Two Taps and Friends

Why the Middle East has been at war for 5,000 years #81 | Ramon Rico

• Daniel Rosenberg • Episode 81

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 52:10

Send us Fan Mail

In this thoughtful conversation, host Danny Rosenberg sits with longtime friend and historian Ramon Rico — Georgetown-trained, deeply curious, and gifted at connecting distant past to present. Together they trace the Bronze Age collapse, the Sea Peoples, the rise of iron and empire, the formation of early Jewish identity through trauma, and the layered peoples and powers of the Levant. The discussion moves with quiet precision from tin trade routes and Hittite-Egyptian rivalry to the enduring geographic and human patterns that still shape the region. Listeners leave with clearer historical perspective and a more grounded sense of why these lands have long been both crossroads and contested ground.

⏰ Timestamps ⏰
00:00:00 👋 Intro
01:29 🎙️ Welcome & the Historian’s Eye
02:53 🌍 A Life Across Languages & Lands
07:56 🏛️ From Sumer to the Present Tensions
09:47 ⚒️ Bronze, Tin & a Fragile Trade Network
11:03 ⚔️ Mycenaeans, Egyptians, Hittites & Akkadians
16:25 🌊 Earthquakes, Crop Failure & the Sea Peoples
21:22 🏛️ Philistines on the Levantine Coast
24:23 🚢 The Phoenician Opening
26:27 ⚔️ Iron, the Assyrians & Professional War
28:44 ⚡ El, Baal & the Emergence of Yahweh
33:51 📜 Identity Forged Through Repeated Conquest
37:12 🏛️ Exile, Return & the Second Temple
39:18 🕌 The Islamic Expansion & Layered Populations
45:47 💭 Perspective on Enduring Conflict
51:26 🙏 Closing Reflections

How has learning about the Bronze Age collapse or the formation of early identities changed the way you read headlines or hold conversations about the Middle East?

#AncientHistory #JewishHistory #ancientcivilizations #middleeastconflict #history #jerusalem #EgyptianHistory #Mesopotamia #ReligiousHistory #bronzeage #Sumerians #MiddleEastHistory #AssyrianEmpire #Phoenicians #BiblicalHistory #archaeology #worldhistory #Podcast #CriticalThinking #middleeast #Israel #reflection #viral #education #perspective #humanbehavior #sociology #wisdom #foreignpolicy #TwoTapsAndFriends

Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more episodes of Two Taps and Friends! 🍻

Follow us:


🎧 Listen now on:

Merch Shop: https://www.redbubble.com/people/Two-Taps


SPEAKER_01

What's happening around the world now with Iran, Israel, we've got Gaza, we've got Lebanon. Um it I think the origins kind of go back to a particular point in time, the Bronze Age collapsed. Okay. Our tools, our weapons, our armor uh was cast out of bronze, which is a uh an alloy made of copper and tin. Most tin was mined in Afghanistan. The Peliset, the Shekalesh, uh the Suradesh, all these people not only brought their soldiers, but their entire families, their whole life. So they bring down the Mycenaeans, they take out the Hittites, then they fight the Egyptians. The Peliset landed on the coast of the Levant, where Gaza is today. But it is modern-day Gaza. Peliset developed into the Philistines, and that later on are the basis of what we call the Palestinians.

SPEAKER_02

What is Jerusalem worth? And he turns to him and he says, nothing. And then he rides away a little bit and turns again, he goes, and everything. I'm very honored to have him on. I'm glad I can finally wrestle him on. Welcome, my friend Ramon Rico.

SPEAKER_01

All right. Well, thanks for having me, Danny.

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to Two Taps and Friends. Grab your favorite drink. Get comfy and let's dive into another episode of Two Taps and Friends.

SPEAKER_02

Welcome back to Two Taps and Friends. I'm the host of the show, Danny Rosenberg. Today I have a very special guest of mine, a good friend of mine. Um, someone that I've had long, long chats with for many, many years about everything that's going on in the world. Um, he's my favorite armchair historian. I mean, he studied history at the high levels. He he uh he he studied at um he went to school at uh uh what was it? Georgetown. Georgetown, Georgetown University, sorry, Georgetown University. He also studied at UPenn, working on his PhD for a while. Um I'm very honored to have him on. I'm glad I could finally wrestle him on. Welcome, my friend Ramon Rico.

SPEAKER_01

All right, well, thanks for having me, Danny. Uh it's really nice and it's kind of an honor to be thought of as a a source and uh and uh and a reference, um, especially for something I love so much as history.

SPEAKER_02

Right. And listen, man, like I talk to a lot of people, but when I talk to you, it's clear you know what you're talking about. It's clear you know history is that like, you know, and I I pride myself on history too, but I've never in depth. I mean, you you studied literature, you studied English, and this is your big thing. And like that's gonna lend itself to just you have to learn the history when you're learning about art because it's a reflection of the times, reflections of the art, reflections of everything there is. So I'm really, really happy to have you here. And um let's start off with uh give us a little intro where you're from, how you got here, where you were studying. I gave a little bit there, but just give us a little quick background.

