Continuing our “Faith and the challenges of history” series, we turn from biblical history to later history. First of all we want to tackle the crusades, one of the most frequently mentioned in debates about the authenticity of Christian claims to bring peace and justice.

We have invited Dr. Mike Horswell to join us in this discussion. He has spent many years studying not only the crusades, but common perceptions of the crusades in the modern era. He is ideally suited to help us unpack: (1) what the crusades actually were? (2) How do people think of the crusades today? (3) How should Christians think of this episode in their history?

Thanks to Jamie Maule for sound engineering!

It's a big event: our own podcast co-host's first published book: Austin Stevenson, The Consciousness of the Historical Jesus (T&T Clark: 2024).

The book discusses questions like:

• What is the movement called 'the historical Jesus' and how should Christians think about it?
• How does our own way of doing history depend on our understanding of what it means to be human?
• How can we read the history of Jesus in a way that transforms our understanding of ourselves? Can the 'historical Jesus' do that? If not, what can?

Thanks to Jamie Maule for sound engineering!

Is our New Testament the same as the original texts written in the first century? How do we know which manuscripts to trust, and who does the work of deciding? What are the implications of the fact that the biblical text itself has a history?

In this episode, we discuss these questions and more with Dr Jesse Grenz, Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at Palm Beach Atlantic University.

Thanks to Jamie Maule for sound editing!