Faith in the Folds

Today I sat down with friend, author, and PhD Candidate Ross Harriman. Ross is my go-to source for all things J. R. R. #Tolkien, but he is also very well read on a myriad of topics related to biblical studies and church history. Years ago Ross shared a series he’d written on the dating and time of Jesus’s birth that caught my attention. Since #Christmas is right around the corner, I wanted to catch up with Ross and talk to him about what the Bible says about when #Jesus was born, and what early Christians thought as well. We also talk about the annoying and persistent myth that Christmas started out as a #pagan holiday: guess what, it didn’t.

To sign up for Ross’s Substack, go here: https://krharriman.substack.com

You can also find some of Ross’s academic publishing here: https://asburyseminary.academia.edu/KRHarriman

Today I sat down with best-selling #author, ghostwriter, and editor Tama Fortner of Nashville, TN. Tama has been in love with writing since she was eight years old, and has several hit children’s books—not to mention over forty titles altogether—on her resumé. I caught up with Tama to talk with her about her latest book, Simply Christmas: A Busy Mom’s Guide to Reclaiming the Peace of the Holidays: A Devotional. This delightful devotional book includes 31 reflections and encouraging thoughts that lead readers out of the hustle and bustle of the holidays and into the peace and love of the #Savior. Simply Christmas can be found in major book retailers and Target, as well as Amazon and other online shops.

Check out Tama’s work here at her personal website: https://tamafortner.com

Today I sit down with Dr. Rafael Rodríguez, professor New Testament at Johnson University in Knoxville, TN. Rafael and I had a delightful conversation about Paul's massive tome to the churches in Rome. I'm especially thankful for our discussion because #Romans is such a sophisticated argument that I sometimes feel it's easy to get lost in the weeds and in the extraordinary amount of secondary literature written about Romans--and this is where Rafael shines as he walks us through some of the major themes and points of what is arguably Paul's greatest explanation of the #Gospel.

For a quick glance of Rafael’s work, check out his page at Johnson University. Here you’ll find links to his several books and articles: https://johnsonu.edu/staff/rafael-rodriguez/

Today I sit down with Dr. Craig Keener, the F. M. and Ada Thompson Professor of Biblical Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary. I first encountered Craig’s work in 2012 when I was about halfway through my Masters of Divinity. Our librarian was excitedly showing off the massive first volume of Keener’s commentary on the book of Acts—his first volume of four! Little did I know I would later write my dissertation for Craig Keener on the a particular aspect of studying Jesus as a historical figure.

Craig is an internationally respected expert on the #NewTestament in general, and on the #Gospels and #Acts in particular. He has authored several books for academic and general audiences, and has a fairly active YouTube channel as well. Find the links below to check out Craig’s work.

Craig’s personal website includes links to his various publications, videos, and even his humorous cartoons about life in academia: https://craigkeener.com

You can find several of Craig’s academic books here: http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/authors/craig-s-keener/358

Craig has also published academic works here: https://www.eerdmans.com/AdvancedSearch/DefaultWFilter.aspx?SearchTerm=keener

Craig and his wife Médine have co-authored a spiritual autobiography, Impossible Love: http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/authors/medine-moussounga-keener/2465

You can also find Craig’s YouTube page here: https://www.youtube.com/c/CraigKeenerPhD/videos

Today I sit down with Dr. Paul Anderson, Professor of Biblical and Quaker Studies at George Fox University. As a leading expert on the #Gospel of #John, Dr. Anderson has written extensively on the fourth Gospel, and was a founding member of the John, Jesus, and History Seminar within the Society of Biblical Literature. Some of his more recent work deals particularly with the composition of John’s gospel, and he argues persuasively that John’s account offers valid, independent testimony of Jesus alongside the Synoptic Gospels.

For more information about Paul Anderson, check out his faculty page here: https://www.georgefox.edu/academics/undergrad/departments/religion/faculty/anderson.html

For easy access to Paul Anderson’s works available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Paul-N.-Anderson/e/B001HODFI2/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1458067302&sr=1-2-ent

This link provides a succinct discussion of Paul Anderson’s view of the interaction of John’s and Mark’s Gospel accounts: https://ntscholarship.wordpress.com/2012/07/18/a-bi-optic-hypothesis-a-theory-of-interfluentiality-between-the-johannine-and-markan-gospels/

Today I sit down with Dr. Darrell Bock, Executive Director of Cultural Engagement and Senior Research Professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary. Dr. Bock is an expert in New Testament studies, having written over 40 books, many of which touch on the historical #Jesus, the #Gospel of #Luke, and Acts. Given his expertise in Luke—not to mention his nearly forty years of teaching and researching on Luke!—Dr. Bock is the ideal guest to interview on the Gospel of Luke in this series.

