[Voices echoing, overlapping.]
Voiceover Voice:
Soundbites from scripture are wonderful, but setting things in context is even more wonderful.
Helena Martin:
This is Chapter, Verse, and Season: a lectionary podcast from Yale Bible Study.
Let me turn off the music for this one. I’ve got some stuff to say.
This is our 170th episode and our last. We’ve made episodes for each week of the three years of the Revised Common Lectionary, and now it’s time for us to turn these efforts in new directions. We hope you’ll keep listening to old episodes as the lectionary cycles back around again. And remember that there’s always more resources over at YaleBibleStudy.org.
By my count, we hosted 37 different professors from Yale Divinity School on the podcast over these three years. We put out episodes every single week since we started—sometimes a few episodes a week. We recorded at Yale Broadcast, then over Zoom, then all around the YDS campus with my mobile recording studio. And I’ll try not to get too sentimental, and there’s more details at the end, but I’ll say here that I’m really grateful to everyone who’s been part of Chapter, Verse, and Season over the years. Thank you for listening to this fun little project that’s been a huge part of my life.
For our final episode, we recorded a different kind of conversation than the ones we usually have. Instead of two professors talking to each other, it’s me, Helena Martin, your Executive Producer and Host, talking with Creator and Managing Editor of the podcast, Joel Baden. And instead of talking about the Bible, we’re talking about— well, Chapter, Verse, and Season.
This is a behind-the-scenes look at the high aspirations in the original idea for the podcast, plus some thoughts about how things have gone. And be sure to stick around to the end, where we get to the bottom of a rumor I’ve been hearing about him since I arrived at YDS all the way back in 2017.
Here’s the conversation.
Helena Martin:
So in summer 2019, you sent me an email and said, “I have an idea. Do you want a job?”
Joel Baden:
So many of my emails get sent that way.
Helena Martin:
Well where did it come from? I didn’t think of this idea.
Joel Baden:
Did I?
Helena Martin:
Yeah.
Joel Baden:
It’s pretty good. It was, you know, an attempt to say: look, there’s so much knowledge at YDS in our faculty. And we’re not going to put those people in lengthy conversations about, like, Bible studies. But they’re all people who know the Bible one way or another from their different vantage points and areas of expertise.
And this was an opportunity for us to get interesting people into conversation with each other, and it didn’t matter what they said. It wasn’t like, “Ah, what we’re trying to do is provide like a comprehensive view of the historical, or the theological, or whatever it might be.” It was an opportunity to do something that, we could have conversations between people who have maybe never spoken to each other before— or certainly who have never spoken to each other about the Bible before—and, like, some cool stuff could happen.
And I mean, now here we are at the end, and I remember the beginning. I’m pretty sure that I recorded the first of these sessions.
Helena Martin:
Yeah, you and Tisa.
Joel Baden:
With Tisa Wenger. And I mean, we didn’t know what any of this was going to look like. And Tisa and I, despite being quite good friends, have never talked about the Bible before. But we sat down, and it was like… I would never have thought to talk to you about any of this stuff because academia is so siloed, but we had so much to talk about precisely because we’d never talked about it before.
Helena Martin:
Yeah. I mean, it’s different every week. Not really because the texts are different (although I guess the texts are different), but it’s different because the professors are different. And their approaches to the text are different, and their relationships to the text are different, right?
Like, a biblical scholar is going to think about it differently than a theologian. Which is maybe not obvious to non-specialists, right? People think that those are the same thing. But you can hear how different they are if you have them talk to each other. Or if one week you’re hearing biblical scholars talk, and the next week you’re hearing theologians talk, you’re like: these are totally different sets of questions about the text, different methodologies for approaching them, and—depending on the ingredients that you’re throwing together, like the text and then each of the people—you just end up with not just different conversations, but different kinds of conversations.
Like I had some pairs of people who before we recorded, they wanted to pray. Or before we recorded, they wanted to read the text aloud, just to get the words into the room. And that’s a really different vibe than the scholars who came in and they were like, “All right, let’s go.” And just weren’t super interested in, like, dwelling in the text the way that the liturgical people or the art people or the theologian people were doing.