SPEAKER_01

Basically, um been all over the place. I can't I came from uh a family that moved around a lot, uh, working with the airlines and had uh the incredible luck of living in France, growing up there, in America, of course. Um, and one thing I can't thank my parents enough is for the opportunity to be able to learn different languages and see the world from different perspectives, you know. And uh I think that's what drew me into history and studying history and looking into history because it gives you a good perspective on things and um allows you to step back and maybe uh not only reflect on your surroundings, um, your community, but also yourself. And uh, you know, that led into basically my my interest in literature, I went to study literature, and um as you know, as I said, I went to Georgetown. And there it was, I was interested because I never thought of Georgetown as a Jesuit university, but it's in fact a Jesuit university. And um, as maligned as they've been, the Jesuits are known for one thing, and that is uh the search for knowledge, the accumulation of knowledge, and um critical thinking. And uh something, something that that really marked me was uh in Georgetown, you have to take a core curriculum class called Biblical Reading. And uh it's taught by a priest. And I thought, oh, here we go. It's going to be, it's going to be uh just you know propaganda or a one-sided, one, one, one kind of dimensional look at uh the Bible, where in fact uh I was amazed at how critical, uh, I can't remember his name and it's a shame, but how critical this priest was of the Bible as um as a reliable source in a sense. Um he was very clear that, hey, these texts are edited, and these texts belong to a larger context in which um uh that lends to a bias, right? Right. And um and one thing I remember he he uh he talked about was how um when Moses parts the Red Sea, he said, um in in that passage, he said the language there is strikingly similar to something we'll talk about later, right? Uh strikingly similar to uh the Ball cycle and the myth of Ball, something that had been discovered in the town of Ugarit in 1928, I believe. Right. And it got me thinking, oh, so there's there's kind of a correspondence, a kind of you know, uh give and take between different cultures that informs cultures. And that got me thinking about context and historical context. And so uh throughout my studies, and even today, when I read something, be it fiction or nonfiction, I always have to delve into the historical context and have a look for myself to see, hey, are these guys full of crap? Or are they actually giving me some information that's that's you know, I don't want to say unbiased, but something that's a bit more useful, a bit with a bit more perspective and uh give me a clearer picture. Right.

SPEAKER_02

Is it and is it like a reflection of because a lot of it's a reflection of the times. I find that fascinating too. Like um, especially when you tie it to religion, because a lot of people, when you hear the religion and you're just tied to the kind of stories, the more the more the more you dive into history and the intellect kicks in, you're like, uh, I don't know if I could buy that, you know. But I remember when Sylvia, my wife, was she she'd uh she wanted to convert, she converted to Judaism and she was studying with the reform Jews and she sat with a reform rabbi. And for the viewers don't know, reform is they're they're more modernized, they're not as strict scrutiny with the the text, they're more of metaphorical, they're trying to look exactly what you said, right? Like, what is this giving away this story? What is it trying to say? And what is it if it is a reflection of the times and historical, what can I get out of here that tells me about the history? And uh, and that was she loved it because of that angle, and it and it is and rescues a lot. So, but it but it also lends you as a histor, as a as a person that studies history and has read literature as much as you have and is so learned in it, it it gives you a better understanding of things that are happening now.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_02

And it must be very difficult for you to see it, hear it, and watch the masses have no idea of what's happening and simplify these things. So, talk to me a little bit about you know what you're seeing now that are like conflicts that are just going on and on and on throughout times that aren't new, right?

SPEAKER_01

That's the thing. It's it's it's far from new. Right. It's far from new. And I think I think it um, you know, what's happening now, uh, we basically can take back to the beginning of civilization and more more more precisely what we think of as Western civilization, which really began in in with the Sumerian civilization. That's what's informed us, right?

SPEAKER_02

And Sumerians when? What is that time frame for lacers and viewers?

SPEAKER_01

For for in terms of dates, I can't remember. It's freaking ancient. Way before, way before BC. What do we call it? I'm thinking like 5,000-ish BC. Yeah, 4,000-ish. Um, I'm I may be wrong. Sure. But I'm I'm really like Sumeria is something I'm still that's that's that's my my next piece of the puzzle. Um where was that civilization? Now that's between the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers. It's basically Mesopotamia, Mesopotamia, which now we call what?

SPEAKER_02

Iraq. Around Iraq. Right. So that's when they say Iraq is like really the beginning of civilizations. That's what they're talking about. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01

And um in terms of like what's happening around the world now with Iran, Israel, got Gaza, we've got Lebanon. Um, it I think the origins kind of go back to a particular point in time uh that you know I had wanted to talk about with you, which is the Bronze Age collapse. Okay. All right. Uh the Bronze Age is the time when, you know, our tools, our weapons, our armor uh was cast out of bronze, which is a an alloy made of copper and tin. Now, if these two uh metals or minerals were easy to find, um we wouldn't have this story, right? Copper is a bit more common than tin, but tin really is um precious in that it's rare. Uh at this time, talking um, you know, pre-1200 um BCE, uh most tin was taken or uh was mined in Afghanistan, right? Okay, but copper was also mined all over the world, and uh it was the basis for a gigantic trade network. I mean, we we have um we have evidence that people were sourcing tin from um from the coast of Cornwall in England in antiquity.

