I’m very sorry, podcast enthusiasts, but I’m still having trouble with my voice. I think I’m getting over this flu, cold, or whatever-it-is, but I’m still not speaking well enough to feel good about recording the next podcast episode. Teaching class—well, the parts where I have to talk—has been difficult this past week. When my voice gets back to normal, I’ll resume production promptly.

Episode 5 of the Higgaion Podcast continues Michael Heiser’s introduction to the divine council. In this segment, Michael takes up the problem of relating the divine council concept to our tradition of describing ancient Israelite and Judean religion as “monotheistic.”

Should you prefer to listen without going through iTunes U, you may download the file directly and copy it to your favorite MP3 player, or listen right now using the embedded player below.

Please note that for the time being, in spite of Mark Goodacre’s vote to the contrary, I’ve decided to stick with the relatively low-quality monophonic output in deference to listeners who have limited bandwidth or who have to “pay by the K” for downloads. I plan to review this decision frequently, however, and I’m always open to your feedback on this question. (That’s a pun. Get it? Audio quality … feedback … never mind.)

Dear friends, colleagues, and other interested parties (I’ll let you decide into which category you fall): I was unable to publish Higgaion Podcast 5 as scheduled yesterday, and couldn’t get it out today, either. I have been trying to fight off a cold or flu—and failing. My voice has been distorted for the last couple of days, and today my throat hurt so bad I couldn’t teach my classes. I will get back on schedule as soon as I’m able to record the necessary narrations.

Genesis 1 portrays God as the cosmic king. But what’s a king without a court? In episode 4 of the Higgaion Podcast, Michael Heiser drops by to introduce listeners to the divine council.

Should you prefer to listen without going through iTunes U, you may download the file directly and copy it to your favorite MP3 player, or listen right now using the embedded player below.

I’ve finished recording and uploading Episode 3 of the Higgaion Podcast, though it won’t appear in iTunes U until sometime on Friday (as I type this, Thursday enjoys another 15 minutes here in the Pacific time zone). In episode 2, I insisted that the plural verbs and pronouns used in Genesis 1:26; 3:22; and a few other verses do not represent instances of the so-called “royal we.” That does not mean, however, that Genesis 1 has no royal imagery—nothing could be further from the truth. The explanation lies in the audio.

Should you prefer to listen without going through iTunes U, you may download the file directly and copy it to your favorite MP3 player, or listen right now using the embedded player below.

By the way, for the sake of listeners who must pay for their downloads by size, time, or bandwidth usage, I have replaced episodes 1 and 2 with smaller, lower-quality files that now measure only about 1.5MB each. Please give them a listen, and let me know whether the audio quality remains acceptable to you.

Episode 2 of the Higgaion Podcast released earlier today—if you have subscribed in iTunes, you may have already heard the episode. I stole the title “God and Someone Else” from a subheading in James Kugel’s book Traditions of the Bible. The podcast draws listeners’ attention to Genesis 1:26–28 and other passages where God unexpectedly uses first-person plural verbs and pronouns. This time around, I suggest that the explanation for this phenomenon lies neither in a “royal we” nor in a “plural of self-deliberation.”

Should you prefer to listen without going through iTunes U, you may download the file directly and copy it to your favorite MP3 player, or listen right now using the embedded player below.

The first episode of the new Higgaion Podcast went public earlier today. Members of the Pepperdine community got to hear it a day early, lucky dogs. In episode 1, “In the Beginning,” I explain a little bit about my motivation for starting a podcast. I freely admit to imitating (the sincerest form of flattery) Mark Goodacre’s NT Pod, and I give due props to Higgaion’s older siblings among Hebrew Bible/Old Testament podcasts, Tim Bulkeley’s 5 Minute Bible and Steve Wiggins’s Sects and Violence podcast. This episode kicks off the podcast as a whole, and announces the first thematic arc: the creation stories in the book of Genesis! I even planned that before Ellen Van Wolde’s latest newsmaking scholarship.

I plan to publish new episodes every Monday and Thursday, but users outside the Pepperdine community (those without active log-in credentials on Pepperdine’s network) may experience a one-day delay in the public availability of the podcast.

Should you prefer to listen without going through iTunes U, you may download the file directly and copy it to your favorite MP3 player, or listen right now using the embedded player below.

After impulsively considering the possible impact on my to-do list’s length, I’ve taken the plunge and started a Higgaion podcast to complement the Higgaion blog. Pepperdine University’s iTunes U platform will host the Higgaion podcast. I plan to publish new episodes every Monday and Thursday, if possible. Occasionally, the publication schedule may depend on the workload over in Payson Library, which manages Pepperdine’s iTunes U platform. Look for the show notes for episode 1 (just an introductory episode) later today.

Mark Goodacre has recently begun a New Testament podcast. What kind of content would you want to hear in a Tanakh/Old Testament podcast, if some enterprising individual were to begin such a thing?

That’s the new term for podcasting (whether audio or video) with religious content. The Los Angeles Times ran a story yesterday about this phenomenon. The story profiles the GodCast 1000 web site, which serves as a kind of clearinghouse for religious audio and video podcasts. As I scrolled through the list of offerings, not much really caught my fancy. Most of the offerings seem to be recorded sermons from various churches or garage-band Bible studies, so to speak. A few music programs were available; I checked out one promising the best in “indie” and “alternative” Christian music and wanted my thirty minutes back afterward. The offerings on GodCast do not seem to have a consistent theological bent or bias, but run the spectrum from Catholic to evangelical.

One podcast that I did find interesting was The Book and the Spade, a podcast on biblical archaeology. The episode currently linked from GodCast 1000 was program #149, part 1 of a vintage interview with John Trever, one of the first scholars ever to lay eyes and hands on the Dead Sea Scrolls. I enjoyed that program enough to download #150 from the Book and the Spade web site, but I haven’t listened to it yet. The Book and the Spade is hosted by Gordon Govier and Keith Schoville, neither of whom I know (I think I might have read something in the past written by Schoville, but I can’t pull up that memory clearly). I’m often suspicious of publications and broadcasts that advertise themselves as “biblical archaeology”—a character flaw, perhaps, but too many Exodus Decoded experiences will do that you. Still, I plan to check out some “back issues” to see if I want to make this a regular listen during my commute.

Maybe I should record my lectures, layer the voice recordings over my PowerPoint slides, and podcast them. Can I do that? Or does Pepperdine “own” my lectures? Anybody know?