Genesis Marks the Spot

What is mythology and why should the student of the Bible be interested in it? Isn’t mythology just a bunch of made up stories? Or, can mythology actually relate directly to history? In this episode, the concept of mythology is explored along with the field of form criticism, which is a fancy of way of talking about genre. As life-long listeners of stories, we are all capable of looking at a text and finding cues which tell us what kind of a story we are reading or hearing and we can use this information to study Scripture.  However, we need to be aware that genres change over time and what is "history" is not the same from era to era. Bonus material: https://genesis-marks-the-spot.castos.com/ Genesis Marks the Spot on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/genesismarksthespot Music credit: "Marble Machine" by Wintergatan Link to Wintergatan’s website: https://wintergatan.net/ Link to the original Marble Machine video by Wintergatan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvUU8joBb1Q&ab_channel=Wintergatan

Did the Bible steal all its ideas from its neighbors? Was Israelite religion merely an off-shoot of Canaanite religion? How do we understand ancient literature that is similar to the Bible? These questions and more are explored, focusing in on how the Bible describes God having a divine council that seems in some respects eerily similar to pagan pantheons. Have a listen to find out how we can read the Bible and pagan literature and reach an even higher understanding of who God is than we might have had previously.Bonus material: https://genesis-marks-the-spot.castos.com/ Genesis Marks the Spot on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/genesismarksthespot Music credit: "Marble Machine" by Wintergatan Link to Wintergatan’s website: https://wintergatan.net/ Link to the original Marble Machine video by Wintergatan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvUU8joBb1Q&ab_channel=Wintergatan

As Christians, we may have a difficult time in seeing the connection between the Old Testament and the New Testament and early Christian belief, especially when it comes to understanding the divinity of Christ. How would a Jew of the first century understand a man living amongst them as God? Many Christians have understood appearances of YHWH in the Old Testament as Jesus pre-incarnate, but surely Jews would not have understood these in the same way—would they? As a matter of fact, a Jewish belief in a binitarian godhead did exist at the time of Jesus and only later, when Christianity became popular, was this belief labeled a heresy.Bonus material: https://genesis-marks-the-spot.castos.com/ Genesis Marks the Spot on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/genesismarksthespotMusic credit: "Marble Machine" by Wintergatan Link to Wintergatan’s website: https://wintergatan.net/ Link to the original Marble Machine video by Wintergatan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvUU8joBb1Q&ab_channel=Wintergatan

Most Christians have an image of the heavenly realm that contains more than just God. We believe in angels and we might even have an idea that there are strange creatures with a lot of eyes and wings and heads...well, once we get that far, maybe we get a little freaked out so we stop looking too closely. But the inhabitants of the spiritual realm are no small part of the Bible’s narrative, and once we start looking, we find that there may be more to this than mere abstract knowledge; it may, in fact, teach us much about how God interacts with creation and our role in that.Bonus material: https://genesis-marks-the-spot.castos.com/Genesis Marks the Spot on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/genesismarksthespotMusic credit: "Marble Machine" by Wintergatan Link to Wintergatan’s website: https://wintergatan.net/ Link to the original Marble Machine video by Wintergatan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvUU8joBb1Q&ab_channel=Wintergatan

Who is Jonathan Cahn and what is the “explosive mystery” that he reveals in his book The Return of the Gods? Though he suggests that you need to read the entire book to uncover the mystery because it can’t be pared down to a short description, I actually found it quite easy to summarize the mystery…and I’m not even going to make you listen to this whole episode to “reveal” it. (Stop reading here if you like anticipation and want to keep the suspense of my reveal inside the episode!) Cahn claims that the New Testament describes the demonic possession of civilization just as it describes individual demonic possession... and western civilization—America in particular—is now being “repossessed.” (dramatic music here) The question now is, does he have a legitimate, scriptural case to make for this claim? Not gonna make you wait for that answer, either. No, he does does not, and you can listen to this episode to find out how he defends his claim and how his claim is not the same as the biblically-defended idea that God allotted the sons of God to be in charge of the nations. Included in the episode and bonus material on my website are suggestions for further study for those who wish to learn more about the gods of the nations and the cultural context of the Bible. Bonus material: https://genesis-marks-the-spot.castos.com/ Genesis Marks the Spot on Facebook (come participate in the poll I mention in the episode!): https://www.facebook.com/genesismarksthespot ***Music credit: "Marble Machine" by Wintergatan Link to Wintergatan’s website: https://wintergatan.net/ Link to the original Marble Machine video by Wintergatan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvUU8joBb1Q&ab_channel=Wintergatan

How do we understand the days of creation in Genesis 1? That question can only be answered after exploring what the Bible is and how it is a book written by ancient people in a specific time and place. The Bible, science, cosmic temples, a flat earth, and would an ancient person have used a DeLorean to look back at the creation of the world? All this and more in this episode of Genesis Marks the Spot. Bonus material: https://genesis-marks-the-spot.castos.com/   Genesis Marks the Spot on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/genesismarksthespot   Music credit: "Marble Machine" by Wintergatan   Link to Wintergatan’s website: https://wintergatan.net/   Link to the original Marble Machine video by Wintergatan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvUU8joBb1Q&ab_channel=Wintergatan  

An introduction to the show, discussing why critical thinking is essential to our pursuit of the study of the Bible and how questioning our assumptions about the text doesn’t need to break our faith. A “scientific” reading of Genesis chapter one is compared and contrasted with a more contextual reading.Music credit: "Marble Machine" by Wintergatan

A brief introduction to the podcast's focus.