Biblical Time Machine

Ancient authors had no problem writing texts in other people's names, and that includes plenty of biblical writers. If Paul only wrote 7 of the 13 Pauline epistles, for example, who wrote the other 6,...

22 Jan 202439min

The Hebrew Bible wasn't created by one of the mighty empires of the ancient world — Egypt, Assyria or Babylon — but written in the rubble of a small, conquered kingdom. So how has this "epic monument...

15 Jan 202455min

There's so much we get wrong about clothing and dress in the 1st Century. Did Jewish people dress differently than gentiles? No. Did most men have long hair and beards? No. Did Jesus and the disciples...

8 Jan 20241h

The Bible is literally crawling with animals — from the crafty serpent of Genesis to Jesus's parable of the lost sheep. That's because animals (both wild and domesticated) were an integral part of lif...

1 Jan 20241h 1min

Try as you might, you won't find Santa Claus in the Bible. Or Christmas trees, or camel-riding Magi, or even December 25th! In the first centuries of Christianity, Christmas wasn't really a "thing." T...

18 Dec 202351min

In the first of two Christmas episodes, Helen and Dave take another look at arguably the "best-known and least-known" woman in history: Mary, the mother of Jesus. Our guest, the fantastic James Tabor,...

11 Dec 202347min

The Jewish festival of Hanukkah is based on real historical events — the Maccabean Revolt of 167-160 BCE. In today's episode, Helen and Dave travel back to a time when Judaea was ruled by the Helleniz...

4 Dec 202338min

The Bible is largely silent about race. People are identified by their lands of origin and beliefs, not their skin color. Yet centuries of biblical interpreters have read race into the Bible, for good...

27 Nov 202335min