S2E1 Stories & Strangeness – Taking the Old Testament seriously

In this second series Dr Andrew Ollerton meets with academics and researchers from the Tyndale House network to discuss how they approach the Old Testament and wrestle with its trickier passages. Each episode focuses in on a different text from the Old Testament, as we explore the reading processes and practices that researchers bring to their own Bible reading.

In this episode Dr Andrew Ollerton is joined by Dr Peter J Williams to look at strangeness and stories in the Old Testament, and to ask: how do we take it seriously? Andrew and Peter discuss talking animals, miraculous events, the bizarre breeding program we find in Genesis 30 and how we might become confident readers of the Old Testament, even in its stranger parts.

Please note that this episode does include a very brief discussion of sexual violence.

Dr Peter J Williams is Principal of Tyndale House and a member of the Faculty of Divinity in the University of Cambridge. He received his MA, MPhil and PhD, in the study of ancient languages related to the Bible from Cambridge University. He’s currently Chair of the International Greek New Testament Project and a Member of the Translation Committee of the English Standard Version of the Bible. He is the author of Can We Trust the Gospels? and The Surprising Genius of Jesus, both published by Crossway.

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This episode is a re-release from the Trusting the Bible podcast which was a collaboration between Tyndale House, Cambridge @Tyndale_House and the Bible Society @biblesociety in 2022.

Edited by Tyndale House 

Music – Acoustic Happy Background used with a standard license from Adobe Stock.