As part of my seminar on Bible abuse at Easter Camp I talked about how a couple of sorts of context (cotext or social setting and culture) help us understand Jesus parable of the Big Feast (Luke 14:16ff.) more sharply. This podcast is a quick version of that focusing on questions of context. [Updated with [&hellip...
For the second part of this “A text without contexts is dumb” series we’ll think about cotext, the text that surrounds a text, providing context. The biblical examples come from Psalms and Ephesians. You might want to listen to Part 1 here first 😉 ...
Describes why careful readers of Isaiah have for a thousand years thought of the book in (at least) three different imperial contexts...
This latest one is aimed at real beginners in biblical study and addresses why multiple contexts are important for reading/hearing texts, particularly the Bible. ...
Well,the end of the world has passed, again 🙂 That’s the second time this year! It is the Bible that causes all the problems. or rather it is bad reading of the Bible that causes all the problems. No book is more commonly misread than Revelation. Christians keep wanting it to predict tomorrow. And boy, [&hellip...
Perhaps no Bible text illustrates the dangers of a simplistic reading of Scripture than 1 Cor 14:34. If we tear this verse from its cotext, (( Or for a podcast. )) and then read it as if the Bible were “God’s instruction manual for life” and even worse read it also literally then we are [&hellip...
In this video we visit the Wadi Qelt, the gorge that cuts down into the steep Judean Hills and so provided a passable route in ancient times between Jericho (in the Jordan Valley and Jerusalem in the hills). We’ll begin near the Ein Prat (Prat Spring) and passing the monastery head down towards the opening [&hellip...
The Jordan Valley forms part of the great rift in the earth’s surface that reaches down to the middle of Africa. The Dead Sea is the lowest point on Earth. The Jordan Valley forms both a psychological and a physical barrier for crossing into the land from the east. The Dead Sea is “dead” because [&hellip...
The prayer of Jabez was wildly popular a few years back among voguish Christians worried about the lack of obvious and excess prosperity in their lives (compared to those richer and general better off than them, not compared to the world population in general). Even without that 1 Chron 4:9-10 is funny (strange peculiar, if [&hellip...
I’ve been asked about the prosperity gospel, which claims that not only does God want to bless us, but that if we do the right things God will bless us. In the context from which it was asked it’s a really important question, in my context too it’s a question that matters. Here’s part one [&hellip...
