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. 4d ago

    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

  2. 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

  3. 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

  4. Aug 24

    The Priests Who Controlled the Bible with Dr. Mark Leuchter

    Who actually wrote down the Bible? Not in the storybook version, but in history. Behind the pages of the Hebrew Bible stands a hidden world most readers never see. Rival priestly families competing for authority. Refugees from a fallen kingdom rebuilding their identity with a pen. Scribal dynasties whose fingerprints are still on the text you read today. And at the center of it all, one question that mattered more than any other in the ancient world: who gets to speak for God? In this episode, Johnny Ova sits down with Dr. Mark Leuchter, Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Judaism at Temple University and Director of Jewish Studies, one of the world's leading scholars on the Israelite priesthood. Dr. Leuchter takes us inside the institutions that controlled sacred knowledge in ancient Israel, from the rise and fall of the Levites to the scribes who turned written words into a substitute for the temple itself. This conversation will change how you understand the book sitting on your shelf. In this episode you will learn: Who actually preserved and passed down the texts that became the Hebrew BibleWhy ancient Israel's priesthood was fragmented into competing families, and what they were really fighting overWho the Levites were, and how they fell from the top of the ladder to the back tableWhat the golden calf story is really criticizing beneath the surfaceHow scribes became sacred intellectuals, and why authority shifted from the altar to the penWhy scholars connect Deuteronomy to Levite scribes, and where that leaves MosesThe scribal family of Shaphan and how they shaped the book of JeremiahWhat happened to the rival priestly families by the time of EzraWhether human fingerprints on the text rule out divine purpose Dr. Mark Leuchter's books: The Levites and the Boundaries of Israelite Identity: https://www.amazon.com/Levites-Boundaries-Israelite-Identity/dp/0190665092 Dr. Leuchter's faculty page: https://liberalarts.temple.edu/directory/mark-leuchter His articles at TheTorah.com: https://www.thetorah.com/author/mark-leuchter Stay Connected: Website: Johnnyova.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thejohnnyova The Revelation Reset: https://a.co/d/hiUkW8H

    The Priests Who Controlled the Bible with Dr. Mark Leuchter

  5. Aug 17

    Job Never Repented with Dr. Edward Greenstein

    For over two thousand years, the Book of Job has ended the same way in every translation. A broken man puts his hand over his mouth and repents in dust and ashes. But what if that famous repentance was never in the Hebrew text at all? Dr. Edward Greenstein, Professor Emeritus of Bible at Bar-Ilan University and winner of the EMET Prize, Israel's highest honor in biblical research, spent decades retranslating Job word by word. His conclusion is stunning. Job never backed down. He stayed defiant to the final verse. And God honored him for it. In this conversation, Dr. Greenstein takes us inside the most difficult book in the Bible. He reveals how Job mounts a literal lawsuit against God, forcing the Almighty to appear and answer the charges. He exposes translation errors that have shaped centuries of theology, including a word for "mother" that was never there. And he walks through Job 42:6 in the Hebrew, word by word, to show what Job actually said in the most misunderstood verse in Scripture. This is the Book of Job like you have never heard it before. In this episode you will learn: - Why Job's lawsuit against God is literal, not a metaphor - Who "the Satan" actually is in the opening scene and what role he plays in God's court - Why the Book of Job is the hardest text in the Bible to translate - How the author of Job invented words and blended languages like Shakespeare - The translation error in Job 3 that inserted a mother who is not in the Hebrew - What Job's friends were really arguing and why God condemned them - What Job 42:6 actually says, word by word, in the original Hebrew - Why Job never repented and why God vindicated him anyway - What the double portion blessing at the end really means - Why Prof. Greenstein calls Job a hero and a paragon of truthfulness About Our Guest: Dr. Edward Greenstein Professor Emeritus of Bible, Bar-Ilan University Winner of the 2020 EMET Prize in Biblical Research Job: A New Translation (Yale University Press) https://www.amazon.com/Job-Translation-Edward-L-Greenstein/dp/0300162340 Stay Connected: Website: Johnnyova.com The Dig In Podcast on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@thejohnnyova The Revelation Reset by Johnny Ova https://a.co/d/hiUkW8H

    Job Never Repented with Dr. Edward Greenstein

  6. Aug 10

    Why the Bible Makes More Sense in Its Original World with Dr. Richard Averbeck

    The ancient world had its own creation story. Its own flood. Its own gods at war before the world was ever made. And when Genesis was written, every person who read it knew those stories by heart. So what happens when you put the Bible back into the world it actually came from? Dr. Richard Averbeck has spent more than forty years finding out, working directly in Sumerian, Akkadian, and the Hebrew of the Pentateuch, reading the cuneiform tablets most people have never heard of. What he has found does not weaken Scripture. It sharpens it. In this conversation, Averbeck takes us inside the world of Enuma Elish, Gilgamesh, and the Sumerian King List, and shows exactly where Genesis overlaps with them and where it breaks away completely. He explains why the sun and the moon are never named in Genesis 1, why there is no cosmic battle in the creation account, and where that battle actually shows up instead. His answer to that last question reframes the entire book of Genesis, runs straight through Ephesians 6 and Revelation 12, and explains why the fight we are in is over us. This is one of the most clarifying conversations we have had on this show. In this episode you will learn: Why the biblical writers never wrote in a vacuum, and how Akkadian became the common language of the ancient world for fifteen hundred yearsWhat Genesis 1 is doing when it calls the sun and moon the greater light and the lesser light instead of naming themWhere Genesis genuinely parallels the Babylonian creation account, and where it stands completely against itWhy there is no cosmic battle in Genesis 1, and why Averbeck argues it was moved to Genesis 3How the ancient practice of cursing anyone who damaged a king's statue explains the serpent's attack on the image of GodWhat Gilgamesh Tablet 11 shares with the biblical flood, and what Genesis does that no other flood story couldWhy reading Genesis with naked eye observation resolves so many arguments about the Bible and scienceHow the three tiered ancient cosmos shapes the literary structure of the six days of creationWhat the Old Testament law was actually designed to do, and how it comes through into the new covenantWhy holiness, from Leviticus 19 to 1 Peter 1, has always been about how well you loveHow to answer the skeptic who says the Bible is simply borrowed Mesopotamian mythology Guest: Dr. Richard E. Averbeck Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School The Old Testament Law for the Life of the Church: Reading the Torah in the Light of Christ- https://www.amazon.com/Old-Testament-Law-Life-Church/dp/0830841008 Faculty page- https://www.tiu.edu/divinity/faculty/richard-averbeck/ Stay Connected: Website- https://johnnyova.com YouTube- https://www.youtube.com/@thejohnnyova The Revelation Reset- https://a.co/d/hiUkW8H

