Episode 8 Study Guide

Some scholars claim Mark has the "lowest" view of Jesus' identity of the four Gospels. In this episode of A Strange and Beautiful Kingdom, David Parcher argues that Mark makes his case through narrative echoes instead of titles, and Mark 4:35–41 is a prime example.

The storm story mirrors Jonah 1 almost beat for beat, with one big twist: Jesus doesn't need to be thrown overboard. Then there's the cushion. The Greek word proskephalaion appears only here in the New Testament, and only twice in the Greek Old Testament, both times in Ezekiel 13, where God condemns protective charms as snares. Jesus sleeps on the very thing Ezekiel calls bondage, and gets up unbound. Finally, the verb Jesus uses to silence the wind is the same one he uses on a demon, and the very next scene shows him freeing a man chains couldn't hold.

For anyone interested in the Gospel of Mark, the calming of the storm, Jonah, Ezekiel, or how the New Testament uses the Hebrew Bible.

Study Guide Episode 7

"Someone touched me." The story of the woman with the issue of blood is one of the most familiar in the Gospels, and one of the most misread. In this episode of A Strange and Beautiful Kingdom, we put it back in its Second Temple Jewish world, using the ritual purity framework from our Purity Culture primer.

Luke weaves two healing stories together around the number twelve: a woman with a twelve-year flow of blood and a twelve-year-old girl who has died. We look at why the word for the "edge" of Jesus' cloak points to the tassels of the Torah commandments, and at what scholars like Jacob Milgrom, Matthew Thiessen, and Paul Sloan have said about "contagious holiness." We also look at how both stories echo Jeremiah's grief over the "daughter of my people." The episode ends with a personal reflection on healing that came and healing that hasn't.

For anyone exploring the woman with the issue of blood, Luke 8, ritual impurity, Jairus's daughter, or the Jewish background of the Gospels.

Study Guide Episode 6

1 Corinthians 15:29 is one of the strangest verses in the New Testament: "What will those do who are baptized for the dead?" Most explanations assume a vicarious baptism for the deceased, but every ancient source for that practice comes centuries after Paul. In this episode of A Strange and Beautiful Kingdom, David Parcher goes back to what "baptized" actually meant in Paul's world.

We trace immersion from the Israelite mikveh through the Community Rule at Qumran to John the Immerser. We look at corpse impurity and why death was treated as a defilement. Then we read Paul's question again. He may be asking what the living gain from immersion if there is no resurrection, not what the dead gain. Along the way: Paul's quotation of the playwright Menander and why Paul calls death "the last enemy."

A good listen for anyone interested in Second Temple Judaism, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Paul's letters, or what the Bible's hardest verses mean without being explained away.