Exegetically Speaking

Rabbi Steven Bob, Rabbi Emeritus at Congregation Etz Chaim in Lombard, Il, adjunct professor at Wheaton College, discusses God’s language of comfort in Isaiah 40, addressed to Israelites in exile. He emphasizes how the very sounds of the Hebrew words are comforting sounds, and relates this to the post-exilic leaders Ezra and Nehemiah, whose names mean help and comfort.

Dr. Matthew Bates is Associate Professor of Theology at Quincy University. He recalls how, having majored in physics as an undergraduate, he learned beginning Greek independently before jumping into second-year Greek in seminary. Among his several publications are The Birth of the Trinity (Oxford, 2015) and Salvation by Allegiance Alone (Baker, 2017). In this episode he reveals how Paul’s choice of verbiage in an important summary of the gospel indicates his conceptions of Christ’s nature and history, especially both his divine pre-existence and his exaltation.

Dr. Joshua Jipp is Associate Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Among his other publication are Saved by Faith and Hospitality (Eerdmans, 2017) and The Messianic Theology of the New Testament (Eerdmans, 2020). He argues that “Christ” is not only a name for Jesus when it is used in many NT passages, but a title: messiah, anointed one. He talks about the OT background and significance of this title when it is used by Paul in Ephesians and elsewhere.

Carmen Imes (Ph.D., Wheaton College) is Associate Professor Old Testament at Prairie College (Canada). She has published several works and is working on a second book for InterVarsity Press entitled Being God's Image. She talks about her own history with the Hebrew language, and discusses the phrase in Ecclesiastes sometimes translated as “Meaningless!” Maybe “vapor” or “fleeting” would be a better rendering.

Dr. Madison Pierce is Assistant Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Among other things, she has co-edited Muted Voices of the New Testament (T&T Clark, 2017). In this episode she argues that it is the Holy Spirit himself that is being distributed in Heb. 2:4, rather than gifts of the Spirit, as in some translations.

Dr. Scott Callaham is Lecturer of Hebrew and Old Testament at Baptist Theological Seminary, Singapore. Dr. Callaham has written extensively on Hebrew grammar and on broader issues of theology and ministry. In this episode, he discusses with Dr. Capes his mid-life calling to learn Chinese and then to teach through the medium of Chinese in Singapore. He shares special challenges he faces when explaining Hebrew grammatical concepts in Chinese. The Chinese language is quite different from that of English, and thinking critically about the language used for teaching can illuminate understanding of Hebrew grammar and pedagogy in fresh ways.

Dr. Paul Anderson, Professor of Biblical and Quaker Studies at George Fox University, observes that while some scholars have not viewed John’s Gospel as a reliable source of historical information because of its theological Christ-hymn in John 1:1-18, its Greek vocabulary and form actually suggest it was added to the Gospel by John the Elder after the death of the Beloved Disciple – a confessional affirmation of John's grounded story of Jesus similar to 1 John 1:1-3.

Andrew Burlingame, an alum of Wheaton’s Classical Languages program, is Assistant Professor of Hebrew at Wheaton College within the Department of Modern and Classical Languages. He was at the time of recording a Ph.D. candidate in Northwest Semitic Philology, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago, but he has since graduated to Dr. Burlingame! In this conversation with David Capes, he highlights recent scholarship that has compared Ps. 2:5 with a Ugaritic legal text and suggested the possibility that the wording of Psalm 2 was drawn from technical legal language. Rather than “terrifying” the opposing rulers, God “disinherits” them.

Dr. David Baer, an alum of Wheaton College, is Professor of Old Testament & Biblical Languages at Medellín’s Biblical Seminary of Colombia and directs United World Mission’s Theological Education Initiative. He talks about how ancient translators of the Hebrew resisted the language of Isa 57:15 so as to preserve a strong notion of God’s exalted status. In fact, this verse communicates the truth that the high and holy God actually dwells with the lowly.

Dr. Richard Schultz, the Blanchard Professor of Old Testament in Wheaton College Graduate School, has co-authored with T. Norton Sterrett How to Understand the Bible, along with other books and articles. He talks about Genesis 12, 15, and 17 as the launch of salvation history, with particular reference to the words blessing, clan, and seed.