By Sheldon Greaves
Learning for its own sake.
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 50 We come to the end of this series with a quick look ahead at the Intertestamental Period, where the canonical Torah was tested in the forum of social upheaval, war, and sectarian strife. We...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 49 Modern biblical scholarship has yielded tremendous insights; no study of the Bible is complete without referring to its insights. And yet it brings with it certain blind spots that cannot be overlooked. In this...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 48 Continuing the discussion after the canonization of the Torah, we learn how two more sections, the Prophets and the Writings, came to be part of the Hebrew Scriptures. We also learn why some of...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 47 One of the most radical changes in Jewish religion came near the end of the Old Testament period, when Ezra the Scribe mandated the study of the newly-canonized Torah as a religious act, and...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 46 The Books of Chronicles often get short shrift because they present a sanitized version of King David, but combined with the allied books of Ezra and Nehemiah, they provide a basis for debating a...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 45 With the end of captivity in Babylon came new opportunities and new challenges. Regaining ancestral lands and the right to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple did not mean the task would be easy. Politics and...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 44 More of the minor prophets and the beginnings of late-Jewish and early Christian apocalypticism. Plus, some stuff about Jonah and that whole unfortunate incident with the giant fish and how it might not be...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 43 A brief look at two of the more famous Minor Prophets, Amos and Hosea, who were roughly contemporary with the prophet Isaiah. We learn how they spoke to their time, and the picture they...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 42 A book of worldly wisdom; how to live well, to lead a good life, and how everything works out, except when it doesn’t. Take a look at the ancient Israelite version of ancient Near...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 41 Still in regular use after more than two thousand years, the Psalms have an immediacy and directness that makes them some of the most important parts of the Biblical corpus. They also have also...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 40 Perhaps the most sceptical book in the Old Testament, Ecclesiastes is a fearless challenge to the notion that living a good life consists of nothing more than blindly obeying a set of rules in...
Discovering the Old Testament: Part 39 One of the most controversial and difficult books in the Old Testament, the Book of Job flies directly in the face of one of the Bible’s favourite themes, namely that if you do everything...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 38 When the official and unofficial religious institutions of Judaism lay in ruins, Ezekiel had the unenviable task of picking up the pieces in order to start rebuilding. His writing makes is clear that he...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 37 Ezekiel the prophet had the unenviable task of speaking for a God who, by all appearances, had abandoned his people. His commission was to rebuild the people’s trust in God, as well as the...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 36 Jeremiah and the Book of Lamentations are a remarkable mixture of despair and faith, destruction and hope. Written through the time of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple of Solomon, followed by shameful...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 35 Perhaps no prophetic figure of the Old Testament is more iconic than Jeremiah who preached at a time of precipitous decline of the Jewish nation and witnessed first hand its decline from a covenantal...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 34 Celebrated in music, art, and literature, the Fourth Servant Song in Isaiah 52 and 53 is remains one of the most celebrated and controversial figures in Old Testament prophecy. Who or what was this...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 33 Idolatry and the threat of its syncretism with Jewish religion posed a major threat to Jewish identity. While Isaiah fights idolatry fiercely and relentlessly, he must also find a way to understand a shocking...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 32 Where First Isaiah’s message is one of destruction, humiliation, and punishment for a covenant people gone astray, the primary motif of Second Isaiah could not be more different. Where there was doom, now there...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 31 In our continuing exploration of Isaiah and his ministry, we look at how he and other Israelite prophets received their call, their local competitors, and how Isaiah’s message of compassion and justice for the...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 30 An interlude on the historical context of Isaiah’s writings, penned when ancient Judah literally faced destruction and annihilation from a relentless, ruthless, and seemingly unstoppable Assyrian military machine. Yet it was within the very...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 29 The Prophet Isaiah was one of the most articulate proponents of social justice as the core social and religious duty of the Jewish nation. Through his brilliant poetry and incisive prose, he communicates his...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 28 From the wild ecstatics to the grand poetic literature of the classical Hebrew prophets, prophecy in ancient Judah and Israel changed and adapted to meet the changing needs and challenges that faced the Chosen...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 27 Moses promised the Israelites that God would raise up a prophet like him when Israel needed one. The portrait of Elijah and Elisha is of two such prophets with unmistakable associations with Moses, sent...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 26 The seeds of dissent planted by Solomon came to fruition under his son Rehoboam when ten of the Israelite tribes in the north broke away and formed their own kingdom, Israel. For the next...