The suffering of Job simply does not add up for his three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar.
Despite what they know of Job from their own experience, their brains simply cannot compute that he might be innocent.
Even when Job points out the very obvious fact that God allows many evil people to thrive, his friends maintain their unswervable position that his suffering has been brought on himself by some terrible misdeed.
And so it goes on, with readers knowing what they don't - that Job is innocent and that God and the Devil are playing games.

Written and produced by Chas Bayfield
Music by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins Music
Cover art by Lisa Goff

Job is utterly bewildered.
His friends are convinced that he has done something dreadful to warrant so much suffering.
He knows that he hasn't, and simply wants a hearing with God.
This opens a can of worms.
Is Job, a mere human, claiming that God has made a mistake?
Listeners feel especially smug knowing that all parties are wrong.
Job hasn't sinned, at least no more than the average person.
And God hasn't made a mistake, he's simply playing a game.
Schadenfreude is set to high as Job's friends set themselves up for a catastrophic fall.
But will Job himself be vindicated?
First he has to stay alive, and hear yet more godly wisdom from friends who prove to be not quite as wise as they think.


Written and produced by Chas Bayfield
Music by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins Music
Cover art by Lisa Goff

A man sits in rags while his woulds fester.
Three of his friends sit with him, explaining to him why he is suffering.
It is crystal clear to them: his suffering is a punishment from God, and because the suffering is severe, so must be the sin that he is being punished for.
What none of tyhem know is that Job is the subject of a game that is being played in the heavenly realm by God and the Devil.
His suffering is to prove to the Devil that nothing will make Job lose his faith in God.
Like three men trying to solve a puzzle without employing any lateral thinking, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar are never going to come close to figuring out what is going on.
Nor though is Job, who suffers not only physical discomfort but the endless rebukes of three men who believe they have all the answers.

Written and produced by Chas Bayfield
Music by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins Music
Cover art by Lisa Goff

Job is a good man.
He enjoys a prosperous life.
He worships God.

The Devil is confident that Job's faith is paper thin and that a bit of adversity will soon have him rejecting God.
God takes the opposite position and so the experiment slash wager begins.
With his skin itching and sore, all his material wealth gone and his children dead, Job must now endure the "wisdom" of three of his friends, each of whom claims to know exactly why he is suffering, without any self realisation that they are each adding to Job's problems.

Written and produced by Chas Bayfield
Music by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins Music
Cover art by Lisa Goff

In one of the most extraordinary gambits in the Bible, and possibly in the whole of literature, God and the Devil have a wager over the virtue of one man, a farmer named Job.

Now synonymous with suffering, Job endures both terrible harships and the judgemental pontification of some of his closest friends.

This is where the history section of the Bible ends and the poetry begins and the Devil is about to approach God with a proposal.

Written and produced by Chas Bayfield
Music by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins Music
Cover art by Lisa Goff

This has to be the Bible's greatest moment of schadenfreude.

A man intent on genocide realises that the person who he believes is one of his closest allies is actually part of the ethnic group who he wants to cleanse.

Furious back-pedalling ensues, vengeance is dealt and what might have been the darkest day in Jewish history is averted thanks to the bravery and cool-headedness of a single Jewish woman.

Is the Book of Esther the Bible's most page turning book? It has to be up there.

Enjoy the finale.

From the pampered luxury of Persia's royal harem to a life or death encounter with the world's most powerful man.

It's incredible that Shakespeare didn't write a play about Esther, the characters are so vivid. Then again, he didn't need to as the story is already told so well.

Esther, the beautiful queen, ensconced in the harem.
Mordecai, who directs the action from the palace gates.
Haman the scheming villain who has the king's ear.
Xerxes, the king who is duped into sanctioning a holocaust.

But when the action reaches a crescendo, it is Esther alone who must undo first Haman, and next his murderous vendetta against her people.

All Mordecai can do is pray that his young cousin has what it takes to rescue them.

You're king of one of the largest empires ever amassed.
You're hosting a banquet for the governors of all your territories.
And you want your queen to make an appearance.
She feels that she is only being paraded in front of the men as a trophy, and refuses.
The stage is set for one of the Bible's most remarkable stories, a literal rags to riches fairy tale with enough grit and gore to make it a genuine page turner.

Written and produced by Chas Bayfield
Music by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins Music
Cover art by Lisa Goff