This episode focuses on entheogens—psychedelic drugs that are known to cause “mystical states” of consciousness. Our hosts discuss Rick Strassman’s work on DMT, but that is merely a subset of entheogen study. Current research in the fields of brain science,...
mysticism
The Function of the Divine Council in Heavenly Worship: Piety, not Mysticism: Part 5
For the previous post and links to earlier parts of this series by Stephen Huebscher, click here. -MSH SUMMARY OF TEXTS. After surveying the most common biblical and Second Temple texts (together with a few older ones from the ancient Near East), we can see that the...
The Function of the Divine Council in Heavenly Worship: Piety, not Mysticism: Part 4
[Note: This post continues where Part 3 left off. It includes the rest of the main biblical as well as non-biblical ancient Jewish texts.– MSH] Psalm 97:7–9. “All worshipers of images are put to shame, who make their boast in worthless idols; worship him, all...
The Function of the Divine Council in Heavenly Worship: Piety, not Mysticism: Part 2
Part 1 of this series can be found here . To introduce the topic and get things moving, there are two points to remember. First, the responsibilities of the divine council include (1) administrating Yahweh’s will to the nations, (2) administering justice, and...
The Function of the Divine Council in Heavenly Worship: Piety, not Mysticism: Part 1
Editor’s Note: This is the first post in a series by my friend Stephen Huebscher. Stephen is a doctoral student in Hebrew Bible and is very acquainted with my work and the divine council in general. I hope you enjoy his contributions to the blog! — MSH...
Naked Bible 82: Q&A 8
Our 8th Question and Answer episode! Transcript 82 Q&A 8 00:00 – Intro and holiday update 01:00 – Genesis 32:22–32 – Is Jacob wrestling with God a unique story? 06:55 – Enoch – Was Genesis 5's Enoch based on earlier material or real? 17:45 – Enoch’s 365 years...
The Torah’s Teaching on Aliens
I was tempted just to leave the page of this post blank, but some might miss the joke and think there was a malfunction. Those of you who don’t think biblical illiteracy is a problem will want to read this essay by Micah Hanks: “The Torah’s Teachings...
Society of Biblical Literature Papers Available Online
This link from the Ancient World Online (AWOL) will take you to a few dozen SBL seminar papers that have been made available for free. These were all SBL conference papers. Some that I downloaded: Michael Pietsch, University of Hamburg Prophetess of Doom:...