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Rated 5 out of 5 by GermanHistoryFan from The Real Israel and Judah Raised within Christianity, I understood the story of Israel and Judah as a straight line from Abraham to King David to the Babylonian Exile and beyond with the Israelites enjoying prosperity or suffering disaster according to their faithfulness to the one true God. In Professor Chapman’s view, Israel’s development wasn’t like that. She ably draws upon Biblical passages and the findings of archaeology to reconstruct early Israel as it really was and to understand Israelite/Judean debates over religion, communal identity, and national grief. The Hebrew Bible itself came from the royal priests and scribes deported to Babylonia, where they compiled histories, wrote new texts, and selectively preserved and edited older tales to fit their Jerusalem-centered monotheism. Traditional practices like eating only kosher foods and not marrying foreigners that were a matter of course in the old country took on new importance in defining who was a Jew. When the exiles returned to Judah, they were determined to impose a purified national religion and law on those who had never left. The Israelites emerged as a nation in the highlands between the Jordan River and the coastal cities of Canaan—roughly today’s Palestinian West Bank, ironically enough—a farming and livestock-raising people who lived under the guidance of their patriarchal elders. Before Solomon built the Temple in Jerusalem, people practiced their communal rituals at or near home, without any ban on idols. We see this world in the Book of Judges with the tale of Micah, whose mother created graven and molten images and then set up a household shrine. Micah hired a Levite priest to tend the shrine in exchange for ten silver pieces per year, a suit and a living (room and board, I assume). More famously in Genesis, Rachel stole her father Laban’s teraphim (small household idols) when she escaped with Joseph’s household to Canaan. Religious pluralism persisted during and after the days of the kings. Hezekiah and Josiah upset country folk by destroying their “high places” and overthrowing their sacred pillars and Asherah poles. When Ezekiel fled to Egypt after the fall of Jerusalem, he berated Jews in his new home for pouring out libations to the Queen of Heaven and burning incense to idols. References to God as “Elohim” are in the plural because he presided over a council of lesser gods that appears as late as the book of Job. Israel’s existence is well-attested by archaeological remains, though some claims of the Hebrew Bible are not. The most impressive are outside Israelite territory, such as the Black Obelisk of Assyrian King Shalmaneser III, which depicts King Jehu of the Northern Kingdom kowtowing to him, the stele posted by Egyptian King Merneptah around 1200 BC that names Israel as one of several conquered peoples, the Meshe Stele, which celebrates the Moabite king’s victory over Omri of Israel around 830 BC and credits Moab’s god Kamosh. Excavations of the Israelite highlands have turned up terracing for agriculture, mud-brick houses, and loom weights. On the other hand, most of the towns supposedly conquered by Joshua lack destruction layers. No one has found Solomon’s Temple, possibly because someone dismantled it. On the other hand, there are interesting surprises. At Kuntillet Ajrud in the Negev Desert some potsherds bear inscriptions blessing people in the name of “Yahweh and his Asherah.” More than a thousand pillar figurines of women (or goddesses) holding their breasts have emerged from ancient Judean tombs, garbage dumps, and houses, about half of them in Jerusalem. I always quibble over something in even the best courses. Here, I object as always to the now-fashionable renaming of BC (before Christ) as BCE (before the Common Era) and AD (Anno Domini) as CE (Common Era), a foolish and offensive attempt to de-Christianize the Christian reckoning. Those looking for a truly neutral dating system for the ancient world should use BP—before the present—but of course that make it more difficult for ordinary audience members to understand the timeline. In Lecture 5, Chapman is uncharacteristically awkward, repeatedly stumbling over her words. Otherwise, I recommend this course as excellent.

Date published: 2025-05-12

Rated 2 out of 5 by Bernie K from A well-presented bad course Professor Chapman’s interpretation of the Bible Old Testament as it relates to the nation of Isreal, is a prime example of modern revisionist history and the presumption of modern scholarship. In chapter three the underlying thesis of the course is set out, “Traditionally, the authorship of the Torah has been attributed to Moses. But modern biblical scholarship ascribes the books to multiple authors and dates them to multiple periods.” So modern scholarship of the last 100 years redefines 4000 years of belief and the foundations of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. The Bible is presented as a compilation late in Old Testament history as useful tool of the elite and not a presentation of truth. The course is clearly presented and understandable. For anyone with a child about to enter higher education this course explains why some of their principles may be attacked.

Date published: 2025-01-20

Rated 5 out of 5 by Sleepless_In_Potomac from the best Professor Chapman does an excellent job of telling the story of the Jews up to the time of Christ. The lecture about the Babylonian Exile was especially informative because it describes how and why the Old Testament came into being. I can see how a viewer might give this course a rating of 4, but anything below that is a mystery to me..

Date published: 2024-11-25

Rated 4 out of 5 by DaGeek from Balanced Presentation of Biblical Israel My wife and I watched this course in preparation of a trip to Israel that was cancelled at the last minute due the current conflict. Just glad we were not in country when all hell broke loose. The World of Biblical Israel taught by a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, Cynthia R. Chapman, Th.D. Using the Bible as a framework Chapman ties in historical and archeological records to support its narrative. She also points out when they do not support the Biblical story. She also ties together the varied religious influences, including non-Abrahamic religions, that influenced those who wrote the Bible. I learned a great deal about the Babylonian exile of the Jews, a subject of which I had only sketchy knowledge. I enjoyed this course, learned a great deal I did not know, and would recommend it.

