This episode welcomes Fern and Audrey back to the podcast. Fern and Audrey minister to trauma survivors, particularly those whose trauma resulted in dissociation (see Episode 68). The conversation in this episode includes Alexa, a client of Fern and Audrey’s Discovering Mercy ministry, and allows listeners to understand their ministry from a survivor’s perspective.
Fern & Audrey are no longer associated with Discovering Mercy. Fern & Audrey are still helping survivors. You can contact them at [email protected]
Naked Bible 207: Revelation 4-5 with Dr. Alan Bandy
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Revelation 4-5, the Divine Council, and the Covenant Lawsuit Motif: A Discussion with Dr. Alan Bandy
Revelation 4-5 with its vision of God’s throne room and the 24 elders has long fascinated Bible students. While the heavenly throne is obvious to the scene, the actual setting often escapes attention. In accord with various divine council scenes in the Old Testament, the throne room of God is also where God holds council. Many OT council meetings are judicial in nature. A trial is held to assess loyalty to God’s covenants. That trial either leads to God’s vindication of the defendant or the dispensing of judgment for the guilty. In this episode we have a conversation with Dr. Alan Bandy who argued in his dissertation that Revelation 4-5 was a divine council scene informed by the covenant lawsuit motif of the Old Testament. Even further, Dr. Bandy believes that the book of Revelation as a whole is informed by the covenant lawsuit idea so that Christians and the whole world stand trial before God’s heavenly council with Jesus as the presiding judge.
Naked Bible 206: The 70 Bulls of the Feast of Tabernacles
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Numbers 29:12-34 describes the sacrifices involved in the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles, called in Hebrew, the Feast of Sukkot (“Booths”). Included in those sacrifices were 70 bulls, a number that far exceeds any other Israelites festival. Scholars have taken note of the number and speculated that it has some relationship to the number of the sons of God allotted to the nations in the judgment at Babel (Deut 32:8-9; cp. Genesis 10’s 70 nations). Some believe the passage is a vestige of polytheism (the bulls are offered to the gods of the nations) or that it describes an atonement ritual for the 70 nations of Genesis 10. In this episode of the podcast we examine these opinions and offer another interpretation, one that sees a connection to the Deuteronomy 32 worldview, but that focuses more on the meaning of the Feast of Sukkot.
Links:
Dr. Noga Ayali-Darshan: Sukkot’s Seventy Bulls: The Torah’s adaptation of a polytheistic ancient West-Semitic custom of sacrificing to seventy gods
Naked Bible 205: The Sword and the Servant with David Burnett
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The enigmatic “two swords” passage of Luke 22:35-38 that famously features Jesus’ command to the disciples, “the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one” (22:35), has long plagued biblical interpreters. Scholars have attempted to explain this passage in many ways. Some have suggested that Jesus was speaking figuratively, not speaking of buying literal swords, but alluding to the future persecution of the disciples. Some suggest Jesus was preparing them to take up swords to defend themselves after his departure, preparing them for bandits along the way. Along these lines, still others suggest Jesus was referring more generally to the time of trial to come after his resurrection. This passage has even featured prominently in modern debates regarding Christian positions on guns and violence, some evangelical voices going as far to suggest that Jesus by implication encourages the right to brandish and use fire arms. As such, this text has factored into discussion of Christian ethics. In this episode David Burnett returns to the podcast and offers a new approach, one that reframes the passage through a careful treatment of the text within its wider narrative context and Luke’s use of scripture.
