What if the Bible isn’t meant to be neatly packaged and easily explained? In this episode, CHT Fellow Hakeem Bradley joins The Biblical Mind Podcast to discuss how engaging scripture means leaning into tension rather than eliminating it. He explains why asking better questions leads to deeper understanding and why forcing Jesus into every Old Testament passage can sometimes do more harm than good.
Bradley also shares his personal story—growing up in the Five Percent Nation, a movement that sees the Black man as divine, and how a surprising mentorship relationship led him to faith in Jesus. His journey from deep skepticism to biblical scholarship gives him a unique perspective on how to approach scripture without assumptions or shortcuts.
The conversation explores how biblical authors thought, why Jesus himself had to read scripture in context, and how reading the Bible as a tension-filled conversation—rather than a collection of easy answers—can reshape faith and theology.
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Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
02:08 Navigating Questions on Creation and Biblical Interpretation
06:01 The Role of Tension in Understanding Scripture
10:01 Hakeem's Journey from Five Percenter to Follower of Jesus
18:31 The Importance of the Old Testament in Understanding Jesus
22:15 Personal Journeys in Biblical Understanding
23:11 The Challenge of Connecting Old Testament to Jesus
25:50 Understanding Biblical Texts on Their Own Terms
29:31 The Role of the Bible Project in Modern Scholarship
33:34 Exploring the Catholic Epistles and Their Significance
38:47 Intertextual Connections in Biblical Texts
