OnScript

Gary Schnittjer - Torah Story

Episode: This episode covers a wide swathe of the Torah's terrain, including reading the Torah as a story (even Leviticus), reading laws that come into conflict with each other, The Cat in the Hat, extended echo effect (literary patterning), what makes the Bible such great literature, the importance of Judah for reading Genesis, the danger of holiness, violent priestly interventions in Exodus and Numbers, the positive role of ambiguity, and much more deriving from Gary's newest book Torah Story: An Apprenticeship on the Pentateuch. 

Guest: Gary Schnittjer is Distinguished University Professor of Old Testament at Cairn University's School of Divinity. He's the author of Old Testament Use of Old Testament: A Book-By-Book Guide (Zondervan Academic), which also has a Workbook; Old Testament Narrative: The Israel Story (to be released in Sept of this year), and Torah Story: An Apprenticeship on the Pentateuch (Zondervan Academic) now in its thoroughly revised Second Edition. Schnittjer also offers daily videos at HebrewDaybyDay.com for students learning biblical Hebrew.

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If you enjoyed this episode ... check out our interview on Schnittjer's Old Testament use of Old Testament.  

 

Jerry Hwang - Contextualization and the Old Testament

Episode: This wide-ranging conversation follows this wide-ranging book, covering topics such as the "is God the same as Allah" question to Filipino views of reciprocity to Thai philosophical views informing aniconism. From the publisher: "Christianity is often viewed in Asia as a Western imposition. Challenging this, Dr. Jerry Hwang examines the Old Testament's cultural engagement of its ancient Near Eastern context, arguing that Scripture itself provides the ultimate model for contextualizing theology in Asia."

 

Guest: Dr. Jerry Hwang is the academic dean and associate professor of Old Testament at the Singapore Bible College. He has authored numerous articles and several books, including The Rhetoric of Remembrance: An Investigation of the “Fathers” in Deuteronomy (Siphrut series: Eisenbrauns/PennState Press);  Hosea: A Discourse Analysis of the Hebrew Bible (Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the Old Testament); ESV Expository Bible Commentary: Isaiah-Ezekiel (Jeremiah portion) (Crossway, 2022), and Contextualization and the Old Testament: Between Asian and Western Perspectives (Langham Press).

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Chris McKinny and Kyle Keimer - Archaeology of Passion Week (pt 2)

Episode: This episode is part two of the three-part series on the archaeology of Passion Week. Chris and Kyle take a detailed look at how archaeological finds in Jerusalem can help us better situate and understand the events of this fateful week. They delve into the Gospel of John, the Last Supper, and Jesus’ trials. (republished from 2021)

Hosts: Chris and Kyle

Summary: Chris and Kyle discuss the following topics:
- Archaeology and the Gospel of John—the pools of Siloam and Bethesda
- The Garden of Gethsemane
- The room of the last supper
- Jesus’ Jewish and Roman trials
- Herod’s palace
- The Praetorium and Gabatha
- The Via Dolorosa.

Resources: Archaeology of the Passion Week Bibliography; Archaeology of Passion Week Visuals (pt 2).

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Image by Heather Truett from Pixabay

Chris McKinny and Kyle Keimer - The Archaeology of Passion Week (Pt 1)

Episode: This episode is the first of a three-part series on the archaeology of the Passion week. Chris and Kyle take a detailed look at how archaeological finds in Jerusalem can help us better situate and understand the events of this fateful week. (This episode is republished from our Biblical World podcast).

Hosts: Chris McKinny and Kyle Keimer

Summary: Chris and Kyle discuss the following topics:
– Traditions about the Passion Week
– How we connect the archaeology to the texts
– Dating and timing the events of the Passion Week
– Views of Jerusalem
– Jesus in the Temple
– Pontius Pilate and Archaeology

Resources: Archaeology of the Passion Week Bibliography; Archaeology of Passion Week Visuals (pt 1).

