History In The Bible

After the Last Supper, Jesus and his mates take a post-prandial stroll in the dark to the Mount of Olives, a 30 minute walk due east of the Temple. Jesus had delivered an apocaplytic sermon at the mount the day before. According to the gospel of John, Jesus serenely accepts his fate, and refuses to ask his Father to save him. The synoptic gospels challenge that. In those gospels, Jesus lashes out at his disciples. As the company return from the Mount through the Garden of Gethsamene, Jesus asks his Father to save him from death. Jesus is arrested at the Garden and sent for trial. The gospels can't get their story straight about the trials. Was Jesus tried by the Jewish Council? Was he just interrogated, but not tried, by the high priest? Was he sent to Herod Antipas? Was he taken before Pilate once or twice? The gospels disagree. One thing that the gospels furiously agree upon is in exonerating the Roman prefect, and dumping all the blame on the Jews.

After Jesus has resurrected Lazarus, he briefly flies to Ephraim, outside of Judea, for fear of the Jews. He quickly regains his confidence, and returns to Bethany, and the home of Lazarus. From there he moves to Jerusalem to participate in the annual Passover. In Jerusalem, he and his disciples partake in a final meal. Judas betrays Jesus. The gospel of John disagrees with the synoptics as to the dating of the Last Supper: the day of Passover, or the day before? John uses the supper to introduce a bunch of theology. He also introduces the mysterious Beloved Disciple, and a new divine entity, the Paraclete.

The Passion story story begins with Jesus in Bethany, a suburb of Jerusalem. Jesus is staying with his best buddies Martha, Mary, and the risen Lazarus. Jesus arranges with his students to organise a grand parade for his entry into the capital. That goes swimmingly. Ebullient from his grand reception, Jesus marches into the Temple, determined to destroy its commercial activities. Jesus then delivers a little apocalypse at the Mount of Olives.

The notion of the Trinity is one of -- if not the -- most difficult concepts in Christian theology. Steve Guerra and I plough through centuries of Jewish and Christian thought to try to make sense of it. Part two of two.

As so often, the synoptic gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke tell a different story of the third and final act of Jesus' life compared to the gospel of John. In the gospel of John, Jesus spends six months in Judea before his death, and is attacked by the authorities because he raised Lazarus from the dead. John has Jesus deliver a series of confusing speeches about his relationship with God. Against John, the synoptic gospels assert that Jesus spent a few weeks traveling to Judea, and only a week in the city.

This is a bonus episode for season two. My long-time collaborator, Steve Guerra, attended the IntelligentSpeech podcasting conference in New York in June 2019. I appeared with Steve thanks to the magic that is Skype. We talk all things Biblical. I hope you enjoy this bonus show. The conference was organised by Roifield Brown, producer of numerous podcasts: How Jamaica Conquered the World, and The Things That Made England, amongst others. Roifield was the man who introduced me to history podcasting.

After the Big Three disciples come the forgettable bit-players, the Nondescript Nine: Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew (also known as Nathaniel), Matthew, Thomas Didymus, James son of Alphaeus, Judas (also known as Thaddaeus), Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot.

The notion of the Trinity is one of -- if not the -- most difficult concepts in Christian theology. Steve Guerra and I plough through centuries of Jewish and Christian thought to try to make sense of it. Part one of two.

Keynote ep: Jesus had an inner cabinet of three disciples: Simon Peter; and James and John, the sons of Zebedee. Only they have significant speaking parts. The often appear together at many significant moments, such as the Transfiguration. The rest of the disciples are ciphers. Peter is by far the pre-eminent disciple, named more often in the New Testament all the other disciples put together. He is Jesus’ devoted wombat, an impulsive, exuberant, and eminently likeable individual. But he fails when put to the test. A work attributed to him, the Apocalypse of Peter, provided all our modern images of hell. Western church fathers held that the disciple John wrote the gospel of that name, Revelation, and three letters. The Eastern church and modern scholars are dubious. James was the first disciple to be martyred, by Herod Agrippa. He is memorialised at the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.

