About Johnny Ova and The Dig In Podcast
Here is what The Dig In Podcast is about, who hosts it, and how every conversation works. Johnny Ova brings the scholars who study Scripture in its original world to one table, believers and skeptics alike, because context changes everything.
From the ring
to the text.
Johnny Ova spent 20 years in professional wrestling. He has trained Brazilian jiu-jitsu for six years and coaches it, and he pastors Sound of Heaven Church on Long Island, New York. He is married to Rachel, and they have five kids.
He started The Dig In to get past surface-level Bible teaching. A sermon can tell you what a verse means to us. It rarely has time to tell you what the verse meant to the people who first heard it, what the Hebrew or Greek actually says, or what excavations in Israel have turned up. Those answers belong to people who have spent whole careers in the text, the manuscripts and the dirt, so Johnny goes and asks them.
The show puts believers and skeptics at the same table. Some guests share Johnny's faith and some do not. Dr. Amy-Jill Levine, for one, belongs to an Orthodox synagogue, does not believe Jesus is the Messiah, and became the first Jewish scholar to teach New Testament at the Vatican's Pontifical Biblical Institute. Her episode on the Jewish world of Jesus is a good place to start.
Every guest gets the floor to make their case in their own words. Johnny listens, asks the follow-up, and leaves you better equipped to read the Bible for yourself.
- HostsThe Dig In Podcast
- PastorsSound of Heaven Church
- WroteThe Revelation Reset
- CoachesBrazilian jiu-jitsu
- Pro wrestling20 years in the ring
- HomeLong Island, New York
- FamilyMarried to Rachel, five kids
One guest.
One long hour.
A Dig In episode is a single long-form interview with one scholar, archaeologist, theologian, historian or skeptic. It runs about an hour, recorded on Riverside, and releases every Monday at 6:15 AM ET on YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Spotify at the same time.
- 60minAbout an hour per episode, so nobody has to rush the hard part
- 6:15AM ETNew episodes every Monday on YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Spotify
- 56Episodes in the archive, each with a different guest
- 12Topics, from the Dead Sea Scrolls to the character of God
Every episode has its own page with show notes, filed by topic and by guest.
Context first.
Then the follow-up.
Most conversations move through the same five steps, from the world behind the text to the live breakdown that afternoon. Open any step to see how it plays out on the show.
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01Start with the world behind the textLanguage, century, empire, covenant.
Each conversation starts where the text started: who wrote it, in which language, under which empire, and inside which covenant. Babylon, Egypt, Assyria, Rome and the Temple are the setting the words were written in, and most guests have spent their careers studying it.
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02Read it with the first audienceWhat it meant to them, before what it means to us.
Paul wrote to real congregations with real problems. Revelation opens with letters to seven real churches in Asia. Johnny asks guests what a passage meant to the people who first heard it, because that is where its meaning starts, and genre, symbolism and Jewish apocalyptic language all come into play.
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03Let the guest make the caseThe full argument, in the guest's own terms.
Johnny asks and the guest explains. Scholars lay out their research the way they would to a room of colleagues, then put it in plain language. Where Johnny reads a passage differently, he asks how the guest reads it and lets them make the case.
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04Ask the follow-upThe question you were waiting for someone to ask.
Episodes run about an hour on purpose. Long-form leaves room for the second and third question: the one that tests the claim, asks where the evidence comes from, or brings it home to how people live now. That follow-up is the reason the show exists.
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05Talk it through liveDig In Live, the same Monday at 4:30 PM ET.
The afternoon the episode drops, Johnny and sound engineer Steve Ciatto go live for 30 to 45 minutes to review it: what landed, where Johnny agrees, where he would go further, and where he reads it differently. Johnny reads questions and prayer requests from the chat on air.
How Dig In Live works
We're listening in on somebody else's telephone conversation. We're reading somebody else's email.
The book.
The church.
The Revelation Reset
Johnny is the author of The Revelation Reset, his book on the Book of Revelation.
Get the book on AmazonSound of Heaven Church
When he is not behind the Dig In microphone, Johnny pastors Sound of Heaven Church on Long Island, New York.
Visit soh.churchThree ways
to join in.
Watch along live on Monday afternoon, come on the show with research of your own, or send a note to the team.
Be a guest
Have research on the Bible, its world or its manuscripts that people should hear? Pitch a long-form conversation with Johnny.
Pitch an episode Questions and feedbackGet in touch
A question for a future guest, a correction, or a note about an episode that stuck with you. Send it to the show.
Contact the showSit in on
the next one.
Subscribe on YouTube and the next Dig In conversation shows up Monday at 6:15 AM Eastern. Every subscriber helps the show reach someone asking the same questions you are.
Prefer audio? Find the show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.