SPEAKER_02

At that time.

SPEAKER_01

In antiquity, and that you know there's there's there's pottery that proves it. There's shipwrecks and and archaeological evidence that shows us that the world was highly interconnected. And um at the time, and Bronze Age collapse, we date it to around, or they date it to around 1200 BCE to 1150 BCE.

SPEAKER_02

How did that happen?

SPEAKER_01

Um, so before that happened, you had, you know, we have to say there's there's a couple of empires we have to talk about. Okay. Both uh, and they were in competition, but they also traded with each other. You have in Greece the Mycenaean Empire, the Mycenaean civilization. You have in uh North Africa, you have the Egyptian civilization, uh, Anatolian peninsula, that area you have the Hittite um civilization, and in Mesopotamia, you have the Akkadian civilization, which is a um uh it is a a uh it they inherited the Sumerian um civilization. Basically, the Babylonian civilization as we know it is the the the the the result of the cross between Sumerians and Akkadians. The Akkadians were uh Semitic speaking uh peoples, Semitic language speaking peoples, which which we say is Eastern Semitic branch, now extinct, I believe.

SPEAKER_02

Um but uh these these civilizations and those languages sorry to interrupt are they extinct languages or they're not? I believe well Akkadian Aramaic, is it from Aramaic or similar?

SPEAKER_01

Well, Aramaic Aramaic is part of the uh Western Semitic language.

SPEAKER_02

Aramaic is the is the tongue of the Israelites, Judah, and and and Jesus of Nazareth. This is the language that they spoke. So this was the Western, and so this was the Eastern, you're saying.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, this is the Eastern. Um and the funny thing about Akkadian, it shows us like just the back and forth and the kind of like uh intermingling, is that although the language spoken um was Semitic, they used Sumerian cuneiform in order to write, you know, like so, and and a lot of um we see that because of the language similarity, even even though Sumerian Sumerian at one point was just basically not spoken, was taken over by Akkadian, especially after like Sargon, um, who had was the the founder of the Akkadian Empire. Um, all these people were extremely interconnected because we have one language group that pretty much dominates uh the entire Fertile Crescent.

SPEAKER_02

Um this is all in the Iraq area.

SPEAKER_01

So the Fertile Crescent is, you know, from the Nile Delta up through the Levant into Anatolia and down back through Mesopotamia.

SPEAKER_02

So you're talking the Middle East as we know it today, exactly. Through Iraq. Yeah. And is that where most of civilization was at that time?

SPEAKER_01

That's where most of civilization, the large civilizations, the prosperous ones, the ones that you know could command incredible armies and make these monuments that we now still live with and still discover, you know, it's it's how they get into England.

SPEAKER_02

How were they doing that? Just trading. And they had loose tribes there.

SPEAKER_01

But uh I I I don't think they were they were there. Um the tin was mined and exported, I think, during antiquity, which is a bit later on. Okay. Uh, in the time of like the ancient Greeks and and the Romans. This is a bit too soon, I think. Okay, but um, I wouldn't be surprised if if trading ships, especially the Phoenicians, um, were able to get pretty far.

SPEAKER_02

So, this area of the world that is so sought after and turmoil, it's full of turmoil. Yeah, this was like the Mecca of civilization. Yeah, and at this time is the booming, it's the trade.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, what are the conflicts these guys are having with so obviously they're fighting each other all the time. Right. And we have we have evidence from you know pharaonic, uh, pharaonic like uh inscriptions on uh stele's and and uh monuments where they always win, obviously. Pharaoh's always win. It's like a highlight point. Yeah, but you have you have you have constant wars, and specifically you have a lot of wars in the Levant. Yeah, a lot of a lot of fighting. Yeah, yeah, it's it's uh that that that that portion of land, that little strip um around between around the Jordan and the Mediterranean.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_01

And they had been fighting for for quite some time, a lot of to and froing between the Hittites and the Egyptians.

SPEAKER_02

Um, are these people traced? And I'm sorry, I'm just asking questions that I think modern trying to modernize this a bit. Are any of these people traceable to the people that are conflicting now?

SPEAKER_01

I mean, obviously. There's uh whether or not, you know, the degree to which, you know, these are the same exact people.

SPEAKER_02

It's too muddy.

SPEAKER_01

It's too muddy. The world moves too fast for that, you know. Um, there's obviously uh an interchange, both genetically and culturally, between peoples, but it uh it still seems to not have changed that much in terms of like how these how these folks interact. And um basically around the the Bronze Age collapse happened pretty suddenly, and um so we have, for example, I think we can we can give a good start to it at the Battle of Kadesh, right? Uh, which is uh like I want to say the latter half of the 13th century BCE, where Ramses II destroyed the Hittites. And when I say destroyed, I mean it was probably a very close battle. But according to the Egyptians, it was an incredible victory.

