When we recognize the Bible as a product of the ancient world, we can look for subtle ways that biblical authors incorporated elements of everyday life — including coins! We spoke with historian Michael Theophilos about everything we can learn from ancient coins (politics, economics, visual culture, propaganda), and then we found some fascinating examples of how language and symbols from coins made their way into the Bible.

If you want to dive deeper into coins and the New Testament, check out Michael's book, Numismatics and Greek Lexicography. 

Here are some cool images of coins Michael described in the episode:

• A denarius minted by Caesar Augustus with the image of the comet or bright star
• An ancient coin from Yehud (Persian-ruled Judaea) featuring a disembodied ear

Also, the newly redesigned Bible Odyssey website has some great articles about coins, taxes and the Temple in the 1st Century:

• Money
• Commerce and the Temple in First-Century Jerusalem
• Taxes in First-Century Palestine

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

It's easy to read the New Testament and come away with the idea that Jesus was in opposition to the Jewish ritual impurity laws. In fact, that's what most Christian theologians have taught for the past 2,000 years. Is it possible that we've (gasp!) been misreading the Bible this whole time?  Our guest Matt Thiessen says, "Yep."

In today's episode, we travel back to the 1st century to understand how everyday Jewish people understood ritual impurity, and what Jesus's miracles — healing a leper, curing a woman of a hemorrhaging condition — would have meant in that historical context. 

Matt's excellent book on this subject is Jesus and the Forces of Death: The Gospels' Portrayal of Ritual Impurity within First-Century Judaism. And if you're a fan of funny Twitter accounts — like, actually funny — follow Matt at @MattThiessenNT. 

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

There aren't any werewolves or vampires in the Bible, but God deploys his own terrifying army of monsters. Have you heard of cherubs? Not what you think! Even angels have some less-than-angelic duties. It turns out that the shepherds abiding in the field had good reason to be "sore afraid."

Just in time for Halloween, special guest Esther Hamori joins Helen and Dave to talk about her fantastic new book, God's Monsters: Vengeful Spirits, Deadly Angels, Hybrid Creatures, and Divine Hitmen of the Bible.  Maybe next year you'll dress your kid up as a six-winged, snake-skinned seraphim. 

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

At first reading, the Gospel of John feels a world apart from the other gospels. The language is different, there are new stories (see our episode on "the woman taken in adultery") and Jesus speaks about himself in bolder terms ("I am the resurrection and the life." "I am the light of the world.") That has led some scholars to argue that the author of John didn't know the synoptic gospels and was instead working from other sources, probably oral traditions about Jesus circulating in the 1st century CE.

Our guest doesn't buy it. Mark Goodacre, creator of the pioneering biblical studies podcast NT Pod, argues convincingly that the author of John not only knew the other gospels, but wrote his version in direct response to them.

Mark is hard at work on a book about John, but in the meantime you can check out some of his other groundbreaking work: The Case Against Q:  Studies in Markan Priority and the Synoptic Problem, and The Synoptic Problem: A Way Through the Maze. 

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

Jonah and the whale (fish, technically) is one of the best-known Bible stories, but it's also completely bonkers. It stars Jonah—the worst/best prophet ever—and reads more like a fable or satire than a serious biblical treatise. Were the authors of Jonah trying to be funny? And how the heck did this silly little fish tale become a beloved and meaningful narrative for Judaism, Christianity and Islam?

To help unravel the mystery, Helen and Dave welcome back Eckart Frahm, author of the impressive new book, Assyria: The Rise and Fall of the World's First Empire. Eckart shares a convincing theory that the Judaean authors of Jonah may have been inspired by a popular Assyrian legend. 

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

Pop quiz—name a famous kid from the Hebrew Bible. Baby Moses? Teenage David? That's about it. The Bible may be largely silent about childhood, but we can gather clues from archeology and ethnography to piece together a picture of what it was like to be a kid in ancient Israel.

Special guest Kristine Garroway from Hebrew Union College joins Helen and Dave to reconstruct family life in ancient Israel: the spiritual anxieties around pregnancy, the rules of ancient adoption, and the chore lists assigned to little Israelite boys and girls.

For more, check out Kristine's book, Growing Up in Ancient Israel: Children in Material Culture and Biblical Texts. 

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

For the first four centuries of Christianity, the famous story of the "woman taken in adultery" was nowhere to be found in the New Testament.  In this moving tale, Jesus forgives a woman condemned  for committing adultery and admonishes her accusers: "let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

But why wasn't the story included in the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament? Was it a late addition to the gospels? Or was it an ancient story suppressed by Church fathers? Was "death by stoning" really a punishment in 1st-century Judaea? 

In this fascinating episode,  Helen and Dave speak with scholar Jennifer Knust about her book To Cast the First Stone: Transmission of a Gospel Story.  

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

It's easy to read the New Testament and come away thinking that Jesus and his disciples were in opposition to "the Jews." But the first followers of Jesus were all fellow Jews and the early Jesus movement was very much a Jewish movement. Would the first generation of "Christians" have thought of themselves as anything other than Jewish? Our guest Paula Fredriksen says absolutely not. 

According to Paula, there was plenty of room in the 1st Century for competing Jewish sects—including the Jesus movement—all arguing over the right way to be Jewish.  (The fact that they were arguing, jokes Paula, is proof enough of their Jewishness.)

Check out Paula's excellent book, When Christians Were Jews: the First Generation. 

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

Comedy royalty John Cleese stopped by the podcast to chat with Helen and Dave about Monty Python's inspiration for making Life of Brian, what fascinates and frustrates him about the Bible, and so much more.

Members of the Time Travelers Club can listen to an uncut version of our entire, hour-long conversation with John. For $5/month, you can help support the show and receive bonus content and behind-the-scenes extras. Thanks to all those who have joined and special thanks to listener Josh Boldman for submitting an audio question for John Cleese.

For our U.S. listeners, John is about to embark on an American tour of his hilarious stage show An Evening with the Late John Cleese, so find out when he's coming to a city near you.  Enjoy the episode! 

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

Face it — you wouldn't survive two days back in the first century. If the food-borne bacteria didn't kill you, you might keel over from the odors alone! In this episode, Helen and Dave welcome Jodi Magness, biblical archeologist extraordinaire, for a frank and sometimes graphic discussion of what daily life REALLY would have been like in 1st-century Judaea: just nasty!

And don't forgot to check out Jodi's book: Stone and Dung, Oil and Spit: Jewish Daily Life in the Time of Jesus.  It's terrific.   

Bonus Content
Members of the Time Travelers Club get access to a bonus conversation with Jodi about how she got into archeology. We also posted a 20-minute behind-the-scenes conversation with Helen and Dave about how they got interested in biblical studies and the origins of the podcast. Subscribe today and check it out! 

Related Stories from Bible Odyssey

• What Does Archeology Tell Us About the New Testament?
• The Aims of Biblical Archeology

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