Books of Kings

20/06/2024

Botanists in Israel have harvested hundreds of dates from Judean date palms which were extinct from late Roman antiquity to the present day. The palms, which were renowned at the time of Christ, were grown from millennia-old seeds recovered at Masada.

The seeds did not require genetic engineering to grow. Botanists essentially planted the seeds, which had been falsely presumed to be lifeless rocks after sitting unplanted for numerous centuries.

Although the first of these trees sprouted in 2005, it was male and could not bear dates. To grow dates, the botanists needed to cultivate and fertilize female date palms, as s*x is not a social construct. This process took several years.

Botanist Elaine Solowey, who worked on the project, reports that the dates are “dry and have a lovely honey after-taste. If they’d tasted terrible, I don’t know what I would have done.”

“So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable.” 1 Corinthians 15:42

16/06/2024

The Assyrian Empire is reduced to a rump state in Anatolia. Seeing an opportunity to return to its former glory, Egypt launches a lightning mission to rescue Assyria.

In a move that has mystified biblical commentators, Josiah of Judah—despite having seemingly no stake in the fight—ambushes and attacks the Egyptian forces at Megiddo. The event proves to be Josiah’s Waterloo, making the word “Megiddo” a byword for disaster.

What was Josiah thinking?

Books of Kings is the first narrative history podcast on the Bible. Find us anywhere podcasts are found.

The Assyrian Empire is reduced to a rump state in Anatolia. Seeing an opportunity to return to its former glory, Egypt launches a lightning mission to rescue Assyria. In a move that has mystified biblical commentators, Josiah of Judah—despite having seemingly no stake in the fight—ambushes and a...

02/06/2024

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02/05/2024

If you host a Bible podcast focused on personal devotion, militant atheists will completely ignore you—even if you have tens of millions of listeners.

But if you host a podcast about how the Bible is historically true—even a small podcast with just a few thousand listeners—atheists will engage in coordinated, angry spamming of your social media and your listener reviews.

Why is this?

27/04/2024

If you’re a student of the Bible and ancient history, you may have been struck by an uncanny concurrence: it is Phoenicians who were the great spiritual antagonists of both Judah and Rome. This parallel is all the more striking because it is the Roman Empire that would one day spread the worship of the God of Judah throughout the world.

The Carthaginian Empire, which sprouted from a Phoenician city in North Africa, nearly overcame and conquered Rome in the person of Hannibal. Rome’s turnaround victory over Carthage led to the creation of the Roman Empire.

Likewise, the Levantine Phoenicians—most famously Jezebel and Athaliah—were the great enemies of the prophets of Yahweh. These queens were so infamous that, in Revelation 2:20, Jesus would use the name “Jezebel” to refer to an archetypal deceiver.

What you might not know is that Virgil’s Aeneid—the Roman Empire’s great masterwork of mytho-literature—contains a known historical kernel which intersects with biblical events from the time period of Elijah.

The Aeneid tells the story of a romance gone wrong between Aeneas, the mythological founder of Rome, and Dido: a Phoenician queen who came from the Levant to found Carthage. While Virgil’s narrative is heavily fictionalized—Aeneas, if he was a historical person, lived centuries before Dido—Dido was a real historical princess who did travel from the Levant to found the colony of Carthage in North Africa.

Dido’s historical existence, as well as her place in the Phoenician royal family tree, are known to us from Menander of Ephesus—a Greek historian in the 2nd century BC who had access to Phoenician records. Menander’s historical accuracy has been independently verified through Assyrian inscriptions. The royal family tree provided by Menander also includes Jezebel’s father Ithobaal I—mentioned in 1 Kings 16:31—and brother, Baal-eser II.

From this family tree, we know that Dido lived and founded Carthage in the same general period that great biblical figures like Elijah, Elisha, Jehu, and Jehoiada were engaged in religious wars against Levantine Phoenician royalty. Jezebel, the greatest of these Phoenician rulers, was also the great aunt of Dido—that is, the sister of Dido’s grandfather. Athaliah was the first cousin of Matgenus, Dido’s father, and the first cousin once-removed of Dido.

In a real sense, then, Yahwist Judah and imperial Rome were both forged through unlikely victories against the same civilization, the same culture, and the same family.

Books of Kings is the first narrative history podcast on the Bible. Find us on iTunes, Podbean, or anywhere podcasts are found. For more on Jezebel, Athaliah, and Dido, check out Episode 26- The Horses’ Gate.