And none of it was wrong, right? The whole framework for it was like: whatever these two people do for this allotted time is correct. And the one of the things that was fun but hard for people to believe was that, truly, your first thought about this text is interesting. Because so many of you are so used to having to think a new thing. Like, “What is the new thing that I can say about 2 Samuel or Mark 5?” And indeed that is very important in academic circles, but that’s actually now what we’re looking for in these conversations. What we’re looking for is like… what do you think about when you hear Mark 5?
Joel Baden:
But what’s so, what was so interesting to me was (especially when I was doing these with non-biblical scholars) those conversations were producing—if not new, like brand new, like earth-shattering, whatever—they were producing productive, fruitful, interesting insights.
You know, I’m a biblical person, I was sitting down with Tisa, who is an American religion person. And we were sitting down talking about the text, and so I’m not talking, like, the high academic biblical stuff. And I remember sitting there thinking, “There’s content here.” Like for me as a biblical scholar, because she’s not, she’s asking questions that are not the questions that we’ve been asking in academia.
So, I have recorded with historians; and a Muslim scholar; and certainly biblical scholars, New Testament and Hebrew Bible; and pastors; and you know, it’s been different and interesting every time.
And so I’m curious, right? You were really actually behind most of the pairings of faculty and how much were you plotting? Like, how much is your hidden hand behind the conversations that we hear now in the podcast?
Helena Martin:
Um, more at the beginning. I think I was more intentional at the beginning. You know, I didn’t know all of the professors that I was pairing and I was working with here. So I had to kind of read about them, and look at their CVs, and figure out like, “What does this person care about?” And then figuring out how to pair them with someone creative, like you and Tisa.
And what was really fun at the beginning is the pairs would always do what I thought they were going to do, even though I didn’t tell them what to do. And so I felt kind of like a sneaky puppet master when you guys just did exactly what I— like, every time you and Tisa would talk about outsiders, I was like, “I knew you guys were going to talk about outsiders.”
So there was more orchestration in the beginning. And then the more I got to know different professors and what they cared about, I let go of the reins a little bit more because it was a little bit easier for me to trust the process and that they’d find something to talk about.
Joel Baden:
And when that happened, did you, in fact, find yourself starting to become surprised by what was happening? Or, knowing them better, were you like, “I pretty much know what’s gonna go on here.”
Helena Martin:
No, because it was always surprising, right? Like I’m not in your brain, so I don’t know exactly what you’re going to say about the outsiders; I just know that the two of you are going to talk about them.
But like you said, I mean, it always produced new thoughts because you know, I have my own education, and my own understanding of the texts, and my own approaches to them. And so, I was very consistently surprised or delighted. Sometimes when someone brought up something that I had a special interest in and knew a lot about, I was like, “Yes, I’m glad we’re getting some representation for disability stuff on the podcast.” But also when, when people said stuff that I was like, “I’ve never thought about how those two things fit together before.”
Joel Baden:
Did you ever find yourself worried that a pair wasn’t going to work, but then it did?
Helena Martin:
Yeah, totally.
When I started I thought that it would be more about matching people’s interests. What I have figured out is that the better way to match people is matching energy, and not matching like whether or not they’re buddies outside of this. The energy level has a lot more to do about the chemistry of the conversation than the, um, the shared fields that people are in.
That’s been surprising to me. Although, of course, in hindsight, it makes perfect sense.
The people who are slow and deliberative and want to dwell in the text in that kind of meditative vibe work better with people who are going to talk at that same pace and think at that same pace. And the people who want to chatter more and be more high energy fit better together. And so that’s definitely something I’ve taken away from this.
Joel Baden:
As I think back to sort of where this all started and one of the reasons that I probably asked you about it in the first place, aside from the fact that you’re an audio engineer. Um, but more so, I mean, I think I’ve for a long time used you as a sounding board for like, “Would working clergy find X, Y, or Z interesting?” And this was definitely, this is a project like that.
