The World of Biblical Israel by Cynthia R Chapman

 This is a Great Courses series consisting of 24 lectures about Biblical Israel.  Ms Chapman does a good job of placing well known Bible stories into a historical and cultural context.  She examines stories and extracts from them details that give hints to how the people of that time period lived.  She also brings in archaeological findings and shows how they either corroborate, or refute Biblical accounts.  One of her main focuses is that much of what we know as the Old Testament was written during or shortly after the Babylonian captivity, and was written to help exiled people deal with their past and establish an identity of their own.  

If you follow my Exegesis blog you know that I have been studying the Old Testament this year.  I listen each week to a variety of podcasts about the Old Testament stories.  Ms Chapman says a lot of the same things that my favorite pod-casters have emphasized all year. As I have begun to see the Old Testament as a book written at a specific time for a specific reason, I have come to understand even the harder stories much better.  Ms Chapman presents her lectures in a religiously neutral way, and I wasn't able to figure out from what she said what her personal religious background is.  She uses an academic style that I appreciated.  I was sorry that I couldn't see her visuals while she talked, but a couple of times I stopped to look at something she referred to on my phone. I am glad Overdrive has added a pretty big collection of Great Course to their offerings.  I will probably choose and listen to others in the future. (2014, 24 30-minute lectures)