The Bible is a strange book, and yet people still read it gain insight from it, and worship the person for whom it was written about. On the flip side, it's also used as a weapon, from believers to atheists to push narratives that ostensibly go against the very foundations of the teachings found within its pages. To help us make some sense of this centuries-old document Josh and Will talk with world-renowned New Testament historian and scholar Luke Timothy Johnson. They talk about the rise of Christian Nationalism, what the Bible says about LGBTQ+, and how Christians should respond to the existence of aliens! 

Guest Bio:
Dr. Luke Timothy Johnson is Candler School of Theology’s Robert W. Woodruff Professor Emeritus, Emory’s most distinguished endowed chair. A noted scholar and an award-winning teacher, Johnson taught at Yale Divinity School and Indiana University prior to arriving at Candler in 1992. His research concerns the literary, moral and religious dimensions of the New Testament, including the Jewish and Greco-Roman contexts of early Christianity (particularly moral discourse), Luke-Acts, the Pastoral Letters, and the Letter of James.

A prolific author, Johnson has penned 31 books, more than 70 scholarly articles, 100 popular articles and nearly 200 book reviews. His 1986 book, The Writings of the New Testament: An Interpretation, now in its third edition, is widely used as a textbook in seminaries and departments of religion throughout the world. A decade later, Johnson made national headlines with The Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels(HarperOne, 1996), the first book to systematically challenge the Jesus Seminar’s controversial claims, among them that Jesus said only 18 percent of what the Gospels attribute to him.

Homosexuality & The Church: https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/homosexuality-church-0

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