At the Table Podcast: From Hollywood to Biblical Novels to Philosophical Serial Killers

 

This was an interesting interview.

I talked to the guys on At the Table Podcast about my origins in Hollywood and how that lead to becoming a best-selling author of Bible novels!

Then we talked about my newest novel, a theological thriller called Cruel Logic: The Philosopher Killer.

Sit back and enjoy this fun discussion. I did.

Listen on Spotify here

Listen on Apple Podcasts here

 

Giant Steps Podcast: All About Nephilim, Bible Novels and Hollywood

Here is what my interviewer, Doug Van Dorn wrote about this interview:

Acclaimed Author/Novelist/Script Writer Brian Godawa takes us into the heart and soul of his work.

With a vast and wildly popular catalog of writings that span everything from fiction book series to Hollywood films, Brian shares with us, everything from where he draws inspiration to how he manages his writing process.

A must-listen for fans of his work and for those who wish to discover new and quality, reality-based fictional literature!

 

WATCH OR LISTEN HERE

Chronicles of the Nephilim Full-Color Character Picture Book Now Available

These full-color pictures of my cast of characters in every Chronicles novel will blow your imagination! From Noah Primeval to Jesus Triumphant. All 8 novels!

I have hired the great AI artist, Cam Harless, to do the images with my direction. He is famous for his AI image posters of US Presidents reimagined as babies, as comic book villians, and with mullet hair cuts! (https://wearethemadones.com, Twitter: @hamcarless).

And now I finally have released an 80 page full-color book of all those characters, both major and minor, including alot of the supernatural creatures in the novels. Wait till you see the many iterations of Leviathan! My Nephilim are the scariest realistic looking images of giants. And my heroes, Noah, Enoch, David, Joshua, Jesus are memorable.

It’s a GREAT handy visual reference as you read the novels. They’ll boost your imagination as you read the novels.

And this collector’s item is available in hardcover, paperback and ebook exclusively on Amazon.

You will LOVE this addition of visual imagination to the Chronicles universe.

You will believe.

And, YES, I am working on a Character Picture Book for the Chronicles of the Watchers and Chronicles of the Apocalypse. I’ll let you know when that is available.

In the meantime…

Check out the New Picture Book here (in paperback, hardcover or Kindle)

Amazing New Character Art for Chronicles of the Nephilim – Now Showing

Okay, so a reader of my novel series, Cam Harless, is also a viral AI artist. He contacted me about doing AI art for the characters in my series.

The images were so amazing, I decided to hire him to redo ALL the character images for ALL my novels.

The results are phenomenal.

They will make you want to read to series, or if you already have, then to read the series again!

They’re just that good.

Check out the character art for my first few novels here:

Noah Primeval

Enoch Primordial

Gilgamesh Immortal

Abraham Allegiant

Moses: Against the Gods of Egypt

And there is more to come, as we continue to post new art weekly!

Hollywood Worldviews Today. But First, the Christian Worldview in Novels

This was an interesting interview with Celeste Solum, who explores wild stuff.

I talked about the supernatural worldview in the Bible and it’s application to my novel series.

And then a bit about Hollywood and worldviews.

Watch it here on Rumble

What are the Nephilim in the Bible? Mere Oddities or Crucial Theology?

This is a great interview I had with Ricky Pope for Christian Nerds Unite.

It is a good strong explanation and introduction into what is the whole point of Nephilim in the Bible.

But also: Hollywood Worldviews, Movies about Bible stories, as well as Biblical values in movies.

Check it out here:

Audio
https://cnu.captivate.fm/episode/what-are-the-nephilim-any-way

Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfSerxP1-AI

 

Psalm 82: Part Five – The Watchers and the End of the Age

These posts are all excerpted from my newest booklet, Psalm 82: The Divine Council of the Gods, the Judgment of the Watchers and the Inheritance of the Nations. You can buy the booklet here.

In my previous posts (1,  2,  3,  4), I analyzed Psalm 82 to uncover the narrative of Christ’s victory over the powers. In it, we saw a reiteration of the Deuteronomy 32 worldview that depicted fallen Sons of God from Yahweh’s heavenly host being allotted the Gentile nations as an inheritance, while Yahweh kept Israel for his own inheritance. These Watchers over the nations were unjust in their governance, so Yahweh declared he would judge them with death through the resurrection of Messiah, which would take back the allotment from the Watchers and give it to Messiah to inherit the nations.

