TanakhCast

In this week’s episode: Genesis 24-27.  We examine the rivalry between Yaakov and Esav from the perspective of bad names, bad contracts and bad blood.  Though free-marketeers cry Caveat Emptor, we consider the raw deal Yaakov offered Esav and the further raw dealing (and goat-hair-wearing) implicating Rivkah and Yitzhak at the expense of Esav.

BTW, the link to the Freakonomics episode about names can be found here.

In this week’s episode: Genesis 20-23.  We decide once and for all whether Avraham deserves a spot alongside Sandy Koufax, Leonard Nimoy and Barbra Streisand in the Jewish pantheon.  We consider Avraham’s track record in the run-up to his biggest moment in the Tanakh: the Akkedah, or binding of his son Yitzhak - and conclude that his place in the Hall of Fame might merit another round or two of voting.

In this week’s episode: Genesis 16-19.  We examine two very powerful human emotions: laughter and fear.  Though laughter might bring life to the party, fear insures that life will go on.  (Now that’s a scary thought...)  We will also consider why our biblical forebears laughed in God’s face and how the real sin of Sodom had nothing to do with naughty bits.

BTW, the Radiolab podcast can be found here.  This American Life on tribes can be found here.  You can buy Inside Jokes: Using Humour to Reverse Engineer the Mind by Matthew Hurley, Daniel Dennett, and Reginald Adams Jr. here or Jared Diamond's The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? here.  And Jay Michaelson's book God vs. Gay?: The Religious Case for Equality can be found here.

In this week’s episode: Genesis 12-15.  We examine the not-so-heroic behaviour of the First Father Avram during his sojourn in Egypt as we ponder the nature of biblical heroes.  We also consider the ramifications of time travel on choice, free will and the fate of Avram’s descendants in Egypt as Avram shoos away vultures in the “Covenant of the Pieces”.  Will Skynet prevail?

In this week’s episode: Genesis 8-11.  We explore the waning days of the Deluge and the bad behaviours of Noah and his son Ham.  With the eating of meat and the meting-out of curses, humanity sets out to resettle the planet and make a mess of things - socially and semantically - with their plans for building a Tower in Babel.  We also introduce our Text-to-Speech friend Lee, our guest lengthier-passage reader!

BTW, the Gustav Doré illustration of the Tower of Babel can be found here.

In this week's episode: Genesis 4-7.  We explore what we think we know about those first generations after the expulsion from the Garden, as well as some killings, a lot of couplings and how a shield can linguistically transform into a stigma.  We'll also consider the wacky story of Metatron and the symbolic significance of numbers in these fanciful tales.

UPDATE:  Thanks to @PonyRoy for correcting my Transformer-related gaffe.  Megatron is the leader of the Decepticons, not the Autobots.  #AllHailMegatron!

In this week's episode: Genesis 1-3.  We explore what we think we know about the Beginning, its sequence of events, its crimes and various punishments, and how what reads like a children's story is anything but fodder for children's art projects involving glue, glitter and those awkward dull-edged plastic scissors.  We'll also consider a counterfactual, Ferdinand de Saussure, Jacques Derrida and Ensign Chekov.

One correction: In the podcast, I refer to a unit of text, known as "E" as spanning Genesis 1:1 to 2:4.  That particular piece concludes with Genesis 2:3.   What I was thinking about was the next bit that began at Genesis 2:4 but I over-anticipated.  Apologies.

One other program note: I managed to get Episode 2 up one week after Episode 1!   Woot!

At last - TanakhCast!

This episode will introduce the podcast and what you can expect from TanakhCast over the coming weeks, months and years, including the persistence of voiceless uvular fricatives, documentary hypotheses, apocryphal texts and the idiosyncracies of what we lovingly call the Tanakh.