WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.879 Welcome back to The Deep Dive. We are really 00:00:02.879 --> 00:00:04.660 glad you're here with us today. Yeah, thanks 00:00:04.660 --> 00:00:07.639 for joining us. We are going to take a phrase 00:00:07.639 --> 00:00:10.080 that you might have heard in passing, maybe in 00:00:10.080 --> 00:00:14.339 a literature class or maybe in a sermon, or perhaps 00:00:14.339 --> 00:00:17.320 just as an obscure kind of old timey idiom. Right. 00:00:17.579 --> 00:00:19.760 And we're going to trace its journey across about 00:00:19.760 --> 00:00:23.079 3 ,000 years of history. The phrase is, From 00:00:23.079 --> 00:00:27.010 Dam to Beersheba. Sounds innocent enough doesn't 00:00:27.010 --> 00:00:28.989 it? I mean it sounds like a travel itinerary 00:00:28.989 --> 00:00:32.649 Like saying from New York to LA or you know from 00:00:32.649 --> 00:00:34.909 terrorist to Berlin exactly it just sounds like 00:00:34.909 --> 00:00:37.149 a road trip plan But what we're digging into 00:00:37.149 --> 00:00:40.350 today is how this specific phrase traveled from 00:00:40.350 --> 00:00:43.170 the pages of the Hebrew Bible directly onto the 00:00:43.170 --> 00:00:45.649 high stakes negotiation tables of World War I. 00:00:45.750 --> 00:00:48.289 It really is a wild trajectory. It is. And we 00:00:48.289 --> 00:00:50.810 have a massive stack of historical records, biblical 00:00:50.810 --> 00:00:53.189 texts, and even diplomatic memos to get through 00:00:53.189 --> 00:00:55.590 to make sense of this. Because we are going to 00:00:55.590 --> 00:00:59.210 see how a theological concept, essentially a 00:00:59.210 --> 00:01:03.250 spiritual geography, morphed into a hard -edged 00:01:03.250 --> 00:01:05.930 geopolitical reality, one that actually defined 00:01:05.930 --> 00:01:08.590 the modern Middle East. So our mission today 00:01:08.590 --> 00:01:11.250 is to understand how these nine specific mentions 00:01:11.250 --> 00:01:15.069 in ancient scripture shaped modern borders. But 00:01:15.069 --> 00:01:18.530 before we get to the British politicians in smoke 00:01:18.530 --> 00:01:21.670 -filled rooms in 1919, we have to start with 00:01:21.670 --> 00:01:23.930 the source code. We do. We need to understand 00:01:23.930 --> 00:01:26.849 the physical geography. Right. Because when an 00:01:26.849 --> 00:01:30.840 ancient writer wrote from Dan to Beersheba, What 00:01:30.840 --> 00:01:32.959 were they actually picturing? Well, to really 00:01:32.959 --> 00:01:35.859 grasp that, you have to picture the map of the 00:01:35.859 --> 00:01:38.799 ancient Levant. This wasn't just a poetic flourish. 00:01:38.920 --> 00:01:41.640 It was a literal definition of habitability. 00:01:41.659 --> 00:01:43.780 OK. You have the city of Dan in the far north. 00:01:43.879 --> 00:01:45.659 Which is near the headwaters of the Jordan River, 00:01:45.799 --> 00:01:48.079 right? So it's lush, green, plenty of water. 00:01:48.379 --> 00:01:50.459 Exactly. It's the northern limit of the fertile 00:01:50.459 --> 00:01:52.700 land. It's right at the foot of Mount Hermon. 00:01:53.019 --> 00:01:55.140 And then on the flip side, you have Beersheba 00:01:55.140 --> 00:01:57.299 in the south. And that's totally different terrain. 00:01:57.620 --> 00:01:59.599 Completely. Beersheba is the edge of the desert. 00:01:59.879 --> 00:02:01.780 South of Beersheba, you're just in the Negev. 