Podcast appearances and mentions of Michael Bird

Photo credit: Jerry Wierwille. In this second episode you’ll hear the second half of the debate: rebuttals, open discussion time, audience questions and answers, and closing statements. Subjects discussed include: traditional, Chalcedonian views about Christ’s two natures and whether these imply one too many persons the worship of Jesus which claims are essential to the gospel whether an immortal being can die the meaning of theos (god or God) as applied to Jesus in a few New Testament passages whether it is coherent to suppose anyone is both human and divine John 8:58 Jesus’s faith in God whether a Protestant should trust the “ecumenical” councils practical and spiritual consequences of viewing Jesus as God’s human Messiah vs. as a Godman Some of the arguments for Jesus’s full deity deployed by Dr. Bird here are addressed in my UCA Conference presentation in Sydney, about a week after this Melbourne debate. And many of the topics are also covered in my newly released book Monotheism, Heresy, and the Bible (UK)–such as the meanings of theos in the New Testament (ch. 1). Links for this episode: Tuggy, Monotheism, Heresy, and the Bible Dr. Michael Bird's YouTube channel Dr. Bird's blog, Substack Exposing The Council of Nicaea with Dr. Dale Tuggy (UCA UK Conference 2025) Dale Tuggy – What John 1 Meant (UCA Conference 2021) Dale Tuggy and James White debate: “Is Jesus YHWH?” Dale Tuggy vs James White | John 1 Is Not Trinitarian podcast 291 – From one God to two gods to three “Gods” – John 1 and early Christian theologies Bock and Loke on Jesus's “blasphemy” in Mark 14 – Part 2 a reading of Philippians 2:5-11 podcast 227 – Who Should Christians Worship? A letter from the Lord Jesus: About God and Me (Revised) https://youtu.be/l_ZeKzAvaYg?si=4DXENxVYIQIqTkZp Hurtado on the early worship of Jesus Larry Hurtado on early Christians' worship of Jesus podcast 333 – The Arguments of “God's Death” Kermit Zarley on “My Lord and my God.” Tuggy, “Craig’s Contradictory Christ,” TheoLogica, 2023 podcast 343 – Craig's Contradictory Christ – Part 1 podcast 344 – Craig's Contradictory Christ – Part 2 Jesus's argument in John 10 podcast 143 – Dr. Timothy Pawl's In Defense of Conciliar Christology – Part 1 podcast 144 – Dr. Timothy Pawl's In Defense of Conciliar Christology – Part 2 podcast 63 – Thomas Belsham and other scholars on John 8:58 podcast 235 – The Case Against Preexistence Romans 9:5 @ biblicalunitarian.com podcast 146 – Jesus as an Exemplar of Faith in the New Testament Will Barlow – The “Throne Room Problem” – Responding to Trinitarian Claims about John 12:41 Scott Williams, “Discovery of the Sixth Ecumenical Council's Trinitarian Theology: Historical, Ecclesial, and Theological Implications” podcast 334 – “Who do you say I am?” podcast 11 – Tertullian the unitarian Thomas Gaston – Dynamic Monarchianism: The Earliest Christology (book) This week’s thinking music is “Ship of Theseus (Instrumental)” by Lemon Knife.

Hidden in the corner of a carpark in Bristol lies Isambard AI, the UK's fastest supercomputer. This week, Technology Now is visiting Isambard AI to find out how the system works, how it was designed and assembled in a modular way, and to discover what sort of projects it runs. Professor Simon McIntosh-Smith, Director of the Bristol Centre for Supercomputing, tells us more.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Sam Jarrell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations. This episode is available in both video and audio formats.About Simon:https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonmcintoshsmith/Sources:https://www.bristol.ac.uk/research/centres/bristol-supercomputing/articles/2025/isambard-ai-launches-july-2025.htmlhttps://www.uswitch.com/broadband/studies/broadband-speed-statistics/

This episode consists of our opening statements. In my opening statement (slides here), I first briefly explain why a trinitarian should not want to identify Jesus and God. I assume that when my opponent says that “Jesus is God” he means that Jesus is fully divine/has the divine nature. I then explain a terrible problem of the official Christology of the Council of Chalcedon in 451: the implication that the divine nature of Christ is a someone (self, person) and the human nature of Christ is another someone (self, person). They try to fix this by asserting that there is only one someone there, but that’s no real solution. I then explain how later, the fully developed Chalcedonian catholic tradition does solve this problem by saying that Christ’s “complete human nature” (human type of body + human type of soul), is not, because of its “assumption” by the divine nature/eternal Son/Word, a human person. But this clashes with the clear New Testament teaching that Jesus is a man/human person. It is no help to say there there is a “human” person here, meaning a divine person who now bears some mysterious relationship to a human type of soul and a human type of body which don’t compose a human person. The problem is only exacerbated by the sixth ecumenical council in 681 at Constantinople, which seems to make each of Christ’s natures a person/self/someone by saying that each has a will (an ability to choose). Against this messy, catholic Christology I set out the clear New Testament teachings that the one God is (only) the Father himself, and that Jesus, his Messiah/Christ, is a miraculously conceived man, a human person born to Mary who did not have a biological human father. Properly trinitarian (tripersonal-God-involving) ideas seem to have originated in the latter half of the 300s, and so are alien to the thought world of the New Testament. Against various later speculations, the New Testament Jesus is the Messiah (a.k.a. the Son of God), a man, not an additional, lesser god to the one true god (the Father), or the same god as the Father, or a “divine Person” in an imagined triune god. I then explain five qualities which according to the New Testament Jesus has which rule his being fully divine. About Dr. Bird’s claim in his book Jesus Among the Gods that the New Testament Jesus is an ungenerated or unbegotten god, I point at that this is contrary to catholic traditions that say the Father “eternally generates” the Son. He also says there that the New Testament Son is supposed to “a Jewish god,” but, I object, that would make him the Jewish god, and so, the Father/Yahweh. I then lay out four lines of evidence that the New Testament authors did not think Jesus to be fully divine, and rebut Dr. Bird’s claim that early Christian theology should be seen as “incipient trinitarianism.” Dr. Bird says that he holds Jesus to be the second Person of the Trinity because this is what best makes sense of all of Scripture. The Bible teaches monotheism, that there is, strictly speaking, only one god, the creator, Yahweh. He points out that the Alexandrian Jewish philosopher-theologian Philo rejected the possibility of a human becoming a god and the possibility of God becoming a human. He suggests that if Philo had read John 1:1-14 he would have accepted all but the final verse. The author of the Fourth Gospel, Bird says, believes that Jesus in the eternal, divine Son, the Word–not (only) a man attested by God. The one God is known through his actions and is said in the Old Testament to create by his word and by his wisdom. Also, “the angel of the LORD” seems to be both God himself and someone else–a contradiction, or maybe a merely apparent one, a paradox. New Testament authors, he suggests, did not consider Jesus to be only human. In particular, the give him religious worship. They all thought Jesus to be “divine”–the only question was: In what sense? As Thomas said (John 20:28), Jesus is his god. Jesus is worthy of our worship. Paul closely associates together Jesus and God, often mentioning them together. Engaging with Jesus is engaging with the divine. Jesus in the New Testament doesn’t claim to be God, Bird argues, but texts like Mark 1:1-3, where the author applies a Yahweh text to Jesus, imply that he is Yahweh returning to Zion. Again, in Mark 2 we see Jesus forgiving human sins, which only God can do. And in Mark 14, before the high priest, Jesus claims that he will be co-enthroned with Yahweh, so that Jesus has divine authority. And John 1 teaches that God’s Word is one and the same with the man Jesus. Philippians 2 teaches the full deity of Jesus and says Jesus is worthy of worship–and so we see that Jesus participates in the divine identity. In 1 Corinthians 8:4-6, Bird says, Paul gives a revised, duality-including version of the Shema. And in Hebrews 1:3 Jesus is a representation of God’s own being, not a mere man. This Jesus has a unique relationship with the Father, enabling us to have a relationship with him. His opponents understood (John 10:33) that he was claiming ontological equality with God. Thus in Revelation 5 we see the Lamb getting the same worship that was given to God Almighty in the vision of Revelation 4. But Jesus does not deserve that worship unless he is fully divine. It would be blasphemy to worship Jesus if he were a creature. Jesus’s full divinity is also implied by prayer to Jesus. Of course, it took mainstream tradition a few centuries to work it all out. But Bird cites Eusebius the historian, Melito of Sardis, the Sibylline Oracles, Justin Martyr, and Ignatius of Antioch as early recognizers of the deity of Christ. He also mentions two pagan testimonies of the early worship of the Son–yet more support for “early high Christology.” Bird says that he’s not impressed with analytic theology, but at any rate, many analytic theologians are trinitarians, such as Oliver Crisp. He says that he is an exegete, historian, and theologian, suggesting that he is more qualified to answer historical questions about early Christianity. In his view early Christians closely associated Jesus with God and thought Jesus was “from the same source of divinity.” Trinitarian theology, he suggests, is not so much taught in the Bible as it is a hermeneutic, a way of reading it, a way of making sense of what the Bible as a whole affirms and denies. He points out that it does better, for instance, than modalism when it comes to reading the accounts of Jesus’s baptism. Contrary to what I said it my opening, Dr. Bird says we should think and take comfort in the fact that God was and is one of us, mentioning this 1990s song. In this way, he says, God moved from empathy to sympathy. This was far greater, he says, than sending “a super-human Messiah” to help us. Finally, while conceding that some early Christians may have thought something like what I presented, he suggests that the closest analogue to the Christology I presented was the Christology of the pagan Neoplatonist and critic of Christianity Porphyry, who acknowledged Jesus as (only) a pious and wise man. Bird’s Christology, he suggests, far better fits the Bible and the facts of history. Which side put forward the better opening case, and why? Leave us a comment below. Here below is the UCA-produced video. Special thanks to Canterbury Christadelphian Hall for hosting and recording this debate, and to UCA Podcast host Mark Cain for his expert help in producing the audio for this episode and for the video. https://youtu.be/tJKFqF7lYKY?si=KIfP2ez2tekxkztH Links for this episode: Dr. Michael Bird’s YouTube channel Dr. Bird’s blog, Substack Bird, Jesus Among the Gods (interview on Transfigured) Bird, Evangelical Theology, 2nd ed. Ehrman, Bird, and Stewart, When Did Jesus Become God? podcast 270 – Origen's “one God” podcast 348 – Novatian's On the Trinity – Part 2 – Two Thieves and Three Arguments podcast 277 – Was Christ tempted in every way? podcast 391 – Jesus' Temptations and Ours – Part 1 – Luke 4 podcast 392 – Jesus' Temptations and Ours – Part 2 – Things Apologists Say podcast 384 – Mainstream Christian Theologies in the Late 100s – Early 200s and Early Trinitarian “Fool's Gold” podcast 381 – Mainstream Christian Theologies in the year 240: What Trinitarian Apologists Don't Know Tuggy, Nicaea at 1700: Myths vs. Reality podcast 291 – From one God to two gods to three “Gods” – John 1 and early Christian theologies biblicalunitarian.com Catholic Theologian Hans Küng on New Testament theology This week’s thinking music is “Ignite! (instrumental)” by Lemon Knife.

How safe is our data from internal threats? This week, Technology Now dives into the world of confidential computing. We ask why regular encryption when data is at rest or in transit might not be enough, we explore how confidential computing works to keep our data safer, and we examine why this concept is so important in the first place. Dr Nigel Edwards, Director of the Security Lab at HPE Labs, tells us more.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Sam Jarrell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations.About Nigel:https://www.linkedin.com/in/nigel-edwards-170591/

Are we ready for emerging cybersecurity threats in the world of AI? This week, Technology Now looks at how AI has changed the world of cybersecurity for both the good and the bad. We ask how AI is harnessed by attackers to try and gain access to our systems while also exploring how AI can be used defensively too. David Hughes, SVP SASE Security, HPE Networking, tells us more. This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Sam Jarrell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations.About David: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-hughes-42751636/Sources: https://www.totalassure.com/blog/cyber-attack-statistics-by-year-2020-2025

Michael Bird uses isotopes to construct the nation's environmental history and human practices over time such as Indigenous burning practices.

