May 23rd The Bible Geek Podcast
Thursday, May 23rd 2013, 19m
Robert M. Price reads his review of Thomas B. Warren's book "Have Atheists Proved There Is No God?"

May 22nd The Bible Geek Podcast
Wednesday, May 22nd 2013, 55m
If God steps in and answers a prayer, e.g., for a job promotion or simply being hired, isn't he messing with the free will of the people who decide such things? Bart Ehrman, on his blog, says he now believes that Paul thought that the pre-incarnate Jesus was an angel. What do you think? Some translations of Romans 10:17 have the concluding phrase as "word of God," others as "word of Christ." Does this reflect the use of different manuscripts? Where is government-sponsored religion equated with the anti-Christ in the Bible? According to "Beer Production by Throwing Bread into Water: a New Interpretaton of Qoh. XI 1-2" by Michael M. Homan (Vetus Testamentum, V. 52, Fasc, 2 (Apr 2002), pp. 275-278), the verse may refer to an ancient process of brewing the booze. Might this make new sense of the Noah stories? In the Pre Nicene NT you translate II Peter 1:9 "drinks from the Lethe." Why the allusions (cf also Tartartus) to ancient Greek mythology? Is there any mention of "no sex before marriage" in the Bible? Have Christians always thought that the world is going to hell in a handbasket? Is there something intrinsic to the Christian world view that makes Christians resist the idea that the time in which they are living -- whatever time that might be -- is a good time? Is there a theodicy apologetic to explain the many non-earth-shaking disappointments in life?

May 20th The Bible Geek Podcast
Monday, May 20th 2013, 1h30m
Does an actual legal Jewish precedent exist which uses the testimonial rule "by the mouth of two or three witnesses" (Deut. 19:15)? I was just wondering how one is supposed to attend a Christian church while also not believing in the crux of the whole thing - Jesus? How do you handle this dilemma? Was there anything in the original Pauline letters to indicate that Christ was thought of as a Jew? Could the name Marcion, 'little Mark' or perhaps Marky, signify some lesser state of manhood, such as nonpubescent eunuchism? Sanskrit pronunciation. How do we tell 'amendments' to documents apart from cases where opinions do seem to have been put into the mouth of Jesus in order to refute a particular view? Are there criteria, analogous to those for the historical Jesus, that can be used to determine which passages (if any) go back to Paul? Do you know of any scholars that are taken seriously (i.e. are not thought of as cranks) that believe something like a majority of the Gospels are historical? Is there a way for Jesus to be one person but both fully god and fully man without there being contradictions involved, or is the God-man simply an inherently self-refuting concept? What are some specific examples of biblical textual evidence for your belief that Paul didn't write certain letters attributed to him? In Luke 13:31-33, why does Luke say a prophet can't die outside of Jerusalem? And how does it make sense in light of the fact that John the Baptist had recently done just that? What prophets were killed by "Jerusalem," and how does Jerusalem have anything to do with Jesus allegedly being hunted by Herod Antipas, who had no jurisdiction over Jerusalem? When the Gerasene demoniac says "I am Legion," might this be based on Odysseus telling the Cyclops his name is "No man"? In what sense is a spaceless, timeless, immaterial Ground to be seen as "personal"? I'm not sure how faith can simultaneously be defined as the evidence that a hoped for and unseen thing, e.g. God, is true AND as the trust one has in that hoped for and unseen thing. What am I missing? In Isaiah 53, the suffering servant is said to refer to Israel (or "Jacob") and the speakers are Gentile kings speaking about the servant in the past tense (except for the last two verses, 53: 11-12, where Yahweh starts speaking again and the verses are in future tense). However in Isaiah 53:8 the text reads: "By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?" If the "he" is actually Israel, what does "my people" refer to? If it is still the Gentile kings speaking, you would expect "our people" or "our peoples". Does "Jacob" have something to do with this? Might the supposed 4-legged insect business in the Bible be a result simply of an unfamiliar taxonomy? You have discussed how these days fundamentalist Christians tend to be very friendly toward Jews and Judaism. I accept this may be true in general, but I wonder what you'd make of my experience, when I was taught, recently, that Jews have suffered so much because they rejected Jesus? What justification does one have in assuming that there MUST be a historical nucleus to an actual occurrence, as Henry Cadbury suggests for Christian origins? I cannot help but think Catholic Marian devotion is blatant polytheism. Why is it so difficult for religions to stay monotheistic? Mary Orr-Ewing argues for an early date for the gospels by appealing to an argument by Richard Bauckham comparing the statistical distribution of names amongst the gospels with those on 1st century Jewish graves. Have you looked into this argument?