21/04/2024

Does the Pentateuch convey genuine historical information? The Deir ‘Alla Inscription is the strongest single piece of evidence that it does.

Books of Kings is the first narrative history podcast on the Bible. Find us on iTunes, Podbean, or anywhere podcasts are found.

20/04/2024

As Assyria disintegrates, Manasseh’s grandson Josiah declares a holy war against idolatry and invades Samaria. Ian and Caleb explain why the enigmatic “Book of the Law” brought to Josiah is thought to be Deuteronomy.

Books of Kings is the first narrative history podcast on the Bible. Find us anywhere podcasts are found.

As Assyria disintegrates, Manasseh’s grandson Josiah declares a holy war against idolatry and invades Samaria. Ian and Caleb explain why the enigmatic “Book of the Law” brought to Josiah is thought to be Deuteronomy.

26/02/2024

Manasseh of Judah offers the most legendary story of personal transformation in the Old Testament. A loyal Assyrian vassal and fanatical pagan who burned his own children as a human sacrifice, Manasseh ultimately returned to the God of Hezekiah and led a Yahwist revival.

Books of Kings is the first narrative history podcast on the Bible. Find us anywhere podcasts are found.

Manasseh of Judah offers the most legendary story of personal transformation in the Old Testament. A loyal Assyrian vassal and fanatical pagan who burned his own children as a human sacrifice, Manasseh ultimately returned to the God of Hezekiah and led a Yahwist revival.

29/12/2023

Apparently atheists who listen to other history podcasts are angry that a history podcast on the Bible is showing up in their recommendations.

Since we’re by no means one of the top narrative history podcasts, this shows your ratings and reviews are having a serious impact.

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to leave a rating or review on the podcast app of your choice. This helps both to grow our audience and offset any bad faith review-bombing by people who are upset that a narrative history podcast on the Bible exists.

25/12/2023

2 Kings 19 records the most astonishing miracle in the Books of Kings. In 701 BC, an “angel of the Lord” descended upon Jerusalem and slaughtered 185,000 Assyrian soldiers, lifting Sennacherib’s siege of the city.

Incredibly, the angel’s destruction of Sennacherib’s army is perhaps the most well-documented miracle in the Old Testament, with the Deuteronomist’s account finding support or corroboration in Egyptian, Babylonian, and Assyrian sources.

Had the Assyrians succeeded in taking Jerusalem, the entire Kingdom of Judah—and, with it, all worship of the God of Jacob—would have been erased from the pages of history.

We didn’t want to make you wait until January to hear this story, so we’ve recorded this two-hour episode as a Christmas gift to our extraordinary audience. Don’t forget to leave us a review or rating on iTunes or Spotify and to share the podcast on social media.

Books of Kings is the first narrative history podcast on the Bible. Find us anywhere podcasts are found.

2 Kings 19 records the most astonishing miracle in the Books of Kings. In 701 BC, an “angel of the Lord” descended upon Jerusalem and slaughtered 185,000 Assyrian soldiers, lifting Sennacherib’s siege of the city.  Incredibly, the angel’s destruction of Sennacherib’s army is perhaps the m...

04/12/2023

As we near Christmastide, you may hear these famous words of Isaiah 7 read in church: "the maiden shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel."

And, as happens every year, some people in your church will open their Bibles, read the rest of Isaiah 7, and begin to raise the usual questions about this verse.

At first glance, the passage does not appear to be a messianic prophecy at all. Isaiah’s statement about “Immanuel” is about the destruction of Aram and Israel, not a savior of humanity. Why then does Matthew use this prophecy to refer to Christ?

Ian and Caleb walk through this issue in Episode 33, The Root of Jesse, and explain how the larger context of Isaiah’s prophecy points towards Christ and correctly, miraculously foretells the reality of global messianic monotheism.

Books of Kings is the first narrative history podcast on the Bible. Find us on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere podcasts are found.

Ahaz, one of the most tyrannical of the Davidic kings, aligns Judah with Assyria and begins an aggressive program to force cosmopolitanism down the throats of the Judahites. A new prophet, Isaiah, appears on the political stage and delivers the famous and controversial prophecy of “Immanuel.” Ca...

09/11/2023

Limestone floor of a winery complex likely associated with Naboth’s vineyard at Jezreel—the vineyard stolen by Jezebel in 1 Kings 21.