How do you update a network without downtime? This week, Technology Now is diving into the world of telcos and how they keep critical infrastructure running while continuing to improve their systems. We ask how silos have been used historically by telcos, how AI and cloud are being embraced and how you manage the switch from old to new architecture without impacting users. Franz Seiser, Head of the Data Tribe at Deutche Telekom, tells us more.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Sam Jarrell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations.About Franz:https://www.linkedin.com/in/franz-seiser-658b94/

Rob and Vinnie continue their series on Church Health, discussing Christians and Politics.    In this special episode, the DT Pod replays a livestream from April 2024 with preeminent NT scholar, Dr. Michael Bird. In this interview, they discusses his book, "Jesus and the Powers." Explore the dynamic relationship between the church and the state, delving into timely insights on faith and governance. With Bird's expertise and prolific authorship, this conversation promises to offer illuminating perspectives on the role of the church in contemporary society.    Check us out: https://www.determinetruth.com Great Resources on the topic of Creating Healthy Churches Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies (NT Wright & Michael Bird) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0310162246/ref=mes-dp?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=3sqJa&content-id=amzn1.sym.9986c774-1242-403d-ae9e-f3251eb87773&pf_rd_p=9986c774-1242-403d-ae9e-f3251eb87773&pf_rd_r=5B404QG2HGSM58Z5NB33&pd_rd_wg=PKnk3&pd_rd_r=cbfe0eff-c830-4100-b1cf-4be3b87aab21   Religious Freedom in a Secular Age: A Christian Case for Liberty, Equality, and Secular Government (Michael Bird) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0310538882/ref=mes-dp?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=tMMGN&content-id=amzn1.sym.9986c774-1242-403d-ae9e-f3251eb87773&pf_rd_p=9986c774-1242-403d-ae9e-f3251eb87773&pf_rd_r=RXWQBMVC2Q6JNR9BPQSG&pd_rd_wg=nvqj3&pd_rd_r=1b4cde0b-27a7-46c3-8a49-26bd3e5397a7 A Church Called Tov (Scot McKnight) https://www.amazon.com/Church-Called-Tov-Goodness-Promotes/dp/1496446003/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.4lBAQzf3oJglpTj_7R8NbAeOg0H2oH4CTgx81Cm9okZZVtD9VFcS1uSUfVV2EQm5KZL1himBpHsyFB4D_Gifo4cf1QusTB-POg2TVGG7LdGmQvQa0IB928VE-Lzebn0QaYbWTVGVFLpXeUIBI_xAwisMWdvmpzjWJxaEPeX_KDzkLcEidFqxV9x2KN137nu9_VqW_lpT5_tSt6oq8-Jdy9yqaU0SHRxzumNuhx47RWQ.FqeuaDuA2RxUSi8NLD1Eu9aVNCvxijZDHQxchJMDJm0&qid=1772398542&sr=8-1 Something's Not Right: Decoding the Hidden Tactics of Abuse--and Freeing Yourself from Its Power (Wade Mullens) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1496444701/ref=mes-dp?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=DfllH&content-id=amzn1.sym.476b1b7d-c787-4147-8a3c-fdef209103a1&pf_rd_p=476b1b7d-c787-4147-8a3c-fdef209103a1&pf_rd_r=0KK0SC6CEWNJ2Q64975X&pd_rd_wg=GCNhP&pd_rd_r=79c691b9-0dac-456b-bda2-afdb8d5268e5 When Narcissism Comes to Church (Chuck DeGroat) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1514005093/ref=mes-dp?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=zdSwU&content-id=amzn1.sym.476b1b7d-c787-4147-8a3c-fdef209103a1&pf_rd_p=476b1b7d-c787-4147-8a3c-fdef209103a1&pf_rd_r=WKKWWGSF6Y2GYRHQ8926&pd_rd_wg=mFZQA&pd_rd_r=a6182de3-e16f-4416-9ef7-e30aa5043369 When the Church Harms God's People (Diane Langberg) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1587436450/ref=mes-dp?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=uVPPK&content-id=amzn1.sym.476b1b7d-c787-4147-8a3c-fdef209103a1&pf_rd_p=476b1b7d-c787-4147-8a3c-fdef209103a1&pf_rd_r=CAM1FBFN0J7Y0RS0HF0V&pd_rd_wg=KaJ0d&pd_rd_r=a0246e35-7d3f-4feb-89db-facae6fa4a8a The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse (David Johnson & Jeff VanVonderen) https://www.amazon.com/Subtle-Power-Spiritual-Abuse-Manipulation/dp/0764201379/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.gamBi63TclRIVPBxTv-pRuqjLaCH6zHxJg7mfafeeNQBvHmjWjEtqqHFSIN_1Lj7VWyTfWk3PpybZzNXngB61PQXnxSnfqwfEiGYLvolpnFi8EasbYpnJqtfKUbkk1ARz_KF4VVFTdbEaBTGSwwcfvaeU3_MIi3li7ZZ6--eqBOXWaM4f-sakjMeasOH23AhwB4GO4BQg8ffW7LrDWqxeqz_wcKGtWdyDGGWo8G8ixw.QTPRygGaPdlSZ2GR8GtEyG3rlxVNoI9q-tRr0tjybsI&qid=1773085465&sr=1-1 FOLLOW THE PODCAST Subscribe to be notified of our new episodes (each Monday).  Want to help us expand the Gospel of the Kingdom? Leave a review, “like” the podcast, or share it with others.   CONNECT WITH DETERMINETRUTH MINISTRIES The Determinetruth Podcast is a ministry of Determinetruth Ministries. We offer free resources to equip pastors, leaders, and the body of Christ in the US and worldwide for service in the kingdom of God. You can visit us online at https://www.determinetruth.com   SUPPORT DETERMINETRUTH MINISTRIES Determinetruth is a non-profit 501(c)(3), and relies completely on the financial support of our partners around the world.  Please consider partnering with us and making a tax-deductible donation https://tithe.ly/give_new/www/#/tithely/give-one-time/3648601   Want a FREE CHAPTER from Rob's latest book? 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For the 350th episode of this podcast, Dr Michael Bird reviews the ways in which John's Gospel presents Jesus as equal to God, and then concentrates on the language of 1:18. Is the idea that of Jesus as the "only begotten" of the Father, what would that mean, and how would later theological terminology express what John is teaching? Dr. Bird is Deputy Principal and Academic Lecturer in Theology at Ridley College (Melbourne, Australia). His many publications include What Christians Ought to Believe: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine through the Apostles' Creed and Jesus among the gods: Early Christology in the Greco-Roman World.   Check out related programs at Wheaton College: B.A. in Classical Languages (Greek, Latin, Hebrew): https://bit.ly/4mAwEY0  M.A. in Biblical Exegesis: https://bit.ly/41Duai0 

Do we have enough energy to go around? This week Technology Now investigates how organisations can use their energy more efficiently. We ask how important energy sovereignty should be, we consider the financial benefits of savvy energy use, and we explore potential ways in which waste heat could be repurposed. Karim Abou Zahab, a Principal Technologist with the Sustainable Transformation Team at HPE tells us more.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Sam Jarrell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations.About Karim:https://www.linkedin.com/in/karim-abouzahab/Sources:https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2025/electricityhttps://www.neso.energy/energy-101/great-britains-monthly-energy-stats#:~:text=Great%20Britain's%20energy%20explained:%20March,lower%20demand%20across%20the%20country.

Host: Dr. David DeRose, MD, MPH. Co-Host: Joni Bokovoy, DrPH, MPH. (Cherokee Nation). Guests: Jacob Bor, SD, Associate Professor, Departments of Global Health and Epidemiology, Boston University School of Public Health; Michael E. Bird, MSW, MPH (Kewa Pueblo), Past President of the American Public Health Association. Description Dr. Jacob Bor and Michael Bird paint a chilling picture of how Native Americans are dying as early as residents of a third-world country like Bangladesh, rather than having the longevity benefits enjoyed by most of those living in the United States. You will learn how these startling death rates have not been recognized until recently, due to the misclassification of many Native Americans. The full scientific study featured in the program is: Bor J, Bird M, et al. Life expectancy of American Indian and Alaska Native persons and underreporting of mortality in vital statistics. JAMA. 2025; 334(3):243-252. doi:10.1001/jama.2025.8126. For Further Information, visit: www.AIANL.org.

How would we integrate quantum computers into our current infrastructure? This week, Technology Now is exploring the practicalities of quantum computing, not just how they work but how we would physically build one. How would it be used alongside traditional HPC, what would it be used for, and what would be involved in the process of actually building one.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Sam Jarrell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations. About Masoud:https://www.linkedin.com/in/masoud-mohseni-12b00214/Quantum Computing 1-0-1:https://hpe.lnk.to/quantumfa

How could considering the whole lifecycle of technology help save money? This week, Technology Now is diving into the world of HPE Financial Services and examining the importance of reuse and refurbishment in the rapidly changing technology ecosystem. Maeve Culloty, President and CEO of HPE Financial Services tells us more.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Sam Jarrell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations.About Maeve:https://www.hpe.com/uk/en/leadership-bios/maeve-culloty.htmlBathtub episode:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYAGoSXPceU&list=PLtS6YX0YOX4c12MoKvNgYw6zwNogLW3E7&index=52Sources:https://weee-forum.org/ws_news/of-16-billion-mobile-phones-possessed-worldwide-5-3-billion-will-become-waste-in-2022/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-288026460.034g gold per phone0.034 x 5.3x10^9 = 180,200,000g = 180,200kg180,200 x 2.2 = 396,440lbs

What is a self-driving network? This week, Technology Now is diving into self-driving networks 1-0-1. We explore what they are, how they work, and what benefits they have over regular networks to find out why an organisation might choose to use a self-driving one instead.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Sam Jarrell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations.About Sujai:https://www.linkedin.com/in/sujai-hajela-270a83/

Why is data so important in the healthcare sector? This week, Technology Now is diving into the world of data analysis in healthcare. We will be asking how different methods of data analysis can lead to different outcomes, we'll be exploring how AI can be used to help find patterns in huge quantities of data, and we'll be asking how historical legal rulings still influence our healthcare sector today. Lisa Marceau founder and CEO of Joyous and Alpha Millennial Health, tells us more.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Sam Jarrell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations.About Lisa:https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisamarceau/Sources: https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/london-stories/john-snow-cholera-broad-street-pump/Tulchinsky TH. John Snow, Cholera, the Broad Street Pump; Waterborne Diseases Then and Now. Case Studies in Public Health. 2018:77–99. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-804571-8.00017-2. Epub 2018 Mar 30. PMCID: PMC7150208.https://orwh.od.nih.gov/toolkit/recruitment/history Petersen I, Peltola T, Kaski S, et al., Depression, depressive symptoms and treatments in women who have recently given birth: UK cohort study, BMJ Open 2018;8:e022152. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2018-022152

Michael Bird and Matthew Barrett both used to be Baptists. Then their understanding of baptism changed. Why? In different ways they both realized that the scriptures, Old and New Testament… Download Audio

How are data centres tied to countries' data strategies? This week, Technology Now takes a step back to look at why and how countries are investing in AI projects. We ask how large data centres are funded, built and powered, we explore how technology is procured for these projects, and we examine the impact of these giant structures on data sovereignty. Talal al Kaissi, interim CEO of Core 42, tells us more.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Sam Jarrell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations.About Talal:https://www.linkedin.com/in/talal-m-al-kaissi-20059a5/?originalSubdomain=aeSources:https://www.cargoson.com/en/blog/number-of-data-centers-by-countryhttps://regional.chinadaily.com.cn/hohhot/2022-06/08/c_793607.htmhttps://www.seas.upenn.edu/about/history-heritage/eniac/https://www.vailwilliams.com/from-first-generation-to-hyperscale-the-whirlwind-evolution-of-data-centres/ https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/worlds-first-general-purpose-computer-turns-75#:~:text=ENIAC%20weighed%2030%20tons%2C%20took,five%20million%20hand%2Dsoldered%20joints.https://www.themeasureofthings.com/results.php?search=10%2C700%2C000+square+feet+%28sq.+ft%29%2C+a+measure+of+area&unit=f2&comp=area&amt=10700000&searchTerm=10%2C700%2C000+square+feet+%28sq.+ft%29%2C+a+measure+of+area#google_vignette

How can technology be used in the fight against modern slavery? This week, Technology Now is exploring the impact of modern slavery and how technology can be used to try and reduce it. We ask what the scale of the problem is today, we examine what modern slavery can look like, and we discuss how organisations and consumers can work together to try and combat this practice. John Schultz, Executive Vice President, Chief Legal and Administrative Officer and Corporate Secretary for HPE, tells us more.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Sam Jarrell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations.About John:https://www.hpe.com/uk/en/leadership-bios/john-schultz.htmlSources https://www.hpe.com/us/en/newsroom/blog-post/2025/12/when-good-intentions-are-not-enough-the-importance-of-data-and-ai-in-solving-the-modern-slavery-epidemic.htmlhttps://www.hpe.com/uk/en/leadership-bios/john-schultz.html

