OnScript

Brandon Smith - The Trinity in the Book of Revelation

Episode: Revelation is a mysterious book, shrouded in symbol and rich in Old Testament allusions. What does it mean for our present and future? And more importantly, what does it teach us about God and God's unfolding rule? Brandon Smith shows us that, surprisingly, Revelation has much to teach us about the Trinity. And once we discover the Trinity's mission, we are better equipped to read Revelation well and to find our own place in the story. Co-hosted by Matt Bates.

The Book: Brandon D. Smith, The Trinity in the Book of Revelation: Seeing Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in John's Apocalypse (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2022). How should we read the book of Revelation? Interpreting Scripture faithfully is a challenge with regard to any text and for any reader of the Bible. But perhaps no text confronts and confuses readers as much as the book of Revelation. With its vivid imagery and rich prophetic language, John's Apocalypse provokes and stirs our imaginations. Theologian and biblical scholar Brandon Smith brings clarity to this question by reading the book of Revelation primarily as John's vision of the triune God. In conversation with early church theologians, including Irenaeus, Origen, Athanasius, and the Cappadocians, as well as modern biblical scholarship, Smith shows how John's vision can help us worship the one God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. (Publisher's description, abridged).

Guest: Brandon D. Smith is Assistant Professor of Theology and New Testament at Cedarville University, a Christian University in Ohio. Smith holds a Ph.D. in Theology from Ridley College (Melbourne), M.A. in Biblical and Theological Studies from Criswell College, and a B.A. in Biblical Studies from Dallas Baptist University. Smith is the author of several books. He has also written The Biblical Trinity (Lexham) and has a forthcoming book on hermeneutics that I’ve already read and can recommend, Taught by God (B&H Academic). Brandon is also the founder and the co-host of the podcast Church Grammar.

OnScript's Review: Brandon Smith offers a robust description of how Revelation contributed to the early church's Trinitarian theology and how Revelation can be better understood in light of the doctrine of the Trinity. What emerges is a beautiful portrait of the one God--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--as the one God works to make all things new. Highly recommended. -- Matthew W. Bates, author of The Birth of the Trinity; professor of theology, Quincy University

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Kyle Keimer - Hezekiah Prepares for War

Episode: Biblical World co-host Kyle Keimer discusses his research on King Hezekiah's preparations for the Assyrian attack in 701 BCE. How do archaeologists determine the nature and extent of Hezekiah's defensive network? Did the Judeans use fire signals? How did the king prepare for war (and pay for it)? Listen in for a fascinating discussion of Keimer's archaeological, biblical, and geographical thoughts on this crucial event in Judah's history. This episode is cross-listed with our Biblical World podcast.

Guest: Kyle Keimer is Senior Research Fellow in the Department of History and Archaeology at Macquarie University, where he was Senior Lecturer in Archaeology, History, and Language of Ancient Israel. He also lectures at Jerusalem University College. For over 20 years he has been excavating in Israel and Cyprus and was co-director of the Khirbet el-Rai excavations. He loves digging as much as he loves working with ancient texts, especially the books of 1-2 Samuel and Isaiah. His research currently focuses on the early Israelite monarchy in text and archaeology. He’s co-edited Registers and Modes of Communication in the Ancient Near East (Routledge) and The Ancient Israelite World (Routledge), and he's published articles in various journals. His UCLA Ph.D. dissertation was on "The Socioeconomic Impact of Hezekiah’s Preparations for Rebellion."

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Glenn Butner - Jesus the Refugee

Episode: Is it anachronistic to call Jesus a refugee? Does the story of Jesus' family fleeing persecution carry modern political relevance? Would the holy family receive protection in modern society? Listen in as Glenn Butner discusses his work on these questions with OnScript co-host Jules Martínez.

Guest: Dr. Glenn Butner is Assistant Professor of Theology & Christian Ministry at Sterling College. He specializes in theology and in social ethics, having experienced the need to connect both disciplines when after serving as a chaplain in a prison complex and as a board member for the Kefa Project, which uses sports ministry to reach homeless and at risk children in Rwanda. He has written three books. Trinitarian Dogmatics: Exploring the Grammar of the Christian Doctrine of God (Baker Academic, 2022), which won the Award of Merit in Academic Theology in Christianity Today's 2023 book awards. He has also written Jesus the Refugee: Modern Solidarity and Ancient Injustice (Fortress, 2023), the focus of our episode today, and The Son who Learned Obedience: A Theological Case Against the Eternal Submission of the Son (Pickwick, 2018). Glenn lives in Sterling with his wife Lydia and their three children, Elias, Ezra, and Sophia. (from the Sterling College website).

