Episodes
Tuesday Oct 17, 2023
Teaching the Old Testament with Dr. Jim Tonkowich
Tuesday Oct 17, 2023
Tuesday Oct 17, 2023
The theology curricular track at Wyoming Catholic College begins with "Salvation History in the Old Testament." The course is, for the most part, reading the narrative portions of the Old Testament from Genesis to Maccabees.
Dr. Jim Tonkowich has been teaching this freshman course this semester and shares some of the course's content and his own experience encountering the Old Testament with our students.
Tuesday Oct 25, 2022
The Exodus and the American Imagination with Dr. Virginia Arbery
Tuesday Oct 25, 2022
Tuesday Oct 25, 2022
Last week on the After-Dinner Scholar, theologian Dr. Kent Lasnoski talked with us about the story of Israel in the Old Testament book of Exodus. This week we’ll continue the conversation about Exodus only we’ll jump ahead of Moses by three thousand years.
Within the Bible, the story of the Exodus, chronicling how God delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt lent a strong sense of identity to the American colonists, the founders, and African-Americans, and others.
Dr. Virginia Arbery has an abiding interest in story of the Exodus and our American imagination.
Tuesday Oct 18, 2022
The Book of Exodus with Dr. Kent Lasnoski
Tuesday Oct 18, 2022
Tuesday Oct 18, 2022
While our English versions of the Old Testament call the book “Exodus,” which means “leaving,” the Hebrew name is the first word of the text, shemoth, “names.” “These are the names,” and those names are the sons of Jacob who God renamed Israel. They and their families—a total of seventy people—escaped famine in the land of Canaan, finding a home with the long-lost son of Jacob, Joseph who, sold into slavery, became Pharaoh’s second-in-command.
Initially they lived well and over the decades those seventy became thousands. Then we read, “there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph” and he and his people were afraid of these hoards of foreigners. So the king, Pharoah enslaved them. Dr. Kent Lasnoski has been reading Exodus with our Wyoming Catholic College freshmen and had this to say about the book.
Tuesday Jul 12, 2022
Introduction to Ecclesiastes by Dr. Jim Tonkowich
Tuesday Jul 12, 2022
Tuesday Jul 12, 2022
I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has given to the sons of men to be busy with. I have seen everything that is done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.
Those words are from the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes. Are they the thoughts of a bitter cynic? Of a cranky, world-weary old man? Or encouraging words of wisdom?
When Dr. Jim Tonkowich introduced the book at the 2022 Wyoming School of Catholic Thought, he argued for the latter: Ecclesiastes contains encouraging words of wisdom, words our culture, so self-focused and materialistic, so forgetful of death, desperately needs to hear.
Tuesday Jun 28, 2022
Numbering Our Days: Lecture by Dr. Jim Tonkowich
Tuesday Jun 28, 2022
Tuesday Jun 28, 2022
“Teach us to number out days,” sang the psalmist, “that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
This past June 12-17, the 2022 Wyoming School of Catholic Thought convened here in Lander. Adult learners came from California, Texas, Louisiana, New York, Pennsylvania, Wyoming, and elsewhere to study great texts on the theme “Mortality and Eternity.”
Our Wyoming Catholic College faculty led the sessions comprised of a short lecture introducing the reading followed by seminars.
This summer, The After-Dinner Scholar will bring you those lectures. And while they are helpful on their own, they will also serve as an introduction to your own study of the texts in the curriculum.
We began Sunday, June 12 with an after-dinner lecture to introduce the week. That night Dr. Jim Tonkowich spoke about Psalm 90.
Tuesday May 04, 2021
Why the WORD Became Words with Dr. Jeremy Holmes
Tuesday May 04, 2021
Tuesday May 04, 2021
Quoting St. Jerome, the great fifth century Bible scholar, the Catechism of the Catholic Church (133) tells us:
The Church “forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful. . . to learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ, by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.”