00:02:01.879 --> 00:02:05.000 It's arid, difficult terrain. It's where the 00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:08.159 sown land ends and the wilderness begins. So 00:02:08.159 --> 00:02:11.039 physically, this phrase defines the vertical 00:02:11.039 --> 00:02:14.520 limits of the sown land, the area where agriculture 00:02:14.520 --> 00:02:17.020 and settlement were actually viable for the tribes 00:02:17.020 --> 00:02:19.360 of Israel. So when the writers of the Bible used 00:02:19.360 --> 00:02:21.780 this phrase, it was a shorthand. They were basically 00:02:21.780 --> 00:02:25.219 saying the entire habitable zone. Yes. It means 00:02:25.219 --> 00:02:27.919 everyone included. But what's fascinating is 00:02:27.919 --> 00:02:30.780 how the meaning of that inclusion shifts depending 00:02:30.780 --> 00:02:32.699 on which book of the Bible you're actually reading. 00:02:32.840 --> 00:02:35.280 It changes over time. It does. It starts as a 00:02:35.280 --> 00:02:37.400 concept of people, not just a patch of dirt. 00:02:37.599 --> 00:02:40.020 Let's look at the first major mention then. This 00:02:40.020 --> 00:02:42.460 is in the book of Judges, chapter 20, verse 1, 00:02:42.759 --> 00:02:46.020 and the context here isn't exactly a happy family 00:02:46.020 --> 00:02:48.900 reunion. No, far from it. This is the aftermath 00:02:48.900 --> 00:02:51.479 of the Battle of Gibeah. It's a horrific crime 00:02:51.479 --> 00:02:53.639 that leads to a civil war against the tribe of 00:02:53.639 --> 00:02:56.759 Benjamin. Right. And the text says, then all 00:02:56.759 --> 00:02:59.139 Israel from Dan to Beersheba and from the land 00:02:59.139 --> 00:03:01.900 of Gilead came together as one and assembled 00:03:01.900 --> 00:03:04.520 before the Lord. Came together as one. I mean, 00:03:04.620 --> 00:03:07.120 in a modern context, that sounds like a political 00:03:07.120 --> 00:03:09.759 rally or a celebration, but here it's actually 00:03:09.759 --> 00:03:13.259 pretty ominous. It is ominous. It signifies total 00:03:13.259 --> 00:03:16.180 national unity, but specifically mobilization 00:03:16.180 --> 00:03:19.270 for a judicial purpose. Like an army. Exactly. 00:03:19.490 --> 00:03:21.229 It's saying that this wasn't just some local 00:03:21.229 --> 00:03:24.830 dispute. The outrage was so severe that everyone 00:03:24.830 --> 00:03:28.050 from the lush north to the desert south dropped 00:03:28.050 --> 00:03:30.229 what they were doing to address it. So it established 00:03:30.229 --> 00:03:32.289 a national consciousness for the first time. 00:03:32.370 --> 00:03:35.909 Yes. They weren't just disparate scattered tribes 00:03:35.909 --> 00:03:39.270 anymore. They were a collective entity capable 00:03:39.270 --> 00:03:42.129 of unified action. So the phrase effectively 00:03:42.129 --> 00:03:44.849 births the idea of a nation rather than just 00:03:44.849 --> 00:03:47.129 a collection of cousins. Precisely. It creates 00:03:47.129 --> 00:03:49.719 a container for the people. And we see that reinforced 00:03:49.719 --> 00:03:52.860 later in 1 Samuel 3 .2. Oh, right. The story 00:03:52.860 --> 00:03:55.979 of the prophet Samuel. Yeah. The text says, all 00:03:55.979 --> 00:03:58.620 Israel from Dan to Beersheba recognized that 00:03:58.620 --> 00:04:01.240 Samuel was attested as a prophet. That feels 00:04:01.240 --> 00:04:05.180 like a shift from military unity to more of a 00:04:05.180 --> 00:04:07.120 spiritual consensus. That's a great way to put 00:04:07.120 --> 00:04:09.759 it. It's about legitimization. In a world without 00:04:09.759 --> 00:04:11.759 mass media, how do you know a leader is legitimate? 