Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchGrappling With the Greeks II: Jerusalem Against Athens
Season 2 Episode 11
The Judeans spent 120 happy years under the Hellenistic rule of the Egyptian Ptolemies. They chafed under the rule of the Hellenistic kingdom of the …
8 years, 10 months ago
Grappling with the Greeks I: Josephus and the Books of Maccabees
Season 2 Episode 10
First in a mini-series on the history of the Jews and the province of Judea under the Hellenistic empires, and under the Maccabees. I start with a su…
8 years, 11 months ago
The Apocalypse to End Them All: 1 Enoch
Season 2 Episode 9
Apocalypses were popular reading amongst Jews in the centuries they spent under Roman rule. Rabbinical Judaism blotted the apocalypses from its colle…
8 years, 11 months ago
Lost Books of the New Testaments
Season 2 Episode 8
Jews produced a vast number of religious books in the centuries before the birth of Jesus. They had no influence on later Judaism, but profoundly inf…
9 years ago
Under Persia: Farewell to the Tanakh
Season 2 Episode 7
The Jews have a placid existence under Persian rule, and create Judaism. They reconstruct their religion, one now without kings and prophets. From on…
9 years ago
Leaving Babylon IV: Nehemiah and Ezra Stand Against Ruth
Season 2 Episode 6
Governor Nehemiah and priest-scribe Ezra finally bring the Jews back home from Babylon. Modern scholars reverse the Biblical order of the two, and so…
9 years ago
Leaving Babylon III: The Enigma of Zerubbabel and Joshua
Season 2 Episode 5
After Sheshbazzar's failure, the second wave of returnees are led by the enigmatic figures of the supposed Davidic king Zerubbabel and the high-pries…
9 years, 1 month ago
Leaving Babylon II: Cyrus and the Mystery of Sheshbazzar
Season 2 Episode 4
The Babylonian empire is rendered helpless when its king Nabonidus goes on a ten year holiday to Arabia. The best-ever benevolent autocrat, Cyrus the…
9 years, 1 month ago
Leaving Babylon I: The Ezra Muddle
Season 2 Episode 3
Our most important sources for the Return are the books known as Ezra and Nehemiah in Catholic and Protestant bibles. The Jews have a single book, ca…
9 years, 2 months ago
In Babylon II: Ezekiel and Job
Season 2 Episode 2
In the book of Ezekiel God transforms from furious father to jealous husband. The prophet is commanded to protest against the Judeans with performanc…
9 years, 2 months ago