But if Jesus triumphed over the spiritual powers at the cross and then led them captive in a military style triumphal procession, then how is it that the New Testament speaks of an ongoing struggle with those heavenly principalities and powers for the Christian? Are these territorial powers still an issue for us today?

My short answer is that the principalities and powers over the nations are not an issue for us today, but they were in Paul’s day because when he wrote his New Testament letters, the victory of Christ had been legally inaugurated at the cross, resurrection and ascension, but was not historically consummated until the destruction of the earthly incarnation of the old covenant, the holy temple in Jerusalem in AD 70. That event was the historical completion of the spiritual truth begun a generation earlier.

Paul was writing in a transition period between covenants. The new had been spiritually inaugurated but not historically consummated until the old had been done away with in the earthly realm. The old covenant was fading out but had not yet vanished with the destruction of the historical temple. The book of Hebrews predicts this destruction as a “vanishing.”

Hebrews 8:13–9:9
In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. …By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the [heavenly] holy places is not yet opened as long as the first section [earthly holy place] is still standing (which is symbolic for the present age).

That last parenthesis about the physical holy place being “symbolic of the present age” is in the text of Hebrews. I did not add it. the physical temple is a symbol of the old covenant age that was about to vanish away with the destruction of the temple.

Thus, the spiritual powers had lost their legal right to the Gentile nations at the complex of events that climaxed with the ascension of Jesus Christ. But their actual judgment of death in the fires of Gehenna did not occur until the consummation of the old covenant “present age” of the first century.

Many Christians assume that the “end of the age” or the “last days” is the end of the earth. Thus when Jesus speaks of casting sinners into the furnace of fire at the end of the age, they assume this has not yet happened. After all, does not Isaiah place the inheritance of the Gentiles in a future “last days”?

Isaiah 2:2
2 It shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it…

But I will show that the judgment of the Watchers in Psalm 82 occurs with the inheritance of the Gentiles which is actually begun in the book of Acts and solidified by AD 70 in the destruction of the temple. The “last days” occurred in the first century and they were the last days of the old covenant, not the last days of the entire earth.

Don’t read on unless you want your spiritual world rocked by this amazing biblical truth… Continue reading

Psalm 82: Part Four – The Messianic Inheritance of the Nations

These posts are all excerpted from my newest booklet, Psalm 82: The Divine Council of the Gods, the Judgment of the Watchers and the Inheritance of the Nations. You can buy the booklet here.

In my previous posts (1,  2,  3), I unpacked Psalm 82 to show that it talks about God having a heavenly host of divine beings (“gods”) around his throne that counsel with him and carry out his judgments or decisions. They are called “holy ones” (Deut 33:2-3; Jude 14), heavenly host (1King 22:19) the divine council (Psa 82:1), and the Sons of God (Job 5:1; 15:15).

Then I showed how God had separated the Gentile nations at Babel, placing them under the authority of fallen Sons of God, now also called Watchers (Dan 4:13, 17), who were supposed to rule with justice, but instead ruled unjustly and in darkness. This resulted in their punishment of death like humans, and most likely destruction in the lake of fire.

It is now the question of when this judgment of the Watchers occurs that I want to address. Many would assume it occurs at the end of the world in our future. But I think the text of Psalm 82 implies that it has already happened in our past.

Here is the full text of the Psalm:

Psalm 82:1–8
1 God has taken his place in the divine council;
in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:

2 “How long will you judge unjustly
and show partiality to the wicked? Selah

3 Give justice to the weak and the fatherless;
maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.

4 Rescue the weak and the needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”

5 They have neither knowledge nor understanding,
they walk about in darkness;
all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

6 I said, “You are gods,
sons of the Most High, all of you;

7 nevertheless, like men you shall die,
and fall like any prince.”

8 Arise, O God, judge the earth;
for you shall inherit all the nations!

The Foundations of the Earth are Shaken

There are three reasons in the Psalm that make me conclude that the capital punishment of the fallen Watchers occurred in the first century in conjunction with the coming of Messiah. 1) Verse 6 refers to “the foundations of the earth” being shaken. This is a reference to the consummation of the new covenant that came in Christ to overturn the Deuteronomic inheritance. 2) Verse 8 sets the context of the judgment at the resurrection of Messiah which resulted in 3) Messiah’s subsequent inheritance of the nations in the first century.

