OnScript

Timothy Beal - When Time is Short

Episode: This episode takes you to the wilds of Alaska and Florida's byways to talk about our denial of death as a species.

Guest: Dr. Timothy Beal is Distinguished University Professor and Florence Harkness Professor of Religion at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH. He’s the author of 16 books, including The Book of Revelation: A Biography, Biblical Literacy: The Essential Bible Stories Everyone Needs to Know, Roadside Religion: In Search of the Sacred, The Strange, and the Substance of Faith, and The Rise and Fall of the Bible: The Unexpected Story of an Accidental Book. He’s also written When Time is Short: Finding Our Way in the Anthropocene (Beacon Press, 2022), discussed in this episode.

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Katie Marcar – Divine Regeneration and Ethnic Mapping in 1 Peter

Episode: Erin speaks with Dr. Katie Marcar about metaphors of divine regeneration in 1 Peter, metaphors of generation in other Jewish texts from the Second Temple period, seed metaphors, breastmilk metaphors, and how all of these topics work together to form an audience's sense of ethnic identity. Dr. Marcar is the author of the book Divine Regeneration and Ethnic Identity in 1 Peter: Mapping Metaphors of Family, Race, and Nation, published by Cambridge University Press in 2022.

Guest: Dr. Katie Marcar is a Teaching Fellow in Biblical Languages at the University of Otago, New Zealand. She completed a Masters in Biblical Studies at Edinburgh University before completing a PhD in New Testament Studies at Durham University. In her doctoral thesis, she studied the theme of divine regeneration in 1 Peter. Dr. Marcar's research interests include textual criticism, the use of the Hebrew Scriptures in the New Testament, and the influence of Jewish apocalyptic thinking on New Testament texts. Katie is a Lay Minister in the Anglican Church in New Zealand. She is actively engaged in church ministry, preaching, and youth work.

Book (from the publisher's website): In this book, Katie Marcar examines how 1 Peter draws together metaphors of family, ethnicity, temple, and priesthood to describe Christian identity. She examines the precedents for these metaphors in Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity in order to highlight the originality, creativity and theological depth of the text. She then explores how these metaphors are combined and developed in 1 Peter to create complex, narratival metaphors which reframe believers' understanding of themselves, their community, and their world. Integrating insights on ethnicity and race in the ancient and modern world, as well as insights from metaphor studies, Marcar examines why it is important for Christians to think of themselves as one family and ethnic group. Marcar concludes by distilling the metaphors of divine regeneration down to their underlying systematic metaphors.

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Angela Parker - If God Still Breathes Why Can’t I?

Episode: Erin Heim speaks with Dr. Angela Parker about White Christianity's tendency to conflate biblical authority with inerrancy and infallibility, gaslighting and women in the Gospels, the Galatians' experience, and Toby Nwigwe's "Make it Home." She also distinguishes between an authoritative and an authoritarian Bible.

Guest: Rev. Dr. Angela N. Parker is assistant professor of New Testament and Greek at McAfee School of Theology. She's the author of If God Still Breathes, Why Can’t I: Black Lives Matter and Biblical Authority (Eerdmans, 2021). Her forthcoming book is entitled Bodies, Violence, & Emotions: A Womanist Study of the Gospel of Mark.  She is co-chair for the Paul and Politics Seminar of the Society of Biblical Literature and is a committee member of American Academy of Religion’s Status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities Committee (see her Mercer University page for more detail).

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Marty Folsom - Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics for Everyone

Episode: In this episode Chris Tilling interviews Marty Folsom about his new book, Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics for Everyone  (Zondervan Academic).

What is it about Barth’s Church Dogmatics that is considered so important? What’s the “big deal”? And how to approach such a massive set of volumes? How to navigate around the highways and byways of this text that sprawls almost 8,500 pages and 6,000,000 words? How to avoid misunderstanding? Marty Folsom has begun penning a “Church Dogmatics for Everyone”, which sets out, first in broad brush strokes and then in more detail, the first volume of Barth’s important project. Chris Tilling talks with the author about the background of this project, what Marty Folsom hopes to achieve and why the Church Dogmatics.

Guest: Marty Folsom has been Professor of Theology and Biblical Studies for 30 years in New Zealand and Seattle. He is most famous for his “Face to Face” trilogy on relational theology, which emphasises “personal relationship”. Apart from authoring numerous articles, he has also been a therapist for 24 years. Today we discuss his new book, Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics for Everyone (Zondervan Academic) with contributions from Myk Habets, Julie Canlis, Douglas Campbell and others. This is the first volume of five to follow (volume two follows in 2023).

