Biblical World

Five Views on the Exodus (pt 4) - James K. Hoffmeier

Episode: This is Part 4 of our look at Five Views on the Exodus, this time with James Hoffmeier. Hoffmeier makes the case for a 13th century BC exodus from Egypt. In this episode, Mark and Chris interview James Hoffmeier about the following:
- The Egyptian evidence for the Israelite Exodus
- “Egyptianisms” in the Pentateuch
- The historicity of the Exodus events and its importance to the Old Testament as a whole
- The importance of the Exodus to Jewish and Christian believes and its connection to Passover and Easter

Hosts: Mark Janzen (Louisiana College) and Chris McKinny (Gesher Media)

Guest: James K. Hoffmeier

Additional Resources: 2021 Janzen, Mark (ed.). Five Views on the Exodus. Zondervan; (podcast) Thinking Exodus: Egyptology and the Bible (James K. Hoffmeier)

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Five Views on the Exodus (pt 3) - Gary Rendsburg

Episode: This is part 3 of our 5 part look at five views on the exodus from Egypt. In this episode, Gary Rendsburg presents the 12th century BC view.

Hosts: Mark Janzen (Louisiana College) and Chris McKinny (Gesher Media)

Guest: Gary A. Rendsburg (Rutgers University)

Summary: In this episode, Mark and Chris interview Gary Rendsburg about the following: 
- The Egyptian evidence for the Israelite Exodus
- “Egyptianisms” in the Pentateuch
- The historicity of the Exodus events and its importance to the Old Testament as a whole
- The importance of the Exodus to Jewish and Christian believes and its connection to Passover and Easter

Additional Resources: 2021 Janzen, Mark (ed.). Five Views of the Exodus. Zondervan; Gary Rendsburg’s publication page

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Architecture of the City of David - Chris McKinny & Mary Buck

Episode: Chris McKinny and Mary Buck discuss the archaeology and architecture of Iron Age Jerusalem. 

Hosts: Mary Buck (Shepherd’s Seminary) and Chris McKinny (Gesher Media)

Summary: In this episode, Mary and Chris discuss the following:
- The topography of ancient Jerusalem.
- The history of research related to the “Millo” in Jerusalem (Judg 9:6, 20; 2 Sam 5:9; 1 Kgs 9:15, 24; 11:27; 2 Kgs 12:20; 1 Chr 11:8; 2 Chr 32:5).
- The archaeology of the City of David and the Spring Tower.
- The identification of the Millo/House of Millo with the Spring Tower fortifications based on a new suggestion by Chris McKinny, Aharon Tavger, Nahshon Szanton, and Joe Uziel.
- The narrative implications of the Gihon Spring (1 Kgs 1:33, 38, 45), ṣinnor (2 Sam 5:8), and the Millo/Spring Tower being the same location.

Additional Resources: Haaretz article on the Radiocarbon project of Uziel and Gadot; BiblePlaces “Warren’s Shaft” 

Photo by Yoav Dothan - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8255891

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Difficult Words of Jesus in their World - Amy-Jill Levine

Episode: In this episode Jewish scholar Amy-Jill Levine engages some of the hard words of Jesus that followers then and now have found difficult. He instructs disciples to hate members of their own families (Luke 14:26), to act as if they were slaves (Matthew 20:27), and to sell their belongings and give to the poor (Luke 18:22). He restricts his mission (Matthew 10:6); he speaks of damnation (Matthew 8:12); he calls Jews the devil’s children (John 8:44). How did these words sound in their own time, and how might that impact our interpretation of difficult texts? In this episode Biblical World host Lynn Cohick engages these questions with Amy-Jill Levine and her new book The Difficult Words of Jesus: A Beginner's Guide to His Most Perplexing Teachings (Abingdon, 2021). 

