Misquoting Moses with Joel Baden

Epizodes

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  Prophecy in the Hebrew Bible 02.10.2026 47min

  For three years, the prophet Isaiah wandered naked around Jerusalem. Ezekiel lay on his left side for three hundred and ninety days, then flipped over, and lay on his right for another forty. After this stunt was over, he went on a new diet of barley cakes - cooked over cook manure. Hosea marries a prostitute and names their child "unloved".  Elijah calls down fire from heaven, and Elisha makes an axe head float. We often think of prophets as predicting the future, but this picture is of something much stranger. Today, we're investigating the role of prophecy in the Hebrew Bible, and above all, why it's so weird. 
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  What the Bible Stole from Babylon 25.09.2026 54min

  The creation of the world out of primordial chaos. A catastrophic global flood that ends when birds confirm the re-emergence of dry land. A baby cast into the river in a basket sealed with bitumen, who would be rescued and one day become a great leader. Sound familiar? Today, we're talking about the myths even more ancient than the biblical texts, that will be suspiciously familiar to any reader of the Bible, to ask how the biblical authors adapted, borrowed from, and subverted the great myths of Mesopotamia.
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  The Most Famous Prayer in Judaism Isn't Monotheistic 18.09.2026 49min

  "Hear, O Israel: YHWH our God, YHWH is one." Thus begins the most important prayer in Judaism, taken directly from Deuteronomy 6:4. Rendered this way, it appears to encapsulate the monotheistic essence of Judaism. One god, one creator of the heavens and the earth, one deity to worship - that's how most readers encounter the Bible. But in antiquity, the picture was a lot more crowded. The authors of the Bible not only acknowledged the existence of other deities, but that their own communities worshipped them. Today, we're talking about the polytheism hidden in the Hebrew Bible, and how ancient Israelite religion evolved from a word of many gods into the strict monotheism we recognize today. 
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  What Version of the Bible Did Jesus Read? 11.09.2026 59min

  There is a scene in the Gospel of Luke where Jesus walks into a synagogue in Nazareth, stands up to read, and someone hands him the scroll of Isaiah. He finds his place and begins… "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor," and so on.  I'm sure you've read it… but there's a question here that almost nobody asks: what exactly was he holding? ... Because there was no printed and bound Bible in Jesus' time.   Today we are talking about how the Hebrew Bible actually became the Hebrew Bible… and what version of that Bible Jesus would have had access to.
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  What are the Oldest Texts in the Bible? 04.09.2026 54min

  If you open a Bible, the oldest thing in it should be on page one. Right? In the beginning? That is where it starts. Except the oldest words ever written in the entire Hebrew Bible are not in Genesis. In fact, one of the undisputed oldest texts is buried in the middle of a book most people skip, in a victory song about a woman who drives a tent peg through a general's skull. Today we are talking about the oldest texts in the Bible… not the oldest manuscripts or the oldest events recorded, but the oldest actual writing, some of it centuries older than the stories wrapped around it. How do scholars figure out which parts came first, and what does the oldest layer of the Bible tell us about ancient Israel's history and beliefs?
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  King David Killed His Way to the Throne 28.08.2026 52min

  When you think of King David, images of the shepherd boy, the giant-slayer, and Israel's greatest king probably come to mind. That's the David people know. But strip away the Sunday school version, and the biblical text itself tells a very different, much darker story about how he actually rose to power. In this episode of Misquoting Moses, Dr. Joel Baden and Megan Kraege reveal why "mafia don" might be a more fitting description for David than "shepherd turned king."
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  Is the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Historically Reliable? 21.08.2026 44min

  The great flood of Noah. The walls of Jericho tumbling down. The ten plagues striking Egypt. The Red Sea splitting in two. These are some of the most famous biblical stories ever told — but did any of them actually happen the way the Bible describes? In this episode of Misquoting Moses, as Dr. Joel Baden and Megan Kraege talk about how historians and archaeologists actually evaluate the Hebrew Bible as a historical source, they uncover what holds up... and what doesn't.
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  Exodus Has Ten. But Deuteronomy's Commandments Are Older. 14.08.2026 46min

  Moses climbs Mount Sinai, God hands him two stone tablets, and the Ten Commandments are born. That's the story many people grew up with. But here's the thing: the Bible actually gives us two different versions of the Ten Commandments, in two different books, and they don't quite match. So which one did Moses actually write down? Or did he write either of them at all? In this episode of Misquoting Moses, Dr. Joel Baden and Megan Kraege ask who actually wrote the Ten Commandments, and what centuries of scribes, editors, and translators did to the text along the way.
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  The Bible Doesn't Start the Way You Think | Inaugural Episode of "Misquoting Moses" with Joel Baden 07.08.2026 54min

  In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. You've heard that line a thousand times. But what if I told you it's not actually the first sentence of the Bible… that's a translation choice. And what if I told you Genesis actually tells the story of creation twice, in two different ways that don't quite agree with each other? In this inaugural episode of Misquoting Moses, Dr. Joel Baden and Megan Kraege dive into translation issues in Genesis and how its sources can account for some pretty interesting differences in the text.
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  Misquoting Moses Is Coming August 7 05.08.2026 1min

  Who wrote the Hebrew Bible, when, and why? Why does it contain so many competing perspectives and why do scholars sometimes disagree about what its words originally meant? In Misquoting Moses, Yale professor Joel Baden and co-host Megan Kraege explore the surprising history, authorship, translation, and interpretation of the Hebrew Bible. Each week, they bring the questions and evidence scholars have debated for centuries out of the university and into lively, accessible conversations for anyone curious about the Bible. Here's a taste of what's to come. First episode "In the Beginnings" launches Friday, August 7.