What's happening at Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2026? This week, Technology Now is on the ground in Barcelona at the 20th Mobile World Congress to delve deeper into the future of networking. We ask what are the big themes of this year's Mobile World Congress, we explore why events like this are important to organisations like HPE, and we examine why consumers should care about events like this. Rami Rahim, President and General Manager, HPE Networking tells us more.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Sam Jarrell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations. This episode is available in both video and audio formats.About Rami:https://www.hpe.com/uk/en/leadership-bios/rami-rahim.html

How has the idea of ethics been affected by the rise of AI? This week, Technology Now is exploring the ideas of ethical and responsible AI. We examine how integrated into society AI has become, we ask how we co-exist with AI, and we look into how regular people, organisations, and governments are having to respond to the increasing adoption of AI. Kay Firth-Butterfield, CEO of Good Tech Advisory LLC and the world's first Chief AI Ethics Officer, tells us more.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Sam Jarrell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations. This episode is available in both video and audio formats.About Kay: https://kayfirthbutterfield.comSources:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66807456https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65735769https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq808px90wxohttps://www.npr.org/2025/05/07/g-s1-64640/ai-impact-statement-murder-victimhttps://www.academia.edu/123541578/The_Clinical_Chemist

How does a quantum computer work? This week, Technology Now is diving into the world of quantum computing. We delve into how quantum computers work, we explore what's needed to build them and we ask what we should expect from this field of research in the future. Dr Michaela Eichinger, Product Solutions Physicist at Quantum Machines, tells us more.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Sam Jarrell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations. This episode is available in both video and audio formats.About Michaela: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaela-eichinger/?originalSubdomain=chSourceshttps://blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/quantum-computing-what-who-how-and-when/https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2025/press-release/#:~:text=Their%20experiments%20on%20a%20chip,passed%20a%20current%20through%20it.https://www.britannica.com/science/zero-point-energyhttps://www.space.com/how-cold-is-spaceK.W. Taconis, Dilution refrigeration, Cryogenics, Volume 18, Issue 8, 1978, Pages 459-464, ISSN 0011-2275, https://doi.org/10.1016/0011-2275(78)90204-7., (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/001122757890204

How is AI changing the way we store data? This week Technology Now dives into the topic of data storage in the world of AI. We explore intelligent storage, how data sovereignty is influencing how we store our data, and consider where the world of storage could be going in the future. Jim O'Dorisio, Senior Vice President and General Manager HPE Storage, tells us more.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Sam Jarrell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations.About Jim:https://www.linkedin.com/in/odorisiojim/Sources:https://www.statista.com/statistics/871513/worldwide-data-created/#statisticContainerhttps://www.studionetworksolutions.com/how-much-data-is-used-and-stored-in-the-world/#:~:text=expanding%20digital%20universe.-,Global%20Data%20Usage,over%20180%20zettabytes%20by%202025.1 billion terrabytes in 1 zettabyte. If a smartphone has 1Tb storage, then you need 180 billion smartphones to make 180Zb of storage. 180 billion > 100 billionhttps://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/memory-storage/https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/memory-storage/8/308https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/6129/https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/memory-storage/8/308/963

How are hospitals using AI and HPC to assist them in helping save lives? This week, Technology Now is joined by Keith Perry, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital to explore how St Jude uses the latest technologies to help treat and prevent illness and catastrophic disease, giving patients and families more time, and more hope, when it comes to diagnosis.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Sam Jarrell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations.About Keith:https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-perry-8562347/Sources:Hernigou P. Ambroise Paré III: Paré's contributions to surgical instruments and surgical instruments at the time of Ambroise Paré. Int Orthop. 2013 May;37(5):975-80. doi: 10.1007/s00264-013-1872-y. Epub 2013 Apr 12. PMID: 23580029; PMCID: PMC3631503.https://www.surgicalholdings.co.uk/history-of-surgical-instruments.htmlSmith-Bindman R, Kwan ML, Marlow EC, et al. Trends in Use of Medical Imaging in US Health Care Systems and in Ontario, Canada, 2000-2016. JAMA. 2019;322(9):843–856. doi:10.1001/jama.2019.11456https://caferoentgen.com/2023/10/07/a-tale-of-two-hands-the-story-behind-the-two-famous-radiographs-captured-by-wilhelm-roentgen/https://www.orau.org/health-physics-museum/collection/shoe-fitting-fluoroscope/index.html

Healthy and compassionate local churches are perfectly positioned to provide support to vulnerable populations and we need to step up now more than ever. Join us today as Zach W. Lambert preaches about how we must invest in building something stable when it feels like things are falling apart.We live-stream every Sunday at 9:30am CT. If you'd like to connect with Restore, go to www.restoreaustin.org/connect.Resources Referenced:For Such A Time As This: An Emergency Devotional by Hanna ReichelLetters and Papers from Prison by Dietrich BonhoefferThe New Testament in Its World by NT Wright and Michael Bird

What topics have to be considered while discussing AI? This week, Technology Now is returning to Davos, Switzerland, dive deeper into the topics surrounding the AI revolution. We ask how sovereignty in AI is linked to trust and explore how sustainability both impacts, and is impacted by sovereignty within the industry. Kirk Bresniker, chief architect of HPE Labs, tells us more.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Sam Jarrell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations. This episode is available in both video and audio formats.About Kirk: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirkbresniker/

What are HPE doing at Davos? This week, Technology Now is heading to the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland to talk to HPE CEO and President Antonio Neri about the topics which are currently captivating business and world leaders. We explore what's changed since last year, why people are focusing on AI and trust, and why quantum has emerged, again, as a topic of interest.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Sam Jarrell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations. This episode is available in both video and audio formats.Video podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxgUswwHsLg&list=PLtS6YX0YOX4c12MoKvNgYw6zwNogLW3E7&index=1&pp=iAQB

What does sovereignty actually mean? This week, Technology Now dives into the world behind the words, exploring the reality versus the fantasy of data and technological sovereignty. We ask how definitions can change across location, and why this is important to understand when trying to work across boarders. Sana Kharegani, Chief Strategy Officer at Carbon3.AI tells us more.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Sam Jarrell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations.About Sana:https://www.linkedin.com/in/sana-khareghani-4346771/?originalSubdomain=ukSources:https://gdpr-info.eu/issues/fines-penalties/https://www.dataversity.net/articles/brief-history-cloud-computing/https://www.kiteworks.com/risk-compliance-glossary/data-sovereignty-protecting-our-digital-footprint-in-the-age-of-information/https://gdpr.eu/what-is-gdpr/

How are our networks designed to cope with the increasing demands of AI? This week, Technology Now dives into the topic of networking for AI, exploring how our networks have adapted and evolved to meet the ever growing demands of modern day AI infrastructure. Praful Lalchandani,VP of Networking Product Management, tells us more.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Sam Jarrell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations.About Praful: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prafullalchandani/Sources:https://www.networkworld.com/article/972044/ethernet-at-50-bob-metcalfe-pulls-down-the-turing-award.htmlhttps://www.networkworld.com/article/970970/what-is-ethernet.htmlhttps://computer.howstuffworks.com/ethernet5.htm

What is Spaceborne Lunar? This week, Technology Now explore how, and why, you would put a supercomputer on the moon. We ask why anyone would want to put a supercomputer on the moon, we discover how one would go about doing such a thing, and we explore the benefits that this sort of extreme edge computing could bring. Norm Follett, Senior Director, HPE Global Technical Marketing, Space Technologies & Solutions, tells us more.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Sam Jarrell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations. This episode is available in both video and audio formats.About Norm: https://www.linkedin.com/in/normfollett/Sources:https://www.hpe.com/us/en/newsroom/accelerating-space-exploration-with-the-spaceborne-computer.htmlhttps://spectrum.ieee.org/software-as-hardware-apollos-rope-memoryhttps://www.bcs.org/articles-opinion-and-research/the-first-computers-on-the-moon/https://www.sciencefocus.com/space/what-tech-would-the-apollo-11-mission-have-todayhttps://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20230516-apollo-how-moon-missions-changed-the-modern-worldAverill C., 2022, a Brief Analysis of the Apollo Guidance Computer, https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2201.08230

What's the current state of play in the world of networking? This week, Technology Now returns to HPE Discover Barcelona for a discussion with Rami Rahim, President and General Manager, HPE Networking. We ask why networking is so important, how it is possible to keep the world connected, and explore what networking will look like going into the future.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Sam Jarrell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations. This episode is available in both video and audio formats.About Rami Rahim: https://www.hpe.com/uk/en/leadership-bios/rami-rahim.html

On the Dec. 5 Friday LIVE from The Mill in Lincoln's Historic Haymarket Genevieve Randall and guests have lively conversations about: events by filmmaker Booker T. Mattison (1:25); Edgerton Explorit Center events in Aurora (13:20); Michael Bird and Lincoln's homegrown improv team The Disassociates performance (27:58); Deck the Halls concert by Lincoln's Symphony Orchestra (38:23); and West Nebraska Arts Center exhibitions and events (45:47). Also, poetry from Tim Moran (22:22) and a look at a new book by Omaha author Moonyani Write (52:40).

What's going on at HPE Discover Barcelona 2025. This week, Technology Now visits Barcelona for an interview with company CEO Antonio Neri. We ask what the how the world of technology is faring a quarter of the way into the 21st century, we look forward to where we're heading in the future, and we explore how HPE is responding to our changing world.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Sam Jarrell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations. This episode is available in both video and audio formats.http://www.hpe.com/discover/barcelona

Why put a supercomputer into orbit? This week, Technology Now concludes its mini-series by looking to space. We examine our final objects, Spaceborne computers one and two, as well as Spaceborne Lunar. We will explore why HPE are sending supercomputers to space, how they have to be adapted to exist off world, and where they will be travelling to next.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Aubrey Lovell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations.More about Norm Follett: https://www.linkedin.com/in/normfollett/Sourceshttps://www.pwc.com.au/industry/space-industry/lunar-market-assessment-2021.pdf

How do networks keep our society running? This week, Technology Now continues with the third episode in its miniseries with a further three objects: the A52 WiFi 7, and Juniper access points. We dive into the birth of modern networking, the security and technology required for “bring your own device” connections, and the unexpected things a modern day WiFi router can detect. Stuart Strickland, Wireless Chief Technology Officer and HPE Fellow tells us more.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Aubrey Lovell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations.About Stuart Strickland: https://www.hpe.com/psnow/doc/a00118725enw

How has compute evolved to meet the changing demands of modern society? This week, Technology Now continues with its mini-series, exploring objects two, three and four: the HP35 calculator, the HP 65 calculator, and the ProLiant Gen 12 Server. We dive into this history of personal devices and computing, how compute has evolved over the years, and where the world of computing is going to go in the future. Kirk Bresniker, Chief Architect at HPE Labs, tells us more.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Aubrey Lovell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations.About Kirk: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirkbresniker

How did HPE and Disney form a relationship which has continued for over 80 years? This week, Technology Now begins a mini-series to celebrate the tenth birthday of HPE. In Episode one, we explore where it all began – with the sale of an oscillator to Disney in the ‘30s - and how that partnership has continued to this day through digitisation, the pandemic, and the current AI explosion.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Aubrey Lovell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations.About Alice Taylor:https://www.linkedin.com/in/alicetaylor/Sourceshttps://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/5011/HP-9826/https://www.hpe.com/nl/en/what-is/virtual-desktop.html https://www.imdb.com/list/ls093653710/https://www.flywing-tech.com/blog/a-1939-audio-oscillator-caught-disneys-eye-and-helped-launch-hp/ https://www.hewlettpackardhistory.com/item/a-deal-with-disney/ https://www.hpe.com/us/en/about/history/innovation-gallery/008-product.htmlhttps://www.thedisneyclassics.com/blog/animation-styles https://medium.com/cinemania/a-puppet-in-walt-disneys-hands-ea2d5b43ef96 

In this episode, Barney & Austin stage a head-to-head on whether Christian nationalism is a good thing or not! It's time to gather the insights from our past episodes together and see which argument is strongest. Barney takes the “pro-Christian Nationalism” side and Austin takes the “anti-Christian Nationalism” position. Who is going to win?IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: views expressed in this episode do not necessarily represent the real views of the speakers.Resources mentioned in this episode:Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (University of Notre Dame Press, 2007).Alasdair MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry (University of Notre Dame Press, 1994).Luke Bretherton, Christianity and Contemporary Politics (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010).Hugo Rahner, Church and State in Early Christianity (Ignatius Press, 1992).N. T. Wright and Michael Bird, Jesus and the Powers (Zondervan, 2024).Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum.Ha-Joon Chang, 23 Things They Don't Tell You about Capitalism (Bloomsbury, 2012).Thanks to Jamie Maule for the post-production!

