In season 5 of the Tyndale House podcast, Tony Watkins speaks to members of our New Testament team to find out about New Testament manuscripts and how studying them can help us with our trust and understanding of the Bible. 

In this first episode, Tony asks Dirk Jongkind and Nelson Hsieh what a manuscript actually is, and why it's worth studying New Testament manuscripts.

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In this episode, Tony talks to Dr Steve Walton, Professor of New Testament and Senior Research Fellow at Trinity College, Bristol. Steve is a frequent visitor to us here at Tyndale House as he's been working on his commentary on Acts for the Word Biblical Commentary series. The first volume of the commentary, on Acts 1–9:42 (volume 37A), was published in the USA in October 2024, and will be out in the UK on 2 January 2025. There will be three volumes in total, and Steve is currently working on volume 2. He and Tony discuss the process of writing the commentary and some key things that Steve has discovered about the book of Acts.

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Is the Nativity a true story? Why are there differences between Matthew and Luke’s accounts of Jesus’s birth? Was Luke historically correct when he wrote about the census? What was the star and is it even possible for the wise men to have followed it? What year was Jesus actually born? Peter Williams answers all these questions and more in this special Christmas podcast episode.
 
Visit our Christmas resources page on our website for further reading on this topic: tyndalehouse.com/christmas

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In this episode, Tony is joined by three of our long-term readers who are all working on PhDs at Cambridge University. Ellie Wiener is currently studying the book of Job, Megan Alsene-Parker is studying Lamentations, and Ben Rae is studying Ecclesiastes. Together, they discuss what poetry actually is, the features of Hebrew poetry, and why we should spend time digging into biblical poetry.


TH ink articles written by interviewees:

• The ABCs of Hebrew Acrostic Poems by Megan Alsene-Parker: https://tyndalehouse.com/explore/articles/hebrew-acrostics/
• The surprising joy of memorising Job by Ellie Wiener: https://tyndalehouse.com/explore/articles/memorising-job/

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Steve Walton and Tony Watkins discuss why Saul changed to Paul in the book of Acts. In the book of Acts, the apostle Paul is referred to as Saul up until chapter 13, where he begins to be referred to as Paul. Steve explains how names worked in the Roman world to shed light on this name change. He also shares about some of the research he has done in the book of Acts over several years.

Further reading:

Steve Walton, 2023, Why was “Saul” changed to “Paul”? www.logos.com/grow/hall-saul-to-paul/

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In this episode, Peter Williams, Principal of Tyndale House, explains how names can help us to assess the historical reliability of the Gospels. By looking at name records we can see what the most popular names were outside of the Gospels at the same time and place. Peter then compares these with the names we see in the Gospels to see whether they line up. He and Tony also discuss Jesus calling himself ‘The Son of Man’ and what we should make of that.

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In this episode, Tony chats to James Bejon and Josh Meynell about strange or animal-related names that we find in the Bible. Some of the names in the Bible strike us as having curious meanings. For example, Caleb means ‘dog’, Nun means ‘fish’, and Abel means ‘vapour’. What are we to make of these names? James, Josh, and Tony work through some of these examples and some from the wider ancient Near East to explore how there might be more to the names than we might think at first glance.

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In this episode, Tony asks Caleb Howard and James Bejon why we have genealogies in the Bible and how we should make sense of them. They discuss how the Old Testament is unique in ancient literature in the way it lays out genealogies. They also explore how it can give us a clear account of the people of Israel from Adam through to the exile, by looking at some genealogies in the book of 1 Chronicles.

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In this episode, George Heath-Whyte and James Bejon chat with Tony about the use of divine names in the ancient world and in the Bible. 

What did the Babylonians call their gods?
What did the names of the Babylonian gods mean?
Why did the Israelites go from calling God 'El-Shaddai' to 'Yahweh'?
How did the worship of Yahweh in the Old Testament compare to idol worship in the ancient world?
Hear answers to these and more in the episode. 

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In this episode, George Heath-Whyte and James Bejon chat with Tony about a range of difficult questions surrounding the book of Daniel: 

What is the significance of Daniel and his friends having their names changed in Daniel 1? 
What do their new Babylonian names mean? 
Why is there no mention of Belshazzar as king of Babylon in the official records? 
Who was Darius the Mede?
Hear answers to these and more in the episode. 

Please do let us know what you think of the episode or if you have other topics you would like us to cover. Email us at [email protected].

*At 17:02 James said that Shar-ezer turns up in 1 Chronicles 3. This was incorrect. He was thinking of Shen-azzar, which might be a variant form of Shar-ezer but it is not certain.

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