How did ancient biographies narrate the births of their subjects? In this episode, Helen and Lloyd are joined in the Time Machine by Dr Caleb Friedeman, who has set out to explore how biographers described their subject’s infancy. Contrary to modern readers, who often read birth account in ancient lives as works of myth and theology rather than history, Friedeman argues that ancient biographers described the births of their heroes with serious historiographic intent. As we approach Christmas, Helen and Lloyd ask Caleb what this might mean for how ancient readers viewed the stories of Jesus’ birth in Matthew and Luke. 

Caleb T. Friedeman is David A. Case Chair of Biblical Studies at Ohio Christian University. He is the author of The Revelation of the Messiah: The Christology Mystery of Luke 1-2 and Its Unveiling in Luke-Acts (SNTSMS 181) and his new book is Gospel Birth Narratives: Reopening a Closed Case (Baylor University Press, 2025) which explores historiographical elements in ancient birth stories.  

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Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 produced by John Nelson.

At the beginning of advent, Helen and Lloyd sit down with Dr James Tabor to discuss the best-known and least-known woman in history: Mary, the mother of Jesus. They explore how second-century Christians reshaped Mary’s story and obscured the historical woman behind the traditions. They also unpack the rumours surrounding Jesus’ paternity, the emergence of Mary’s perpetual virginity and the long-debated identity of Jesus’ brothers and sisters. 

Dr James Tabor is a retired Professor of Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he taught from 1989 until 2022. He is well known for his 2006 book, The Jesus Dynasty: The Hidden History of Jesus, his Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity and his most recent book, which Helen and Lloyd discuss on this episode, is The Lost Mary: Rediscovering the Mother of Jesus.

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If you enjoy the podcast, please (pretty please!) consider supporting the show through the Time Travellers Club, our Patreon. We are an independent, listener-supported show (no ads!), so please help us continue to showcase high-quality biblical scholarship with a monthly subscription.

DOWNLOAD OUR STUDY GUIDE: MARK AS ANCIENT BIOGRAPHY

Check out our 4-part audio study guide called "The Gospel of Mark as an Ancient Biography." While you're there, get yourself a Biblical Time Machine mug or a cool sticker for your water bottle.

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Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 produced by John Nelson.

In this episode, Helen and Lloyd step into the fascinating world of women’s health in the New Testament world. With help from Professor Laurence Totelin, they explore who provided care, how medicine related to magic, and what medicinal recipes a first-century woman might employ. Along the way, they revisit the woman with chronic bleeding in Mark 5, asking what ancient medical assumptions stand behind her treatments. 

Laurence Totelin is Professor of Ancient History in School of History, Archaeology and Religion at the University of Cardiff, specialising in Greek and Roman medicine, particularly women’s health, reproduction, and botanical knowledge. She is the author of Hippocratic Recipes (2009), the co-author of Ancient Botany (2018), and is known for her public scholarship on ancient reproductive and cosmetic practices.

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If you enjoy the podcast, please (pretty please!) consider supporting the show through the Time Travellers Club, our Patreon. We are an independent, listener-supported show (no ads!), so please help us continue to showcase high-quality biblical scholarship with a monthly subscription.

DOWNLOAD OUR STUDY GUIDE: MARK AS ANCIENT BIOGRAPHY

Check out our 4-part audio study guide called "The Gospel of Mark as an Ancient Biography." While you're there, get yourself a Biblical Time Machine mug or a cool sticker for your water bottle.

Support the show

Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 produced by John Nelson.

In this episode, Lloyd fires up the Biblical Time Machine with Professor Nicholas Baker-Brian, and they travel back to third-century Persia to meet one of antiquity’s most fascinating and misunderstood figures: Mani, the visionary behind the global religion we now call Manichaeism. They ask: who was Mani, what are the sources for his life, and what do we know about the ancient faith which bears his name? 

Nicholas Baker-Brian is Professor of Late Antique Studies in School of History, Archaeology and Religion at the University of Cardiff. He has published widely on religion in late global antiquity, and is one of the world’s leading experts in the study of Manichaeism. Today on the show Lloyd discusses Professor Baker-Brian’s 2011 book, Manichaeism: An Ancient Faith Rediscovered, which is a scholarly yet accessible introduction to Manichaeism, published by T&T Clark in 2011.

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If you enjoy the podcast, please (pretty please!) consider supporting the show through the Time Travellers Club, our Patreon. We are an independent, listener-supported show (no ads!), so please help us continue to showcase high-quality biblical scholarship with a monthly subscription.