This winery complex was excavated at Jezreel in 2013 and is dated to the mid-9th century BC—the setting of the story of Naboth. As with many other parts of biblical history, critical scholars have been repeatedly thwarted by archaeological evidence corroborating the Naboth story.

In the 1990s, a 10-acre walled enclosure was excavated at Jezreel, featuring corner towers and a moat. This enclosure is universally recognized as military installation from mid-9th century Omride Israel.

Since the Deuteronomist—the author of Books of Kings—portrays Jezreel as a secondary capital for the Omrides, this discovery corroborates the biblical account. Archaeology also indicates that the fortress fell into disuse in the later 9th century BC—likely because of the defeat of the Omrides by Jehu. This is one of numerous pieces of evidence showing that the Deuteronomist—writing two centuries later—was working with reliable older sources, just as he claims.

Nonetheless, scholars persisted in avoiding the historicity of the Naboth story. In 2008, a critical scholar at Tel Aviv University argued that the 1990s excavations showed that “Jezreel was a royal centre and its inhabitants must have been part of the royal staff… There was [contrary to the Bible] neither a local village nor a local community in Jezreel.”

Over the course of the past decade, however, the Jezreel Expedition—led by archaeologist Norma Franklin—has uncovered extensive evidence of a larger wine-producing community at Jezreel. The complex pictured here is close to the Omride military fortress and includes a treading floor and vats. Additionally, using LiDAR mapping technology, the Expedition has uncovered 60 tombs, 57 agricultural installations, and 21 quarries.

Timothy and Lydia McGrew have written that “Archaeology has not been kind to literary criticism of the Gospels and Acts.” The same can be said of much of the Old Testament.

Books of Kings is the first narrative history podcast on the Bible. For more about the Omrides and Jezreel, check out our newest episode, “15- You Cows of Basahn.” Find us on iTunes, Podbean, or anywhere podcasts are found.

05/11/2023

If you Google "Books of Kings," do you see our podcast in the first page of results?

02/11/2023

Ian and Caleb pretend to do an episode about the religious renaissance under Hezekiah. Actually, it is an episode about the Bronze Serpent of Moses, the Rod of Asclepius, and Imhotep. They also discuss the origins of the Samaritan culture.

Books of Kings is the first narrative history podcast on the Bible. Find us on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere podcasts are found.

Ian and Caleb pretend to do an episode about the religious renaissance under Hezekiah. Actually, it is an episode about the Bronze Serpent of Moses, the Rod of Asclepius, and Imhotep. They also discuss the origins of the Samaritan culture.

29/10/2023

Many of you sent us articles about the “ma*****na shrine” at Tel Arad. Although this Judahite shrine was excavated in the 1960s, an analysis published in May 2020 revealed that ma*****na was burned—like incense—on one of the altars.

The Tel Arad shrine is laid out in a Phoenician-esque design similar to the contemporaneous First Temple at Jerusalem, and features a holy of holies, pictured here. On the larger altar pictured on the left, frankincense was burned in a paste of animal fat. On the smaller altar on the right, ma*****na was burned in a paste made of animal dung. The pastes were used to generate smoke.

The shrine has been dated to c. 760-715 B.C., placing it in the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, or Ahaz. Although interesting, the fact that ma*****na was used in the shrine is unsurprising from a biblical standpoint.

The Deuteronomist portrays Judah as a cauldron of religious diversity and experimentation. In 2 King 16, for example, Ahaz—after making himself a vassal of Assyria—visits the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser in Damascus. Inspired by an altar he sees there, Ahaz has an identical altar constructed in the First Temple at Jerusalem, then burns a variety of offerings upon it. This kind of innovation makes it especially unsurprising that Judahites would ritually burn a substance not named in the Deuteronomist’s sources.

Additionally, while the Bible provides significant details about the architecture of the First Temple, much of our knowledge concerning the actual ceremonies conducted in and around the Temple is conjectural. Even when it comes to traditional monotheistic worship, then, there could easily be gaps in our knowledge which might be filled by further archaeological discoveries.

The most interesting aspect of the Tel Arad shrine is not the use of ma*****na, but the fact that the design is similar to the First Temple as described in 1 Kings 6 and elsewhere.

To date, none of the First Temple has been excavated, in part because the politically-charged status of the Temple Mount makes excavations difficult. Hams described its recent invasion of Israel as “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood,” referring to the Al-Aqsa Mosque built on top of the Temple Mount.