May 14th The Bible Geek Podcast
Tuesday, May 14th 2013, 1h34m
Are the 1 Corinthians 13 references to mountain-moving faith and giving away possessions derived from the gospels or vice versa or some other alternative? Re the "scathing Amazon review of The Pre-Nicene NT" discussed in the April 27 "Bible Geek" podcast. Could you give examples of what's wrong with the NRSV? Arenâ??t Daniel's 70 weeks and Isaiah 53 actual messianic texts? A series of Markan texts depict Jesus' crowds getting bigger, but is there another, symbolic reason for Jesus to be getting closer and closer to being in a boat and then being in a boat a lot until the middle of the gospel? Could you give us a quick summary of the history of apologetics? Question about Hosea's and Isaiah's childrens' names. Was this entire story understood as symbolism or was the practice of naming children like this common? I have heard you and others say that Esther may just be another version of the mythological character Ishtar. Is there a similar story about Ishtar as the one we read in Esther? You have talked about Colossians 1:24 where Paul says that he is filling up what was lacking in the afflictions of Christ. It reminded me of the puzzling story in Mark 10:35-45 where Jesus says that James and John will drink the same cup that he would. Did some early Christians believed that there was something salvific about suffering and martyrdom in general? Why was the Gospel of Thomas not included in or redacted into the New Testament? Were the gnostic teachings truly "secret;" is it thought they never preached on street corners or the like? Were Peter and Thomas common Aramaic names before the supposed time of Jesus? Or did their popularity only come in the wake of Christianity? Did Gnostics believe in Hell? Which of your books (or books in general) would you recommend to most fully begin to understand the Aramaic phrase "Son of Man"? I came across a book "Saul of Tarsus, or, Paul and Swedenborg by a Layman" which follows the Tubingen critics in identifying Paul and Simon Magus. Evangelicals claim unbelievers are sent to hell because of the "holiness of God." Does this make sense? How can proponents of the traditional view of Hell (being eternal torment) explain its absence in the Old Testament? What is going on in Revelation 20:14? Why would Hell be thrown into the lake of fire? Are death and hell literal people? I have been thinking about Rev. 13.8: Some say the "reckoning" of the number refers to numerology, not gematria. It may refer generically to an ultimate Sinner, not a specific Roman emperor. Or the reference may be to the Gnostic Sophia, or to Paul. According to the Bible, does Yahweh live in outer space? Does Jesus in the gospels preach 'Christ crucified' as Paul does? What was the "church of God" that Paul is supposed to have persecuted? What does the Geek think about Judith Jarvis Thomson's classic essay "A Defense of Abortion"? Are Christian apologists (like W.L. Craig) the best Christianity has to offer as intellectual defenders of the faith? What is your opinion of Ray 'banana-man' Comfort? Are Isaiah, Joshua, Josiah, and Jesus all the same name originally?  Under the Torah it was lawful to have both multiple wives and concubines. In light of this culture where polygamy was fairly common, what would it mean to violate the 6th commandment and "commit adultery"? Has anyone made a significant study of all the references in the New Testament to the Old Testament, distinguishing them into three groups: 1) those derivable from the Septuagint, but in some way not agreeing with the Hebrew version of the Bible; 2) those derivable from the Hebrew Bible, but in some way not agreeing with the Septuagint; and 3) those, where it could have come from either -- or an answer was indeterminable in some other way? Might the Adam and Eve story have actually been a coming of age fable? Isn't the most serious problem with the census in Luke is how it was conducted? Why would a census force people to move to the home of their remote ancestors?

May 13th The Bible Geek Podcast
Monday, May 13th 2013, 1h18m
I think it would do the non-theist community a lot of good if more churches had thoughtful, respectful nonbelievers attending regularly, to help tear down stereotypes on both sides. Good idea? How would you respond to the argument that the Pauline epistles have different writing styles and vocabulary not because they are pseudonymous but because they are addressed to different audiences and circumstances? What about the argument that the writing styles are different because they were ghost-written? You think all of the Pauline epistles are pseudonymous. But how can you establish this without a genuine letter for comparison? What do you think of the theories of Ralph Ellis who claims the character Jesus is based on a king of Edessa? What does the Geek believe to be the strongest argument for the necessity of God's existence? Acharya S speaks of a virgin mother character by the name of Mara/Mary/etc., who pre-dates Christianity by hundreds, if not thousands, of years. How might this 'primal' belief have become fused with early Christianity? Can you tell us about Eusebius, his history of the Church and why many scholars believe it to be wrong? My basic understanding leads me to believe that baptism with water relieves or washes one of sin and anointing with oil empowers one with spiritual prowess. Is this the current correct understanding, and if so has this always been the case? If the Testimonium Flavianum that mentions Jesus is truly reliable, why are there no mentions of it until the 4th century? Re the doctrine of salvation by faith: which components of belief in Christianity are supposed to be necessary for salvation? Are the sometimes wide differences between the RSV and the Douay-Rheims version of Sirach due to the translation of different underlying manuscripts? Is there anything in the Bible that's truly unique or original that doesn't have a precedent in religions or cultures from an earlier period? How did 19th century Protestant Americans interpret the "Mother of Harlots" in Revelation 17? What is Judaism all about these days? More politics than religion? And is it important to Jews to argue against Christianity? You said that the belief that there were degrees of reward in Heaven for good deeds done by those saved through faith was not a biblical view. Would you mind explaining? In regard to the trinity, what is the Holy Ghost?