The Importance of Spirit in the New Testament

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We're fools if we think we understand it, but I came to appreciate the sheer diversity even in the first generation of Christians. This is not a unified text. It doesn't reflect a unified theology. What it reflects is many different reactions to an event of extraordinary mystery and power for those who are writing about it. The word pnefma can mean life or breath or the spirit or the spirit of God or the spirit in you.

David Bentley Hart is an American writer, philosopher, religious scholar, critic, and theologian who has authored over 1,000 essays and 19 books, including a very well-known translation of the New Testament and several volumes of fiction.

In this conversation, Tyler and David discuss ways in which Orthodox Christianity is not so millenarian, how theological patience shapes the polities of Orthodox Christian nations, how Heidegger deepened his understanding of Christian Orthodoxy, who played left field for the Baltimore Orioles in 1970, the simplest way to explain how Orthodoxy diverges from Catholicism, the future of the American Orthodox Church, what he thinks of the Book of Mormon, whether theological arguments are ultimately based on reason or faith, what he makes of reincarnation and near-death experiences, gnosticism in movies and TV, why he dislikes Sarah Ruden’s translation of the New Testament, the most difficult word to translate, a tally of the 15+ languages he knows, what he’ll work on next, and more.

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Recorded March 23rd, 2023.

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