Sites like Tel Arad provide indirect archaeological evidence that the First Temple would itself have had a Phoenician-style design, just as the biblical authors report. This helps to show that the Deuteronomist and Ezekiel are genuine eyewitnesses to the First Temple, not postexilic propagandists as extreme minimalists claim.

What's most interesting about the ma*****na is where it came from. Eran Arie, the lead author of the May 2020 analysis, reports that the ma*****na used at the Tel Arad shrine was likely grown somewhere in southeastern Russia or China. This helps to show that the Kingdom of Judah was a sophisticated player in the Ancient Near Eastern economy—not the backwards hill tribe that critics of the Bible like to imagine.

Books of Kings is the first narrative history podcast on the Bible. Find us on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere podcasts are found.

02/10/2023

Assyrian hordes eradicate Aram and swarm across the Levant, consuming almost all of Israel and its eight tribes. While most Israelites are led off to assimilation or death, some—like the ancestors of Anna the Prophetess—escape south to the Kingdom of Judah.

In Judah, Ahaz escalates his pro-Assyrian religious reforms, effectively banning Yahwism and erecting altars to Baal in the streets of Jerusalem.

Ian and Caleb discuss the mythology of the “ten lost tribes,” and Ian engages with emails and DMs from listeners on the order of the biblical cannon.

Books of Kings is the first narrative history podcast on the Bible. Find us on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere podcasts are found.

Assyrian hordes eradicate Aram and swarm across the Levant, consuming almost all of Israel and its eight tribes. While most Israelites are led off to assimilation or death, some—like the ancestors of Anna the Prophetess—escape south to the Kingdom of Judah.     In Judah, Ahaz escalates his p...

16/09/2023

How do we know that Elijah was a real person, and that the Books of Kings reliably describe his life? Although there are several good arguments, the most powerful is likely Elijah’s anointing of the rebel king Jehu, the slayer of Jezebel.

In the mid-800s BC, Jezebel was one of the most powerful figures in the Ancient Near East. She sat at the center of a large Davidic-Omride family alliance that had been created by Omri and Jehoshaphat, tying together three kingdoms. Jezebel’s brother, Baal-Eser II, was king of Phoenicia. Her son, Jehoram son of Ahab, was king of Israel. Her grandson, Jehoahaz,* was king of Judah.

Jezebel had also imposed a new religious order. By dominating her husband Ahab, she promoted the worship of Baal, Asherah, and other deities. She also violently persecuted monotheists, who she saw as old-fashioned and narrow-minded.**

Jezebel's regime ended suddenly when an Israelite general, Jehu, led a reactionary revolt against the Davidic-Omride family. In one surprise attack, Jehu killed both Jehoram and Jehoahaz, decapitating two kingdoms. Marching into Jezreel with his army, he then ordered Jezebel to be thrown out of a window by her own eunuchs. Using deception, Jehu also rounded up and massacred the religious leaders that Jezebel had appointed, breaking the apparatus of state persecution.

All of this was done at the direction of the prophet Elijah, who God had ordered to anoint Jehu in 1 Kings 19:16. Elijah’s disciple Elisha sent a young servant to anoint Jehu with oil in 2 Kings 9, setting in motion the events just described. Jehu told other people about this anointing, as in 2 King 9:12-13, leading his army to declare him King of Israel.

We can already see that the author of Kings, writing two centuries after these events, probably could not have gotten away with making all of this up. But Jehu and his revolution are also strongly corroborated by archaeological evidence. The Tel Dan Stele even shows that Jehoram and Jehoahaz were both killed at the same time. Additionally, Jehu is the only king of Israel to be visually depicted in an extant inscription. Unfortunately, after a strong start to his reign, Jehu went astray and made Israel into an Assyrian vassal state; the inscription depicts Jehu bowing to the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III.

When the Books of Kings were written, there were many extant textual sources which the books' readers could go and check. The author frequently called on his readers to check his writing against these original sources, as when he cites royal records in 2 Kings 10:34. Prophecies especially were frequently written down and published. For example, when the prophet Ahijah called Jeroboam to lead a revolution against Solomon, Ahijah’s prophecy was written down and published, as we can see in 2 Chronicles 9:29.

If a highly respected prophet had authorized Jehu to usurp the throne and exterminate a whole regime, this is obviously something that Jehu would want to publicize, just as Ahijah’s prophecy had been publicized. As the literate class in Judah was reading the first edition of the Books of Kings, they would have found it unthinkable for a figure like Elijah not to be reflected in these original sources, including royal records and the extant prophetic texts.

