Hey Dr. Robinson, Marty Solomon here (creator and executive producer). I really appreciate your kind critique that was more generous than it needed to be. I’d be glad to continue a conversation or collaboration in whatever way would be exciting, inspiring, and/or helpful.
We’ve never wanted to present ourselves as authorities, scholars, or “real” historians. I think there’s a lot of details or nuances we may disagree on (one of our opinions matters more and it’s not mine!), but I think critique like this is super necessary and though my ego is wounded reading it, the Spirit knows that this is better. I want to get better! So thank you.
I think your conclusion is excellent and I give a hearty hurrah to it all. We’ve always wanted to encourage all of our listeners to think critically and find their own source material. We’ve been super clear about this all along the BEMA journey, but it likely wasnt a part of the episodes you listened to.
I’ve always wanted to be really clear about where I learned much of this (and it often was from Ray VanderLaan in person), but we work hard to cite as many sources as we can when we can. You can find that extensive list at http://www.BEMAdiscipleship.com/resources and all of those are linked in the appropriate shownotes or presented at the introduction to a series.
Again, I’m growing in my bibliography and I don’t cite as much as I’d like, but we work as hard as we can with the tools we have. We like to do this in a way that inspires all of us, not just academics or pastors, to learn and think critically and grow. And I hope we all do.
So let me know if it works to get together. I’d think it’d be a great investment of our time, particularly for me.
Thank you for replying to this, Marty! I have learned so much from the BEMA podcast as I’ve listened over the past few years, and it has deepened my faith in so many ways.
Thanks for this, Laura. I hope that Marty takes you up on a convo/collab to get historical resources. He seems like a good guy who wants to do accurate, helpful work.
I appreciate especially the point about the Talmud. My family and I recently encountered a very strange teaching about the Talmud from a young pastor that said, in as brief summary as possible:
1. The seed of the serpent are supposedly human beings of both physical and spiritual descent from Cain/Canaan that carry on a Satanic cabal throughout history.
2. Babylon - presumably because it is somehow related to the Tower of Babel - was the apparently historical preservation/source of said Satanic cabal.
3. When the Jews were exiled to Babylon and then returned, supposedly some of them carried this Satanic cabal back with them.
4. The Pharisees were descendants of those who carried back the Satanic cabal, which was apparently what Jesus actually meant about the Pharisees' "traditions of your fathers". John the Baptist calling the Pharisees a "brood of vipers" was cited as proof Pharisees were Satan's seed, and Isaiah 14:29 was taken completely out of it's prophetic and historical context to provide an Old Testament link between the New Testament era Pharisees and ancient Babylon.
5. Finally, supposedly the Babylonian Talmud contained those Satanic teachings and its name is proof that the teachings were from Babylon, and those teaching are supposedly continuing to be practiced in high places today.
It doesn't take a scholar to know the above points are headed down a horribly anti-Semitic path. A quick Google search showed my family that the Babylonian Talmud is named after the Persian province of Babylonia and was written down hundreds of years after Jesus Christ and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Furthermore, there is absolutely no evidence to connect the Pharisees to Babylon - the only two contemporary sources of information about the Pharisees are the New Testament and the writings of Flavours Josephus. Jesus actually tells his listeners that "the scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat", so his critiques of them are not trying to undermine their theological teaching, just their hypocritical applications of that teaching. But trying to convince the young conservative evangelical pastor, and his young male supporters, of those facts proved impossible and my family has left the church as a result. Mistaken use of the Talmud in relation to the New Testament could have devastating results.
Hi Laura - this is great, thanks heaps for this - and particularly for the last section on the Talmud. NT scholars and theologians misappropriating the Rabbinic literature while having no idea what it is, where it is from, how it formed and what critical issues exist (they are fairly comparable to the Biblical texts!) is a particular bugbear of mine - I've written about some of these myself on my substack, and have more of that in the pipeline as well.
And, just on a general level this is a wonderful example of how important it is to check what you think you know, check your sources, and double-check them, and then think about what you might not know that you don't yet know. Which is so, so incredibly important when dealing with ancient cultures which function so differently form how we tend to think about them today.
The entire Revelation series (174-189) is a mess. Lots of "facts" stated with confidence that are not corroborated anywhere and without any mention of where these facts are coming from. (I have to assume much of the rest of the podcast suffers from these same tendencies).
How about the notion that Revelation 1-9 mirror the opening of Roman Olympic Games? Can't find a single source that suggests this.
