Oldest Stories
By James Bleckley
Oldest StoriesMay 26, 2021
OS 143 - Assurnasirpal Has Too Much Energy
Is Assurnasirpal II, king of Assyria, a relentless narcicisstic psychopath? Or is he a profoundly competant, ruthless tyrant? Can he be both, and does it really matter? Today we begin the first set of great conquest narratives of the Assyrian empire, unrivalled in their detail and shock value by any previous Mesopotamian king. We are deep into the Royal Inscriptions today, with a look at his listing of titles, and then a long tour as we see the Assyrian army really at work. There are a lot of place names today that aren't really that important, but we want to cover all of them because we really see how the empire grew from month to month in these many details.
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OS 142 - The Assyrian Empire Takes Shape
King Tukulti-Ninurta II slows down the pace of conquest for a crucial decade. Conquest still happens, and at a breakneck pace, but compared to what we have seen and will see, it is much slower. More importantly, Tukulti-Ninurta spends a lot of his time focused on really establishing what has already been built, constructing more buildings, conducting diplomacy, building out the administration, and that sort of groundwork that will keep the empire stable and strong going forward. Also, Tukulti-Ninurta goes camping, and seems to have a great time doing it. Being an Assyrian king, his version of camping involves razing towns, but cheerfully razing towns rather than being all mean about it. Razing towns and raising spirits, if you like.
If you like the show, consider sharing with your friends, leaving a like, subscribing, or even supporting financially:
Buy the Oldest Stories books: https://a.co/d/7Wn4jhS
Donate here: https://oldeststories.net/
or on patreon: https://patreon.com/JamesBleckley
or on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCG2tPxnHNNvMd0VrInekaA/join
OS 141 - The Unintended Aramization of Assyria
Today we see Adad-Nirari bring huge quantities of Arameans into the Assyrian empire. This will change the linguistic fabric of the entire near east in time, but as we will see, at the time it just seemed like a set of good decisions, or at least imperialistic decisions. We also discuss what it is to be an Assyrian, and why no one was overly concerned about the sort of ethnic conflicts that seem to dominate nowadays. The main feature today is the Temannu war, which spanned perhaps 6 to 8 years and shows Adad-Nirari's strategic flexibility, as well as the full range from brutality to generosity in victory.
OS 140- The Dawning of a New Assyrian Empire
The king today is Adad-Nirari II, but we have a lot to discuss in the background as well. The Nairi get their spotlight right before they get destroyed, and we look at the dating system for the Neo-Assyrian period and why it is so reliable, compared to the earlier parts of ancient history. And we also ask what an Empire is and whether or not the Neo-Assyrian Empire counts as one, which it does. Adad-Nirari is a conquering king, and though we know little about the army at this point, we know it is doing quite well under his leadership.
OS 139 - An Iron King for an Iron Age
OS 138 - Erra and Ishum Threaten Destruction
Most of our modern end of the world literature is set in the future, but the Babylonians, in the midst of a dark age, set their end of the world literature right in their own times, since for them it may have seemed like the world itself was ending. Erra, also called Nergal, wants to destroy a bunch of stuff because that is his nature. He tries protecting the universe, but gets frustrated with that, so he destroys the universe instead. Interestingly, this story may have become extremely popular in Babylonia because it predicted that Babylon would rise again, and in due course of the centuries is sure enough did, in fashion similar to that predicted in the text.
I have books! About Ancient Mesopotamia! And more on the way! Check them out here!
OS 137 - The Oldest Dreams
Do dreams count as literature, are the dream records we have an accurate depiction of ancient dreams, and does reading a dream account from a man 3000 years dead give us any insight into his state of mind? Today, we read through a bunch of dreams, read about dreams, and just generally ponder some of this stuff.
I have books! About Ancient Mesopotamia! And more on the way! Check them out here!
OS 136 - The Fifty Shades of Marduk
The thrilling conclusion of the Enuma Elish is an extended hagiographical top-50 list extolling the virtues of Babylon's patron god. As we are now well into the period where Marduk is unquestionably supreme within Babylon's walls, it is high time that we focused out attention a bit more on just who this Marduk fellow truly is. We look at the context of the naming, the fact that by some counts Marduk has more than 50 names, and then look through the canonical listing itself, including commentary by later ancient scholars on the Enuma Elish as an etymological text, which is not a perspective we would usually approach it from.