Find out more about Dr. Bock here:https://www.dts.edu/employee/darrell-bock/

For a list of select publications, check out: https://voice.dts.edu/contributor/darrell-bock/

Today I sat down with Dr. Allen Black, Professor Emeritus of New Testament at the Harding School of Theology in Memphis, TN. Dr. Black is a returning guest on the podcast, and I encourage you to check episode 16 of Faith in the Folds to hear him reflect on his 38-year career in teaching. I first heard Dr. Black teach on the #Gospel of #Mark in the Spring of 2010 during my first campus visit to HST, and looking back on that evening I had no idea just how many more times I would sit in class with him. As his student, graduate assistant from 2011-14, and now his colleague, Dr. Black is one of the professors I admire most and this interview gives several great examples of why I love his teaching style: he is always updating his classes and lectures with the best of the most recent scholarship. Several times in our interview on the Gospel of Mark, Dr. Black mentioned new works that brought a fresh perspective to issues in the second gospel. I know I learned a lot from our time together, and I know you will too.

My seminary alma mater and where I currently teach adjunct is Harding School of Theology: http://hst.edu

You can find more about Allen Black here: https://hst.edu/allen-black/

You can also find Allen Black’s commentary on the Gospel of Mark here: https://www.collegepress.com/collections/commentary/products/mark-niv

Today I sit down with Dr. Jonathan Pennington, Associate Professor of New Testament Interpretation at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY, who also serves as the Pastor of Spiritual Formation at Sojourn East in Louisville. Dr. Pennington has taught courses on the gospels every semester for almost twenty years, and has written extensively on the Gospels, particularly on Matthew. The #GospelOfMatthew is my favorite #Gospel, and although I’ve read it multiple times, taken a doctoral seminar on Matthew, and spent a year teaching through it on Wednesday nights, Dr. Pennington helped me understand the first Gospel even better by highlighting how #Jesus is not just the new and greater Moses, He is also very much the #fulfillment of the promises to both Abraham and David—maybe that’s why Matthew begins his genealogy “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matt 1:1).

You can find much of Dr. Pennington’s academic and church work at the links below.

Jonathan Pennington’s personal website: https://www.jonathanpennington.com/home

Books authored or co-authored by Jonathan Pennington: https://www.jonathanpennington.com/books

You can also find Jonathan’s Human Flourishing Podcast here: https://www.jonathanpennington.com/preaching-and-speaking-resourcces

And be sure to check out Jonathan’s YouTube Series “Coffee, Cars, Theology”: https://www.carscoffeetheology.com

For today’s episode, I wanted to share with you a special presentation I gave to Harding University’s Archaeology Club on Monday, September 27, 2021. Dr. Dale Manor, who has been on the podcast before (episodes 21 and 22), asked me to speak to the archaeology club. This presentation is called “History in His Story: Biography and Archaeology of the Life of Jesus,” and in this presentation I take a couple of test cases and examine the gospels for corroborating evidence as a historian and an archaeologist would do. This episode serves as kind of a recap to what Mike Licona and I talked about the last two episodes, before we begin digging into the individual gospel accounts.

Today I sat down again with Dr. Michael Licona, Associate Professor of Theology at Houston Baptist University. This episode is the third in a new series where we’ll take a book-by-book approach for most of the New Testament, but before we actually get to the individual books of the New Testament, though, I wanted to take some time to dig into the #Gospels as ancient biographies. To do just that, Mike joins us for the second week in a row, this time to talk about the differences between each Gospel.

In 2017 Mike wrote a book titled Why Are There Differences in the Gospels? What We Can Learn from Ancient Biography (link below). I think this is the clearest and best all around explanation for why the four #canonical #evangelists differ in matters of detail, arrangement, and emphasis in each of their accounts.In the book, Mike examines several biographies written by a Greek author named Plutarch, who lived from roughly ad 46 to 120. #Plutarch often discussed the same person in different biographies, and Mike shows how these differences in matters of detail, arrangement, and emphasis from Plutarch are precisely the kinds of differences we see in the Gospels. Near the end of the episode Mike says, “Our view of inspiration must be consistent with what we see in Scripture,” and I think he’s correct.

For Why Are There Differences in the Gospels? What We Can Learn from Ancient Biography, go here: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/why-are-there-differences-in-the-gospels-9780190264260?cc=us&lang=en&

Additional books from Mike Licona, referenced in an earlier episode of Faith in Folds that debuted on October 1, 2021, can be found at these links

The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach: https://www.ivpress.com/the-resurrection-of-jesus

Paul Meets Muhammad: http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/paul-meets-muhammad/269070

The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus: https://www.kregel.com/theology-and-religious-studies/the-case-for-the-resurrection-of-jesus-6964/

You can also find several of Mike’s resources at his personal website, Risen Jesus: https://www.risenjesus.com/

Check out Mike’s YouTube page, which has his Risen Jesus podcast and many of his debates: https://www.youtube.com/c/milico885