The Bible You Thought You Knew

This story is narrated in John 7.  In this episode, Jesus’ own biological brothers urge him to attend the Feast of Tabernacles which will be held in Jerusalem.  At the time, Jesus was in the Galilee area in the north.  He had been facing hostility in the south.  Jesus tells his brothers, “No.”  Later, Jesus goes to the Feast.  At first, he does not nothing openly.  Later, he shows up in the temple...

In this last installment, the Ark of God comes back to Israel.  This allows an opportunity for repentance and amendment of life.  Prior to this, a number of Israelites were struck down for looking in the Ark!  When Israel is repenting, the Philistines try a sneak attack.  But God prevents them.  When Israel’s army went up against the Philistine army, the results were disastrous.  When they confron...

In this episode Eli’s daughter-in-law goes into premature labor due to the Ark of God’s being captured.  She dies in childbirth, but is able to name the baby.  The name, Ichabod, means “The Glory is Gone.”  As the episode continues, the Philistines gloat about the ark.  But it wreaks havoc in Philistia for six months, at which time the Philistines send the ark back to Israel.  They do it in such a...

 It is based on 1 Samuel 4:1-18.  In this episode, Samuel is poised to speak, but says nothing.  In fact, he does not even appear in what follows.  Instead, Israel and Philistia square off in battle.  Inexplicably, Israel loses.  Figuring that God had not shown up, the Israelites make sure that God appears by bringing the Ark of God into the next battle.  Israel nevertheless loses again.  Worse, E...

It is based on 1 Samuel 3.  In this episode, Samuel begins as an apprentice priest and ends up as a prophet recognized by all Israel.  In the story itself, God calls out to Samuel four times.  The first two times, neither Samuel nor Eli have a clue about who is speaking.  The third time, though, Eli perceives that the voice belongs to God.  When God calls to Samuel for a fourth time, the deity ann...

It is based on 1 Samuel 2.  In this episode, Hannah prays.  In this prayer she not only praises God but also presents God as a God of reversals.  Simply, God trumps human conventional power with unconventional power.  After the prayer, we learn that Samuel is growing religiously, that Eli blesses Hannah and her husband, that this blessing eventuates in more children, that Eli’s sons were corrupt p...

n this episode, only a single family is in focus: Elkanah and his two wives: Hannah and Peninnah.  Hannah was childless; Peninnah had sons and daughters.  Peninnah made Hannah’s life miserable because of this circumstance.  When the family was in Shiloh worshipping, Hannah prayed that her situation be reversed.  Eventually, that prayer was answered and subsequently she gave birth to a son: Samuel....

Text: Acts 1:15-26.  In this story, Peter and the fledging community of Jesus’ followers needed to replace the disgrace Judas to ensure that the twelve apostles are able to sustain that number.  Twelve is significant in that Jesus’ mission was to the lost house of Israel.  The twelve disciples correspond to the twelve tribal units of Israel.  The group did two things to discern God’s will: Pray an...

  In this Podcast, I suggest that the differences among these accounts are not the result of faulty eyewitnesses.  Instead, they have to do with the differing theological perspectives of the various Gospels.  Attempts to harmonize these texts are ill-advised.  This is because harmonization creates a text that no one wrote or read.  The Christian community canonized not a harmony of the Gospels, bu...

This story is found in John 20—21.  Mary Magdalen goes to the tomb, finds the stone rolled away, and dashes off to tell Simon Peter and another disciple.  The two disciples run to the tomb themselves.  They both notice graveclothes, but no corpse.  The other disciple believed, but what he believed is unspecified.  They then go home.  Mary stays around and enters the tomb, whereupon she sees two an...

  This story derives from chapter 24.  It begins with several women going to Jesus’ tomb with spices.  When they arrive, the stone to the entrance has been removed.  The women look it, but see no body.  Instead, they encounter two men who want to know why the women are looking for the dead among the living.  Astounded, the women go to the disciples and other followers of Jesus to tell them what ha...

 In this Gospel, the accent is on disbelief and doubt.  The women who first went to the tomb were afraid to tell anyone what they had encountered, even though the young man in a white robe had told them that Jesus was risen.  In the longer version of the chapter (Mark 16), the details are markedly different but the outcome is the same.  Mary Magdalene did report what she saw but no one believed he...

This is the first of a four-part series in which I deal with the various resurrection stories of the four canonical gospels.  Matthew’s version is recounted in Matthew 28.  Unique to this gospel, however, is the two earthquakes, one happening at the point of Jesus’ death (in Matthew 27) and a second one caused by a descending angel who rolled back the stone covering the tomb.  Also unique is the i...