SPEAKER_03

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

And um and really it set both kind of aside. They had put a lot of resources into this struggle, and I think they weren't prepared for what was going to come next. And what and what came next was um a three-pronged kind of attack on civilization, as it had been known so far. Um, there's evidence of crop failures, of agricultural like difficulties. There's strong evidence of huge earthquakes, of like tectonic activity that disrupted specifically Anatolia, um the you know, the kind of what we know now as Greece, the Mycenaean Empire, and into Italy, you know, because they've got volcanoes too. And I think those things caused a mass migration, like we saw with um with the Germanic peoples that eventually led to the fall of Rome. They were pushed out by the own force of nature, which was the steppe, the steppe tribes and those those forces. But these people, and I've I've got a list of them, where they're called the sea peoples, right? Okay. Um we can trace more or less, or we have a good idea of where they came from, but for the most part, they remain they remain somewhat of a mystery. Um there's there's quite a few of them, but I want to like focus mainly on a few, one of which is the Pelicet, um, which we think they come from the Aegean, the Aegean area. You have the Sheridan from Sardinia, and the Sherden are really iconic because they give us the typical image of the barbarian, the horned helmet, you know, right. Uh, they wore horned helmets, and you can see in in um in Egyptian kind of inscriptions and stuff, how these, you know, these guys are dressed with, you know, literally like looking like Loki from the show. Right, right, right. Gigantic horns and stuff. You've got the Shekesh or Shekelesh, which are from Sicily, and a few others. And they've all moved into the Levant now, or these people. So we think that they uh they they were driven out of their lands, either through famine, through war. Don't really know because we don't have any records of these people other than what the Egyptians, the Egyptians. And um, they basically went on a tear. They took down the Mycenaeans. We have we have where are they? Where are they? That's Greek. That's like that's basically the Mycenaeans are the Homeric Greeks. They're the ones that that uh that um that uh were the they're the Greeks that participated in the in the siege of Troy, for example.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

They're they're the uh they're the basis for all the the the heroic um epic Homerian Homerian myths, right? And we see archaeologically, we see that they become more and more fortified and retreating and from coastal raids. So these the what had started as coastal raids became a mass migration where uh the Pelicet, the Shekelesh, uh the Shurdesh, all these people not only brought their soldiers, but their entire families, their whole life, put on boats and saying, we're going for it. We're gonna go after these guys and get our little piece of the pie, right? The world's the world's a mess and we need to survive. And um so they bring down the the Mycenaeans, they take out the Hittites, and um then they fight the Egyptians. And this is this is where where things get a little interesting in terms of the Levant. Um now, under Ramsay III, this is Ramsey III was the pharaoh who who fought these sea peoples. And the descriptions we have say it was uh it was a hard-fought victory, but we won and we expulsed them. I'm not too sure about the details, but these sea peoples were then either granted land or just settled there and say, What are you gonna do about it? Uh and specifically the Pelicet landed on the coast of the Levant around where Gaza is today. It is modern day Gaza. And so there, I mean, it's not a hundred percent, nothing's a hundred percent, but we pretty much think these Piliset uh Peliset later developed developed into the Philistines, and that later on are the basis of what we call the Palestinians.

SPEAKER_02

Well, the Philistines, though, but I saw like a lot of the Palestinian population that's in Gaza are Egyptian descent. They're they have the Masri family name, they have these names. Center, so you're saying that they are descendants of the Philistines? Because I think that they're they're well, I think the name the name, the the name, the name itself, the name itself, but not the peoples. Who knows? It's so muddy down. You're saying it's very hard. Um because you have these other empires that conquer that we'll get to in a minute, there too. So they're there, they're there, they've established as communities or whatever under Egyptian rule.

SPEAKER_01

Um under Egyptian, because at this point, after the battle, we have to understand after the battle, these sea peoples like gave a death blow to Egypt. Even though Egypt survived, they were never the same. And it basically marked the decline of Egyptian hegemony over that part of the Levant. And who takes over after the Egyptians? Well, that's that's the thing. It does, it takes a while. Okay, but um so around this time, we're talking about 1200 to 1150 BC, um, things get a little out of hand in the Levant. And the best evidence we have for that is a set of correspondences. I forget which city, it might be Ugarit or Biblos, where uh the rulers of those countries who are under the protection of uh the Egyptian Pharaoh are sending him letters and and correspondence. Hey man, you gotta get us some food. We're starving here. Hey man, we need some weapons. Hey man, these people over here are causing problems. We need a hand. So it shows it shows us that like the Egyptians, there's even no response from the Egyptians. They're like, yeah, whatever. We've got our own problems. And um, so this is where the the collapse becomes important. So all these people, in a sense, that had been more or less under, under, not I don't, I don't know if they were under the thumb, but they were definitely vassal states and vassal cities of the Egyptian Empire are left to their own devices. And that's where we get really um the the the fragmentation.

