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Duration: 35:01

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Here it is, the part of ancient Near Eastern history that excites the most passion and interest. There is no doubt that there were kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and there is no doubt that after they were conquered by the Babylonians there was a class of Judahite priests who assembled the collection of texts we now call the Old Testament, but before that pretty much all bets are off. Today begins what will be a bit of a series on Israel, and we will go over briefly the four main points of view on Israelite history, which I call the Biblical Literalists, the Accommodationists, the Pure Archeologists, and the Radical Skeptics. Then we will look in a very bare bones way at what is the bare minimum we can say about pre-kingdom Israelite history to set the stage for future episodes.

Notes for the episode are on the webpage at oldeststories.net

The Oldest Stories podcast tells the history and myth of bronze age Mesopotamia beginning with the first written clay tablets circa 3000 BCE. Using their stories and histories, we can learn a great deal about the people of the ancient world and see how the people of the very first civilizations were not all that different from us nowadays, except of course for the places where they were very different. The past is a foreign country after all.

This youtube channel is an extension of the Oldest Stories podcast, which is also available on any good podcasting app, or at the website http://oldeststories.net. New episodes release will be once a week each Wednesday.