This was great, and Magness is a really good explainer. She seems to have detailed knowledge about so many different areas regarding ancient Palestine. Although I only listened to the audio version of this (not the videos), I've studied most of the sites mentioned, and I was able to follow along well and it added a lot to my understanding of the Holy Land. A few times I went chasing down something on YouTube.

My one criticism is that she's not a Bayesian, meaning that she often suggests that a thing is a certain way because that's the best evidence that we have. With Bayes Theorem, it's not necessary to make conclusions, we can talk about likelihood. A few times Magness made the 'drunk looking for keys under the street lamp because that's where the light is' fallacy. We don't have to uncritically accept the 'earliest' report of an event simply because it's the earliest. Homer is the earliest report that Achilles visited the underworld. So what.

But that didn't detract too much from this. I'd love to go digging with her one day...