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David Moffitt - Rethinking the Atonement

Episode: In this episode, Erin sits down with David Moffitt and a live audience at Wycliffe Hall, University of Oxford to talk about David's latest book on the atonement. This was a wide-ranging and thought-provoking conversation on atonement, sacrifice, ascension, resurrection, and why, according to Moffitt, the death of Jesus is not enough, themes featured in his recent book Rethinking the Atonement (Baker).

Guest: David Moffitt is Reader in New Testament at the University of St. Andrews, where he has been since 2013, having taught previously at Duke Divinity School and Campbell University Divinity School.  Much of his scholarship has been on atonement in the book of Hebrews, including a very influential monograph entitled Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Brill, 2011), for which he won the Manfred T. Lautenschläger prize in 2013. He's also the author of Rethinking the Atonement (Baker Academic) and the co-author of New Testament Basics (Fortress).

Book (from the publisher's website): Traditional views on the atonement tend to be reductive, focusing solely on Jesus's death on the cross. In his 2011 groundbreaking book Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection in the Epistle to the Hebrews, David Moffitt challenged that paradigm, showing how the atonement is a fuller process. It involves not only Jesus's death but also his resurrection, ascension, offering, and exaltation. In the succeeding years, Moffitt has continued to expand and clarify his thinking on this issue. This book offers a more fulsome articulation of his work on the atonement that reflects his recent thinking on the topic. Moffitt continues to challenge reductive views of the atonement, primarily from the book of Hebrews, but he engages other New Testament passages as well. He offers fresh insights on sacrifice and atonement, the importance of resurrection and ascension, Jesus's role as priest, and a new perspective on Hebrews. This important book brings Moffitt's award-winning and influential scholarship to a broader audience.

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Jonathan Lyonhart - Monothreeism (Trinity at the Pub)

Episode: In this episode Chris Tilling interviews Jonathan Lyonhart about his new book, MonoThreeism: An Absurdly Arrogant Attempt to Answer All the Problems of the Last 2000 Years in One Night at a Pub. This is one unique book! By using the genre of a script with stage performance cues and three main protagonists, Lyonhart presents an elegant, witty, and clever case for the Trinity as the key to engaging the most significant challenges to Christian faith. In fact, by means of the character Idi, thirteen objections to Christian faith are listed and then tackled, but not in a way that you might expect. In a conversational yet philosophically sophisticated manner, the book covers such ground as the Trinity, the incarnation, the nature of free will and responsibility, the problem of the soul and the problem of evil, world religions, Feuerbach, morality, patriarchy, and more besides!

Guest: Jonathan Lyonhart received his PhD from Cambridge University, and is now Assistant Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Lincoln Christian University, as well as a Fellow at the Cambridge Centre for the Study of Platonism and a Co-Host of the Spiritually Incorrect Podcast. He's the author of MonoThreeism: An Absurdly Arrogant Attempt to Answer All the Problems of the Last 2000 Years in One Night at a Pub.

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Brent Strawn - The Incomparable God

Episode: Brent Strawn is back for the 4th time, to discuss his new book The Incomparable God. This book is rich, rangey, and full of biblical-theological insight. The discussion is also rangey, and designed to give you a taste of Brent's work over the years.

Guest: Brent Strawn is D. Moody Smith Distinguished Professor of Old Testament and Law at Duke Divinity and Duke University. He's the author of numerous books, including The Old Testament is Dying (Baker) Honest to God Preaching (Fortress), The Old Testament: A Concise Introduction (Routledge), Lies My Preacher Told Me (WJK Press), The Incomparable God: Readings in Biblical Theology (Eerdmans). He's also hosted In Parallel, an offshoot of OnScript that looks at the resonances between biblical and modern poetry.

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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).

Give: Help support OnScript podcast and the Biblical World podcast as we grow and develop. Click HERE.

Image by Anna Sulencka from Pixabay