SPEAKER_03

The different tribes, right?

SPEAKER_01

Different tribes and all the like and also the birth of different kingdoms. So um this is famously where like the rise of the Phoenicians happens, and you know, instead of you know looking outwards, uh, you know, land inwards towards the land, they look outwards and they start creating trade posts all across the Mediterranean. They're you know, they they're the the founding peoples of the Carthaginians, they had coastal settlements and trade outposts all along the Spanish coast. These guys went everywhere, and they were filthy rich by by all uh um accounts, right? You know, the they're uh you know the purple dies and stuff like that. These guys, these guys are are are handling luxury goods, and they're in a spot that's perfect for that. They're at the crossroads of all the empires, the Levant, right?

SPEAKER_02

That's what people don't understand. Like that was such a hub before even religious.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, you have an economic hub. You have the the the you have Jericho, for example, which shows signs of a city that's 10,000, if not more, 10,000 years old, right? And conflict was no was no um, there were no strangest conflicts. We see we see I think the walls of fortifications are dated back to 7,000 years. Wow.

SPEAKER_02

So yeah, so what a lot of people think it is a religious conflict in a sense that area is always tied to religion, Jerusalem specifically. But what religion? Exactly. We're not even at religions yet, and we're seeing all of this turmoil, economic trade, the dyes are coming from this, they're finding resources there, and more than anything, it's a it's a geographically perfect spot to meet, right? You're connecting the east from the west, right? It's the trade route.

SPEAKER_01

And so we get the Bronze Age collapse. Okay. Um, all these empires are falling, but what's also important to notice is that their trade networks also have fallen for a little while. And because tin is so hard to get, and copper is kind of a pain in the butt, too, they end up having to look at iron. And previously, iron wasn't really worked with because how hard it was. You had to get it to higher temperatures, uh, you really couldn't cast it. Like you can cast bronze, pour it in a mole, bam, bam, bam, hammer it up, and you've got a sword. Iron, you have to put a lot more work in. And early iron wasn't that great to begin with, but because there's a shortage of tin and because of the shortage of bronze, they have to work on that, work with what they have. And this is where like the collapse leads to a very important civilization that kind of messed up a lot of people, not only in terms of like their land and their cities, but also in terms of like who they are as people, and that's the Assyrians. The first modern real professional army. Um the Assyrians really took that vacuum of power and they made the land theirs.

SPEAKER_02

So Assyrians' modern day, this is still a modern-day Levant.

SPEAKER_01

Well, the Assyrians is basically the um the inheritors of the Akkadian Empire, they're more like northern Mesopotamia bordering with Anatolia. Got it. And they uh they go on a tear and they conquer and they conquer and they kill and they slaughter. And these guys were were were pretty mean and pretty scary.

SPEAKER_02

And is there did they have a modern-day descendant now or the closest descendants? Well, it's it's it's I mean, not not really.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, it's it's just these people kind of flow into each other, right?

SPEAKER_02

Okay, you know, right. Um and religion isn't dominating anything right now.

SPEAKER_01

Uh well, you well, there's there's religions, and obviously religion dominates, but the what religion dominates with this? That's the thing. In in the Levant, you have several deities, right? For the most part, in in what we're calling uh Canaan or Canaan, um, you have El, who is the the kind of the father god. Um and up until the Bronze Age collapse, and little and a little bit um a little while after it, you have Baal, who becomes a very big deity, especially for the agricultural folks. He's he's not only a storm god, but he's also a uh a cyclical god who is who dies and is reborn. And when he's dead, you know, the crops are failing, you know, we're having tough times. So when he's alive, you know, it's it's it's it's the time of plenty, right? And at the same time, you have Yahweh, who's said to have originated. There's a couple of of authors you can look in, like Mark S. Smith, I think um John Day and Dever, I think, where they they they pinpoint Yahweh as being a deity that originated in what is now southern Jordan, northern Saudi Arabia.

SPEAKER_02

And and Yahweh is the god of the Bibles that we have now, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Right. But no, yes and no, because there's such an evolution, like it's it'd be too simplistic, but he's a god, a storm god, that um that starts getting a following in in what very shortly becomes the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, right? This is the this is the beginning of Judaism. Yeah, this is like the the kind of the beginning of the religion. Of the religion, but you know, that religion, you know, it's it's like saying it's like saying um I mean it's it's changed so much, it's like saying the Gnostics are Christianity, right? Right there's so much going on. Um and so we have a split, right, between between what are essentially the same people, Israel and Judah. And Judah is much more Yahwehist. You know, they're already leaning towards what we will now, like what we now has a monotheism. There's still other gods and stuff, but they're they're all for Yahweh. Israel is a bit more open, right? They have temples to other gods, there's other gods hanging around, but they're essentially Yahweh. Um but they're a bit more tolerant. And um this is you know, this is where we get the idea, or like how how uh the the the so the Assyrians they set their eyes on the Levant and they attack the Levant and they take out Israel, um which was you know a traumatizing thing. In biblical literature, I think, or in at least in in Judaic kind of thought, there's the idea that it was a punishment from God because they were idolatrous, uh, idolaters, you know, they had statues to other uh gods and stuff like that. So it was a punishment, right? And they're pretty much taken out of the picture. Judah survives by becoming a vassal of the Assyrian Empire, and um we don't really have at least that I know, records or there's not much said about, for example, the Philistines. I think the Phoenicians were affected, but the Phoenicians, you know, there was too much of a golden goose to mess up, you know, they were too much of a trade kind of power, right? Um, but that that created and fomented like that first step into Judaism really becoming what it would later become. Um, but yeah, the Syrians really kicked it off, I want to say.

