Tucked away in the Gospel of Matthew—in just two easily overlooked verses—is the strangest, most cinematic scene in the ancient world: Jesus dies, the earth shakes, the tombs crack open, and an army of resurrected holy people march out of the cemetery and into downtown Jerusalem.

Mark didn't mention it. Luke somehow missed it. John took one look and left it off the final edit.

So why did Matthew casually drop a literal zombie outbreak into the middle of the crucifixion narrative?

On this track of The B-Side Bible, Mark Kerrigan strips away centuries of sanitized theological varnish and Hollywood horror tropes to uncover the raw, first-century political warfare hidden beneath the bedrock.

We break down:

• The Chronological Time-Bomb: The glaring grammatical glitch in Matthew 27 that leaves an army of resurrected ancestors stranded in a three-day theological waiting room between Friday's earthquake and Sunday's green light.
• The Street-Level Absurdity: The impossible municipal logistics of Roman sentries logging deceased civilians at the gates and bewildered Jerusalem families greeting long-dead relatives at the dinner table.
• Anti-Temple Media Warfare: Why this bizarre footnote was actually a devastating ideological intercontinental ballistic missile aimed directly at Caiaphas and the Sadducean high-priest cartel—the ruling elite whose entire political monopoly depended on the dead staying silent.
• The Bureaucratic Cover-Up: How the state scrambled to buy a new reality, silence the streets, and spin the fallout before the whole house came crashing down.

Forget the polite Sunday school summaries. It’s time to look at the scriptural engineering, the propaganda of the palace, and the revolutionary manifesto of the street.

Put on your headphones. We’re tracking the unedited truth on the B-side of history.

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Season 3, Episode 3: Extreme Street Theatre: The Weaponised Madness of the Ancient Prophets

Forget the polished Sunday school portraits of dignified, bearded elders delivering polite moral advice. On the B-side of history, the ancient Near Eastern prophets weren't gentle philosophers—they were psychological guerillas, political dissidents, and creators of the most confronting avant-garde performance art in antiquity.

In this episode, we pull back the editorial curtain on the raw, unvarnished antics of the prophetic tradition:

• Isaiah’s Three-Year Strip Search: Why an elite royal advisor walked the public squares of Jerusalem barefoot and exposed for thirty-six months to derail an international military treaty.
• Ezekiel’s Refugee Sandbox: The dark psychological warfare of building a toy siege wall in a Babylonian camp, lying bound in ropes for over a year, and baking bread over manure.
• Hosea’s Domestic Shock Tactics: Turning a broken marriage and the scandalous names of his own children into a live-action mirror of national treason.
• Elisha, the Bears, and the Border Gang: Dissecting the infamous Bethel incident to separate modern fairy-tale horror from ancient covenant propaganda and territorial turf wars.

Putting on the text-critic gloves, we examine these bizarre accounts not as literal 6 o'clock news reports, but as masterclasses in ancient media warfare. In an era before printing presses or digital feeds, how did writers and advisors break through imperial noise to deliver high-stakes political payloads?

They didn’t just write the message. They became the headline.

About The B-Side Bible

Hosted by Mark Kerrigan and produced by Narranimate Studios, The B-Side Bible strips the theological varnish off antiquity to explore the socio-political context, literary engineering, and hidden tracks of the ancient world. History before it became doctrine.

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If you read ancient biblical literature, a specific mathematical rhythm keeps hitting the script. The rain falls for forty days in Genesis. Moses vanishes onto Mount Sinai for forty days. Israel wanders the desert for forty years. Jesus starves in the Judean wilderness for forty days.

Through a modern, Western lens, it looks like a bizarre coincidence—or a divine obsession with a digital stopwatch. But on the B-side of history, the number forty was never a statistic or a literal countdown. It was a highly sophisticated cultural code.

In this 16th episode of The B-Side Bible, host Mark Kerrigan strips away centuries of theological varnish to conduct an objective, socio-historical post-mortem on scripture's most ubiquitous number. Leaving modern moralising completely at the door, we look at how ancient Near Eastern writers weaponised the number forty to reconstruct a broken national identity and launch high-stakes first-century political movements.

We unpack:

• The Biological Link: How ancient scribes used the universal metric of human pregnancy—the forty-week gestation period—as a deliberate metaphor for cultural incubation and historical labour pains.
• The Babylonian Trauma: Why displaced Judean priests in the 6th century BCE used "forty years in the wilderness" to explain that a slave mentality takes an entire biological generation to die off before a free society can be birthed.
• The New Testament Mirror Match: How the Gospel writers used a forty-day desert fast as an aggressive piece of typological branding, proving to a first-century audience under Roman military occupation that Jesus was the "New Israel" who passed the tests the old nation failed.

We aren't here to preach; we are here to figure out how the text actually worked for the audience who first heard it. Grab your headphones and discover why the "side stories" are the ones that change how you see everything.

Listen now and dive deeper into the unedited tracks of ancient history at www.narranimatestudios.com.au.