In this presentation, Jesus explains what it means that he is the living bread that results in eternal life.  There are overtones of eucharistic activities, revelatory ideas, and ways of relating to Jesus by means of this bread.  Believing Jesus and eating his flesh and drinking his blood are part of this.  Of course, the crowd does not get this teaching.  Jesus is an ordinary man—everyone knows h...

This account is found in John 6.  Even though a story in which Jesus feeds a large crowd with meager sources occurs in all four Gospels, the account John is unique.  For example, in this story Jesus distributes the bread and fish himself.  In the other Gospels, Jesus has his disciples do this.  Plus, in this story the crowd seems more interested in a miracle that involves a free lunch than a sign...

In this episode, Elijah’s deity shows up and consumes the sacrifice with fire.  As though this were not startling enough, the sacrifice and the wood had been drenched.  This demonstration had the intended effect, namely, the Israelites acknowledged their God was indeed God.  Afterwards, Elijah slaughters the prophets of Baal!  Then, the prophet outruns King Ahab to Jezreel, even though the king is...

  This episode is narrated in 1 Kings 18.  It is the famous contest on Mt. Carmel.  This story also features Obadiah, a man who serves both Ahab and Israel’s God.  Obadiah was the one who told King Ahab that Elijah wanted to meet him.  Of course, Obadiah was worried that Elijah might get cold feet and not appear.  Elijah convinced Obadiah otherwise.  When Ahab and Elijah met, they traded insults. ...

  In this story, Elijah denounces King Ahab of Israel, threatening that God is about to induce a drought.  This forces the prophet to flee the king’s wrath.  God directs the prophet to go to a place where there is enough water.  Ravens would supply food!  Soon, though, that area is depleted by the drought.  So, God orders the prophet to go into Canaanite territory.  God had commanded a widow to ta...

In this episode, Joseph’s ten brothers arrive in Egypt to buy food. He immediately recognizes them, but they do not recognize him. Immediately, he accuses them of being spies. They insist that they are honest men, ten of twelve brothers, one of whom is dead and the youngest of whom is still with their father, Jacob. Joseph demands that one of the brothers return to Canaan and fetch the other broth...

In this episode of the Joseph story as narrated in Genesis 37—50, Joseph has been thrown into prison after having been set up by Potiphar’s wife, who accused him of rape. But in prison God was with Joseph, which meant at least that he caught the eye of the warden. This led the warden to make Joseph a custodian in the prison. In time, two men—a butler and a baker--who worked for the Pharoah were im...

In this episode Joseph’s relatively cushy job of taking care of Potiphar’s household was destroyed. It came about because of Potiphar’s wife, who had an eye for the handsome Joseph. She crudely invited him to bed, which Joseph politely declined. But she would not take “no” for an answer. Once, when she and Joseph were alone, she again made a play for him, but this time by grabbing his garment. Jos...

In this episode, Joseph finds his brothers who, at first, plot to kill him, but eventually sell him into slavery. Reuben’s efforts to save the lad failed. To cover their tracks, the brothers kill a goat and smear its blood on Joseph’s coat. Then, they show the coat to Jacob, who immediately recognizes it. Jacob cannot be consoled. In the meantime, Joseph is sold to an important Egyptian official a...

The story features one of the younger sons of Jacob, who favors this son over his other sons. Jacob’s partiality makes his other sons despise Joseph. The situation gets worse when Joseph has dreams, the import of which is that he will eventually rule over his own family. When the brothers go to Shechem to take care of their sheep, the tone-deaf Jacob inflames the family dynamic by sending Joseph t...

Jesus’ genealogy according to Luke is impossible to harmonize with the one in Matthew. It goes in descending order from Jesus clear back to Adam. In contrast, Matthew’s genealogy begins with Abraham and goes in ascending order to Jesus. Even Joseph, Jesus’ father, has a different father: Heli (his name is Jacob in Matthew’s genealogy). In Luke’s genealogy, Jesus is descended from Nathan, David’s s...

Though we moderns find genealogies boring, the writer of this Gospel began his story with a genealogy. This genealogy does two things: (1) It puts Jesus squarely in Israelite/Jewish tradition. Jesus was as Jewish as one could get! Every name in this genealogy would have been familiar with the initial audience, people who knew Jesus’ Bible (the Christian Old Testament) quite well. (2) The second fe...