What is Chapel? This week, Technology Now explores the programming language, Chapel. We ask what it is, how it was designed, and we explore why people would use it instead of some of the more established languages.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Aubrey Lovell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations.About Brad Chamberlain:https://www.linkedin.com/in/brad-chamberlain-3ab358105 Sourceshttps://www.britannica.com/biography/Ada-Lovelacehttps://www.adalovelaceinstitute.org/about/https://cdn.britannica.com/31/172531-050-E009D42C/portion-Charles-Babbage-Analytical-Engine-death-mill-1871.jpghttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PunchedCardsAnalyticalEngine.jpghttps://www.mpg.de/female-pioneers-of-science/Ada-Lovelace

What is Chat HPE? This week, Technology Now dives into the world of workplace assistants and examines what must be considered when designing them. We explore why businesses want them, how they are created, and ask how good Chat HPE could be when designing a podcast... Jose M Mejias, a Distinguished Technologist working in the Data Office tells us more.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Aubrey Lovell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations.About Jose: https://pr.linkedin.com/in/jose-mejias-1233b323Sources:Joseph Weizenbaum. 1966. ELIZA—a computer program for the study of natural language communication between man and machine. Commun. ACM 9, 1 (Jan. 1966), 36–45. https://doi.org/10.1145/365153.365168https://www.ibm.com/think/insights/eliza-effect-avoiding-emotional-attachment-to-aihttps://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/25/joseph-weizenbaum-inventor-eliza-chatbot-turned-against-artificial-intelligence-ai

How do we know if our AI… is really AI? This week, Technology now goes under the hood of AI products when Baradji Diallo, an AI Innovation Architect in Technology Strategy and Evaluation working in the office of the CTO joins us to tell us more about how he and his team investigate whether AI products are really what they claim to be.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Aubrey Lovell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations.About Baradji Diallo: https://www.linkedin.com/in/baradji-diallo/Sources:https://www.statista.com/outlook/tmo/artificial-intelligence/worldwidehttps://www.historyofdatascience.com/ai-winter-the-highs-and-lows-of-artificial-intelligence/https://www.techtarget.com/searchenterpriseai/definition/AI-winterFunding a Revolution: Government Support for Computing Research. National Academy Press. Archived from the original on 12 January 2008. Retrieved 08 September 2025https://web.archive.org/web/20080112001018/http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/far/ch9.htmlhttps://www.birow.com/az-elso-ai-telhttps://www.holloway.com/g/making-things-think/sections/the-second-ai-winter-19871993https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnwerner/2024/04/09/three-lessons-learned-from-the-second-ai-winter/

How do we protect our institutional memory? This week, Technology Now explores the importance of organisational memory and the biggest challenges which can lead to its erosion. We dive into how it could be preserved, and why this is vital for our organisations. Rom Kosla, CIO for HPE, tells us more.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Aubrey Lovell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations.About Rom Koslahttps://www.linkedin.com/in/koslaSourceshttps://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/tenure.pdfhttps://www.panopto.com/resource/valuing-workplace-knowledge/https://www.britannica.com/science/Dewey-Decimal-Classificationhttps://www.britannica.com/biography/Melvil-Dewey

What sort of technology goes into building the latest arenas? This week, Technology Now explores the Chase Centre, home of the Golden State Warriors and a venue for all sorts of events from sports to live music. We examine the importance of technology in all aspects of design, from before fans leave their houses, to their connectivity, safety, and enjoyment at the venue. Brian Fulmer, Senior Director of IT at the Golden State Warriors, tells us more.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Aubrey Lovell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations.HPE and Golden State Warriors Partnership:https://www.hpe.com/psnow/doc/a00115219enwhttps://www.hpe.com/h22228/video-gallery/us/en/v100003857/video?jumpId=in_videogallery_366db19b-247e-46f0-9acc-490ac791aefe_gaiwAbout Brian Fullmer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianfulmer/Sources:https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/63755510https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ancient-roman-gladiator-arena-concession-stand-shops-found/https://www.britannica.com/sports/polohttps://www.football-stadiums.co.uk/articles/history-of-floodlights-in-football/https://www.britannica.com/place/United-Kingdom

How can artificial intelligence make itself more efficient? This week, Technology Now delves into the concept of solution based efficiency, how it can be applied to new and emerging technologies, and the importance of expecting the unexpected. John Frey, Senior Director and Chief Technologist of Sustainable Transformation for HPE, tells us more.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Aubrey Lovell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations.HPE AI Sustainability Whitepaper: https://www.hpe.com/psnow/doc/a50013815enwSources:https://homepages.math.uic.edu/~leon/mcs425-s08/handouts/char_freq2.pdfhttps://www.morsecodeholistic.com/american-morse-code-translatorhttps://www.bbc.com/news/business-47460499

Where do we get our stuff from? This week, Technology Now is diving into the subject of supply chain. We explore what different people along the value chain care about, the types of disruptions modern day supply chains face, and we explore how AI can be integrated into the world of supply chain to mitigate unexpected shocks.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Aubrey Lovell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations.About Mark Bakker: https://www.hpe.com/uk/en/leadership-bios/mark-bakker.htmlSourcesDoor to Door: The Magnificent, Maddening, Mysterious World of Transportation by Edward Humes. Copyright © 2016 by Edward Humes. Reprinted courtesy of Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.https://www.persee.fr/doc/paleo_0153-9345_2016_num_42_2_5718https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/renfrew-dixon-and-cann-reconstruct-ancient-near-eastern-trade-routesKhalidi, L. et al., 2016, The growth of early social networks: New geochemical results of obsidian from the Ubaid to Chalcolithic Period in Syria, Iraq and the Gulf, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports,Volume 9, Pages 743-757, ISSN 2352-409X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2016.06.026.Gendron, F., et all., 2019, The evolution of obsidian procurement in ancient Oaxaca, Mexico: New data from the Sistema 7 Venado architectural complex, Monte Albán. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. 23. 583-591., Tykot. R. H., 1996, Obsidian Procurement and Distribution in the Central and Western Mediterranean, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 9.1 (1996) 39-82

Can AI be used to improve patient experiences? This week, Technology Now explores how AI is being used to streamline data collection in the healthcare industry, how data should be treated to avoid bias in AI, and the benefits this brings to patients. Derek B. Howard, Programme Manager for the HPE Digital Health Foundry Programme, tells us more.This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Aubrey Lovell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations.About Derek B. Howard:https://www.linkedin.com/in/derek-howard1/Sources:https://www.britannica.com/technology/MYCINhttps://www.mghlcs.org/projects/dxplainhttps://www.cedars-sinai.org/discoveries/ai-ascendance-in-medicine.html

How do you keep a computer running non-stop? This week Technology Now explores the world of fault tolerant computing. We dive into how fault tolerance works, what industries use it, and why such a useful form of computing isn't as ubiquitous as we might expect. Casey Taylor, Vice President and General Manager HPE Nonstop Compute tells us more. This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Aubrey Lovell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations.About Casey Taylor: https://www.linkedin.com/in/getcaseytaylorOur previous episode with Casey: https://hpe.lnk.to/missioncriticalfaSources:https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/24/tech/crowdstrike-outage-cost-causehttps://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/24/tech/crowdstrike-outage-cost-causehttps://www.kovrr.com/reports/the-uk-cost-of-the-crowdstrike-incidenthttps://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/mission-overview/https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/where-are-voyager-1-and-voyager-2-now/A. Avizienis, G. C. Gilley, F. P. Mathur, D. A. Rennels, J. A. Rohr and D. K. Rubin, "The STAR (Self-Testing And Repairing) Computer: An Investigation of the Theory and Practice of Fault-Tolerant Computer Design," in IEEE Transactions on Computers, vol. C-20, no. 11, pp. 1312-1321, Nov. 1971, doi: 10.1109/T-C.1971.223133. https://www.cs.unc.edu/~anderson/teach/comp790/papers/Siewiorek_Fault_Tol.pdf

