Exegetically Speaking

It is possible for a small Greek word to lift a great weight of misunderstanding from one’s heart. In 1 Cor. 12:30 Paul’s question about the gift of tongues is marked as rhetorical, expecting a negative answer, by just such a word. Christopher M. Hays is the president of Scholar Leaders. Among his publications are When the Son of Man Didn't Come: A Constructive Proposal on the Delay of the Parousia and Renouncing Everything: Money and Discipleship in Luke.

Jon Laansma is Gerald F. Hawthorne Professor of New Testament Greek and Exegesis in the Classical Languages program at Wheaton College. He regularly teaches Greek 101-102 along with upper-division Greek rapid reading courses that translate whole books of the NT and Church Fathers. One such class reads through all of Luke-Acts. Another pairs several Pauline letters with letters of Ignatius and Polycarp, as well as a few chapters from the Epistle to Diognetus. A third iteration pairs books from the General Epistles of the NT with Martyrdom of Polycarp, Didache, and other non-NT selections. The Classical Languages program as a whole offers similar opportunities for Hebrew, Latin, and Classical Greek texts.

Did the OT Israelites have a hope of eternal life in heaven? Ps. 49:15 is often understood to say that God will “take” the psalmist “to himself.” But the phrase “to himself” is not in the Hebrew. It is by noticing such things in that and similar passages that we are better equipped to answer the larger question as far as the original author is concerned. Dr. John Walton, Professor of Old Testament at Wheaton Graduate School, is a frequent contributor to this podcast. His publications include Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament Theology for Christians: From Ancient Context to Enduring Belief.

Hints of the identity of the man and woman together as God’s sacred space have been latent but unrecognized in the Hebrew language of Gen. 2:21-22. In this, our 200th episode, Dr. Ingrid Faro uncovers what the language has to tell us. She is the Coordinator of the MA in Old Testament Program at Northern Seminary in Lisle, IL, where she teaches the Hebrew Bible. Among other things, she is the author of  Evil in Genesis: A Contextual Analysis of Hebrew Lexemes for Evil in the Book of Genesis. She recently lectured at the Lanier Theological Library on “Deconstructing Evil,” and her forthcoming book is Demystifying Evil: A Biblical and Personal Exploration (IVP).

In 1 Cor. 16:2, is Paul stipulating that funds be set aside “individually” or “at home,” and is there evidence here of a special “Lord’s Day” meeting of the church? Jon Laansma is Gerald F. Hawthorne Professor of New Testament Greek and Exegesis in the Classical Languages program at Wheaton College. He has authored articles on the Lord’s Day and Sabbath in the Dictionary of the Later New Testament and its Developments, The Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception, Early New Testament Apocrypha, and the Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (forthcoming, Baker).

In 1 Cor. 1:19 Paul quotes from Isaiah 29:14. His Greek wording differs markedly from the Hebrew of the OT passage, but is close to the Greek version of Isaiah then in use (LXX, Septuagint) . . . and nods to Psalm 33:10. Why would Paul do this? Dr. Fresch also wrote a blog post on this issue: “Paul the Paraphraser or Paul the Septuagint Quoter?” Dr. Chris Fresch is Lecturer in Biblical Languages and Old Testament at Bible College SA in Adelaide, South Australia. Among other things, he has authored Discourse Markers in Early Koine Greek: A Cognitive-Functional Analysis with an Application to LXX Translation Technique (SBL Press, 2023).

A key Greek phrase, πίστις Χριστοῦ (with variations), has been hotly debated as to its meaning and translation: “Christ’s faith(fulness)”? “Faith in Christ?” Maybe, however, the sense is closer to: “the Christ faith.” Dr. Kevin Grasso (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) is co-founder and CEO of Biblingo, which exists “to advance God’s Word in the world by making the biblical languages more accessible and easier to learn through technology.” He is currently working on a revision of his dissertation on verbs of judgment in Biblical Hebrew as well as linguistic introductions to both Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Greek. Check out their podcast.

The Hebrew preposition usually translated as “in” in the phrase “in God’s image” repays a closer look. It has to do with our identity, what and who we are. Dr. Carmen Imes (Ph.D., Wheaton College) is Associate Professor of Old Testament at Talbot School of Theology at Biola University. She has published several works including Bearing God’s Name: Why Sinai Still Matters, and hosts her own YouTube channel where she releases weekly “Torah Tuesday” videos. Her next book will be Being God's Image: Why Creation Still Matters.

Dr. Dennis Edwards is Vice President for Church Relations and Dean of the Seminary at North Park University. Among other things, he has authored Might from the Margins: The Gospel's Power to Turn the Tables on Injustice and 1 Peter (The Story of God Bible Commentary Book 17). Today’s topic: A word otherwise unused in the NT is chosen by Peter to command all his readers to “clothe yourselves” with humility. These one-time (hapax legomena) words can be interesting. What might be the implications in 1 Peter 5:5?

Travis Wright is a Ph.D. candidate in Theology and Religion at Cambridge University. Today’s topic: Pairing a knowledge of Greek with the field of linguistics allows for a sharpened exposition of the crucial statement about God and the only-begotten God in John 1:18.