How about the assertion that Pliny called Domitian “the Beast of the Sea, whose teeth drip with the blood of good Romans.”? I've read all of Pliny's letters several times and cannot find a single instance of this occurrence. I have found only one other source that attests to this (Sergius Bale's debate against Don. K. Preston, and there he offers no citation for this claim). Same thing with the idea that people referred to a stamp Domitian employed for commerce as "the mark of the beast." Only Sergius Bale's claim can be found and it is again without any citation to back it up.
How about the assertion that the gymnasium in Ephesus, during its construction, was referred to "the beast rising from the sea"? Again, cannot find a single source that makes this assertion.
The sculpture in Ephesus built by Domitian was not of Domitian, it was of his brother, Titus, but BEMA casually asserts it was of Domitian as evidence of him employing emperor worship.
"You can make a lot of the Caesars' names add up to 666, it doesn't mean Nero." Again, no other scholarship backs up this claim and it fails to engage with the arguments in favor of it referring to Nero at all.
Or the "fact" that Vespasian was known for having a head wound that was healed (again in arguing against the clear reference to Nero in the description of the heads of the beast from the sea). No corroboration to be found.
There are many more, these are just off the top of my head examples of easily falsifiable claims that are presented as stone-cold facts in BEMA's presentation of Revelation. When asked for sources in his blog posts (which is what he's reading from on the podcast) he often tells people to refer to the several books he mentions on the first episode of the Revelation series, but also that he can't tell you exactly which book or where in that book any particular claim comes from. "I want you to do the work," I appreciate the sentiment there, but it's just lazy presentation on your part if you're trying to present your facts well.
Honestly, I'd love to read these other sources that all this information is apparently coming from, so it's frustrating to not be able to find ANYTHING other than a list of books (that still don't pop up in any searches of specific content in question).
I very much appreciate the humility shown in Marty's reply above and I hope Laura's well written and generous critique is taken to heart and changes are made.
It's nice to see a thoughtful but kind hearted critique and response. I also am often frustrated at the limited ability to access articles by scholars...even news articles are mostly behind paywalls.
Hey Dr. Robinson, Marty Solomon here (creator and executive producer). I really appreciate your kind critique that was more generous than it needed to be. I’d be glad to continue a conversation or collaboration in whatever way would be exciting, inspiring, and/or helpful.
We’ve never wanted to present ourselves as authorities, scholars, or “real” historians. I think there’s a lot of details or nuances we may disagree on (one of our opinions matters more and it’s not mine!), but I think critique like this is super necessary and though my ego is wounded reading it, the Spirit knows that this is better. I want to get better! So thank you.
I think your conclusion is excellent and I give a hearty hurrah to it all. We’ve always wanted to encourage all of our listeners to think critically and find their own source material. We’ve been super clear about this all along the BEMA journey, but it likely wasnt a part of the episodes you listened to.
I’ve always wanted to be really clear about where I learned much of this (and it often was from Ray VanderLaan in person), but we work hard to cite as many sources as we can when we can. You can find that extensive list at http://www.BEMAdiscipleship.com/resources and all of those are linked in the appropriate shownotes or presented at the introduction to a series.
Again, I’m growing in my bibliography and I don’t cite as much as I’d like, but we work as hard as we can with the tools we have. We like to do this in a way that inspires all of us, not just academics or pastors, to learn and think critically and grow. And I hope we all do.
So let me know if it works to get together. I’d think it’d be a great investment of our time, particularly for me.
Your humility and willingness to learn and grow is truly admirable. Keep up the great work!
Thank you for replying to this, Marty! I have learned so much from the BEMA podcast as I’ve listened over the past few years, and it has deepened my faith in so many ways.
Thanks for this, Laura. I hope that Marty takes you up on a convo/collab to get historical resources. He seems like a good guy who wants to do accurate, helpful work.
I appreciate especially the point about the Talmud. My family and I recently encountered a very strange teaching about the Talmud from a young pastor that said, in as brief summary as possible:
1. The seed of the serpent are supposedly human beings of both physical and spiritual descent from Cain/Canaan that carry on a Satanic cabal throughout history.
2. Babylon - presumably because it is somehow related to the Tower of Babel - was the apparently historical preservation/source of said Satanic cabal.
3. When the Jews were exiled to Babylon and then returned, supposedly some of them carried this Satanic cabal back with them.