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 25 The son of King David and Bathsheba, Solomon was renowned for this wisdom, his wealth, and his women. Under his reign as described in the Bible, the Israelite kingdom arguably reached its zenith. But...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 24 A look at the ways of kings in the lands of Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Syro-Palestine and how their colors and flavors of kingship reflected on Israel’s new monarchy. We examine the influence of...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 23 As one of the most famous characters in the Old Testament, King David continues to inspire and challenge readers to this day, raising the question: just how much mayhem can one commit and still...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 22 The Bible presents a consistently negative picture of Canaanite religion as a miasma of excess and debauchery masquerading as religion. But the discovery in 1929 of Canaanite texts written in Ugaritic have added some...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 21 Israel’s transition from a loose confederation led by charismatic leaders and judges was not easy, but seemed necessary. Samuel, the prophet who helped guide the Israel through this difficult adjustment, expressed no illusions about...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 20 Judges records the transition of Israel from a scattered collection of tribes caught in a cycle of sin and redemption, but where each iteration of that cycle brings them closer to social and institutional...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 19 The Book of Joshua introduces us to the end of the Exodus and the entry into the Promised land of Canaan. As the Bible tells the story, it’s an unsettling read for readers with...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 18 The system of sacrifices among the ancient Hebrews is one of the more perplexing aspects of the Old Testament and Jewish Law. As with the purity regulations, the ancient Hebrew legalists took religious metaphors...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 17 How did the people who first assembled and wrestled with the text of the Old Testament interpret their scripture? In this session, we will introduce the Jewish interpretive methods of Pesher and Midrash, along...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 16 More than almost anything else, the Sabbath is the defining institution of ancient and modern-day Judaism. We look at this unique holiday, and its place in Judaism. This episode also examines the various law...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 15 What are the purity regulations all about? Why did they matter so much? What were the ethical foundations of the Jewish dietary laws? In this installment, we address these questions and, along the way,...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 14 The Exodus from Egypt and the theophany at Sinai are the defining moments in Israel’s history—literally. This is when Israel is “created” as a nation. It is not just a geographical exodus from Egypt...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 13 The story of Joseph and his rise from slavery to near-ultimate power, and his role in saving his family from famine not only sets the stage for the Israelite Exodus out of Egyptian slavery,...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 12 What does the science of archaeology tell us about the past, especially the world of the Bible? In this episode we will learn about the basic problems facing the archaeologist, its essential assumptions, and...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 11 How Jacob outwitted his father-in-law to secure his future, and deflected the wrath of his brother Esau upon his return to his family homeland. Some thoughts on animal husbandry, tactical gift-giving, and how the...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 10 In which we meet Jacob the deceiver who, with some help from his mother Rebecca, does what he must to secure the blessing meant for his brother, and gets cheated in his turn. Here...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 9 Two episodes from Abraham’s life are difficult for many readers: Abraham’s attempted deception of King Abimelech, and the Sacrifice of Isaac. Apart from the questions they raise, they give the character of Abraham the...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 8 The stories of the Patriarchs, beginning with Abraham, are stories of survival. How did these progenitors survive, and why were they favored to receive God’s covenant? This was a major question that Genesis seeks...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 7 Abraham’s world: living the life of the desert pastoral nomad where reputation is wealth, generosity a necessity, gift-giving a political tool, and hospitality as one of the most sacred of obligations. … Continue reading...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 6 The story of the Flood is one of the most well-known and controversial in the Old Testament. Other flood stories have been found in Babylonian and Sumerian sources; what do they tell us about...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 5. An interlude; how to get more out of your Old Testament reading by selecting a good translation, using reference tools, concordances, commentaries, and more. Plus a special study technique that will richly reward the...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 4 The creation of humanity, a quick look at the Documentary Hypothesis, and humans as participants in the creative process. Life in the Garden, temptation, consequences and how they were understood. Runtime: 22:23. … Continue...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 3 Creations stories and their role in the ancient Near East. Genesis as a polemic against Babylonian ideas, and the unique role of humans in the created order according to Genesis. Runtime: 19:46. … Continue...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 2 How the Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures are organized, the sections and the books. Sources of the text: the Masoretic Text, the Septuagint, Targums, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Finally a first look at covenants: what...
Discovering the Old Testament, Part 1 Entering a strange and exotic world; geography, an introduction to the ancient mindset. What the Old Testament is and is not, and some hints for readers who are just getting started. Runtime: 20:44. …...
