"Thou shalt not" miss this episode about the King James Bible, the most-read literary work in the English language! But who was King James? Why did he order a new English translation of the Bible (there were plenty out there already)? And who were the translators tasked with this monumental project (hint: not Shakespeare)? Helen and Dave are joined by Jeffrey Allen Miller , a MacArthur " Genius Grant " winner who made headlines in 2015 with the discovery of the earliest known draft translation o...
Feb 19, 2024•49 min•Season 2Ep. 54
The New Testament story known as the "Healing of the Centurion's Slave" has been the subject of some intriguing scholarship in recent years. In the Greco-Roman world, the Greek word translated as "slave" or "servant" in the Bible also meant the younger partner in a same-sex male relationship. So the question is: by healing the Centurion's partner, did Jesus effectively bless a same-sex relationship? The evidence is compelling. Homosexual relationships were common in the Greco-Roman world, especi...
Feb 12, 2024•49 min•Season 2Ep. 53
Heroic stories like David and Goliath were told for centuries before they were written down. But the creative storytelling process didn't end there. Written texts were "performed" and improvised upon, creating new variations that made it into later texts. The Bible that we have today was the product of ongoing "conversations" between oral and written traditions. Helen and Dave are thrilled to welcome Jonathan Friedmann back to the podcast to introduce the exciting field of performance criticism ...
Feb 05, 2024•48 min•Season 2Ep. 52
In the New Testament, Jesus often teaches through parables — short stories rich in symbolism and ethical dilemmas. "The Good Samaritan." "The Prodigal Son." We've heard these stories so many times it's easy to overlook how challenging and even shocking they would have sounded to 1st-century ears. In this episode, scholar Amy-Jill Levine joins Helen and Dave to explain the Jewish roots of parables and how Jesus wielded parables to shake up his audience. Parables were incredibly effective teaching...
Jan 29, 2024•56 min•Season 2Ep. 51
Ancient authors had no problem writing texts in other people's names, and that includes plenty of biblical writers. If Paul only wrote 7 of the 13 Pauline epistles, for example, who wrote the other 6, and why did they stamp Paul's name on them? The practice is called pseudepigraphy — from the Greek for "false inscription" — and a lot of biblical scholars will tell you it's straight-up forgery. But were ancient authors really trying to deceive their readers? Or were they using a standard literary...
Jan 22, 2024•39 min•Season 2Ep. 50
The Hebrew Bible wasn't created by one of the mighty empires of the ancient world — Egypt, Assyria or Babylon — but written in the rubble of a small, conquered kingdom. So how has this "epic monument to defeat" not only survived for 2,600 years, but spawned three world religions and influenced countless lives? Because the authors of the Hebrew Bible invented something completely new. They created a "people." Helen and Dave were thrilled to talk with Jacob Wright , biblical scholar and author of ...
Jan 15, 2024•55 min•Season 2Ep. 49
There's so much we get wrong about clothing and dress in the 1st Century. Did Jewish people dress differently than gentiles? No. Did most men have long hair and beards? No. Did Jesus and the disciples rock sandals with socks? Yes! Clothing is an essential component of culture, yet it's been woefully ignored by historians. Today we change all that. Helen and Dave are excited to welcome Katie Turner to the podcast. Katie dispels 1st-Century fashion myths and answers our burning questions about anc...
Jan 08, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Season 2Ep. 48
The Bible is literally crawling with animals — from the crafty serpent of Genesis to Jesus's parable of the lost sheep. That's because animals (both wild and domesticated) were an integral part of life in the ancient world. In today's episode, Lloyd Llewelyn-Jones is back to explain what lions, donkeys, doves and dogs really meant to the ancient authors of the Bible (and also what a locust and honey sandwich actually tastes like). For more of Lloyd's fascinating insights, check out the sweeping ...
Jan 01, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Season 2Ep. 47
Try as you might, you won't find Santa Claus in the Bible. Or Christmas trees, or camel-riding Magi, or even December 25th! In the first centuries of Christianity, Christmas wasn't really a "thing." The birth of Jesus was far less important than his death and resurrection. So how did Christmas evolve from an afterthought into the biggest holiday on the planet? We're thrilled to have Kyle Smith back on the podcast to present a deep-dive cultural history of Christmas. Why do we have so many differ...
Dec 18, 2023•51 min•Season 2Ep. 46
In the first of two Christmas episodes, Helen and Dave take another look at arguably the "best-known and least-known" woman in history: Mary, the mother of Jesus. Our guest, the fantastic James Tabor , collects the few breadcrumbs of information about Mary in the New Testament and weaves together a compelling narrative about a Jewish matriarch at the center of the Jesus movement. James Tabor's latest book, The Lost Mary: How the Jewish Mother of Jesus Became the Virgin Mother of God , will be pu...
