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Our new knowledge of Torah in this extraordinary generation, thanks to archaeology and new understandings in almost every area of the Bible, can be a comfort in this moment – and for long into the future. An opportunity to learn from one of the great teachers of our time. Author of the bestselling, most-assigned book on the Bible (Who Wrote the Bible?). A scholar who “addresses the fundamental moral and religious issues that confront the present malaise and future survival of our species.”
Episode 1: From Eve to Moses: Stepping Over Boundaries (Recorded April 20, 2020)
Episode 2: Pure Torah — Concerning Purity and Holiness in Our Present Situation (Recorded April 27, 2020)
Episode 3: Why Can’t Moses Talk? (Recorded May 4, 2020)
Episode 4: Who Needs a King When You Have a God? (Recorded May 11, 2020)
Episode 5: “I don’t want to die. I sometimes wish I’d never been born at all.” (Recorded May 18, 2020)
Episode 6: The Pinocchio Effect—The Case of the Suspected Adulteress (Recorded May 25, 2020)
Episode 7: How Different Was the World of the Bible from Ours (Recorded June 1, 2020)
Episode 8: Humor in a Time of Catastrophes (Recorded June 8, 2020)
Episode 9: Do You Believe in Magic (Recorded June 15, 2020)
Episode 10: The Destruction (and Rebuilding) of the Temple (Recorded June 22, 2020)
Episode 11: Widows and Widowers (Recorded June 29, 2020)
Episode 12: Moses and his Cushite Wife (Recorded July 13, 2020)
Episode 13: Digging in the Bible and in the City of David (Recorded July 20, 2020)
Episode 14: Is the Torah Part of Jewish Studies (Recorded July 27, 2020)
Episode 15: The Myth of the Old Testament God of Wrath (Recorded August 3, 2020)
Episode 16: The Most Violated Commandment (Recorded August 10, 2020)
Episode 17: Deception in the Bible (Recorded August 17, 2020)
Episode 18: The (Near) Sacrifice of Isaac (Recorded August 24, 2020)
Episode 19: Humans vs. Gods (Recorded August 31, 2020)
Episode 20: Moses Rides Off into the Sunset (Recorded September 7, 2020)
Episode 21: Esther: “A Very Dirty Book” (Recorded September 14, 2020)
Episode 22: Everything Is Vanity (Recorded September 21, 2020)
Episode 23: Ruth (Recorded October 5, 2020)
Episode 24: The Conquest: The Walls Came Tumbling Down (Recorded October 12, 2020)
Episode 25: Human Sacrifice: Jephthah’s Daughter. Or I’ll Never Forget What’sername (Recorded October 19, 2020)
Episode 26: Creation according to Bible, Kabbalah, and Hubble (Recorded October 26, 2020)
Episode 27: The Politics of Priesthood (Recorded November 2, 2020)
Episode 28: Freud, Michelangelo, and the Horned Moses (Recorded November 9, 2020)
Episode 29: The Ten Pandemics (Recorded November 16, 2020)
Episode 30: Chosen People (Recorded November 23, 2020)
Episode 31: Exile! (Recorded November 30, 2020)
Episode 32: The Death of the Gods (Recorded December 7, 2020)
Episode 33: Doctors and Angels (Recorded December 14, 2020)
Episode 34: King David (Recorded December 21, 2020)
Episode 35: King Solomon (Recorded December 28, 2020)
Episode 36: Queen Ataliah’s Gambit (Recorded January 4, 2021)
Episode 37: Torah and Constitution (Recorded January 11, 2021)
Episode 38: Going Bananas on Divine Revelation of the Bible (Recorded January 18, 2021)
Episode 39: Forbidden Animals (Recorded January 25, 2021)
Episode 40: Fasting on Tisha b’Ab and Yom Kippur (Recorded February 1, 2021)
Episode 41: Kidburger with Cheese (Recorded February 8, 2021)
Episode 42: The Good Guys vs. the Bad Guys (Recorded February 15, 2021)
Episode 43: The Hiding of the Face of God (Recorded February 22, 2021)
Episode 44: Sheol. Or: After you’ve gone, after you’ve gone away. (Recorded March 1, 2021)
Episode 45: Jews, Christians, and Exodus (Recorded March 8, 2021)
Episode 46: The Garden of Eden: Return to Paradise (Recorded March 15, 2021)
Episode 47: To the Bottom of the Deep Red Sea (Recorded March 22, 2021)
Episode 48: Water Water Everywhere (Recorded April 5, 2021)
Episode 49: From Eve to Esther: The Hiding of the Face of God (Recorded April 12, 2021)
Episode 50: RETURN TO TORAH (Recorded April 19, 2021)
All episodes of “Richard Elliott Friedman: Return to Torah” © 2020 Richard Elliott Friedman
RICHARD ELLIOTT FRIEDMAN is one of the premier bible scholars in the country. He earned his doctorate at Harvard and was a visiting fellow at Oxford and Cambridge, a Senior Fellow of the American Schools of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Haifa. He is the Ann & Jay Davis Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Georgia and the Katzin Professor of Jewish Civilization Emeritus of the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of Commentary on the Torah, The Exodus, The Disappearance of God, The Hidden Book in the Bible, The Bible with Sources Revealed, The Bible Now, The Exile and Biblical Narrative, and the bestselling Who Wrote the Bible? He was a consultant for the Dreamworks film “The Prince of Egypt,” for Alice Hoffman’s The Dovekeepers, and for NBC, A&E, PBS, and Nova.
To learn more with and from Richard Elliott Friedman, check out these resources:
The single most interesting mind working on the Bible in any language today.” —Jacob Neusner
“Friedman is one of the greatest biblical scholars of our age.” —Conservative Judaism
“Friedman has had a place in the company of the great scholars of the recent past; now we find him another place of equal value and importance among an older generation of legendary commentators on the Hebrew Scriptures: Kimhi and Abarbanel, Rashbam and Nachmanides, and that perennial master of the written Word, Rashi.” —David Noel Freedman
“As exceptional for the 2000’s as Rashi was for the 1000’s, this is the definitive Jewish commentary on the Five Books of Moses.”—Baruch Halpern
“Like the prototypical commentator, Rashi, Richard Friedman conveys a vast amount of learning with a light touch. His translations are fresh and vibrant. His masterful commentary blends scholarly precision, literary sensitivity and spiritual reflection.” —Daniel Matt
“This is the way to study Torah! Friedman models for us the most intelligent—and traditional—way to make the Torah live in our own lives.”
—Elliot Dorff
“Richard Elliott Friedman is that rare biblical scholar who is both able to address a broad audience and willing to raise large speculative issues about the Bible.” —Robert Alter
“With a dazzling display of deep learning lightly presented, Friedman addresses the fundamental moral and religious issues which confront the present malaise and future survival of our species. If we listen, there is hope.”
—H.G.M. Williamson, Regius Professor of Hebrew Emeritus, Oxford University