36 lectures/30 minutes per lecture.

Disc 1. The land of Canaan -- The arrival of the Israelites -- Jerusalem- an introduction to the city -- The Jerusalem of David and Solomon -- Biblical Jerusalem's ancient water systems -- Samaria and the northern kingdom of Israel -- Disc 2. Fortifications and cult practices -- Babylonian exile and the Persian restoration -- Alexander the Great and his successors -- The Hellenization of Palestine -- The Maccabean revolt -- The Hasmonean kingdom -- Disc 3. Pharisees and Sadducees -- Discovery and site of the Dead Sea Scrolls -- The sectarian settlement at Qumran -- The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Essenes -- The life of the Essenes -- From Roman annexation to Herod the Great -- Disc 4. Herod as builder- Jerusalem's Temple Mount -- Caesarea maritima- harbor and showcase city -- From Herod's last years to Pontius Pilate -- Galilee- setting of Jesus's life and ministry -- Synagogues in the time of Jesus -- Sites of the trial and final hours of Jesus -- Disc 5. Early Jewish tombs in Jerusalem -- Monumental tombs in the time of Jesus -- The burials of Jesus and James -- The first Jewish revolt: Jerusalem destroyed -- Masada- Herod's desert palace and the siege -- Flavius Josephus and the mass suicide -- Disc 6. The second Jewish revolt against the Romans -- Roman Jerusalem- Hadrian's Aelia Capitolina -- Christian emperors and pilgrimage sites -- Judaism and synagogues under Christian rule -- Islam's transformation of Jerusalem -- What and how archaeology reveals.

Lecturer: Professor Jodi Magness, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Not rated.

DVD.