Dec 11, 2023•48 min•Season 2Ep. 45
The Jewish festival of Hanukkah is based on real historical events — the Maccabean Revolt of 167-160 BCE. In today's episode, Helen and Dave travel back to a time when Judaea was ruled by the Hellenized (Greek) Seleucid Empire. When a Jewish priest named Mattathias refused to make a sacrifice to the pagan gods, it sparked a violent revolution led by Judah "The Hammer" Maccabee. Learn More About Hanukkah at Bible Odyssey Hanukkah Maccabees The Commemoration of War in Early Jewish Festivals Life U...
Dec 04, 2023•39 min•Season 2Ep. 44
The Bible is largely silent about race. People are identified by their lands of origin and beliefs, not their skin color. Yet centuries of biblical interpreters have read race into the Bible, for good and for ill. As our guest Stacy Davis explains, the biblical land of Cush (sometimes translated as Ethiopia) has long been associated with Black people, a point of pride for African and African-American Christians. And Josephus believed that the legendary Queen of Sheba was Black. But the Bible has...
Nov 27, 2023•36 min•Season 2Ep. 43
Starting in the 1st century CE, there was an explosion of Christian literature — dozens of gospels, letters, apocalypses and more — but only a fraction of those texts made it into the New Testament canon. Who decided which books were in and which books were out? For this episode, Helen and Dave welcome New Testament scholar Francis Watson , who introduces us to important figures like Athanasius of Alexandria and Eusebius of Caesarea, some of the earliest influential Christian writers to weigh in...
Nov 20, 2023•42 min•Season 2Ep. 42
When we recognize the Bible as a product of the ancient world, we can look for subtle ways that biblical authors incorporated elements of everyday life — including coins! We spoke with historian Michael Theophilos about everything we can learn from ancient coins (politics, economics, visual culture, propaganda), and then we found some fascinating examples of how language and symbols from coins made their way into the Bible. If you want to dive deeper into coins and the New Testament, check out M...
Nov 13, 2023•45 min•Season 2Ep. 41
It's easy to read the New Testament and come away with the idea that Jesus was in opposition to the Jewish ritual impurity laws. In fact, that's what most Christian theologians have taught for the past 2,000 years. Is it possible that we've (gasp!) been misreading the Bible this whole time? Our guest Matt Thiessen says, "Yep." In today's episode, we travel back to the 1st century to understand how everyday Jewish people understood ritual impurity, and what Jesus's miracles — healing a leper, cur...
Nov 06, 2023•44 min•Season 2Ep. 40
There aren't any werewolves or vampires in the Bible, but God deploys his own terrifying army of monsters. Have you heard of cherubs? Not what you think! Even angels have some less-than-angelic duties. It turns out that the shepherds abiding in the field had good reason to be "sore afraid." Just in time for Halloween, special guest Esther Hamori joins Helen and Dave to talk about her fantastic new book, God's Monsters: Vengeful Spirits, Deadly Angels, Hybrid Creatures, and Divine Hitmen of the B...
Oct 30, 2023•42 min•Season 2Ep. 39
At first reading, the Gospel of John feels a world apart from the other gospels. The language is different, there are new stories (see our episode on "the woman taken in adultery") and Jesus speaks about himself in bolder terms ("I am the resurrection and the life." "I am the light of the world.") That has led some scholars to argue that the author of John didn't know the synoptic gospels and was instead working from other sources, probably oral traditions about Jesus circulating in the 1st cent...
Oct 23, 2023•44 min•Season 2Ep. 38
Jonah and the whale (fish, technically) is one of the best-known Bible stories, but it's also completely bonkers. It stars Jonah—the worst/best prophet ever—and reads more like a fable or satire than a serious biblical treatise. Were the authors of Jonah trying to be funny? And how the heck did this silly little fish tale become a beloved and meaningful narrative for Judaism, Christianity and Islam? To help unravel the mystery, Helen and Dave welcome back Eckart Frahm , author of the impressive ...
Oct 16, 2023•45 min•Season 2Ep. 37
Pop quiz—name a famous kid from the Hebrew Bible. Baby Moses? Teenage David? That's about it. The Bible may be largely silent about childhood, but we can gather clues from archeology and ethnography to piece together a picture of what it was like to be a kid in ancient Israel. Special guest Kristine Garroway from Hebrew Union College joins Helen and Dave to reconstruct family life in ancient Israel: the spiritual anxieties around pregnancy, the rules of ancient adoption, and the chore lists assi...
Oct 09, 2023•48 min•Season 2Ep. 36
For the first four centuries of Christianity, the famous story of the "woman taken in adultery" was nowhere to be found in the New Testament. In this moving tale, Jesus forgives a woman condemned for committing adultery and admonishes her accusers: "let he who is without sin cast the first stone." But why wasn't the story included in the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament? Was it a late addition to the gospels? Or was it an ancient story suppressed by Church fathers? Was "death by stoning...
