Series

Twenty-six parables of Jesus, one at a time, read the way the first hearers would have heard them. Kenneth Bailey’s Middle Eastern reading, part by part.

The life of Jesus from the nativity to the ascension, twelve parts, with the familiar Sunday school picture checked against what the Gospels actually record.

The Old Testament in fifteen parts, creation to the four hundred silent years, following the timeline through Genesis, the kingdom, exile, and return.

Early church history from the death of the apostles to the Council of Nicaea. Persecution, heresy, and the long argument over who gets to decide doctrine.

How the Bible was assembled, from Marcion forcing the question in 144 to Athanasius naming all twenty-seven books in 367, with the paper trail at each step.

Who the Pharisees actually were rather than the cartoon most of us were handed, and what that changes about the Sabbath fights and the purity laws.

Four scenes where how Jesus treated women shows up in what he does rather than in anything he says about it, read against first-century expectations.

The apostle Paul in twelve parts. Ten thousand miles, churches across four Roman provinces, and thirteen letters, in roughly fifteen working years.

The birth of Jesus in four parts. The genealogy and its four women, Joseph’s decision, and the promises that arrived at what looked like the wrong address.

Almost everything known about the church after Acts comes from a handful of men. Who the early church fathers were, what they wrote, and where they fail.

How the Gospel of Luke is built, opening in the Temple and closing in the Temple, and why nearly a third of it is one long walk toward Jerusalem.

What the image of God actually is in Genesis, why being an imager is a job rather than a quality, and what the tree of knowledge actually transferred.

Pizzolatto borrowed Carcosa and the Yellow King from Robert Chambers in 1895. Reading the source changes what True Detective season one is actually doing.

The Sermon on the Mount in nine parts. The Beatitudes, the Lord’s Prayer, and the hard sayings, read through the Middle Eastern culture Jesus taught in.

What Scripture records about each of the twelve apostles, what later tradition claims about their deaths, and exactly where the line between the two falls.

What a king actually was in the ancient world, why a modern reader has no reference for it, what the counterfeit looks like, and what it means to bow.

The New Testament writers who were not among the Twelve. Luke, Mark, Jude, and James the brother of Jesus, and how we know what we know about each.