Biblical Time Machine

Support the show Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 produced by John Nelson. 

Babylon is one of the most famous cities and empires in human history. To many people, it conjures images of Hanging Gardens, the Tower of Babel, Nebuchadnezzar, and the exile of the Jewish people. But how much of this is historical fact, and how much of it is later mythology?  To get to the bottom of Babylon, Helen takes a trip in the time machine with our resident ancient historian, Professor Ll...

The Pharisees are among the most villainised groups in Jewish history. For centuries, Christians read them as legalists, religious hypocrites and bitter opponents of Jesus. But have we got the Pharisees all wrong?  To find out, Lloyd takes a trip in the Time Machine with our resident expert, Helen Bond, Professor of Christian Origins at the University of Edinburgh.  Drawing on a range of sources –...

Imitation is a huge part of the human experience, as we imitate role models and loved ones. Oscar Wilde called it the 'highest form of flattery'. But what did imitation – or mimesis – look like in early Christianity? To find out, Helen and Lloyd take a trip in the time machine with Professor Cornelis Bennema. They discuss what imitation meant in the ancient world, how the New Testament w...

Many of us think of the Bible as a book written in Hebrew and Greek, overlooking the important role of Aramaic—the lingua franca of much of the ancient Near East. In this episode, Helen and Lloyd climb into the Time Machine with Tawny Holm, one of the world's leading experts on Aramaic, to explore the language's history, literature, and cultural significance. Who spoke and wrote Aramaic?...

The book of Judges gives us some of the most intriguing and tragic characters in all of the Hebrew Bible: Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah and Samson. But what did it mean to be a 'judge' in ancient Israel? To find out, Helen and Lloyd take a trip in the Biblical Time Machine with Dr Brandon Hurlbert. Dr Brandon Hurlbert (PhD, Durham University) is a teaching fellow in Hebrew Bible and Ethics a...

King David is one of the most familiar figures in the Bible. Most people know him as the shepherd boy, the Psalmist and the underdog who steps up to defeat Goliath. But is this only one side to a much darker story? To find out, Helen and Lloyd take a trip in the Biblical Time Machine with Professor David Shepherd, who argues that David is not only a man of war, but a 'man of blood.'  Dav...

We tend to imagine that the gospels were written by Christians for other Christians. But this week, Helen and Lloyd take a trip with Dr Daniel Glover, who has argued that the figure we now call Luke was writing for a cadre of well-educated, cultural elites. This in turn shapes the way that he presents Jesus, conforming to a range philosophical and mythological tropes.  Daniel B. Glover is Assistan...

When we think of the Bible in the ancient world, we tend to think of bishops, priests and monks. But what did 'ordinary' people make of the Bible – and how did they engage with it? To find out, Helen and Lloyd take a trip in the Biblical Time Machine with Prof Lucy Grigg, an expert on ancient popular culture.  Lucy Grig is Professor of the History of Late Antiquity at the University of E...

The Song of Songs might be considered the Bible's steamiest book. But where would it sit on an ancient book shelf? Should we call it 'erotica'? And how did the book come to be associated with Solomon? To get to the bottom of this peculiar book, Helen and Lloyd are joined in the Biblical Time Machine by Professor Adele Berlin.  Adele Berlin is the Robin H. Smith Professor of Biblical...

One of the most distinctive aspects of John's gospel is his presentation of Jesus' miracles as semeia  – 'signs'. To get to the bottom of why John is so fond of semeia , Helen and Lloyd enter the time machine with leading Johannine scholar Catrin Williams. They discuss whether there are really seven signs in the gospel, how John's signs relate to scripture, and whether the...

How did people in biblical times imagine life after death? On this episode, Lloyd is joined in the time machine by Robert Garland for ancient tour of the afterlife. Drawing on a panoply of cultures – from Mesopotamia, Egypt and Persia to Greece, Rome, and early Christianity – Robert charts a map of what ancient people believed about death and the world beyond.  Robert Garland is a British historia...

Christians have long read the 'suffering servant' of Isaiah in reference to Jesus. But how did that connection come about? Was the servant originally a messianic figure who dies for sins? And how have Jews read the servant through history, all the way from Isaiah and Daniel to the present day?  To answer these questions, Helen and Lloyd are joined by  Amy Jill-Levine , the Rabbi Stanley...