I have books! About Ancient Mesopotamia! And more on the way! Check them out here!
OS 135 - Middle Class Demons of Mesopotamia
Today we look at Pazuzu, Lamashtu, Samanu, Mushussu, and Lamassu. These are not the great gods of myth, nor are they the personal gods that would have absorbed the majority of the average Mesopotamian's attention and worship. They exist somewhere in the middle, in the realm of magic, of diseases, of charms, and of the middle spirit realms. This means there isn't a good place to talk about them - they don't come up much in the main narratives of history or myth, and when talking about magic it is usually the rituals and systems that grab the attention more than the demonic actors, at least among those who nowadays don't believe in the existance of these beings. But today we will correct that with a dedicated episode just for them.
I have books! About Ancient Mesopotamia! And more on the way! Check them out here!
OS 134 - Poverty, Pessimism, and Comedy in Ancient Mesopotamia
Today we read through the Dialogue of Pessimism and the Poor Man of Nippur. Both are comedies with a bit of edge to them, though in very different formats, showing the richness of ancient literature. Dialogue of Pessimism is basically a two-man standup routine, with a fair amount of philosophical ideas thrown in as part of the comedy. Poor Man of Nippur is a farce mixed with a revenge tale, grounded with a perspective we rarely see in ancient literature, the common man viewing the wealthy and powerful. It is also the subject of the world's first movie made in the Babylonian language which can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/pxYoFlnJLoE?si=jr4O7CGWpls6ulzU
Also, The first Oldest Stories book, covering Sumer and Akkad, is available for purchase: https://a.co/d/64mxp6w
The Theology Within History
Today we overview the historical portions of the bible and look at the fallibility of heroes, resolving moral conflicts with God, and the historical problems with strict literalism. I have gotten specific questions on these three topics over the course of the series, but rather than answering the specific questions, I thought it would be more useful and interesting to consider the underlying issues, which I think are extremely common in the Christian community. Because my purpose in the Israel series has not been to weaken anyone's faith, but to examine God's truth in a way that can "turn the hearts of the children to their fathers." Nothing in today's episode is a criticism of anyone of faith who disagrees with me, but I do consider it a needed perspective.
Also, for anyone who needs scripture in their life, I recommend three resources:
For a web based reading, try: https://www.biblegateway.com/
For a quality bible app, try: https://www.youversion.com/the-bible-app/
And if you would like a free paper copy, you can in most parts of the world get a free delivery here: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/comeuntochrist/requests/free-holy-bible
Isaiah 55
Christmas Special! We are reading Isaiah chapter 55, a pretty short one, partly because it is nice, and partly because it illustrates the theological maturity present very early in Jewish history. Also, if you got any money for Christmas, you should spend it on the Oldest Stories book: https://a.co/d/3CzuRQQ
The Witness of Lamentations
Today we read through the five poems of Jeremiah's Lamentations over the destruction of Jerusalem. We look in particular at the historical context and the humanness of this 2600 year old performance, but also at some of the theological innovations that, already at the start of the Babylonian exile, are marking the exilic Jews out as a faith distinct from their neighbors and unique in the world. The main Mesopotamian context here is the genre of Laments which was already at least 1500 years old when Jeremiah wrote this one. I read one of these on the main show, a bonus episode between eps 55 and 56 called Lament for Ur, but if you want to get deeper into the now little known genre of this text, definitely take a look at the City Laments section on ETCSL: https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.2.2*#
The first Oldest Stories book, covering Sumer and Akkad, is available for purchase: https://a.co/d/64mxp6w
The Book of Job in a Near Eastern Context
Today we go on a wide ranging survey of the Near Eastern predecessors to the Book of Job, including the biblical books that also speak to the same themes, before looking through the Book of Job to see a fairly unique answer to the question of why do good things happen to bad people.
