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PODCAST

Oldest Stories

History and myth of the Cradle of Civilization, bronze age Mesopotamia, beginning with the dawn of writing. The show will cover the full history of Mesopotamia, from Gilgamesh to Nabonidas, a span of some 2500 years, with myths of heroes and gods, and tales of daily life peppered throughout. Sumer, Akkad, Old Babylon, Hittites, and Israel have all been covered in depth, current episodes get deep into the Assyrian Empire. New episodes every other Wednesday. Online at oldeststories.net.

history

All Episodes

00:45:55

The Theology Within History

Oldest Stories ·

2023/12/27

Today we overview the historical portions of the bible and look at the fallibility of heroes, resolving moral conflicts with God, and the historical problems with strict literalism. I have gotten specific questions on these three topics over the course of the series, but rather than answering the specific questions, I thought it would be more useful and interesting to consider the underlying issues, which I think are extremely common in the Christian community. Because my purpose in the Israel

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00:27:40

Isaiah 55

Oldest Stories ·

2023/12/25

Christmas Special! We are reading Isaiah chapter 55, a pretty short one, partly because it is nice, and partly because it illustrates the theological maturity present very early in Jewish history. Also, if you got any money for Christmas, you should spend it on the Oldest Stories book: https://a.co/d/3CzuRQQ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/oldeststories/message

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00:42:39

The Witness of Lamentations

Oldest Stories ·

2023/12/23

Today we read through the five poems of Jeremiah's Lamentations over the destruction of Jerusalem. We look in particular at the historical context and the humanness of this 2600 year old performance, but also at some of the theological innovations that, already at the start of the Babylonian exile, are marking the exilic Jews out as a faith distinct from their neighbors and unique in the world. The main Mesopotamian context here is the genre of Laments which was already at least 1500 years old

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00:43:52

The Book of Job in a Near Eastern Context

Oldest Stories ·

2023/12/22

Today we go on a wide ranging survey of the Near Eastern predecessors to the Book of Job, including the biblical books that also speak to the same themes, before looking through the Book of Job to see a fairly unique answer to the question of why do good things happen to bad people. The first Oldest Stories book, covering Sumer and Akkad, is available for purchase: https://a.co/d/64mxp6w --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/oldeststories/message

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01:10:01

OS 133 - Jerusalem Falls

Oldest Stories ·

2023/12/20

Today we ask the question - Who put the "Deuteronomic" in the Deuteronomistic Histories? Plus thousands of people die, so all in all a pretty jam packed episode. Our focus is King Josiah, about whom much ink has been spilled, and after him we will briefly look around at the emerging Babylonian Empire, then quickly destroy Jerusalem to finally round out our extended look at biblical history. The first Oldest Stories book, covering Sumer and Akkad, is available for purchase:

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00:50:39

OS 132 - Judah Ascends

Oldest Stories ·

2023/12/06

Israel has been destroyed by the Assyrians, and Judah very nearly follows. But Jerusalem never does fall to the Assyrians, and the re-emergence of the southern kingdom is almost as shocking as the internal discord that accompanies it. We look today a lot of prophets and religious policies alongside military issues, because these do seem to be driving politics and polarized factionalism in a big way. The first Oldest Stories book, covering Sumer and Akkad is available for purchase:

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00:52:54

OS 131 - Israel's Brutal Judgement

Oldest Stories ·

2023/11/22

The first Oldest Stories Book is available for purchase: https://a.co/d/64mxp6w Today, we go in depth with what it might have been like as the Assyrians invaded, first Israel and then Judah, looking deeply at the battle of Lachish. Today's is a tale of hard times and despair, though today is more the despair at what is coming, and next time will be more the despair at what has passed. Of course, there is still a lot to deal with with the ups and downs of the biblical Yahwist faction in Israel

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00:02:53

Oldest Stories is now a Book!

Oldest Stories ·

2023/11/15

Celebrating 1 million downloads and my birthday, the first Oldest Stories book releases on November 24th, 2023. Pre-order is available only for the digital editions, you will need to wait until the release date for a physical copy, but definitely at least think about it. I am very excited. Amazon link: https://a.co/d/hKmiIrY --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/oldeststories/message

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00:36:36

OS 130 - Israel Runs Out of Names

Oldest Stories ·

2023/11/08

Today we are in a mad gallop through decades and kings, each of them having pretty short, one or two episode lives, and also mostly having the same or extremely similar names to get everything super confused. This part of Israelite history moves pretty quickly, but there are a lot of interesting things that can be pulled from relatively short mentions, plus we get the first and only artistic depiction of what an Israelite actually looked like in the Monarchy period, and it turns out they just looked

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00:45:58

OS 129 - Israelite and Phoenician Prosperity

Oldest Stories ·

2023/10/25

Today we talk about Phoenicia, overviewing where it has been since we left our bronze age Canaan series, discussing the nature of the economic prosperity it brought to the region, and talking a bit about the causes and nature of their famous trade colonies. We also actually look at Jehoshaphat, after mostly ignoring him for a few episodes. Also, even though it builds over a few centuries, the development of what gets called the iron age economies is perhaps the quickest societal advancement in human

