expected for 2007. His critical edition of the Acts of Philip, done in collaboration with Bertrand Bouvier and Frédéric Amsler, was published as volume 11 in the Corpus Christianorum: Series Apocryphorum by Brepols in 1999.