OnScript

Episode: In this episode Chris Tilling interviews Marty Folsom about his new book, Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics for Everyone  (Zondervan Academic). What is it about Barth’s Church Dogmatics that is considered so important? What’s the “big deal”? And how to approach such a massive set of volumes? How to navigate around the highways and byways of this text that sprawls almost 8,500 pages and 6,000,...

Episode: In this episode, Dru Johnson talks with Australian scholar Christopher Seglenieks about why Greco-Roman devotion practices must be included in discussions about "faith" and "belief" in the Johannine corpus. Guest: Chris is the author of Johannine Belief and Graeco-Roman Devotion (Mohr Siebeck, 2020). He studies and teaches biblical studies (NT and Greek), and has interests in the Gospel o...

Episode: What was the sacrifice of Jesus for the NT Jewish authors? A barbaric execution? A violent bloodletting of a scapegoat? Christian Eberhart claims that the NT authors did not conceive or talk about the crucifixion as a primarily violent act. Rather, they conceptualized it as a sacrifice, in the same conceptual world of oil, wheat, salt, and livestock. Dru Johnson and Christian Eberhart dis...

Episode: Richard Middleton thinks that Abraham should've talked back to God when he asked him to sacrifice his son. Today we discuss lament, the example of Job, and Abraham as a counterexample to Job (and himself in Gen 18). Guest: J. Richard Middleton is Professor of Biblical Worldview and Exegesis at Roberts Wesleyan College. He's the author of: Abraham's Silence: The Binding of Isaac, The Suffe...

Episode: Leviticus might be the only book in the Bible that many Christians will openly and casually admit that they do not like (or, it’s their “least favorite). Dru Johnson and Mark Scarlata discuss his recent book, A Journey Through the World of Leviticus: Holiness, Sacrifice, and the Rock Badger, making Leviticus accessible to Christians. Scarlata also gives some insights into his forthcoming...

Episode: Paul Spilsbury knew Josephus personally ... or at least he's spent so much time with him that it's almost as if he did. In this episode we talk about Josephus' writings, identity, and how understanding Josephus helps us understand the New Testament. We also discuss Christianity in Turkey, the book of Acts, and much more! Guest: Dr. Paul Spilsbury (PhD, Cambridge) is Academic Dean and Prof...

Episode: If you've appreciated John Barclay's monumental work on grace, Paul and the Gift , then you'll be delighted to see how Enoch Okode's work presses beyond Barclay into new territory. Drawing on ancient ideals regarding royal benefaction, Okode shows that the Christ is both the gift and the giver. What emerges is a more cohesive way to read Paul's letter to the Romans Co-hosted by Matt Bates...

Episode: Matt discusses Romans with Aaron Sherwood, who has written a whopping huge Romans commentary. They discuss the book's rhetorical aims and literary flow, the troubling "hardening" of Israel in Rom 9-11, and why the real deal is in Romans 12-16. Guest: Aaron Sherwood (Ph. D. Durham University) served as a biblical studies professor in Virginia, The Bahamas, and New York, between 2011-2016....

Episode: These are times of deep division and disruption. Saying so is almost as obvious as saying, "The sky is blue." But finding a way to dialogue through division and disruption is perplexing business, and can be dispiriting! However, the Psalms offer a profound model of holding tensions, diverse viewpoints, and conflicting ideas within one songbook, and also model creative dialogue with a wide...

Episode: What happens to us as we read violent stories in the Bible? How do violent stories form us ethically? Amy Cottrill discusses everything from overly violent stories, to places where violence is "around the corner," about to emerge, to understand the complex moral reality of biblical stories. We discuss moral injury, violence against women, the tiresome performance of masculinity, immigrati...

Episode: Dru and Erin chat with Lisa Bowens about her groundbreaking work on African American reception of the Pauline epistles from the early 18th to the mid-20th century. In her book, Lisa sets out to answer the question "What happens when African Americans are at the center of Pauline interpretation," and the results of her study are rich and rewarding. Join us for a conversation about this imp...

Episode: Michael Gorman, renowned Pauline scholar, has now penned a commentary on Romans. The commentary is for a diverse audience, including pastors and students. So OnScript co-host Matthew Bates, who is presently teaching a course on Romans, gets special assistance from his current students to ask Mike a smorgasbord of questions. Join us for this especially student friendly episode. Guest: Prof...

