Part of my impetus for this podcast (aside of, y'kn, the Quarantine giving me/all of us ample unstructured time) was to create a space for my unorthodox approach to #BibleStudy. I started with doing shul-by-tweet (@timeofposting:), but having 30 minutes to really READ and dissect an episode from the remarkable SAMUEL SAGA actually gives me the space to do justice to the narrative poetry and frankly gory nature of this saga.
In my second biblical audiobook (with loose asides, commentary, and on-the-fly bedtime-story modifications to the text), I am tackling Chapter 3, in which God first speaks unto Samuel. Honestly, I am doing this one because of the movie Airplane!, which contains a joke that ....... it's easier to explain this conversationally, which is why I love this format. Take a listen, you'll hear the plane when it goes by.
I began with Chapter 15, because it gave me an opportunity to introduce listeners to Saul and Samuel in relation to each other. They're all just biblical names, and for folx to really join me on this ride, you need context. It's called the Book Of Samuel cuz of the prophet Samuel, but most of the saga really concerns Saul and then David (the guy whose star is = Jewish Star). David's first introduction is in Chapter 16, so starting with the prior chapter also gives newbies to this Saga an inflection-point of the narrative.
Now I'm hopping back to Chapter 3, cuz this is when God and Samuel first chat. In the previous chapter (that is, Chapter 15), we get a sense of Samuel's persnickety relationship with Saul -- but in Chapter 3, we can see that his suspicious canny nature extends even up to the Almighty.
Doing this is a ton of fun for me, it ties in with the biblical fiction I've been writing, and hopefully this will help anchor (heh.) me into this strange new global reality. Already, I've been relishing and marveling at the timeless quality of the original story, but the opportunity to share it more fully with the world is extraordinarily exciting.
Credit is due also to Robert Alter's phenomenal commentary/translation of The David Story, which delves into the Hebrew wordplay and connections to other biblical narratives. Like Samuel's [the writer, not the prophet] endless winks and nods to earlier well-known biblical tropes and tales.
I think the next one I'm gonna do will turn upon Asimov's take on Samson and Delilah, but need to find some connections to other instances of the supremely clever underlying celestial romance. Job 3:3-26 does a similar day-and-night thing, I might go with that, but it's ....... wordplay within a poetic lament, rather'n the symbolic parallels implied by Judges 13-16. Ahh well, we'll see what happens when it does. :)
