The Wonderful Story of Esther (with Devon Phillips, James Bejon, and Steven Wedgeworth)

Steven Wedgeworth is currently preaching through the book of Esther and invited me, Devon Phillips, and James Bejon to join him for a discussion of the book, hosted on my podcast.

Within this conversation we reference several treatments of the book. Here are a few:

Steven Wedgeworth
Sermons on Esther

Devon Phillips
A Meditation on Purim
Twitter thread on Esther

James Bejon
Esther and Agag
Esther: A Literary Analysis
Esther: Mechanics and Messianics

Alastair Roberts
Unraveling the Mysteries of the Book of Esther

Videos
AlephBeta Purim videos (especially those with Rabbi David Fohrman)
Bible Project: Esther Overview

Articles
Sandra Teplinsky, ‘Purim 2016 and Easter Week: Prophetic Parallels’
James Jordan, Biblical Horizons newsletter series on Esther (November 2009 to June 2013)

Audio
James Jordan, Witness or Perish
James Jordan, Themes in Esther

Commentaries
Rabbi David Fohrman, The Queen You Thought You Knew
Jon Levenson, Esther [Old Testament Library]
Adele Berlin, Esther [JPS Bible Commentary]
Yoram Hazony, God and Politics in Esther
Michael V. Fox, Character and Ideology in the Book of Esther
Anthony Tomasino, Esther [Evangelical Exegetical Commentary]

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Image of God

In your video “Created in the Image of the Angels” you say that humans were supposed to grow into the Image of God, but don’t discuss how this relates to the verse you referenced in passing earlier in the video: “Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—” Can you expand on the meaning of this verse in the context of the passage (did the serpent speak part of the truth earlier in the passage, or is this just a verbal play on what the serpent had said?) and in the context of what you believe the Bible teaches about redeemed humanity and the image of God. (I realize I could have asked via a comment to the video, but this is an issue a wide range of Bible readers, with different levels of familiarity with the scriptures, find perplexing, and a video might be helpful.)

Continue reading “The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Image of God”