If the author of the Books of Kings wanted to make up a prophet who performed miracles, then we can imagine that he might make up a hermit who lived his whole life in the woods, and whose existence nobody would expect to verify. Instead, the author portrays Elijah as constantly interfering in high-level geopolitics. Most importantly, he portrays Elijah as setting in motion a massive revolution that killed two kings, caused the rise of Jehu, and rearranged the entire region.

A figure this powerful must also have been reflected in the other textual sources available to seventh century Judahite readers. This gives us good reason to conclude that Elijah was a historical figure and that the Books of Kings provide a good faith account of his ministry.

Books of Kings is the first narrative history podcast on the Bible. Find us on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere podcasts are found.

Artwork: The Entrance Of Jehu In Jezreel, Edward Henry Corbould.

08/09/2023

Ahaz, one of the most tyrannical of the Davidic kings, aligns Judah with Assyria and begins an aggressive program to force cosmopolitanism down the throats of the Judahites. A new prophet, Isaiah, appears on the political stage and delivers the famous and controversial prophecy of “Immanuel.”

Caleb introduces the career and reforms of Tiglath-Pileser III and Ian gives an introduction to the history and theology of the Book of Isaiah.

Books of Kings is the first narrative history podcast on the Bible. Find us on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere podcasts are found.

Ahaz, one of the most tyrannical of the Davidic kings, aligns Judah with Assyria and begins an aggressive program to force cosmopolitanism down the throats of the Judahites. A new prophet, Isaiah, appears on the political stage and delivers the famous and controversial prophecy of “Immanuel.” Ca...

14/08/2023

The biblical Hebrews were a small nation that successfully resisted vast empires. But, for one brief window in history, the Hebrews themselves had a shot at conquering the Ancient Near East.

Instead of an Assyrian Empire or a Babylonian Empire, there would then have been an Empire of Jerusalem.

In the 700s BC, this came closer to happening than you might expect. Ian explains how in Episode 30 of Books of Kings.

Assyria and Babylon—as you can see in this map—were about the same size as a reunited Hebrew kingdom would have been at this time. Had the two kingdoms reunited under the Davidic monarchy, they would have been a territorial competitor of the Assyrians and Babylonians. Additionally, Israel and Judah also had key strategic advantages.

During the Second Golden Age of the 700s BC, Israel and Judah were each at a zenith of military and political strength, ruling over many satellite nations. Israel’s territory even included the major Aramaean city of Damascus. Between them, they could’ve called up an army of Edomites, Ammonites, Arabs, and Aramaeans. At the same time, all other major powers in the Near East were in crisis.

Egypt was weakened, fractured, and about to be taken over by Nubian adventurers. A united Hebrew kingdom might’ve moved in and grabbed a slice of the Nile—an economic superweapon. Next, the Hebrews could’ve turned to Aram. Already beaten into near-nonentity by Israel and Assyria, what remained of Aram might have been squeezed between the two powers like Poland.

After that, a renewed Davidic state might have played either Assyria or Babylon against the other before attacking the weakened victor. A Hebrew victory in this scenario could have been similar to the Arab conquest of Persia and Byzantium during the period of Heraclius.

In this scenario, Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar never would have ruled the Ancient Near East. Instead, a Hebrew Empire would have ruled the land from the Nile to the Euphrates from Jerusalem, fulfilling the offering of Genesis 15:18: “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.”

Reading the prophets from this period also hints at this possibility. The prophets constantly rebuke Israel for worshipping Yahweh in Samaria instead of Jerusalem. If Israel had indeed started worshipping in Jerusalem, as the prophets demanded, the two kingdoms likely would've reunited under the Davidic monarchy.

In this sense, the eventual destruction of the Kingdom of Israel at the hands of the resurgent Assyrian Empire could be described as a worldly result of its theological heterodoxy as well as a metaphysical divine judgment.

Books of Kings is the first narrative history podcast on the Bible. Find us on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else podcasts are found.

13/08/2023

Israel implodes after the death of Jeroboam II, its Second Golden Age empire crumbling into apocalyptic civil war.

Under Tiglath-Pileser III, Assyria rises from the ashes to form a revolutionary new world empire. Despite the memorable warnings of the prophet Hosea, Israel’s elite is drawn once again into Assyria’s orbit.

