Continuing the discussion about the embodied image of God, Joshua Sherman and I talk about the ancient Near East context of the image and also ethical and philosophical implications of it. Is the image ontological or is it functional? It is a noun or is a verb--or can we see…
Discussing the concept of curses in the ancient world, exploring some of the ways we see them in the Bible, looking at their impact through the NT, and seeding a few questions along the way for further exploration. Bonus material: https://genesis-marks-the-spot.castos.com/ Genesis Marks the Spot on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/genesismarksthespot Faith Unaltered:…
What is the “documentary hypothesis”? Also known as the four-source hypothesis, or JEDP, is there any good basis for this theory of higher criticism? These are questions we look at, ending up focusing on some of the “priestly” texts of the Bible. Bonus material: https://genesis-marks-the-spot.castos.com/ Genesis Marks the Spot on…
How did I go from strong LDS belief to believing in Christianity as formulated in biblical theology? This is my story and a little bit of exposition as to what I think it all means. Do you know what faith is? What is “believing loyalty,” anyway? Bonus material: https://genesis-marks-the-spot.castos.com/ Genesis…
Continuing with the series on the image of God, in this episode I talk to Joshua Sherman about the important aspect of the image being embodied in both Christ as well as in us as individual humans and the church as the body of Christ. Book recommendations: Bearing God’s Name…
The theme of the cosmic temple is a popular one in the halls of biblical theology—how solid of an idea is it, though? Here we are going to talk about temples, including touching on the purposes of the temple in LDS theology to compare that with the temple in the…
Exploring two views of creation: the analogical view (the days of creation are analogically similar to the workweek of the Israelite, but the days are not necessarily 24-hour days) and the literary view (Genesis 1 is literarily designed to give us theological truth). Both of these views ask the question,…
Discussion with Jon Dillon (of the Two Trees Podcast) centered on the theme of trees, fruitfulness, and multiplication. What does it mean to be fruitful? Why trees? Is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil a “bad” tree? Bonus material: https://genesis-marks-the-spot.castos.com/ Genesis Marks the Spot on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/genesismarksthespot…
Our first Q&A! Timestamps: (1:11) - What do we do when we grew up Christian, or have been in a particular Christian tradition or church for a while, and…we start thinking in terms of biblical theology, of studying the Bible in its ancient context? (18:00) - In college years ago,…
Joshua Sherman joins the podcast to talk about the image of Christ. We discuss how we can trace the image of God through the Bible forward into its ultimate picture in the incarnation of Jesus and how we ought to think of both the image of God and the image…
This episode takes a bit of a diversion from biblical theology into the question of “What is the image of God?” Does God have a physical aspect that we copy (could the LDS church be right about us becoming gods)? Is the image of God proof against evolution? Is the…
Several views of creation are introduced and in particular John Walton’s “functional” or “identity” view of creation is discussed. We look at how that fits into the Bible and explore whether or not this is the likeliest way the ancient person would have thought regarding the creation of the cosmos…
Who is Graham Hancock and is his Netflix show, Ancient Apocalypse supposed to mirror the History Channel show, Ancient Aliens? Do his ideas have any basis in reality or the Bible? What does his work have to do with the study of the ancient Near East? And who are the…
Reading ancient literature can help us understand the Bible. Following on from the conversation in episode 7 about how to read myth in relation to the Bible, this episode includes a reading of the Babylonian creation account known as Enuma Elish. A bonus question at the beginning of the episode:…
What is mythology and why should the student of the Bible be interested in it? Isn’t mythology just a bunch of made up stories? Or, can mythology actually relate directly to history? In this episode, the concept of mythology is explored along with the field of form criticism, which is…
Did the Bible steal all its ideas from its neighbors? Was Israelite religion merely an off-shoot of Canaanite religion? How do we understand ancient literature that is similar to the Bible? These questions and more are explored, focusing in on how the Bible describes God having a divine council that…
As Christians, we may have a difficult time in seeing the connection between the Old Testament and the New Testament and early Christian belief, especially when it comes to understanding the divinity of Christ. How would a Jew of the first century understand a man living amongst them as God?…
Most Christians have an image of the heavenly realm that contains more than just God. We believe in angels and we might even have an idea that there are strange creatures with a lot of eyes and wings and heads...well, once we get that far, maybe we get a little…
Who is Jonathan Cahn and what is the “explosive mystery” that he reveals in his book The Return of the Gods? Though he suggests that you need to read the entire book to uncover the mystery because it can’t be pared down to a short description, I actually found it…
How do we understand the days of creation in Genesis 1? That question can only be answered after exploring what the Bible is and how it is a book written by ancient people in a specific time and place. The Bible, science, cosmic temples, a flat earth, and would an…
An introduction to the show, discussing why critical thinking is essential to our pursuit of the study of the Bible and how questioning our assumptions about the text doesn’t need to break our faith. A “scientific” reading of Genesis chapter one is compared and contrasted with a more contextual reading.…