So, you know, we’re done now. What’s your sense of like… Does this feel useful? Do you feel like this did the thing that we were hoping that it was going to do?
Helena Martin:
It’s so interesting to have a podcast. So this is not a type of content that I had made before. I’ve recorded a lot of music, I’ve written a lot of blogs, uh, but I have never recorded a podcast. What’s weird about having a podcast is there’s not an immediate mechanism for feedback. So it’s an act of faith to put it out into the world, like, “I hope that someone is listening to this!” I mean, we can see the numbers and stuff, but that’s not the conversational, like, comments on stuff you get below a Facebook post or something.
Joel Baden:
Yeah, but that’s them. What about you?
Helena Martin:
Well, so I found it useful as an active preacher.
Joel Baden:
That’s what I’m saying. You are the person who I know has sat and listened to every single one of these conversations
Helena Martin:
Many times.
Joel Baden:
And you are somebody who has to do a sermon from the lectionary on the regular. So like, I mean, not even when you’re sitting and listen to them post production, but like when you’re sitting in the room listening to these being recorded, do you find yourself going, “Oh yeah, this is worth it because like there was really good stuff there.”
Helena Martin:
Well, yeah, and I don’t preach every week, and the worst thing was when we had a great conversation, and I was like, “Oh, I hope I’m preaching this week!” And then I would look at the calendar and be like, “No!” So yeah, I think it helped me be excited about preaching.
And then I do occasionally hear from my classmates at YDS will reach out to me and be like, “Oh, you know, I stopped listening to the podcast for the summer, but I just started listening again and it’s so helpful.”
So I did occasionally get these breakthrough moments of people being like, “Oh yeah, I listen every week!” Clearly people are finding it useful. And I found it useful.
And I also really like the connection to a school that I went to. I think that that’s helpful. And I think that, um, a lot of our listeners are alumni, and they like hearing from their professors who they miss and loved. And they like hearing from the new professors that weren’t there when they were here.
I think it’s a connection to the school, to a certain way of thinking, right? Like you go out into the world, you’re working clergy, you’re not necessarily thinking about all of the highfalutin, fancy academic stuff, right? Like, you’re… unclogging toilets. And so this is a nice connection to our training and that’s something that I get out of it for sure.
One of the things I’m wondering for you is: you teach the Bible to YDS students who are going to go out into the world and teach it to other people and preach it and stuff. And, you know, working clergy think a lot about the responsibility, I think, of sharing these texts and guiding people’s lives with these ancient texts and telling them what we think they mean. I mean, that’s a that’s a heavy responsibility because people actually listen to you, which surprised me when I became a priest. People really hear what you say from the pulpit.
Joel Baden:
That must be nice.
Helena Martin:
It’s nice! But it’s also… that’s a lot of responsibility.
But you are, then, at a different point in that process. You’re like at an earlier point in that process. And so is this podcast. Um, do you think about that?
Joel Baden:
Yeah, in fact, I would, in a sense, that’s the entire way that I think about what I’m doing here. At least when I’m talking about like, you know… The way that I as faculty here am serving the community that is going on into pulpit ministry or leadership in the church is like:
I’m not here to tell them what to think. But you know, the good that I am doing in the world is less in my academic writing, as it were, and more in the fact that the people who are going to be out there actually making a difference in the world are the students who are going to be out there, leading people and guiding people and showing people, like… how best to encounter and engage with this world. And if I can give them tools to like, think in ways that to my mind are responsibly, um, and carefully and thoughtfully about this text that is at the center of the whole, like the whole deal, then that’s a pretty important thing.
And that in that sense, especially because this podcast does it not just for me, but for me and all of my colleagues. I mean, this is as representative a project of YDS as a whole as almost any that exists.
Helena Martin:
Yeah, I agree.
Joel Baden:
And in that sense, one way for us to think about it is like, this is the school stepping out there and saying, “This is how we as a community think about how we should be thinking about this text.”