DOWNLOAD OUR STUDY GUIDE: MARK AS ANCIENT BIOGRAPHY

Check out our 4-part audio study guide called "The Gospel of Mark as an Ancient Biography." While you're there, get yourself a Biblical Time Machine mug or a cool sticker for your water bottle.

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Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 produced by John Nelson.

What happened when the laws of Moses were translated into Greek? In this episode, we journey from Sinai to Alexandria with Dr Joel Korytko, whose book The Death of the Covenant Code uncovers how Jewish translators in the third century BCE re-imagined Israel’s laws for a Greek-speaking world. Together with Helen Bond and Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Joel reveals how death penalties quietly disappeared in the Greek Exodus, and what these changes reveal about Jewish life under Greek rule. This is a story of law, language, and the authority of Scripture in a fast-changing world. 

Dr Joel Korytko is Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at Northwest College | Seminary. He completed his DPhil at the University of Oxford, where his research explored how Jewish translators adapted biblical law for a Hellenistic audience. His book, The Death of the Covenant Code (Brill, 2022), examines how the laws of Exodus were reshaped in the Old Greek translation in light of Graeco-Egyptian legal traditions. Joel is also co-authoring a forthcoming commentary on Exodus for the Society of Biblical Literature Commentary on the Septuagint series.

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If you enjoy the podcast, please (pretty please!) consider supporting the show through the Time Travellers Club, our Patreon. We are an independent, listener-supported show (no ads!), so please help us continue to showcase high-quality biblical scholarship with a monthly subscription.

DOWNLOAD OUR STUDY GUIDE: MARK AS ANCIENT BIOGRAPHY

Check out our 4-part audio study guide called "The Gospel of Mark as an Ancient Biography." While you're there, get yourself a Biblical Time Machine mug or a cool sticker for your water bottle.

Support the show

Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 produced by John Nelson.

What if the earliest Christians believed the world around them was teeming with invisible forces waiting to invade the human body? This Halloween, Biblical Time Machine delves into early Christian ideas of demons with Dr Travis Proctor, Associate Professor of Religion at Wittenberg University. His book, Demonic Bodies and the Dark Ecologies of Early Christian Discourse (OUP, 2022) reveals that demons were not just ghosts or spirits—but embodied, contaminating presences that could bring sickness, impurity, and spiritual ruin.

In the Time Machine, they explore how Christians imagined demons, what they believed demons were made of, where demons lurked, and how demonic contamination shaped ancient understandings of purity, health, and the human body. Along the way, Travis reveals why haunted houses aren’t just a modern Halloween invention—and which early Christian writer had the strangest ideas about demons.

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If you enjoy the podcast, please (pretty please!) consider supporting the show through the Time Travellers Club, our Patreon. We are an independent, listener-supported show (no ads!), so please help us continue to showcase high-quality biblical scholarship with a monthly subscription.

DOWNLOAD OUR STUDY GUIDE: MARK AS ANCIENT BIOGRAPHY

Check out our 4-part audio study guide called "The Gospel of Mark as an Ancient Biography." While you're there, get yourself a Biblical Time Machine mug or a cool sticker for your water bottle.

Support the show

Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 produced by John Nelson.

How did Persian mythology seep into the texts of the Hebrew Bible? In this week's Biblical Time Machine, Helen and Lloyd are joined by Professor Mark Leuchter, who has recently argued that the 'dynastic myth-making' of the Persian Achaemenid rulers left its mark on Second Temple Jewish texts. Drawing on cognitive science, postcolonial theory, ancient letters and iconography, Mark guides us through the complex world of Persian myth-making and its effects on the Hebrew Bible. 

Mark Leuchter is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Judaism and Director of Jewish Studies at Temple University in Philadelphia. His publications include The Levites and the Boundaries of Israelite Identity (Oxford University Press, 2017) and more recently An Empire Far And Wide: The Achaemenid Dynastic Myth and Jewish Scribes in the Late Persian Period (Oxford University Press, 2024). He is one of the editors of the New Oxford Bible Commentary and is an executive board member of the Canadian Society for Biblical Studies. 

If you would like to gain a sense of the ancient Persian empire – the largest of its time – check out this map from our friends at SBL Bible Odyssey. 

SUPPORT BIBLICAL TIME MACHINE

If you enjoy the podcast, please (pretty please!) consider supporting the show through the Time Travellers Club, our Patreon. We are an independent, listener-supported show (no ads!), so please help us continue to showcase high-quality biblical scholarship with a monthly subscription.

DOWNLOAD OUR STUDY GUIDE: MARK AS ANCIENT BIOGRAPHY

Check out our 4-part audio study guide called "The Gospel of Mark as an Ancient Biography." While you're there, get yourself a Biblical Time Machine mug or a cool sticker for your water bottle.