Ian explains his controversial position that reading the Bible in cover-to-cover order is not a good introduction to the Old Testament canon.

Books of Kings is the first narrative history podcast on the Bible. Find us on iTunes, Podbean, or anywhere podcasts are found.

Israel implodes after the death of Jeroboam II, its Second Golden Age empire crumbling into apocalyptic civil war. Under Tiglath-Pileser III, Assyria rises from the ashes to form a revolutionary new world empire. Despite the memorable warnings of the prophet Hosea, Israel’s elite is drawn once aga...

05/06/2023

Over the last few months, we’ve seen our fastest growth ever in regular podcast listeners.

Thanks to our brilliant audience for leaving us ratings and reviews on iTunes and other platforms and for sharing and discussing the podcast on Facebook and elsewhere. After years of slow growth, your engagement is helping us really take off.

Knowing that we have a significantly larger audience certainly makes us feel a stronger obligation to keep a consistent schedule and record a quality podcast. As always, we welcome your critical feedback and your questions in comments or messages. You can reach us here on the page or Ian on Twitter at .

Books of Kings is the first narrative history podcast on the Bible. Find us anywhere podcasts are found.

01/06/2023

“Air temperatures rapidly rose above 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit… Almost immediately, the entire city was on fire… None of the 8,000 people or any animals within the city survived. Their bodies were torn apart and their bones blasted into small fragments.”

-Archaeologist Christopher R. Moore on the airburst now known to have destroyed the Jordan Valley city known as Tall el-Hammam in c. 1650 BC

“Then the Lord rained on S***m and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground… And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord. And he looked down toward S***m and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the valley, and he looked and, behold, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace.”

-Genesis 19:24-28

Just a few remarks on this discovery for now. First, this event occurred around one thousand years before the Pentateuch is usually thought to have been compiled. The level of detail accurately preserved in the Genesis 19 account is astonishing.

Secondly, this is not the first example of the Pentateuch correctly preserving, in chilling resolution, confirmed events which occurred centuries before its compilation. For another example, see our post on Balaam in the comments below. And to the best of our knowledge, no other extant textual source reports this airburst.

Thirdly, even an open-minded secular person has to recognize something a bit awe-inspiring, or at least unnerving, about the Bible’s tendency to accurately relay these kinds of already-ancient events. None of the world’s other great religious texts can hold a candle to the Bible in this respect.

At best, other religious texts relay near-contemporaneous events. They do not chronicle verified events from centuries before their compilation, unless—like the Quran—they learned of these events by way of the Bible. At worst, and more commonly, they focus on abstract concepts only, and do not significantly relay prior history.

Moreover, consider the Bible's correct predictions that worship of the God of Jacob would fill the Earth. Note that, as the worship of God was spreading throughout the world, those who accepted Him did not have contemporary archaeology at their disposal. They could not have shown that the Bible’s historicity would be so continually affirmed by modern research.

As far as they could prove historically, the Old Testament could have turned out to be archaeologically equivalent to the Book of Mormon—that is, supported by no archaeological findings. Yet this is not what has happened.

You cannot deny that it is—at minimum—a remarkable coincidence for the world’s foremost deity to come to us through a book that, only in modern retrospect, happens to be the most impressively historical of the world's religious texts.

Books of Kings is the first narrative history podcast on the Bible. Find us on iTunes, Podbean, or anywhere else podcasts are found.

29/05/2023

With Israel flourishing, Uzziah carves out his own Judahite military empire. In 760 BC, as the prophet Amos begins to condemn the elite of Samaria, an epochal earthquake rocks the Levant, levelling whole cities to the ground.

Meanwhile, pioneered by the prophecies of Isaiah, the concept of global messianic monotheism begins to take recognizable shape.

Ian and Caleb discuss the growing mountain of evidence for the biblical account of Uzziah’s reign, Judahite ballistic siege weaponry, the literary qualities of Amos, and an apologetic of geopolitical prophecy.

Books of Kings is the first narrative history podcast on the Bible. Find us on iTunes, Podbean, or anywhere podcasts are found.

With Israel flourishing, Uzziah carves out his own Judahite military empire. In 760 BC, as the prophet Amos begins to condemn the elite of Samaria, an epochal earthquake rocks the Levant, levelling whole cities to the ground. Meanwhile, pioneered by the prophecies of Isaiah, the concept of global me...