How should we understand the words, “in him all things were created” in Col 1.16? Although commonly taken to mean Christ created the universe, this view has contextual, structural, and exegetical problems. In what follows I’ll name six problems with old-creation readings before laying out why a new creation approach makes sense. I presented this talk at the 2025 Unitarian Christian Alliance (UCA) conference in Uxbridge, England. Scroll down to see the full-length paper. For those listening to the audio, here’s a quick reference to Colossians 1.15-20 Strophe 1 (Col 1.15-18a) 15a      who is (the) image of the invisible God, 15b      firstborn of all creation 16a      for in him were created all things 16b                  in the heavens and upon the earth, 16c                  the visible and the invisible, 16d                  whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities 16e      all things have been created through him and for him 17a      and he is before all things 17b      and all things hold together in him 18a      and he is the head of the body of the Church,[12] Strophe 2 (Col 1.18b-20) 18b      who is (the) beginning, 18c      firstborn from the dead, 18d                  in order that he may be first in all things, 19        for in him was pleased all the fulness to dwell 20a      and through him to reconcile all things in him, 20b      making peace through the blood of his cross 20c                  whether the things upon the earth 20d                  or the things in the heavens Here’s Randy Leedy’s New Testament Diagram Here are the slides in the original PowerPoint format Download [13.82 MB] Here are the slides converted to PDF Loading... Taking too long? Reload document | Open in new tab Download [3.16 MB] To read the paper, simply scroll down or read it on Academia.edu.   Listen on Spotify   Listen on Apple Podcasts —— Links —— Check out these other papers by Sean Finnegan Support Restitutio by donating here Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Finnegan on X @RestitutioSF Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play it out on the air Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here Get Finnegan’s book, Kingdom Journey to learn about God’s kingdom coming on earth as well as the story of how Christianity lost this pearl of great price. Get the transcript of this episode Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library. Below is the paper presented on July 25, 2025 in Uxbridge, England at the 2nd annual UCA UK Conference. Access this paper on Academia.edu to get the pdf. Full text is below, including bibliography and end notes. Colossians 1.16: Old Creation or New Creation? by Sean P. Finnegan Abstract  How should we understand the words, “in him all things were created” in Col 1.16? Although commonly taken to mean Christ created the universe, this view has contextual, structural, and exegetical problems. In what follows, I will explain the difficulties with the various old creation readings of Col 1.16 along with five reasons for a new creation approach. Then I'll provide a new creation reading of Col 1.16 before summarizing my findings in the conclusion. Introduction  Colossians 1.15-20 is a fascinating text of great importance for Christology. Commonly understood to be a hymn, it is fascinating in its cosmic scope and elevated Christology. Although many commentators interpret Paul[1] to say that Christ created the universe in his pre-existent state in Col 1.16, not all scholars see it that way. For example, Edward Schillebeeckx writes, “There is no mention in this text of pre-existence in the Trinitarian sense.”[2] Rather he sees “an eschatological pre-existence, characteristic of wisdom and apocalyptic.”[3] G. B. Caird agreed that Paul's focus in Col. 1.15-20 was not pre-existence (contra Lightfoot), rather, “The main thread of Paul's thought, then, is the manhood of Christ.”[4] In other words, “All that has been said in vv. 15-18 can be said of the historical Jesus.”[5] James Dunn also denied that Paul saw Christ as God's agent in creation in Col 1.15-20, claiming that such an interpretation was “to read imaginative metaphor in a pedantically literal way.”[6] James McGrath argued that “Jesus is the one through whom God's new creation takes place.” [7] Andrew Perriman likewise noted, “There is no reference to the creation of heaven and earth, light and darkness, sea and dry land, lights in the heavens, vegetation, or living creatures,”[8] also preferring a new creation approach.[9] To understand why such a broad range of scholars diverge from the old creation interpretation of Col 1.16, we will examine several contextual, structural, and exegetical problems. While explaining these, I'll also put forward four reasons to interpret Col 1.16 as new creation. Then I'll provide a fifth before giving a new creation reading of Col 1.15-20. But before going any further, let's familiarize ourselves with the text and structure. The Form of Col 1.15-20  To get our bearings, let me begin by providing a translation,[10] carefully structured to show the two strophes.[11] Strophe 1 (Col 1.15-18a) 15a      who is (the) image of the invisible God, 15b      firstborn of all creation 16a      for in him were created all things 16b                  in the heavens and upon the earth, 16c                  the visible and the invisible, 16d                  whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities 16e      all things have been created through him and for him 17a      and he is before all things 17b      and all things hold together in him 18a      and he is the head of the body of the Church,[12] Strophe 2 (Col 1.18b-20) 18b      who is (the) beginning, 18c      firstborn from the dead, 18d                  in order that he may be first in all things, 19        for in him was pleased all the fulness to dwell 20a      and through him to reconcile all things in him, 20b      making peace through the blood of his cross 20c                  whether the things upon the earth 20d                  or the things in the heavens Here I've followed the two-strophe structure (1.15-18a and 18b-20) noted more than a century ago by the classical philologist Eduard Norden[13] and repeated by James Robinson,[14] Edward Lohse,[15] Edward Schweizer,[16] James Dunn,[17] Ben Witherington III,[18] and William Lane[19] among others. By lining up the parallel lines of the two strophes, we can clearly see the poetic form. Strophe 1 15a who is (the) image… 15b firstborn of all creation 16a for in him were created all things… 16e  all things have been created through him… Strophe 2 18b who is (the) beginning, 18c firstborn from the dead … 19 for in him was pleased all… 20a and through him to reconcile all things in him… Such striking repeated language between the two strophes means that we should be careful to maintain the parallels between them and not take a grammatical or exegetical position on a word or phrase that would disconnect it from the parallel line in the other strophe. Some scholars, including F. F. Bruce,[20] Michael Bird,[21] David Pao,[22] among others proposed vv. 17-18a as an independent transitional link between the two strophes. Lohse explained the motivation for this unlikely innovation as follows. Above all, it is curious that at the end of the first, cosmologically oriented strophe, Christ is suddenly referred to as the “head of the body, the church” (1:18a κεφαλή τοῦ σώματος τῆς ἐκκλησίας). Considering its content, this statement would have to be connected with the second strophe which is characterized by soteriological statements. The structure of the hymn, however, places it in the first strophe.[23] For interpreters who prefer to think of the first strophe as cosmogony and the second as soteriology, a line about Christ's headship over the church doesn't fit very well. They restructure the form based on their interpretation of the content. Such a policy reverses the order of operations. One should determine the form and then interpret the content in light of structure. Lohse was right to reject the addition of a new transitional bridge between the two strophes. He called it “out of the question” since vv. 17-18a underscore “all things” and “serve as a summary that brings the first strophe to a conclusion.”[24] Now that we've oriented ourselves to some degree, let's consider old creation readings of Col 1.16 and the problems that arise when reading it that way. Old Creation Readings  Within the old creation paradigm for Col 1.16 we can discern three groups: those who see (A) Christ as the agent by whom God created, (B) Wisdom as the agent, and (C) Christ as the purpose of creation. Although space won't allow me to interact with each of these in detail, I will offer a brief critique of these three approaches. As a reminder, here is our text in both Greek and English. Colossians 1.16 16a      ὅτι ἐν αὐτῷ ἐκτίσθη τὰ πάντα 16b                  ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, 16c                  τὰ ὁρατὰ καὶ τὰ ἀόρατα, 16d                  εἴτε θρόνοι εἴτε κυριότητες εἴτε ἀρχαὶ εἴτε ἐξουσίαι· 16e      τὰ πάντα δι' αὐτοῦ καὶ εἰς αὐτὸν ἔκτισται· 16a      for in him were created all things 16b                  in the heavens and upon the earth, 16c                  the visible and the invisible, 16d                  whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities 16e      all things have been created through him and for him 1. Christ as the Agent of Creation Scot McKnight is representative in his claim that “The emphasis of the first stanza is Christ as the agent of creation … and the second is Christ as the agent of redemption.”[25] This view sees the phrase “in him were created all things” as Christ creating the universe in the beginning. However, this position has six problems with it. Firstly, the context of the poem—both before (vv. 13-14) and after (vv. 21-22)—is clearly soteriological not cosmogonical.[26] By inserting vv. 15-20 into the text after vv. 13-14, Paul connected the two together.[27] V. 15 begins with ὅς ἐστιν (who is), which makes it grammatically dependent on vv. 13-14. “It is widely accepted,” wrote Dunn, “that this passage is a pre-Pauline hymn interpolated and interpreted to greater or less extent by Paul.”[28] By placing the poem into a redemptive frame, Paul indicated how he interpreted it. The fact that God “rescued us from the authority of darkness and transferred (us) into the kingdom of his beloved son” is the controlling context (v. 13).[29] As I will show below, I believe vv. 15-20 are ecclesiology not protology, since ecclesiology naturally flows from soteriology. Rather than remaining in the old domain of darkness, vulnerable to malevolent spiritual powers of this age, Colossian Christians are transferred into the new domain of Christ. The context makes it more natural to interpret the creation language of vv. 15-16 in light of Christ's redemptive work—as references to new creation rather than old creation. Doing so retains the contextual frame rather than jumping back to the beginning of time. A second problem arises when we consider the phrase “image of the invisible God” in v. 15. Although some see a Stoic or Wisdom reference here, I agree with F. F. Bruce who said, “No reader conversant with the OT scriptures, on reading these words of Paul, could fail to be reminded of the statement in Gen. 1:26f., that man was created by God ‘in his own image.'”[30] Immediately after making humanity in his own image, God blessed us with dominion over the earth. Philo also connected humanity's image of God with “the rulership over the earthly realms.”[31] But if the Christ of v. 15 is the pre-existent son prior to his incarnation, as the old creation model posits, “How can he be the ‘image of God,'” asked Eduard Schweizer, since “the one who is thus described here is not the earthly Jesus?”[32] It is precisely by virtue of his humanity that Jesus is the image of God not his pre-existence.[33] Thus, image-of-God language points us to the creation of a new humanity. A third problem is that “firstborn of all creation” prima facia implies that Christ is a member of creation (a partitive genitive). This is how Paul thought about Christ as firstborn in Rom 8.29 when he called Christ “firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” Clearly he saw Christ as a member of the “ἀδελφοῖς” (brothers and sisters). Furthermore, “πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως” (firstborn of all creation) in v. 15 parallels “πρωτότοκος ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν” (firstborn from the dead) v. 18. Although the former (v. 15) can be taken as a genitive of subordination (firstborn over creation) or as a partitive genitive (firstborn of creation), the latter (v. 18) is unambiguously partitive. Because v. 18 includes the word ἐκ (from/out of), instead of a multivalent genitive, it must mean that Jesus was himself a member of the dead prior to his resurrection. Likewise, he was the firstborn member of creation. To take v. 15 as a genitive of subordination and v. 18 in a partitive sense allows theology to drive exegesis over against the clear structural link between v. 15b and v. 18c. In fact, as the BDAG noted, Christ is “the firstborn of a new humanity.”[34] He is chronologically born first and, by virtue of that, also preeminent.[35] Fourthly, the phrase, “ἐν αὐτῷ” (in him), implies soteriology not protology as it does throughout the Pauline corpus. The prepositional phrases “in Christ,” “in the Lord,” “in him,” and others that are similar occur more than a hundred times in Paul's epistles. McKnight elucidated the sense nicely: “This expression, then, is the inaugurated eschatological reality into which the Christian has been placed, and it also evokes the new-creation realities that a person discovers.”[36] Creation in Christ is not likely to refer to Genesis creation. In fact, apart from Col 1.16, there is no text within Paul or the rest of the Bible that speaks of the origin of the universe as something created “in Christ.”[37] Sadly translators routinely obscure this fact by translating “ἐν αὐτῷ” as “by him.”[38] Amazingly, the NASB and ESV render “ἐν αὐτῷ” as “in him” in every other usage apart from Col 1.16![39] For the sake of consistency, it makes better sense to render “ἐν αὐτῷ” as “in him” and let the reader decide how to interpret it. Fifthly, the line, “and he is the head of the body, the Church” (v. 18a) clearly roots the first strophe in redemptive history not creation. Our English translations follow Robert Estienne's verse divisions, which confusingly combine the last line of the first strophe (v. 18a) and the first line of the second (v. 18b), obscuring the native poetic structure. As I made the case above, the structure of the text breaks into two strophes with v. 18a included in the first one. As I mentioned earlier, vv. 15-20 are a pre-existing poem that Paul has modified and incorporated into the text of Colossians. Ralph Martin pointed out that the poem contains “no less than five hapax legomena” and “about ten non-Pauline expressions.”[40] Additionally, there appear to be awkward additions that disrupt the symmetry. These additions are the most explicitly Christian material. It is likely that the original said, “and he is the head of the body” to which Paul appended “the church.” Edward Schillebeeckx commented on this. In Hellenistic terms this must primarily mean that he gives life and existence to the cosmos. Here, however, Colossians drastically corrects the ideas … The correction made by Colossians is to understand ‘body' as a reference to the church, and not the cosmos. This alters the whole perspective of the cultural and religious setting … The cosmic background is reinterpreted in terms of salvation history and ecclesiology. In fact Christ is already exercising his lordship over the world now … however, he is doing this only as the head of the church, his body, to which he gives life and strength. Thus Colossians claims that the church alone, rather than the cosmos, is the body of Christ.[41] If this is true, it shows Paul's careful concern to disallow a strictly old creation or protological reading of the first strophe. For by inserting “of the church,” he has limited the context of the first strophe to the Christ event. “The addition of ‘the church,'” wrote Dunn, “indicates that for Paul at any rate the two strophes were not dealing with two clearly distinct subjects (cosmology and soteriology).”[42] Karl-Joseph Kuschel wrote, “The answer would seem to be he wanted to ‘disturb' a possible cosmological-protological fancy in the confession of Christ … to prevent Christ from becoming a purely mythical heavenly being.”[43] Thus Paul's addition shows us he interpreted the creation of v16 as new creation. Lastly, theological concerns arise when taking Col 1.16 as old creation. The most obvious is that given the partitive genitive of v. 15, we are left affirming the so-called Arian position that God created Christ as the firstborn who, in turn, created everything else. Another thorn in the side of this view is God's insistence elsewhere to be the solo creator (Isa 44.24; cf. 45.18). On the strength of this fact, modalism comes forward to save the day while leaving new problems in its wake. However, recognizing Col 1.15-20 as new creation avoids such theological conundrums. 2. Wisdom as the Agent of Creation Dustin Smith noted, “The christological hymn contains no less than nine characteristics of the wisdom of God (e.g., “image,” “firstborn,” agent of creation, preceding all things, holding all things together) that are reapplied to the figure of Jesus.”[44] Some suggest that Col 1.15-20 is actually a hymn to Wisdom that Paul Christianized.[45] The idea is that God created the universe through his divine Wisdom, which is now embodied or incarnate in Christ. Dunn explained it as follows. If then Christ is what God's power/wisdom came to be recognized as, of Christ it can be said what was said first of wisdom—that ‘in him (the divine wisdom now embodied in Christ) were created all things.' In other words the language may be used here to indicate the continuity between God's creative power and Christ without the implication being intended that Christ himself was active in creation.[46] Before pointing out some problems, I must admit much of this perspective is quite noncontroversial. That Jewish literature identified Wisdom as God's creative agent, that there are linguistic parallels between Col 1.15-20 and Wisdom, and that the historical Jesus uniquely embodied Wisdom to an unprecedented degree are not up for debate. Did Paul expect his readers to pick up on the linguistic parallels? Afterall, he could have just said “in her were created all things” in v. 16, clearly making the connection with the grammatically feminine σοφία (Wisdom). Better yet, he could have said, “in Wisdom were created all things.” Even if the poem was originally to Wisdom, Paul has thoroughly Christianized it, applying to Christ what had been said of Wisdom. However, the most significant defeater for this view is that applying Wisdom vocabulary to Christ only works one way. Wisdom has found her home in Christ. This doesn't mean we can attribute to Christ what Wisdom did before she indwelt him any more than we can attribute to the living descendants of Nazis the horrific deeds of their ancestors. Perriman's critique is correct: “The point is not that the act of creation was Christlike, rather the reverse: recent events have been creation-like. The death and resurrection of Jesus are represented as the profoundly creative event in which the wisdom of God is again dynamically engaged, by which a new world order has come about.”[47] Once again a new creation approach makes better sense of the text. 3. Christ as the Purpose of Creation Another approach is to take ἐν αὐτῷ (in him) in a telic sense. Martha King, a linguist with SIL, said the phrase can mean “in association with Christ everything was created” or “in connection with Christ all things were created.”[48] Lexicographer, Joseph Thayer, sharpened the sense with the translation, “[I]n him resides the cause why all things were originally created.”[49] William MacDonald's translation brought this out even more with the phrase, “because for him everything … was created.”[50] The idea is that God's act of creation in the beginning was with Christ in view. As Eric Chang noted, “Christ is the reason God created all things.”[51] G. B. Caird said, “He is the embodiment of that purpose of God which underlies the whole creation.”[52] The idea is one of predestination not agency.[53] Christ was the goal for which God created all things. A weakness of this view is that purpose is better expressed using εἰς or δία with an accusative than ἐν. Secondly, the parallel line in the second strophe (v. 19) employs “ἐν αὐτῷ” in a clearly locative sense: “in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell.” So even though “ἐν αὐτῷ” could imply purpose, in this context it much more likely refers to location. Lastly, Paul mentioned the sense of purpose at the end of v. 16 with “εἰς αὐτὸν ἔκτισται” (for him has been created), so it would be repetitive to take “ἐν αὐτῷ” that way as well. To sum up, the three positions that see Col 1.16 as a reference to old creation all have significant problems. With these in mind, let us turn our attention to consider a fourth possibility: that Paul has in mind new creation. Reasons for a New Creation Reading I've already provided four reasons why Col 1.15-20 refers to new creation: (1) calling Christ the image of God points to the new humanity begun in Christ as the last Adam;[54] (2) since the firstborn of the old creation was Adam (or, perhaps, Seth), Jesus must be the firstborn of the new creation; (3) saying Jesus is the head of the church, limits the focus for the first strophe to the time following the Christ event; (4) the context of the poem, both before (vv. 13-14) and after (vv. 21-22) is soteriological, making an old creation paradigm awkward, while a new creation view fits perfectly. The Catholic priest and professor, Franz Zeilinger, summarized the situation nicely: “Christ is (through his resurrection from the realm of death) Lord over the possession granted to him, of which he is the ἀρχή (beginning) and archetype, … and head and beginning of the eschatological new creation!”[55] Additionally, a new creation paradigm fits best with Paul's elaboration of what visible and invisible things in heaven and on earth he has in mind. Once again, here's our text. 16a      for in him were created all things 16b                  in the heavens and upon the earth, 16c                  the visible and the invisible, 16d                  whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities 16e      all things have been created through him and for him By specifying thrones, dominions, rulers, and authorities, we discern Paul's train of thought. Form critics are quick to point out that v. 16d is Paul's addition to the poem. Without it, the reader may have thought of sky, land, and animals—old creation. However, with v. 16d present, we direct our attention to political realities not God's creative power or engineering genius. Martha King noted the two possible meanings for εἴτε: (1) specifying the “invisible things” or (2) giving examples of “all things.” Taking the second view, we read “in him were created all things, including thrones, dominions, rulers, and authorities.”[56] Randy Leedy also presented this position in his sentence diagrams, identifying v. 16d as equivalent to v. 16c and v. 16b, all of which modify τὰ πάντα (all things) at the end of v. 16a. (See Appendix for Leedy's diagram.) Perriman pressed home the point when he wrote: The fact is that any interpretation that takes verse 16 to be a reference to the original creation has to account for the narrow range of created things explicitly listed. … The Colossians verse mentions only the creation of political entities—thrones, lordships, rulers and authorities, visible and invisible—either in the already existing heaven or on the already existing and, presumably, populated earth. What this speaks of is a new governmental order consisting of both invisible-heavenly and visibly-earthly entities.”[57] Understanding v. 16d as equivalent to “all things” in v. 16a nicely coheres with a new-creation paradigm. However, taken the other way—as an elaboration of only the invisible created realities—v. 16d introduces an asymmetrical and clumsy appendix. A New Creation Reading of Col 1.16 Now that we've considered some problems with old creation views and some reasons to read Col 1.16 from a new creation perspective, let's consider how a new creation reading works. New creation is all about the new breaking into the old, the future into the present. G. F. Wessels said, “Paul made clear that there is a present realized aspect of salvation, as well as a future, still outstanding aspect, which will only be realized at the eschaton.”[58] New creation, likewise, has future and present realities. Exiting Old Creation Before becoming part of the new creation, one must exit the old creation. “Our old humanity was co-crucified“ (Rom 6.6). “With Christ you died to the elemental principles of the world” (Col 2.20). “As many as were baptized into Christ Jesus, were baptized into his death” (Rom 6.3). We were “co-buried with him through baptism into the death … having been united with the likeness of his death” (Rom 6.4-5). Our death with him through baptism kills our allegiance and submission to the old powers and the old way of life “in which you formerly walked according to the zeitgeist of this world, according to the rule of the authority of the air, the spirit which now works in the children of disobedience” (Eph 2.2). Entering New Creation As death is the only way out of the old creation, so resurrection is the only way into the new creation. “You have been co-raised with Christ” (Col 3.1). God “co-made-alive us together with him” (Col 2.13).[59] By virtue of our union with Christ, we ourselves are already “co-raised and co-seated us in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus” (Eph 2.6). The result of this is that “we also may walk in newness of life” (Rom 6.4). For those who are “in Christ, (there is) a new creation; the old has passed away, behold (the) new has come into existence” (2 Cor 5.17). “They have been ‘transported,'” wrote Schillebeeckx, “they already dwell above in Christ's heavenly sphere of influence (Col 1.13)—the soma Christou … that is the church!”[60] Community For the people of God, “neither circumcision is anything nor uncircumcision but a new creation” is what matters (Gal 6.15). Those who “are clothed with the new” are “being renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created, where there is no Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, (or) free, but Christ (is) all and in all” (Col 3.10-11). Through Christ God has nullified the law “in order that he might create the two into one new humanity in him” (Eph 2.14-15). Thus, within new creation, ethnic identity still exists, but it is relativized, our identity in Christ taking priority ahead of other affiliations and duties. Lifestyle When the lost become saved through faith, they become his creation (ποίημα), “created in Christ Jesus for good works” (Eph 2.10). This means we are to “lay aside the former way of life, the old humanity corrupted according to deceitful desires” and instead be clothed with “the new humanity created according to God in righteousness and holiness of the truth” (Eph 4.22-24). Rather than lying to one another, we must “strip off the old humanity with its way of acting” and “be clothed with the new (humanity), renewed in knowledge according to the image of the one who created it” (Col 3.9-10). “The ones who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts” and instead “walk by the spirit” (Gal 5.24-25). Ultimately, All Creation Although new creation is currently limited to those who voluntarily recognize Jesus as Lord, all “creation is waiting with eager expectation for the unveiling of the children of God” (Rom 8.19). Because of the Christ event, the created order eagerly awaits the day when it will escape “the enslavement of corruption” and gain “the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (v. 21). Like a bone out of joint, creation does not function properly. Once Christ sets it right, it will return to its proper order and operation under humanity's wise and capable rulership in the eschaton. Eschatology God predetermined that those who believe will be “conformed to the image of his son, that he be firstborn among many brothers and sisters” (Rom 8.29). Thus, the resurrected Christ is the prototype, “the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor 15.20). Whereas “in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive” (v. 22). We await Christ's return to “transform the body of our humble station (that it be) shaped to his glorious body according to the energy which makes him able to also to subject all things to himself.” (Phil 3.21). This is the end goal of new creation: resurrected subjects of God's kingdom joyfully living in a renewed world without mourning, crying, and pain forevermore (Isa 65.17-25; Rev 21-22). The Powers Taking Col 1.16 as a new creation text adds key information about the present governing powers to this richly textured picture. In Christ God created thrones, dominions, rulers, and authorities. He made these through Christ and for Christ with the result that Christ himself is before all things, and in Christ all things hold together (Col 1.17). He is the head of the body, the Church (Col 1.18). We find very similar language repeated in Ephesians in the context of Christ's exaltation.