The Biblical Mind

What does it mean to say that Jesus is the vine? Does He have roots or produce grapes? What is the connection between giving birth and fighting a war? Why does the Bible refer to God's nose as being long? In this episode, Dr. Beth Stovell talks to Dr. Dru Johnson about the complex world of metaphor in the biblical texts. Rather than "just the facts," metaphors give us a way of thinking that involv...

There is a view of biblical inerrancy that is actually particular to some American Christians—and peculiar to outsiders. Dr. Michael Bird examines this and other peculiarities of some American Christianity in light of Scripture and other traditions. In this episode, Dru Johnson interviews Dr. Bird about American theology and the different meanings of biblical inerrancy. They discuss the distinctio...

Heather Cate reads " Neither Work nor Leisure Provides 'Our Daily Bread,' " by Dru Johnson, published July 16, 2020.

The foundations of our modern liberal democracies are found in the ideas of Enlightenment-era political philosophers such as Hobbes, Locke, Hume, and Rousseau. At first glance, these philosophers seem like they couldn't be more different from the premodern Hebrews. What does social contract theory and the idea of the consent of the governed have to do with the story of God and His people in the To...

Can we use Mountain Dew and Doritos for communion, or must the elements be bread and wine? Communion is one of the most prominent Christian rituals . Although celebrated differently by different traditions, from sharing loaves of bread and a common cup to distributing oyster crackers and little plastic cups of grape juice, the practice is meant to remind us of and transform us into the body of Chr...

American Christians often make two key mistakes when approaching the idea of sabbath in the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament . First, we assume that the command has been made irrelevant by the New Covenant. Second, we "spiritualize" the idea of sabbath and downplay the importance of formative rituals for our bodies, not just our souls. However, a closer investigation of sabbath in Scripture reveals it...

How should we read the book of Exodus? Dr. Leon R. Kass discusses his answer to this question from his recent book, Founding God's Nation: Reading Exodus . Dr. Kass is the Professor Emeritus in the Committee on Social Thought and the College at the University of Chicago, and formerly served as the Chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics under George W. Bush. He has published a host of wor...

Many first-time authors, whether accomplished academics or passionate amateurs, underestimate the time and revision involved in working with a book publisher. In this episode, Dr. Dru Johnson interviews Michael Thomson, Acquisitions Editor at Wipf and Stock Publishers, which publishes books on theology and biblical studies, among other topics. They discuss the joys and struggles of the writing, ed...

The story of God's command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac (also known as the Akedah) in Genesis 22 is one of the most challenging passages in Scripture. Only 19 verses long, it gives few details and even fewer explanations. Questions that we might naturally ask about this passage are not always the questions the author actually answers. Dr. Aaron Koller, Professor of Near Eastern and Jewish Studies...

Biblical repentance isn't just about having a contrite heart (i.e., "feeling bad"). That doesn't mean contrition isn't important! But it does mean that we miss the point of repentance if we focus on contrition to the exclusion of proactive reconciliation. In this episode, Dr. David Lambert explores the nature of true repentance in the Bible . Dr. Lambert is an Associate Professor in the Department...

Why do many Christians elevate the practice of "quiet time": isolated, often hurried and brief daily Bible-reading? Jen Wilkin—author, speaker, and leader of many Bible studies—challenges this practice. She believes that, rather than instilling deep Bible literacy, the typical "quiet time" encourages shallow reading and pursuit of instant gratification in the form of cheap satisfaction or vague en...

Heather Cate  reads " Living Well and Wisely with God and His People While Coping with Trauma ," by Scott Harrower, published July 10, 2020.

A surefire way to make a biblical scholar groan is to use the phrase "back in Bible times." Of course, there is no "Bible times"; the events and writing of the Bible span millennia of concrete, dynamic history. Dr. Cynthia Shafer-Elliott, a professor at William Jessup University and an experienced field archeologist, talks with Dru about the households and daily life of ancient people in Iron Age...

This episode is reproduced from a November interview on the OnScript podcast , courtesy of OnScript. Dr. Dru Johnson interviews Dr. Esau McCaulley about his award-winning book Reading While Black: African-American Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope . They discuss listening to minority, oppressed, and specifically Black voices as necessary to reading Scripture well. Without critically engaging t...

Note: This special episode is of lower audio quality than usual. It is a live recording of an event. Those spending the holidays with their families may be apprehensive about conversations that veer into controversy—especially after such a fraught year. For such a time as this, TBM podcast presents a special episode. This is a panel discussion recorded at The King's College on Friday, November 20t...

Sandra Bowden is a mixed-media artist with pieces displayed everywhere from small rural churches to the Vatican. A self-described "visual theologian," Sandra incorporates architecture, Scripture, Hebrew lettering, and Christian artifacts into her biblical art pieces to express the mystery of God's relationship with his creation. Dru Johnson and Ned Bustard ask Sandra about her story as an artist,...

How does our social location affect the way we read the Bible and worship? For the ancient Israelites, who lived in a subsistence-level agrarian society, the Torah, worship in the temple, daily work, and social justice were intimately intertwined. Scripture resists our urge to separate the sacred from the secular, our worship of God from our treatment of those around us. For Caio Peres, an indepen...

Could drawing in church actually be a good thing? John Hendrix thinks so. John is a New York Times bestselling author, widely published illustrator, and Professor of Art at the Sam Fox School of Art and Design at Washington University in St. Louis. For John, drawing is far from a distraction in church; it's a way of sharpening his concentration, enlivening new concepts, and worshiping his Creator....

Professors and pastors alike often hear groans when they begin to teach the book of Numbers—and who can blame them? The title makes it sound like the records of the Ancient Israelite Census Bureau. Even biblical scholars often refer to it as the "the junk room of the Pentateuch." However, upon closer study, this book reveals itself to be profound and relevant for our modern world—including our cur...

Western Christians tend to emphasize Western church history and culture at the expense of the global church. Many have cursory understanding of the Greek Orthodox tradition, but know little about early Christianity in Asia and Africa . This ignorance of church history leads to more than just historical inaccuracy; it can alienate those of other nationalities and ethnicities with a false portrayal...

Dr. Dru Johnson and Celina Durgin talk with Jon Collins, Co-Founder of BibleProject, about using animated videos to teach viewers how to read the Bible. BibleProject is a nonprofit animation studio with the goal of helping people become students of biblical literature through short explainer-style videos . In this episode, Jon provides a window into their creative process, from background research...

Many American Christians assume an over-familiarity with the Bible. Whether because we were raised in the church, or because we think we have it all figured out, or because of sheer laziness, we rarely turn to Scripture with diligent and curious eyes, guided by a community of other Bible-readers. At the same time, we often erect barriers between our faith and work or between the state of our souls...

Since the 19th century, the term "wisdom literature" has been associated specifically with the books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job. When we look for wisdom in the Bible , then, we will often turn to these books. However, to divorce these works from the larger biblical corpus may have blinded us to their fuller narrative context and prevented us from seeing wisdom in other stories, poetry, and...

As we've already discussed on The Biblical Mind podcast, the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) is more than just a bunch of old stories with some laws thrown in. Instead, it is an interwoven collection of literature, carefully crafted to shape the Israelites into the people of YHWH. However, many people still regard the the Old Testament laws as inapplicable to modern Christianity....

Author and speaker Aimee Byrd believes that a close and careful reading of the biblical texts should inform the church's view on sex and gender. Instead of resorting to 21st-century (or 20th-century) Western models of gender and sex or going with our gut instincts, perhaps the church can craft a biblical theology of gender that both preserves the categories of man and women while affirming their a...