Tim Bulkeley is British by birth, Kiwi by choice and an excellent biblical scholar. His 5 Minute Bible series provides 5-6 minute podcasts that give provocative insights into current biblical scholarship. He is currently doing a series on humour in the Bible which begins with the introduction of Saul. He also outlines a five step process for finding meaning for today in biblical texts:
- What DID the story mean? (i.e. what was it supposed to communicate to its early hearers?)
- What are the differences that make a difference? (i.e. what has changed that either makes us likely to misunderstand, or that make our situation significantly different from theirs?)
- What does it say about God? (If the Bible is about God then each passage will tell us something about God. And Scritpture IS about God and NOT about us.)
- How do we understand this in the light of Jesus? Or, in the case of an Old Testament passage: How does Jesus complete or fill out what is here?
- How does that work today?
The site also contains podcasts of reflections on each of the E100 readings (50 Old Testament/Hebrew Bible and 50 New/Second Testament) which give an overview of the content of the Bible.
So, altogether this site is a really nice audio introduction to the Bible.
