The Bible For Normal People

We brought in Tripp Fuller, host of the podcast Homebrewed Christianity, to share his perspective on the Jesus of history and the Christ of theology and its relevancy in our lives today.  Show Notes → Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Wondering how Jared and his wife, Sarah, have navigated parenting amidst their transitions of faith? They cover what they tell their kids about Christianity, the Bible, and how their parenting is different because of it.  Show Notes → Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Why were the stories of the Bible written down? On this episode Amanda Mbuvi shares about how the Bible plays a role in identity formation and how that affects how we read it.  Show Notes → Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Why is Bible inerrancy so hard for people to give up? Pete and Jared dive into some possible explanations and take a look at the history of the belief that the Bible is inerrant.  Show Notes → Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We love a good discussion on the formation of the Bible. Listen in as we talk to scholar Richard Elliott Friedman about the various texts that make up the Hebrew Bible, what clues we have to date them, and what makes the Bible a unique work of writings.  Show Notes → Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There’s many difficult stories the Bible but one people struggle with the most are those dealing with the death of children. On this episode, we are joined by Maria Doerfler who shares rich perspectives on the stories of Jephthah’s daughter, the sacrifice of Isaac, and how people throughout history have interpreted them.  Show Notes → Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adch...

We had a great conversation with Nadia Bolz-Weber about what is compelling about Christianity, why we all need to stop trying so hard, and what in the world there is to be hopeful about.  Show Notes → Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode we are answering some of the most asked questions on our Ask Pete page. We get into a lot of topics like how other cultures interpret Jesus, how normal people can study the Bible on their own, and how we make meaning out of the Bible.  Show Notes → Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Praying can feel difficult during hard times and especially after a faith deconstruction. Sarah Bessey joins us on this episode of the podcast to talk about what inspired her to write a book on prayer and shares what has been helpful in her discovery of what it means to pray.  Show Notes → Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It shouldn’t be a surprise to us now that people can read the same text and walk away with vastly different meanings. On this episode of the podcast, we’re talking with Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Brettler who share some reasons why Jews and Christians use and understand the Bible in different ways.  Show Notes → Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

James Kugel is back on the podcast sharing about how people during the biblical period understood God and how their views changed overtime. How does their understanding of God influence our understandings today? Show Notes → Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We’re back with Season 5! On this episode, Pete shares what makes Christianity distinct for him. He discusses the beginning of the Jesus movement, explains how New Testament writers probably understood their faith, and how first century Christians made sense of Jesus’ crucifixion.  Show Notes → Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

2020— What a year. We’re wrapping up the year and the fourth season of the podcast with a look back onto what we learned from this season and from the year as a whole. Show Notes → Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode features linguist and professor Christopher Rollston who helps us understand the importance of studying languages when it comes to dating and understanding the Bible. We talk about other ancient Near Eastern languages, biblical manuscripts, inscriptions, and more! Show Notes → Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Many of us have encountered a type of Christianity that preaches an impending rapture and a call to repent of our sins as soon as possible. But where did that interpretation of Christianity come from? On this episode we ask psychology doctoral student Dan Koch what he’s learned from studying the movement and the history behind it.  Show Notes → Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoice...

How has theology developed alongside the findings of science? On this episode, Pete is sharing his reflections on what quantum physics and the theory of evolution tell us about the Bible and how we should interpret it light of scientific findings. Show Notes → Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Benjamin D. Sommer is back on the podcast telling us all about his work on a biblical understanding of God’s body. He takes us through the history of thought on God’s body, the material God’s body is made out of, what God looks like, and how the Trinity actually has a lot of continuity with texts of the Hebrew Bible.  Show Notes → Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoice...

Jared has been breaking down Jonah for us on his solo episodes this year and this is his last segment! He delves into what the over all message of Jonah is, what questions it leaves us with, and what it teaches us about the questions of ancient Israelites.  Show Notes → Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We invited Emilie Townes on the podcast to talk about womanist ethics but our conversation morphed into so much more. We touched on the role of the Bible in ethics, the relevance of the Bible in our lives today, and why it is important to chose hope.  Show Notes → Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this reissued episode, Pete and Jared sit down with Austen Hartke to discuss what the Bible has to say about transgender people. They get into unexamined Bible passages, mysterious Hebrew words, and how to make your church a welcoming space for people with gender identities outside of the binary.  Show Notes → Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Getting into the Halloween spirit? Don’t miss this spooky episode talking about all things apocalypse in Second Temple Judaism! Our guest Martha Himmelfarb is an expert on the subject and she tells us all about the key features of apocalyptic literature, some theories on its popularity, and shares about some apocalyptic literature that didn’t make it into the Bible.  Show Notes → Learn more about...

This episode is the second installment of Jared’s deep dive (no pun intended) into the book of Jonah. In this episode, Jared gives us a taste of how rich this book is in metaphors and how a fuller understanding of the ancient Near East brings out the context of this book.  Show Notes → Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

John Franke joins the podcast to discussing his new book, Missional Theology. John shares some key components of missional theology and discusses how to overcome plurality, what evangelizing looks like through a missional lens, and why the church needs the world.  Show Notes → Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We are so excited about the Everyday Life in Ancient Israel class Cynthia is teaching for us we just had to reissue her podcast episode from back in season 2. Cynthia talks with Pete and Jared about what she does as an archaeologist, how it has informed her view of the Bible, her favorite finds, and more!  Show Notes → Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What separated Judaism from the Christian movement during the Second Temple Period? In this episode, Paula Fredriksen breaks down the beginnings of the Jesus movement and how it came to flourish. She gets into what religion looked like in the broader culture, how religion was defined, and what clues people left behind for us to know these things.  Show Notes → Learn more about your ad choices. Vis...