00:04:12.120 --> 00:04:14.819 You need a mechanism of consensus. Right. Because 00:04:14.819 --> 00:04:17.709 you can't just run a poll. Exactly. The text 00:04:17.709 --> 00:04:19.930 is claiming that Samuel's authority wasn't just 00:04:19.930 --> 00:04:22.129 regional. It wasn't just the northern tribes 00:04:22.129 --> 00:04:24.629 who liked him. It was a universal recognition 00:04:24.629 --> 00:04:27.170 across the entire population. OK, so we have 00:04:27.170 --> 00:04:30.810 unity in war and unity in faith. But as we move 00:04:30.810 --> 00:04:33.149 chronologically through the texts, we get to 00:04:33.149 --> 00:04:35.779 the Kings David and Solomon. And this is where 00:04:35.779 --> 00:04:37.800 things seem to get more political. Political 00:04:37.800 --> 00:04:41.240 and territorial. In 2 Samuel 3 .10, we are dealing 00:04:41.240 --> 00:04:43.819 with the transfer of power. This is the war between 00:04:43.819 --> 00:04:47.420 Saul's son, Ish -bosheth, and David. Right. And 00:04:47.420 --> 00:04:49.779 the text speaks of establishing David's throne 00:04:49.779 --> 00:04:52.459 over Israel and Judah from Dan to Beersheba. 00:04:52.819 --> 00:04:55.160 Why the distinction there Israel and Judah? Because 00:04:55.160 --> 00:04:57.899 the political reality was often fractured. The 00:04:57.899 --> 00:04:59.980 North, which is Israel, and the South, which 00:04:59.980 --> 00:05:03.160 is Judah, were distinct entities. By invoking 00:05:03.160 --> 00:05:06.230 Dan to Beersheba, The writer is making a firm 00:05:06.230 --> 00:05:08.870 legal claim. Claiming the whole board, essentially. 00:05:08.930 --> 00:05:11.110 Yeah. Saying David isn't just a local warlord, 00:05:11.449 --> 00:05:13.769 he is the unifying monarch over the whole stretch. 00:05:14.430 --> 00:05:16.670 It defines the specific jurisdiction of the throne. 00:05:16.829 --> 00:05:19.069 It's establishing the boundaries of the kingdom. 00:05:19.589 --> 00:05:22.209 But power is a tricky thing, because just a few 00:05:22.209 --> 00:05:25.490 chapters later, in Nevin Samuel 17, we see this 00:05:25.490 --> 00:05:28.990 exact same phrase weaponized against David. Ah, 00:05:28.990 --> 00:05:32.089 yes. The ultimate family drama. The rebellion 00:05:32.089 --> 00:05:34.829 of his son, Absalom. Right. Absalom is trying 00:05:34.829 --> 00:05:37.870 to usurp the throne. He receives advice on how 00:05:37.870 --> 00:05:40.589 to crush his father. And the advisor says, and 00:05:40.589 --> 00:05:44.250 I quote, let all Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, 00:05:44.439 --> 00:05:46.959 As numerous as the sand on the seashore be gathered 00:05:46.959 --> 00:05:49.079 to you. As numerous as the sand on the seashore. 00:05:49.220 --> 00:05:51.360 That is a terrifying image if you're the one 00:05:51.360 --> 00:05:54.199 being targeted. It implies massive scale. Total 00:05:54.199 --> 00:05:56.899 war. This isn't a minor skirmish. No, not at 00:05:56.899 --> 00:05:59.180 all. The advisor is telling Absalom to leverage 00:05:59.180 --> 00:06:01.100 the entire demographic weight of the nation. 00:06:01.540 --> 00:06:04.379 It transforms Dant, Beersheba from a boundary 00:06:04.379 --> 00:06:07.100 line into a literal recruitment tool. Speaking 00:06:07.100 --> 00:06:09.980 of recruitment and resources, we have to talk 00:06:09.980 --> 00:06:11.860 about the census. This seems to be a pivotal 00:06:11.860 --> 00:06:13.959 and frankly a much darker moment in the history. 00:06:13.800 --> 00:06:15.860 history of this phrase. It is a major turning 00:06:15.860 --> 00:06:18.519 point. This is Teot Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 00:06:18.519 --> 00:06:22.540 21. King David orders his commander Joab to conduct 00:06:22.540 --> 00:06:25.480 a census. He tells Joab to go throughout the 00:06:25.480 --> 00:06:28.959 tribes of Israel from Dan to Beersheba and enroll 00:06:28.959 --> 00:06:32.000 the fighting men. Now to a modern listener, a 00:06:32.000 --> 00:06:34.220 census is just bureaucracy. We do it every 10 00:06:34.220 --> 00:06:37.259 years. Why was this such a big deal? Why does 00:06:37.259 --> 00:06:40.000 the biblical text treat it as a massive failure? 