Date published: 2023-12-03

Rated 5 out of 5 by RobRD from Another Success This was a well crafted set of lectures. I learned a lot - particularly the "story behind the story"

Date published: 2023-09-08

Rated 4 out of 5 by otrman from A very good start for me I really enjoyed this course as it opened my eyes regarding the Old Testament and its pointer to Jewish history and development. Highly recommended to those interested in early Jewish history and the role of the bible in relating it.

Date published: 2023-06-02

Rated 5 out of 5 by AaronWC from Comments from a learner Amazing series for those wanting to examine the Bible from the historical perspective.

Date published: 2022-09-19

Rated 2 out of 5 by tommyd555 from Just Retells Bible Stories with Not Enough Analysi Well that wasn't what I expected. Based on the title of the course and the lecture descriptions it was reasonable to expect a painting of what life was like in ancient Israel through solid analysis of the books of the Bible and archeological finds. Instead most of the lectures are just retellings of the various stories in the Bible. Warning: this will be maddening for anyone who is already well acquainted with the content of the 39 books of the Hebrew Bible. If we're not going to get a full-bodied view of what daily life in ancient Israel was like and instead the focus will be on the stories of the Bible then surely we're going to get deep analysis on those stories from a historical and theological perspective. Nope. Sure the professor had some interesting theories concerning how the collection of these specific 39 books was driven by the Babylonian exile and perhaps some redacting might be going on here to reshape some of the books or stories in them in light of Judah's defeat and exile and eventual return to their homeland in an effort to define and shape the story of their nation. And yes perhaps these books would have turned out drastically different if written from the perspective of one of the 10 "lost" tribes of Israel---yes, the victors get to write the history and tell the story the way they want. And her assertion at the end of lecture 14 that had King Hezekiah not paid off Assyria and instead Jerusalem had been destroyed utterly and its people exiled to many other lands (vs. the Judeans being exiled together to one location) as Assyria had done to other cities and peoples, then perhaps the Bible and its stories as we know it today would not have come down to us in their forms, was indeed thought-provoking. But these were the exceptions. Sorry there just isn't enough meat on the bones here/new insight. We just get the stories of the Bible retold to us. This is strike two to me relating to TGC's study of the Hebrew Bible. "The Book of Genesis" was also a disappointment since it had little insight into what we actually read about in the book and instead we got a literary lesson on how to select specific impactful words when telling a narrative/story. SIGH. Certainly hoping some of the other courses I have not yet listened to ("The Old Testament" and "Understanding the Old Testament") live up to the standard of what I expect from this company. Lectures 2 (seeing the Babylonian exile as the central event that shares the books we have today in the Bible), 5 (Israelite conquest of Canaan), and 14 (Assyria's siege of Jerusalem) were worthwhile explorations. The remaining I can only recommend if you have little (none?) exposure to the stories of the Hebrew Bible. If you want to know what is in the Hebrew Bible then this might be for you. If you have some knowledge and were looking for deeper insights/criticims/analysis behind these stories then you might want to spend your time elsewhere.

Date published: 2022-09-01

35 min

Overview Course No. 6325

From Genesis to Job, the Hebrew scriptures contain some of the most influential stories in Western civilization. But what do these stories tell us about daily life in ancient Israel? And why do they still speak to us today? In 24 captivating lectures, Professor Chapman introduces you to the stories of the Judeans in exile and grounds them in their historical context, giving you a grand vision of history as presented in the scriptures. She compares the history in the Bible to the archaeological record so that you come away with a complete picture of life in biblical Israel. Discover the complete literary power of the scriptures by investigating many of the Bible's key historical moments, from the origins of the Israelites in the Torah to the Babylonian Captivity and the resettlement under the Persian Empire, which is the very heart of the Hebrew scriptures. Learn how the exilic period motivated the community to reexamine its relationship to its God, its land, its religious practices, and its legacy to the children who would become the new Israel. But you'll tackle more than the sweep of history. From the family compounds to the battlefields and from the kitchens to the temples, Professor Chapman puts flesh on the bones of the biblical stories. Spiritually engaging and historically fascinating, this course is unlike any other, and it will give you a new appreciation both for ancient history and for the foundation of the three Abrahamic faiths.

About

Cynthia R. Chapman

There is no question that the Bible is a tremendously valuable library or ancient archive. If historians of the ancient Mayans, for example, uncovered such a source, they would consider it a goldmine.

ALMA MATER

Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University

INSTITUTION

Oberlin College

Dr. Cynthia R. Chapman is Associate Professor of Biblical Studies at Oberlin College, where she teaches courses on the Old and New Testaments, suffering and the book of Job, and biblical women, among other topics. She holds a B.A. from Kalamazoo College, an M.Div. from Vanderbilt Divinity School, and a Th.D. from Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University. Professor Chapman's research has focused on the historiography of the Bible considered within the larger ancient Near Eastern environment, and on gender in ancient Israel. Her first book, The Gendered Language of Warfare in the Israelite-Assyrian Encounter, explores the shared use of gendered literary tropes in the Bible and Assyrian royal texts. She is currently completing her second book, The House of the Mother: The Social Function of Maternal Kin in Biblical Hebrew Narrative, which demonstrates that kinship bonds established through the mother served vital social and political functions for a son who aspired to inherit in his father's household. A chapter has been published in the online Journal of Hebrew Scriptures.