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The Bible Geek Podcast 17-027 Aug 01, 2017

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Amy Jill Levine says that Jews do not think that Jesus Christ was the messiah because he did not usher in the messianic age. What do you think? Regarding Jesus cursing the fig tree: might it be a condemnation of Rome for failing to embrace Christianity? What do you think the "real" meaning of Matthew 16:23 (Jesus rebuking Peter as Satan) could be? Christian Lindtner on Capernaum and Kapilavastu. Did Christianity make the world a better place than it had been, or not? Midrash vsÂ pesherÂ â?? which is the better term?Â Or, how to use the terms properly if they differ on shades of meaning? Since many people in the Mediterranean believed in 2 Gods (an evil creator God and a "version 2.0" good God) isn't it likely that Jesus was created to be the good god then he was historicized?

The Bible Geek Podcast 17-026 Jul 31, 2017

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Could you elaborate your understanding of the difference between atheism and agnosticism? Does the Bible tilt more toward predestination or free will? If belief were truly the sole requirement for salvation, belief in WHAT, exactly? What is the meaning of â??the marrow of saltâ?? in the Ninth Enochian Key? What happened to the different levels of heaven in Christian thought? Reza Aslan says: â??I am not a Muslim because I think Islam is right or that Islam is true, whereas other religions are not. All religions are merely languages.â?? It seems to me that Aslan is just speaking what my parents would call a watered down, "love everybody, there is no right or wrong" kind of inclusive religion, which is separate from the reality of historical Christianity or Islam. Am I missing something?

The Bible Geek Podcast 17-025 Jul 29, 2017

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A new study suggests that the Lebanese are descendants of the ancient Canaanites. How does this affect, if at all, the theory that the ancient Canaanites were just a literary device to illustrate the old ways of the Jews that they were abandoning? As I understand 1 John 4:1-3, it says that 'true' prophecies agree with what the Johannine community already believes! Then whatâ??s the use? Did Ecclesiastes, so different from the rest of the Bible, survive against the odds because of their profundity? Might the biblical stories of God changing his mind intend to instruct monarchs, showing that even God listens to his priests sometimes, implying that the ruler needs to listen to the priests who are recording these stories? Is entering the Christian heaven any different from entering the Borg collective? If you had to pick one of the two which would you join? In the movie The Ten Commandments, at the parting of the Red Sea, the IsraelitesÂ fear God but worship him. Â Does fear become love in any other Bible stories?Â In view of the Render unto Caesar story, why would any denomination of currency have political imagery in a Christian country i.e. England?Â How is it that Jesus of Nazareth was considered Jewish but the good Samaritan and the Samaritan woman were not? A professor stated that Bible inerrancy is a fairly new concept, a backlash against a growing secular movement in the mid to late 1700's to 1800's. Is this true?

The Bible Geek Podcast 17-024 Jul 28, 2017

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Should we just understand the Eden story as about kings and subjects and the former wanting to keep their power and position, and the later wanting freedom? How different was Israelite religion from Canaanite paganism? When major characters in the NT such as apostles have multiple names, is this simple a device to combine different characters? Were the originally sinless Mary and Jesus like the sinless Eve and Adam and thus capable of falling into sin? What are we to make of modern miracle reports? Should we dogmatically reject them a priori?

The Bible Geek Podcast 17-023 Jul 19, 2017

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Is the first person narration in Nehemiah an actual memoir? Was the Gospel of Mark possibly a satire? When Mosesâ?? spies report that the Canaanites are unconquerable giants, are they just making phony excuses, â??tall talesâ??? What is going on with Saul, Samuel, and the Witch of Endor? Was it a demon impersonating Samuel? Donâ??t conventional theologians have to do a lot of text-twisting to escape the implications of passages in which God "repents" or "changes his mind" or is otherwise convinced of an argument by one of his prophets? Do the gospels ever depict Jesus as gradually discovering his own divinity? Are modern Pentecostals like ancient Montanists? Jehovahâ??s Witnesses like ancient Arians? Have the "heresies" of the early church always carried on, just morphing from one sect to another with a new face? Was the ancient rabbinic decree that prophecy ceased with Malachi motivated by the desire to demean more recent writings with ideas that didn't please the Jewish orthodoxy then emerging?

The Bible Geek Podcast 17-022 Jul 17, 2017

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Why does Islamic tradition identify the Prophet Idris (the Biblical Enoch) with Hermes Trismegistus? What is the significance of the number 144,000 (Rev 7:4)? Can you give a quick run-down on the history of ideas of salvation in Christianity? Could you please give a survey of the topic of Christology, including both orthodox and heterodox perspectives? I have read that early opponents of Christianity claimed Jesus was a magician who learned his tricks in Egypt. Who were these opponents?

