The Dig In Podcast w/Johnny Ova

Johnny Ova
  • 4.8 (20)
  • Religion & Spirituality
  • Updated Biweekly

Dig In is hosted by Pastor Johnny Ova of Sound of Heaven Church. Each episode features thoughtful conversations with scholars, historians, and thinkers from all backgrounds as they explore the Bible through context, culture, and curiosity. Johnny invites guests to go beyond surface-level beliefs and into the deeper truths of Scripture, history, and the character of God. This is not a podcast for debate or division, but for those who want to grow, wrestle with tough questions, and discover the beauty of God's redemptive story. If you're ready to dig into the Bible with honesty and depth, this show is for you.

  1. 3d ago

    The Hidden Family Wars of the Bible w/ Dr. Cynthia Chapman

    In ancient Israel, a man with four wives did not have one family. He had four. Four mothers, four sets of children, one roof, one table, and one inheritance worth fighting over. Dr. Cynthia Chapman of Oberlin College has spent more than twenty years recovering the kinship unit buried inside the biblical household: the house of the mother. Read the stories through it and they stop sounding like family drama. They start sounding like a fight for territory. We walk through Dinah and the brothers who avenged her, Joseph weeping at the sight of Benjamin, Absalom's two-year wait to strike Amnon, and Abraham sending seven sons east so Isaac could inherit everything. Then the conversation turns to Ruth, a Moabite widow who should have stayed at the edge of the field, and Boaz, the man who sat her at his table and fed her with his own hand. It ends at one more table, where Jesus shares bread with his disciples and names the one who will betray him. In this episode you will learn: - What an Iron Age Israelite house actually looked like, animals included - Why the biblical genealogies leave out younger sons, daughters, mothers, and adopted children - What the house of the mother is and where it shows up in Scripture - How full siblings formed alliances inside households with multiple wives - Why Simeon, Levi, and Absalom were the ones who took revenge - How inheritance and the firstborn's double portion fueled the conflict - How land, labor, and shared bread made Ruth part of the family - How Jesus and the early church reframed kinship as a new household Meet Our Guest: Dr. Cynthia Chapman is the Adelia A. F. Johnston and Harry Thomas Frank Professor of Religion at Oberlin College and holds a ThD from Harvard Divinity School. The House of the Mother: https://www.amazon.com/House-Mother-Maternal-Narrative-Reference/dp/0300197942 The Gendered Language of Warfare in the Israelite-Assyrian Encounter: https://hmane.harvard.edu/publications/gendered-language-warfare-israelite-assyrian-encounter The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction (with Michael D. Coogan): https://global.oup.com/ushe/product/the-old-testament-9780197768174 The World of Biblical Israel (The Great Courses): https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/cynthia-r-chapman Faculty Page: https://www.oberlin.edu/cindy-chapman Stay in touch with Johnny: Website: johnnyova.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thejohnnyova Check out Johnny's latest book on the Book of Revelation: https://a.co/d/hiUkW8H

