The Two Cities

In the second episode of our series on disability, we discuss blindness in the Hebrew Bible with Dr. Eric Harvey, who holds a PhD from Brandeis University in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, with a specialization in Bible and the Ancient Near East. Dr. Harvey also recently held a digital humanities post-doctoral fellowship at the center for spatial and textual analysis at Stanford University, and...

This episode is the first episode in our series on disability and theology, in which we’re joined by Prof. John Swinton, who is Chair of Divinity and Religious Studies and Professor of Theology at the University of Aberdeen (in Scotland). Prof. Swinton is also a Registered Mental Nurse (RMN) and a Registered Nurse for People with Learning Disabilities (RNMD), and the author of a number of books, i...

In this episode we talk about limits with Dr. Kelly Kapic, who is Professor of Theological Studies at Covenant College (in Lookout Mountain, Georgia), and the author of You’re Only Human: How Our Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News (published by Brazos). Over the course of our conversation, Dr. Kapic talks about the importance of human limitation and how it should be considered fr...

In this episode we’re joined by Dr. Christopher Watkin to talk about Biblical Critical Theory. Dr. Watkin is Senior Lecturer in French Studies at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and he’s the author of Biblical Critical Theory: How The Bible’s Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture (published by Zondervan). In our conversation, Dr. Watkin talks about how all critical theo...

In this episode we discuss whether "tongues" in 1 Corinthians refer to ecstatic and unintelligible speech, or whether they refer to multilingualism. For this conversation we’re joined by Dr. Ekaputra Tupamahu, who is Assistant Professor of New Testament at Portland Seminary and George Fox University, and the author of the new book that we’re discussing on this episode, Contesting Languages: Hetero...

In this episode we talk about Eusebius of Cesarea and his impact on the transmission of the four canonical Gospels with Dr. Jeremiah Coogan, who is Assistant Professor of New Testament at the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University, and the author of the new book, Eusebius the Evangelist: Rewriting the Fourfold Gospel in Late Antiquity (published by Oxford University Press). Dr. Coogan...

In this episode we review the recent annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. In the first half of the episode our team members share a bit about our respective highlights as well as the papers we presented, including the following team members from The Two Cities: Dr. John Anthony Dunne, Jennifer Guo, Dr. Brandon Hurlbert, Dr. Madison Pierce, Rev. Dr. Chris Porter, and Dr. Sydney Too...

In this episode we’re talking about Kintsugi & Justice with Haejin Shim Kintsugi, who is a lawyer who runs her own law firm in NYC, Shim & Associates, and an entrepreneur who has started four businesses, including Academy Kintsugi, which uses the Kintsugi method to teach people about the beauty of mending our brokenness to create something new as an act of co-creation that honors the origi...

In this episode we talk about forgiveness with Rev. Dr. Matthew Ichihashi Potts, who is Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard Divinity School, an ordained episcopal priest serving as the minister at the Memorial Church at Harvard, a co-host of the podcast, Harry Potter and the Sacred Text , and the author of the book we discuss on this episode, Forgiveness: An Alternative Account (publi...

In this episode we’re talking about Preaching to a Divided Nation with Rev. Dr. Paul Hoffman, who is lead pastor of Evangelical Friends Church of Newport in Rhode Island, an adjunct professor of homiletics at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and co-author with Matthew Kim of the book that we’re discussing today, Preaching to a Divided Nation: A Seven-Step Model for Promoting Reconciliation and...

In this episode we close out our series on Palestinian Liberation Theology by discussing Lament and Hope in the face of the occupation with Lamma Mansour, who is a Palestinian Christian from Nazareth currently pursuing her doctorate in social policy at Oxford University. Over the course of the conversation, we talk with Lamma about how the occupation affects higher education, and how that drives h...

In the penultimate episode of our series on Palestinian Liberation Theology, we talk about living in the shadow of Christian Zionism with Tony Deik, who is currently a residential researcher at Tyndale House in Cambridge, where he is working on his PhD research in New Testament, as well as a lecturer in Biblical Studies at Bethlehem Bible College, and a networking team member of the International...

In this episode we continue our series on Palestinian Liberation Theology talking about Women Behind The Wall with Shadia Qubti, who is a Palestinian Christian from Nazareth and has worked in peacebuilding and advocacy initiatives for 15 years in Israel and Palestine. She is the host of Women Behind the Wall, which features stories of women living in Israel and Palestine, and she is currently purs...

