New Books in ReligionAccording to Vālmīki's Sanskrit Rāmāyaṇa (early centuries CE), Śambūka was practicing severe acts of austerity to enter heaven. In engaging in these acts as a Śūdra, Śambūka was in violation of class- and caste-based societal norms prescribed...
New Books in ReligionRabbi Lance J. Sussman, Ph.D., has been a leading rabbi and scholar of the American Jewish experience throughout his long career. Now Rabbi Emeritus of Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel in Elkins Park, PA, he previously served as Rabbi of Temple...
Misquoting Jesus with Bart EhrmanWas the prophet Isaiah pointing to the coming of the messiah, seven centuries before Jesus? Since the beginning of Christianity, his followers have claimed that he did; and some passages of the ancient prophet certainly seem to be advanced notices...
Classical Ideas PodcastSamira Mehta is an Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies and Jewish Studies at CU Boulder. Her research focuses on the intersections of religion, culture, and gender, including the politics of family life and reproduction in the US. Her...
Data > DogmaPeople talk all the time about souls. "He's my soulmate." "It was so scary, my soul left my body." "I'm going to destroy that piano if you don't stop playing Heart and Soul." But what are we actually talking about? Is there really a non-corporeal...
Home Brewed ChristianityBrian Zahnd returns to the podcast to discuss his fresh book The Wood Between Worlds. In the conversation, we discuss his kaleidoscopic theopoetics of the cross, the glorious metaphor of the One Ring in The Lord of the Rings, Trump’s ability to...
New Books in ReligionToday I talked to Peter Hill about his new book Prophet of Reason: Science, Religion and the Origins of the Modern Middle East (Oneworld Academic, 2024). In 1813, high in the Lebanese mountains, a thirteen-year-old boy watches a solar eclipse. Will...
New Books in ReligionIn Pentecostal Insight in a Segregated US City: Designs for Vitality (Bloomsbury, 2022), Frederick Klaits compares how members of one majority white and two African American churches in Buffalo, New York receive knowledge from God about their own...
Misquoting Jesus with Bart EhrmanWere Jesus and Paul were on different pages when it came to the most important issue for them both, how a person can be saved? In this episode, Bart and Megan explore Gospels and the letters of Paul to see where these two pivotal figures share...
Classical Ideas PodcastSophie Bjork-James (Ph.D., Cultural Anthropology, City University of New York) is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Vanderbilt University. She has over ten years of experience researching both the US based Religious Right and the white...
Data > DogmaIt's a judge and a king this week, and both are fascinating! First we're looking at Deborah, a prophet, a judge, and a really interesting figure whose story gets told twice in the Bible: back-to-back! Women often get short-shrift in the Bible, but...
New Books in ReligionIn How Things Count as the Same: Memory, Mimesis, and Metaphor (Oxford UP, 2019), Adam B. Seligman and Robert P. Weller address a seemingly simple question: What counts as the same? Given the myriad differences that divide one individual from...
New Books in ReligionThis episode is the first of three special episodes in this season of Radio ReOrient in which we look back on the first principles of Critical Muslim Studies. In this episode, Hizer Mir talks to Salman Sayyid about post-positivism - what it means,...
Home Brewed ChristianityIn this episode of Homebrewed Christianity’s Process This series on Artificial Intelligence, Tripp is joined by Noreen Herzfeld, a professor of science and religion, about the intersections of AI, ethics, and theology. They discuss the relational...
Misquoting Jesus with Bart EhrmanIf Jesus was dead for three days -- where did he go? The standard view for almost all of Christian history was that he went to the realm of the dead to save the lost souls who died before his crucifixion made salvation possible. But did he save...
Classical Ideas PodcastChauncey Handy is Assistant Professor of Religion at Reed College. As a Chicano scholar of the Hebrew Bible, Chauncey’s work focuses on the intersection of race/racialization, theories of ethnicity, Latinx theorization of identity, and the...
Home Brewed ChristianityStep into the interactive world of the inaugural ‘Process This‘ series, a journey into the realm of Artificial Intelligence and the human future. Kester Brewin returns to the podcast to set up a series of interviews with scholars across the...
Data > DogmaIt's questionable heroes week here on the Data Over Dogma show, and we've packed in some big names! How big? How about the guy they named the whole tribe of Israel after? You know... Jacob. We're asking the big questions here: do striped sticks...
Misquoting Jesus with Bart EhrmanMost of us think of early Christian monks moving into the desert to escape the chaos and noise of civilization to lead the quiet contemplative life. In a fascinating study by Kim Haines-Eitzen we learn that in fact the desert was and is...
Home Brewed ChristianityPhilip Clayton was my PhD advisor and remains a mentor and friend. We scheduled a live stream session where we planned to explore contemporary options for the doctrine of God by developing a typology of live options, but when we learned of...
Data > DogmaIt's the book that didn't make the cut. Enoch (or first Enoch, if you're nasty) is an important book, both historically and religiously. As a matter of fact, New Testament writers considered it scripture. So why, when you open your Bible at home,...
Home Brewed ChristianityPractical Theologian and friend of the pod, Andrew Root, is back on the podcast to discuss the most contentious parts of his newest book Church in an Age of Secular Mysticisms. Our conversation delves deep into some tenuous topics: secular...
Misquoting Jesus with Bart EhrmanMany modern Christians view the Bible as the inspired, inerrant word of God. Is that what its own authors thought? Did the author of Matthew, for example, think the Gospel of Mark was infallible? If so, why did he change it? In this episode we...
Classical Ideas PodcastVic Thasiah is a professor of religion and a lead faculty member in the environmental studies program at California Lutheran University. He is also the founder and co-president of the nonprofit environmental organization Runners for Public Lands....
Home Brewed ChristianityBrian Kaylor and Beau Underwood, authors of Baptizing America: How Mainline Protestants Helped Build Christian Nationalism, joined me for a live-streamed conversation where we discussed the book and a bunch of listener questions inspired by their...