Red Thread Podcast Episode 1: What is the Red Thread?

City Life Church Luton

In the first episode of our Red Thread podcast series, Neil introduces the series and talks to Lucie about their thoughts and attitudes to the Bible.

A few words on method:

• ‘Don’t think but look’ (Wittgenstein). Leave generalisations behind for the moment.

• We’re taking pictures of the landscape, building an album (also Wittgenstein…)

• Treat the Bible like any other ancient document. Critical, scholarly approach.

• Everything we say is open to correction.

• Part of the aim is to prod listeners into thinking critically for themselves.

Things we mentioned you might want to look up:

• Ludwig Wittgenstein - 20th century Austrian philosopher. He worked on the nature of language etc.

• Plato - ancient philosopher. Wrote his philosophy in the form of dialogues, imaginary conversations between 2 or 3 people. Socrates was Plato’s teacher, and a very famous figure in the history of philosophy. Socrates is the main character in all of Plato’s dialogues.

• Sam Willis - member of City Life Church. Works on making Hightown a better, nicer place to live. ‘This rice-pudding isn’t going to eat itself.’

• Pentateuch - the first 5 books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy). Also known as the Torah or The Five Books of Moses.

• Is Scripture/the Bible ‘inspired’? - we’re asking how God was involved in the writing of Scripture. Did he take over the mind of the writer? Did he whisper in their ear?

• Lucie used the phrase ‘The 5 acts of Scripture’. - This is referencing a well-known paper by N. T. Wright called How can the Bible be authoritative?’, available here.

• Ecclesiastes - a book of the Bible. The Hebrew name for it is Qohelet.

• Philip Larkin - a very cynical English poet.

• Interpolation - a bit that has been added into the text of the Bible by later editors. A rare phenomenon. (I mention the word once when talking about Ecclesiastes, but on reflection I reckon the bit I mean is more of an editorial insert than an interpolation, strictly speaking).