Jesus says that angels in heaven don't marry, so how could the sons of God in Genesis 6 be spirit beings? How many generations does it take for "Nephilim DNA" to be diluted? How do we get Nephilim after the flood? Modern DNA vs. ancient bloodlines--what's the difference? And what does Calvinball have to do with any of that? **Website: www.genesisma…

A comparison of LDS theology with biblical theology, especially focused on the divine council worldview. A recounting of the LDS story of creation and salvation (otherwise known as "exaltation") and looking at how these display the differences between Christianity and "Mormonism." **Website: www.genesismarksthespot.com My Patreon: https://www.patre…

Is singleness what we all have to look forward to in the eschaton? Reviewing Danielle Treweek's book, The Meaning of Singleness: Retrieving an Eschatological Vision for the Contemporary Church. The church has traditionally seen singleness to be THE "eschatological" view, but more recent history has flipped this on its head and now marriage is often…

Answering the question begun in episode 92 about homosexuality and the kingdom of God. While there are differences in sexuality between the ancient world and today, let's encourage the development of a biblical imagination and the continual turning to Christ, our King. **Website: www.genesismarksthespot.com My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Genes…

Marriage according the Bible: Continuity between the Old Testament to the New Testament to the church to today. Are we actually "thinking biblically"? Do our ideas about sex and marriage reflect what the Bible says? Inheritance, virginity, the divine council worldview, and the idea that Jesus expanded the Torah. **Website: www.genesismarksthespot.c…

Marriage according to the Bible: What was adultery in the Old Testament? Why is it only for women? **Website: www.genesismarksthespot.com My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GenesisMarkstheSpot Genesis Marks the Spot on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/genesismarksthespot Genesis Marks the Spot on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/genesismarks…

Marriage according to the Bible. Beginning a survey of passages about marriage and defining marriage in the ancient Near East: what is a concubine and how did marriage "happen"? What's inheritance got to do with it? Why are polygamy and other "unsavory" practices in the Torah? **Website: www.genesismarksthespot.com My Patreon: https://www.patreon.c…

Continuing the conversation about sexuality with a detour into the topic of physical embodiment as seen from Jesus, the gospel, sacrament, and community. Do you see creation as cursed? Are the sacraments "just" symbolic? Two connected questions that with the message of the gospel can help us address our discomforts with our bodies. **Website: www.g…

How do we understand gender identity from a biblical perspective? Focusing on the topic of gender and how it came to be today, I discuss the book the Genesis of Gender by Abigail Favale. She explains the "gender paradigm" and encourages us to see a "Genesis paradigm" in relation to how we see ourselves and our bodies. **Website: www.genesismarksthe…

Seeing the cosmos as an interconnected whole does not come naturally to us today. This is a source of many of our struggles with understanding the divine council worldview, the image of God, and the deep meaning of ritual. A discussion on science, its nature and uses, and kicking some ideas around to stir up our minds to get that ancient context in…

Responding to Doreen Virtue's critique of Dr. Michael Heiser. Definitions, definitions, definitions. Elohim, polytheism, divine....what do they mean? What did Dr. Heiser mean by them? Can a functional view of these terms help clear the waters? **Website: www.genesismarksthespot.com My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GenesisMarkstheSpot Previous Cr…

The giant questions: what is the seed of the serpent, who are the Nephilim, and how is it that the flood didn't wipe them out? Intersecting with the concepts of the divine council worldview and the identity of the sons of God (are they different from Genesis 6 to Genesis 11/Deuteronomy 32, and were they always rebellious?), and how all this fits in…

Couldn't resist another episode about notetaking, highlighting, and Bible translations! Find some fun recommendations below! (No, I don't get kickbacks from the links, they are just there for you to check out what we're talking about!) **Website: www.genesismarksthespot.com My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GenesisMarkstheSpot Genesis Marks the S…

Should Christians read the book of Enoch? What use could it have? Can a book not in our canon of Scripture contain the gospel? A conversation with Anthony Delgado ranging from the exile to the end of time. **Website: www.genesismarksthespot.com My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GenesisMarkstheSpot Anthony Delgado's website: https://www.anthonydel…

Genesis interpretation in the Dead Sea Scrolls: the "Words of the Luminaries": (4Q504) and a "Paraphrase of Genesis and Exodus" (4Q422). The Words of the Luminaries is a set of weekly liturgical prayers and the Paraphrase of Genesis and Exodus is in the genre of "rewritten Bible," perhaps used as or with a homily. These are excellent texts to inves…

The Dead Sea Scrolls were an amazing find for the study of the Bible and understanding the context of Jesus' time. They can also help shed light on the ways that the biblical text is used through time by different communities. This can help us understand this strange time we are in today, where we have so much information about the context of the B…

What is the role of the human in inspiration? Are the Scriptures the "inspired word of God" via dictation or "holy download" to the human writer? Is there room for editing and compiling? Discussing the dictation view, the verbal plenary view, and the dynamic view of inspiration. Each view holds God in high regard, but how do they portray humanity? …

