The Image of God and Imaging God What does it actually mean for human beings to be created in the image of God? In this lecture, Dr. Michael Heiser examines the biblical language of Genesis 1:26–27 and challenges several common explanations of the image of God....
image of God
Book on Artistic Depiction of Mesopotamian Deities Available Online in PDF
Tallay Ornan's important book, The triumph of the symbol: Pictorial representation of deities in Mesopotamia and the biblical image ban, is now available as a PDF for free download. Here's the abstract: This book analyzes the history of Mesopotamian imagery from the...
Naked Bible Podcast Episode 131: ETS-SBL Interviews with Scholars – Part 4
During the recent annual meetings for biblical studies scholars held in San Antonio, Dr. Heiser interviewed a number of scholars about their recent work. In Part 4 of those interviews, we chat with Dr. N. T. Wright (former Bishop of Durham and Canon of Westminster,...
Naked Bible Podcast Episode 130: ETS-SBL Interviews with Scholars – Part 3
During the recent annual meetings for biblical studies scholars held in San Antonio, Dr. Heiser interviewed a number of scholars about their recent work. In Part 3 of those interviews, we hear again from David Burnett, a familiar voice on the podcast, and meet Dr....
Naked Bible 62: Q&A 5
Our 5th Question and Answer episode! Transcript 62 QA5 In this Q&A episode, Dr. Michael Heiser answers listener-submitted questions that range across biblical interpretation, theological constructs, and cultural practices. Major themes include the image of God,...
Heiser Article on Rephaim in LBD (Lexham Bible Dictionary)
Can't believe I forgot to post this when I wrote it a few months back. LBD is available for free with the download of the Faithlife Study Bible (I did the notes for Genesis through Judges on that). Anyway, here's my article on "Rephaim" in PDF: Rephaim LBD I also did...
TIME Magazine and (Exo)Theological Ignorance
I saw this essay from TIME Magazine pop up on Twitter today: "Dabbling in Exotheology." The date of the essay was 1978 (unless that's a typo). The essay opens with this question: "Can the "image of God" survive in extraterrestrial life?" An understandable one, but an...
Biblical Theology, Poverty, and Social Justice, Part 3
Well, finally back to this. Since it's been so long, I need to give readers the context of the first and second posts. Review In the first post, I had encouraged readers to keep the following items in mind as they read the essay from the Anchor Bible Dictionary I...
Biblical Theology, Poverty, and Social Justice, Part 2
I'm hoping that by now those interested will have read the ABD essay I posted on terms for poverty and the poor in the Old Testament. In case readers did not take it upon themselves to do so, here is another PDF of the actual OT occurrences of each of the OT words for...
Biblical Theology, Poverty, and Social Justice: Part 1
I've decided to embark on an exploration of poverty and social justice with respect to the biblical text. "Social justice" is currently a hot-button issue and, in my view, is a term easily manipulated by politicians and theologians who want to wield political...
Guest Post on Adam Topic
A Naked Bible reader, Bryan Hodge, asked permission to post his thoughts on the Adam issue (it picks up on my previous post about 'adam with or without the definite article). They are below. I presume that reader comments will be answered by him. Once again, the...
Abortion, Luke 1:15, and Syntactical Databases
A couple months ago a friend sent me a link to a New Testament study that was apparently being popularized within certain segments of the Church to legitimize abortion. The argument is patently illogical, but that isn't why I'm blogging about it. There's more to it...
ET Life and Recent God Talk
[Update / Addendum 10/11/2011 - see the third paragraph.] I'm betting those of you who lurk on this blog have seen the recent spate (or is it semi-mindless repetition) of news stories about the impact an intelligent extraterrestrial reality would have on religion,...
God’s Sovereignty and Nature’s Freedom
I liked this article since parts of it resonate with my own view of sovereignty and free will (the latter does not rule out the former) blogged long ago here at the Naked Bible. Genuine freedom is part of humanity because it is a communicable attribute we receive as...
Round Two with John Hobbins and the Bellingham Statement
I really don't like basketball ("ball in Mike's court"), so the boxing metaphor is substituted! Once again, I'm pleased to chat with John and the rest of you in regard to his latest post responding to my comments on his revision of my Bellingham Statement draft. Here...