In Our Time: Religion

Misha Glenny introduces the brand new series of In Our Time, which begins with a discussion on Thomas More’s 16th-century ‘bestseller’ Utopia, his vision of a perfect republic. This follows his latest archive selection, from 2012, that explores timekeeping in the ancient world up to the modern digital clock.This podcast collection is now unavailable. To continue listening, search for and follow the main In Our Time podcast on BBC Sounds or wherever you find your BBC podcasts. New episodes arrive weekly.

This podcast collection is now unavailable. To continue listening, search for and follow the main In Our Time podcast on BBC Sounds or wherever you find your podcasts. New episodes arrive weekly.

Melvyn Bragg and guests explore typology, a method of biblical interpretation that aims to meaningfully link people, places, and events in the Hebrew Bible, what Christians call the Old Testament, with the coming of Christ in the New Testament. Old Testament figures like Moses, Jonah, and King David were regarded by Christians as being ‘types’ or symbols of Jesus. This way of thinking became hugely popular in medieval Europe, Renaissance England and Victorian Britain, as Christians sought to make sense of their Jewish inheritance - sometimes rejecting that inheritance with antisemitic fervour. It was a way of seeing human history as part of a divine plan, with ancient events prefiguring more modern ones, and it influenced debates about the relationship between metaphor and reality in the bible, in literature, and in art. It also influenced attitudes towards reality, time and history. WithMiri Rubin, Professor of Medieval and Early Modern History at Queen Mary, University of LondonHarry Spillane, Munby Fellow in Bibliography at Cambridge and Research Fellow at Darwin CollegeAnd Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe, Associate Professor in Patristics at Cambridge. Producer: Eliane GlaserReading list:A. C. Charity, Events and their Afterlife: The Dialectics of Christian Typology in the Bible and Dante (first published 1966; Cambridge University Press, 2010)Margaret Christian, Spenserian Allegory and Elizabethan Biblical Exegesis: The Context for 'The Faerie Queene' (Manchester University Press, 2016)Dagmar Eichberger and Shelley Perlove (eds.), Visual Typology in Early Modern Europe: Continuity and Expansion (Brepols, 2018)Tibor Fabiny, The Lion and the Lamb: Figuralism and Fulfilment in the Bible, Art and Literature (Palgrave Macmillan, 1992)Tibor Fabiny, ‘Typology: Pros and Cons in Biblical Hermeneutics and Literary Criticism’ (Academia, 2018)Northrop Frye, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (first published 1982; Mariner Books, 2002)Leonhard Goppelt (trans. Donald H. Madvig), Typos: The Typological Interpretation of the Old Testament in the New (William B Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1982)Paul J. Korshin, Typologies in England, 1650-1820 (first published in 1983; Princeton University Press, 2014)Judith Lieu, Image and Reality: The Jews in the World of the Christians in the Second Century (T & T Clark International, 1999)Sara Lipton, Images of Intolerance: The Representation of Jews and Judaism in the Bible Moralisee (University of California Press, 1999)Montague Rhodes James and Kenneth Harrison, A Guide to the Windows of King's College Chapel (first published in 1899; Cambridge University Press, 2010)J. W. Rogerson and Judith M. Lieu (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies (Oxford University Press, 2008)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Hindu goddess Kali, often depicted as dark blue, fierce, defiant, revelling in her power, and holding in her four or more arms a curved sword and a severed head with a cup underneath to catch the blood. She may have her tongue out, to catch more blood spurting from her enemies, be wearing a garland of more severed heads and a skirt of severed hands and yet she is also a nurturing mother figure, known in West Bengal as ‘Maa Kali’ and she can be fiercely protective. Sometimes she is shown as young and conventionally beautiful and at other times as old, emaciated and hungry, so defying any narrow definition.WithBihani Sarkar Senior Lecturer in Comparative Non-Western Thought at Lancaster UniversityJulius Lipner Professor Emeritus of Hinduism and the Comparative Study of Religion at the University of CambridgeAnd Jessica Frazier Lecturer in the Study of Religion at the University of Oxford and fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hindu StudiesDuring this discussion, Julius Lipner reads a translation of a poem by Kamalakanta (c.1769–1821) "Is my black Mother Syama really black?" This translation is by Rachel Fell McDermott and can be found in her book Singing to the Goddess, Poems to Kali and Uma from Bengal (Oxford University Press, 2001)Producer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Mandakranta Bose (ed.), The Goddess (Oxford University Press, 2018) John S. Hawley and Donna M. Wulff (eds.), Devi: Goddesses of India (University of California Press, 1996)Knut A. Jacobsen (ed.), Brill's Encyclopedia of Hinduism, vol 1 (Brill, 2025)David Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition (University of California Press, 1986), especially chapter 8Rachel Fell McDermott and Jeffrey J. Kripal (eds.), Encountering Kālī in the margins, at the center, in the west (University of California Press, 2003)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss a story that circulated widely in the middle ages about a highly learned woman who lived in the ninth century, dressed as a man, travelled to Rome, and was elected Pope.Her papacy came to a dramatic end when it was revealed that she was a woman, a discovery that is said to have occurred when she gave birth in the street. The story became a popular cautionary tale directed at women who attempted to transgress traditional roles, and it famously blurred the boundary between fact and fiction. The story lives on as the subject of recent novels, plays and films.With:Katherine Lewis, Honorary Professor of Medieval History at the University of Lincoln and Research Associate at the University of YorkLaura Kalas, Senior Lecturer in Medieval English Literature at Swansea UniversityAnd Anthony Bale, Professor of Medieval & Renaissance English at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Girton College.Producer: Eliane GlaserReading list:Alain Boureau (trans. Lydia G. Cochrane), The Myth of Pope Joan (University of Chicago Press, 2001)Stephen Harris and Bryon L. Grisby (eds.), Misconceptions about the Middle Ages (Routledge, 2008), especially 'The Medieval Popess' by Vincent DiMarcoValerie R. Hotchkiss, Clothes Make the Man: Female Cross Dressing in Medieval Europe (Routledge, 1996)Jacques Le Goff, Heroes and Marvels of the Middle Ages (Reaktion, 2020), especially the chapter ‘Pope Joan’Marina Montesano, Cross-dressing in the Middle Ages (Routledge, 2024)Joan Morris, Pope John VIII - An English Woman: Alias Pope Joan (Vrai, 1985)Thomas F. X. Noble, ‘Why Pope Joan?’ (Catholic Historical Review, vol. 99, no.2, 2013)Craig M. Rustici, The Afterlife of Pope Joan: Deploying the Popess Legend in Early Modern England (University of Michigan Press, 2006)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production