Bible Stories for Heathen Children

Latest Episodes:

11 - Sarai and Hagar Dec 05, 2019

Show notes

A classic tale of family drama - this is one part of the Abraham story from Genesis, told with a focus on the slave Hagar and her son, as Abraham and Sarah attempted to make gods promises come true. This story also covers the birth of Isaac, the baby promised to Abraham. It's not really Hagar's story at first, but she makes her mark anyways.
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10 - Maccabees Nov 28, 2019

Show notes

For Thanksgiving, I'm telling the story of the Maccabees fighting colonization and oppression with a small but dedicated group of fighters. This is not from the Protestant canon; it's a story I learned (a part of) in Sunday school, but with the fighty parts added back in!
Happy Thanksgiving, remember to fight white supremacy and resist religious hegemony!
Note: While some of this story is from history, definitely think of my version as historical fiction. I'm worried that I wasn't clear about that :)

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9 - Jesus Turns Water into Wine and other Stories from John Nov 21, 2019

Show notes

My 2 kids join me with questions, laughter, and incredulity as I tell the story of the early days of Jesus’ ministry described in the Gospel of John; turning water into wine, turning over tables in the temple, talking to Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman, and healing someone’s sick son.

Jesus says a lot of intentionally confusing stuff and my kids started to find it hilarious.

John the writer is interesting because unlike the other gospel writers, his Jesus is actually very big on self promotion. John is intent from the very beginning on convincing the reader that Jesus is God, but most of the time he just says “and Jesus did lots of signs and people believed” without actually describing those miracles. It’s really more theology than story, but by golly I eked a narrative out of it despite John not giving me a whole lot to work with.
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Bonus Ep 2 - Excerpt Nov 12, 2019

Show notes

An excerpt from the November bonus episode, available in full to Patrons on Patreon in the $5 a month tier.
This episode is a discussion between me and my spouse about the English language and Bible translations. We discuss how KJV only-ism parallels early efforts to keep the Bible from being translated into English, the tower of Babel, and how learning the history of the English language was one of the pieces in our deconstruction of conservative Christianity. This excerpt includes a story about my pastor FiL accusing me of moral relativism for suggesting that nonstandard English dialect had grammatical systems (back before I was a moral relativist - go figure) and some discussion of how Evangelical control of language and Bible translations is vital to its chokehold on politics and culture.

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8 - Adam and Eve: two ways Nov 07, 2019

Show notes

A recipe for the foundation of humanity, two ways.

Today I present to you the fundamentalist Adam and Eve story, and then the story retold with some twists in perspective that I like to think about sometimes. There's more spin & editorializing than I typically use; this was a sort of experimental story for me.

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7 - Halloween Special Oct 31, 2019

Show notes

This episode has the story of Saul and the witch, and the story of Jesus and Lazarus. This Halloween special has some fun Bible weirdness, don't miss it!

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6.5 - What is the Bible? Oct 24, 2019

Show notes

This special episode is an educational episode about what the Bible actually is, with the basics of how it came to exist and where it came from, told in Robbie's usual expressive and enthusiastic way, and geared towards kids who haven't learned about any Bible history before.
If you don't know how the Bible is organized or any of its history, this episode is a good starting point for understanding the origins of the all time bestselling book in the world.

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6 - Elisha's Magic Skeleton Oct 24, 2019

Show notes

This is a shorter than usual episode telling some bits of the prophet Elisha's story, specially chosen for the week before Halloween.

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5 - David in Exile Oct 17, 2019

Show notes

Content Note: a character who is about to die ends his life himself in this episode.

This is the 4th and final episode about David (for now). He's been told he'll be king, but for now, he's on the run from King Saul. It will take all his cunning to survive among the Philistines.

another note: there's some stuff in here that I consider problematic regarding how mental illness is discussed and the kinda gross (but still common today) disability inspiration story with Mephibosheth. I wasn't sure exactly how to handle those elements of the story without going off on a lot of editorializing tangents. Possibly I should have. I'm still figuring out how to approach these things.

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4 - David and Jonathan Oct 10, 2019

Show notes

The friendship of David and Jonathan is most dramatic installment of the David story yet! This one has swords, spears, daring acts, love and hate, lies, drama, and intrigue!

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