The Bible Geek Podcast 17-021 Jul 03, 2017

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Do you have a book that goes in detail about the theory that the ancient Israelites were the Canaanites? Is there a possibility that the ancient Israelites were black people? And what are your thoughts about the current Jews in Israel being Khazars? Does the Star of David survive from ancient Israelite star worship? When did the geometric designs known as star polygons, primarily the pentagram and the hexagram, actually become associated with the celestial bodies we call stars? Was Yahweh circumcised? What do you make of Gurdieffâ??s student Maurice Nicoll and his approach to the Bible? If Christianity sprang from disparate groups, might their founders have been amalgamated into the gospel Jesus with all his incompatible features? Do you think it possible that early Christians shot themselves in the foot, when in their zeal to rid themselves of texts that might lead to heresy, they destroyed genuine evidence, even if negative, for the existence of a historical Jesus? What would you make of the passages that seem to show Jesus advocating for a life of voluntary poverty?

The Bible Geek Podcast 17-020 Jun 20, 2017

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If Mark meant us to understand Jesusâ?? baptism as the messianic anointing by Elijah, wouldnâ??t this fend off the â??criterion of embarrassmentâ??? What would have happened if the Marcionite sect became the dominant and orthodox version of the church and how much different would Christianity today be because of it? In John 19:26 + 27, Jesus, on the cross, says to his mother "Woman, behold your son" and to a disciple standing by Mary "Behold your Mother". These two statements sound so human and vulnerable in their utterance, can this be the Son of God? Kim Lewis on the Synagogue of Satan. Galatians uses "Kephas" in 1:18, 2:9, 2:11 and 2:14, but "Petros" at 2:7 and 2:8. Are 2:7b and 2:8 are an interpolation, adding Peter's credentials as an apostle to the Jews? If Jesus hadn't been put to death on the cross, but had instead died of old age, would God have still raised him from the dead? And if so, would that death and resurrection have had the same supposed effect? Was Polycarp a student & colleague of John? What do you think about UFOs? Some say that it says in the "original manuscripts" that when Jesus says, "in my fatherâ??s house are many mansions (John 14:2)," the original words "house" and "mansions" were actual "cosmos" and "worlds," respectively. Is this true? Do you think John the Baptist ate locusts (egkrides), or pancakes (akrides)?

The Bible Geek Podcast 17-019 May 31, 2017

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Could Jesus have fasted for 40 days if he did it the way Copts do today; eating after sundown? Might Markâ??s pericope â??Leaven of the Phariseesâ?? (Mark 8:13-21) be rebuking Jewish Christian readers for not accepting Pauline doctrine? How tenable is the Christian worldview with the Arts, since so much of it is predicated on the world being sinful? Someone contended that theology has not advanced at all in the last 100 years. But is that true? Please comment on the Orthodox Church. Why was Noah needed to save the human race when at least one other man, the righteous Enoch) had the credentials to stay God's wrath? And why did Enoch not die but Noah does? Was Terah was alive or dead when Abram left Haran? If it does imply he died than the math doesn't add up. Why does Abram pray only at groves of trees? Though Lot tells his family to flee the city, he himself lingers. Why? In Genesis 24:24 Rebecca answers the servant, â??I am the daughter of Bethuel the son of Micah, whom she bore to Nahor.â?? Did people really introduce themselves in such a grotesquely long manner? In Gen. 31:13 how can the God of Bethel be the God of Abraham & Isaac when this same God of Bethel was with Jacob this whole time? In Gen. 35:1 God tells Jacob to go to Bethel to the God who appeared to him and make an alter. Doesn't this imply polytheism? In Gen. 39:9 how could a slave actually be greatest in the house? In Gen. 39:22-23 how does a prisoner end up being in charge of the prison essentially? In Gen. 40:8, why would they seek an interpreter of dreams in a dungeon to begin with? Is the point of the Joseph story to urge Jews to live as â??a light unto the Gentilesâ??? How come in Mark 13 Jesus does not know the time of the End but in Revelation he does?

The Bible Geek Podcast 17-018 May 21, 2017

Show notes

If the gospels are not trustworthy historical accounts of Jesus, what did the early church fathers think they were talking about? Ignatius is said to have been a disciple of the Apostle John; surely Ignatius would know the real truth behind the gospel narratives, and therefore not treat them as being true accounts?Â 1 Samuel 5:9 of the Douay-Rheims translation adds to the end of the story of the hemorrhoid plague in Gath:Â â??And the Gethites consulted together, and made themselves seats of skins.â?? What is the manuscript evidence for this? Was there a real point to the testing of Jesus in the desert?Â Re Luke 19:23-28, I have always read the lineÂ â??Bring hither, and slay them before me,â?? as meant to be spoken after the close of the parable; in other words, by Jesus in his own voice, and not Jesus as narrator. What do you think? In your opinion, who is The Beloved Disciple? I have heard that Philo of Alexandria and Paul knew one another. If so, doesn't this lend credence that Paul's Jesus is in fact the celestial Jesus to which Dr. Richard Carrier attests? What are the odds that the Paul of "The Acts of Paul and Thecla" is closer to the real Paul than the one portrayed in "Luke/Acts" Dr. Natalie Houghtby-Haddon said that many scholars think the apocalyptic aspects of Jesus probably weren't applied to him until the fall of Jerusalem in 70, and thus would not have been a part of any historical Jesus' message or ideology. Does that sound correct to you? Could you recommend a book or books that do a good job explaining the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and any other groups or subgroups: where they come from, what they believed and practiced, how influential they seemed to have been and with whom, etc.?

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