    Why the Bible Makes More Sense in Its Original World with Dr. Richard Averbeck

  7. Aug 3

    Taking God's Name in Vain Has Nothing to Do With Cursing with Dr. Carmen Joy Imes

    Almost everyone thinks the third commandment is about language. Watch your mouth. Do not use God's name as a curse word. Dr. Carmen Joy Imes, Associate Professor of Old Testament at Biola University's Talbot School of Theology, takes us back to the Hebrew of Exodus 20:7 and shows that the command was never about how you say God's name. The verb was never "take." It was "carry." And that single word reopens the entire meaning of Sinai. Drawing on the research behind her book Bearing God's Name, Dr. Imes traces what it actually meant for Israel to be stamped with God's name and sent out as His representatives. We get into the high priest who wore the names of the twelve tribes on his body, the invisible tattoo that marked a people as God's own, the ancient practice of branding slaves, and the moment God sealed His name onto Israel. From there the conversation moves through the exile, into the Gospels, and lands on what it means for anyone who claims the name of Christ today. In this episode you will learn: - Why "take the Lord's name in vain" is a mistranslation and what the Hebrew actually says - How the verb "carry" or "bear" changes the meaning of the entire command - Why the high priest wore the names of the twelve tribes on his shoulders and chest - What it meant for Israel to be branded with God's name like an invisible tattoo - The ancient link between tattoos, slavery, and belonging to a master - How this one command reframes all Ten Commandments - Why the exile became a crisis for God's reputation among the nations - How Jesus embodies Israel's mission and bears the name perfectly - What it means for the church to carry God's name well, or in vain, today About the Guest: Dr. Carmen Joy Imes is Associate Professor of Old Testament at Biola University's Talbot School of Theology (PhD, Wheaton College). She is currently writing a commentary on Exodus for Baker Academic. Her books include: Bearing God's Name: Why Sinai Still MattersBearing YHWH's Name at Sinai (the academic edition of her dissertation)Being God's Image: Why Creation Still MattersBecoming God's Family: Why the Church Still Matters Her books are available on Amazon and through InterVarsity Press. Website: carmenjoyimes.com YouTube: Carmen Joy Imes (home of Torah Tuesday and her weekly teaching) Stay Connected: Website: johnnyova.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thejohnnyova Get Johnny's book, The Revelation Reset: https://a.co/d/hiUkW8H

    Taking God's Name in Vain Has Nothing to Do With Cursing with Dr. Carmen Joy Imes

  8. Jul 27

    When the Gods Disappeared with Dr. Matthew Lynch

    Open the Old Testament and you run into a problem nobody warns you about. Israel is supposed to worship one God. Yet the text keeps naming others. Baal. Asherah. The gods of the nations. So where did they all go, and when did Israel actually land on one God alone? Old Testament scholar Dr. Matthew Lynch of Regent College joins the Dig In Podcast to take that question apart. The standard scholarly story says monotheism showed up late, forged in the wreckage of the Babylonian exile. Dr. Lynch says that timeline is wrong, and he found the evidence hiding in a rare Hebrew word the prophet Isaiah used to humiliate the gods of the nations. What follows is a conversation about how the Bible does the work of lifting one God above every rival power, both the seen and the unseen. In this episode you will learn: The real difference between monotheism, monolatry, henotheism, and polytheism, and why those distinctions change how you read the Old TestamentWhy the Hebrew word Elohim is far wider than most readers realize, covering angels, the dead, and the God of Israel himselfThe standard scholarly account of how Israel slowly arrived at one God, and exactly where Dr. Lynch believes it falls apartThe rare term in Isaiah used to strip the gods of their dignity, a word that appears almost nowhere else in the entire Old TestamentHow Genesis 1, the Psalms, and Ezekiel each silence rival gods in completely different waysWhy the prophets aimed their fire not just at other gods, but at the empires of Assyria, Egypt, and BabylonWhat the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten reveals about whether Israel actually invented monotheismHow the unrivaled uniqueness of Israel's God sets the stage for everything the New Testament claims about Christ Guest: Dr. Matthew Lynch Associate Professor of Old Testament at Regent College, Vancouver, and co-founder and co-host of the OnScript podcast. His books include First Isaiah and the Disappearance of the Gods, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God, Portraying Violence in the Hebrew Bible, and Monotheism and Institutions in the Book of Chronicles, all available on Amazon. Connect with Dr. Lynch: https://www.regent-college.edu/faculty/lynch-matthew First Isaiah and the Disappearance of the Gods (Critical Studies in the Hebrew Bible Book 12)- https://a.co/d/0fZgv5hS Stay Connected: johnnyova.com https://www.youtube.com/@thejohnnyova The Revelation Reset on Amazon: https://a.co/d/hiUkW8H

    When the Gods Disappeared with Dr. Matthew Lynch
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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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