Oct 02, 2023•49 min•Season 2Ep. 35
It's easy to read the New Testament and come away thinking that Jesus and his disciples were in opposition to "the Jews." But the first followers of Jesus were all fellow Jews and the early Jesus movement was very much a Jewish movement. Would the first generation of "Christians" have thought of themselves as anything other than Jewish? Our guest Paula Fredriksen says absolutely not. According to Paula, there was plenty of room in the 1st Century for competing Jewish sects—including the Jesus mo...
Sep 25, 2023•41 min•Season 2Ep. 34
Comedy royalty John Cleese stopped by the podcast to chat with Helen and Dave about Monty Python's inspiration for making Life of Brian, what fascinates and frustrates him about the Bible, and so much more. Members of the Time Travelers Club can listen to an uncut version of our entire, hour-long conversation with John. For $5/month, you can help support the show and receive bonus content and behind-the-scenes extras. Thanks to all those who have joined and special thanks to listener Josh Boldma...
Sep 18, 2023•53 min•Season 2Ep. 33
Face it — you wouldn't survive two days back in the first century. If the food-borne bacteria didn't kill you, you might keel over from the odors alone! In this episode, Helen and Dave welcome Jodi Magness , biblical archeologist extraordinaire, for a frank and sometimes graphic discussion of what daily life REALLY would have been like in 1st-century Judaea: just nasty! And don't forgot to check out Jodi's book: Stone and Dung, Oil and Spit: Jewish Daily Life in the Time of Jesus . It's terrific...
Sep 11, 2023•46 min•Season 2Ep. 32
How did a (lowercase) god named Yahweh from the pantheon of the ancient Edomites become the one and only (uppercase) God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam? It's a fascinating story that calls into question just how monotheistic the ancient Israelites really were... For this episode, Helen and Dave are joined by Francesca Stavrakopoulou , professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion at the University of Exeter, and author of the award-winning book, God: An Anatomy . Join the Time Travelers Clu...
Sep 04, 2023•42 min•Season 2Ep. 31
Season 2 of Biblical Time Machine is coming soon! We've already recorded a slate of terrific episodes that will be dropping in the next few weeks. Until then, check out the Time Travelers Club , a new way to get involved with the podcast. The Time Travelers Club is a subscription service that lets you support Biblical Time Machine in exchange for some pretty sweet perks, including the opportunity to ask your questions on the air! Subscriptions are $5/month. Below is a schedule of upcoming record...
Aug 25, 2023•5 min
Thank you loyal listeners for making Season 1 of Biblical Time Machine such a success! In this short recap, Helen and Dave look back on the first 30 episodes and drop some hints about what's to come in Season 2. We'll be taking a short pause to catch up on recordings and make plans for an even bigger and better second season of Biblical Time Machine. But don't fret, we'll be back with new episodes before you know it. In the meantime, keep sending us your emails (we respond to each one!) and plea...
Jul 18, 2023•6 min•Season 1Ep. 31
The existence of the 12 tribes of Israel is central to the narrative of the Hebrew Bible. The tribes were named after the 12 sons of the patriarch Jacob and believed to be their direct descendants. As the Israelites escaped slavery in Egypt, wandered the desert for 40 years, and eventually conquered and settled the “promised land” of Canaan, they did it all as members of these 12 named tribes. But do we have any evidence outside of the Bible that the 12 Tribes actually existed? Our guest, Andrew...
Jul 07, 2023•41 min•Season 1Ep. 30
Learn how a humdrum Hebrew word for "obstacle/adversary" morphed over the centuries into the goat-hoofed, pitchfork-wielding embodiment of all evil. Our guest TJ Wray traces the biblical and historical evolution of Satan from a side character in the book of Job to the snarling chaos monster of Revelation. Check out TJ's book, The Birth of Satan: Tracing the Devil's Biblical Roots , co-authored with Gregory Mobley Special thanks to listener Daniel Kline for this episode topic suggestion. Email us...
Jun 26, 2023•57 min•Season 1Ep. 29
For more than 100 years, archeologists have been scouring the Holy Land for tangible proof that the Bible and its accounts are historically true, but they've largely come up empty handed. Still, modern archeology is one of our greatest resources for understanding the ancient societies that wrote these timeless texts — their beliefs, their rituals and their daily lives. We're thrilled to welcome the legendary biblical archeologist Eric Meyers as our guest. Eric and his wife Carol (who joined us f...
Jun 14, 2023•42 min•Season 1Ep. 28
Finally, an episode about Josephus! Josephus is not only our best source for life in Roman-ruled Judaea, but also our only source. (Much like Dave is his parents' favorite, and only, son.) Josephus wrote A LOT about the Jewish wars with Rome and Jewish history in general, but scholars usually take his accounts with a grain of salt. As a Jew and a Roman citizen during a period of great tumult, Josephus had his own version of history to tell. We welcome Helen's colleague Kimberley Czajkowski , an ...
Jun 05, 2023•43 min•Season 1Ep. 27
