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© 2025 Biblical Time Machine
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Join Helen and Lloyd as they travel back in time (metaphorically… it’s a podcast) to explore the real history of the people, places and events of the Old Testament, New Testament and everything in between.
120 Episodes
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From the royal courts of Babylon to the Acts of the Apostles, eunuchs appear in some of the most intriguing corners of the biblical story. But what did it really mean to be a eunuch in antiquity? Were they trusted chamberlains at the heart of ancient empires, symbols of inclusion at the edges of faith, or even 'angel'-like beings transcending the ordinary categories of gender? In this episode, Helen and Lloyd are joined by Shaun Tougher to explore the lives of eunuchs in the ancient world and...
Can modern historians really talk about Jesus’ miracles? Did Jesus expect the imminent end of the world? Was he a new Moses figure? And if memory is so unreliable, how can historians claim to know anything about him at all? There’s no one better to wrestle with these questions than this week’s guest: Dale C. Allison Jr., Richard J. Dearborn Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary. He joins Helen and Lloyd to discuss his latest book, Interpreting Jesus (2025), a fresh coll...
The Time Machine is back... with some changes! Join Helen and her new co-host, ancient history Prof. Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, as they discuss what they're working on at the moment: everything from ancient Babylon, the Hittites and Persia's first lady to ancient 'lives' and the historical Mary. They are also joined by the show's new researcher and producer, Dr John Nelson. They explore John's research on the absence of a physical description of Jesus in the Gospels, and ask how Jesus...
Sadly, the origins of many antisemitic tropes and prejudices can be traced back to the New Testament, in which "the Jews" are cast as the religious "other" against which the Jesus movement is self-defined. As a result, Christians carry around a lot of un-historical and anti-Jewish assumptions are repeated in Sunday School classes and even the halls of academia. Let's fix that! Our guest Meredith Warren just co-edited an excellent book called Judeophobia and the New Testament. Meredith j...
Cyrus II was the founder of the Persian Empire, arguably the greatest empire of the Ancient Near East. Cyrus wasn't only a hero to the Persians. In the Hebrew Bible, Cyrus is the only non-Jew that God calls His "anointed one" or "messiah." But does Cyrus really deserve his reputation as the "liberator" of the Jews from Babylon or is it all a piece of ancient propaganda? The incomparable Lloyd Llewelyn-Jones joins Helen and Dave to discuss the glory of the Persian Empire and how Cyrus wa...
The laws and punishments meted out in the Bible sound pretty harsh. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth—not to mention all of the commandments that are punishable by death! Ancient law expert Bruce Wells joins Helen and Dave to answer the question: were biblical laws really enforced? How did they compare with other law codes from the Ancient Near East like Hammurabi? And if they weren't enforced, why do laws play such a central role in the Hebrew Bible? Check out Bruce's books: Everyday L...
According to The Da Vinci Code, all sorts of wild things happened at the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE. Constantine, the first Christian Roman emperor, chose the books of the New Testament. The role of women in the Church was suppressed. And most importantly, a bunch of powerful bishops decided (by a slim margin) that Jesus Christ was actually divine. As our guest Sara Parvis explains, the Council of Nicaea was indeed a momentous meeting, but for very different reasons. SUPPORT BIBL...
Matthew Novenson is back and he's brought some exciting (wild, even) new ideas about our old friend Paul. In his latest book, Paul and Judaism at the End of History, Matt argues that Paul believed he was living through the end of the world. Paul wasn't "against" Judaism or the law—he simply believed that Jesus's death and resurrection had ushered in a new reality with new rules. SUPPORT BIBLICAL TIME MACHINE If you enjoy the podcast, please (pretty please!) consider supporting the sho...
With Easter in the rear view mirror, we take a long-overdue look at the next chapter in the story of Jesus: the Second Coming. Scholar Tucker Ferda is making waves with some compelling new ideas about the origins of Second Coming prophesies. He joins Helen and Dave to discuss what Jesus himself might have believed about the End of Days and His role as the prophesied Son of Man. We highly recommend Tucker's new book, Jesus and His Promised Second Coming: Jewish Eschatology and Christian ...
The enigmatic figure of Barabbas appears in all four gospels as a "bandit" or "insurrectionist" who is released from prison by Pontius Pilate instead of Jesus. In this special Easter episode, Helen and Dave explore the (many) theories about Barabbas' backstory and what he may have represented to the gospel authors. SUPPORT BIBLICAL TIME MACHINE If you enjoy the podcast, please (pretty please!) consider supporting the show through the Time Travelers Club, our Patreon. We are an independ...
1What does the Bible really say about controversial topics like slavery, abortion, homosexuality, Satan and the Apocalypse? Everybody has their take, but few have the ability to interrogate the texts and their ancient origins with as much insight as our guest, Dan McClellan. Dan McClellan is a public scholar of the Bible and religion with a PhD in theology & religion from the University of Exeter. Since 2023, Dan has dedicated himself full-time to combating misinformation about the B...