    The Hidden Family Wars of the Bible w/ Dr. Cynthia Chapman

  2. Oct 12

    The Bible's Lost Blueprint w/ Dr. L. Michael Morales

    Genesis 1 is not just the story of how the world began. It is the story of a house being built. In this episode, Old Testament scholar Dr. L. Michael Morales walks through the hidden architecture of Scripture, from the Garden of Eden as the first sanctuary, to Adam as its priest, to the moment humanity is driven out to the east and cherubim block the way back. From there the whole Bible becomes the story of a locked door, and one question runs underneath every book: who shall ascend the mountain of the Lord? Dr. Morales, author of Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord? and the award-winning Exodus Old and New, explains why the tabernacle was built as a mountain, why Leviticus sits at the center of the Torah, and what the Day of Atonement was actually dramatizing every year. Then the conversation moves to Solomon's temple, the prophets' promise of a new exodus, the Word who tabernacled among us in John's gospel, and two angels sitting at either end of an empty tomb. This is the pattern most Christians have never been shown, and once it is in place the entire Bible reads differently. In this episode you will learn: - Why the cosmos in Genesis 1 is described as a temple and Eden as its holy of holies - What Adam's job description in Genesis 2 has in common with the Levites - Why "east" means away from God, and what that means for Cain, Babel, and Lot - The one question that holds the entire Pentateuch together - Why the tabernacle was designed as a portable Mount Sinai - How the high priest reversed Adam's exile on the Day of Atonement - Why God's glory filling the tabernacle was only a partial return to Eden - Why Solomon's temple was never meant to be the final answer - What it means that Jesus is both the dwelling place of God and the way to God - Why the two angels at the empty tomb point straight back to the ark and to Eden - What it means that the gathered church is now the temple of God Meet Our Guest: Dr. L. Michael Morales is professor of biblical studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and holds a PhD from the University of Bristol. Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord? A Biblical Theology of the Book of Leviticus: https://accs.ivpress.com/who-shall-ascend-the-mountain-of-the-lord Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption: https://www.ivpress.com/exodus-old-and-new The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus: https://a.co/d/0gSh2I8W Numbers 1-19 and Numbers 20-36 (Apollos Old Testament Commentary): https://a.co/d/0g9gHFvT Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary: https://www.gpts.edu/ Stay in touch with Johnny: Website: johnnyova.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thejohnnyova Check out Johnny's latest book on the Book of Revelation: https://a.co/d/hiUkW8H

    The Bible's Lost Blueprint w/ Dr. L. Michael Morales

  3. Oct 5

    The Garden Was Not a Temple with Dr. Desmond Alexander

    Most of us were taught that everything went wrong in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve ate the fruit. Dr. Desmond Alexander says the collapse happened before that. Adam and Eve were commissioned to rule over the creatures of the earth, and the serpent is identified in the Hebrew text as an animal of the field, meaning it belonged outside the garden entirely. When it came in, they did not subdue it. They agreed with it. In that moment they handed the serpent the authority God had given them, and humanity came under its control. Johnny sits down with one of the most respected voices in biblical theology to trace what that failure set in motion and where the story goes from there. Then the conversation takes a turn nobody saw coming. Dr. Alexander's own PhD supervisor was Gordon Wenham, the scholar whose work launched the widely taught idea that Eden was the first temple. On this episode, Dr. Alexander says he has moved away from that position. He explains why he no longer believes Eden was a sanctuary where God dwelt, why the temple may have functioned as a barrier rather than a bridge, and why the story of Scripture is not God's presence retreating from the earth but God's presence becoming more real on it. From the failure in the garden, to Babel, to the tabernacle as the footstool of heaven, to Pentecost, to a city at the end of Revelation with no temple in it at all, this is the storyline of the Bible told by a scholar who has spent his career mapping it. In this episode you will learn: Why the first act of rebellion was a failure to rule, not a piece of fruitWhat the Hebrew text reveals about the serpent being an animal of the fieldWhy Dr. Alexander has changed his position on Eden being the first templeThe difference between the high priest, the priests, and the Levites, and why blurring them distorts our reading of AdamHow the same guarding language used for Adam is later applied to the cherubimWhy Babel is the counterfeit of the city God intended humanity to buildHow the tabernacle connects heaven and earth as the footstool of the divine throneWhy the wilderness temptation of Jesus is a direct answer to what happened in the gardenHow Pentecost mirrors the glory filling the tabernacle in Exodus 40Why the Bible ends in a garden city instead of a garden, and what that says about God's original intent Meet Our Guest: Dr. T. Desmond Alexander is senior research fellow in Biblical Studies at Union Theological College in Belfast and former chair of the Tyndale Fellowship for Biblical and Theological Research. From Eden to the New Jerusalem: An Introduction to Biblical Theology From Paradise to the Promised Land: An Introduction to the Pentateuch The City of God and the Goal of Creation Face to Face with God: A Biblical Theology of Christ as Priest Apollos Old Testament Commentary: Exodus All books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B00384ZZHS Stay in touch with Johnny: Website: johnnyova.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thejohnnyova Check out Johnny's latest book on the Book of Revelation: https://a.co/d/hiUkW8H

