It's a big event: our own podcast co-host's first published book: Austin Stevenson, The Consciousness of the Historical Jesus (T&T Clark: 2024).

The book discusses questions like:

• What is the movement called 'the historical Jesus' and how should Christians think about it?
• How does our own way of doing history depend on our understanding of what it means to be human?
• How can we read the history of Jesus in a way that transforms our understanding of ourselves? Can the 'historical Jesus' do that? If not, what can?

Thanks to Jamie Maule for sound engineering!

Is our New Testament the same as the original texts written in the first century? How do we know which manuscripts to trust, and who does the work of deciding? What are the implications of the fact that the biblical text itself has a history?

In this episode, we discuss these questions and more with Dr Jesse Grenz, Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at Palm Beach Atlantic University.

Thanks to Jamie Maule for sound editing!

Does the Bible value women? Does it make sense to call God ‘Father’ from a feminist perspective? Why did God create gender difference in the first place?

These questions and many more are tackled by Dr. Amy Peeler, New Testament Professor at Wheaton College. Dr. Peeler has recently published Women and the Gender of God which goes into these issues in more depth.

Thanks to Jamie Maule for sound editing!

In this episode we talk with Prof Michael J Gorman, New Testament Scholar and author of nearly twenty books including several major works on Paul. In this discussion, Prof Gorman draws a distinction between historical criticism and the historical critical method. He argues that understanding the original context is necessary, but not sufficient when it comes to interpreting the Bible today.

Austin and Barney go back over the last few episodes and share our thoughts. What did we learn? What did we disagree with? How do we compare and contrast the Bible scholars and theologians we've interviewed so far?

What do YOU think though? Email us your thoughts at whatdoyouthink (at) faithatthefrontiers.com and we'll dialogue with you in future episodes!

This is NOT the end of ‘faith and the challenges of history’: it’s just a pause to catch our breath!

So many Bible scholars and methods claim to be ‘historical’, but are they all the same? In this episode, Barney and Austin interview Professor Matthew J Thomas, who has come up with a taxonomy of FOUR methods for reading the Bible that are currently prevalent in scholarship:

1. Simple historical exegesis: interpreting the Bible with attention to its cultural and historical context.
2. Investigating the history of the Bible’s composition, known as ‘source criticism’, ‘form criticism’, or ‘redaction criticism’.
3. Critically assessing the truth of the Bible from another philosophical perspective.
4. Whatever is popular in Germany right now (!)

Tune in to hear Prof. Thomas unpack these four categories and their relevance for our faith today!

Thanks to Jamie Maule for his sound engineering!

Austin and Barney interview theologian Dr Seth Heringer, who describes the development of modern historical methods and how these methods have impacted theology. We consider the ways in which not only the results of historical research, but the principles of the historical method themselves might stand at odds with theology. If history isn't as neutral a discipline as it seems, does that open up possibilities for fruitful dialogue with faith?

Thanks to Jamie Maule for his sound editing!

Barney and Austin interview Old Testament Professor Iain Provan, who takes a different view to our previous guests on the historical reliability of the Bible. For him, there is every reason to trust the Bible's authors, and no reason not to trust them. Provan also suggests that:

• The very idea of history comes from the Old Testament
• There is no 'neutral' way of reading the Bible: there are Christian or non-Christian ways of reading.
• Jesus gave us these texts, and that is why we read them.

Tune in for more insights on a developing conversation.

Thanks to Jamie Maule for his sound editing!