SPEAKER_02

But then from then, so from there you get the story of the so when you're talking about the kingdom of Judah and the kingdom of Israel, you're you're the modern day people are traced to the Jews. I think that they have because, and we talked about this, you know, whereas of course it's a little bit muddied. You have when you when you're doing they're doing DNA and Jews, there's Sephardic Jews, the ones that come from the the Mediterranean, the Spanish country, uh the have the Ashkenazi Jews that come from the European descent. But we talked about as a people, like I think that the Jews were able to maintain the most identity out of all the peoples. Explain that a little bit and why that was able to occur.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I mean, the first, the first, the first kind of real non-biblical mention we have of of Israel is in 1208 BCE, uh, on a pharaoh's template where uh uh Steele, um, where he's he's kind of bragging that he laid waste to Israel, right? And before then we don't we don't really have any any evidence of them. But afterwards, it just doesn't stop, you know. Um and as opposed to where other populations I think would either integrate or just be diluted into either conquering populations or settling populations, if it it seems like the Jewish people really coalesced. And they coalesced through trauma.

SPEAKER_02

Right. I mean, because those people have been, they literally been conquered more than any other people in the history of time.

SPEAKER_01

Assyria, Assyria, the Assyrian conquest was kind of won in a in uh uh a series throughout, you know, the from from the Bronze Age through antiquity, um and later. It's a series of you know, the idea of like the destruction of the temple. Uh that's that's an old thing, by the way. That we can go back the destruction of temples, uh, back in when warfare first started, you know, in the in the like kind of proto-babylonian days, when you know, cities like uh Uma and Lagash were fighting, what they would do was they'd go conquer your sis, uh your city and then take your your God and bring your God home with them. And that was the true conquest. Once they had your your god, you know, they they won. So the destruction of temples and you know, religious sites and sites of worship was something that was really part of a victory, of victory, of warfare, right? If you weren't getting those guys temples, you you didn't win a battle, you didn't you didn't win, kind of deal. It's like one of those break their spirits kind of deal. Break the spirits, or just like maybe it's the token, the trophy of victory.

SPEAKER_02

It's like, hey, we won, you know, and it's funny because like you see it now, like the uh with the with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the Muslims and the Jews, and whatever the conflict is now, because that temple you're talking about one of the holy temples, where the wailing wall for modern viewers and listeners to the the the the wailing wall or the western wall is is uh is the western side of the of the old temple, and it was destroyed in the area that's the last part of the temple, the holy temple of the Jews and almost all religions. And they're actually finding underneath a full tunnel. It's incredible if you can ever take a tour there, it's really it's really incredible. Um, but that al-Aqsa that mosque that was built, the golden dome that we see, was literally built on top of that temple. So, you know, you have the arguments of they're trying to you know destroy the Alaksambras when the Al Aqsamas destroyed the temple, and you have all this, and it goes back to what you're saying about the conquest of these conquests, the big stamp was, hey, we're gonna take your temple. So you know, so I mean, now I I hear crazy people say, Oh, the Jews want to rebuild that temple. That's that's a very fanatic, I'm sure not even a one percent uh opinion of the population, but talk about the Islamic Republic.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I want to I want to like, in terms of like the the coalescing and the kind of the the formation of the Jewish identity as we know it today, was came out of the second big conquest, which was the neo-babylonian conquest of of uh Jerusalem. Okay, the destruction of the temple, right, and then the mass deportation basically of these people to Babylon, where an interesting day Babylon is modern day for the viewers' reason. Okay, yeah. Something really interesting happens in terms of like the the records we have. And in most occasions when someone's dispossessed and taken to another land, they kind of meld over time into those people, into the people that you know that they are hosting them, for lack of a better word. And it seems that in marriage records and in birth records, uh quite the opposite happens. Where Babylonian men are marrying uh you know Jewish women and then or hebraic women, and then this the children are taking on Hebraic names, Hebraic names. Um and it's not like it it kind of slows down over time, it actually escalates. Well, the women are the bosses, yeah. That's probably what it is.

SPEAKER_02

Probably you know, they're like now we're naming this kid uh, you know, Jacob.

