In this episode, Lloyd fires up the Biblical Time Machine with Professor Nicholas Baker-Brian, and they travel back to third-century Persia to meet one of antiquity’s most fascinating and misunderstood figures: Mani, the visionary behind the global religion we now call Manichaeism. They ask: who was Mani, what are the sources for his life, and what do we know about the ancient faith which bears his name?

Nicholas Baker-Brian is Professor of Late Antique Studies in School of History, Archaeology and Religion at the University of Cardiff. He has published widely on religion in late global antiquity, and is one of the world’s leading experts in the study of Manichaeism. Today on the show Lloyd discusses Professor Baker-Brian’s 2011 book, Manichaeism: An Ancient Faith Rediscovered, which is a scholarly yet accessible introduction to Manichaeism, published by T&T Clark in 2011.

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DOWNLOAD OUR STUDY GUIDE: MARK AS ANCIENT BIOGRAPHY

Check out our 4-part audio study guide called "The Gospel of Mark as an Ancient Biography." While you're there, get yourself a Biblical Time Machine mug or a cool sticker for your water bottle.

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Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 produced by John Nelson.

What happened when the laws of Moses were translated into Greek? In this episode, we journey from Sinai to Alexandria with Dr Joel Korytko, whose book The Death of the Covenant Code uncovers how Jewish translators in the third century BCE re-imagined Israel’s laws for a Greek-speaking world. Together with Helen Bond and Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Joel reveals how death penalties quietly disappeared in the Greek Exodus, and what these changes reveal about Jewish life under Greek rule. This is a story of law, language, and the authority of Scripture in a fast-changing world.

Dr Joel Korytko is Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at Northwest College | Seminary. He completed his DPhil at the University of Oxford, where his research explored how Jewish translators adapted biblical law for a Hellenistic audience. His book, The Death of the Covenant Code (Brill, 2022), examines how the laws of Exodus were reshaped in the Old Greek translation in light of Graeco-Egyptian legal traditions. Joel is also co-authoring a forthcoming commentary on Exodus for the Society of Biblical Literature Commentary on the Septuagint series.

SUPPORT BIBLICAL TIME MACHINE

If you enjoy the podcast, please (pretty please!) consider supporting the show through the Time Travellers Club, our Patreon. We are an independent, listener-supported show (no ads!), so please help us continue to showcase high-quality biblical scholarship with a monthly subscription.

DOWNLOAD OUR STUDY GUIDE: MARK AS ANCIENT BIOGRAPHY

Check out our 4-part audio study guide called "The Gospel of Mark as an Ancient Biography." While you're there, get yourself a Biblical Time Machine mug or a cool sticker for your water bottle.

Support the show

Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 produced by John Nelson.

What if the earliest Christians believed the world around them was teeming with invisible forces waiting to invade the human body? This Halloween, Biblical Time Machine delves into early Christian ideas of demons with Dr Travis Proctor, Associate Professor of Religion at Wittenberg University. His book, Demonic Bodies and the Dark Ecologies of Early Christian Discourse (OUP, 2022) reveals that demons were not just ghosts or spirits—but embodied, contaminating presences that could bring sickness, impurity, and spiritual ruin.

In the Time Machine, they explore how Christians imagined demons, what they believed demons were made of, where demons lurked, and how demonic contamination shaped ancient understandings of purity, health, and the human body. Along the way, Travis reveals why haunted houses aren’t just a modern Halloween invention—and which early Christian writer had the strangest ideas about demons.

SUPPORT BIBLICAL TIME MACHINE

If you enjoy the podcast, please (pretty please!) consider supporting the show through the Time Travellers Club, our Patreon. We are an independent, listener-supported show (no ads!), so please help us continue to showcase high-quality biblical scholarship with a monthly subscription.

DOWNLOAD OUR STUDY GUIDE: MARK AS ANCIENT BIOGRAPHY

Check out our 4-part audio study guide called "The Gospel of Mark as an Ancient Biography." While you're there, get yourself a Biblical Time Machine mug or a cool sticker for your water bottle.

Support the show

Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 produced by John Nelson.