Support the show

Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 produced by John Nelson.

What did it mean to call a king “divine”? In this episode, Helen and Lloyd travel back to the ancient Near East — where kings were not just rulers but sacred figures and “sons of God.” They are joined by Dr Dylan Johnson, who explores how ancient peoples blurred the lines between human and divine authority, and how lawgiving, wisdom, and kingship became intertwined in their understanding of the cosmos.

Dr Dylan Johnson is Lecturer in Ancient Near Eastern History at Cardiff University’s School of History, Archaeology and Religion. His research explores how law, power, and divinity intertwined in the ancient world. He is the author of Sovereign Authority and the Elaboration of Law in the Bible and the Ancient Near East (Mohr Siebeck, 2020), and his forthcoming book, Lawgiving in the Ancient Near East (Cambridge University Press), continues his investigation into how divine and royal authority shaped early legal traditions.

SUPPORT BIBLICAL TIME MACHINE

If you enjoy the podcast, please (pretty please!) consider supporting the show through the Time Travellers Club, our Patreon. We are an independent, listener-supported show (no ads!), so please help us continue to showcase high-quality biblical scholarship with a monthly subscription.

DOWNLOAD OUR STUDY GUIDE: MARK AS ANCIENT BIOGRAPHY

Check out our 4-part audio study guide called "The Gospel of Mark as an Ancient Biography." While you're there, get yourself a Biblical Time Machine mug or a cool sticker for your water bottle.

Support the show

Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 produced by John Nelson.

Since the mid-twentieth century, it has been routine for scholars to see John as independent of the Synoptics – Matthew, Mark and Luke. Yet a recent book by Professor Mark Goodacre suggests that John should be read as the fourth and final 'Synoptic' gospel which knew and used all of the Synoptics. Join Helen and Lloyd in the Biblical Time Machine as they explore Goodacre's case. Learn about John's dramatic transformation of the Synoptics, the way his Gospel 'presupposes' the earlier texts, and the payoff of Goodacre's argument for John's authorship and date. 

Mark S. Goodacre is Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins in the Religious Studies Department at Duke University, North Carolina. He is the author of the classic volumes: The Case Against Q (2002) and Thomas and the Gospels (2012). His most recent book, fresh off the press, is The Fourth Synoptic Gospel: John's Knowledge of Matthew, Mark and Luke (Eerdmans, 2025),

For more from Goodacre, check out his previous appearance on the Biblical Time Machine on SBL's Bible Odyssey and his own incredible NT Pod. 

SUPPORT BIBLICAL TIME MACHINE

If you enjoy the podcast, please (pretty please!) consider supporting the show through the Time Travellers Club, our Patreon. We are an independent, listener-supported show (no ads!), so please help us continue to showcase high-quality biblical scholarship with a monthly subscription.

DOWNLOAD OUR STUDY GUIDE: MARK AS ANCIENT BIOGRAPHY

Check out our 4-part audio study guide called "The Gospel of Mark as an Ancient Biography." While you're there, get yourself a Biblical Time Machine mug or a cool sticker for your water bottle.

Support the show

Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 produced by John Nelson.

Esau's hairiness, David's ruddiness, Saul's great height. We tend not to pay much attention to these details, but small bodily features in the Hebrew Bible can reveal a character's whole narrative arc. Join Helen and Lloyd in the Biblical Time Machine, as they explore what it meant to look like a hero in ancient Israel.

Their guest this week is Brian R. Doak, Professor of Biblical Studies and Vice President of George Fox Digital at George Fox University. A specialist in the Hebrew Bible and the cultures of the Ancient Near East, his research explores how ancient texts, archaeology, inscriptions, and iconography illuminate the world of Israel. He is the author of Ancient Israel’s Neighbours (OUP, 2020) and Heroic Bodies in Ancient Israel (OUP, 2019). 

For more on biblical bodies, check out SBL's Bible Odyssey entry on bodies. 

SUPPORT BIBLICAL TIME MACHINE

 If you enjoy the podcast, please (pretty please!) consider supporting the show through the Time Travellers Club, our Patreon. We are an independent, listener-supported show (no ads!), so please help us continue to showcase high-quality biblical scholarship with a monthly subscription.

DOWNLOAD OUR STUDY GUIDE: MARK AS ANCIENT BIOGRAPHY

Check out our 4-part audio study guide called "The Gospel of Mark as an Ancient Biography." While you're there, get yourself a Biblical Time Machine mug or a cool sticker for your water bottle.

Support the show

Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 produced by John Nelson.