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.
30:14 – The Ethiopian sacred text known as the Kebra Nagast tells the full story of the visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon, including what happened to the Ark of the Covenant. It is a decidedly non-canonical and somewhat steamy story, and the action will get even hotter in the next episode when we investigate the Song of Solomon, also known as the Song of Songs, arguably the sexiest book of the Bible. Dav(e) in Kentucky conducts the proceedings, but not the accordions.
Show art: The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon (1890) by Sir Edward John Poynter (1836-1919), 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.
30:36 – The Promised Land is still a ways off when Moses types “30” or “THE END” at the bottom of last page of the Book of Exodus. Who knew?? No doubt a sequel is in the works. Why was there was so much repetition in the early books of the Bible? What language were the stone tablets written in? Were there 603,550 adult male Israelites or were there six hundred squad leaders commanding 3,550 fighting men? What do Ray Bradbury, Devo and Weird Al Yankovic have to do with anything we’re talking about? Tune in and Dave in Kentucky will tell you, or at least tell you what he thinks about it. Also: a preview of what comes next in the series (hint: it ain’t Leviticus) including some tasty classical accordion music. (Baroque, actually.)
Show art: The Erection of the Tabernacle and the Sacred Vessels by the illustrators of Figures de la Bible (1728) by Gerard Hoet (1648-1733), Public Domain.
Closing theme: Part of “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.
30:24 – Since Moses broke the original tables of testimony in a fit of rage, Lord Yahweh teaches him a lesson by forcing him to hew new ones and do part of the engraving himself, instead of having them pre-hewn and professionally engraved by skilled Yahwelian artisans. Dave in Kentucky explains how the lack of vowels in ancient Hebrew writing led to mistranslations, and why the distance to a star system is not the sole determining factor in the amount of time dilation that occurs during lightspeed travel to that system. Did Moses come out of his Yahwelian meetings with a bright, shiny face, or with hornlike implants in his forehead? Dave doesn’t know for sure, but he thinks he can explain either one. Maybe not the headlight beams, though.
Show art: Moses and the Messengers from Canaan (1621-1624) by Giovanni Lanfranco (1582-1647), Public Domain.
