In this episode, Brendon and Skyler continue setting up the context for the coming series on the Nicene Creed. Today, we take a brief and broad tour of Ancient Israel. What is Israel’s story both as Israel – and also relative to the civilizations around them? What are distinctive Israelite beliefs – and what are the patterns to the problems within Israel, and between Israel and their neighbors? This episode mostly starts around the time of the Monarchy, and covers highlights of the historical material all the way up to the rise of King Herod. 

We start into the content of Ancient Israel at the 10:30 mark.

The Bible Among the Myths; The Book of Isaiah (NICOT; 2 vol.’s) by John Oswalt 

Against the Gods; The Case for Biblical Archaeology by John Currid 

Scribes and Scripture by John D. Meade and Peter J. Gurry 

An Introduction to the Old Testament; My Servants the Prophets; The Book of Isaiah (3 vol.’s) by Edward J. Young 

The Old Testament Against Its Environment by G. Ernest Wright 

Who Is God? by Richard Bauckham 

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization by Anthony Esolen 

New Testament History by F.F. Bruce 

Now and Not Yet: Theology and Mission in Ezra-Nehemiah by Dean Ulrich 

The Pentateuch in Its Cultural Environment by G. Herbert Livingston 

The Meaning of the Pentateuch; The Pentateuch as Narrative by John Sailhammer 

The Five Books of Moses; God Spake By Moses; The Unity of Isaiah; The Old Testament: Its Claims and Its Critics by Oswald T. Allis 

Murmuring Against Moses by John Bergsma and Jeffrey Morrow 

The Documentary Hypothesis by U. Cassuto 

Biblical Theology; The Mosaic Origin of the Pentateuchal Codes by Geerhardus Vos 

We Become What We Worship; The Temple and the Church’s Mission by G.K. Beale 

Introduction to the Old Testament by Roland Kenneth Harrison 

On the Reliability of the Old Testament by K. A. Kitchen 

A History of Israel by Walter Kaiser Jr. and Paul D. Wegner 

The History of Ancient Israel by Michael Grant 

Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith? edited by James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary 

The Psalms: A Christ-Centered Commentary (4 vol.’s) by Christopher Ash 

The Jews in the Greek in the Greek Age by Elias Bickerman 

Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World by Louis Feldman 

From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire by Pierre Briant 

The Harvest of Hellenism by F. E. Peters 

The Rise of Christianity by W.H.C. Frend 

Herod Antipas by Harold W. Hoehner 

The Herods by Bruce Chilton 

From Joseph to Caiaphas by James C. Vanderkam 

Israel in Egypt; Ancient Israel in Sinai by James K. Hoffmeier 

God, Language and Scripture by Moises Silva 

The God of Miracles by C. John Collins 

Interpreting Eden by Vern Poythress 

Thinking Through Creation by Christopher Watkin 

Old Testament Cosmology and Divine Accommodation by John Hilber 

The Anti-Anthropomorphism in the Greek Pentateuch by Charles T. Frisch 

The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (2 vol.’s) edited by James H. Charlesworth 

Sinai and Zion by Jon D. Levenson 

The Bible and the Ancient Near East by Cyrus Gordon and Gary Rendsburg 

Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan by WIlliam Foxwell Albright 

The Talmudic Argument by Louis Jacobs 

The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel by Benjamin D. Sommer 

The Jewish Gospels by Daniel Boyarin 

In the Wake of the Goddesses by Tikva Frymer-Kensky (see also here)