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Ashes and Empires: The Ancient World Behind the Bible

by Barret Harting
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Latest episodes

  • Follow the Silver: From Antiochus the Great to Heliodorus at the Temple Door

    September 18, 2026 · 24 min

    Season 1 · Part 8 of 8 · Prequel to the Maccabean Revolt A Seleucid official stands in the Temple court in Jerusalem with a royal letter, asking how much money is inside. To explain how he got there, this episode follows a single thread…

  • Fathers and Sons: The End of the Hellenistic Age

    September 9, 2026 · 21 min

    Season 1 · Part 7 of 8 · Prequel to the Maccabean Revolt Three father-and-son pairs shaped the Hellenistic world: Philip and Alexander, Hamilcar and Hannibal, and the two Ptolemies who built Alexandria. One raced his father, one completed…

  • The Second Punic War

    September 9, 2026 · 36 min

    Season 1 · Part 6 of 8 · Prequel to the Maccabean Revolt Hannibal Barca crossed the Alps with elephants at twenty-nine and spent fifteen years loose in Italy, never losing a pitched battle on Roman soil. This episode traces the whole arc…

  • The First Punic War

    September 8, 2026 · 24 min

    Season 1 · Part 5 of 8 · Prequel to the Maccabean Revolt Rome controlled all of Italy by 264 BC but had never fought a war it couldn't walk to. Carthage owned the sea. What follows is twenty-three years of improvised fleets, a boarding…

  • Blood on the Land Bridge: A Century of Syrian Wars

    September 8, 2026 · 21 min

    Season 1 · Part 4 of 8 · Prequel to the Maccabean Revolt For two thousand years, one narrow corridor between Egypt and Mesopotamia drew army after army to fight over it. This episode runs the five Syrian Wars between the Ptolemies and…

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  • The Library of Alexandria

    July 31, 2026 · 17 min

    Season 1 · Part 3 of 8 · Prequel to the Maccabean Revolt The Ptolemies wanted every book ever written, and they were willing to confiscate scrolls off docked ships to get them. What grew out of that ambition was less a library than the…

  • Alexander the Great

    July 30, 2026 · 24 min

    Season 1 · Part 2 of 8 · Prequel to the Maccabean Revolt A twelve-year-old notices something about a wild stallion that a yard full of grown horsemen missed, and that single habit of mind explains the next twenty years of conquest. From…

  • Philip II: The Framework to Success

    July 27, 2026 · 25 min

    Season 1 · Part 1 of 8 · Prequel to the Maccabean Revolt Before Alexander marched on Persia, his father built the machine that made it possible. This episode traces how Philip II inherited a broken, leaderless Macedon at twenty-three and…

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About the show

The Bible didn't arrive in a vacuum. Ashes and Empires digs into the world it came out of: Mesopotamian creation epics and storm gods, Canaanite myth from the tablets at Ugarit, the Hellenistic kingdoms that set the stage for the Maccabees, and the languages and archaeology underneath the text. Careful with the sources, honest about what's disputed, and made for people who want the fine detail as well as the big picture.