29:54 – Joseph’s brothers get tired of him tattling on him, so they sell him into slavery, where he must resist the persistent advances of his master’s promiscuous wife. The aptly-named Onan commits a capital offense by practicing the coitus interruptus method of birth control. The widow Tamar plays the harlot, and Judah gets his former daughter-in-law pregnant. There’s not much here about ancient alien astronauts, but it’s pretty hot stuff, so give it a listen anyway.
Show art: Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife (1649) by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (1591-1666), Public Domain.
30:33 – Jacob’s sons play a dirty trick involving circumcision, and Jacob is outraged, though not in any moral sense. Accepting Yahwelian protection, Jacob banishes any other gods, real or imagined, and builds an altar to the Yahwelians. El Sadday, the Almighty God, appears to Jacob and renames him Israel before beaming back up. The lineage of Esau culminates in the dukes and kings of Edom. Who were these Edomites, and if they were a different race than the Israelites, how did that happen, since both groups sprang from the same pair of twins? Inquiring minds want to know.
Show art: Reconciliation of Jacob with Esau (circa 1640) by Giovanni Maria Bottala (1613-1644), Public Domain.
1:00:27 – The moveable feast of Easter isn’t until mid-April this year, but God only knows whether any of us will still be here by then, so let’s make some hay while the sun still shines. Join Dave in Kentucky and Father Charles Coughlin in Michigan for an hour-long look at resurrections both general and specific. Segments include several clips from Father Coughlin’s radio show from the 1939 and 1940 Easter seasons, Zephaniah’s prophecy of the coming “Day of Wrath”, and a public-domain recording of the Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) section of Mozart’s Requiem in D minor from 1926! Also, Dave ponders (1) what it may or may not mean to be born again, (2) how one day could possibly be as a thousand years, (3) the significance of grave markers such as crosses, stars, pyramids and obelisks, (4) why the church frowned upon cremation for so many years, (5) St. Paul’s argument for a general resurrection of the dead, (6) whether that general resurrection will be more like Night of the Living Dead or Jurassic Park, and (7) exactly when and how the historical Jesus might have been raised from the dead.
30:38 – The Biblical soap opera continues, with Laban in hot pursuit of Jacob and his family. Once he catches up, Rachel proves herself to be a clever smuggler, whereupon a treaty establishes a demilitarized zone. Jacob happens upon an encampment of the gods, and wrestles with one of them until dawn. Esau greets Jacob’s party with a force of four hundred men. Dinah is defiled, but her defiler wants to make an honest woman out of her, which requires that he and the other men of his country submit to genital mutilation. Say what??
Show art: Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (1639) by Bartholomeus Breenbergh (1598-1657), Public Domain.
29:37 – The love triangle of Jacob, Rachel and Leah can be summed up in the words of the Lovin’ Spoonful: “Sometimes you really dig a girl the moment you kiss her, but then you get distracted by her older sister.” Except in this case, it’s the girls’ father who masterminds the distraction. A battle of wits ensues in which two con men attempt to out-con each other, and two sisters vie for the same man’s affection, by methods both normal and paranormal. It’s a Biblical confection with a musical surprise in the middle. Sit a spell, listen a spell, maybe even fall under a spell. Dave in Kentucky does the casting.
Show art: Jacob Fleeing from Laban (1686) by Filippo Lauri (1623-1694), Public Domain.
29:40 – The story you are about to hear may or may not be true. It involves cases of mistaken identity, disputes over water rights, receiving blessings under false pretenses, plots of revenge, and violations of airspace by unidentified craft. Some of the names may have been changed, but not for the purpose of protecting the innocent, since no one involved was innocent.
Show art: Jacob’s Ladder (1661) by Bartolome Esteban Murillo (1617-1682), Public Domain.
59:21 – Spend an hour with Dave in Kentucky as he plays public domain Christmas music, reads the public domain Christmas story from the public domain King James Version of the Bible, and puts his own views about what actually happened into the public domain of ideas. This Christmas Special arrives just in time for the twelve days of Christmas, so in case you don’t have a whole hour to spare, five minutes each day will suffice.
30:12 – Isaac’s first cousin Rebekah is selected by the Yahweh Elohim to be his bride, in defiance of the dangers of inbreeding. After a childless decade or two, a Yahwelian fertility procedure results in fraternal twins, the hairy Esau and the slick (perhaps too slick) Jacob, who eventually cheats his slightly older brother out of his birthright. This leads to a discussion of what our birthright is, and who is trying to cheat us out of it. Dave flips to the back of the book for the answers (in Revelation 13) and presents his own ideas about the mark of the beast, the name of the beast, and the number of its name, as well as about the infamous number 666, which (we are told) is the number of a man.
Show art: The Mess of Pottage (1896-1902) by James Tissot (1836-1902), Public Domain.
29:05 – Once it appears that Abraham and Sarah’s “miracle baby” Isaac will survive to become a legitimate heir, Abraham sends the secondary heir and his mother the maid packing, then is shocked to find out that Isaac is scheduled to be the entree at the Yahwelians’ next barbecue, with Abraham serving as grillmaster. Abe’s predicament is compared to that of Job, as well as to that of the Gregory Peck character in 1976’s The Omen. Was Abraham’s Kierkegaardian “leap of faith” justified by virtue of the absurd, or was it unjustifiable by virtue of the insane?
Show art: Sacrifice of Isaac (1602) by Caravaggio (1571-1610), Public Domain.
29:39 – The continuing story of Abraham and Sarah, including Abraham’s and Lot’s encounters with the Yahwelian landing party, Abraham’s haggling with the Lord, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and how it led to the decline and fall of the ancient Sumerian civilization, what happened between Lot and his daughters in the fallout shelter, what if anything happened between King Abimelech and sexy nonagenarian Sarah, Abraham’s revelation about Sarah’s parentage, the medical procedure that enabled the birth of Isaac, and Lots more.
Show art: Lot and his Daughters (circa 1600) by Joachim Wtewael (1566-1638), Public Domain.
