Wholly Buyable

Pharaoh cannot believe that a single moment of weakness has lost him his entire Hebrew workforce.  He has his chariot prepared for battle and gathers his army.  He commissions 600 chariots which gallop out of Ramses toward the Israelite camp.  When the Egyptians are almost on top of them, the terrified refugees cry out to God  What happens next is one of the most epic events in the Bible and one w...

Egypt has been utterly battered by plagues and meteorological disasters. Only Pharaoh’s ego and pride are to blame and the Bible's readers have been regularly reminded that it is God who has made the king so stubborn. But all of the ravages visited on the country pale into insignificance when compared to plague number 10. Worse that locusts, hail, pestilence and darkness, God’s raw fury is ab...

Unlikely as it may seem, Moses is now the leader of over a million Hebrew slaves.  What happens next is one of the most incredible sequences of events in the Bible, and one which cements in the Israelites’ minds that God is a) powerful and b) very much has their backs.   Over and again, later books in the Bible turn their readers minds back to these events that play out in the Nile Delta as Moses...

Tongue tied and completely out of touch with the race of people who he was born into, Moses is also still a fugitive. Yet God has asked him to confront the most powerful leader in the known world and ask him to set free an enslaved workforce of millions of people. Hundreds of miles to the west, the crushing toil of these Hebrew slaves continues under a relentless Egyptian sun. But Moses is immovab...

Season Two is here! And with it, the Bible leaps forward 400 years. The bucolic idyll of Egypt under Joseph’s benign rule is a distant memory and the white noise that permeates the dust and clay of the Nile Delta is the groaning of a million Hebrew slaves. Credits Written and produced by Chas Bayfield Music by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins Music Cover art by Lisa Goff Chapters covered: Exodus 1-3

Egypt is still suffering from a complete absence of harvests.  The famine is so severe that even when the people have spent all their money, they still don’t have enough to eat.  Having brought his family safely out of Canaan, the threat of starvation is still uncomfortably real. Has Joseph done enough to prepare for the tough times ahead?  And with his father now old and weak, will he finally tur...

  Jacob believes that Joseph is dead and knows that Simeon is a prisoner is Egypt.  Now the only way of rescuing his son and bringing home much needed grain is to risk losing his precious son Benjamin. The old man’s world is unravelling. He has no idea that Joseph is alive and readers are yet to find out whether Joseph is plotting revenge or redemption. Out of options and with everything to lose a...

Episode 12 Having been sold by his brothers, carted to Egypt and bought by a high ranking member of Pharaoh's household, Joseph has no choice but to do what he is told.  At 17, he is a young man in his physical prime and his foreign birth possibly adds to his exoticness. As a slave, he is a forbidden fruit but Potiphar’s wife seems attracted to danger and invites him into her bed.  Willing to...

Episode 11 Just when things were beginning to look settled for Jacob, adversity has come his way again. Suddenly vulnerable, he knows that he cannot remain anywhere near Shechem. The family retreats and the Book of Genesis begins to build to its epic finale as one last hero steps into the spotlight. Jacob’s eleventh son may be known for the multicoloured coat gifted to him by his father, but the a...

Jacob and his family have made a break for freedom from his uncle, Laban. Driving sheep goats and 11 children is a slow process, and after seven days, Laban and his men finally catch up with the fugitives.  Jacob has no fighting men with him, just his wives, their handmaids and his children. Laban meanwhile has his sons and after seven days of chasing, the men’s blood is up.  Out of aces and needi...

Finally, karma for cheating his brother kicks in.  Jacob's uncle Laban proves to be every bit as much of a schemer as his sister Rebekah and as tricksters go, Jacob has just walked right into the hornet’s nest. Believing that he will be given Rachel as his wife, he is about to have a rude awakening and if he thinks he’ll be returning to Beersheba anytime soon, he is deluded. Not only that, hi...

Episode 8 Sarah is dead leaving Abraham, Isaac, Rebekah and their two sons as the world’s sole flag bearers for God. There is no love lost between Jacob and Esau. Jacob has already robbed his brother of his inheritance. And with the full backing of his mother, their playbook of scheming, dirty tricks and foul play continues. As ever, Esau is the stooge and this time, Isaac is betrayed too as his w...

Abraham's servant has been told to find Isaac. a wife from the old country. The pressure is very much on, as the future of millions depend on the success of his mission. Little does he know that the woman who he finds to be Isaac’s wife will help her favourite son plot, scheme and cheat his way to supremacy. That the boy will fall out catastrophically with his brother as a result and, fearful...

Abraham finally fathers the son he has been promised but God then appears to have a sudden change of heart. Having made the old man wait until he is 100 years before he and his wife Sarah have their baby, he now receives instructions to do the unthinkable. He must take his child up a mountain and kill him. Chapters covered: Genesis 20-23 Written and produced by Chas Bayfield Music by Michael Auld...

Episode 5 Now 100 years old and with his first attempt at fathering a son having failed to meet with God’s exacting standards, the job of repopulating the earth seems more out of reach than ever for Abraham.  Meanwhile, his nephew is having problems of his own that come to a head in one of the Bible's most spectacular displays of destructive power. Chapters covered: Genesis 17-19 Written and...

Episode 4 Adam and Eve failed spectacularly and though Noah did his best, his descendants have become a huge disappointment to God.  All God appears to need is one good man who is prepared to listen to him and do what he says. It is then that he spots a Mesopotamian farmer who is descended from Noah's son Shem and sends him on a seemingly improbable journey.  Chapters covered: Genesis 11-17 C...

With the planet’s new custodians descending into the same moral abyss as their predecessors, humanity needs a new hope.  It is then that clouds gather above a landlocked plain in Mesopotamia where a man, seemingly inexplicably, begins to build a boat.  Credits: Written and produced by Chas Bayfield. Music by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins Music. Cover art by Lisa Goff. Books covered: Genesis 5-11 Pl...

After succumbing to the slick sales pitch of a snake, the first couple is ejected from Eden. Forced to take jobs in the real world, they start a family but the human project continues in what seems to be an unstoppable tailspin. All humanity needs to survive is one good man... Credits: Written and produced by Chas Bayfield. Additional production by Jonny Hawkins. Music by Michael Auld. Cover art b...

It begins! The journey kicks off with a brief introduction to Wholly Buyable before launching into the Bible's origin story for life on earth. Episode one takes you  from the infinite nothingness before the Creation event to the 'will she-won't she?' moment where Eve is handed the forbidden fruit by the serpent. It's a feisty start to the world's all time best-selling...