Along with Michael Heiser, John Walton has been a major player in the world of biblical theology, unveiling ancient context for modern understanding of the Bible. The newest book in his popular series, New Explorations in the Lost World of Gen…
When people hear the term “biblical theology,” it’s easy to assume it simply means “theology that is biblical.” But in scholarly and church circles alike, biblical theology refers to a specific method of doing the…
Apologies for the delay in writing this, but Beyond the Salvation Wars by Matthew W. Bates is a book that merits deep reading and even deeper reflection. I’m definitely not done with that, but it’s high time to put a few words out …
Cosmic Temples, Scientific Wonder, and the Demonic Disdain of Faithful Thinking What happens when C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape meets modern debates about creation, faith, and science? Steven Moore’s Screwtape on Creation offers a surpri…
Michael Heiser’s recovery of the Divine Council Worldview (DCW) has reshaped the way many of us read difficult passages like Deuteronomy 32, Psalm 82, and Daniel 10. His basic claim--that God assigned divine beings to the nations after B…
Does Jesus' Mission Extend Beyond Earth? I was recently watching Dr. Michael Heiser’s 2003 lecture at God, Man and ET: The Questions of Other Worlds in Science, Mythology and Religion. (The only version I know of, you have to purchase o…
Okay I had some more thoughts about the historical Adam question. (Here's the immediately previous post on that, if you haven't read it; we're now up to three posts on this topic and I'm trying to keep them linked together for easy reading.) …
TL;DR: Did Israel go from polytheism to monotheism? Do the prophets prove that the gods of the nations don’t exist? This post shares some of my reactions to Thomas A. Judge’s scholarly work Other Gods and Idols. The goal is…
Okay, I’m going to tackle it...the Gary Wayne conspiracy maze.If you've followed the podcast for a while, you might remember I mentioned Wayne in Episode 053: Q&A #4 - Manifestation, Discernment, and Gary Wayne. That was back when Th…
There's a particular individual on Facebook who seems to have several Facebook accounts by different names, promoting the information (ad nauseum) that the tabernacle/temple/ark were all round. When someone pushes back at all against this, the…
I'm excited to announce the launch of Beyond the Gates of Eden, an online theological conference designed to take you deep into the biblical themes of trees, sacred space, and communion with God—from Genesis to Revelation. Unlike traditional …
What if our fixation on metaphysical precision is missing the point? The Bible affirms real spiritual realities and uses typology, allegory, and accommodation not to obscure truth, but to reveal it. Adam and the gods of the nations may n…
So thought I’d write up a few thoughts about this, because Zach Miller over at What Your Pastor Didn’t Tell You put out what I thought was a nice overview of whether or not Jesus believed in a “historical Adam”--and whether o…
You know the old saying: "You can't have your cake and eat it, too." It’s often said when someone wants to hold two mutually exclusive ideas at once. A similar kind of tension shows up in a particular type of critique of the Divine…
This is a topic I have had to think about more often than I'd care to consider. On the surface, it seems silly and ridiculous. But, also, I fully understand that there are reasons that this does come up on a regular basis. So, no, …
In the Bible, wine is not merely a metaphor for joy—it’s a vessel of it. It flows through the vineyards of Genesis, the feasting tables of Deuteronomy, and the covenant meal of the Last Supper. But in the Western Christian imagination, w…
What if Noah’s infamous vineyard episode wasn’t a relapse into sin—but a reframed echo of Eden? In our latest episode of Genesis Marks the Spot, we explored Genesis 9 through the lens of frame semantics, a method that helps us tra…
Most of us are taught that for the Bible to be reliable, it has to be true. But what does it mean that the Bible is true? Generally, in our world today, "true" means "factually accurate"--meaning, what it says concords with "objective re…
This might seem a bit off-topic for a blog about biblical theology, but the whole “dire wolf” buzz deserves some attention—and not just because the pups are adorable (because they are). These colossal cuddly canids that Col…
During my episodes outlining the historical interpretation of Genesis 6:1-4, I said I would make a blog post with the quotes I was using, so that they would be easy to reference. So here are the quotes from part 2 of the discussion: …
Quick blog post for a common question. If you want deeper explanations, I will link resources below. In my opinion, the most comprehensive exploration of the giant narrative in Scripture is T.J. Steadman's book/podcast, Answers to Giant …
During my episodes outlining the historical interpretation of Genesis 6:1-4, I said I would make a blog post with the quotes I was using, so that they would be easy to reference. So here are the quotes from part 1 of the discussion: Damascus …
Back in my LDS days, there was a lot of talk about being a "child of God." I really thought that that was a biblical idea--that humans were the actual children of God. Of course I knew that traditional/historical Christians do no…
The structure of Genesis 1 was a topic early on in Genesis Marks the Spot (episode 2, to be exact). I've also addressed how it relates to the Cosmic Temple. This means that in the first account of creation in our Bibles, we have a …