SPEAKER_01

And um and really by the time that um I forget which which Persian king of kings, it might be Darius, I really forget. I'm drawing a blank, but by the time he says, hey, guys can go back, you know, um, there was really a a Jewish community at some stayed and some went back. Oh yeah, you know, in order to to rebuild the temple. And after we had the Romans. Like so it it's it's just uh um the Romans, you had crusaders, you had Salah Hadin and all these guys. Yeah, the the um the the the Islamic the Islamic um takeover basically.

SPEAKER_02

Let's talk about that because that is, I think, I think the modern day, if you look at the map and you look at the peoples now, I think that that's the longest lasting uh conquest. No, obviously not. I mean, you could go into like the Romans, you can talk about the England did their own thing, but like the Islamic Empire, explain where that comes from, how they're all I don't think most people understand they the the Arabic people themselves come from Arabia, yeah. Right? So talk about that briefly if you kind of give it and how the Levant has become what it is and the peoples and all that.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I think I think A, it's because of monotheism and how it took it took um just control of our imaginations and and like our ways of worship, you know, where before you had very localized gods that um you know, and very localized not only geographically, but in terms of like the industry, yeah, you know, abstractly, like you know, the god of of you know farming and and this and that. And the Assyrians kind of like changed the game with Asher when they uh uh when they um when they created more an imperial god, but that was already in the works with with Judaism in terms of monotheism, and it became really something um important to three religions, and the three religions kind of trace their origins to that. So not only has now an economically sought-after area, it not only now is it a economically sought-after area, but a spiritual sought-after area in a time where religion is everything for everyone, right?

SPEAKER_02

And um And that's why a lot of these stories that we hear about, you know, Jesus and Christmas Day and Easter, and all these are traced to these like old gods that have very the same birthdays or they have the same. You talked about the Moses story about him being oh yeah, yeah. I mean, that's a that's a story you're saying of the god Baal, right? Yeah, yeah. Talk about that for a second. What is that?

SPEAKER_01

So Baal, Baal, you know, he's Baal is you know the the root uh deity, his name is the root of like Bealzebab, for example. Okay. Um his his his track record, I mean his his history is pretty interesting because it changed from what he actually was. He was kind of a good guy god, as far as a good guy god, there can be a good guy god in in these ancient cults, but um he was he was a pretty big deal. And um it's it's funny because it he's also a big influence on Judaism. Like uh a lot of uh Judaic texts uh uh take inspiration, if not copy, uh, for example, the the ball cycle, which was something we discovered in 1928, where a lot of the poems and a lot of the odes to him can be found in in Judaic texts with just ball switch with Yahweh, which is interesting. Um, which means that you know there's there's correspondence, but also that it's it's from this area, and that um I mean I think I think that they also shared a girlfriend. Because yeah, Yahweh had a consort called Asherah.

SPEAKER_02

And um, so yeah, there's there's a lot of give and take between and uh ball is a bit older, but there was still Baal worship when when when Judaism was taken off, taking out so where so uh about the Islamic, how how they they were a conquering force at the in the most modern of times, no, I would say that was like that's that's that's more 1800s, like no no no seven seven seven. Well the turkey well the Ottoman Empire reigned for a long time, right? How that was the Ottoman Empire.

SPEAKER_01

Uh I that Ottomans not my specialty, honestly. Like um, but but basically eighth century, uh between you know seventh and eighth century is when it all kicked off for Islam and they just spread like wildfire through North Africa, through the Levant, into into Anatolia, um and also yeah, and into Spain. Andalusia. And yep, and it's but it's it's kind of a it's one of these conquests when when when these kind of huge conquests happen, it's not like the population switches automatically, right? Um, even with with the Romans, for example, you have an elite that install local elites, but it's it's not a it's not a complete replacement of populations, just a transfer of power and a transfer of language and culture, right? Um so although we kind of um umbrella the Islamic world with the Arab, you know, kind of we say the Arab world, or in fact they're Arabic speaking. But there are whole different populations within there. And we kind of um we we simplify and reduce them to being a a single people. But we've there's so many different forms and sects of Islam and other religions that that exist in that area that live on despite you know a lot of a lot of time and a lot of a lot of kind of like uh a lot of Islamic domination over this area. So you have Jainism, you have um not Jainism, sorry, let's let's go wrong um Druism, sorry, you have uh old Coptic Christians, you have different forms of Islam, like Sufism, Sunnis, so it's it's it's it seems like a monolithic block, but really it's also quite fragmented and different people, different, different kinds of backgrounds, and in many cases also other other um languages other than Arabic that are still spoken, like Berber, you have Farsi, you have, you know. Right, right.