00:06:40.319 --> 00:06:42.560 Well, there are a few interpretations, but the 00:06:42.560 --> 00:06:44.899 dominant one is that it represented a shift in 00:06:44.899 --> 00:06:47.639 trust. Instead of relying on divine providence, 00:06:48.139 --> 00:06:50.519 David was relying on military statistics. He 00:06:50.519 --> 00:06:53.079 wanted to know his strength in purely human terms. 00:06:53.699 --> 00:06:56.519 So he sends Joab on this massive tour. He does. 00:06:56.899 --> 00:06:58.800 And the text is very specific about the route. 00:06:59.129 --> 00:07:02.430 It confirms the geographical reality of Dan to 00:07:02.430 --> 00:07:05.089 Beersheba not just as an idea, but as a physical 00:07:05.089 --> 00:07:06.910 path that the census takers actually walked. 00:07:07.170 --> 00:07:08.910 They went to the furthest outpost in the north 00:07:08.910 --> 00:07:10.889 and the furthest well in the south. Exactly. 00:07:11.069 --> 00:07:13.410 But the fallout was catastrophic. It was. The 00:07:13.410 --> 00:07:15.689 text describes a plague sent as a consequence. 00:07:15.930 --> 00:07:19.110 To Samuel 24 .15. And the statistic given is 00:07:19.110 --> 00:07:21.769 chilling. It says 70 ,000 people died from Dan 00:07:21.769 --> 00:07:24.189 to Beersheba. That's a brutal inversion of the 00:07:24.189 --> 00:07:27.379 phrase. The exact same words that describe their 00:07:27.379 --> 00:07:30.000 unity and judges and their military potential 00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:32.740 during the rebellion now describe the perimeter 00:07:32.740 --> 00:07:35.819 of their grief. Wow. It's like the boundaries 00:07:35.819 --> 00:07:38.040 of the nation became the boundaries of the suffering. 00:07:38.180 --> 00:07:40.699 That's spot -on. The phrase becomes a container 00:07:40.699 --> 00:07:44.459 for tragedy. It spanned the entire nation. It's 00:07:44.459 --> 00:07:46.779 a somber reminder that in this ancient worldview, 00:07:47.399 --> 00:07:50.279 the land, the people, and the leadership were 00:07:50.279 --> 00:07:54.120 inextricably linked. If the king fails, the suffering 00:07:54.120 --> 00:07:56.620 extends to the very edges of the map. It's not 00:07:56.620 --> 00:07:58.860 all doom and gloom, though. We do have what you 00:07:58.860 --> 00:08:01.500 might call the Golden Age reference. We do. And 00:08:01.500 --> 00:08:03.180 this is probably the image most people want to 00:08:03.180 --> 00:08:05.500 hold onto when they think of this era. It comes 00:08:05.500 --> 00:08:07.959 during the reign of King Solomon in 1 Kings 4 00:08:07.959 --> 00:08:10.759 .25. Set the scene for us there. The wars are 00:08:10.759 --> 00:08:13.600 over. The borders are secure. The economy is 00:08:13.600 --> 00:08:16.079 booming. And the text says, during Solomon's 00:08:16.079 --> 00:08:18.899 lifetime, Judah and Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, 00:08:19.339 --> 00:08:21.500 lived in safety, everyone under their own vine 00:08:21.500 --> 00:08:23.379 and under their own fig tree. Under their own 00:08:23.379 --> 00:08:25.120 vine and under their own fig tree. That sounds 00:08:25.120 --> 00:08:27.259 like the ancient equivalent of the American dream. 00:08:27.339 --> 00:08:29.759 It really does. A house with a white picket fence 00:08:29.759 --> 00:08:33.000 and a two car garage. Yeah, it represents total 00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:35.679 domestic security and economic peace. You aren't 00:08:35.679 --> 00:08:38.059 being called up to fight in a civil war. You 00:08:38.059 --> 00:08:40.740 aren't dying of a plague. You are engaging. in 00:08:40.740 --> 00:08:43.100 agriculture and enjoying the fruit of your labor. 