Episodes
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Announcing the publication of the first volume in the History in the Bible Podcast Companion set of books, “Essential Resources”. You can get it from these Amazon marketplaces:
https://www.amazon.com/History-Bible-Podcast-Companion-Essential/dp/0645950726/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Bible-Podcast-Companion-Essential/dp/0645950726/
https://www.amazon.ca/History-Bible-Podcast-Companion-Essential/dp/0645950726/
https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Garry-Stevens-PhD/dp/0645950726/
https://www.amazon.fr/History-Bible-Podcast-Companion-Essential/dp/0645950726/ -
The last episode in the show. I give a big thank you to all my listeners, and a brief biographical sketch. Then I finish the series with three more speculations. First, what if Marcionism had become the orthodoxy of the imperial church incorporate? Second, could Manichaeism have swallowed up the church? And finally, could the church have survived and prospered had it not become the state religion of the Roman empire?
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Missing episodes?
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Four more speculations.
I argue that an important element of Christianity’s success was that it quickly transformed itself into what I call the imperial church incorporate. Would Christianity have succeeded had it not done so?
Second, could Mithraism have triumphed over the church?
Third, could the Gnostic variants of Christianity come to dominate?
Finally, the Jewish arm of the church vanished after the Bar Kosiva revolt of 132. What might have happened had that group survived and thrived? -
More speculations and alternative histories! Our first diverges from our own timeline in about the year 35. What if Jesus had not been executed by the Romans, but had lived on to see the Great Judean Revolt of 66 CE. What would he have made of it? Second, let’s say that Jesus died when did, a generation before the Great Revolt. What might have happened if his chief apostles Peter and Paul had lived to witness the Roman attack on Judea? And third, let’s move on to about the year 100, when Christians first fell under the Roman gaze. Would the church have flourished earlier and more strongly if the Roman state had never persecuted it?
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This is the second episode in a series of speculations and alternate histories. This time: What if Christian missionaries had never preached to the pagans? Second, what may happened if Christian missionaries had ignored the Roman empire, and proselytised in Parthia, instead? Third, what would have become of Christianity if the Jewish revolts had never occurred, and the Temple stood to the end of the empire?
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In this bonus, I continue my collaboration with Steve Guerra of the "History of the Papacy" show (www.atozhistorypage.com/), and Scott McCandless of the "Retelling the Bible" podcast (retellingthebible.wordpress.com/). In this bonus we revisit Scott’s show on the Gadarene swine.
I also have a reminder of Gil Kindron's and my course on Isaiah, in January 2024. For more information, go to podcastofbiblicalproportions.com/courses.
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This is the first episode in a series of speculations and alternate histories. This time: what if John the Baptist was bigger than Jesus? What if Paul had split to form his own independent movement?
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In this bonus, Bernie Maopolski of Fan of History (https://shows.acast.com/history) invites me onto his "Whats New In History" segment. We discuss my ideas about how Bible scholars have it all wrong about the mathematics of the growth of Christinaity in the Roman Empire, and how I have corrected their errors. I also have some announcements about my final episodes, and about my forthcoming book of the show.
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In this bonus, I continue my collaboration with Steve Guerra of the "History of the Papacy" show (https://www.atozhistorypage.com/), and Scott Mcandless of the "Retelling the Bible" podcast (https://retellingthebible.wordpress.com/). In this show we revisit Scott’s show on Abraham's three mysterious vistors.
I also have an announcement about the final episodes in my main narrative, and a forthcoming book.
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The revolt of Bar Kosiva against Rome failed, as had the Great Revolt. The Roman punishment destroyed almost all the many blooms living in the mighty jungle that was Second Temple Judaism. Only two species escaped the immolation: rabbinic Judaism, and Christianity. The imperial punishment also destroyed the Jewish wing of the church incorporate, leaving the franchise to follow its own path. With a shout-out to the great Rabbi Akiva.
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The Temple's destruction also destroyed all the many varieties of Second Temple Judaism, save for the emerging rabbinic movement, and the nascent Christian movement.
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In this bonus, Gregg Gassman of the Popeular History Podcast (www.popeularhistory.com) and and I discuss Peter, Paul, and Clement. Gregg is a Catholic, and I was brought up in the Anglican tradition. So we have some differences about Peter, as you will soon hear. We also try to work out where Clement fits in the papal succession.
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Only two of Abraham's heirs survived to the year 200 CE/AD: rabbinic Judaism, and the imperial church incorporate. My final epiodes explore how that happened.
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In this collaboration with Steve Guerra of the History of the Papacy show (https://www.atozhistorypage.com/), and Scott McAndless of the Retelling the Bible podcast (https://retellingthebible.wordpress.com/2021/09/15/5-19-me-myself-and-manoah/), we discuss Scott's episode "Me, Myself, and Manoah".
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In this bonus, I launch a new mini-series. My co-hosts are Steve Guerra of the History of the Papacy show (https://www.atozhistorypage.com/), and Scott Mcandless of the Retelling the Bible podcast (https://retellingthebible.wordpress.com/). In these bonus episodes, we will discuss one of Scott’s re-tellings. In this show we revisit Scott’s show on Joshua and the day the sun stood still.
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In this bonus, John Brooks of the “Pod Only Knows” podcast interviews me about the genesis and making of my show. I think it turned out pretty well.
This episode formed the last show of John’s former podcast, “Hard to Believe”. It is published here with his kind permission. With his new podcast, “Pod Only Knows”, John is off to fresh ventures, along with Dr. Kelly J. Baker. They are both from the serious world of religious studies. In their new show, they take a sometimes serious, sometimes irreverent, and always curious, look at the way religion shows up in our world. Kelly and John invite other people from the wide and wild world of religious studies to talk to them about why and how they do what they do and why their work matters to us all.
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Irenaeus died around the year 200. In his final decades, pagan intellectuals first turned their sights on the Christians. The first was Celsus. Christians counter-attacked with more apologies. They also produced homilies, such as the 2nd letter of Clement.
Fans also produced some fanciful acts and gospels of the various disciples, and two biographies of the young Jesus: the Paidika, and the Protevangelium of James.
I finish with a look at two accounts of local persecutions during the period, in Lyon and Scillium. Did they actually happen?
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Gil Kidron and I discuss how a small rural priest called Mattathias started an insurgency against Judea’s overlords, the mighty Seleucid kingdom, heir to the empire of Alexander the Great. His descendants became rulers of the tiny region. They are known to history as the Maccabeans. In this period, we see the emergence of two political or social groups. First, the Sadducees, or Tsadokites. Second, the Pharisees.
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After Irenaeus rescued Paul from the Marcionites and Gnostics, Paul’s letters were honoured and uncontroversial documents, testaments to a great missionary and theologian. Martin Luther weaponised them to attack the established church, and so birthed the Protestant movement. In the 1970s, the New Perspective on Paul movement tried to rescue Paul from Luther.
I also finish up my discussion of the Acts of Paul, and make an assessment of Paul’s real significance to Christianity. -
The Conspirinormal podcast people kindly invited me onto their show. The hosts Adam Sayne and Serfiel Stevenson have generously allowed me to publish our conversation here.
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