Episodes
Tuesday Sep 29, 2020
A. J. Culp - Memoir of Moses
Tuesday Sep 29, 2020
Tuesday Sep 29, 2020
Episode: How is memory made and maintained in a community? Moreover, how can a community remember something they never witnessed? A. J. Culp walks us through recent turns in memory theory to explore how Deuteronomy, as a piece of literature, instantiates and reifies memory in Israel. We address misconceptions of memory as individualistic, how literature can form memory, and the use of memory for social identity. For Christians and Jews, the implications for their tradition's rituals and sacraments are manifest.
Guest: A. J. Culp is lecturer in Old Testament and biblical languages at Malyon Theological College and honorary research fellow at the University of Queensland. His books include Invited to Know God: The Book of Deuteronomy (Lexham, 2019) and the book discussed in this episode: Memoir of Moses, Puzzling Portraits.
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Tuesday Sep 22, 2020
R. T. Mullins & Steven Nemes Debate Divine Simplicity
Tuesday Sep 22, 2020
Tuesday Sep 22, 2020
Episode: Unusually for OnScript, we held a debate. Or perhaps it is better called a friendly chat between two scholars who disagree. On what? On the question of divine simplicity and modal collapse. What does this mean, you may ask? Well, Christian theologians have traditionally held to what is called the doctrine of divine simplicity. This view is defended by Steven Nemes. This is the view that God is an absolutely simple reality, not subject to the various forms of composition and complexity which characterise created realities. This doctrine strongly emphasises the difference between the simple reality of God and the multiple or complex reality of created things. One common objection to this view, here presented by Ryan Mullins, is that divine simplicity leads to what is called “modal collapse.” A “modal collapse” occurs when the various different modalities all collapse into a single category. If God is an absolutely simple reality, then the question must be asked: would it have been possible for God not to create this particular world, or even not to create at all? If God is the creator of the world in virtue of Himself, and if God’s essence is an absolutely simple reality that could not have been otherwise than it actually is, then does it not follow that the world is just as necessary as God’s own essence? Alternatively, in order to secure the genuine contingency and freedom of creation, would we not have to say that there is in God a distinction between the way He is necessarily (His essence) and the way He is contingently (the creator of the world), thus introducing composition and complexity into the being of God?
This was a fascinating peek into debates well above Chris Tilling’s pay grade. Glady, both Nemes and Mullins had a gift for making their arguments transparent and understandable to those outside their discipline. Nevertheless, you may want to listen to the episode a couple of times to appreciate the wrinkles of the discussion.
Guests:
R.T. Mullins (PhD, University of St Andrews), is a research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh. He has published on topics such as God and time, the Trinity, the Incarnation, disability theology, and the problem of evil. His book, The End of the Timeless God was released in 2016 by Oxford University Press. His book God and Emotion will be out in 2020 through Cambridge University Press. He has previously held research and teaching fellowships at the University of Notre Dame, the University of Cambridge, and the University of St Andrews. When not engaging in philosophical theology, he is often found at a metal show.
Steven Nemes is an adjunct professor at Grand Canyon University, where he teaches philosophy, and a doctoral candidate in Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary. His dissertation is titled “A constructive-theological phenomenology of Scripture.” He has published articles in journals such as Open Theology, Journal of Analytic Theology, Heythrop Journal, Irish Theological Quarterly, and Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie. He is newly married to Rachel and they live with a nearly hairless Sphinx cat whom they affectionately call “Honey Moo-Moo,” since they obtained her after their honeymoon.
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Tuesday Sep 15, 2020
Jeannine Brown - The Gospels as Stories
Tuesday Sep 15, 2020
Tuesday Sep 15, 2020
Episode: We're back with our fourth annual live-recorded podcast episode at Nashotah House Theological Seminary! Dr. Jeannine Brown joined us this year to discuss her book The Gospels as Stories(Baker Academic, 2020). Tune in for conversation about the importance of narrative thinking, intertextuality, and women among the disciples, and for a very special speed round.
Guest: Dr. Jeannine K. Brown is professor of New Testament at Bethel Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. Jeannine is the author of Scripture as Communication (2007), Becoming Whole and Holy: An Integrative Conversation about Christian Formation (2011), and two commentaries on Matthew (2015, in the Teach the Text Series and 2018, in the Two Horizons series). She co-edited the second edition of Jesus and the Gospels (2013). She is also the co-author of Relational Integration of Psychology and Christian Theology, and the book under discussion in this episode, The Gospels as Stories: A Narrative Approach to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (Baker, 2020). Jeannine thoroughly enjoys teaching in churches and ministries on the topics of Bible interpretation and the New Testament. She is married to Tim Brown, singer-songwriter, and has two adult daughters, Kate and Libby (modified from the Bethel website).
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Tuesday Sep 01, 2020
Tuesday Sep 01, 2020
Episode: When you read a passage in Scripture or hear about someone's experience with the supernatural (be it angelic, demonic, etc), what is your instinct? Explain it using specific hermeneutical tools? How? Do you chalk it up to cultural difference? Do you dismiss it? Embrace it? In this episode, co-host Amy Hughes talks with Reverend Esther Acolatse Ph.D. about her book Powers, Principalities, and the Spirit: Biblical Realism in Africa and the West. That there are few resources on exousiology (theology of the powers) in the Western academy and churches presents a problem because, as Acolatse points out, Scripture does. Jesus does. The Apostles do. The global South does. So, what are those "rulers," "authorities," "cosmic powers," and "spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" outlined in Ephesians 6? How do we read the Bible faithfully and interrogate our hermeneutical, theological, cultural, and ecclesial assumptions? Let's begin to find out together.
Guest: Rev. Esther E. Acolatse, Ph. D, is Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology and World Christianity at Knox College, University of Toronto, Canada. She holds a BA (Hons. Double Major) Psychology and Religions from the University of Ghana, Legon, an MTS (Religion and Society) from Harvard University, and a Ph. D (Practical Theology) from Princeton Theological Seminary. A native Ghanaian, her teaching and research explore the intersection of psychology and Christian thought, and within that, the gendered body, methodological issues in the practice of theology of the Christian life, and the relevance of these themes in the global expression of Christianity especially African Christianity in dialogue with Western Christianity.
Her current research focuses on issues around ecclesial implications of care practices with migrant families and implications for rethinking missions in the global church. She is also interested in cultural anthropological dimensions of medicine, health, and healing, and their implications for suffering, death, dying, and care at the end of life. Apart from numerous articles and essays and two major monographs For Freedom or Bondage: A Critique of African Pastoral Practices (Eerdmans Publishing Co. Grand Rapids, MI), 2014 and Powers, Principalities, and the Spirit: Biblical Realism in Africa and the West (Eerdmans), 2018. An ordained minister of the PC (USA), she formerly taught Pastoral Theology and World Christianity at Duke Divinity School.
Give: Visit our Donate Page if you would like to support OnScript’s work.