4. The Pharisees were descendants of those who carried back the Satanic cabal, which was apparently what Jesus actually meant about the Pharisees' "traditions of your fathers". John the Baptist calling the Pharisees a "brood of vipers" was cited as proof Pharisees were Satan's seed, and Isaiah 14:29 was taken completely out of it's prophetic and historical context to provide an Old Testament link between the New Testament era Pharisees and ancient Babylon.
5. Finally, supposedly the Babylonian Talmud contained those Satanic teachings and its name is proof that the teachings were from Babylon, and those teaching are supposedly continuing to be practiced in high places today.
It doesn't take a scholar to know the above points are headed down a horribly anti-Semitic path. A quick Google search showed my family that the Babylonian Talmud is named after the Persian province of Babylonia and was written down hundreds of years after Jesus Christ and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Furthermore, there is absolutely no evidence to connect the Pharisees to Babylon - the only two contemporary sources of information about the Pharisees are the New Testament and the writings of Flavours Josephus. Jesus actually tells his listeners that "the scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat", so his critiques of them are not trying to undermine their theological teaching, just their hypocritical applications of that teaching. But trying to convince the young conservative evangelical pastor, and his young male supporters, of those facts proved impossible and my family has left the church as a result. Mistaken use of the Talmud in relation to the New Testament could have devastating results.
*Flavius Josephus - autocorrect...
Hi Laura - this is great, thanks heaps for this - and particularly for the last section on the Talmud. NT scholars and theologians misappropriating the Rabbinic literature while having no idea what it is, where it is from, how it formed and what critical issues exist (they are fairly comparable to the Biblical texts!) is a particular bugbear of mine - I've written about some of these myself on my substack, and have more of that in the pipeline as well.
And, just on a general level this is a wonderful example of how important it is to check what you think you know, check your sources, and double-check them, and then think about what you might not know that you don't yet know. Which is so, so incredibly important when dealing with ancient cultures which function so differently form how we tend to think about them today.
Keep up the good work!
Thanks for this. I kept thinking, this is probably why I dont make historical claims in preaching? Seems too hard!
The entire Revelation series (174-189) is a mess. Lots of "facts" stated with confidence that are not corroborated anywhere and without any mention of where these facts are coming from. (I have to assume much of the rest of the podcast suffers from these same tendencies).
How about the notion that Revelation 1-9 mirror the opening of Roman Olympic Games? Can't find a single source that suggests this.
How about the assertion that Pliny called Domitian “the Beast of the Sea, whose teeth drip with the blood of good Romans.”? I've read all of Pliny's letters several times and cannot find a single instance of this occurrence. I have found only one other source that attests to this (Sergius Bale's debate against Don. K. Preston, and there he offers no citation for this claim). Same thing with the idea that people referred to a stamp Domitian employed for commerce as "the mark of the beast." Only Sergius Bale's claim can be found and it is again without any citation to back it up.
How about the assertion that the gymnasium in Ephesus, during its construction, was referred to "the beast rising from the sea"? Again, cannot find a single source that makes this assertion.
The sculpture in Ephesus built by Domitian was not of Domitian, it was of his brother, Titus, but BEMA casually asserts it was of Domitian as evidence of him employing emperor worship.
"You can make a lot of the Caesars' names add up to 666, it doesn't mean Nero." Again, no other scholarship backs up this claim and it fails to engage with the arguments in favor of it referring to Nero at all.
Or the "fact" that Vespasian was known for having a head wound that was healed (again in arguing against the clear reference to Nero in the description of the heads of the beast from the sea). No corroboration to be found.
There are many more, these are just off the top of my head examples of easily falsifiable claims that are presented as stone-cold facts in BEMA's presentation of Revelation. When asked for sources in his blog posts (which is what he's reading from on the podcast) he often tells people to refer to the several books he mentions on the first episode of the Revelation series, but also that he can't tell you exactly which book or where in that book any particular claim comes from. "I want you to do the work," I appreciate the sentiment there, but it's just lazy presentation on your part if you're trying to present your facts well.
Honestly, I'd love to read these other sources that all this information is apparently coming from, so it's frustrating to not be able to find ANYTHING other than a list of books (that still don't pop up in any searches of specific content in question).
I very much appreciate the humility shown in Marty's reply above and I hope Laura's well written and generous critique is taken to heart and changes are made.
It's nice to see a thoughtful but kind hearted critique and response. I also am often frustrated at the limited ability to access articles by scholars...even news articles are mostly behind paywalls.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading through this article. It was certainly an educational journey for me!
Bema Podcast is inerrant—unsubscribe!
Jk—super helpful, thank you 🙏