Theologians throughout the life of the Church pointed out not just a connection, but a identification between Jesus Who is the Word of God made flesh and the Scriptures, the Word of God written and handed down to us.
But how does that work? What does it mean?
Theologian Dr. Jeremy Holmes hopes that his new book will answer that question. The title is Cur Deus Verba: Why the WORD Became Words.
To sign up for the free distance learning course "Reading Your Bible for All It's Worth," visit the Wyoming Catholic College website.
Tuesday Apr 06, 2021
He Is Risen! with Dr. Kent Lasnoski
Tuesday Apr 06, 2021
Tuesday Apr 06, 2021
“The Resurrection of Jesus,” says the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “is the crowning truth of our faith in Christ, a faith believed and lived as the central truth by the first Christian community; handed on as fundamental by Tradition; established by the documents of the New Testament; and preached as an essential part of the Paschal mystery along with the cross.”
The resurrection is not reincarnation. It’s not reanimation. Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, second Person of the Blessed Trinity really and truly died on the cross, was buried in a borrowed tomb, and rose again from the dead.
During Holy Week, our podcast featured Dr. Jeremy Holmes discussing the Gospel of John chapter 19—the cross. During this Easter Octave, Dr. Kent Lasnoski joins us to discuss John chapter 20 and the resurrection.
Tuesday Mar 30, 2021
Pilate, the People, and the Death of Jesus with Dr. Jeremy Holmes
Tuesday Mar 30, 2021
Tuesday Mar 30, 2021
Faithful cross, above all other,
One and only noble tree:
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit thy peers may be:
Sweetest wood and sweetest iron,
Sweetest weight is hung on thee.
While each time we see a cross or a crucifix and every time we attend Mass we have the opportunity to ponder Christ’s great sacrifice, during Holy Week it becomes almost the exclusive focus of our attention.
Writing about Good Friday in his book Death on a Friday Afternoon, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus wrote, “This is the axis mundi, the center upon which the cosmos turns. In the derelict who cries from the cross is, or so Christians say, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. The life of all on this day died. Stay a while with that dying.”
The Gospel of John, chapter 19 tells the story of that dying. In this podcast Dr. Jeremy Holmes discusses John 19 and the death of Jesus.
Tuesday Dec 01, 2020
Fear and Kingship: The Life of Saul with Dr. Jeremy Holmes
Tuesday Dec 01, 2020
Tuesday Dec 01, 2020
Summing up the reign of Israel’s first king, 1Chronicles 10 tells us, “So Saul died for his unfaithfulness; he was unfaithful to the Lord in that he did not keep the command of the Lord, and also consulted a medium, seeking guidance, and did not seek guidance from the Lord. Therefore the Lord slew him, and turned the kingdom over to David the son of Jesse.”
Saul did not, however, begin his reign unfaithful to the Lord. In fact, given his druthers, he probably would not have begun his reign at all. Saul started out as the reluctant king, but that didn’t last.
During the fall, Dr. Jeremy Holmes leads Wyoming Catholic College freshmen through the history of God’s People in the Old Testament. He always pauses to discuss the short, troubling reign of King Saul.
Tuesday Nov 19, 2019
Lovers in Latin: Reading Canticum Canticorum with Dr. Michael Bolin
Tuesday Nov 19, 2019
Tuesday Nov 19, 2019
“Adiuro vos, filiae Ierusalem, per capreas cervasque camporum,
ne suscitetis neque evigilare faciatis dilectam, quoadusque ipsa velit.”
The quote is from the Latin text of the Song of Songs in the Old Testament. “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the hinds of the field, that you stir not up nor awaken love until it please.” (Song 2:7)
That biblical book in Latin is the subject of one of four Latin reading groups here at Wyoming Catholic. Juniors and seniors hone the Latin skills they learned as freshmen and sophomores. The best way to retain and grow language skills is, of course, to use them.
The group working way through Canticum Canticorum ably led by Dr. Michael Bolin, our guest for this After Dinner Scholar.