The Biblical Mind

Rabbi Dr. Jeremiah Unterman delivers a public lecture for the CHT examining moral progress in the Hebrew Bible and more generally in the ancient Near East. 

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Drs. Mary Hom and Dru Johnson discuss the impact of the baby Yoda story in the Christmas season, how the Star Wars stories and Yoda's poetic speech prime expectations, and how much these resemble aspects of the biblical narratives and style—especially Christmas!

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We think of Christmas as a New Testament Story, but does it start earlier?

Hint: the story of a child changing the flow of cosmic events goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden.

The nativity isn't an isolated story, but it pulls together all of God's political ambitions for the world, to run it with righteousness, justice, and peace.

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Dru Johnson talks with Drs. Eric Smith and Scott Booth of Pillar Seminary about the notion of calling in Scripture and some of the problematic thinking about Christian vocation practiced in the church. They address the following questions:

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In this episode, Dru talks with Dr. Unterman about biblical teaching on ethics. They discuss ancient notions of justice, law-keeping, fickle gods, and the treatment of foreigners across the Near East. Unterman highlights the specific and unusual features of Hebraic thought that have also informed our modern Western ethics more than we might realize. 

Jeremiah Unterman is a resident scholar at the Herzl Institute, Jerusalem. He is the author of Justice for All: How the Jewish Bible Revolutionized Ethics, From Repentance to Redemption: Jeremiah’s Thought in Transition, and numerous scholarly articles.

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Dru talks with Eric about how Hebrews reasoned through concepts in light of the ancient Near East.

Eric is the founder and president of The Pillar Seminary. He started the seminary with 15 years of active ministry experience and a Ph.D. from Trinity College in Bristol, England. Along with education, he brings experience from serving on leadership teams with multiple churches in the midwest. He currently serves as a visiting teaching pastor for several local congregations. Prior to The Pillar, Eric taught as an Old Testament Professor for Nebraska Christian College from 2006-2014. During those years several things solidified for Eric such as his passion for teaching, his joy when helping someone thrive right where they are, and his reflection on scripture that became Jesus Prequel, his most recent book.

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Robert talks about moving from antagonism towards Christians to being deeply impacted by the message of Scripture and the Church. This episode's topics range from his work with the CHT to Christian persecution in the Middle East. 

Robert Nicholson is Founder and Executive Director of The Philos Project. He holds a B.A. in Hebrew Studies from Binghamton University, and both a J.D. and M.A. in Middle Eastern history from Syracuse University. A former U.S. Marine and a 2012-13 Tikvah Fellow, Nicholson founded The Philos Project in 2014. His advocacy focuses on spreading the vision of a multi-ethnic and multi-religious Middle East based on freedom and rule of law. Mr. Nicholson serves on the Board of Directors of Passages, and is a publisher of Providence: A Journal of Christianity and American Foreign Policy. His written work has appeared in First Things, The Federalist, The Jerusalem Post, The Hill, and The American Interest, among others.

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In this episode, Dr. Dru Johnson talks with Dr. Shira Weiss about her research on biblical ethics, the sticky ethical stories of Scripture, and why the biblical authors might not have given us easy answers about morality. 

Shira Weiss holds a Ph.D. in Jewish Philosophy and has taught at Yeshiva University.  She has earned fellowships from the NEH, The Templeton Foundation, and Ben Gurion University.  Dr. Weiss is the author of Joseph Albo on Free Choice: Exegetical Innovation in Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Oxford University Press) and Ethical Ambiguity in the Hebrew Bible (Cambridge University Press), as well as articles in a variety of academic journals. She is currently working on a manuscript, Biblical Heroes on Trial: Justice and Vigilantism in the Hebrew Bible, and is co-authoring a book on protests against God in the Book of Job according to the three Abrahamic faiths.

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Dr. Dru Johnson talks to Dr. Berman about what the intellectual world of the Bible looks like to him. 

Joshua Berman is a professor of Hebrew Bible at Bar-Ilan University, Israel.  A graduate of Princeton University, Dr. Berman also studied for eight years at Yeshivat Har-Etzion in Israel and has rabbinical ordination from the Israeli Chief Rabbinate.  He is the author, among other works of Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought  (Oxford, 2008) and Inconsistency in the Torah: Ancient Literary Convention and the Limits of Source Criticism (Oxford, 2017). In addition to his scholarly output, Dr. Berman has also published pieces on the Hebrew Bible and contemporary thought in Mosaic Magazine and the Wall Street Journal. Dr. Berman served as a member of the International Advisory Council of the Museum of the Bible, Washington, D.C.

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