Biblical Time Machine

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Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 produced by John Nelson.

Babylon is one of the most famous cities and empires in human history. To many people, it conjures images of Hanging Gardens, the Tower of Babel, Nebuchadnezzar, and the exile of the Jewish people. But how much of this is historical fact, and how much of it is later mythology? 
To get to the bottom of Babylon, Helen takes a trip in the time machine with our resident ancient historian, Professor Lloyd Lewellyn-Jones.
Helen asks Lloyd about his highly acclaimed new book, Babylon: The Mother of All Cities(2026), and discuss the theology, law codes, great texts and daily life of the Bible's most famous – or infamous – city. 
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Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 produced by John Nelson.

The Pharisees are among the most villainised groups in Jewish history. For centuries, Christians read them as legalists, religious hypocrites and bitter opponents of Jesus. But have we got the Pharisees all wrong? 
To find out, Lloyd takes a trip in the Time Machine with our resident expert, Helen Bond, Professor of Christian Origins at the University of Edinburgh. 

Drawing on a range of sources – from Josephus to the Dead Sea Scrolls – they construct a picture of the Pharisees beyond the stereotypes. Where did they come from? What did they believe? And how reliably do the gospels portray them. 
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Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 produced by John Nelson.

Imitation is a huge part of the human experience, as we imitate role models and loved ones. Oscar Wilde called it the 'highest form of flattery'. But what did imitation – or mimesis – look like in early Christianity? To find out, Helen and Lloyd take a trip in the time machine with Professor Cornelis Bennema. They discuss what imitation meant in the ancient world, how the New Testament writers adapted the concept, and why Paul instructs his listeners to 'imitate me'. 
Dr Cornelis (‘Cor’) Bennema is Head of Research and Professor of New Testament Studies at the London School of Theology. His main research interests include the Johannine literature, character studies in biblical narrative and early Christian ethics. He is the author of a number of works on mimesis, most recently Imitation in Early Christianity: Mimesis and Religious-Ethical Formation (Eerdmans, 2025). 
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Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 produced by John Nelson.

Many of us think of the Bible as a book written in Hebrew and Greek, overlooking the important role of Aramaic—the lingua franca of much of the ancient Near East. In this episode, Helen and Lloyd climb into the Time Machine with Tawny Holm, one of the world's leading experts on Aramaic, to explore the language's history, literature, and cultural significance. Who spoke and wrote Aramaic? What kinds of texts were composed in it? And how can Aramaic literature beyond the Bible help us better understand the Aramaic passages within it?
Tawny M. Holm is Professor of Hebrew and Aramaic Studies at Penn State University. Her main research areas are the Hebrew Bible in its Ancient Near Eastern context, early Judaism and Aramaic studies. She is the author of Of Courtiers and Kings: The Biblical Daniel Narratives and Ancient-Story Collections (Eisenbrauns, 2013), and, most recently, Aramaic Literature from Egypt and the Levant, published in May 2026 in SBL’s series, Writings from the Ancient World (Volume 30). 
Support the show
Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 produced by John Nelson.