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Send us Fan Mail The Book of Kings calls Manasseh the worst king in Judah's history and blames him for the fall of Jerusalem. So we put him on trial. The evidence: an Assyrian tax notice from the Ophel. A palace garden with no water. A Jerusalem official with Yahweh in his name and an Assyrian demon on his seal. Cannabis on a temple altar. A workshop that mass-produced goddesses a few hundred meters from the Temple. The ground convicts him on almost every count. Then we ask why the scribes needed him guilty. mosaic: Exploring Jewish Issuesmosaic is Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County's news magazine show, exploring...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Support the show

Send us Fan Mail Soldiers from Judah were there when an Assyrian army conquered Egypt. But the book of Nahum says that the city was destroyed, when it wasn't. Why? We show how fake news traveled through Assyria, while Egypt proved more resilient than anyone imagined.  mosaic: Exploring Jewish Issuesmosaic is Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County's news magazine show, exploring...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Support the show

Send us Fan Mail When Esarhaddon, the king of Assyria's father was murdered by his brothers, he became a highly paranoid individual and had everyone swear loyalty and risk terrible cruses if they disobeyed. His demand for total loyalty and worship put Manasseh, king of Judah, in a bind. What happened next shaped Judah for a generation and also inspired the writing of the Book of Deuteronomy.  mosaic: Exploring Jewish Issuesmosaic is Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County's news magazine show, exploring...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Support the show

Send us Fan Mail The Assyrian siege of Lachish is one of the best-documented military events in the ancient world, and one of the strangest. Sennacherib dedicated an entire room of his palace to a city most people have never heard of, while saying nothing about Jerusalem. Why? In this episode, we follow the three million stones of the siege ramp, a toilet installed inside a holy shrine, an unexplained chain that puzzled archaeologists for decades, and the silence of a king who couldn't admit he failed. mosaic: Exploring Jewish Issuesmosaic is Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County's news magazine show, exploring...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Support the show

Send us Fan Mail In 604 BCE, a Philistine king wrote a desperate letter to the pharaoh of Egypt. It was written not in his ancestors' Aegean tongue, but in Aramaic. The letter made it to Egypt. The help never came. Within weeks, Nebuchadnezzar turned Ashkelon into a heap of ruins — a phrase we can verify because the Babylonian Chronicle and the destruction layer match down to the month. But the Philistines didn't really die that winter. They'd been disappearing for centuries, and the latest scholarship reveals a far stranger story than simple conquest. Why did the Philistines increase their ethnic markers for 200 years before suddenly abandoning them? Why did two neighboring cities have opposite relationships with pork? And why, when the Babylonians deported both Philistines and Judahites, did one people survive exile and the other vanish forever? mosaic: Exploring Jewish Issuesmosaic is Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County's news magazine show, exploring...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Support the show

Send us Fan Mail  Every kingdom in the ancient Near East had a king. The Philistines said no thanks. Instead, they brought something from the Aegean: five cities, five lords, collective rule. Their rulers weren't called kings. They were called seranim, a word linguists connect to the Greek tyrannos. They met in council, argued, voted, and overruled each other. When the people of Ekron disagreed with their king's pro-Assyrian policy, they put him in chains and mailed him to Jerusalem. When a commoner whose name literally meant "the Greek" seized the throne of Ashdod through popular uprising, the old Aegean identity was still alive after five centuries. But that happened even though their DNA had become completely local. We explore the paradox.  mosaic: Exploring Jewish Issuesmosaic is Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County's news magazine show, exploring...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Support the show

Send us Fan Mail  In 2013, archaeologists found an infant buried beneath a family's floor. When they extracted DNA from those tiny bones, they found a genetic signature that appeared out of nowhere, and then vanished within a few generations. An entire people's blood, dissolved. And yet the culture kept going for four hundred years. A painted swan. A goddess no scholar can identify. Seven hundred dogs buried with care, and no one can explain why. If the DNA were gone, what exactly would the Philistines be?  mosaic: Exploring Jewish Issuesmosaic is Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County's news magazine show, exploring...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Support the show