It’s not one way, it’s a hundred different ways. And that’s—I mean, there’s a value in that on its own.
Helena Martin:
Yeah. Yeah. I agree.
One of the things that was very fun for me, especially as an MDiv student was the like weird reversal of power that was embedded in me kind of orchestrating this project, right?
Like, I would put these two people together, I would tell them what we were doing, and then we would sit down and we would record. And, you know, these two famous, tenured, fancy professors with all of their publications and stuff would talk to each other for a couple minutes. And they would look at me like they were done, and I would stop recording, and they would turn to me and be like, “Was that okay?”
And, it was like, “What, you’re asking me if it was okay?” But like, yeah, I mean, I guess you are. And it was a very fun way to get to know the faculty in a different context. Like not teaching, not advising, not even making liturgy in Marquand together, but just them looking to me and being like, “Was that good?”
Joel Baden:
Mm hmm. But it’s not just you as, like, podcast person. It’s you as clergy. Which is why, you know, we were so fortunate to have you in this role because you could both do the thing and like understand the thing.
You weren’t just some engineer who was recording whatever we put down and was going to smile and nod. You helped shape it, and you also are the kind of person who’s going to be using it. You could have said to me at any point, “This is terrible. This isn’t what we— this isn’t going to be useful to anyone ever.”
Helena Martin:
Yeah, I would have if I didn’t think it was good!
Joel Baden:
I’m sure, I’m sure you would have! But I mean, what was so nice was like, again, unlike with just some regular audio engineer, you’re sitting in the room while we’re recording, and I’m watching you nod. Like, I’m watching— I can see you responding and being like, “Yep.” And that’s the best feedback we can get. And that only happens because you are who you are.
Helena Martin:
Yeah. Thank you.
I thought I would end by asking you: I have heard a rumor about you that I thought we could clear up on the podcast, and that would make people listen to it:
I heard that you failed an entire class of intro Hebrew Bible students on their midterm. Is this true?
Joel Baden:
Just to teach them a lesson.
Helena Martin:
Just to teach them a lesson. You could set the record straight.
Joel Baden:
It is a wonderful story. But I don’t need it to be true because the story is doing all of the work that the truth would.
Helena Martin:
I’ve been hearing it all seven years that I’ve been here.
Joel Baden:
Which is… amazing.
Helena Martin:
And it always starts, “A couple years ago.” That’s how I can tell it’s a rumor.
Joel Baden:
Which is to say: just before the institutional memory has lapsed. Like, “Just before I got here…” Yeah. Um, Helena, you know that I can’t answer that.
Helena Martin:
Thank you so much for listening: to this extra episode, to any of the episodes, to all the episodes. This project has been a ton of work. It’s been an immense privilege.
Thank you to everyone who’s been involved with Yale Bible Study over the past five years that we’ve been working on this. Thank you to all the professors who gave time to prepare and record these episodes. Thank you to the Center for Continuing Education at Yale Divinity School for producing the podcast.
Thank you to our Creator and Managing Editor Joel Baden for bringing me into this project at the very beginning and giving me so much creative license to make it my own. Thank you to Production Manager Kelly Morrissey for herding cats week after week and doing all the hard behind-the-scenes work to bring these episodes to you on time. Thank you to Associate Producer Aidan Stoddart, to whom I delegated my least favorite audio editing tasks and who jumped right in to keep us going week after week. Thank you to Natalie Owens Pike for stepping in as host when I was out on parental leave. Thank you to everyone who recorded biblical passages for earlier episodes and to Caity Stuart and Crichelle Brice for production help in the first season. Thank you to Lynn Haversat and Elaine Ranciato for letting me take over your space with my recording equipment all the time. Finally, thank you to Calvin Linderman for stepping into my editing and mixing role when I was out on parental leave—and for creating our theme music way back when we were still shaping our voice.
I’m your Host and Executive Producer, Helena Martin. This has been Chapter, Verse, and Season.