The Passover and the Day of Atonement both have their fulfillment in Jesus, but how do we see this in Genesis? Tracing the twin themes of the "two goats" and the exodus through the book of Genesis leads us right to the epicenter of Christological typology. Check out Caleb's new book, and his podcast, The Bible in Context. **Website: www.genesismark…

Exodus begins in Genesis 1. Caleb Lewis joins me to discuss the many exoduses of Genesis. I can almost guarantee you'll find something here that you never thought about before that will shed light on the continuity of the Torah and how it points to Jesus and the church. Check out Caleb's new book, and his podcast, The Bible in Context. **Website: w…

The first and primary parallel flood accounts to Genesis are the flood stories from Mesopotamia. Seeing how close these stories are to the narrative in Genesis will give us plenty to discuss in the future, and this will also help us investigate the question of the "many" flood accounts of the ancient world. Reading the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Atr…

The more I study the Bible, the more I come back to the same question: Who is God, and what does the Bible tell us about Him? Looking at the flood narrative from the common paradigm and flipping it on its head to include a more expansive view of our relationship to God and what he wants for us. Troy Yurchak brings us a delightful symmetry of the fl…

How does the structure of Genesis 1 work as a chiasm, and what does that mean for our view of liturgy--what it is and why we do it? Troy Yurchak joins me for this great discussion that unexpectedly combines literary design with liturgy and discipleship! **Website: www.genesismarksthespot.com My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GenesisMarkstheSpot T…

It's time to discuss two important things: the flood, and note-taking. Broad points about the flood are brought up, and then we do a deep dive into my method of note-taking and why you should do it, too. **Blog post with pictures of my notes! https://www.genesismarksthespot.com/blog/note-taking/ My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GenesisMarkstheSp…

Is Genesis 1 poetry? A look at biblical poetry and elements of metaphor, ending on the question of what it means to be "blotted out." **Website: www.genesismarksthespot.com My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GenesisMarkstheSpot Genesis Marks the Spot on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/genesismarksthespot Genesis Marks the Spot on Instagram: htt…

Apologies to Bishop Ussher, but it is impossible to calculate the age of the earth using biblical statistics. I don't care if you are a young earth creationist or an old earth creationist or somewhere in between or nowhere else, but the Bible's genealogies cannot be used in scientific calculations. Hitting also a bit of information of the history o…

Death before the fall? It began when Eve decided and they both ate...or did it? It might not be that simple. Plus, in studying, you must have learned that man is mortal, but what about animals? If they weren't immortal, then how could creation have been a paradise? Why do we suddenly get "permission" to eat meat after the flood of all places? (Hint…

BONUS questions this week: is Jesus Yahweh and what is the filioque? Because I had some extra time on my hands after not finishing last week's episode properly, those seemed some fun additions to the conversation. Talking about the divine economy before digging into the pronunciation of the name YHWH, when it stopped being pronounced, what does it …

A survey on the names, titles, and designations of God in the Old Testament. What do they mean? What do they reveal about the character and nature of God? In particular, why is God called The Fear of Isaac? **Website: www.genesismarksthespot.com My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GenesisMarkstheSpot Genesis Marks the Spot on Facebook: https://www.…

Genesis 3, the Passover, the exile, and Jesus. How do these relate to the wilderness, Babylon, Assyria, and why one always goes "down" to Egypt? Each of us can relate to the theme of exile in some way, and yet the prevalence of this concept might escape us when we read our Bibles. Understanding exile can help us understand Jesus and our lives today…

Part two of the conversation from episode 70, we discuss the theodicies that Job's friends provide, the idea of Job as a member of the divine council, the structure of the book of Job, and a caution about structuring Scripture without a full knowledge of the language originally used. Also, some information about what I'm up to beyond this podcast a…

If Job is a second Adam, then the satan in Job must be the serpent from the Garden, right? In our previous conversation about Job as a second Adam, we didn't get into nearly enough talk about the satan reflecting or being the serpent from the garden, after all. Is it an I-told-you-so moment?? Exploring that further in this episode, we come to some …

Comparing translations of passages that touch on the Divine Council Worldview. Why do some Bible translations have "sons of God" in Deut. 32:8 and others have "sons of Israel"? Can humans be elohim? What's with the "so-called gods" in 1 Cor. 8:5? **Website: www.genesismarksthespot.com My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GenesisMarkstheSpot Genesis …

We hear it, and it's true: we are made to be kings on the earth, and then we lost our dominion, exiled from our true home. But there is hope in our Messianic King who sets all to right! But being reconciled to our true home is not all there is to the concept of exile. Reviewing biblical theology books on exile, talking about the Deuteronomistic his…