Episode: Matt talks with Reed Carlson about conceptions of the person in the Old Testament and Second Temple literature, and specifically, the significance of the spirit/Spirit when thinking about the self. We talk about farts, the medium of Endor, election, charismatic spirituality, God's character in the Old Testament, and much more related to his book Unfamiliar Selves in the Hebrew Bible: Poss...

Episode: In this episode, co-host Amy Hughes talks with Karen O'Donnell about her new book, The Dark Womb: Reconceiving Theology Through Reproductive Loss . There are books that re-evaluate or re-imagine or re-invigorate theology, and then there are books that reveal theology’s silence, presumption, and lack and faces those problems head on. This book falls in the latter category - breaking the th...

Episode: In this episode Chris Tilling interviews Justus Geilhufe about his book, the Gnade als trinitarisches Sein: Bruce McCormacks Theologie in ihrer Entwicklung aus analytischer und konstruktiver Barthrezeption . Yes, I think this is our first interview about a German language book, but Geilhufe is up to the job and waxes lyrical in conversation with prose many English-only speakers would envy...

Episode: This episode involves a rich discussion with Brittany Kim and Charlie Trimm about three book's they've written. We first discuss their co-authored book about the discipline of Old Testament theology, including the challenges of relating the two testaments and descriptive vs. normative theology. Then we discuss Brittany's book on Isaiah's familial and servant metaphors, including gendered...

Episode: Have you ever longed for a biblically-rooted theology of child-rearing but didn't know where to turn? Prof. Ervine Sheblazm understands the pain that parents feel as they try to rear their offspring in a complex and troubling postmodernistic society. He wrote this book for Dave, his colleague, but Dave isn't the only one who will benefit. Sheblazm's biblically nuanced, scientifically-base...

Episode: Pour yourself a wee dram of whisky and tune in as Matt and Dru talk with Iain Provan about the perils and benefits of literal(istic) interpretation of Scripture and his new book The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture  (Baylor, 2017). In addition to some great convo, in this episode you'll witness the special guest appearance of an Eastern European thought leader, and a new edi...

Episode: In this episode, Chris Tilling interviews David Artman, author of Grace Saves All: The Necessity of Christian Universalism (Wipf and Stock). Rich in exegetical claims, Artman boldly proposes that Christian Universalism isn’t simply a possible option, but a necessity to adequately account for the goodness of God. Artman is not defending – to quote Brad Jersak in his foreword – a “sloppy po...

Episode: In this episode we go back to theological basics. What is a creed? What is a creed for? Co-host Amy Hughes talks with Ben Myers about his book on the Apostles' Creed and it's companion children's book . We discuss what it was like to write theology for an adult audience and for children. This episode also features a short interview with the illustrator, Natasha Kennedy.   Ben Myers: Ben o...

Episode Details: We're digging back into the archives to the very beginning to bring you this inaugural OnScript episode from 2016, which features Dr. Munther Isaac of Bethlehem Bible College in Bethlehem, Palestine. He discusses his book From Land to Lands, From Eden to the Renewed Earth: A Christ-Centered Biblical Theology of the Promised Land (Langham Monographs, 2015). I (Matt Lynch) met Munth...

Episode: What lies beneath Jerusalem? Join Kyle and Chris as they interview  Andrew Lawler  about his excellent and exciting new book  Under Jerusalem: the Buried History of the World’s Most Contested City (also available via Audible.com  as an audio book). In this interview, we discuss a variety of issues that Lawler covers in his book - he also gives some personal reflections on the writing and...

 Episode: Andy Abernethy talks about finding new ways of reading Isaiah, his new book Discovering Isaiah , as well as life in the academy, his dad's career in the NBA, influential figures in his life, and much more. Guest: Dr. Andy Abernethy is Associate professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College. He’s the author of Eating in Isaiah (Brill, 2014); The Book of Isaiah and God’s Kingdom (IVP, 2016...

Episode: In this episode, Chris Tilling chats with Prof. Douglas Harink about his new book, Resurrecting Justice: Reading Romans for the Life of the World (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2020). The book presents a complete reading of Romans in light of the justice revealed in the gospel. So Harink’s book covers a lot of hotly debated ground relating to definitions of the “good news”, the Holy Trinit...

Episode: A meditation on Song of Songs 8:6-7 , a poem about love and death, written and narrated by Brent Strawn. This is from our podcast In Parallel. For future episodes, please subscribe wherever you listen ( Apple Podcasts , Spotify ). In Parallel is a new podcast that explores biblical and contemporary poetry. For more information about the podcast, see  HERE  and to learn more about Brent, s...