Guest: Amy-Jill Levine is University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies, Mary Jane Werthan Professor of Jewish Studies, and  Professor of New Testament Studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School, Graduate Department of Religion, and Department of Jewish Studies; she is also Affiliated Professor, Woolf Institute, Centre for the Study of Jewish-Christian Relations, Cambridge UK. Holding a B.A. from Smith College, M.A. and Ph.D. from Duke University, and honorary doctorates from the University of Richmond, the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest, the University of South Carolina-Upstate, Drury University, Christian Theological Seminary, and Franklin College, Professor Levine has been awarded grants from the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Council of Learned Societies. She has held office in the Society of Biblical Literature, the Catholic Biblical Association, and the Association for Jewish Studies.  She served as Alexander Robertson Fellow (University of Glasgow), and the Catholic Biblical Association Scholar to the Philippines. She has given over 500 lectures on the Bible, Christian-Jewish relations, and Religion, Gender, and Sexuality across the globe.

Her books include The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus (Publisher’s Weekly Best Books of 2007; audio books); Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi (Catholic Book Club; translations: Spanish, Italian; audio books); The Meaning of the Bible: What the Jewish Scriptures and the Christian Old Testament Can Teach Us (with Douglas Knight; translation: Chinese); The New Testament, Methods and Meanings (with Warren Carter); and The Gospel of Luke (with Ben Witherington III -- the first full-length biblical commentary co-authored by a Jew and an Evangelical). Her most recent book is The Bible With and Without Jesus, co-authored with Marc Z. Brettler. With Marc Brettler, she co-edited The Jewish Annotated New Testament; she is also the editor of the 13-volume Feminist Companions to the New Testament and Early Christian Writings, and The Historical Jesus in Context (Princeton Readings in Religion; translation: Japanese). Presently she is editing several volumes in the Wisdom Commentary series, and she is the New Testament editor of the new Oxford Biblical Commentary Series. With Joseph Sievers, she is co-editing a collection of essays on the Pharisees. (from the Vanderbilt website)

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Five Views on the Exodus (pt 2) - Scott Stripling

Episode: This episode continues our series on five views on the exodus based on a book by that named that Biblical World host Mark Janzen just edited. Our second guest in this series is Scott Stripling, who presents the early (15th century) exodus view. 

Hosts: Mark Janzen (Louisiana College) and Chris McKinny (Gesher Media)

Guest: Scott Stripling serves as the provost at The Bible Seminary in Katy (Houston), Texas and as the Director of Excavations for the Associates for Biblical Research at Khirbet el-Maqatir and Shiloh, Israel.

Summary: In this episode, Mark and Chris interview Scott about the early date theory, how we read dates and numbers in the Bible, and archaeological evidence for or against the early date.
 
Additional Resources: 2021 Janzen, Mark (ed.). Five Views of the Exodus. Zondervan; Ron Hendel’s Academia page.

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Five Views on the Exodus (pt 1) - Ron Hendel

Episode: This begins the first of a series on five views on the exodus based on a book by that named that Biblical World host Mark Janzen just edited. Our first guest in this series is Ron Hendel, who presents the cultural memory view. 

Hosts: Mark Janzen (Louisiana College) and Chris McKinny (Gesher Media)

Guest: Ron Hendel is Norma and Sam Dabby Professor of Hebrew Bible and Jewish Studies at the University of Berkeley. Professor Hendel has been a member of the Berkeley faculty since 1999 and has served as chair of Jewish Studies, the Department of Near Eastern Studies, and the Graduate Program in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology. Hendel approaches the Hebrew Bible from a variety of angles – history of religions, textual criticism, linguistics, comparative mythology, literature, and cultural memory. He is the editor-in-chief of The Hebrew Bible: A Critical Edition, a new critical edition of the Hebrew text, whose first volume (Proverbs, by Michael V. Fox) was published in 2015. He is also writing a new commentary on Genesis for the Yale Anchor Bible. In 1999, he received the Frank Moore Cross Publications Award from the American Schools of Oriental Research. His books include The Text of Genesis 1-11: Textual Studies and Critical Edition (Oxford, 1998), Remembering Abraham: Culture, History, and Memory in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford, 2005), Reading Genesis: Ten Methods (editor and contributor; Cambridge, 2010), The Book of Genesis: A Biography (Princeton, 2013), Steps to a New Edition of the Hebrew Bible (SBL Press, 2016), and How Old is the Hebrew Bible? A Linguistic, Textual, and Historical Study (Yale, 2018). (from the University of Berkeley website)

Summary: In this episode, Mark and Chris interview Ron Hendel about the following:
The Egyptian evidence for the Israelite Exodus
“Egyptianisms” in the Pentateuch
The historicity of the Exodus events and its importance to the Old Testament as a whole
The importance of the Exodus to Jewish and Christian believers and its connection to Passover and Easter

Additional Resources: 2021 Janzen, Mark (ed.). Five Views of the Exodus. Zondervan; Ron Hendel’s Academia page.

