The Biblical Mind

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. 

Yoram Hazony on the Bible as Philosophy

In this episode, CHT director Dr. Dru Johnson interviews Yoram Hazony about the recent history of viewing the Bible as a work of philosophy. They discuss the state of academics and the unique influence of Hebraic philosophy on our way of understanding the world. 
Yoram Hazony is President of the Herzl Institute in Jerusalem, and currently serves as Chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation, a new public affairs institute based in Washington that will be hosting the first National Conservatism Conference in July 2019.
His book The Virtue of Nationalism was published by Basic Books in September 2018. It has been selected as Conservative Book of the Year for 2019, and was an amazon #1 best-seller in both International Diplomacy and Nationalism. You can read all the reviews of the book here.
His previous books include The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture (Cambridge University Press, 2012), which won the second place PROSE award for the best book in the category of Theology and Religion by the Association of American Publishers; The Jewish State: The Struggle for Israel’s Soul (Basic Books, 2000); and God and Politics in Esther (Cambridge University Press, 2016).

FAQ: Do We Think Like Ancient Folks Did?

Did ancient Israelites think like we do today? Did they have abstract thoughts? If we don't, then can we understand anything the biblical authors said? Dr. Dru Johnson discusses reasons to trust that we do think similarly to the biblical authors. 
For a more technical survey of this discussion, see Dru's essay "Did Ancient Hebrews Have Different Minds than the Greeks?"
 

FAQ: What About the New Testament?

Abby Smith and Dr. Dru Johnson discuss what "Hebraic thought" has to do with the New Testament and whether we need the Old Testament in order to understand the New.
Note: Dr. Johnson mistakenly referenced Leviticus 18:19, which should have been Lev 19:18.

FAQ: Why "Hebraic Thought" and not "Jewish Thought"?