    The Garden Was Not a Temple with Dr. Desmond Alexander

  4. Sep 28

    Did God Ever Want Sacrifice? with Dr. Nathan MacDonald

    A nation of former slaves builds a tent in the desert, and the Bible gives it more space than the creation of the universe. Inside that tent, the God of heaven chooses to dwell in the middle of a camp. And at the entrance, an endless river of blood. Bulls, goats, lambs, day after day, year after year. Then the prophets speak, and what they say is shocking. God desires mercy, not sacrifice. He takes no delight in burnt offerings. So did the God who commanded the altar ever actually want what happened on it? In this episode, Johnny Ova sits down with Dr. Nathan MacDonald, Professor of the Interpretation of the Old Testament at the University of Cambridge and one of the world's leading scholars on Israelite worship, the priesthood, and the Tabernacle. Together they walk into the tent at the center of Israel's story: what sacrifice actually accomplished, why the presence of God was both a gift and a danger, what really happened when a worshiper laid his hand on the animal, and how the family of Aaron quietly rose from cultic servants to the most powerful men in the nation. In this episode you will learn: Why sacrifice feels so alien to modern readers, and what it meant in a world where meat never came neatly packagedWhat Israel's neighbors believed sacrifice accomplished, and how Israel's understanding was differentWhy the prophets seem to reject the very sacrifices the Torah commandsThe two names of the Tabernacle, and how each one unlocks what it was forWhy the Bible spends more time on this tent than on creation itselfWhat the deaths of Nadab, Abihu, and Uzzah reveal about holinessWhat laying a hand on the animal may have actually meantThe different types of sacrifices, and what each one was designed to doHow Aaron's family went from cultic servants to ruling the nationThe hidden rivalry between the priests and the Levites buried in the text Meet Our Guest: Dr. Nathan MacDonald is Professor of the Interpretation of the Old Testament at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of St John's College. The Making of the Tabernacle and the Construction of Priestly Hegemony: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-making-of-the-tabernacle-and-the-construction-of-priestly-hegemony-9780198813859 Priestly Rule: Polemic and Biblical Interpretation in Ezekiel 44 Deuteronomy and the Meaning of Monotheism Not Bread Alone: The Uses of Food in the Old Testament Stay in touch with Johnny: Website: johnnyova.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thejohnnyova Check out Johnny's latest book on the Book of Revelation: https://a.co/d/hiUkW8H

    Did God Ever Want Sacrifice? with Dr. Nathan MacDonald

  5. Sep 21

    The Devil We Invented with Dr. Henry Ansgar Kelly

    Most Christians think they know Satan's story. A proud angel named Lucifer who rebelled against God, was thrown out of heaven, and slithered into the Garden to destroy mankind. There's just one problem. That story isn't in the Bible. In this episode, Johnny sits down with Dr. Henry Ansgar Kelly, Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA, who has spent more than fifty years tracing how the satan of Scripture was rewritten into the Devil we know today. Dr. Kelly, the world's foremost "diabolologian," takes us to the three places the Old Testament actually mentions a supernatural satan, including a comedy scene with a talking donkey that translators quietly erased. He reveals a satan who stands in God's own throne room, works as heaven's tester and accuser, and never once switches sides. Then he names names: the church father who fused Satan with the serpent of Eden, the scholar who turned a taunt against the king of Babylon into Lucifer's origin story, and the poets who built the Devil an empire the Bible never gave him. In this episode you will learn: - The three places a supernatural satan actually appears in the Old Testament - The Balaam's donkey story, the Bible's funniest scene, and how "satan" vanished from it in translation - Why the satan in Job works for God, and why Job never knows he exists - How Justin Martyr's wordplay fused Satan with the serpent in Eden - How Origen turned Isaiah's king of Babylon into the fallen Lucifer - Why Dante's Satan contradicts itself, and how Milton made the Devil unforgettable - What Satan's real job was: obstacle, tester, and accuser in God's court - Dr. Kelly's four word conclusion after fifty years of research About Our Guest: Dr. Henry Ansgar Kelly is Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA, former director of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, and the author of numerous books on the history of Satan, the Bible, and the medieval church. Satan: A Biography: https://www.amazon.com/Satan-Biography-Henry-Ansgar-Kelly/dp/0521604028 Satan in the Bible, God's Minister of Justice: https://www.amazon.com/Satan-Bible-Gods-Minister-Justice/dp/1532613318 Faculty page: https://english.ucla.edu/people-faculty/kelly-henry-a/ Stay Connected: Website: Johnnyova.com Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@thejohnnyova The Revelation Reset: https://a.co/d/hiUkW8H