[61] Ephesians 1.20-23 20 Which [power] he energized in Christ having raised him from the dead and seated (him) on his right (hand) in the heavenlies 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name named, not only in this age but also in the one to come; 22 and he subjected all things under his feet and gave him (as) head over all things in the Church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in all. The parallels are striking. Both speak of Christ's resurrection, Christ's exalted position of authority over all the powers, Christ's role as head of the church, and both mention the fullness. It's easy to miss the connection between these two passages since most think of Eph 1.20-22 as ascension theology and Col 1.15-20 as creation theology. But, if we adjust our thinking to regard Col 1.16 as new creation, we see how the two fit together. In Ephesians we see Christ's ascension to God's right hand as the reason for a cosmic reordering of authorities with the result that all rule, authority, power, and dominion are subjected to him. (Though we may be accustomed to reading these powers in Eph 1.21 as only malevolent owing to Eph 2.2 and 6.12, the list here must be mixed, since only benevolent powers will survive the final judgement and continue into the age to come.) Instead of exaltation, in Colossians Paul employed the language of creation to describe Christ's relation to the powers. Perhaps lesser terms like reassign, reorder, or establish were just too small to adequately express the magnitude of how the Christ event has changed the world—both in heaven and on earth. The only term big enough to convey the new situation was “creation”—the very same word he routinely used elsewhere with the meaning of new creation.[62] We can gain more insight by considering what the powers of Eph 1.21 and Col 1.16 mean. McKnight saw them “as earthly, systemic manifestations of (perhaps fallen) angelic powers—hence, the systemic worldly, sociopolitical manifestations of cosmic/angelic rebellion against God.”[63] I partially agree with McKnight here. He's right to see the powers as both heavenly and earthly, or better, as the heavenly component of the earthly sociopolitical realities, but he has not made room for the new authority structures created in Christ. John Schoenheit helpfully explained it this way: Not only did Jesus create his Church out of Jew and Gentile, he had to create the structure and positions that would allow it to function, both in the spiritual world (positions for the angels that would minister to the Church—see Rev. 1:1, “his angel”) and in the physical world (positions and ministries here on earth—see Rom. 12:4-8; Eph. 4:7-11).[64] We must never forget that Paul has an apocalyptic worldview—a perspective that seeks to unveil the heavenly reality behind the earthly. He believed in powers of darkness and powers of light. In Christ were created thrones, dominions, rulers, and authorities (Col 1.16). He is “the head of all rule and authority” (Col 2.10). These new creation realities make progress against the old powers that still hold sway in the world outside the Church. Although the old powers are still at work, those who are in Christ enjoy his protection. With respect to the Church, he has already “disarmed the rulers and authorities” (Col 2.15). We can don “the armor of God that we be able to stand against the methods of the devil” (Eph 6.11) and “subduing everything, to stand” (v. 13). We find glimpses of this heavenly reality scattered in other places in the Bible. Peter mentioned how Christ “is on the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, angels and authorities and power having been subjected to him” (1 Pet 3.22). In John's Revelation, he addressed each of the seven letters to the angels of their respective churches.[65] Although it's hard for us to get details on precisely what happened at Christ's ascension, something major occurred, not just on earth, but also in the spiritual realm. Jesus's last recorded words in Matthew are: “all authority in heaven and upon earth was given to me” (Mat 28.18-20). Presumably such a statement implies that prior to his resurrection Jesus did not have all authority in heaven and earth. It didn't exist until it was created. Similarly, because of his death, resurrection, and ascension, Christ has “become so much better than the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to them” (Heb 1.4). Once again, the text implies that Christ was not already superior to the angels, but “after making purification of the sins, he sat on the right hand of the majesty on high” at which time he became preeminent (Heb 1.3). Perhaps this also explains something about why Christ “proclaimed to the spirits in prison” (1 Pet 3.19). Another possibility is that Christ's ascension (Rev 12.5) triggered a war in heaven (v. 7) with the result that the dragon and his angels suffered defeat (v. 8) and were thrown out of heaven down to the earth (v. 9). Sadly, for most of the history of the church we have missed this Jewish apocalyptic approach that was obvious to Paul, limiting salvation to individual sins and improved morality.[66] Only in the twentieth century did interpreters begin to see the cosmic aspect of new creation. Margaret Thrall wrote the following. The Christ-event is the turning-point of the whole world … This Christ ‘in whom' the believer lives is the last Adam, the inaugurator of the new eschatological humanity. … Paul is saying that if anyone exists ‘in Christ', that person is a newly-created being. … In principle, through the Christ-event and in the person of Christ, the new world and the new age are already objective realities.[67] New creation is, in the words of J. Louis Martyn “categorically cosmic and emphatically apocalyptic.”[68] In fact, “The advent of the Son and of his Spirit is thus the cosmic apocalyptic event.”[69] In Christ is the beginning of a whole new creation, an intersecting community of angelic and human beings spanning heaven and earth. The interlocking of earthly (visible) and heavenly (invisible) authority structures points to Paul's apocalyptic holism. The Church was not on her own to face the ravages of Rome's mad love affair with violence and power. In Christ, people were no longer susceptible to the whims of the gods that have wreaked so much havoc from time immemorial.[70] No, the Church is Christ's body under his direct supervision and protection. As a result, the Church is the eschatological cosmic community. It is not merely a social club; it has prophetic and cosmic dimensions. Prophetically, the Church points to the eschaton when all of humanity will behave then how the Church already strives to live now—by the spirit instead of the flesh (Gal 5.16-25). Cosmically, the Church is not confined to the earth. There is a heavenly dimension with authority structures instantiated under Christ to partner with the earthly assemblies. God's “plan for the fulness of the times” is “to head up all thing in the Christ, the things upon the heavens and the things upon the earth in him” (Eph 1.10). Although this is his eschatological vision, Zeilinger pointed out that it is already happening. [T]he eschatological world given in Christ is realized within the still-existing earthly creation through the inclusion of the human being in Christ, the exalted one, by means of the proclamation of salvation and baptism. The eschaton spreads throughout the world in the kerygma and becomes reality, in that the human being, through baptism, becomes part of Christ—that is, in unity with him, dies to the claim of the στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου (2.20) and is raised with him to receive his eschatological life. The people thus incorporated into the exalted Christ thereby form, in him and with him, the new creation of the eschaton within the old! The body of Christ is thus recognizable as the expanding Church. In it, heavenly and earthly space form, in a certain sense, a unity.[71] The Church is a counter society, and embassy of the future kingdom shining the light of the age to come into the present in the power of the spirit with the protection of Christ and his heavenly powers over against the powers of darkness, who/which are still quite active—especially in the political realities of our present evil age (Gal 1.4). We bend the knee to the cosmic Christ now in anticipation of the day when “every knee may bend: heavenly and earthly and subterranean” (Phil 2.10) and “every tongue may confess that Jesus Christ (is) Lord” (v. 11). Christ's destiny is to fulfil the original Adamic mandate to multiply, fill, and have dominion over the earth (Gen 1.28). He has already received all authority in heaven and earth (Mat 28.18). God has given him “dominion over the works of your hands and put all things under his feet” as the quintessential man (Ps 8.6). Even so, “Now we do not yet see all things subjected to him” (Heb 2.8), but when he comes “he will reign into the ages of the ages” (Rev 11.15). Until then, he calls the Church to recognize his preeminence and give him total allegiance both in word and deed. Conclusion We began by establishing that the structure of the poetic unit in Col 1.15-20 breaks into two strophes (15-18a and 18b-20). We noted that Paul likely incorporated pre-existing material into Colossians, editing it as he saw fit. Then we considered the problems with the three old creation readings: (A) Christ as the agent of creation, (B) Wisdom as the agent of creation, and (C) Christ as the purpose of creation. In the course of critiquing (A), which is by far most popular, we observed several reasons to think Col 1.16 pertained to new creation, including (1) the image of God language in v. 15a, (2) the firstborn of all creation language in v. 15b, (3) the head of the Church language in v. 18a, and (4) the soteriological context (frame) of the poem (vv. 13-14, 21-22). To this I added a fifth syntactical reason that 16d as an elaboration of “τἀ πάντα” (all things) of 16a. Next, we explored the idea of new creation, especially within Paul's epistles, to find a deep and richly textured paradigm for interpreting God's redemptive and expanding sphere of influence (in Christ) breaking into the hostile world. We saw that new Christians die and rise with Christ, ending their association with the old and beginning again as a part of the new—a community where old racial, legal, and status divisions no longer matter, where members put off the old way of living and instead become clothed with the new humanity, where people look forward to and live in light of the ultimate transformation to be brought about at the coming of Christ. Rather than limiting new creation to the salvation of individuals, or even the sanctifying experience of the community, we saw that it also includes spiritual powers both “in the heavens and upon the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities” (Col 1.16). Reading Col 1.15-20 along with Eph 1.20-23 we connected God's creation of the powers in Christ with his exaltation of Christ to his right hand “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name named, not only in this age but also in the one to come” (Eph 1.21). The point from both texts is clear: as “the head of the body, the Church” (Col 1.18; Eph 1.22), Christ is “before all things” (Col 1.17), “first in all things” (Col 1.18), and “far above all” (Eph 1.21), since God has “subjected all things under his feet” (Eph 1.22). Christ is preeminent as the firstborn of all new creation, “the new Adam … the starting point where new creation took place.”[72] Although the old powers still hold sway in the world, those in the interlocked heaven-and-earth new creation domain where Christ is the head, enjoy his protection if they remain “in the faith established and steadfast and not shifting away from the hope of the gospel” (Col 1.23). This interpretation has several significant advantages. It fits into Paul's apocalyptic way of thinking about Christ's advent and exaltation. It also holds together the first strophe of the poem as a unit. Additionally, it makes better sense of the context. (The ecclesiology of Col 1.15-18a follows logically from the soteriological context of vv. 13-14.) Lastly, it is compatible with a wide range of Christological options. Appendix Here is Col 1.16 from Leedy's sentence diagrams.[73] Of note is how he equates the τὰ πάντα of 16a with 16c and 16d rather than seeing 16d as an elaboration of τά ὁρατά. Bibliography Bauer, Walter, Frederick William  Danker, William F. Arndt, F. Gingrich, Kurt Aland, Barbara Aland, and Viktor Reichmann. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. 3rd ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000. Bird, Michael F. Colossians and Philemon. A New Covenant Commentary. Cambridge, England: The Lutterworth Press, 2009. Brown, Anna Shoffner. “Nothing ‘Mere’ About a Man in the Image of God.” Paper presented at the Unitarian Christian Alliance, Springfield, OH, Oct 14, 2022. Bruce, E. K. Simpson and F. F. The Epistles to the Ephesians and the Colossians. The New International Commentary on the New Testament, edited by Ned B. Stonehouse. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1957. Buzzard, Anthony F. Jesus Was Not a Trinitarian. Morrow, GA: Restoration Fellowship, 2007. Caird, G. B. New Testament Theology. Edited by L. D. Hurst. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 2002. Caird, G. B. Paul’s Letters from Prison. New Clarendon Bible, edited by H. F. D. Sparks. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1976. Carden, Robert. One God: The Unfinished Reformation. Revised ed. Naperville, IL: Grace Christian Press, 2016. Chang, Eric H. H. The Only Perfect Man. Edited by Bentley C. F. Chang. 2nd ed. Montreal, QC: Christian Disciples Church Publishers, 2017. Deuble, Jeff. Christ before Creeds. Latham, NY: Living Hope International Ministries, 2021. Dunn, James D. G. Christology in the Making. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996. Dunn, James D. G. The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon. New International Greek Testament Commentary, edited by Gasque Marshall, Hagner. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996. Heiser, Michael S. The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2019. King, Martha. An Exegetical Summary of Colossians. Dallas, TX: SIL International, 1992. Kuschel, Karl-Joseph. Born before All Time? Translated by John Bowden. New York, NY: Crossroad, 1992. Originally published as Beforen vor aller Zeit? Lane, William L. The New Testament Page by Page. Open Your Bible Commentary, edited by Martin Manser. Bath, UK: Creative 4 International, 2013. Leedy, Randy A. The Greek New Testament Sentence Diagrams. Norfolk, VA: Bible Works, 2006. Lohse, Edward. Colossians and Philemon. Hermeneia. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1971. MacDonald, William Graham. The Idiomatic Translation of the New Testament. Norfolk, VA: Bibleworks, 2012. Mark H. Graeser, John A. Lynn, John W. Schoenheit. One God & One Lord. 4th ed. Martinsville, IN: Spirit & Truth Fellowship International, 2010. Martin, Ralph. “An Early Christian Hymn (Col. 1:15-20).” The Evangelical Quarterly 36, no. 4 (1964): 195–205. Martyn, J. Louis. Theological Issues in the Letters of Paul. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1997. McGrath, James F. The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in Its Jewish Context. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009. McKnight, Scot. The Letter to the Colossians. New International Commentary on the New Testament, edited by Joel B. Green. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2018. Norden, Eduard. Agnostos Theos: Untersuchungen Zur Formengeschichte Religiöser Rede. 4th ed. Stuttgart, Germany: B. G. Teubner, 1956. Originally published as 1913. Pao, David. Colossians and Philemon. Zondervan Exegetical Commentary of the New Testament, edited by Clinton E. Arnold. Grand Rapid, MI: Zondervan, 2012. Perriman, Andrew. In the Form of a God. Studies in Early Christology, edited by David Capes Michael Bird, and Scott Harrower. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2022. Philo. The Works of Philo. The Norwegian Philo Concordance Project. Edited by Kåre Fuglseth Peder Borgen, Roald Skarsten. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2005. Robinson, James M. “A Formal Analysis of Colossians 1:15-20.” Journal of Biblical Literature 76, no. 4 (1957): 270–87. Schillebeeckx, Eduard. Christ: The Experience of Jesus as Lord. Translated by John Bowden. New York, NY: The Seabury Press, 1977. Schoberg, Gerry. Perspectives of Jesus in the Writings of Paul. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2013. Schweizer, Eduard. The Letter to the Colossians. Translated by Andrew Chester. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1982. Smith, Dustin R. Wisdom Christology in the Gospel of John. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2024. Snedeker, Donald R. Our Heavenly Father Has No Equals. Bethesda, MD: International Scholars Publications, 1998. Thayer, Joseph Henry. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996. Thrall, Margaret. The Second Epistle to the Corinthians. Vol. 1. The International Critical Commentary, edited by C. E. B. Cranfield J. A. Emerton, G. N. Stanton. Edinburgh, Scotland: T&T Clark, 1994. Wachtel, William M. “Colossians 1:15-20–Preexistence or Preeminence?” Paper presented at the 14th Theological Conference, McDonough, GA, 2005. Wessels, G. F. “The Eschatology of Colossians and Ephesians.” Neotestamentica 21, no. 2 (1987): 183–202. Witherington III, Ben The Letters to Philemon, the Colossians, and the Ephesians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary of the Captivity Epistles. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007. Yates, Roy. The Epistle to the Colossians. London: Epworth Press, 1993. Zeilinger, Franz. Der Erstgeborene Der Schöpfung. Wien, Österreich: Herder, 1974. Footnotes [1] Since the nineteenth century biblical scholars have been divided over whether Paul wrote Colossians. One of the major reasons for thinking Paul didn't write Colossians is his exalted Christology—the very conclusion this paper seeks to undermine. A second major factor to argue against Pauline authorship is the difference in vocabulary, but this is explainable if Paul used a different amanuensis. The theologically more cosmic emphasis (also evident in Ephesians) is likely due to Paul's time in prison to reflect and expand his understanding of the Christ event. Lastly, the proto-Gnostic hints in Colossians do not require dating the epistle outside of Paul's time. Although Gnosticism flourished at the beginning of the second century, it was likely already beginning to incubate in Paul's time. [2] Eduard Schillebeeckx, Christ: The Experience of Jesus as Lord, trans. John Bowden (New York, NY: The Seabury Press, 1977), 185. [3] Schillebeeckx, 185. [4] G. B. Caird, Paul’s Letters from Prison, New Clarendon Bible, ed. H. F. D. Sparks (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1976), 177. [5] Caird, 181. [6] James D. G. Dunn, The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon, New International Greek Testament Commentary, ed. Gasque Marshall, Hagner (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996), 91. “[W]hat at first reads as a straightforward assertion of Christ's pre-existenct activity in creation becomes on closer analysis an assertion which is rather more profound—not of Christ as such present with God in the beginning, nor of Christ as identified with a pre-existent hypostasis or divine being (Wisdom) beside God, but of Christ as embodying and expressing (and defining) that power of God which is the manifestation of God in and to his creation.” (Italics in original.) James D. G. Dunn, Christology in the Making, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996), 194. [7] James F. McGrath, The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in Its Jewish Context (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 46. [8] Andrew Perriman, In the Form of a God, Studies in Early Christology, ed. David Capes Michael Bird, and Scott Harrower (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2022), 200. [9] In addition, biblical unitarians routinely interpret Col 1.16 as new creation. See Anthony F. Buzzard, Jesus Was Not a Trinitarian (Morrow, GA: Restoration Fellowship, 2007), 189–90, Robert Carden, One God: The Unfinished Reformation, Revised ed. (Naperville, IL: Grace Christian Press, 2016), 197–200, Eric H. H. Chang, The Only Perfect Man, ed. Bentley C. F. Chang, 2nd ed. (Montreal, QC: Christian Disciples Church Publishers, 2017), 151–52, Jeff Deuble, Christ before Creeds (Latham, NY: Living Hope International Ministries, 2021), 163–66, John A. Lynn Mark H. Graeser, John W. Schoenheit, One God & One Lord, 4th ed. (Martinsville, IN: Spirit & Truth Fellowship International, 2010), 493–94, Donald R. Snedeker, Our Heavenly Father Has No Equals (Bethesda, MD: International Scholars Publications, 1998), 291–92, William M. Wachtel, “Colossians 1:15-20–Preexistence or Preeminence?” (paper presented at the 14th Theological Conference, McDonough, GA, 2005), 4. [10] All translations are my own. [11] Stophes are structural divisions drawn from Greek odes akin to stanzas in poetry or verses in music. [12] Throughout I will capitalize Church since that reflects the idea of all Christians collectively not just those in a particular local assembly. [13] Eduard Norden, Agnostos Theos: Untersuchungen Zur Formengeschichte Religiöser Rede, 4th ed. (Stuttgart, Germany: B. G. Teubner, 1956), 250–54. [14] James M. Robinson, “A Formal Analysis of Colossians 1:15-20,” Journal of Biblical Literature 76, no. 4 (1957): 272–73. [15] Edward Lohse, Colossians and Philemon, Hermeneia (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1971), 44. [16] Eduard Schweizer, The Letter to the Colossians, trans. Andrew Chester (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1982), 57. [17] Dunn, The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon, 84. [18] Ben  Witherington III, The Letters to Philemon, the Colossians, and the Ephesians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary of the Captivity Epistles (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007), 129. [19] William L. Lane, The New Testament Page by Page, Open Your Bible Commentary, ed. Martin Manser (Bath, UK: Creative 4 International, 2013), 765. [20] E. K. Simpson and F. F. Bruce, The Epistles to the Ephesians and the Colossians, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, ed. Ned B. Stonehouse (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1957), 65. [21] Michael F. Bird, Colossians and Philemon, A New Covenant Commentary (Cambridge, England: The Lutterworth Press, 2009), 50. [22] David Pao, Colossians and Philemon, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary of the New Testament, ed. Clinton E. Arnold (Grand Rapid, MI: Zondervan, 2012), 87. [23] Lohse, 42. [24] Lohse, 43–44. [25] Scot McKnight, The Letter to the Colossians, New International Commentary on the New Testament, ed. Joel B. Green (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2018), 144. [26] Col 1.13-14: “who rescued us from the authority of darkness and transferred (us) into the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have the redemption, the forgiveness of the sins.” Col 1.21-22: “And you being formerly alienated and hostile in thought in the evil deeds, but now he reconciled (you) in his body of the flesh through the death to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him.” [27] In fact, we can easily skip from vv. 13-14 to vv. 21-22. [28] Dunn, Christology in the Making, 187–88. [29] Sadly, most translations erroneously insert a paragraph between vv. 14 and 15. This produces the visual effect that v. 15 is a new thought unit. [30] Bruce, 193. [31] Moses 2.65: “τὴν ἡγεμονίαν τῶν περιγείων” in Philo, The Works of Philo, The Norwegian Philo Concordance Project (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2005). See also Sirach 17.3. [32] Schweizer, 64. [33] For a helpful treatment of how the image of God relates to Christology, see Anna Shoffner Brown, “Nothing ‘Mere’ About a Man in the Image of God” (paper presented at the Unitarian Christian Alliance, Springfield, OH, Oct 14, 2022). [34] Walter Bauer et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000), s.v. “πρωτότοκος,” 2.a. [35] Franz Zeilnger wrote, “Christ is temporally the first of a series that essentially proceeds from him, and at the same time its lord and head.” Franz Zeilinger, Der Erstgeborene Der Schöpfung (Wien, Österreich: Herder, 1974), 182. Original: “als “Wurzel” ist Christus zeitlich der erste einer Reihe, die wesentlich aus ihm hervorgeht, und zugleich ihr Herr und Haupt.” [36] McKnight, 85–86. [37] The closest parallels are 1 Cor 8.6; Heb 1.2; and John 1.3, which employ the preposition δια (through). Upon close examination these three don't teach Christ created the universe either. [38] ESV, CSB, NASB, etc. Notably the NET diverges from the other evangelical translations. Roman Catholic, mainline, and unitarian translations all tend to straightforwardly render “ἐν αὐτῷ” as “in him” in Col 1.16; cf. NABRE, NRSVUE, OGFOMMT, etc. [39] Chang, 150. [40] Ralph Martin, “An Early Christian Hymn (Col. 1:15-20),” The Evangelical Quarterly 36, no. 4 (1964): 198. [41] Schillebeeckx, 186. [42] Dunn, Christology in the Making, 191. [43] Karl-Joseph Kuschel, Born before All Time?, trans. John Bowden (New York, NY: Crossroad, 1992), 336. [44] Dustin R. Smith, Wisdom Christology in the Gospel of John (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2024), 5–6. For more on wisdom Christology in Col 1.16 see Dunn, The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon, 89, Roy Yates, The Epistle to the Colossians (London: Epworth Press, 1993), 18–19, 23, G. B. Caird, New Testament Theology, ed. L. D. Hurst (Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 2002), 46, McGrath, 44, 46. [45] See Dunn, The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon, 89. See also Yates, 18–19, 23. [46] Dunn, Christology in the Making, 190. [47] Perriman, 199. [48] Martha King, An Exegetical Summary of Colossians (Dallas, TX: SIL International, 1992), 53. [49] Joseph Henry Thayer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996), s.v. “ἐν,” 1722. He recognized the cause was both instrumental and final. [50] William Graham MacDonald, The Idiomatic Translation of the New Testament (Norfolk, VA: Bibleworks, 2012). [51] Chang, 147. Similarly James McGrath wrote, “[I]f all things were intended by God to find their fulfillment in Christ, then they must have been created “in him” in the very beginning in some undefined sense, since it was axiomatic that the eschatological climax of history would be a restoration of its perfect, original state.” McGrath, 46. [52] Caird, Paul’s Letters from Prison, 172. [53] “God so designed the universe that it was to achieve its proper meaning and unity only under the authority of man (Gen. 128; Ps. 86). But this purpose was not to be implemented at once; it was ‘to be put into effect when the time was ripe' (Eph. 110), when Christ had lived a human life as God intended it, and had become God's image in a measure which was never true of Adam. Only in unity with ‘the proper man' could the universe be brought to its destined coherence. For one who believes in predestination it is but a small step from this to saying that the universe was created in him.” Caird, Paul’s Letters from Prison, 178. [54] See also Paul's Adam Christology in Rom 5.12-21; 1 Cor 15.21-22, 45-49. [55] “Christus ist (durch seine Auferstehung aus dem Todesbereich) Herr über den ihm verliehenen Besitz, dessen ἀρχή und Urbild er ist, … und Haupt und Anfang der eschatologischen Neuschöpfung!” Zeilinger, 188. [56] King, 54. [57] Perriman, 200. [58] G. F. Wessels, “The Eschatology of Colossians and Ephesians,” Neotestamentica 21, no. 2 (1987): 187. [59] I realize my translation is awkward, but I prioritized closely mirroring the Greek over presenting smooth English. The original reads, “συνεζωοποίησεν ὑμᾶς σὺν αὐτῷ.” [60] Schillebeeckx, 187. [61] Scholars who make this connection include Caird, New Testament Theology, 216, Caird, Paul’s Letters from Prison, 177, McGrath, 44, Perriman, 201. [62] In fact, only two of the texts I cited above explicitly say “new creation” (2 Cor 5.17 and Gal 6.15). In all the others, Paul blithely employed creation language, expecting his readers to understand that he was not talking about the creation of the universe, but the creation of the new humanity in Christ—the Church. [63] McKnight, 152. [64] Mark H. Graeser, 493. [65] Rev 2.1, 8, 12, 18; 3.1, 7, 14. [66] See Gerry Schoberg, Perspectives of Jesus in the Writings of Paul (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2013), 280–81, 83. [67] Margaret Thrall, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, vol. 1, The International Critical Commentary, ed. C. E. B. Cranfield J. A. Emerton, G. N. Stanton (Edinburgh, Scotland: T&T Clark, 1994), 423, 26–28. [68] J. Louis Martyn, Theological Issues in the Letters of Paul (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1997), 122. [69] Martyn, 121. [70] Whether the old gods actually existed or not is a topic beyond the scope of this paper. Interested readers should consult Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2019). [71] “[D]ie in Christus gegebene echatologische Welt verwirkliche sich innerhalb der weiterhin existenten irdischen Schöpfung durch die Einbeziehung des Menschen in Christus, den Erhöhten, mittles Heilsverkündigung und Taufe. Das Eschaton setzt sic him Kerygma wetweit durch und wird Wirklichkeit, indem der Mensch durch die Taufe Christi Teil wird, d. h. in Einheit mit ihm dem Anspruch der στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου stirbt (2, 20) und mit ihm auferweckt sein eschatologisches Leben erhält. Die so dem erhöhten Christus eingegliederten Menschen bilden somit in ihm und mit ihm die neue Schöpfung der Eschata innerhalb der alten! Der Christusleib ist somit als sich weitende Kirche erkennbar. In ihr bildet himmlischer und irdischer Raum gewissermaßen eine Einheit.” Zeilinger, 179. [72] “Der neue Adam … Ausgangsort, in dem sich Neuschöpfung ereignete,” Zeilinger, 199. [73] Randy A. Leedy, The Greek New Testament Sentence Diagrams (Norfolk, VA: Bible Works, 2006). This is now available in Logos Bible Software.