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Image by Anna Sulencka from Pixabay

Ervine Sheblazm - A Life Living (a theological memoir)

Isaac Morales - The Bible and Baptism

Episode: In this episode Chris Tilling interviews Father Isaac Morales about his book, The Bible and Baptism: The Fountain of Salvation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic 2022), published as part of the new series, A Catholic Biblical Theology of the Sacraments. This new book by Fr. Morales presents a biblical theology of baptism via an exploration of directly associated themes throughout scripture (water, exodus, invocation “in the name”, etc.). This enables a presentation of baptism that takes more seriously relevant topics in both testaments, not just the pages of the New. In a unique way, then, Fr. Morales develops a truly biblical theology, not just a New Testament one. He also weaves in themes as they develop into the Church Fathers as well as the Church’s liturgy. The work remains sensitive to the (false) lenses readers use to warp a theology of baptism and ably navigates important texts exegetically. OT texts, Paul, the Gospels, the Petrines and many other passages are examined in this highly instructive and generously spirited work. Chris and Fr. Morales discuss this and many other issues together in this episode!

Guest: Father Isaac Morales was born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago. He received a Master of Theological Studies degree with a concentration in biblical studies from the University of Notre Dame in 2002 and a doctorate in New Testament from Duke University in 2007. After serving as an assistant professor of theology at Marquette University for around five years, he felt a call to join the Order of Preachers (aka the Dominicans). He's the author of The Bible and Baptism: The Fountain of Salvation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic 2022). He was ordained to the priesthood in 2018 and since then has taught in the department of theology at Providence College. Before this call he was called Rodrigo Morales and published his PhD, The Spirit and the Restoration of Israel: New Exodus and New Creation Motifs in Galatians with Mohr Siebeck (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck , 2010).

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Amy Balogh - Moses among the Idols

Episode: In this episode, we discuss the god Moses. Yes, you heard that right! It's there in Exod 7:1. But what does this mean? How can we make sense of the transformation of Moses from a man of "uncircumcised lips" to a god? What happens if we read this story in its ancient Near Eastern context? How is Moses also like an idol? We explore this and many other intriguing aspects of the character Moses in this episode with new Biblical World co-host Amy Balogh. This ep is cross-listed with the OnScript podcast.

Guest: Amy L. Balogh, Ph.D., is Lead Lecturer of the Humanities for the Department of Liberal Arts at Regis University’s School for Professional Advancement. She is also founder and co-chair of the new Society of Biblical Literature program unit Comparative Method in Biblical Studies, and Assistant Editor of the forthcoming Lexham Geographic Commentary on the Historical Books (2 vols., Lexham Press). In December 2022, Balogh also became the founding president of the newly formed Religion & Bible Society of the Rocky Mountain Great Plains Region, a 501(c)3 professional organization dedicated to the academic study of the Bible and religion. She's the author of Moses among the Idols: Mediators of the Divine in the Ancient Near East (Lexington Books, 2018). Her forthcoming book uses comparison and myth theory to examine the tension between humankind and nature as expressed in the Hebrew Bible and other ancient Near Eastern literatures. She now joins as a new co-host on the Biblical World podcast!

Hosts: Matt Lynch and Chris McKinny

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Michael Bird - Jesus Among the Gods

Episode: Michael Bird turns the well-rehearsed scholarly tale about how Jesus came to be described as divine on its head. Jesus didn't become God through the application of Greek metaphysical categories in the third and fourth centuries. Rather, Jesus was depicted as divine within our earliest sources on the basis of first-century categories of ontology. Co-hosted by Matt Lynch and Matt Bates.

The Book: Michael F. Bird, Jesus Among the Gods: Early Christology in the Greco-Roman World (Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2022). After several centuries of controversy, the early church came to an uneasy consensus that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine. In his divinity, orthodox Christianity claimed, he shared fully in the nature of the uncreated creator God. But was this doctrinal position crafted from whole cloth in the era of the great ecumenical councils? How did earlier Christ-followers understand Jesus in light of their convictions about the one supreme deity and in the context of a cultural milieu saturated with gods? In Jesus among the gods, Michael Bird gives renewed attention to divine ontology―what a god is―in relation to literary representations of Jesus. Through comparison with representative authors such as Philo and Plutarch, and a comprehensive analysis of Jesus and various intermediary figures from Greco-Roman religion and ancient Judaism, Bird demonstrates how early accounts of Jesus both overlapped with and diverged from existing forms of religious expression. Among the gods, Jesus stood in clear relief, a conviction that may have been refined over time but that belongs to the emerging heart of Christian confession. (Publisher's description, abridged).