The first Oldest Stories book, covering Sumer and Akkad, is available for purchase: https://a.co/d/64mxp6w
OS 133 - Jerusalem Falls
Today we ask the question - Who put the "Deuteronomic" in the Deuteronomistic Histories? Plus thousands of people die, so all in all a pretty jam packed episode. Our focus is King Josiah, about whom much ink has been spilled, and after him we will briefly look around at the emerging Babylonian Empire, then quickly destroy Jerusalem to finally round out our extended look at biblical history.
The first Oldest Stories book, covering Sumer and Akkad, is available for purchase: https://a.co/d/64mxp6w
OS 132 - Judah Ascends
Israel has been destroyed by the Assyrians, and Judah very nearly follows. But Jerusalem never does fall to the Assyrians, and the re-emergence of the southern kingdom is almost as shocking as the internal discord that accompanies it. We look today a lot of prophets and religious policies alongside military issues, because these do seem to be driving politics and polarized factionalism in a big way.
The first Oldest Stories book, covering Sumer and Akkad is available for purchase: https://a.co/d/64mxp6w
OS 131 - Israel's Brutal Judgement
The first Oldest Stories Book is available for purchase: https://a.co/d/64mxp6w
Today, we go in depth with what it might have been like as the Assyrians invaded, first Israel and then Judah, looking deeply at the battle of Lachish. Today's is a tale of hard times and despair, though today is more the despair at what is coming, and next time will be more the despair at what has passed. Of course, there is still a lot to deal with with the ups and downs of the biblical Yahwist faction in Israel and Judah alike, and we look at a man who so loved his world that he gave his only begotten son. Quite a lot going on today, really, but it is all good stuff, I think.
Oldest Stories is now a Book!
Celebrating 1 million downloads and my birthday, the first Oldest Stories book releases on November 24th, 2023. Pre-order is available only for the digital editions, you will need to wait until the release date for a physical copy, but definitely at least think about it. I am very excited.
Amazon link: https://a.co/d/hKmiIrY
OS 130 - Israel Runs Out of Names
Today we are in a mad gallop through decades and kings, each of them having pretty short, one or two episode lives, and also mostly having the same or extremely similar names to get everything super confused. This part of Israelite history moves pretty quickly, but there are a lot of interesting things that can be pulled from relatively short mentions, plus we get the first and only artistic depiction of what an Israelite actually looked like in the Monarchy period, and it turns out they just looked like people, because they were people. Also, we look at the story of Jehu among all these kings, and he is absolutely fantastic, would make a great movie.
OS 129 - Israelite and Phoenician Prosperity
Today we talk about Phoenicia, overviewing where it has been since we left our bronze age Canaan series, discussing the nature of the economic prosperity it brought to the region, and talking a bit about the causes and nature of their famous trade colonies. We also actually look at Jehoshaphat, after mostly ignoring him for a few episodes. Also, even though it builds over a few centuries, the development of what gets called the iron age economies is perhaps the quickest societal advancement in human history up to this point, and people's ideas about the world are struggling to keep up, so we talk about that a bit, too.
OS 128 - Israel's Moabite Neighbors
One of the most important extra-biblical confirmations of biblical history is the Mesha Stele, written by king Mesha of Moab. But it is not only interesting for what it tells us about Israel, but also for being the only window into the otherwise enigmatic Moabites, their god, and their self-perception, at least from the highest levels. And so today we discuss the context of Kings Ahaziah and Jehoshaphat, but then switch over to read through the Mesha Stele and learn what we can of the region as a whole.
OS 127 - Israel's First Historical King
Today we look at King Ahab and the Battle of Qarqar, or Karkar, a hugely important event in which we see the emergence of a large number of new peoples and things who will come to play a role in the near east for a long time to come. The Arabs, cavalry, and of course the Assyrians themselves burst onto the scene in a big way, and we finally get a chance to compare biblical numbers to the sorts of things being claimed by the historical powers of the region.
OS 126 - Israel's Great Confusion
Today we examine no fewer than three types of confusion in ancient Israel. First is the very standard political confusion of unsettled times, as king after king gets assassinated and wars of all sort rage. Next is the standard for biblical scholars confusion of what events can and can not be taken as history, ranging all the way from the extremely plausible wars and assassinations all the way to "One Million Ethiopians". Finally, we look at the most interesting confusion of all, the uncertainty as to what god the Israelites and Judahites were worshipping, and whether or not monotheism was actually a thing at this point in history. We look at kings Abijah/Abijam and Asa down in the south, and Nadab, Baasha, Elah, Zimri, and Omri up in the north.