    The Devil We Invented with Dr. Henry Ansgar Kelly

  6. Sep 14

    The Books Jesus Read That Never Made the Bible with Dr. Matthias Henze

    Everyone talks about the four hundred silent years between the Old and New Testaments. Dr. Matthias Henze of Rice University came on the Dig In Podcast to say something that changes the way you read your Bible. Those years were never silent. In the gap between Malachi and Matthew, Jewish writers produced an entire library, and Jesus and his first followers knew it well. In this conversation we open that lost world. Henze walks through the Apocrypha, the Pseudepigrapha, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, and shows why the New Testament is filled with things the Old Testament never prepared you for. Synagogues, rabbis, Pharisees, a densely populated world of angels and demons, a coming Messiah, and the resurrection of the dead. None of it appears in the Hebrew Bible the way it does in the Gospels. Henze traces where these ideas actually came from, and lands on a single verse in Luke 4 that stops the whole synagogue cold once you know what the audience already believed. Dr. Matthias Henze is the Isla Carroll and Percy E. Turner Professor of Hebrew Bible and Early Judaism at Rice University, where he founded the Program in Jewish Studies. He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard and is one of the few scholars equally at home in Second Temple Judaism and the New Testament. He is the author of Mind the Gap: How the Jewish Writings between the Old and New Testament Help Us Understand Jesus. In this episode you will learn: - Why the "silent years" between the Testaments were actually a time of explosive Jewish creativity - What the Apocrypha, the Pseudepigrapha, and the Dead Sea Scrolls really are and how they differ from one another - Why these books were left out of the Bible, and who narrowed the field after the Temple fell in 70 AD - Where the expectation of a coming Messiah came from, and the Hebrew texts that were later read messianically - How angels, demons, and Satan developed from near silence in the Old Testament into the crowded spiritual world of the Gospels - How the resurrection of the dead grew from a metaphor for exile in Ezekiel into a belief Jesus and Paul could simply assume - What books like 2 Baruch and 4 Ezra reveal about how Judaism wrestled with the destruction of the Temple - The verse in Luke 4 that carries far more weight than most readers ever notice Guest: Dr. Matthias Henze Book: Mind the Gap: How the Jewish Writings between the Old and New Testament Help Us Understand Jesus- https://a.co/d/0bMM077j Website: matthiashenze.net Rice University, Program in Jewish Studies Stay Connected: Website- Johnnyova.com Youtube- https://www.youtube.com/@thejohnnyova The Revelation Reset: https://a.co/d/hiUkW8H

    The Books Jesus Read That Never Made the Bible with Dr. Matthias Henze

  7. Sep 7

    Satan Used to Work for God with Dr. Ryan Stokes

    Two of the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament mention Satan. Nineteen of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament do. Something happened in between, and almost nobody in the pews knows what it was. In this episode, Dr. Ryan Stokes takes us back to the oldest texts, where the word we translate as Satan is not a name at all. It is a noun. And it does not mean accuser. It means attacker. Executioner. The one God sends to carry out judgment. That changes everything downstream. In Numbers 22, the figure standing in Balaam's road with a drawn sword, described with this exact word, is the angel of the Lord himself. In Zechariah 3, the scene everyone calls a courtroom may not be a trial at all, but a priest in filthy clothes about to be killed for entering God's presence wrong. And in Job, for the first time in recorded history, this executioner turns on an innocent man. Dr. Stokes walks us through how the figure who once served Yahweh became the enemy of Yahweh, and he does it without flinching from the hard questions or overselling what the evidence can bear. Dr. Ryan Stokes is Associate Dean of the School of Biblical and Theological Studies at Carson-Newman University, where he teaches on the Bible and its ancient Jewish context. He earned his Ph.D. at Yale University and previously taught at Yale Divinity School, Western Kentucky University, and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the author of The Satan: How God's Executioner Became the Enemy, published by Eerdmans and translated into Italian. He is also an ordained Baptist minister who has pastored churches in Connecticut and Kentucky. In this episode you will learn: Why the Hebrew word satan is not a name and never means "prosecuting attorney" in the Old Testament How the angel of the Lord is called a satan in Numbers 22 while carrying out God's judgmentWhy Zechariah 3 may be an execution scene rather than a courtroom, and how Isaiah 6 unlocks itThe case that the Satan material in Job 1 and 2 was added to an older version of the storyWhy Job's friends never mention Satan even once, and what that silence suggestsHow the Book of Jubilees and Second Temple Judaism reshaped the figure into the Prince of MastemaWhat Paul actually means when he tells the Corinthians to hand a man over to SatanWhy Revelation 12 is a defeat story rather than an origin story, and how the victory is wonWhy Dr. Stokes says the Satan that should frighten you is not God's enemy but God's agentWhat we lose when we flatten this figure into a cartoon villain with horns and a pitchfork Guest: Dr. Ryan Stokes The Satan: How God's Executioner Became the Enemy (Eerdmans): https://www.amazon.com/Satan-Gods-Executioner-Became-Enemy/dp/0802872506 Faculty page: https://www.cn.edu/people/ryan-stokes/ Published articles and essays: https://cn.academia.edu/RyanStokes Stay Connected: Johnnyova.com https://www.youtube.com/@thejohnnyova The Revelation Reset: https://a.co/d/hiUkW8H

