In some Bible passages, as atheists and others who want to avoid the claims of God are quick to point out, God sounds like a Dalek. Deut 7:2 is a typical case. When the LORD your God hands these nations over to you and you conquer them, you must completely destroy them. Make no treaties [&hellip...
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 episode we visit two city sites in the Jezreel Valley, Megiddo (with a wealth of archaeological features) illustrates a major royal centre of power, and the smaller Jezreel a royal palace and capital. These visits will lead to a consideration of stories of the reign of Ahab and of the place of kingship [&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 psalm in Jonah 2:2-9 (2:3-10 in Hebrew) is a fine example of a thanksgiving psalm, and everything in its expression and theology would sound fine in the book of Psalms. However, on Jonah’s lips after we have heard the narrative of chapter one, it takes a different flavour. Read in its place in the [&hellip...
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...
In our student exegesis assignments we ask them to state the intended meaning for the ancient hearers, ideally in one sentence, maybe two, never more than 50 words. They commonly have two problems. The first is being brief 😉 I have a Sansblogue post on writing tightly that helps address this issue. Their second problem [&hellip...
Real estate agents understand the importance of location 😉 This video explains the significance of the location of the “Promised Land”. It describes the different regions briefly. I’ve wondered about extending this series with some focused on different areas… What do you think...
In part two we get drawn to the hymn in Phil 2 and discover not only what Jesus’ discension is all about, but also get to understand the talk of us being gifts in Eph 4:11-13 better. (If you have not listened to part 1 do listen to that first.) The original audio only version [&hellip...