A conversation with Dr. Lois Tverberg about reading the Bible in Jesus' Jewish context: haftara, the importance of the prophetic literature, and the theme of kingship in the Bible. **Website: www.genesismarksthespot.com My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GenesisMarkstheSpot Links from Dr. Tverberg's blogs: Can We Call Jesus Rabbi?: https://ourrabb…

Continuing a conversation about Job with Mike Chu about the message of the book of Job, its application to us, and vindication in speaking to God honestly. **Website: www.genesismarksthespot.com My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GenesisMarkstheSpot Genesis Marks the Spot on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/genesismarksthespot Genesis Marks the …

Job as a second Adam and other fascinating things like the dating of Job's trials, what's up with "the fear of the Lord," and a new look at the satan in Job; you won't want to miss this conversation with Mike Chu! **Website: www.genesismarksthespot.com My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GenesisMarkstheSpot Sermon series on Job: https://granitecity…

What is "the sin offering"? What does it do? Why don't we see it in Genesis? What does it mean for the work of Jesus? Spencer Owen joins me for a discussion about this oft-misunderstood offering. **Website: www.genesismarksthespot.com My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GenesisMarkstheSpot Genesis Marks the Spot on Facebook: https://www.facebook.co…

Bible translations: why do we have so many of them and how do we vet them for our use? One of the newest translations out there is the LSB, the Legacy Standard Bible. Both John MacArthur and Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis (and the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum) say that the LSB is the "best" translation currently available. How does this transla…

The main theme and story of the Hebrew Bible, seen in the order of the Tanakh, gives us an even clearer picture than do individual prophecies of who the Messiah is and of his mission. This isn't to discount Messianic prophecy, but themes, patterns, and narrative arcs all point to Jesus, and guess what? It all begins in Genesis and flows through the…

The Bible is a book made up of many books. Each individual book of the Bible has its own context and meaning and purpose, but the Bible also has a unified story and meaning. We can't simply tear the text into pieces because that ruins the whole picture. And the way that the books are ordered in the canon affects the way that we read the Bible as a …

Who causes sickness, Satan or God? And should we expect to be healed if we pray with enough faith? **Website: www.genesismarksthespot.com My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GenesisMarkstheSpot Genesis Marks the Spot on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/genesismarksthespot Genesis Marks the Spot on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/genesismarks…

The gospel is more than "the Romans Road." It is not a mere story about forgiveness of sin. It is a battle of cosmic proportions. Part of this begins to dismantle the common depiction of atonement as an appeasement of God's wrath, but fear not, this doesn't lead to a state where we are capable of saving ourselves. Far from it, in fact! **Website: w…

Does the Bible actually affirm the existence of other gods? Here is a defense for the argument that it does, and why it matters that we believe that. **Website: www.genesismarksthespot.com My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GenesisMarkstheSpot Genesis Marks the Spot on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/genesismarksthespot Genesis Marks the Spot o…

Is modern worship practice biblical? Is it the same as what the first century church practiced? What does the Bible say about music and how should that inform the way we worship? Stay tuned to the end for a bonus conclusion to this episode. :) **Website: www.genesismarksthespot.com My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GenesisMarkstheSpot Church Musi…

The "toledoth" structure of Genesis is useful, but feels random because we aren't using the toledoths like we should. Genesis reflects the struture of other ancient Near East ancestor epics like Atrahasis. Come have a listen to see what it's all about! Coming soon, I will have links to charts for you to use in your own study! **Website: www.genesis…

What do the deep and outer darkness have to do with each other? A survey of the dark side of the cosmos, from the deep to Sheol, to Hades and Gehenna--how does Scripture talk about these places and how related are they? Also, a discussion on the nature of hell--is eternal conscious torment a biblical idea? **Website: www.genesismarksthespot.com My …

Discussing the not-so-cuddly Christmas dragon with Mike Chu. Come find out how Revelation 12 illuminates the Christ event. **Website: www.genesismarksthespot.com My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GenesisMarkstheSpot The Awakening School of Theology: https://awkngschooloftheology.com/ The End of the World as You Know It, by Matt Halstead: https://…

Welcome to the podcast's fourth Q&A episode! Timestamps: 04:00 - How do the sons of God manifest themselves? 16:29 - How can we determine which entities exist and which don't? 19:55 - What do I think of Gary Wayne? 56:00 - How can we review content quickly to better discern what is worth reading? **New website is here!!! www.genesismarksthespot.com…

The ancient world did not use numbers in the way that we use them today. Learning about this can help us see Genesis 1 as historical account while acknowledging that creation may not have happened just as described. Michael LeFebvre's book, The Liturgy of Creation, explains how the Torah's dating system is not based on precise chronology, but rathe…

Finishing up the overview of the book Sacred Power, Sacred Space, we discuss Christian worship spaces from Constantine up to the modern day. **New website is here!!! www.genesismarksthespot.com My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GenesisMarkstheSpot Genesis Marks the Spot on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/genesismarksthespot Genesis Marks the S…