World of the Bible Podcast, a Tyndale House Production

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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Music – Acoustic Happy Background used with a standard license from Adobe Stock.

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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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Music – Acoustic Happy Background used with a standard license from Adobe Stock.

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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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In this episode Tony sits down with David Tsumura, who is a professor emeritus in Old Testament studies at Japan Bible Seminary.  

David is a familiar face at Tyndale House having visited several times over nearly 40 years. He lived on site for two years from 1986 while working on a Tyndale House research project on Genesis 1–11. In this interview he shares how he went from studying economics to the Old Testament, and how his involvement at Tyndale House has influenced his work back in Japan. 

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In this episode, Tony continues his conversation with writer-in-residence, Christopher Ash, on his new four-volume commentary on the Psalms. They discuss how Christ would have prayed the Psalms during his earthly life, the structure of the 5 books of the Psalms, and how we approach different genres of psalms such as imprecatory psalms. 

This is part 2 of the interview and you can catch up on part 1 wherever you get your podcasts from.


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In this episode, Tony interviews our writer-in-residence, Christopher Ash, on his new 4 volume commentary on the Psalms. Christopher shares how he came to write the commentary, the importance of the psalms, and why he thinks that the Psalms are inseparable from Christ.

This is part 1 of the interview and part 2 will be released next week.

The Commentary is available to order now:
The Psalms: A Christ-Centred Commentary (Crossway, 2024) https://www.crossway.org/books/the-psalms-hcj-5/

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In this episode Tony Watkins sits down with biblical scholar, Ahreum Kim, who has been a reader at Tyndale House on and off since 2019 when she came here during her MPhil. She has since completed her PhD which focused on the letter of 1 John and the Greco-Roman context it was written in. She and Tony discuss her PhD, why it’s so important to understand the context of New Testament letters, and what Ahreum is working on at the moment.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the episode so please do get in touch either on X @tyndale_house or email us at [email protected]. 

Editing by Tyndale House. 
Music: Acoustic Happy Background used via Adobe Stock with a standard license.

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Edited by Tyndale House

Music – Acoustic Happy Background used with a standard license from Adobe Stock.

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