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Looking Behind the Scenes - Oliver Hersey & Chris McKinny

Episode: This episode discusses the importance of understanding the cultural backgrounds and context of the Bible for biblical interpretation. We look at examples from Egypt, Mesopotamian law, bedouin ethnography and more!

Hosts: Chris McKinny (Gesher Media) and Oliver Hersey (Jerusalem University College) 

Summary: In this episode, Chris and Oliver discuss the following:
1. The importance of cultural backgrounds for studying the Bible;
2. The example of Yahweh saving Israel with a strong “outstretched hand” as an appropriated motif of New Kingdom Egypt;
3. The example of bedouin ethnography (“the scientific description of the customs of individual peoples and cultures”) for understanding nomadic and semi-nomadic life in ancient Israel;
4. The example of the law of Exodus 21:22–25 regarding the restitution for the death of a pregnant woman or child in comparison with Mesopotamian and Hittite law codes. 

Additional Resources: Jerusalem University College (JUC); JUC Summer Institute; JUC Online; Context of Scripture in Accordance Bible Software; Seti I War Scenes from Hippostyle Hall Project; Mosaic Magazine 2015 Berman, Joshua. “Was there an Exodus?”; OnScript Clinton Bailey – Bedouin Culture in the Bible; TheTorah.com article comparing Biblical and Mesopotamian Law Codes.

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Image by Loretta Rossiter from Pixabay 

Archaeology of Passion Week (pt 3) - Kyle Keimer & Chris McKinny

Episode: This episode is the final installment in the 3-part archaeology of Passion Week discussion. Chris and Kyle take a detailed look at how archaeological finds in Jerusalem can help us better situate and understand the events of this fateful week. Chris and Kyle discuss the location of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial, the Garden Tomb, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and traditions about Jesus’ death and burial.

Hosts: Chris and Kyle

Resources: Archaeology of the Passion Week Bibliography; Archaeology of Passion Week Visuals (pt 3).

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Image by DEZALB from Pixabay 

 

Archaeology of Passion Week (pt 2) - Kyle Keimer & Chris McKinny

Episode: This episode is part-two of the three-part series on the archaeology of Passion Week. Chris and Kyle take a detailed look at how archaeological finds in Jerusalem can help us better situate and understand the events of this fateful week. They delve into the Gospel of John, the Last Supper, and Jesus’ trials.

Hosts: Chris and Kyle

Summary: Chris and Kyle discuss the following topics:
- Archaeology and the Gospel of John—the pools of Siloam and Bethesda
- The Garden of Gethsemane
- The room of the last supper
- Jesus’ Jewish and Roman trials
- Herod’s palace
- The Praetorium and Gabatha
- The Via Dolorosa.

Resources: Archaeology of the Passion Week Bibliography; Archaeology of Passion Week Visuals (pt 2).

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Image by Heather Truett from Pixabay

Archaeology of Passion Week (pt 1) - Kyle Keimer & Chris McKinny

Episode: This episode is the first of a three-part series on the archaeology of the Passion week. Chris and Kyle take a detailed look at how archaeological finds in Jerusalem can help us better situate and understand the events of this fateful week.

Hosts: Chris McKinny and Kyle Keimer

Summary: Chris and Kyle discuss the following topics:
- Traditions about the Passion Week
- How we connect the archaeology to the texts
- Dating and timing the events of the Passion Week
- Views of Jerusalem
- Jesus in the Temple
- Pontius Pilate and Archaeology

Resources: Archaeology of the Passion Week Bibliography; Archaeology of Passion Week Visuals (pt 1).

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