History in the Bible
Summary: A layman's guide to a 150 years of research into the history presented in the Bible. I explore the religion of ancient Israel, and the development of Christianity through to the death of Paul. I discuss every single book in every Bible (there are more than you think!) Lightly garnished with a dash of drollery, a soupcon of scrutiny, and not one ounce of objectivity. Not one ounce! Episodes are released every third Sunday.
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- Artist: Garry Stevens
- Copyright: Creative Commons 4.0 BY-NC-SA International License
Podcasts:
The first part of Leviticus, which comes from the P source, sets out the complex system of sacrifices that God demands of the Israelites.
Steve Guerra and I discuss James the Just, how he got to be called James rather than Jacob in English, why he was James the Awesome, his relationship to Jesus, how the Catholics and Orthodox think about him, and Jesus' family life and economic situation.
The major festivals of Judaism are created, the Tent of Meeting is designed, and the priesthood under Aaron established. God is outraged when the feckless Aaron makes two idols.
This is the defining moment in the history of the Israelites, where they swear allegiance to God in return for a special relationship with the divinity. I discuss how this contract follows the suzerainity treaties of the Hittites and Assyrians.
After ten rounds of unpleasantness, Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt towards Mt Sinai. They don't yet know it, but they have begun 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.
We conclude the story of the patriarchs with a happy reunion between Jacob and his son Joseph, now an important minister in the Egyptian government.
Jacob is the great trickster in the Bible, outwitting his father Isaac, his brother Esau, and even his own children. The P, E, and J sources have several different versions of Jacob's stories.
Abraham swindles the Philistine king Abimelech just as he did Pharoah, and almost kills his son Isaac, following God's commands. At the very last minute, God says it's all been a test.
Stephen Guerra of the History of the Papacy podcast and I talk about the Second Temple period. This was the time between the return of the Jews from the exile in Babylon in 538 BC to the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 AD.
After the primeval stories, Genesis introduces the man who dominates and forms the very heart of of book, Abraham. God makes a real-estate deal with Abraham, giving him Canaan in return for eternal fidelity.
In this bonus, I talk about history podcasting with Steve Guerra of the History of the Papacy podcast.
Flood epics were a dime a dozen in ancient Mesopotamia. Genesis has its own version.
The opening chapters of Genesis recount two stories of creation, neither of which involves Satan. One is from the J source, the other from the P source.
Work by scholars from the late 19th century had established that five sources lay behind the Pentateuch. They came to be known by letters: J, E, P, and D. These theories were a mainstay of biblical studies until recently.
This potted history of the Middle East in the Bronze Age sets the background for the episodes that follow. It traces the story of Canaan as it was uncovered, and then re-interperted, by archaeologists from the 1930s to the present day.