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Long before Christianity settled into creeds and councils, it was a field of competing ideas — and some of the most striking came from the movement we now call Gnosticism.

In this episode, we trace the rise of the Gnostics: the teachers who shaped it, the world that produced it, and the ideas that set them apart. We explore their dualistic cosmos, their vision of a flawed material world, the role of the Demiurge, the pursuit of hidden knowledge — and why these ideas became such a challenge to the emerging orthodox church.

This is not about heresy hunting. This is about understanding the diversity and complexity inside early Christianity — and how alternative Christianities grew, argued, adapted, and sometimes survived in the shadows.

Join us as we step back into the second century and meet a Christianity very few people ever learn about — the Gnostic imagination.

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For nearly two thousand years, Judas Iscariot has stood as Christianity’s ultimate betrayer. But one ancient text — discovered in Egypt and finally brought to light in the early 21st century — tells a different story.

In this episode, we explore The Gospel of Judas, an early Gnostic text that repositions Judas not as the villain, but as the one disciple who understood Jesus’ true mission. We examine where this gospel came from, who wrote it, why it emerged in the theological battleground of the 2nd century, and what it reveals about the diversity of belief in the early Christian world.

This is not a rehabilitation of Judas for shock value. It is a window into a time when Christian identity was still fluid, disputed, and contested — and when new interpretations were created to challenge the rising orthodoxy.

Join us as we step inside the world of Gnostic Christianity and encounter one of the most controversial alternative tellings of the Jesus story — the Gospel of Judas.

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If there’s a celebrity among numbers, it’s 666. It shows up where you least expect it: on horror posters, in guitar solos, on stolen highway signs, on novelty merchandise, and even in cheeky bus timetables. Whole marketing campaigns have timed releases to it, bands have built careers around it, and newsrooms can’t resist a headline that sneaks it in. For some, 666 is spooky; for others, it’s a wink and a nudge—an inside joke that pop culture keeps telling. But why, where did this number come from and why is it so deeply connected with evil and the devil. In today’s episode of the B-side Bible we are looking at where this number came from, how it became firmly embedded into the collective imagination and is it really the Devil’s number or is there a more prosaic meaning behind all the hype. 

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Mark’s Gospel is short, raw, and famously ends in silence — no nativity, no resurrection appearances, no triumphant conclusion. So how did this rough first draft of the Jesus story survive when flashier Gospels came along? In this episode, we explore the surprising reasons Mark’s Gospel made the final cut. From apostolic name-dropping and Gentile appeal to performance-ready storytelling and possible Homeric influences, The B-Side Bible uncovers the overlooked genius of Christianity’s first Gospel.

Whether you're a theology nerd, a Bible history buff, or just love a good underdog story — this one’s for you.

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Zoroastrianism was founded by the prophet Zoroaster around 3,500 years ago in ancient Persia. This religion has profoundly influenced the spiritual landscape of the world, and today, we’ll be uncovering its rich history, key figures, and sacred texts.

In this episode, we’ll take a detailed look at the rise of Zoroastrianism. We’ll explore how it flourished under the mighty Persian empires, from the Achaemenid to the Parthian and Sasanian dynasties. These were times when Zoroastrianism was not just a religion but the very foundation of the state and culture.

We’ll also delve into the dualistic nature of Zoroastrianism, where Ahura Mazda, the Wise Lord, represents all that is good, standing in stark contrast to Angra Mainyu, the Destructive Spirit of chaos and evil. This cosmic struggle between good and evil is a cornerstone of Zoroastrian belief and has inspired countless stories and teachings.

Zoroastrianism has left an indelible mark on other major religions, including Gnosticism, Judaism, and Christianity. We’ll examine these intriguing links, such as the concepts of the messiah, heaven and hell, and the final judgment, which all might sound familiar to many of you.

So, whether you’re a history buff, a religious studies enthusiast, or just curious about the world’s spiritual heritage, stay tuned. We’re about to uncover the untold stories and fascinating aspects of Zoroastrianism that they didn’t teach you in school. Let’s get started!

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In this episode, we’ll trace the journey of St. Nicholas—a 4th-century bishop from Myra—to the global legend we celebrate today. Along the way, we’ll explore the extraordinary life of Nicholas of Myra, the legends that shaped his saintly reputation, and how these stories evolved into the mythos of Santa Claus.

Don’t forget to check out my other episodes of “They didn’t teach that at school”. Available on all major podcast platforms. 

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In this. the first episode of season 2 of "They Didn't Teach That at School," podcast author and presenter Mark Kerrigan B.Ed, M.TheolSt delves into the discovery and significance of the Gospel of Thomas, an apocryphal text comprising 114 sayings of Jesus, found in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945. Unlike the narrative-driven canonical gospels, the Gospel of Thomas emphasizes mystical and Gnostic themes, promoting self-knowledge and personal enlightenment. The episode explores the historical context of early Christianity, highlighting the differing visions of key figures like James, Peter, and Paul, and the rise of the orthodox church, which established a unified set of beliefs through councils and canonical criteria, ultimately shaping the dominant form of Christianity. 

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