It was a wild weekend. Donald Trump presided over a military parade on his birthday while an estimated 5 million Americans protested around the country. Phil, Skye, and Kaitlyn discuss the optics of both events and ask, with America's divided politics and media silos, is protesting still effective? They also unpack a new article by Abby McCloskey in CT that argues evangelicalism's focus on a private, personalized faith undermines learning, curiosity, and exercising the mind. Then, theologian and Holy Post Pundit, Michael Bird, is back. He offers an outsider's perspective on Trump's military parade, the “No Kings” protests, and why he thinks more Christians should be concerned about the suspension of habeas corpus. Also this week: More '50s slang and an update on Ed the zebra. Holy Post Plus: Getting Schooled - Ethics of Exile 101: https://www.patreon.com/posts/130879694/   Ad-Free Version of this Episode: https://www.patreon.com/posts/131691890/   0:00 - Show Starts   3:25 - Theme Song   3:50 - Sponsor - Timeless designs, great fabrics. Perfect swimwear for your kids this summer! Check out Minnow at https://www.shopminnow.com enter SHOPMINNOW15 for 15% off your first order.   4:57 - Sponsor - AG1 - Heavily researched, thoroughly purity-tested, and filled with stuff you need. Go to https://www.drinkag1.com/HOLYPOST   6:18 - 50's Slang   9:44 - Ed the Zebra's Return!   14:35 - Military Parade   23:48 - What Does Protest Do?   32:05 - The Christian Mind Out of Practice   47:30 - Teaching Essentials of the Faith   50:21 -  Sponsor - Rocket Money - Find and cancel your old subscriptions with Rocket Money at https://www.rocketmoney.com/HOLYPOST   51:28- Sponsor - World Relief - Join The Path as a monthly partner with World Relief! https://www.worldrelief.org/stand   52:24 - Interview   59:30 - Polarization of the Military   1:10:05 - Right to Protest   1:19:45 - End Credits   Links from News Segment: A Christian Mind Out of Practice by Abby McCloskey: https://www.christianitytoday.com/2025/06/christian-mind-out-of-practice-mark-noll-discipleship/ Other Resources: Read the Introduction to Skye's new book and sign up to Holy Post Plus to follow along as the book is written: holypost.com/book   Holy Post website: https://www.holypost.com/   Holy Post Plus: www.holypost.com/plus   Holy Post Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/holypost   Holy Post Merch Store: https://www.holypost.com/shop   The Holy Post is supported by our listeners. We may earn affiliate commissions through links listed here. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.  