Jesus' mission to Galilee does not go as well as hoped. The Pharisees and scribes attack him for teaching and working wonders on the sabbath. Jesus spars with the Jewish factions many times. Jesus attacks the Pharisees for their petty legalism. Modern interpretations of these accounts hold them to reflect the situation when the gospels were written, projected back into the time of Jesus. Jesus' Galilean ministry concludes with his Transfiguration, where he stands between Moses and Elijah, and the voice of God again declares that Jesus is his son.

Most of Jesus ministry was conducted in Galilee. This time is stuffed to the brim with miracles and parables. Jesus exorcizes demons, raises people from the dead, and cures the sick. He feeds thousands, walks on water, and calms the storm. He teaches parables about old wine into new skins, mustard seeds, pearls, and weeds amongst the wheat. He meets Mary Magdalene. Jesus predicts his own death. Peter professes him the Messiah and Son of God.

In John's account of the early ministry, Jesus flies all over the place. He steals the disciples Simon Peter and Andrew from the Baptist while in the Perea. In his first great sign, he turns water into wine at Cana, then finds the disciples Philip and Nathaniel. He cleanses the temple and debates Nicodemus. He is first recognised as Messiah by a Samaritan, a people derided by the Jews. Jesus gives us his first theology lesson. None of this is in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

This episode presents Jesus' earliest ministry as the synoptic gospels tell it. Straight after his baptism by John, Jesus is tempted by Satan in the wilderness near the Dead Sea. He passes with flying colours. You know that quote "Get the behind me Satan"? It's not here. When Jesus learns that the Baptist has been arrested, he flies back to Galilee. According to Mark and Matthew, Jesus summons two sets of two brothers as his first followers. Mark and Luke describes Jesus first act as a sermon in a synagogue. Matthew has a much more spectacular debut: the Sermon on the Mount. Luke provides a very different version of that sermon. We also hear the Lord's Prayer. Catholics and Protestants have different ideas of what that is.

Keynote ep: An introduction to the geo-political world of Jesus. I also discuss the many problems we have when attempting to reconcile the chronologies of the gospels. The synoptic gospels differ in the details. The big problem is with the gospel of John. We simply cannot reconcile the chronology of John with the synoptics.

Jesus' identity as Son of God is revealed at his baptism by John, an old-style prophet who promotes Jewish ritual washing. Did John recognise Jesus at this event or not? The gospels differ. They regard the Baptist as a problematic figure, and treat him enigmatically. The synoptic gospels downplay him. The gospel of John (the apostle, not the Baptist) takes him over.

My Epiphany special relates the story of Christmas as told by the gospel of Matthew. In Matthew, the story is told from Joseph's point of view, not Mary's. Matthew has wise men, the infamous massacre of the innocents, and the flight to Egypt. No angels and no shepherds. He does not mention Mary's relative Elizabeth, and her son John the Baptist. If you read Matthew carefully, he says nothing of the day of Christmas, but he has a lot to say about the day of Epiphany, 6th January, the day the magi paid homage. I also introduce the Gospel of James, and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.

Second Temple Judaism (530 BC-70 AD) was a lush forest of beliefs, factions, and sects: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Sicarri, Zealots, the Fourth Philosophy and more. All were swept away in the First Roman-Jewish war that ended with the destruction of the temple. From this forest, two new religions emerged: Rabbinic Judaism, and Christianity.

My Christmas special tells the story of Christmas as related by the gospel of Luke. With lots of canticles and shepherds. My forthcoming Epiphany special relates the gospel of Matthew's version of the nativity.

King of the Jews, Saviour, Son of Man, God, Son of God, Messiah and Christos, and Lord. The New Testament has many titles for Jesus. Let's investigate them.

The gospel of John reads nothing like the other gospels. John defines Jesus as a cosmological figure, not the man adopted by God at his baptism that the other gospels talk about. John has a quite different biography of Jesus. In the synoptic gospels, Jesus travels to Jerusalem once in his life, to meet his destiny. The gospel of John has Jesus travelling to Jerusalem several times, and places the cleansing of the Temple at the beginning of Jesus' career, not at the end. John's gospel is clearly the product of a community, rather than a single author. This community also produced the letters attributed to John. We have no idea how this community related to the Jesus-clubs founded by Paul, nor to the communities who read the synoptic gospels. I throw in an introduction to some of the ideas that the gospel used: from Platonism, from Philo Judeaus, and from Gnosticism. I finish with the Gospel of Thomas, another Gnostic-influenced gospel.