Today and tomorrow, I’m posting a couple of podcasts of “The Rest is History” a really terrific podcast series by historians Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook, regarding the historical roots of the New Testament accounts of Jesus.
Over the course of the series they have gone more places than Doctor Who in time and space, discussing everything from the rise of Babylon to Watergate to Marilyn Monroe to the World Cup of Gods to Top Ten Mistresses to Tolkien to pigeons (and a zillion other things). They have a great time. They sometimes have guests (who are always great). And you come away invariably learning something about the times and cultural circumstances that shaped (and were shaped by) the choices of the actors in the story. Both are gifted at helping to disabuse postmoderns of our Chronological Snobbery and understand that, as the saying goes, “The past is another country. They do things differently there.” At the same time, they are not complete and utter relativists and are capable making penetrating judgments and insights about the stories they tell.
Holland as I have pointed out before, is the author of a brilliantly insightful and well-written book called DOMINION; HOW THE CHRISTIAN REVOLUTION REMADE THE WORLD, which I highly recommend as the ideal Christmas present for anybody in your life who loves history, or simply fine writing. He has also written a bunch of other great histories about ancient Rome, the Persian War, and the rise of Islam, among other things. Oh, and he did a crackerjack translation of Herodotus. You can get them all at Amazon.
Anyway, without further ado:
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