OS 125 - Israel's Divided Kingdoms
Today we talk about God's opinion of ecumenicism, the historical issues around prophecy, and also the careers of Jeroboam, Rehoboam, as kings of Israel and Judah, the now divided kingdoms. Much of our history at this point is exclusively religious, but there are still things that we can pull out that give indications of how these small kingdoms are doing in the wider context. We finish out with an exciting military invasion, except mostly exciting for the enemies of God, because Shishak, or Shoshenq, of Egypt, may or may not have invaded one or more countries at this time in history.
OS 124 - Israel's Wisdom and Wealth
OS 123 - Israel's Great High Priest
OS 122 - Israel's King David
OS 121 - Israel's Favorite King
OS 120 - Israel's Habiru King
OS 119 - Israel's Young Shepherd
We begin the tale of young David's rise to power, looking at the three origin stories of the young shepherd, warrior, and poet, and then noting that as he began to rise in fame and power, Saul was absolutely not insane to be jealous and worried of him rebelling and usurping the throne. After all, that is exactly what he ends up doing. But in addition to just the narrative of King David's rise, we take a nice long look at some of the historical and archeological issues surrounding this entire period. We contrast the traditional and historical perspectives of this period, and consider what archeological evidence we would need to validate either of them.
OS 118 - Israel's First Failed King
Today we get some serious military history as we look at the main chunk of King Saul's reign. We deliberately avoid David as much as possible today, because it is far too easy for King Saul to get upstaged in his own chapters by history's favorite king, and so we end up with a surprising amount of often quite detailed military history, and a bunch of interesting details about the time period itself. Finally, we get to see how Saul is super desperate to be a good Yahweh worshipper, and then we read his final eulogy and hear that the bible writers blame his death on failing to pursue God, which seems a bit unfair, but sometimes life is just that way.
OS 117 - Israel's First King
Today we properly start the career of King Saul, or at least Saul as he makes his bid for kingship. This story is important as a piece of ancient literature, it is important through the question of whether or not the bible is valid as history, but most of all it is important because this is one of the only windows we get in the entire near east for military history details during the crucial transition from late bronze age chariot warfare to the massed imperial warfare of the iron age. Thanks to both the text itself and its extensive commentary traditions, we can pull out some really interesting details about how armies equipped themselves and the grander picture of how warfare and tactics contributed to ancient kingship that will play into our wider story even past the Israel section.
OS 116 - Israel's United Monarchy
Today we look at the lead up to King Saul, and how Israel made the transition from a collections of tribes to a unified kingship. Why is the Old Testament so ambivalent on the matter of kingship? Most interestingly, there is a universally applicable political lesson here, in what may be history's earliest commentary on the nature and source of effective governance. Also, why do the Israelites cut up animals as messages so often in this period? We look at Gideon, Abimelech, Micah and the Danites, and the Benjaminite war.
OS 115 - The Place of Faith in Biblical History
Just to give an overview of this episode to see if you want to listen all the way through, the topics I am going to discuss are: Why do I believe that Israel entered Canaan as outsiders violently invading, when so much of academia believes that these invasions never happened, and that the Isarelite emergence was largely peaceful? Why do I believe that the bible, as we have it today, is a worthwhile historical record, at least worthwhile enough to go over it so extensively on a history podcast? Why has my perspective on the historical tale of the bible not changed even though I began studying as an atheist and am now studying it as a fairly conservative Christian? How can I, personally, continue to have faith in the religion revealed in the Bible when I have vehemently argued that certain fairly important parts of the Old Testament are meant as history, and yet false? Why does God's story so often occur inside gaps of our knowledge, and why does the revealing light of science never reveal God's hand? And finally, what is the meaning of analyzing the various books of the bible through the lense of genre, why does that matter for understanding some biblical problems, and why does that make other problems even worse? Why does history matter at all, particularly Israelite/biblical history?