00:08:43.700 --> 00:08:46.759 And again, the phrase from Dan to Beersheba is 00:08:46.759 --> 00:08:49.220 doing the heavy lifting to show the scale of 00:08:49.220 --> 00:08:52.519 that piece. Right. It tells us this prosperity 00:08:52.519 --> 00:08:54.580 wasn't just for the elite sitting in Jerusalem. 00:08:55.059 --> 00:08:57.379 It was the lived reality for the farmer on the 00:08:57.379 --> 00:08:59.379 northern border and the shepherd on the edge 00:08:59.379 --> 00:09:01.720 of the southern desert. It implies total coverage 00:09:01.720 --> 00:09:04.200 across the whole geography. Correct. There's 00:09:04.200 --> 00:09:06.120 one more mention we should touch on before we 00:09:06.120 --> 00:09:08.100 jump forward in time. It's a bit of an outlier. 00:09:08.240 --> 00:09:10.899 It's in 2 Chronicles 30 under King Hezekiah. 00:09:11.320 --> 00:09:13.559 This is a really fascinating moment because the 00:09:13.559 --> 00:09:15.980 kingdom had completely split by this point. The 00:09:15.980 --> 00:09:19.279 north had actually fallen to the Assyrians. Hezekiah, 00:09:19.480 --> 00:09:22.379 who was ruling in the south, is trying to orchestrate 00:09:22.379 --> 00:09:26.100 a religious revival, a massive Passover celebration. 00:09:26.299 --> 00:09:28.720 Right. And he sends a proclamation, but the text 00:09:28.720 --> 00:09:31.360 says he sent it from Beersheba to Dan. Oh, he 00:09:31.360 --> 00:09:34.950 flipped it south to north. He did. Geographically, 00:09:34.970 --> 00:09:36.990 he's writing from the perspective of the South. 00:09:37.210 --> 00:09:40.309 And he starts with Beersheba. But politically, 00:09:41.009 --> 00:09:43.889 it's a desperate, beautiful move. He is inviting 00:09:43.889 --> 00:09:46.470 the remnants of the shattered northern tribes 00:09:46.470 --> 00:09:48.830 to come back to the center, to Jerusalem. It's 00:09:48.830 --> 00:09:52.190 a call for reunification. Exactly. Reaching out 00:09:52.190 --> 00:09:54.320 in the midst of collapse. So we've seen this 00:09:54.320 --> 00:09:56.440 phrase do a lot of work over these centuries. 00:09:56.740 --> 00:09:59.740 It's defined a unified people, recognized a prophet, 00:10:00.279 --> 00:10:03.480 legitimized a king's territory, mobilized a massive 00:10:03.480 --> 00:10:07.419 army, measured a tragedy, and described an era 00:10:07.419 --> 00:10:10.039 of perfect peace. It's essentially the Swiss 00:10:10.039 --> 00:10:12.460 army knife of biblical geography. It is the foundational 00:10:12.460 --> 00:10:14.679 definition of the land. But now I want to fast 00:10:14.679 --> 00:10:16.820 forward. We are going to take a massive leap 00:10:16.820 --> 00:10:20.100 in time, about 2 ,500 years. A big jump. We're 00:10:20.100 --> 00:10:22.440 leaving the vineyards of Solomon and landing 00:10:22.440 --> 00:10:25.879 in a very different setting. It's 1919. We are 00:10:25.879 --> 00:10:27.759 at the Paris Peace Conference. The setting here 00:10:27.759 --> 00:10:30.460 is crucial. World War I is over. The Ottoman 00:10:30.460 --> 00:10:32.539 Empire, which ruled the Middle East for centuries, 00:10:32.940 --> 00:10:34.980 has just collapsed. And the victors are carving 00:10:34.980 --> 00:10:37.460 things up. Right. Primarily Britain and France. 00:10:37.720 --> 00:10:39.840 They're sitting around tables covered in maps, 00:10:40.340 --> 00:10:42.490 negotiating how to divide the territory. And 00:10:42.490 --> 00:10:44.690 usually when you draw modern borders, especially 00:10:44.690 --> 00:10:47.009 in the 20th century, you look for natural barriers. 00:10:47.509 --> 00:10:50.049 Rivers, mountain ranges, or maybe just using 00:10:50.049 --> 00:10:52.210 the existing Ottoman administrative districts. 