Guest: Michael Bird is Academic Dean and lecturer in theology at Ridley College in Melbourne, Australia. Mike has published in both New Testament Studies and in Systematic Theology, and his many publications include Jesus the Eternal Son: Answering Adoptionist Christology, Evangelical Theology, and The Saving Righteousness of God. Mike runs a popular theological studies blog called “Euangelion” and can be followed on twitter @mbird12. Mike and his wife Naomi have have four children.

OnScript's Review: When we say "Jesus is God," who and what we mean by "God" matters. Contrary to merely functional accounts of Jesus's divinity, Bird shows that the first-century world had a robust ontology of the divine. Jesus is indeed a very specific God: the one God who revealed himself to be the eternal creator, the life-giver, and the promise-keeper within ancient Israel. A masterwork of historically informed theology, Bird's Jesus Among the Gods will compel scholars to revise the standard narrative of how Christology developed. -- Matthew W. Bates, author of The Birth of the Trinity; Professor of Theology, Quincy University

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Collin Cornell - Divine Aggression (and other Old Testament matters)

Episode: Here's the full version of the convo with Collin Cornell, where we discuss Elephantine, divine aggression (beginning at 34:18), and more, including his work on divine look-alikes. If you've already listened to our short Elephantine episode with Collin, you can skip ahead to 34:18 to hear the rest of the interview here. It's a wide-ranging and fun discussion!

Guest: Collin Cornell is Office of the Provost-Candler School of Theology Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at Candler School of Theology (at Emory University). Before returning to Emory, he taught for three years as a visiting assistant professor of biblical studies in the School of Theology at the University of the South (Sewanee). For one year he managed Sewanee’s Center for Religion and Environment, coordinated Sewanee’s Indigenous Engagement initiative, taught Old Testament for Duke Divinity School’s hybrid MDiv program, and served as academic dean of the Stevenson School for Ministry, a local formation project of the Episcopal Church. Collin is author of one book, Divine Aggression in Psalms and Inscriptions (Cambridge University Press, 2020), editor of two, Divine Doppelgängers: YHWH's Ancient Look-Alikes (Penn State University Press, 2020) and The Incomparable God: Readings in Biblical Theology (Eerdmans, 2023), and co-translator of a third, Biblical ABCs: The Basics of Christian Resistance (Lexington Books, 2021). He is currently working on a book entitled, Monotheism and Divine Aggression, for Cambridge University Press. He is also working on The Lords that Never Were: Early Judaism and the Gods of the Hellenistic Levant. He has also written several articles on Elephantine. (adapted from the Candler School of Theology Website)

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Nijay Gupta - Tell Her Story: Women in the Early Church

Episode: The book we’re talking about today is Tell Her Story: How Women Led, Taught, and Ministered in the Early Church with IVP Academic. In this episode, we explore the data about women in Scripture and antiquity including ideas such as women's leadership is an exception that relies upon the norm of male leadership, persistent myths about women in the Roman empire, and the hotly contested passages in Paul. 

 

Guest: Dr. Nijay Gupta is Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary. He has written over 21 books, including commentaries on Colossians, Thessalonians, and Philippians. He's written 15 New Testament Words of Life: A New Testament Theology for Real Life (Zondervan), A Beginner's Guide to New Testament Studies: Understanding Key Debates (Baker Academic), and Tell Her Story: How Women Led, Taught, and Ministered in the Early Church (IVP Academic), discussed in this episode. He has also written several books helping scholars research, write, and get a sense of the field of NT studies. These include The Writer: A Guide to Researching, Writing, and Publishing in Biblical Studies (Cascade) and Prepare, Succeed, Advance: A Guidebook for Getting a PhD in Biblical Studies and Beyond (2nd ed.; Cascade).

 

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