OS 114 - Israel's Judges and Defeats
The institution of Judges, as described in the book of Judges, is an English translation of the word Shofet, a political position which doesn't really exist in modern times, and as such is often poorly understood even in the study bibles and commentaries that I have read. And yet, there are reasons to think that whether or not the stories themselves within this book are true or not, there really was a class of Shoftim prior to the monarchy. That, plus issues of chronology among the judges, get hashed out a bit. And also we talk about the fact that the bible really doesn't like to talk about Israel getting defeated in times when it is theologically inconvenient, yet was probably getting kicked around like a rented mule around this time.
OS 113 - Israel's Settlements and Philistine Neighbors
Today we go full archeology on everyone, looking at what makes a settlement more or less likely to be Israelite as opposed to Canaanite or whatever based purely on the archeological record. Also, a brief overview of the entire history of the Philistines, because I introduced them as a brief tangent and ended up telling their entire story all at once. Archeology by itself is just a bunch of broken clay pots, and serious archeology really has a tendency to put me to sleep, especially once they start listing of subvariants of pottery, but understanding the evidentiary foundations is crucial especially in a hotly debated area of history. Even more important is getting a sense of how these evidences map onto various interpretive frameworks to build the idea that we actually do start to see a distinctive and probably Israelite people emerging in the Levant during the bronze age collapse.
OS 112 - Israel's Conquest and Integration in Canaan
When did Joshua conquer Canaan for Israel? Did Joshua even exist, as described in the Book of Joshua? We continue our march through the Old Testament as the people of Israel march through Canaan. We spend some good time discussing the Canaanite genocide in the context of ancient warfare, and the things that are and are not remarkable about it. We look a bit at settlement patterns in archeology and destruction layers and what they mean for the entry or emergence of Israel in the holy land. Also, we talk a bit about the meaning of Herem and the idea of Devoting to Destruction.
OS 111 - Israel's Wandering and Settlement
What does it mean that the people of Israel are the biggest whiners in recorded history? It may mean that a lot of the people were not actually on board with the theological mission of the Yahwist religious leaders. It may also mean that we are knee deep in the book of Numbers. My favorite Old Testament story, Balaam son of Beor, gets a mention here, as does some points where the people of Israel may well have left some actual historical evidence. And finally we get to the first actual mention in non-biblical history of the people of Israel, recorded in the Merneptah Stele around 1207 BCE.
OS 110 - Israel and the Hebrews
Today we obsess over the word Hebrew and go deep into what it means, who was and was not a Hebrew, whether it was a social or ethnic designation, what that implies about the religious and cultural mission of Israel, and what that might mean for the historicity of the Bible. In a sense, this is kind of a tangent from our wider story, but I think this is one of the really core issues that most people either wonder about, or are ignorant of and should be wondering about. If you really want to skip this, the short version is that there is a theory that the word Hebrew comes from 'Apiru, or Habiru, and while there is quite a lot of back and forth on the topic, I happen to think this is surprisingly likely, for reasons that go way beyond linguistic matters. But we also look at the other possibilities and what I think about them as well.
OS 109 - Israel's Numbers Problem
Today we look at possibly the oldest section of the entire Bible, Exodus chapter 15, the Song of Moses, as well as the issues with the census listed in Numbers and what that might mean for biblical historicity. These are some pivotal chapters today, not so much for the narrative itself but for keying in how we are going to interpret the bible and a whole in historical context. I think one of the most important questions for our own personal understanding of the bible is "How would this look in a movie", because how it plays out in our imagination, in terms of things like how many people there are in the scene, really affects who we can and can not consider plausible later on.
OS 108 - Israel's Formation and the Historical Exodus
We begin our big series on the historicity of the bible with Genesis. Unfortunately, nearly the entire book is beyond the purview of history, for reasons we will discuss. But with the tale of the Exodus, we have a narrative which could, in theory, have left some historical evidence to confirm its existence. Unfortunately, we don't actually have any evidence of the exodus narrative. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absense, and the far more interesting question is what we can look at to not refute or affirm, but merely to support or weaken the narrative as presented in the bible.
OS 107 - The Bible as History and Skeptical Views
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 Accomodationists, 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.