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Chris Seglenieks - Johannine Belief and Graeco-Roman Devotion

Episode: In this episode, Dru Johnson talks with Australian scholar Christopher Seglenieks about why Greco-Roman devotion practices must be included in discussions about "faith" and "belief" in the Johannine corpus.

Guest: Chris is the author of Johannine Belief and Graeco-Roman Devotion (Mohr Siebeck, 2020). He studies and teaches biblical studies (NT and Greek), and has interests in the Gospel of John, faith, the Synoptic Gospels, and the Graeco-Roman religious world.

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Christian Eberhart - The Sacrifice of Jesus

Episode: What was the sacrifice of Jesus for the NT Jewish authors? A barbaric execution? A violent bloodletting of a scapegoat? Christian Eberhart claims that the NT authors did not conceive or talk about the crucifixion as a primarily violent act. Rather, they conceptualized it as a sacrifice, in the same conceptual world of oil, wheat, salt, and livestock. Dru Johnson and Christian Eberhart discuss Eberhart's work more generally on this question, specifically his book The Sacrifice of Jesus: Understanding Atonement Biblically. 

Guest:  (from faculty page) "Dr. Chris Eberhart is from Hanover, Germany. His research interests are ritual, concepts of reconciliation and atonement, biblical texts and manuscripts, literature and culture of Second Temple Judaism, the history of biblical interpretation, the Qumran fragments/Dead Sea Scrolls, biblical archeology and topography, early Christian literature, and interreligious dialogue. To date he has published more than 10 books as well as multiple journal essays, book chapters, and encyclopedia articles in these areas. He is currently working on a commentary volume on Paul’s Letter to the Romans for the academic series Wisdom Commentary (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press).

Dr. Chris Eberhart is the founder of the Annual Congress Section “Sacrifice, Cult, and Atonement” for the Society of Biblical Literature and the co-founder and co-convener of the “Hebrews” Seminar for the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas (Society of New Testament Studies; SNTS)."

He is the editor of several academic volumes (see below)

Dr. Chris Eberhart is the founder of the Annual Congress Section “Sacrifice, Cult, and Atonement” for the Society of Biblical Literature and the co-founder and co-convener of the “Hebrews” Seminar for the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas (Society of New Testament Studies; SNTS).

His recent books include:

• Christian A. Eber­hart e.a. (eds.), Tempel, Lehrhaus, Synagoge: Orte jüdischen Lernens und Lebens (Festschrift für Wolfgang Kraus), Paderborn: Brill/Ferdinand Schö­ningh, 2020.
• Christian Eberhart/Thomas Hieke (eds.), Writing a Commentary on Leviticus (FRLANT 276), Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019.
• Christian A. Eberhart, The Sacrifice of Jesus: Understanding Atonement Biblically, Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, second edition 2018.
• Christian A. Eberhart/Henrietta L. Wiley (eds.), Sacrifice, Cult, and Atonement in Early Judaism and Christianity: Constituents and Critique, (Resources for Biblical Study 85), Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature Press, 2017.
• Christian A. Eberhart, What a Difference a Meal Makes: The Last Supper in the Bible and in the Christian Church, Houston: Lucid Books, 2016.

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J. Richard Middleton - Abraham’s Silence

Episode: Richard Middleton thinks that Abraham should've talked back to God when he asked him to sacrifice his son. Today we discuss lament, the example of Job, and Abraham as a counterexample to Job (and himself in Gen 18).

Guest: J. Richard Middleton is Professor of Biblical Worldview and Exegesis at Roberts Wesleyan College. He's the author of:

• Abraham's Silence: The Binding of Isaac, The Suffering of God, and How to Talk Back to God (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021).
• A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014).
• The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1 (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2005).
• With Brian Walsh, Truth Is Stranger Than It Used to Be: Biblical Faith in a Postmodern Age (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1995).
• Ed. with Garnett Roper, A Kairos Moment for Caribbean Theology: Ecumenical Voices in Dialogue (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2013).
• The Advent of Justice: A Book of Meditations, ed. Sylvia Keesmaat (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2014).

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Mark Scarlata - The World of Leviticus

Episode: Leviticus might be the only book in the Bible that many Christians will openly and casually admit that they do not like (or, it’s their “least favorite). Dru Johnson and Mark Scarlata discuss his recent book, A Journey Through the World of Leviticus: Holiness, Sacrifice, and the Rock Badger, making Leviticus accessible to Christians. Scarlata also gives some insights into his forthcoming Cambridge volume The Theology of the Book of Leviticus in the OT Theology series.