Can you measure time without something moving? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Chuck Nice tackle your cosmic questions, from the Silurian Hypothesis to singularities to the edge of the known universe. NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://startalkmedia.com/show/cosmic-queries-renaming-time/Thanks to our Patrons Mary Virdeh, Michael Bird, Andrew Knowlton, Larimore, Kat S, Todd Ferguson, Michael Lynch, Jimmy Fitzgerald, Lee Coble, Laura Rocha, Alexis Blanchette, John, John Millen, Rick FlyFish, Sam Cranch, CodeBard, Harper, Sean McCaul, Cameron Jeanes, Caryl-Robin D, Vinay Kashyap, Jessica Munson, Robert Bigford, octavius sligh, Pattie B, Aziz Oujana Gilbert, Timothy Custard, Ann White, Lee Booze, Fran G, Aurel, Nathan Pond, Lisa N, Mark Gruber, Noe G, Don Morgan, Cherry Jubilee Joyfully, Nick Costella, Erin Thompson, Micheal Muschal, Dan Mack, Andrew Brockert, Brian Schelp, Del, Quincy Jenkins, Amanda Byrd, Dorian Vaughn, Dan Maske, Rattana, Song Zheng, adiMan, and Joseph Wilkerson for supporting us this week. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of StarTalk Radio ad-free and a whole week early.Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.