OS 106 - The Fate of Anatolia
After the Hittite Empire fell during the bronze age collapse, Anatolia became a Mad Max style wasteland with tribes crossing the hills and fighting for survival. Amidst all this, we have the fateful arrival of the mysterious Sea Peoples, and out of this mess emerged not a whole lot for a long time, but eventually we get the Phrygians in the northwest and the Neo-Hittites in the southeast, as well as a whole host of more peripheral people who will merit more mentions as our story progresses. The Phrygians we will look at briefly, but the Neo-Hittites, who are the same as the Biblical Hittites, are fascinating and poorly understood, and we will emerge from our time with them still fascinated and still not understanding much, but maybe a bit more than we started with.
OS 105 - Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad
Animals in ancient Mesopotamia. From sheep, goats, horses, and other domesticated animals to wild beasts like lions, elephants, insects, birds and fish, the ancient world was surrounded by animals. But in our history we are usually so focused with humans that we don't get a chance to focus on the four legged companions of the ancient world. So today we rectify that with an overview of all the animals that the Old Babylonians cared about and a look at how they interacted with each.
OS 104 - Arameans Everywhere
Today we look at pretty much everything we know about the Mesopotamian dark age following the bronze age collapse, and manage to cover about 120 years of history in about half an hour. After that is a discussion about chronologies and why we know when all these things happened, with a reference to lost time and other alternate chronologies, both legitimate and silly.
OS 103 - The Babylonian Aristotle, Esagil-Kin-Apli
Today we are going to look at the reign of Adad-Apla-Iddina, the fact that he was hit by some brutal Aramean invasions and that he built a ton of stuff despite the times being pretty awful. But the star of our show today is the first great scientist in human history whose name reached great levels of fame. Esail-Kin-Apli may be forgotten now, but for a thousand years after his own time his name carried the same cachet as Einstein does to a modern lay person. It isn't wholly clear that he existed, or that he wrote the whole corpus with which he is credited, but there is a chance that he really did write the great catalogs of wisdom which constitute the first great body of scientific knowledge under a single known author. The significance of him as an historical figure and what his scientific catalogs looked like are discussed here. This episode is long, because I got a little too excited about the theoretical foundations of Babylonian thought.
OS 102 - A Bit More Tiglath-Pileser
This week, Tiglath-Pileser is going to kill more people, just like last week. But now he is going to branch out into killing animals, too! But when he pauses to catch his breath between killing, he is also going to build up Assyria domestically and fund a bit of an intellectual renaissance. Then he will die and things will get grim again for a while. But that is the rollercoaster of ancient Mesopotamia, it is great.
OS 101 - A Short Assyrian Burst of Activity
Today we see Assur rise mightily with Tiglath-Pileser I, and we see the seeds of another century of decline sown in the climate change that drives the Aramean invasions. Meanwhile, Babylon has to deal with the same set of problems, but without the same sort of vigorous leadership.
OS 100 - The Babylonian Theodicy
For a Babylonian polytheist, the gods are worshipped with the explicit expectation that divine veneration will avert bad fortune and attract good fortune. Yet as long as there have been people, we have seen that sometimes bad things happen to good people, and sometimes good fortune finds bad people. Religious explorations of this are called Theodicy, and we have already see a number of Mesopotamian attempts to wrestle with this, back in Episodes 26 and 53. The genre appears to culminate in one of the most impressive technical and philosophical works of ancient Mesopotamia, in the Babylonian Theodicy. Also, after looking at the Theodicy, we compare it to another Babylonian writing from an old man who is simply miserable with life.
For more on this, check out episode 26, where we discussed the Sumerian "A Man and His God" and episode 53 where we discussed the Old Babylonian "Poem of the Righteous Sufferer", both of which are thematic precursors to this and almost certainly were at least indirect references for the author of the Babylonian Theodicy.
OS 99 - The Legend of Nebuchadnezzar
Nabu-Kudurri-Usur, the first Nebuchadnezzar, rescued the statue of Marduk from Elam after a grueling adventure beset by intense heat, low supplies, and enemies on all sides. And yet, even though this event would be celebrated in later generations, it is unclear if it was highly celebrated in his own lifetime. Today we look at the cult of Marduk, how it may have developed within the city of Babylon, and some more of Nebuchadnezzar's life.