SPEAKER_02

And if yeah, far farsi, I don't think they consider themselves Arabic, they get very offended if you see the Persians. You tell a Persian they're like, I'm not Arabic, I'm Persian. No, but I think that that when you think of all of this and all of the stuff that you took through and the history there that people just don't talk about, you know, people don't know about like the dive in, and a lot of people find it maybe boring or not. I don't I don't know or not interesting, but like when you see that region and you understand how complex it is, because people say to me, they're like, Why can't this just be solved? What are they fighting over? And like, I don't even know that they're all fighting for different reasons, right? And they all have this historical, not I don't want to say hate, but you know, they have hate, yeah. It's almost you know competition, and that's traced in their genes to the land, even, right? Like, it's not just the religions, it's also geographically, it was always the most sought after. I saw there was one quote, I remember I don't know, like movie quotes, but it was in the uh the kingdom of heaven. You ever see that movie? Yeah, Salawadin is like at the end, he takes back over. Uh Salawadin was like uh one of the biggest Islamic conquerors, actually supposed to be a good person. He's the defender, he's the defender of the faith. Right. Well, he but he was notoriously known for being uh a humanistic person. He wasn't, oh, if you could call conquerors that, but at one point in the end, when the crusaders had had had you know uh just given Jerusalem as a you know, because they were outmanned, outnumbered, he said to him, What is Jerusalem worth? And he turns to him and he says, Nothing. And then he rides away a little bit and turns again, he goes, and everything, right? And I think that that really that sums it up, right? Like like technically, what is it worth?

SPEAKER_01

By the way, by the way, watch the director's cut if you can of Kingdom of Heaven, because that's that's an amazing film. And it really gives you a good idea of of just how crazy that timeline is. Um, but I think I think it's it's it's like it's somewhere between uh kind of the Hatfields and McCoys and you know, cosmic history. Like it's somewhere like it's it's it's it's it's petty and epic at the same time. And it's crazy that you know, if we take time to look at history a bit more and get a bit of perspective, it might show us that we're very different, but maybe we're not so different as we think, right? And things have changed, but not so much in essence. And um and also just give you an idea why the why the hell are we fighting and where are our responsibilities? Because everyone, everyone, I think, looks at the other side as an enemy and as an enemy and doesn't see that history is just the the ebb and flow of power, you know. Bad guys will be bad guys, but also good guys will be good guys, and we have to we have to not let it kind of rule the future, you know.

SPEAKER_02

Right. Well, I mean, I don't know that that's I don't know if it's possible. But I mean when we're talking about human civilization and the history of human humanity, you're saying right now this is older than time, right? These conflicts, specifically this area, but every area has its own story and its own conflicts and its own when people say like, oh, the Ukraine, Russia, they think they understand that. You don't understand that. You don't understand the history, you don't under and the most complex one that we're talking about now, Levant and and and Babylonian. We're talking about names that like people don't even know where Babylon is. You know, they think it's a concept or a construct, right? Whereas it's a real place.

SPEAKER_01

Well, that that construct is is is also informed by Judaism, like the Rastafarian concept of Babylon. Right. You know, it's a place we were taken to, we're taken from our homeland. Right. And it's informed. I mean, all that history has informed like our our kind of cultural zeitgeist or whatever, I don't know what I want to see zeitgeist, but that like all these things we see, you know, like there'd be no no Bob Marley, there'd be no kind of like all these things without things that have happened so long ago that if we weren't a people that were interested in digging in the dirt to find out what happened in the past, if if that wasn't a thing, we'd never know. We'd you know, the origins of like why we say certain things or why certain things are, which is amazing, you know.

SPEAKER_02

And we only know so much, too. Like, there's clear times where a lot of this stuff we don't have access to these records, we don't have access to times. Like if you go and you look at on the other side of the world, like the the the Native American Empire as he has to just disappeared one day. You don't understand what happened with that. Like, there's so much there, and I think that it's incredible. Um, but listen, thank you for coming on and going through all this, man. And um, obviously, we're all watching this stuff unfold to have your insight is is valuable. I'd like to get you back on when there's new things that are popping off, and maybe you can trace it as much as possible.

SPEAKER_01

If it, you know, if let's not hope for the worst, but you know, in any case, things will go on, you know, and hopefully as as you know, as humans, we we get back to learning lessons, you know, instead of forgetting them. I think unfortunately a lot of our culture has has uh has uh thrown aside the idea of more of the slow data of sitting with with with your media and processing it slowly over time, like reading a book rather than watching a video or um you know talking to your your your elders and learning their stories rather than watching a TikTok that you know in the in the immediacy gives you a nice little dopamine hint, but doesn't bring you closer to understanding the craziness that is the human experience and the fact that we're here at all. Right, you know, right.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I agree. And on that note, thank you, my friend. I can't wait to have you back on. It's always a pleasure. Yeah, dude, you're you're always welcome, and we'll have you back on and thank you for the insight. To all my listener viewers, thank you for watching. Two taps and friends. We're gonna link down Ramon's uh stuff at the bottom and have his contact information if he has any questions for him directly or want to learn more. Uh, thank you guys for watching and listening. Please like and subscribe to the channel. Uh, if you're able to do that, we're able to get more outreach and get more amazing guests like Ramon on uh we're on Instagram, we're on iHeartRadio, we're on YouTube, we're everywhere. Our marketing team is fantastic. Thank you guys for watching and listening. We love you all. We'll see you next time. Goodbye.