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Agnostic Bible Study w/ Joe Teel
Studying the Bible, religions, and belief systems honestly.
This show features verse-by-verse breakdowns, historical context, and thoughtful conversations about the texts that have shaped the world. No preaching. No attacks. Just thoughtful exploration of ancient texts and modern beliefs.
Episodes
28 episodes
The Case Against New Testament Simplicity (Part 2)
The New Testament can feel like a smooth, finished story until you start asking what happened behind the scenes. I use a movie analogy to make the point: you can love the film and still admit it took edits, choices, and a messy process to get t...
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Did the Idea of Hell Develop Over Time? | Conversations with Christians
Two trillion years is still not eternity, so what does it mean to say someone suffers forever? That’s the question that kicks off a free-flowing “Conversations with Christians” chat between me, Joe Teal, and my buddy Drexur John from the Philip...
My Case Against The Simplicity Of The New Testament - ABS EP 23
A single sentence can hide a thousand assumptions, and “the Bible clearly says” might be the clearest example. When I zoom out from modern certainty and look at early Christianity, the New Testament starts to feel less like a simple answer key ...
How Historians Actually Read the New Testament - ABS EP 22
You can read the New Testament for devotion, or you can read it like an ancient historian and those are not the same project. I grew up being told the Bible is not only a holy book, but a history book, and I didn’t even know there was another w...
The Trinity Is More Complicated Than Most Christians Realize
Imagine getting dropped into the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD and being asked to explain the Trinity on the spot. Could you define Father, Son, and Holy Spirit the way Nicene Christianity eventually does without accidentally sliding into modalis...
Early Christian History Shocked Me (What Nobody Told Me Growing Up)
The centuries after Acts can feel like walking into a room you never knew existed and realizing everyone has been arguing in there for a long time. We trace that overlooked stretch of early Christian history from the New Testament’s first circu...
Resurrection Differences? Reading the 4 Gospel Accounts Side by Side - ABS 19
One of the quickest ways to cut through resurrection arguments is also the simplest: stop paraphrasing and read the texts. Joe Teal sits down with Brandon Cowan and we go line by line through the resurrection accounts in Mark 16, Matthew 28, Lu...
Are the Gospels Eyewitness Accounts? It’s More Complicated Than That - ABS BONUS
“Eyewitness” is one of those words that can end an argument before it even starts. So I slow the whole thing down and ask a basic question: what do we actually mean when we say the Gospels are eyewitness accounts? Once we separate eyewitness ac...
Who Wrote the Gospels? Christian vs Agnostic Debate | Agnostic Bible Study
Most people can name the four gospels in order. Far fewer can explain why we think those books were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in the first place. We pick up part three of my conversation with Pastor Cole and put gospel authorship...
ABS Bonus - Does Context Matter When Reading The Bible
People quote Bible verses like they’re self-contained slogans, then wonder why Christians end up arguing while using the same text. We dig into the single most practical tool for better Bible study and biblical interpretation: context. Not the ...
Birth Narrative Debate - Agnostic vs Christian - ABS EP 17
The Christmas story gets preached like a single clean timeline, but the sources refuse to stay that simple. We pick up Part 2 of my conversation with Dr. Cole Yeldell and put the birth narrative under pressure: do Matthew and Luke contradict ea...
Jesus’ First Exorcism? Mark 1:21-28 | Mark vs Luke Breakdown | ABS EP 16
A synagogue service gets hijacked by a scream and the story refuses to slow down. We start in Mark 1:21-28 where Jesus teaches on the Sabbath in Capernaum, the crowd senses real authority, and an “unclean spirit” confronts him in public. Whethe...
ABS Bonus: Does The Bible Speak With One Voice Or Many?
Most Bible fights don’t start with a verse, they start with an assumption you rarely hear named: does the Bible speak with one unified voice, or does it preserve multiple voices that sometimes agree and sometimes pull in different directions? I...
Is Questioning the Bible an Attack on Christianity? - ABS EP 15
The fastest way to kill a real conversation about Christianity is to label every hard question as an “attack.” That word can mean a lot of things, and when we refuse to define it, disagreement gets treated like harm and curiosity gets punished ...
Jesus Calls the First Disciples: 4 Gospels, 3 Versions? | Mark 1:16-20 | ABS EP 14
The calling of Jesus’ first disciples is one of those Bible scenes that feels familiar until you actually read it slowly. A stranger walks up to working fishermen and says two words, “Follow me,” and Mark tells us they leave immediately. No bac...
Does Science Really Prove God? (Agnostic vs Christian) - ABS EP 13
Gerod Ware joins me for a respectful, high stakes talk about whether science, order, and human reasoning point to a creator or can be explained without God. We push on intelligent design, evolution, and Genesis while challenging the impulse to ...
Kingdom of God or Heaven? (Mark 1:14–15 Breakdown) - ABS EP 12
We slow down on Mark 1:14–15 to watch Jesus step into public ministry and to see how one short summary creates big questions about timing, wording, and meaning across the Gospels. We compare Mark with Matthew, Luke, and John and use translation...
What Does “All Scripture” Mean? (2 Timothy 3:16 Explained) - ABS EP 11
“All Scripture is inspired by God” gets quoted like it settles everything. But once you ask a simple question, the ground shifts: when 2 Timothy 3:16 was written, what counted as “Scripture” for Timothy in the first century?I walk back ...
Jesus vs Satan: A Deep Dive Across the Gospels (Mark 1:12–13) Agnostic Bible Study EP 10
Mark gives us two verses about Jesus in the wilderness and somehow they’re loaded: the Spirit drives him out, forty days pass, Satan tests him, wild beasts lurk nearby, and angels attend him. Then Mark moves on like nothing happened. That speed...
Christian vs Agnostic: Is the Bible Really Perfect? | ABS EP 9
If you’ve ever heard someone say “the Bible is inerrant” and wondered what they’re actually claiming, we’re going straight to the definition before we argue about the implications. I’m Joe Teel, and I sit down with Pastor Cole Yeldell, who hold...
The Problem With Jesus’ Baptism (Mark 1:9–11) ABS EP #8
In this episode of the Agnostic Bible Study, we take a closer look at Mark 1:9–11 and one of the most interesting moments in the New Testament… the baptism of Jesus.At first glance, the story seems simple. But the more you slow down and...
Why Do Matthew, Mark, and Luke Sound So Similar? | Synoptic Problem Explained | ABS EP 7
Three gospels tell the same story, but they don’t tell it the same way and once you see the differences, you can’t unsee them. We put Mark, Matthew, and Luke side by side through the John the Baptist scene and watch the Synoptic Problem come al...
John The Baptizer | An Appearance in the Wilderness | Agnostic Bible Study Ep 6
Mark doesn’t ease us in with a birth story or a glowing origin scene. He drops John straight into the wilderness and makes him the opening voice of the Gospel, which immediately raises a better question than “What happens next?” Why does renewa...
Did Mark Write First? | The Synoptic Problem Explained | Agnostic Bible Study Ep 5
In this episode of the Agnostic Bible Study, we explore one of the biggest questions in New Testament scholarship: Did Mark write first?What is the Synoptic Problem, and why do so many scholars believe the Gospel of Mark may have been t...
How the Gospel of Mark Begins | Mark 1:1-3 Explained | Agnostic Bible Study Ep 4
In this episode of the Agnostic Bible Study, we slow down and examine the opening lines of the Gospel of Mark. Mark 1:1–3 may only be a few verses long, but they raise major historical and literary questions.What did the word “gospel” m...