Send us Fan Mail  Ever heard of a graveyard where the coffins are shaped like humans—some lifelike, others downright bizarre? In this episode, we dig into the secrets of the Philistines at Beit Shean: a crossroads of kings, conquerors, and cultures. It’s biblical drama, ancient mysteries, and archaeological surprises—buried, literally, in the dirt of the Holy Land.  mosaic: Exploring Jewish Issuesmosaic is Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County's news magazine show, exploring...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Support the show

Send us Fan Mail The first portrayal of the Philistines can be seen in the reliefs of the Medinet Habu monument. It shows their warriors, but also their women and children on ox-carts. They came to conquer, but also to live. They fought and contributed culturally, bringing their influences from the Aegean. But were they just a bunch of foreign invaders, or were they migrants integrating into the local culture?  mosaic: Exploring Jewish Issuesmosaic is Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County's news magazine show, exploring...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Support the show

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we bring the Philistines into the story. Unfortunately, we do not have rich texts that they wrote about themselves. So we have to rely on the Bible for our understanding of the Philistines. But who were they, and how accurately are they portrayed in the biblical stories? We introduce these important players to our story.  mosaic: Exploring Jewish Issuesmosaic is Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County's news magazine show, exploring...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Support the show

Send us Fan Mail A lost scroll. A boy king. And a revolution that remade a nation. But was Deuteronomy really ancient law—or a bold new manifesto, crafted to legitimize power? In this episode, we look beyond the legend to ask: Was Josiah’s great reform inspired by divine revelation, or was it a brilliant act of political theater? Join us as we question the story behind Deuteronomy and explore how one mysterious book could upend everything a kingdom thought it knew. mosaic: Exploring Jewish Issuesmosaic is Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County's news magazine show, exploring...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Support the show

Send us Fan Mail History remembers King Manasseh as Judah's most wicked ruler, but archaeological evidence tells a different story. For 55 years, he kept his tiny kingdom alive through shrewd diplomacy and careful governance, transforming defeat into survival. While his father Hezekiah's rebellion against Assyria had devastated the kingdom, Manasseh took a pragmatic approach - restoring local shrines, rebuilding trade networks, and turning Judah into a valuable buffer state between Assyria and Egypt. Under his reign, settlements expanded south, new fortifications secured vital trade routes, and agricultural innovation helped feed a growing population. His story isn't one of wickedness, but of a masterful survivor who made difficult choices to keep his kingdom alive during one of the most dangerous periods in ancient history. mosaic: Exploring Jewish Issuesmosaic is Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County's news magazine show, exploring...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Support the show

Send us Fan Mail  In 701 BCE, a small kingdom faced the most powerful empire in the world. One king, against all odds, prepared Jerusalem for an impossible defense. Fortified walls, secret water tunnels, and an unexpected divine intervention—this is the gripping true story of how Hezekiah survived Sennacherib's brutal invasion. mosaic: Exploring Jewish Issuesmosaic is Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County's news magazine show, exploring...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Support the show

Send us Fan Mail At just 25, Hezekiah inherited a kingdom under massive pressure from the mighty Assyrian Empire. But instead of cowering, he launched a bold religious and political revolution that would alter the course of Jewish history. How did he navigate treacherous geopolitical waters while transforming temple worship? What made him both a strategic political player and a deeply spiritual leader? mosaic: Exploring Jewish Issuesmosaic is Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County's news magazine show, exploring...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Support the show

Send us Fan Mail The reforms of Hezekiah would revolutionize the Israelite religion and make it genuinely monotheistic for the first time. They also made the Temple in Jerusalem truly central for the first time. What led to that and what did the religion of Judah look like before those far reaching reforms started?  mosaic: Exploring Jewish Issuesmosaic is Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County's news magazine show, exploring...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify Support the show