History in the Bible

We conclude the story of the patriarchs with a happy reunion between Jacob and his son Joseph, now an important minister in the Egyptian government. His family move to Egypt for a few centuries, a pas...

30 Aug 201531min

Jacob is the great trickster in the Bible, outwitting his father Isaac, his brother Esau, and even his own children. The P, E, and J sources have several different versions of Jacob's stories. For exa...

16 Aug 201532min

Abraham swindles the Philistine king Abimelech just as he did Pharoah, and almost kills his son Isaac, following God's commands. At the very last minute, God says it's all been a test. Was this a remn...

2 Aug 201530min

This is the second of an irregular series of bonus episodes, in addition to my fortnightly installments. In this bonus episode, Stephen Guerra of the History of the Papacy podcast and I talk about the...

26 Jul 201553min

After the primeval stories, Genesis introduces the man who dominates and forms the very heart of of book, Abraham. He is the first of the patriarchs. God makes a real-estate deal with Abraham, giving ...

19 Jul 201529min

This is the first of an irregular series of bonus episodes, in addition to my fortnightly installments. In this bonus, I talk about history podcasting with Steve Guerra of the History of the Papacy po...

12 Jul 201525min

Flood epics were a dime a dozen in ancient Mesopotamia. Genesis has its own version. This section of Genesis is full of puzzles: Cain's gift of tabouleh is rejected; the dating system is a complete me...

5 Jul 201526min

The opening chapters of Genesis recount two stories of creation, neither of which involves Satan. One is from the J source, the other from the P source. I compare these to the creation stories from an...

21 Jun 201525min