Monthly Deal pricing ends on September 30. Last chance to save $39.98.
A conquest, a golden age, and a catastrophe. Four books tell the story. Only some of it happened.
What These Books Are Doing
The Bible tells the story of Israel’s conquest of Canaan, its judges and its kings, and its eventual defeat and exile at the hands of the Assyrians and the Babylonians. It is one of the great narratives of the ancient world. How much of it happened?
That turns out to be the easy question. The harder one is what these books are doing instead. Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings do not simply record events. They explain them, and the explanation is theological. Their authors took up older narratives and reshaped them, and in reshaping them they reshaped Israel’s past, and our sense of it ever since.
Peel the layers back and you can do two things at once: get closer to the real history underneath, and watch that history being turned into an argument. It is a skill that does not stay in the ancient world. Learn to read Joshua this way and you will read any account of the past differently.
Format
On-demand video
Lectures
8 · 50 minutes each
Q&A
2 sessions · 30 minutes
Access
Lifetime, watch anytime
The Books
Joshua to Kings
Instructor
Joel Baden · Yale
The Lectures
Eight 50-minute lectures and two 30-minute Q&A sessions, yours to watch the moment you enroll. The course moves through the historical books in order, and at every step asks the same two questions: what actually happened, and why does the text tell it this way?
What are the historical books of the Hebrew Bible, and what do we know about how they came down to us? What is in them, and why was any of it written at all? This first session lays the groundwork for everything that follows.
We peel back the layers of the book of Joshua, from its latest editorial layer through its literary sources down to the real history of how Israel came to hold territory in Canaan. Along the way, what may be the most pressing moral issue in the Bible: the annihilation of the Canaanites.
A reading from the bottom up, starting with what may be the single earliest text in the entire Bible. From there through an early collection of judges stories, up to the finished portrait of the era as a prelude to kingship. How tradition becomes text, and how texts get put to work.
How did Israel come to have a king, and does the Bible think monarchy was a good idea or a bad one? The opening of Samuel marks a major shift in Israel’s identity, and it is handed to us right on the border between historical fact and literary fiction.
The most famous figure in the Hebrew Bible, and a legend that shaped the course of Israel’s history and its literature. How much of it is true? This session is both an examination of the historical David and a working demonstration of how to read the biblical history critically.
Solomon’s complicated portrait in the Bible. Was he wonderfully wise and fabulously wealthy, or the man responsible for breaking David’s kingdom in two? Or both? Here we watch a historian’s ideology reckon with facts it cannot change.
Why did Israel, and then Judah, fall to the Assyrian and Babylonian empires? This is the culmination of the entire history, and the moment the historian’s theological project comes to fruition. The gap between what happened and how the historian explains what happened is the key to reading all of it.
We look back at everything covered to this point. What is this history, and what is it trying to do? How did it come to be, and what does that tell us about how we might read it? What it means to take the shape of the biblical text seriously, and why the historical-critical lens is worth having.
Joel Baden · 2026 Professor of Hebrew Bible · Yale University
Joel Baden is Professor of Hebrew Bible at Yale University, and the Director of the Center for Continuing Education at the Yale Divinity School. He works widely in the field of biblical studies, with special attention to the literary history of the Pentateuch.
What This Course Offers
Not a summary of what scholars have concluded. A working demonstration of how they got there, from one of the people who does it.
The course does not stop at what the Bible says. It sets Joshua beside the excavation reports and Kings beside the Assyrian monuments, and shows you exactly where the two accounts part company.
Few scholars have done more to separate the David of legend from the David of history. You get that case from the person who made it.
Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings read as a single sweep, from the taking of the land to its loss, and as one sustained piece of reasoning about why it all happened.
You learn how the layers are actually pulled apart: what counts as evidence, how a source is identified, and how a reading earns its place. A skill you keep, not a conclusion you memorize.
All eight lectures and both Q&A sessions are yours the moment you enroll, with lifetime access to revisit and rewatch.
Everything is read in translation and introduced from the ground up. Whether this is your first course in biblical studies or your tenth, curiosity is the only requirement.
Common Assumption
Joshua records the conquest of Canaan as it happened.
In fact
The archaeological record tells a far messier story than a single sweeping conquest. The book of Joshua is making a theological case about the land, and a case is not a report.
Common Assumption
The Bible’s history is straightforward reporting.
In fact
Every history has an agenda: what it includes, what it leaves out, what it repeats. These writers shaped Israel’s past to make a point, and learning to see the point is the heart of the course.
Common Assumption
David was the mighty king the Bible describes.
In fact
The historical David was almost certainly real, and almost certainly smaller and stranger than the harp-playing hero of legend. The gap between the two is its own kind of evidence.
Common Assumption
If the history is theological, it cannot be historical.
In fact
Peeling back the theology does not erase the history, it reveals it. You can recover the events and watch them being turned into a message, at the same time.
A full hour of questions and answers across two 30-minute sessions, recorded with the live audience and included in full. Students consistently name these as a highlight.
A text overview of every lesson, printable PDFs with room for notes, and reflection questions for going deeper on your own or with a study group.
A complimentary lesson from our course on Genesis with Bart Ehrman: the way into the Bible’s opening, before its history begins.
Check what you have absorbed and review the key arguments and the evidence behind them as you go.
MP3 downloads of every lecture. Listen on your commute, on a walk, or whenever you’re away from a screen.
$1 from every registration is donated to charity: water, bringing clean water to people in need.
Enjoy the course at a fraction of the cost
Monthly Deal: 50% Off Through 9/30
Regular Price $79.95 Monthly Deal $39.97 Ends September 30
$79.95
Use code mm50 at checkout
Eight university-level lectures with a Yale Hebrew Bible scholar, at about $25 a lecture.
Included in Your Purchase: Lifetime access to this 8-lesson, university-level course, with:
Access this Course PLUS Every Course in Our Vault
(250+ Hours of Biblical Learning!)
then special rate $49.95/month
Eight lectures of about 50 minutes each, plus two 30-minute Q&A sessions, along with the course resources pack, a self-assessment quiz, and audio downloads. Everything is available on demand, so you can watch at your own pace.
It was recorded live and is now available on demand. You get the full lectures and both Q&A sessions to watch whenever you like, as many times as you like.
Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings, the historical books that run from the conquest of Canaan to the fall of Jerusalem. The course reads them in order, as one continuous history, and asks at each stage what happened and why the text tells it that way.
No prior background is required, and no Hebrew. The course is built for motivated learners at any level, from the curious to the well-read. Everything is read in translation and introduced as it comes up.
If you purchase the stand-alone course, you own it for life. The Biblical Studies Academy (BSA) is our subscription: as long as you’re a member you can watch the course, but access ends if you cancel. BSA includes a free trial.
After purchase you will receive an email with instructions to log in to our online platform, ThriveCart Learn, where you’ll find all eight lectures, both Q&A sessions, and every handout, on any device, with lifetime access. BSA members access it inside the community.
Yes. The stand-alone course is yours with lifetime access. Watch the lectures, review the guides, and return to the material as often as you like, on any device.
We accept PayPal and all major credit cards.
Absolutely. If you don’t love the course, send us an email at support@bartehrman.com within 30 days of purchase and we will refund every penny. (BSA offers a free trial in place of a refund.)
