Literature and history come.

Hello and welcome to literature and history.

Episode 19, The One Who Struggles with God.

This is the fifth of ten shows that will do on the Old Testament.

In this program, we're going to cover the historical books of the Tanakh.

These are Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther,

which together make up a sizable portion of any Bible. The main narrative of these books begins with the Israelites

about to cross over the Jordan River and into Canaan to conquer the promised land and

it ends centuries later after the end of the Babylonian captivity, having narrated

more than 500 years of history.

Our first order of business in this show, then, will be to familiarize ourselves with the main events

of this portion of the Bible.

After we do that, we'll explore some of the more important discoveries in biblical archaeology, discoveries that have variously supported and disproved

narratives in the historical books over the past few generations.

Let's begin this long program by getting an image in our heads.

In 587 B.C. about 50 miles south southwest of the city of Jerusalem. There stood a city called

Laciche. Laciche was a well fortified town in the kingdom of Judah. It lay in

the remains of a watershed in the dry hills on the fringe of the

Negev desert. From Laciche, a long day's march to the northeast could take you to the banks

of the Dead Sea and the future site of Masada.

But Masada didn't exist yet.

Rome was likely a bunch of Wattle and Dadaab villages.

...