Listen Now

Dr. Daniel J. Treier is the Gunther H. Knoedler Professor of Theology at Wheaton Graduate School, and Ph.D. program director. He has authored numerous books and articles, including the award-winning Introducing Evangelical Theology. He has written a commentary on Proverbs & Ecclesiastes, and is starting another on Philippians. He reflects on the question: Why would a theologian who majors in Christian doctrine value knowledge of Greek? (Spoiler alert: He does very much value and promote this knowledge.)

Dr. Scott Callaham is Lecturer of Hebrew and Old Testament at Baptist Theological Seminary, Singapore. He has authored and edited a number of books and articles and is currently completing a new teaching grammar of Biblical Aramaic. Dr. Callaham discusses the form, meaning, and theological significance of the Aramaic term Abba, which Jesus uses in his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane and which also appears twice in Paul’s writings.

Dr. Richard Schultz, the Blanchard Professor of Old Testament in Wheaton College Graduate School, has co-edited with Daniel Block, Isaianic Intertextuality and Intratextuality as Composition-Historical Indicators: Methodological Challenges in Determining Literary Influence, along with other books and articles. In this episode he discusses the contexts and wording of the prophecy of Isaiah that Matthew applies to Mary, the mother of Jesus, in Matt. 1:23.

Dr. Alexander Loney, Associate Professor of Classical Languages at Wheaton College, stops by to talk with Dr. Capes about how the Greeks understood the gods, where they came from, how they functioned. Homer and Hesiod composed “the Bible” of the Greeks, and they provide a very different worldview than the biblical writers.

Dr. Robert Plummer,  the Collin and Eveyln Aikman Professor of Biblical Studies at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, started a free daily 2-minute screencast about five years ago designed to help pastors, seminary students, and others keep reading their Greek New Testaments. He describes how it has grown into thousands of archived episodes and expanded to do the same for Hebrew and Latin. There are Spanish versions of the Greek and Hebrew screencasts as well. Two to three minutes a day in the text. It’s like having a free personal trainer for your languages! 

Dr. Lynn Cohick, provost/dean and Professor of New Testament at Denver Seminary, has authored several books, including commentaries on Philippians and Ephesians as well as Christian Women in the Patristic World, with Amy Brown Hughes (Wheaton PhD ’13; MA ‘08). In this podcast she talks about how studying a text in its original language goes beyond words to the entire act of communication between author and audience. Phil. 2:5-8 provides a case study, as well as challenges for belief and life.

Dr. Nijay Gupta, Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary, has authored several books and articles, including his recent, Paul and the Language of Faith (Eerdmans, 2020). In this conversation with Dr. Capes, he discusses the poetic language of one of the New Testament’s most important passages about Christ and his work. What in the Greek wording would have been striking to an original audience, and what have its lines revealed to all attentive readers?

Dr. Aubrey Buster, Assistant Professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College, discusses with David Capes the meaning of the Hebrew Name that God takes for himself during his first appearance to Moses. What its meaning was, why it was given, how it has been spelled and pronounced in the Hebrew and English traditions, and why these later forms were adopted.

Dr. John Walton, Professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College Graduate School, lays out the importance of knowing the context of a passage to understand it.  After discussing four kinds of context for exegesis, he focuses on the historical context.  As a test case, he takes us to Daniel 7:1 to understand what is happening historically at the time of Daniel’s fantastic vision. 

Dr. Robert Plummer, the Collin and Eveyln Aikman Professor of Biblical Studies at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and the host of the Daily Dose of Greek screencast (dailydoseofgreek.com), considers whether the Lord teaches us to pray for deliverance from evil in general, as many translations have it, or from "the evil one," the devil. Grammar and context favor taking it as a reference to the devil.

Dr. Danny Carroll Rodas, Scripture Press Ministries Professor of Biblical Studies and Pedagogy at Wheaton College, moves us beyond Hosea 1-3 to consider the various metaphors used by the prophet to communicate the nature of God and the serious afflictions of God’s people.

Dr. Jon Laansma, Gerald F. Hawthorne Professor of New Testament Greek and Exegesis at Wheaton College, uses Titus 2:13 to illustrate how the knowledge of Greek grammar doesn’t usually lead to one “correct” interpretive conclusion, but to a range of viable interpretations. The gains are knowing the boundaries of what is viable and the ability to converse authoritatively with other qualified interpreters.

Dr. Jon Laansma, Gerald F. Hawthorne Professor of New Testament Greek and Exegesis at Wheaton College, discusses what “syntax” is, why biblical scholars give it emphasis, some of the challenges to be faced in gaining mastery over this side of Greek grammar, and how to meet the challenges.

Dr. Andrew Abernethy, Associate Professor of Old Testament and Degree Coordinator for the Master of Arts in Biblical Exegesis Program, shows us how Isaiah 53:4 was interpreted and translated in the Latin Vulgate by Jerome.  He translated it that Jesus was “like a leper” stricken by God and rejected for the diseases he bore.  As a result artists and paintings from the Middle Ages depict Jesus on the cross as suffering the marks of leprosy. 

Dr. Doug Penney, Associate Professor of Classical Languages, discusses how he encourages students to read outside the canon of Scripture in order to sharpen their translation skills. Often, when students read a New Testament book in Greek, they rely on their memory to produce a translation. Reading Aesop’s Fables takes them to a text they do not know.

Dr. Philip Ryken, president of Wheaton College and Professor of Theology, draws our attention to the “scrapbook” of Jeremiah (31:31-34) to talk about the new covenant.  But, instead of focusing on the obvious, he highlights how God is the “husband” of the new covenant.

Dr. Amy Peeler, Associate Professor of New Testament, joins Dr. Capes to talk about an important Christological statement in Hebrews 12:1-2.  What does it mean that Jesus is “the author and perfector of the faith”? How does that statement pull together a variety of motifs earlier in the letter?

Dr. David Capes introduces season 2 of the popular podcast, Exegetically Speaking, featuring faculty and friends of Wheaton College (IL) discussing the importance of learning the biblical languages—Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek—and show how reading the Bible in the original languages “pays off.”