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Artificial Intelligence with John Lennox

Prof John Lennox

John Lennox, retired Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, joins David Capes to talk about his book, 2084: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity. 

Dr. Lennox was born in northern Ireland to remarkable parents who were Christians. They  allowed him to read and search widely for himself.

In a climate of violence his parents treated everyone—Catholic and Protestant—with dignity. 

Lennox is an outstanding Bible teacher and scientist.  He has written dozens of books that have been translated into many different languages.  To learn more about John, see his webpage: www.johnlennox.org.

The title of John’s book, 2084, has a not-so-cryptic nod to George Orwell’s book 1984.  Many of Orwell’s “predictions” have come true: universal surveillance, use of technology to suppress the population, etc.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is all around us and is raising questions in thoughtful minds.  In particular: what implications does it have for the future of humanity? 

There are two kinds of AI: narrow AI which is a system that functions to do one thing that, in the past, humans could do.  And because it is crunching a ton of data, it can do that one thing often better than humans do. 

But there are those who are interested in creating  an advanced AI that can do everything that humans can do and do it better. 

Whether that is achievable or not, we must wait and see. But it begs the question: what is a human being? 

Lennox is convinced of the biblical worldview that holds that humans bear the image of God in a unique way that cannot be shared with a machine. 

So, there are ethical problems in thinking about the limits of AI.  As with a lot of things, the technological advances are ahead of our ability to think ethically about it. 

John is already updating his book.  Because technology is moving so quickly, he is trying to keep his book up to date.  Look for a new edition in two to three years.

To hear the podcast (20 minutes) click here.

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“Intimate ally,” with Tremper Longman

Dr. Tremper Longman

Dr. Tremper Longman III, Emeritus Professor of Biblical Studies and Distinguished Scholar of Biblical Studies at Westmont College, has written more than 20 books, including Revelation Through Old Testament Eyes and Intimate Allies. He was one of the main translators for the New Living Translation and has served as a consultant on other popular translations of the Bible including the Message, the New Century Version, and the Holman Standard Bible. Tremper helps us reconsider the Hebrew wording of Genesis 2:18 usually translated as “a helper suitable to him” or “a help meet.”

To hear the podcast click here.

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This Stuff Owns Me with E. R. Richards

Dr. Randy Richards is the retiring Provost and Chief Academic Officer and will be the Research Professor of New Testament at Palm Beach Atlantic University. He has authored several books and articles, including Inscriptions and Papyri in the forthcoming ALNTS series (with James Harrison) and Misreading Scripture with Individualist Eyes (with Richard James). Luke 12:20 is often translated something like, “Your soul will be required of you.” But the Greek verb is active and plural: “They will demand your soul from you.” Who or what is “they”?

To hear the podcast (10 minutes) click here.

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“Greater Is He That Is in We” with Rodney Reeves

Dr. Rodney Reeves

Dr. Rodney Reeves is senior pastor at First Baptist Church in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and has published, among other things, Spirituality According to John, Spirituality According to Paul, and (with David Capes and E. Randolph Richards) Rediscovering Paul. Although often interpreted individualistically, John’s comment about the “One greater” in 1 John 4:4 is addressed to the plural “you.” It is a matter of overcoming the world together.

To hear the podcast click here.

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The Early High Christology Club with Carey Newman

The Stone Chapel Podcast

The Early High Christology Club (EHCC) was a loose association of scholars from various backgrounds and different religious traditions.

They all  became convinced that the early circles of the Jesus movement regarded their Lord as having “high” or divine status. 

Carey Newman, executive editor at Fortress Press, joins David Capes on “The Stone Chapel Podcast” to talk about the beginning and contribution of the “club” to modern scholarship. 

Both Capes and Newman were founding members of the club, and unfortunately, they are the only surviving  members. 

Over the roughly 25 years the club “met,” it boasted some of the most significant voices in New Testament Studies: Larry Hurtado, Alan Segal, Paula Fredriksen, Donald Juel, April DeConick, Martin Hengel, Pheme Perkins, N. T. Wright, Marianne Meye Thompson, Richard Hays and a host of others. 

As an informal club, it had no membership.  But scholars who heard of the group wanted to become members and own one of the coveted coffee mugs produced by Baylor University Press. 

To be a member, a scholar needed to have written books or articles making the case that the evidence demonstrates that Jesus is worshiped from early moments of the movement and set in such close association with God that he could properly be referred to as divine. 

After relating the “founding myth” of the organization in the mid-1990s Carey Newman situates the club within the stream of scholarship. 

Some regard the worship of Jesus to be a later development in the first century (60-70 years after the execution of Jesus).  Others think it happened much later (hundreds of years).  But members of the EHCC generally make the case that historically it arose for various reasons within the first decade of the movement. 

Several Early High Christology Club members have lectured at the Lanier Library: Larry Hurtado, Richard Hays, Mike Bird, and N. T. Wright.  Among the special collections, the library has the libraries of two of the founding members: Alan Segal and Larry Hurtado.  It also houses many of the books of Peter Davids and David Capes, two key members.

The late Larry Hurtado’s blog is a good source of information about the club as well as all things New Testament:  https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com

The title of the book neither David or Carey could remember was Israel’s God and Rebecca’s Children: Christology and Community in Early Judaism and Christianity (Baylor University Press, 2007).

To hear the podcast click here.