Before it was called Christianity, the "Jesus movement" was born in 1st-century synagogues. In today's episode, Anders Runneson joins Helen and Dave to talk about the important role of ancient synagogues of both civic and religious institutions, and how a better understanding of synagogues can shape our reading of the New Testament. You can download a full PDF of Anders' book for free: Judaism for Gentiles: Reading Paul Beyond the Parting of the Ways Paradigm SUPPORT BIBLICAL TIME MACHI...
The books of the Hebrew Bible known as "wisdom literature" — Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes — are a strange fit for the biblical canon. They're ahistorical (not interested in Israel's history) and areligious (not interested in God, covenants, the temple or any other pillars of Israelite religion). So where did these funky books come from and how did they find their way into the Bible? Our guest Stuart Weeks is here with some answers! Stuart is a scholar of ancient Israelite wisdom liter...
What can Bible stories about animals tells us about power dynamics in the ancient world? A lot, it turns out! Suzanna Millar joins us to talk about the fascinating new field of Animal Studies and how the Hebrew Bible can open windows into studying human-animal power dynamics 2500 years in the past. For more on this emerging field of biblical studies, check out Suzanna's book, co-edited with Arthur Walker-Jones, Ask the Animals: Developing a Biblical Animal Hermeneutic. SUPPORT BIBLICAL ...
The Jewish sabbath (Shabbat), observed from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, is one of the oldest continuously observed holidays in existence. At first glance, the sabbath seems pretty straightforward; it's a "day of rest" that God commanded his people to observe on the 7th day. But when you read the Hebrew Bible really closely—like our guest Jon Levenson does—you run into all sorts of intriguing questions. Was the "7th day" the same as the sabbath? Was the sabbath a day or rest or a...
This is a Biblical Time Machine first—a historical reenactment of how the gospel writers wrote (and rewrote) the books of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. Our guest James Barker made his own scrolls, wax tablets and ancient writing implements to see what the gospel-writing process was really like. It gave him all sorts of fascinating new insights into how the gospel authors worked and how they used and reused each other's material. You really have to check out James' terrific new book, Wri...
Why were certain foods "forbidden" in the Hebrew Bible? And how did the pig attain ultra-non-kosher status among ancient Jews? Guest Jordan Rosenblum joins Helen and Dave as they try to pinpoint the origins of Jewish dietary laws and how they've been interpreted over time. Check out Jordan's terrific new book, Forbidden: A 3,000-Year History of Jews and the Pig. JOIN US FOR THE BTM BOOK CLUB The next meeting of the Biblical Time Machine Book Club will be Saturday, February 22 at ...
Josephus will always be our pal, but it's time to meet another super-important ancient Jewish writer: Philo of Alexandria. Living in the vibrant intellectual hub of 1st-century Alexandria, Philo applied Greco-Roman philosophical ideas to the Hebrew Bible and wrote some of the first books about biblical interpretation. Today Helen and Dave Learn all about Philo and the remarkable city of ancient Alexandria with guest Maren Neihoff, author of Philo of Alexandria: An Intellectual Bio...
To the authors of the Hebrew Bible, King Nebuchadnezzar was a grade-A jerk. In the 6th century BCE, he and his army sacked Jerusalem, destroyed the First Temple and carried the Judahites into exile in Babylon. All of that stuff actually happened, but things really start to get wild in the book of Daniel. In that much later text, Nebuchadnezzar goes mad, grows feathers and eats grass for 7 years. Where did that colorful story come from and does it have any basis in reality? Today's guest Pet...
Did Roman roads have rest stops? How bad were the snacks on a sea voyage across the Mediterranean? Did Paul get frequent sailor miles? On today's episode, we answer all of your questions about travel in the ancient world. Our guest (live from an Egyptian desert) is Robert Cioffi, who wrote a terrific article titled "Travel in the Roman World." You can also check out Rob's latest book, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the Greek Novel: Between Representation and Resistance. SUPPORT BIBLICAL TIME MACHINE...
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Thank you so much for covering these topics!!
The Second Temple was a large complex enclosed by a fortified wall enclosing a tall tower. It looked more like a fortress than a classical Roman or Greek temple. It lacked any of the beauty and grace associated with the temples of ancient Greece like the Parthenon in Athens. Instead it looked more like a bureaucratic administrative center from which central control over a theocracy could be managed. Like the First Temple, the Second was also destroyed, this time by Rome in 70 AD.
The so-called Second Temple was a reconstruction of the First which was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC after they captured Jerusalem. About 60 years later, the Persians defeated the Babylonians and sent the Jews back to Judah. Judah was a theocratic state ruled by its priesthood. The reconstruction of the temple began much later, around 60 BC during the reign of Herod who was installed as king of Judea by the Roman Senate.