00:10:52.409 --> 00:10:55.789 Usually, yes. But in the case of Palestine, the 00:10:55.789 --> 00:10:58.470 British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, did 00:10:58.470 --> 00:11:01.789 something incredibly unusual. On September 13th, 00:11:01.789 --> 00:11:04.649 1919, he handed a memorandum to the French Prime 00:11:04.649 --> 00:11:07.710 Minister, Georges Clemenceau. This is a formal 00:11:07.710 --> 00:11:10.190 diplomatic document. Yes, an official proposal. 00:11:10.299 --> 00:11:13.019 And in this memo, Lloyd George declared that 00:11:13.019 --> 00:11:15.460 the boundaries of the British mandate for Palestine 00:11:15.460 --> 00:11:18.259 should be defined, quote, in accordance with 00:11:18.259 --> 00:11:21.259 its ancient boundaries of Dan to Beersheba. Wait, 00:11:21.320 --> 00:11:23.779 he literally wrote the ancient biblical idiom 00:11:23.779 --> 00:11:26.480 into a modern 20th century treaty proposal. He 00:11:26.480 --> 00:11:29.000 did exactly that. Why? I mean, was Lloyd George 00:11:29.000 --> 00:11:31.100 just a devout Sunday school teacher in disguise, 00:11:31.220 --> 00:11:33.580 or was this a highly calculated political move? 00:11:33.919 --> 00:11:35.919 Well, it was a bit of both, honestly. You have 00:11:35.919 --> 00:11:39.100 to remember, Lloyd George was Welsh. He was raised 00:11:39.100 --> 00:11:42.019 in a non -conformist religious tradition. He 00:11:42.019 --> 00:11:44.559 knew his Bible intimately. Probably better than 00:11:44.559 --> 00:11:46.679 he knew the contemporary map of the Middle East. 00:11:47.039 --> 00:11:49.879 Really? Oh, yeah. He famously said that the names 00:11:49.879 --> 00:11:52.379 of biblical cities were more familiar to him 00:11:52.379 --> 00:11:54.799 than the names of the battlefields in France 00:11:54.799 --> 00:11:56.960 where his own soldiers were fighting. So for 00:11:56.960 --> 00:11:59.899 him, Dan to Beersheba wasn't just a phrase. It 00:11:59.899 --> 00:12:02.820 was the absolute definition of the land. Right. 00:12:02.960 --> 00:12:05.559 It was his mental map. But we can't ignore the 00:12:05.559 --> 00:12:08.080 politics. It was highly convenient. The British 00:12:08.080 --> 00:12:10.779 needed to define a territory for their Palestine 00:12:10.779 --> 00:12:13.539 mandate that was distinct from the French mandates 00:12:13.539 --> 00:12:16.899 in Syria and Lebanon just to the north. Ah, so 00:12:16.899 --> 00:12:19.740 they needed a justification. Exactly. They needed 00:12:19.740 --> 00:12:22.080 historical precedent to justify the footprint 00:12:22.080 --> 00:12:24.919 they wanted to control. The Bible provided a 00:12:24.919 --> 00:12:27.559 kind of ghost map they could conveniently overlay 00:12:27.559 --> 00:12:29.759 onto the modern world. But there's a practical 00:12:29.759 --> 00:12:32.809 problem here. Dan and Beersheba are cities. They 00:12:32.809 --> 00:12:35.049 are just points on a map. Borders are usually 00:12:35.049 --> 00:12:37.909 lines. How did the British and French translate 00:12:37.909 --> 00:12:40.549 two dots into a national border? That's where 00:12:40.549 --> 00:12:43.049 it gets messy. And that's where they needed scholarly 00:12:43.049 --> 00:12:45.210 help. They weren't just flipping through a Gideon 00:12:45.210 --> 00:12:47.470 Bible at the negotiation table. They were relying 00:12:47.470 --> 00:12:50.990 on a very specific, highly influential book. 00:12:51.210 --> 00:12:54.549 George Adam Smith's book. Yes. The Historical 00:12:54.549 --> 00:12:56.950 Geography of the Holy Land. I've read a bit about 00:12:56.950 --> 00:12:59.769 this. Smith's book was essentially the lonely 00:12:59.769 --> 00:13:01.990 planet guide for the British Empire in the Middle 00:13:01.990 --> 00:13:04.269 East, wasn't it? It absolutely was the authoritative 00:13:04.269 --> 00:13:06.970 text. It was published in 1894, and it quickly 00:13:06.970 --> 00:13:09.649 became the handbook for every British officer, 00:13:10.169 --> 00:13:11.990 general, and diplomat operating in the region. 