Let me explain each one… Continue reading

Psalm 82: Part Three – The Judgment of the Watchers

These posts are all excerpted from my newest booklet, Psalm 82: The Divine Council of the Gods, the Judgment of the Watchers and the Inheritance of the Nations. You can buy the booklet here.

In my past two posts (1 and 2), I examined Psalm 82 to discover that it talks about God having a heavenly host of divine beings around his throne that counsel with him and carry out his judgments or decisions. They are called “holy ones” (Deut 33:2-3; Jude 14), heavenly host (1King 22:19) the divine council (Psa 82:1), and the Sons of God (Job 5:1; 15:15).

Then I showed how God had separated the seventy Gentile nations at Babel, placing them under the authority of fallen Sons of God, now also called Watchers (Dan 4:13, 17), who were supposed to rule with justice, but instead ruled unjustly and in darkness. This resulted in their punishment.

It is that punishment that I would like to now try to understand from the text.

Like Men You Shall Die

I believe the Watcher’s punishment is loss of both their immortality and their inheritance of nations at Babel. And I will argue that this was accomplished in the first century complex of events of Messiah’s death, resurrection, ascension and arrival of God’s kingdom. Let’s take another look at Psalm 82 to get a good reminder of the narrative.

Psalm 82:1–8
1 God has taken his place in the divine council;
in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:

2 “How long will you judge unjustly
and show partiality to the wicked? Selah

3 Give justice to the weak and the fatherless;
maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.

4 Rescue the weak and the needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”

5 They have neither knowledge nor understanding,
they walk about in darkness;
all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

6 I said, “You are gods,
sons of the Most High, all of you;

7 nevertheless, like men you shall die,
and fall like any prince.”

8 Arise, O God, judge the earth;
for you shall inherit all the nations!

The first aspect of God’s judgment upon the gods of the nations is in verses 6 and 7. Apparently, their punishment is the loss of immortality, resulting in death like mortal humans. Though they were gods with divine immortality, they will now die like men.

The question is, what is this death? Is it literal or metaphorical? If it is literal, then the text indicates that the immortal Watchers would lose their immortality and die just like earthly princes. It seems to be a humiliation of the heavenly princes who would otherwise survive their earthly princes’ demise. But in this case, the gods are being stripped of their immortality and thus, their divinity. Death does not become divine beings. So death would be a most serious punishment for such a creature.

But what does this death consist of? Do they die and go to Hades? Do they simply cease to exist? It is at this point that the silence of the biblical text tempts us to speculate. But there is a place to find legitimate information that is better than mere speculation. Keep reading to see what that is… Continue reading

Psalm 82: Part Two – The Allotment of the Nations to the Watchers

These posts are all excerpted from my newest booklet, Psalm 82: The Divine Council of the Gods, the Judgment of the Watchers and the Inheritance of the Nations. You can buy the booklet here.

In part one, I defined the biblical motif of Christus Victor as Christ’s victory over the spiritual powers who ruled sinful mankind. I defined the divine council biblically as an assembly of gods, called “Sons of God,” “holy ones,” and “heavenly host” who surround Yahweh, engage in legal counsel with him and carry out his decisions.

But the next question is, how did man come under the rule and authority of these gods, these divine beings from Yahweh’s heavenly host?

I am using Psalm 82 as a portal into this fascinating storyline of the Bible. So let’s take a look again at what it says.

Psalm 82:1–8
1 God has taken his place in the divine council;
in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:

2 “How long will you judge unjustly
and show partiality to the wicked? Selah

3 Give justice to the weak and the fatherless;
maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.

4 Rescue the weak and the needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”

So we see that for some reason, God has given some of these members from his divine council a responsibility to rule over mankind on earth. Where did this come from? Why would God do such a thing? Isn’t God alone the judge of all the earth? And why is he blaming failure to rule on divine beings? Does that make them fallen angels?

To answer those questions, we need to go back to the beginning. Not Genesis 1, but rather, the beginning of the allotment of the nations to the gods. Back to the Tower of Babel. But rather than going straight to Genesis 11, that tells the story of Babel, we need to read what Moses reveals about Babel in Deuteronomy 32… Continue reading