In this episode in our series on Palestinian Liberation Theology we discuss the intersectionality of the Palestinian experience by discussing matters of identity from a feminist perspective with Marah Sarji, who is a Christian Palestinian working on a master’s degree in Anthropology from Tel Aviv University. Over the course of the episode, Marah talks with us about the complexities of her identity...

In this episode we talk about Palestinian Liberation Theology with John Munayer, who is an instructor at Bethlehem Bible College, and who serves at Musalaha ministry, which promotes reconciliation between Palestinians and Israelis. In our conversation, John explains what Palestinian Liberation Theology is and how it relates to other forms of Liberation Theology by way of its similarities and disti...

In this episode we’re beginning a short series on Palestinian Liberation Theology, starting with a discussion on Zionism and the Nakba with Yousef AlKhouri, who is a Christian Arab Palestinian residing in Bethlehem, Palestine, where he is a lecturer in Biblical Studies and Mission at Bethlehem Bible College, and he is currently working on his doctorate in contextual interpretation at Vrije Univers...

In this episode we talk about the role of art and the imagination in shaping empathy with Dr. Mary McCampbell, Associate Professor of Humanities at Lee University in Tennessee and the author of Imagining our Neighbors as Ourselves: How Art Shapes Empathy (published by Fortress). As Dr. McCampbell explains, the origin for the idea of the book is the quote by Graham Greene, “Hate was just a failure...

In this episode we are joined by Rev. Dr. Amy Peeler, associate professor of New Testament at Wheaton College, to talk about her forthcoming book, Women and the Gender of God (published by Eerdmans on October 4th). Over the course of our conversation, Rev. Dr. Peeler explains that this book is trying to address where women fit in the family of God by looking primarily to Mary, the Mother of God. F...

In this episode we turn to discuss the intertextual relationship of Disaster Films and the Bible as an epilogue to our series on Jesus films with Dr. Michelle Fletcher, who used film theory to analyze citations of the Hebrew Bible in Revelation in her book, Reading Revelation as Pastiche: Imitating the Past  (with Bloomsbury T&T Clark). Dr. Fletcher is Research Fellow at King’s College, L...

In this episode we close out our Jesus film series with a discussion on the pedagogical value of films generally in teaching the Gospels with the Rev. Canon Dr. Robert Derrenbacker, who is Frank Woods Associate Professor in New Testament at Trinity College, Melbourne. Over the course of our discussion, we talk broadly about Christ figures in film in addition to proper Jesus films. Dr. Derrenbacker...

In this penultimate episode of our Jesus film series, we talk about the enemies of Jesus in Jesus films with Prof. Adele Reinhartz, who is Professor in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa, and the author of a number of important studies on Jesus films and Bible films, including: Jesus of Hollywood (Oxford University Press) and Bible and Cinema (Routledge)....

In this episode of our Jesus Film series, we’re talking about costuming with Dr. Katie Turner. Dr. Turner is an independent scholar who completed her PhD at King’s College, London and has a forthcoming monograph, entitled, Costuming Christ (with T&T Clark). Over the course of our conversation we discussed the difference between ancient clothing and modern costuming in Jesus films, what evidenc...

Continuing our series on Jesus films, we are joined in this episode by Dr. Siobhán Jolley to discuss the representation of Mary Magdalene. Dr. Jolley recently completed her PhD at the University of Manchester with a thesis entitled, “Reimaging the Magdalene: Liberative Reception Criticism and the Counter-Reformation Magdalene.” In our conversation Dr. Jolley talks to us about how little we actuall...

In this episode we discuss the relationship of scholarship on the Gospels and the historical Jesus with Dr. Mark Goodacre, who is Frances Hill Fox professor of Religious Studies at Duke University, the author of a number of important studies on the historical Jesus, the Gospels, particularly the Synoptic Problem, and the Gospel of Thomas, and the creator of one of the original biblioblogs, called...

In this episode of our Jesus film series, we turn to discuss the art and theology that informs depictions of Jesus with Dr. Richard Walsh, who is Womack Professor of Philosophy and Religion and the Co-Director of the Honors Program at Methodist University. He’s also the author of a number of books on Jesus films, including Reading the Gospels in the Dark (Trinity Press International) and, more rec...