    Satan Used to Work for God with Dr. Ryan Stokes

  8. Aug 31

    Why God Forgave David but Rejected Saul with Prof. Gary Anderson

    Two kings of Israel. Both chosen by God. Both confronted by a prophet. Both said the exact same words: "I have sinned." One lost his throne, his dynasty, and his mind. The other was forgiven and became the standard every king in Israel's history was measured against. What was the difference? The answer is hiding in plain sight, and it will change the way you read the entire story of David. In this episode, Johnny sits down with Prof. Gary Anderson, Hesburgh Professor at the University of Notre Dame, author of Sin: A History, and one of the most decorated biblical scholars in the world. Anderson is currently finishing a book on David's confession and penance, and he brings that research straight into this conversation. Together they trace David's rise from the forgotten shepherd boy to king of Israel, the Bathsheba scandal the Bible refuses to cover up, Nathan's brilliant trap of a parable, and the side by side comparison of 1 Samuel 15 and 2 Samuel 12 that reveals why one confession saved a king and the other could not. In this episode you will learn: Why you cannot understand David without the "beloved son" pattern of GenesisHow Jacob and Joseph set the template for David's suffering and riseWhy Saul's kingdom collapsed, and how accepting David could have saved himThe real reason David spared Saul's life twice, and what those stories are doing in the textWhat actually happened in 2 Samuel 11, and how David used Uriah's own loyalty to kill himWhy Nathan came at David with a parable instead of an accusationThe difference between Saul's confession and David's, and why it changed everythingWhy forgiveness removed David's death sentence but not his consequencesHow consequences function as repair, not humiliationWhy the Messiah, the son of David, had to suffer Check out Prof. Gary Anderson's work: Sin: A History: https://www.amazon.com/Sin-History-Gary-Anderson/dp/0300168098 That I May Dwell Among Them: https://www.amazon.com/That-May-Dwell-among-Them/dp/0802883060 Charity: The Place of the Poor in the Biblical Tradition: https://www.amazon.com/Charity-Place-Poor-Biblical-Tradition/dp/0300181337 Notre Dame faculty page: https://theology.nd.edu/people/gary-anderson/ Stay Connected: Website: Johnnyova.com Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@thejohnnyova Johnny's Book: The Revelation Reset: https://a.co/d/hiUkW8H

    Why God Forgave David but Rejected Saul with Prof. Gary Anderson
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About

Dig In is hosted by Pastor Johnny Ova of Sound of Heaven Church. Each episode features thoughtful conversations with scholars, historians, and thinkers from all backgrounds as they explore the Bible through context, culture, and curiosity. Johnny invites guests to go beyond surface-level beliefs and into the deeper truths of Scripture, history, and the character of God. This is not a podcast for debate or division, but for those who want to grow, wrestle with tough questions, and discover the beauty of God's redemptive story. If you're ready to dig into the Bible with honesty and depth, this show is for you.

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