The Biblical Mind

Hebraic Thought in Christmas, Part 2: Humble Moms and Shepherds

Nerdy Episode: Baby Yoda, Christmas, & Hebrew Narrative

Drs. Mary Hom and Dru Johnson discuss the impact of the baby Yoda story in the Christmas season, how the Star Wars stories and Yoda's poetic speech prime expectations, and how much these resemble aspects of the biblical narratives and style—especially Christmas!
 

Hebraic Thought in Christmas, Part 1: Endangered Babies

We think of Christmas as a New Testament Story, but does it start earlier?
Hint: the story of a child changing the flow of cosmic events goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden.
The nativity isn't an isolated story, but it pulls together all of God's political ambitions for the world, to run it with righteousness, justice, and peace.

The Idea of Christian Calling

 
Dru Johnson talks with Drs. Eric Smith and Scott Booth of Pillar Seminary about the notion of calling in Scripture and some of the problematic thinking about Christian vocation practiced in the church. They address the following questions:
 
What do Christians commonly misunderstand about calling?
Is individual calling the same as a vocation/career?
What are Christians called to do as a whole?
How do you know if God wants you to be a missionary or a banker? Does it matter?
Can we demand signs and wonders from God like Moses and Gideon did?
 

Hebrew Ethics: Radical in the Ancient Near East, Yet So Familiar to Us

In this episode, Dru talks with Dr. Unterman about biblical teaching on ethics. They discuss ancient notions of justice, law-keeping, fickle gods, and the treatment of foreigners across the Near East. Unterman highlights the specific and unusual features of Hebraic thought that have also informed our modern Western ethics more than we might realize. 
Jeremiah Unterman is a resident scholar at the Herzl Institute, Jerusalem. He is the author of Justice for All: How the Jewish Bible Revolutionized Ethics, From Repentance to Redemption: Jeremiah’s Thought in Transition, and numerous scholarly articles.

Genesis as Rationality in the Ancient Near East

Dru talks with Eric about how Hebrews reasoned through concepts in light of the ancient Near East.
Eric is the founder and president of The Pillar Seminary. He started the seminary with 15 years of active ministry experience and a Ph.D. from Trinity College in Bristol, England. Along with education, he brings experience from serving on leadership teams with multiple churches in the midwest. He currently serves as a visiting teaching pastor for several local congregations. Prior to The Pillar, Eric taught as an Old Testament Professor for Nebraska Christian College from 2006-2014. During those years several things solidified for Eric such as his passion for teaching, his joy when helping someone thrive right where they are, and his reflection on scripture that became Jesus Prequel, his most recent book.

From Christian-hater to CHT Co-Founder—Changed by Reading the Bible.

Robert talks about moving from antagonism towards Christians to being deeply impacted by the message of Scripture and the Church. This episode's topics range from his work with the CHT to Christian persecution in the Middle East. 
Robert Nicholson is Founder and Executive Director of The Philos Project. He holds a B.A. in Hebrew Studies from Binghamton University, and both a J.D. and M.A. in Middle Eastern history from Syracuse University. A former U.S. Marine and a 2012-13 Tikvah Fellow, Nicholson founded The Philos Project in 2014. His advocacy focuses on spreading the vision of a multi-ethnic and multi-religious Middle East based on freedom and rule of law. Mr. Nicholson serves on the Board of Directors of Passages, and is a publisher of Providence: A Journal of Christianity and American Foreign Policy. His written work has appeared in First Things, The Federalist, The Jerusalem Post, The Hill, and The American Interest, among others.

Ethical Ambiguity, Biblical Vigilantes, and Dr. Shira Weiss (CHT Fellow)

In this episode, Dr. Dru Johnson talks with Dr. Shira Weiss about her research on biblical ethics, the sticky ethical stories of Scripture, and why the biblical authors might not have given us easy answers about morality. 
Shira Weiss holds a Ph.D. in Jewish Philosophy and has taught at Yeshiva University.  She has earned fellowships from the NEH, The Templeton Foundation, and Ben Gurion University.  Dr. Weiss is the author of Joseph Albo on Free Choice: Exegetical Innovation in Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Oxford University Press) and Ethical Ambiguity in the Hebrew Bible (Cambridge University Press), as well as articles in a variety of academic journals. She is currently working on a manuscript, Biblical Heroes on Trial: Justice and Vigilantism in the Hebrew Bible, and is co-authoring a book on protests against God in the Book of Job according to the three Abrahamic faiths.

Introducing Dr. Joshua Berman (CHT Fellow)

Dr. Dru Johnson talks to Dr. Berman about what the intellectual world of the Bible looks like to him. 
Joshua Berman is a professor of Hebrew Bible at Bar-Ilan University, Israel.  A graduate of Princeton University, Dr. Berman also studied for eight years at Yeshivat Har-Etzion in Israel and has rabbinical ordination from the Israeli Chief Rabbinate.  He is the author, among other works of Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought  (Oxford, 2008) and Inconsistency in the Torah: Ancient Literary Convention and the Limits of Source Criticism (Oxford, 2017). In addition to his scholarly output, Dr. Berman has also published pieces on the Hebrew Bible and contemporary thought in Mosaic Magazine and the Wall Street Journal. Dr. Berman served as a member of the International Advisory Council of the Museum of the Bible, Washington, D.C.

Yoram Hazony: "An Individualist Approach To The Hebrew Bible" (NPR)

In this short NPR episode, Yoram Hazony opens the “bottle” of the Hebrew Bible and reads the message inside, arguing that the Hebrew Bible is philosophy in narrative form. The message is this: there is hope for human political affairs, and the Scriptures are an epic that advocate wariness of great imperial powers and individualism in the face of authority.