30:25 – In this, the penultimate Levitical episode, Dave in Kentucky discusses the rules that applied only to the priests. Why were hunchback priests, midget priests, and priests with flat noses barred from serving in the Holy of Holies? What flaws in food or service would prompt a Yahwelian diner to send back a meal, complain to the chef, and call the manager to the table? Also: feast days and how to properly observe them.
Show art: “Priests of the Tabernacle” from Bible Pictures and What They Teach Us (1897) by Charles Foster, Public Domain.
Theme music: “O Thou Who Camest from Above” (words 1762, music 1872) by Charles Wesley (1707-1788) and Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810-1876), Public Domain, performed by Dave in Kentucky (2023), Public Domain Dedication.
29:36 – What do child sacrifice, man-on-man sex and bestiality have in common, and why are they not to be recommended? Dave in Kentucky provides the Yahwelian perspective and motivation. Also: why Canaan was not for the Canaanites, how to avoid food poisoning without understanding it, practical jokes to play on the deaf and the blind, and the punishments for various infractions. Spoiler alert: the death penalty is a very popular punishment.
Show art: Artist’s view of a sacrifice to Moloch, from Bible Pictures and What They Teach Us (1897) by Charles Foster, Public Domain.
Theme music: “O Thou Who Camest from Above” (words 1762, music 1872) by Charles Wesley (1707-1788) and Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810-1876), Public Domain, performed by Dave in Kentucky (2023), Public Domain Dedication.
29:29 – The scapegoat was both a literal goat that was abandoned to perish in the wilderness, and the disobedient Watcher to whom the goat was thus sacrificed. Leviticus hearkens back to the Book of Enoch, in which we are told to ascribe all sin to Azazel, who taught men to wage war with swords and shields, and women to wage war with jewelry and cosmetics. Also: more on the dangers of consuming blood and fat, and strict new prohibitions against incest.
Show art: The Scapegoat (1854) by William Holman Hunt (1827-1910), Public Domain.
Theme music: “O Thou Who Camest from Above” (words 1762, music 1872) by Charles Wesley (1707-1788) and Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810-1876), Public Domain, performed by Dave in Kentucky (2023), Public Domain Dedication.
30:29 – After offering a few public health tips about dealing with the clothes and houses of recovered lepers, Dave in Kentucky gets down to the nitty-gritty of the various unclean emissions, nocturnal and otherwise, of us carbon-based life forms. Take a deep dive into the subject matter, but try not to get any on you.
Theme music: “O Thou Who Camest from Above” (words 1762, music 1872) by Charles Wesley (1707-1788) and Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810-1876), Public Domain, performed by Dave in Kentucky (2023), Public Domain Dedication.
29:43 – Old Testament Healthcare was based on the two strategies of making healthy food choices and limiting exposure to the most harmful communicable diseases, both of which are illustrated in this episode. Somewhere along the line we got away from that and started to emphasize pills and injections instead. Study the original medical texts with Dr. Dave in Kentucky. (No, he’s not a real doctor, and he doesn’t even play one on a podcast, but so what? Does having a license to drive mean you’re a good driver? Does having a license to kill mean you’re a good double-nought spy? Only Jethro Bodine knows for sure, and he’s an idiot.)
Show art: Two illustrations (“The Leper at the Altar” on the left and “The Leper” on the right) from two different editions of Cassell’s Illustrated Family Bible, circa 1880, artist(s) unknown, Public Domain.
Theme music: “O Thou Who Camest from Above” (words 1762, music 1872) by Charles Wesley (1707-1788) and Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810-1876), Public Domain, performed by Dave in Kentucky (2023), Public Domain Dedication.
30:13 – Decked out in their priestly finery, the newly-consecrated priests carry out the apparently pointless slaughter of numerous animals, leading up to the glory of the (hologrammatic) Lord appearing to all the Israelites, not just the priests, and the consumption by (phaser) fire of the slaughtered animals. Shortly thereafter, the danger of the newly-installed priests not taking their priestly duties seriously enough is demonstrated in dramatic and tragic fashion, temporarily putting Aaron off his feed.
Show art: The Two Priests are Destroyed (1896-1902) by James Tissot (1836-1902), Public Domain.
Theme music: “O Thou Who Camest from Above” (words 1762, music 1872) by Charles Wesley (1707-1788) and Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810-1876), Public Domain, performed by Dave in Kentucky (2023), Public Domain Dedication.
29:36 – The animal bloodbath continues, as Dave in Kentucky tries to make sense of a system in which the religious authorities, legal professionals and public health officials are all the same people, and public health is promoted through religious edicts with the force of law. Hey, that sounds a lot like the past few years! Compensation for the priests is handled in much the same way: Since the priests make the laws, they can support themselves by levying taxes on the public. Hey, that sounds a lot like Congress!
Show art: Landscape with the Sacrifice of Noah (1814) by Joseph Anton Koch (1768-1839), Public Domain.
Theme music: “O Thou Who Camest from Above” (words 1762, music 1872) by Charles Wesley (1707-1788) and Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810-1876), Public Domain, performed by Dave in Kentucky (2023), Public Domain Dedication.
29:48 – Dave in Kentucky gets back on the Biblical track by beginning a new book, Leviticus, and introducing a new theme song, “O Thou Who Camest from Above,” by a couple of prominent Wesleyans. No animals were harmed in the making of this episode, but they were certainly slaughtered by the millions in Levitical times. I am tempted to use the term “Animal Holocaust” but I’m sure that would be deemed insensitive, to say the least.
Show art: “National Sin-of-Ignorance Offering” by the illustrator(s) of John Dilworth’s Pictorial Description of the Tabernacle in the Wilderness: Its Rites and Ceremonies (1878), Public Domain.
Theme music: “O Thou Who Camest from Above” (words 1762, music 1872) by Charles Wesley (1707-1788) and Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810-1876), Public Domain, performed by Dave in Kentucky (2023), Public Domain Dedication.
30:02 – Unhappy with King Solomon’s plan to deport and exile them, the Delegation of the Firstborn plan to salvage some of Solomon’s fabulous riches for themselves, by absconding with the Ark of the Covenant. Azaryas, the son of the high priest Zadok, hatches a plot worthy of one of those 1960s Rat Pack heist movies. Call it Azaryas’ Eleven. It’s the third and final installment in the Kebra Nagast trilogy, also known as the Ark Arc.
Theme music: “The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba” from Act III of Solomon (1748) by George Frideric Handel (1685-1759), Public Domain, performed by the Accordion Ensemble ARTE in 2017, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0.
29:30 – The love story of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba is memorialized not only in the movies and the Kebra Nagast, but in the book of the Bible variously known as the Song of Solomon, the Song of Songs, or the Canticle of Canticles. It resulted in a male love child being born during Queen Makeda’s return journey to Sheba (Ethiopia). When this man-child attained his majority, he resolved to make his own pilgrimage to Jerusalem to visit his father, a trip that culminated in a plot to steal the Ark of the Covenant from the Temple of Solomon.
Show art: Movie poster from the silent version of The Queen of Sheba (1921) with Fritz Leiber as King Solomon and Betty Blythe as the titular queen, Public Domain.
Theme music: “The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba” from Act III of Solomon (1748) by George Frideric Handel (1685-1759), Public Domain, performed by the Accordion Ensemble ARTE in 2017, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0.
