In a previous podcast (BB-16) we began the discussion of humanity, its origins, current state, and its future according to the Bible. In our last podcast (BB-17) we looked at Spirituality in the Bible. In today’s lesson we try and understand more deeply the origins of humanity’s current condition. We do this using the techniques of literary criticism and considering what the Bible says in its story about the woman and the serpant.

In our last podcast (BB-16) we began the discussion about humanity in the Bible. We examined what the Bible says about human origins. In today’s reading we hear what the Bible says about spirituality. We examine how the Bible describes the spiritual, beginning with the most spiritual Being - God. People often have trouble with the idea of spirit. They think that spirit means intellect, emotions, fears, passions, and creativity, all ideas originally expressed by Plato. But human spirituality in the Bible is based upon God, who is a spirit being. What the Bible says about God provides our understanding of the concept of spirit. Other religions and philosophies describe the source for the human condition differently than the Bible does. Therefore, their remedies for this condition are different. Everything flows from the Bible's concept of God. Understanding it allows you to understand reactions against it - all of human religion and philosophy become intelligible.

The Bible is clear about who God is and what are his attributes, his emotions, and personality. In the first lessons we looked at what the Bible says about God. But the identity and attributes of humanity, which begin in the creation story, are a bit more complicated. This podcast turns to a new topic looking at what the Bible teaches about humanity. The goal of these podcasts is to present the actual text of the Bible so that listeners might know what the Bible itself teaches. The Bible Bard is not interested in the debate between creationists and evolutionists about the origin of humanity. While we acknowledge that there is a controversy, we're looking a literature - so this controversy is external to the story. The creation description is literature from which we gain an impression of what happened during the six days of [re]creation on the surface of the earth. That's correct, if we read what the Bible actually says, we find out that the details of creation of life on earth are limited to the habitable surface of the earth and that the earth itself was already there - so these creation details are about plant, animal, birds, fish, and human life. That is the limited focus of the biblical story.

Today's podcast is a review of the first 14 episodes during which the Bible Bard has done an inductive search of what the Bible says about who is God. We’ve quoted statements from the Bible that describe God, and we've accumulated them so that we can draw some conclusions. . These conclusions come from the texts themselves and are in sharp contrast to the way God has been described, mostly by people who have never read the Bible itself. No one can argue that the text does not literally say what I've quoted it as saying - because the texts are so simple there is no problem understanding their meaning. The only problem is with ideology interpreting the texts based upon some human ideas or presumptions not found in the literal text. The Bible's thoughts presented here have no secret meaning only scholars or metaphysicians can understand. The Bible Bard exists so that you can hear what the Bible says for itself. The Bible Bard does not insist that you believe what I believe think what I think or do what I do. Make up your own mind whether you agree with the Bible ’s pronouncements.

In this podcast we look at God’s attribute of faithfulness. We examine a few simple biblical statements about God and His attribute of faithfulness. According to the Bible, what does it mean to be faithful? As the statement from a sample text from Deuteronomy suggests, those who are faithful keep their word, they fulfil their agreements. In the biblical text, God’s faithfulness is part of the idea that God cannot do wrong. His faithfulness is part of his divinity that allows people to depend upon what he promises his actions are in his relationships to humankind, both to those who believe i n him and those who do not.

This podcast presents only what the Bible says. The Bible Bard does not apologize for or argue about these biblical statements because that's not our purpose The Bible Bard provides you with the text itself, so you can make u p your own mind about what it says.

The Bible compares God in his essence and actions to humanity. We see that God is all powerful, all knowing, and exists everywhere at the same time; but we also see that he is emotional. God has feelings. He responds to events as a whole person. The biblical text we look at in this episode reveals something very unique about the God of the Bible - that love is the center of his moral and emotional nature. Love is the core of his being. Don’t assume that the reverse of this statement is true: love is not God. No, the Bible makes sure that we understand that God is a person, not a power or an impersonal force, even a force as wonderful and as powerful as love. As he feels it, God’s love is powerful, because his love has an impact on his actions. In this episode we examine the Bible's teaching that God is love.

Holiness is difficult concept. The Bible Bard has presented what the Bible says about it. Today’s podcast discusses something even more difficult than the idea of God's holiness and that is what is the opposite of holiness. The opposite of holiness is the difficult concept called “sin”. It’s not that sin is hard to understand, it’s just that we don’t like what it means. Sin is the opposite of holiness in that it is positive unholiness. The brief (but consistent) simple Bible answer is that sin is the opposite of what God is and what God does.

To uncover what the Bible says about any topic we look at sample texts. I call these sample texts because for any topic there are usually many available texts that provide the Bible's view, so I only need to use a few of the most easily understood verses to explain a topic in the least amount of time.

In today's podcast episode we come to something difficult. What does it mean that God is holy? Previous podcasts looked at Bible texts that were virtually self-defining: that is, the words in the context of the sentence were easy to understand. The meaning of the text was unambiguous and clear. But when we come to the idea of the holiness of God we run into a little difficulty; that is because the Hebrew word qodesh and the equivalent Greek word hagios were transliterated into the English word holy. That English word is based upon words from the Old English, Proto Germanic, Old Norse, Old Frisian, and Old Saxon (among other European languages). The concept of holy in these European languages is sometimes at odds with or different from what the Bible means by holy.

In these situations, the Bible Bard is concerned to provide a little context to the bible verses that discuss a topic. When the Bible says that God is holy, it is considering God to be separate from humanity in an awesome sense, so much so that he is worthy of worship. In this episode we look at biblical texts that clarify the Bible's meaning of the concept of holiness.

The word spirit has more than one application in English. Sometimes we mean by spirit a quality of courage or enthusiasm. However, when the word is applied to a being, a spirit is an incorporeal, invisible, and intelligent personality; but it doesn't have a body, and in its natural state, it has no form. A spirit being is, more like God, than like a human being. The Bible provides many descriptions of spirit beings transforming from an invisible presence to a visible manifestation even in the case of God Himself. These visible manifestations of spirit beings, including God, are very Sci-Fi in today's culture. The language the Bible uses in describing spirit manifestations is very poetic and suggestive, as if the writer was having a difficult time finding words to describe what was seen. Remember, the text of the Bible is literature; therefore, we must look at the context of a statement to get an idea of what the author intended. We need to understand God from the Bible's perspective. Since we live in a “post Christian culture,” which is no longer acquainted with the literature of the Bible, our current culture does not know who God is according to the Bible. That is the reason the Bible Bard podcast exists - so that listeners can get beyond their popular culture to truly understand what the Bible teaches about universal topics of human interest.

In the previous couple of podcasts, we’ve looked at God’s ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ emotions. In this lesson we are quoting several passages in the Bible that speak of God's justice and his righteousness. As a human being, how I feel about an event that happens to me, or I witness, depends on the morality I’ve been taught or not taught. In this episode we look at some sample texts that describe God's sense of justice and his moral feelings of righteousness.

Sometimes, to clarify a concept, the Bible provides a metaphor using something we are familiar with to clarify an experience or a concept of something unfamiliar.

The Bible Bard exists to provide listeners with that actual st atem en ts made by the authors of the text of the Bible about God and about people. I’m not arguing that the statements I’m sharing are true. That is a totally different discussion. In a post Christian culture, I’m more interested in the answer to the question, Do you know what the Bible teaches? than I'm interested in the answer to the question, Do you believe what the Bible teaches? Believe whatever you want. But at least be educated enough to know what the Bible says about the fundamental ideas of human society.