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00:36:47

OS 128 - Israel's Moabite Neighbors

Oldest Stories ·

2023/10/11

One of the most important extra-biblical confirmations of biblical history is the Mesha Stele, written by king Mesha of Moab. But it is not only interesting for what it tells us about Israel, but also for being the only window into the otherwise enigmatic Moabites, their god, and their self-perception, at least from the highest levels. And so today we discuss the context of Kings Ahaziah and Jehoshaphat, but then switch over to read through the Mesha Stele and learn what we can of the region as a

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00:45:46

OS 127 - Israel's First Historical King

Oldest Stories ·

2023/09/27

Today we look at King Ahab and the Battle of Qarqar, or Karkar, a hugely important event in which we see the emergence of a large number of new peoples and things who will come to play a role in the near east for a long time to come. The Arabs, cavalry, and of course the Assyrians themselves burst onto the scene in a big way, and we finally get a chance to compare biblical numbers to the sorts of things being claimed by the historical powers of the region. --- Send in a voice message:

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00:46:01

OS 126 - Israel's Great Confusion

Oldest Stories ·

2023/09/13

Today we examine no fewer than three types of confusion in ancient Israel. First is the very standard political confusion of unsettled times, as king after king gets assassinated and wars of all sort rage. Next is the standard for biblical scholars confusion of what events can and can not be taken as history, ranging all the way from the extremely plausible wars and assassinations all the way to "One Million Ethiopians". Finally, we look at the most interesting confusion of all, the

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00:47:55

OS 125 - Israel's Divided Kingdoms

Oldest Stories ·

2023/08/30

Today we talk about God's opinion of ecumenicism, the historical issues around prophecy, and also the careers of Jeroboam, Rehoboam, as kings of Israel and Judah, the now divided kingdoms. Much of our history at this point is exclusively religious, but there are still things that we can pull out that give indications of how these small kingdoms are doing in the wider context. We finish out with an exciting military invasion, except mostly exciting for the enemies of God, because Shishak, or

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00:45:37

OS 124 - Israel's Wisdom and Wealth

Oldest Stories ·

2023/08/16

Today, King Solomon may or may not write a good chunk of scripture, and is definitely the inspiration of a massive collection of fun legends. He is wealthy, though probably not as wealthy as we usually think, and he may have had a ton of wives, though also not as many as claimed. Though isn't that typical, a guy claiming to have bedded far more women then he actually has. He also has more Gods than most tellings like to emphasize, though even scripture can't avoid the scandal of the great Temple

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00:44:40

OS 123 - Israel's Great High Priest

Oldest Stories ·

2023/08/02

Today we ask the question, how many temples did God authorize, and why did he authorize some but not others. Then we ask, was David a priest of God, and why he could be priest and king when Saul could not. Those two questions take us on a long detour, but it ultimately ends up with David dead and Solomon on the throne, fighting for his life in a fratricidal power struggle. In between these, we have a digression where we look a bit at the history, religion, and religious history of the Samaritans, or

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00:38:14

OS 122 - Israel's King David

Oldest Stories ·

2023/07/19

Today is King David and War. Lots of war. Some diplomacy, which turns into war, some rebellion, which becomes war, some more rebellion, which becomes a double war, and a bunch of war-related logistics scattered all throughout. Also, David commits adultery and murder, but you already knew that story. Perhaps the big surprise today is the General Joab subplot, he is a surprisingly ruthless gut-stabber. Also we get some miracles today, namely a massive plague and a bunch of rampaging murderous giants

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00:43:34

OS 121 - Israel's Favorite King

Oldest Stories ·

2023/07/05

Today the shepherd David becomes King David. This involves violence. Indeed, most of his career is violence, and we take a nice look at some of that violence here today. We also look at his construction efforts and some of his diplomacy, but as usual most of it turns into a bunch of tangents about the meaning of Baal worship in ancient Israel, me wondering why Christians don't practice divination any more, and whether or not David was a good man. --- Send in a voice message:

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00:32:17

OS 120 - Israel's Habiru King

Oldest Stories ·

2023/06/21

David comes in for a bit of criticism today, for probably being a murdering bandit, but these issues are an important part of this story. We look again at the bias in our sources, and we see a pretty big disconnect between what we are told about David and what we are shown him doing. But, of course, the tale of a bandit is usually an exciting one if nothing else, and so we have a pretty action packed episode in between all the musings about the value of human life in the ancient world, the

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00:41:04

OS 119 - Israel's Young Shepherd

Oldest Stories ·

2023/06/07

We begin the tale of young David's rise to power, looking at the three origin stories of the young shepherd, warrior, and poet, and then noting that as he began to rise in fame and power, Saul was absolutely not insane to be jealous and worried of him rebelling and usurping the throne. After all, that is exactly what he ends up doing. But in addition to just the narrative of King David's rise, we take a nice long look at some of the historical and archeological issues surrounding this entire

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