In this Easter special, Prof Lloyd Lewellyn-Jones interviews our resident expert, Prof Helen Bond, on the evidence for Jesus' resurrection. They discuss the data about the resurrection in early Christian literature, whether there was an empty tomb, and various naturalistic attempts to explain the resurrection belief.  SUPPORT BIBLICAL TIME MACHINE If you enjoy the podcast, please (pretty plea...

What happened to Jesus on Easter Saturday? The apostles creed claims that Jesus 'descended into hell', reflecting a wider Christian motif called the 'Harrowing of Hell.' To find out more about this belief, Lloyd Lewellyn-Jones asks our resident expert, Helen Bond, who is currently writing a book on the subject. They explore questions like: Is the 'Harrowing of Hell' a...

We have all heard the story of Adam and Eve. But what was the Garden of Eden which they inhabited? In this week's episode, Helen and Lloyd travel back to the dawn of time with Dr Dylan Johnson as their guide to this mythical landscape. Together, they get to the bottom of questions like: Was the Garden of Eden meant to be a real place, or a symbolic vision of paradise? Is Genesis borrowing fro...

We have all heard rumours that ancient religions used children in ritual sacrifice. But did it really happen? To discuss the evidence, Helen and Lloyd are joined in the Time Machine by Dr Eve MacDonald, lecturer at Cardiff University and author of the acclaimed, Carthage: A New History of an Ancient Empire (Penguin, 2025).  Dr MacDonald answers questions like:  Did human sacrifice really occur in...

This week in the Biblical Time Machine, Helen and Lloyd travel back in time to hear and read Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke. Helping them to uncover the language is world-leading Jesus historian, Bruce Chilton, the Bernard Iddings Bell Profesosr of Religion at Bard College, NY.  Professor Chilton is the author of numerous books, including Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography and most recently, Ar...

This week in the Biblical Time Machine, Prof Lloyd Lewellyn-Jones sits down with Dr Charlie Hadjiev to discuss Hosea, one of the most evocative, troubling and hopeful books of the Hebrew Bible. They cover questions like:  When and where was Hosea written? How was adultery viewed in the ancient world?  How can Paul Ricour’s hermeneutics shed light on the text?  Does Hosea present God as an abusive...

Is love in the biblical air this Valentine's Day? To find out, Professors Helen Bond and Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones take a trip back to the biblical world. They discuss...  What is ‘love’ in the biblical imagination?  Is there romantic love in the ancient world?  Is Song of Songs a wedding Song?  How are Heriodas and Antipas anticipated by Ahab and Jezebel?  How have we misread David and Bathsheba...

The early Christian world was awash with the language of 'belief' ( pistis in Greek, fides in Latin). But what does it really mean to 'believe'? Today, we often use the word refer to an assent to a set of propositions: someone might believe that Jesus rose from the dead, or that he was born of a virgin. But is this what the language of belief meant to the early Christians, with...

How are Jesus and early Christianity portrayed on the big screen? To answer this question, Helen and Lloyd take a trip in the Biblical Time Machine with Dr Monica Cyrino, an expert on the reception of the classical world in film. Together, they explore 1950s classics such as Quo Vadis and The Robe, and see how these ‘epic Rome’ films are later parodied in Monty Python’s The Life of Brian. Monica S...

Many people only know the version of the non-canonical gospels popularised by Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code . The Church did away these 'lost' texts, and their recovery promises to reveal a more primitive version of Jesus that Orthodoxy suppressed. But how much truth is there to this narrative? What really are the non-canonical gospels? In this episode, Helen and Lloyd are joined by Sim...

We all know the story of the Magi: they were three kings who followed a star to Bethlehem. But what if this common nativity narrative gets it all wrong? To uncover who the Magi really  were, Helen and Lloyd take a trip in the Biblical Time Machine with Dr Eric Vanden Ekyel, author of the popular tome, The Magi: Who They Were, How They’ve Been Remembered (2022; Fortress Press).  Eric Vanden Eykel i...

The physical appearance of Jesus is more widely known and distinctive than any other. Yet this familiarity can lead us to overlook a curious fact: in the Gospels, it is never described. This week on the Biblical Time Machine, Helen and Lloyd ask the show's producer John Nelson about this mystery: is it surprising that the Gospels do not describe Jesus' physical appearance, and what might...