This set of 24 (or maybe 36 - it felt like 36) lectures on the Book of Genesis was actually really interested at times, since the professor pointed out all the interesting things in the book that you'd see (or more importantly, hear) if you read it in the original Hebrew. Things like alliteration, structure, allusions to other stories, and so forth. As interesting as this was, it was like listening to a lecture about Beethoven where his music is discussed, but not played. In the same way that I'm starting to see that you need to be able to read Greek to fully understand the books of the New Testament, this lecture convinced me that if you really want to understand what the books of the Old Testmanent are saying, you need to know Hebrew.
Another thing that was interesting was the alien-ness of the morality of the Mesopotamian culture reflected in Genesis. Religious and family leaders have multiple wives, give their husbands handmaidens, marry their sisters, pick up hookers at the city gates - there's a lot here that would not pass muster at my Sunday School, and it is a little startling to see that Father Abraham is in the middle of pretty much all of it. It was just a different set of social mores and religious expectations, but it is a little surprising to see conduct that would be shocking today pass without a comment.
Still, the lectures dragged on a bit, and it got difficult to keep paying attention when, unlike the New Testament, there's not a lot of contemporary meaning to what Isaac or Esau or Jacob or Joseph did. I mean the New Testament revolves around Jesus and what he did and what he said and what it did and did not mean, and that's pretty important stuff. This is was hard to see what the significance was, at least in comparison. That's especially true because as the professor notes, there is a lot of repetition in the stories and the themes, which he says has a literary meaning to it.
One other thing, and that's the professor. The first three lectures were the worst presentation I have heard from an adult in my life - the professor was reading syllable by syllable, like a second grader, and I was baffled why. But then with the fourth lecture this stopped and the speaker, while still a touch formal, was warmer and infintely better-spoken. Not sure what happened, but this one was about to get sent back before they got the problem fixed.