Biblical Time Machine

The Jewish festival of Hanukkah is based on real historical events — the Maccabean Revolt of 167-160 BCE. In today's episode, Helen and Dave travel back to a time when Judaea was ruled by the Hellenized (Greek) Seleucid Empire. When a Jewish priest named Mattathias refused to make a sacrifice to the pagan gods, it sparked a violent revolution led by Judah "The Hammer" Maccabee.  Learn More About Hanukkah at Bible OdysseyHanukkahMaccabeesThe Commemoration of War in Early Jewish FestivalsLife Under EmpireSupport the showTheme music written and performed by Dave Roos

The Bible is largely silent about race. People are identified by their lands of origin and beliefs, not their skin color. Yet centuries of biblical interpreters have read race into the Bible, for good and for ill. As our guest Stacy Davis explains, the biblical land of Cush (sometimes translated as Ethiopia) has long been associated with Black people, a point of pride for African and African-American Christians. And Josephus believed that the legendary Queen of Sheba was Black. But the Bible has also been misused for racist purposes. In the 1800s, pro-slavery forces in America cited a convoluted reading of Genesis 9 and 10 to justify the enslavement of Black people under the so-called "Curse of Ham."To learn more, check out Stacy's excellent book, This Strange Story: Jewish and Christian Interpretation of the Curse of Canaan from Antiquity to 1865.Support the showTheme music written and performed by Dave Roos

Starting in the 1st century CE, there was an explosion of Christian literature — dozens of gospels, letters, apocalypses and more — but only a fraction of those texts made it into the New Testament canon. Who decided which books were in and which books were out? For this episode, Helen and Dave welcome New Testament scholar Francis Watson, who introduces us to important figures like Athanasius of Alexandria and Eusebius of Caesarea, some of the earliest influential Christian writers to weigh in on which texts were authoritative and which were "spurious." Check out Francis's excellent books on the making of the NT canon: Gospel Writing: A Canonical Perspective and The Fourfold Gospel: A Theological Reading of the New Testament Portraits of Jesus .To learn more about how the NT canon came together, here are some great articles from Bible Odyssey:Noncanonical GospelsThe New Testament CanonWhy Does the Bible Look the Way It Does?Support the showTheme music written and performed by Dave Roos

When we recognize the Bible as a product of the ancient world, we can look for subtle ways that biblical authors incorporated elements of everyday life — including coins! We spoke with historian Michael Theophilos about everything we can learn from ancient coins (politics, economics, visual culture, propaganda), and then we found some fascinating examples of how language and symbols from coins made their way into the Bible. If you want to dive deeper into coins and the New Testament, check out Michael's book, Numismatics and Greek Lexicography. Here are some cool images of coins Michael described in the episode:A denarius minted by Caesar Augustus with the image of the comet or bright starAn ancient coin from Yehud (Persian-ruled Judaea) featuring a disembodied earAlso, the newly redesigned Bible Odyssey website has some great articles about coins, taxes and the Temple in the 1st Century:MoneyCommerce and the Temple in First-Century JerusalemTaxes in First-Century PalestineSupport the showTheme music written and performed by Dave Roos

It's easy to read the New Testament and come away with the idea that Jesus was in opposition to the Jewish ritual impurity laws. In fact, that's what most Christian theologians have taught for the past 2,000 years. Is it possible that we've (gasp!) been misreading the Bible this whole time?  Our guest Matt Thiessen says, "Yep."In today's episode, we travel back to the 1st century to understand how everyday Jewish people understood ritual impurity, and what Jesus's miracles — healing a leper, curing a woman of a hemorrhaging condition — would have meant in that historical context.  Matt's excellent book on this subject is Jesus and the Forces of Death: The Gospels' Portrayal of Ritual Impurity within First-Century Judaism. And if you're a fan of funny Twitter accounts — like, actually funny — follow Matt at @MattThiessenNT. Support the showTheme music written and performed by Dave Roos

Esther Hamori discusses terrifying biblical monsters like cherubs and angels with deadly duties. Explore divine violence, Leviathan's affection, and God's monstrous portrayal in ancient texts. Discover vengeful spirits and divine hitmen in an entertaining and informative conversation.

At first reading, the Gospel of John feels a world apart from the other gospels. The language is different, there are new stories (see our episode on "the woman taken in adultery") and Jesus speaks about himself in bolder terms ("I am the resurrection and the life." "I am the light of the world.") That has led some scholars to argue that the author of John didn't know the synoptic gospels and was instead working from other sources, probably oral traditions about Jesus circulating in the 1st century CE.Our guest doesn't buy it. Mark Goodacre, creator of the pioneering biblical studies podcast NT Pod, argues convincingly that the author of John not only knew the other gospels, but wrote his version in direct response to them. Mark is hard at work on a book about John, but in the meantime you can check out some of his other groundbreaking work: The Case Against Q:  Studies in Markan Priority and the Synoptic Problem, and The Synoptic Problem: A Way Through the Maze. Support the showTheme music written and performed by Dave Roos

Jonah and the whale (fish, technically) is one of the best-known Bible stories, but it's also completely bonkers. It stars Jonah—the worst/best prophet ever—and reads more like a fable or satire than a serious biblical treatise. Were the authors of Jonah trying to be funny? And how the heck did this silly little fish tale become a beloved and meaningful narrative for Judaism, Christianity and Islam?To help unravel the mystery, Helen and Dave welcome back Eckart Frahm, author of the impressive new book, Assyria: The Rise and Fall of the World's First Empire. Eckart shares a convincing theory that the Judaean authors of Jonah may have been inspired by a popular Assyrian legend. Support the showTheme music written and performed by Dave Roos

Pop quiz—name a famous kid from the Hebrew Bible. Baby Moses? Teenage David? That's about it. The Bible may be largely silent about childhood, but we can gather clues from archeology and ethnography to piece together a picture of what it was like to be a kid in ancient Israel. Special guest Kristine Garroway from Hebrew Union College joins Helen and Dave to reconstruct family life in ancient Israel: the spiritual anxieties around pregnancy, the rules of ancient adoption, and the chore lists assigned to little Israelite boys and girls. For more, check out Kristine's book, Growing Up in Ancient Israel: Children in Material Culture and Biblical Texts. Support the showTheme music written and performed by Dave Roos

For the first four centuries of Christianity, the famous story of the "woman taken in adultery" was nowhere to be found in the New Testament.  In this moving tale, Jesus forgives a woman condemned  for committing adultery and admonishes her accusers: "let he who is without sin cast the first stone."But why wasn't the story included in the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament? Was it a late addition to the gospels? Or was it an ancient story suppressed by Church fathers? Was "death by stoning" really a punishment in 1st-century Judaea?  In this fascinating episode,  Helen and Dave speak with scholar Jennifer Knust about her book To Cast the First Stone: Transmission of a Gospel Story.  Support the showTheme music written and performed by Dave Roos