Guest: Revd Dr Mark Scarlata is Tutor and Lecturer in Old Testament Studies at St Mellitus College. Mark is also the Vicar-Chaplain at St. Edward, King and Martyr, Cambridge where he serves as priest in one of the oldest churches in Cambridge that was also integral in the English Reformation. Mark is married to Bettina and they have three children. He is the author of the following books:

• Outside of Eden: Cain in the Ancient Versions of Gen. 4.1-16 (T & T Clark, 2012).
• Am I my Brother’s Keeper?: Christian Citizenship in a Globalized Society (Cascade)
• Sabbath Rest: The Beauty of God's Rhythm for a Digital Age (SCM Press, 2019)
• The Abiding Presence: A Theological Commentary on Exodus (SCM Press, 2018).
• A Journey Through the World of Leviticus: Holiness, Sacrifice, and the Rock Badger (Cascade)
• The Theology of the Book of Leviticus (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).

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Paul Spilsbury - Understanding Josephus

Episode: Paul Spilsbury knew Josephus personally ... or at least he's spent so much time with him that it's almost as if he did. In this episode we talk about Josephus' writings, identity, and how understanding Josephus helps us understand the New Testament. We also discuss Christianity in Turkey, the book of Acts, and much more!

Guest: Dr. Paul Spilsbury (PhD, Cambridge) is Academic Dean and Professor of New Testament at Regent College. Paul’s teaching covers the full range of the New Testament, with a particular focus on Paul and the Book of Revelation. His research has been supported by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Leverhulme Trust (UK) and has resulted in four authored or co-authored books: The Image of the Jew in Flavius Josephus’ Paraphrase of the Bible (Mohr Siebeck, 1998), The Throne, the Lamb and the Dragon: A Reader’s Guide to the Book of Revelation (IVP, 2002), Flavius Josephus, Judean Antiquities 8–10: Translation and Commentary (Brill, 2005—with C. Begg), and Flavius Josephus, Judean Antiquities 11: Translation and Commentary (Brill, 2017—with C. Seeman). He has also published numerous book chapters, articles, and reviews, and has traveled extensively throughout the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern countries associated with the ancient church. Paul is a frequent speaker at churches, retreats, and conferences. He is also a juried member of the Federation of Canadian Artists, working primarily in watercolours. (adapted from the Regent College website)

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Enoch Okode - Christ the Gift and the Giver

Episode: If you've appreciated John Barclay's monumental work on grace, Paul and the Gift, then you'll be delighted to see how Enoch Okode's work presses beyond Barclay into new territory. Drawing on ancient ideals regarding royal benefaction, Okode shows that the Christ is both the gift and the giver. What emerges is a more cohesive way to read Paul's letter to the Romans Co-hosted by Matt Bates and a top-secret special guest.

The Book: Enoch O. Okode, Christ the Gift and the Giver: Paul’s Portrait of Jesus as the Supreme Royal Benefactor in Romans 5:1-11 (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2022). Foreword by Joshua W. Jipp. This book provides a close look at how Paul uses the Greco-Roman royal benefaction system in Romans 5:1–11 as well as 5:12—8:39 to accomplish his theological purpose of portraying Jesus Christ as the supreme royal benefactor so that the Roman believers might faithfully respond to his reign now even as they anticipate glorification. This study makes at least three significant contributions. First, at the lexical level, it provides a reading that accounts for the benefaction motifs that permeate Romans 5:1–11 and Romans 5:12—8:39. Second, it looks at the relationship between χάρις as used in Romans 5:2 and the Messiah’s sacrifice as described in Romans 5:6–10 even as it asserts that Paul portrays Christ as a royal benefactor in ways that surprise the Greco-Roman notion of brokerage and the expectation that a beneficiary would be willing to die for the sake of his benefactor. Third, the study demonstrates that the Messiah’s supreme benefaction demands appropriate reciprocity or fitting response. (Publisher's description).

Guest: Enoch Okode (PhD, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) is Lecturer and dean of the School of Theology at Scott Christian University in Kenya.

OnScript's Review (backcover endorsement): "Timely, important, and rewarding. Enoch Okode brings a new coherence to Paul's logic in Romans by situating the gospel, grace, and loyalty in the context of ideal kingship and benefaction. Our understanding of Paul's theology of salvation has been greatly enriched." --Matthew W. Bates, Professor of Theology at Quincy University and author of Salvation by Allegiance Alone