Within Reason

Alex J O'Connor

  • 2 hours 15 minutes
    #97 Kipp Davis - What Are the Dead Sea Scrolls?

    Kipp Davis (‪@DrKippDavis‬) is a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Agder in Kristiansand, Norway, where he specialises in the assignment and reconstruction of fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls and their interpretation. (Google Books)

    The Dead Sea Scrolls are a set of ancient Jewish manuscripts from the Second Temple period. They were discovered over a period of 10 years, between 1946 and 1956, at the Qumran Caves near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the northern shore of the Dead Sea. Dating from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE, the Dead Sea Scrolls include the oldest surviving manuscripts of entire books later included in the biblical canons, including deuterocanonical manuscripts from late Second Temple Judaism and extrabiblical books. At the same time, they cast new light on the emergence of Christianity and of Rabbinic Judaism. (Wikipedia)

    2 March 2025, 5:06 pm
  • 1 hour 1 minute
    #96 Music, Mormonism, and Peter Hitchens - 1.25m Subsrciber Q&A

    A Q&A to celebrate hitting 1.25 million subscribers on YouTube.

    1 March 2025, 12:30 am
  • 1 hour 23 minutes
    #95 James McGrath: John the Baptist, the Bible's Most Mysterious Man

    James Frank McGrath is the Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University. He is the author of two books on John the Baptist: "John of History, Baptist of Faith: The Quest for the Historical Baptiser", and "Christmaker: A Life of John the Baptist".

    31 January 2025, 4:59 pm
  • 1 hour 19 minutes
    #94 Dan McClellan - What Does the Bible Say About Abortion?

    Dan McClellan is an American public scholar of the Bible and religion. His forthcoming book, "The Bible Says So", is available here.

    27 January 2025, 6:55 pm
  • 1 hour 9 minutes
    #93 The Etymology Nerd - How Social Media is Transforming Our Language

    Adam Aleksic is a linguist known online as "The Etymology Nerd". His educational videos are watched regularly by millions. His forthcoming book "Algospeak" is currently available for preorder.

    21 January 2025, 6:45 pm
  • 1 hour 1 minute
    #92 Bart Ehrman - The Dark Side of Christmas

    Bart Ehrman is a New Testament scholar focusing on textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the origins and development of early Christianity. Get Bart Ehrman's new course, The Dark Side of Christmas (affiliate link).

    20 December 2024, 4:53 pm
  • 1 hour 24 minutes
    #91 Filip Holm - What is Sufism? Islam and Mystical Experience

    Filip Holm is the creator and host of "Lets Talk Religion", a YouTube channel which aims to educate on the subject of religion from an academic perspective.

    He joins the show to discuss Sufism, which can broadly be defined as the mystical tradition within Islam.

    13 December 2024, 7:41 am
  • 1 hour 37 minutes
    #90 Rainn Wilson - Reclaiming Spirituality From Traditional Religion

    Rainn Wilson is the actor and comedian best known for his role as Dwight Schrute on the The Office (US), for which he received three consecutive Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.

    He is also the host of ‪‪Soul Boom‬, a podcast discussing spirituality, and authored a book of the same name exploring how we can use spiritual tools to help solve some of life's problems.

    6 December 2024, 7:05 pm
  • 1 hour 1 minute
    #89 The Cultural Tutor - The Philosophy and Ethics of Art

    Sheehan Quirke is the Cultural Tutor, a writer with 1.7 million followers on X. His work on art, history, and architecture is some of the most widely-enjoyed in the world. He writes a newsletter called the Areopagus.

    28 November 2024, 2:58 am
  • 1 hour 2 minutes
    #88 Ayaan Hirsi Ali - Why I Converted To Christianity

    Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a Somali-born Dutch-American writer, activist and former politician. Once an advocate for the new atheist movement, she last year announced her conversion to Christianity.

    22 November 2024, 6:29 pm
  • 2 hours 46 minutes
    #87 Cliffe and Stuart Knechtle - Biblical Slaves, Women, and the Unforgivable Sin

    Cliffe and Stuart Knechtle run the extremely popular online Christian ministry ‪'Give Me an Answer'‬. In this episode they discuss troubling passages in the Old Testament, New Testament sexism, Job, doubting Thomas, the unforgivable sin (blaspheming the Holy Spirit), and more.

    13 November 2024, 3:42 pm
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