Tal Ilan is a retired professor of Jewish studies at the Free University, Berlin (Germany), and has researched the Diaspora Revolt of 115-117 CE against the Romans that broke out across Libya, Egypt and Cyprus. The rebellion is less well known than the two other Jewish revolts against Rome, namely the Great Revolt which resulted in the destruction of the Second Temple and the Bar Kochba Revolt. The Diaspora Revolt had disastrous consequences for the Jewish populations of the diaspora and much of what is known about it is pieced together from ancient writings and fragments of papyrii. A related podcast on the Bar Kochba Revolt can be found here.

Seth Schwartz is a professor of classical Jewish civilization at Columbia University and the author of Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 BCE to 640 CE. The book examines the effects of Persian, Greek, and Roman rule of Jewish society in antiquity and how it shaped Jewish life and identity. Episode 2 discusses the impacts of the Hasmonean territorial expansion as well as how Judaism was transformed following the failed revolts against Rome.

You can purchase a copy of the book here. 

Seth Schwartz is a professor of classical Jewish civilization at Columbia University and the author of Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 BCE to 640 CE. The book examines the effects of Persian, Greek, and Roman rule of Jewish society in antiquity and how it shaped Jewish life and identity. Episode 1 focuses on the return of Judahite exiles from Persia and the establishment of the Torah of Moses as the official law code of the people. Episode 2 discusses the impacts of the Hasmonean territorial expansion as well as how Judaism was transformed following the failed revolts against Rome.

You can purchase a copy of the book here. 

Aren Meir and Sue Frumin come back on the show to discuss a paper they co-authored that examined plant-related Philistine ritual practices at Tell Es-Safi, which is believed to be the biblical Gath. You can find a link to the study here.  Aren is a professor at Bar Ilan University and director of the Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project. His research has a particular focus on the Bronze and Iron Ages of the ancient Near East. Sue is has been the archaeobotanist of the Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project since 2012 and is a member of the Faculty of Jewish Studies at Bar Ilan University. 

Joan Taylor is a Professor of Christian Origins and Second Temple Judaism at King’s College London and the author of the book The Essenes, The Scrolls, and the Dead Sea. In this episode, we discuss her book that challenges misconceptions about who the Essenes were and their place in Second Temple Judaism. You can purchase a copy of the book on Amazon.

Michael Fradley is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford and a landscape archaeologist. He was one of the co-authors of a recent study about how a remote sensing survey in southern Jordan identified at least three Roman military camps that seem to reveal a previously unknown military campaign against the Nabateans. You can find a link to the study here. 

Liane Feldman discusses her book The Consuming Fire, which presents a complete translation of the Priestly Source of the Bible, offering a distinctive account of the origins of the people of Israel and their relationship with God.  By presenting the complete translation of the Priestly Source without the other sources that are believed to also be part of the compiled Bible as we have it today, the reader is presented with a story that is oftentimes in stark contrast to the traditional reading. 

Liane is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion and Program in Judaic Studies at Princeton University. You can purchase a copy of The Consuming Fire here.

Dr. Piers Mitchell is an Honorary Research Associate at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge and the lead author of a recent study that analyzed sediments from two latrines from the Kingdom of Judah. The study found  that dysentery was widespread in the ancient capital of Jerusalem.

You can read the study at this link.

In this episode of the podcast, Abigail Krasner Balbale discusses her book The Wolf King: Ibn Mardanish and the Construction of Power in Al Andalus. The Wolf King explores how political power was conceptualized, constructed, and wielded in twelfth-century al-Andalus, focusing on the reign of Muhammad ibn Sad ibn Ahmad ibn Mardanīsh also known as The Wolf King. 

Abigail is an Assistant Professor of Islamic History at New York University and her research focuses on the intersection of political power, religious ideology and visual and material culture in the medieval Islamic world.

You can purchase a copy of The Wolf King on Amazon.

Dr. Shamam Waldman discusses a recent paper she co-authored with her colleagues at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem that was published in the journal Cell. The study was an effort to sequence the DNA from the remains of Ashkenazi Jews in medieval Europe and focused on a DNA analysis that was done on the extracted teeth of individuals who were buried in a Jewish cemetery in Erfurt, Germany around the 14th century. The findings of the study shed light on where Ashkenazi Jews originated from, how the communities formed, and common genetic traits they shared with modern populations.