This episode launches our new book study series on the book of Exodus! As we do with every book study, this initial episode overviews the sorts of things to expect as we progress through Exodus: difficulties, controversies, and other points of interest relevant to understanding the book in its own context. Specifically, Dr. Heiser talks about how we should think about Old Testament history, historicity, metanarrative, “mythic history,” and historiography.
In this episode we interview “Theo,” an American living in Nepal who teaches students full time. Theo has been a long-time listener to the podcast. Theo found the divine council context put forth in Dr. Heiser’s books to be paradigm changing, and now uses that content to teach his students in Nepal. Unfortunately, there are serious obstacles, as the Nepali government has become more antagonistic to Christianity in recent years.
What is the Day of the Lord? Most Bible students would associate it with a time of judgment. The reality, however, is that judgment is only one aspect. The Day of the Lord concept concerns things like the reclaiming of the nations, the general resurrection, and the “fullness of the Gentiles.” And since Jesus is Lord in the New Testament, the Old Testament of the Day of the Lord is married to the return of Jesus. This episode discusses all these facets of the Day of the Lord and how the full concept should prompt us to think well about end times.
Craig Allert is a scholar specializing in Patristic Fathers, those early Christian thinkers who lived and wrote just after the end of the apostolic age to (roughly 451 AD). On today’s episode we talk with Craig about his work in analyzing how the early church fathers understood and interpreted Genesis One. We talk about the ways they approached Genesis One and how modern researchers use and abuse what the fathers said about Genesis in debating divergent views of creationism.
Rick Brannan plays a lead role in the production of ancient language resources for Logos Bible Software. He has also published several books on apocryphal gospels, the apostolic fathers, and the Pastoral Epistles. In this episode our focus is Pauline authorship studies relative to the Pastoral Epistles and analyzing the vocabulary of those epistles. Since Rick’s most recent work is on 2 Timothy, we discuss some interesting findings about whether 2 Timothy is really Paul’s “last will and testament” and Paul’s inclusion of angels in charge language (commands) in these epistles.
