2.10 Grappling with the Greeks I: Josephus and the Books of Maccabees
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 summary of the history I will expand on in the next f...
26 Nov 201728min
2.9 The Apocalypse to End Them All: 1 Enoch
Apocalypses were popular reading amongst Jews in the centuries they spent under Roman rule. Rabbinical Judaism blotted the apocalypses from its collective memory. Christianity incorporated them into i...
12 Nov 201720min
2.8 Lost Books of the New Testaments
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 influenced Christianity. We call them parabiblical or ...
29 Okt 201728min
2.7 Under Persia: Farewell to the Tanakh
The Jews have a placid existence under Persian rule, and create Judaism. They reconstruct their religion, one now without kings and prophets. From on, the Law is all. I discuss the last of the books o...
15 Okt 201728min
2.6 Leaving Babylon IV: Nehemiah and Ezra Stand Against Ruth
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 do I. The two institute a tax-payer-funded theocra...
1 Okt 201730min
2.5 Leaving Babylon III: The Enigma of Zerubbabel and Joshua
After Sheshbazzar's failure, the second wave of returnees are led by the enigmatic figures of the supposed Davidic king Zerubbabel and the high-priest Joshua. Those returning spurn those who stayed be...
17 Sep 201730min
2.4 Leaving Babylon II: Cyrus and the Mystery of Sheshbazzar
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 Great of Persia, has no trouble mounting a friendl...
3 Sep 201722min
2.3 Leaving Babylon I: The Ezra Muddle
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, called Ezra. There a whole bunch of other books of Ez...
20 Aug 201725min