00:13:12.789 --> 00:13:15.409 Smith didn't just list historical places. He 00:13:15.409 --> 00:13:17.850 analyzed the military and economic logic of the 00:13:17.850 --> 00:13:20.799 biblical terrain. And I assume Smith had a map 00:13:20.799 --> 00:13:23.580 that went with all this text. He had a very specific 00:13:23.580 --> 00:13:25.799 map that was used directly at the peace conference. 00:13:26.179 --> 00:13:28.980 It was titled Palestine under David and Solomon, 00:13:29.600 --> 00:13:34.539 about 1015 to 930 BC. Let me guess. It visualized 00:13:34.539 --> 00:13:37.259 the territory effectively from Dan to Beersheba. 00:13:37.360 --> 00:13:40.240 You guessed it. So when Lloyd George is arguing 00:13:40.240 --> 00:13:43.039 with Clemenceau, he's not just vaguely quoting 00:13:43.039 --> 00:13:46.000 scripture. He's pointing to George Adam Smith's 00:13:46.000 --> 00:13:48.700 map and saying, look, this is the historical 00:13:48.700 --> 00:13:50.919 legitimate shape of the entity we are trying 00:13:50.919 --> 00:13:54.120 to create. Exactly. The British argument was 00:13:54.120 --> 00:13:56.820 explicitly tied to that historical footprint. 00:13:57.120 --> 00:13:59.679 They used the biblical golden age of Solomon, 00:14:00.059 --> 00:14:01.980 that era of peace and safety we talked about 00:14:01.980 --> 00:14:06.000 earlier, as the literal template for a 20th century 00:14:06.000 --> 00:14:08.440 geopolitical state. This must have caused massive 00:14:08.440 --> 00:14:10.759 friction with the French because Dan to Beersheba 00:14:10.759 --> 00:14:14.340 is still a vague concept. Where exactly is the 00:14:14.340 --> 00:14:16.799 line at Dan? Is it the city wall? Is it the river 00:14:16.799 --> 00:14:19.440 next to it? It caused huge friction. Yeah. The 00:14:19.440 --> 00:14:21.759 French, naturally, wanted the border pulled further 00:14:21.759 --> 00:14:24.179 south. The British wanted it pushed further north 00:14:24.179 --> 00:14:27.360 to control the water sources. and the Jordan 00:14:27.360 --> 00:14:29.600 headwaters. Right. Because as George Adam Smith 00:14:29.600 --> 00:14:31.759 had argued in his book, you can't have a viable 00:14:31.759 --> 00:14:34.279 state without water. So the ancient need for 00:14:34.279 --> 00:14:37.039 water at Dan became a modern diplomatic argument 00:14:37.039 --> 00:14:39.720 for water rights. It did. And eventually, they 00:14:39.720 --> 00:14:42.200 had to settle on a line. The modern northern 00:14:42.200 --> 00:14:45.039 border of Israel today is largely a result of 00:14:45.039 --> 00:14:47.980 those specific Anglo -French negotiations, which 00:14:47.980 --> 00:14:49.899 were just trying to approximate the biblical 00:14:49.899 --> 00:14:52.600 concept of Dan. And in the South. In the South, 00:14:52.720 --> 00:14:55.419 the line drawn from near Gaza across to Islet. 00:14:55.710 --> 00:14:58.409 was an attempt to encompass the entire Beersheba 00:14:58.409 --> 00:15:02.870 region and the Negev Desert. It is just incredible 00:15:02.870 --> 00:15:04.909 to think about the chain of custody here. You 00:15:04.909 --> 00:15:07.470 have a phrase written by scribes in the Iron 00:15:07.470 --> 00:15:10.490 Age to describe tribal unity, then it's used 00:15:10.490 --> 00:15:13.330 to recount a devastating plague, then it's a 00:15:13.330 --> 00:15:15.350 poetic description of people sitting under fig 00:15:15.350 --> 00:15:18.289 trees, and thousands of years later it ends up 00:15:18.289 --> 00:15:21.210 in a diplomatic memo that determines where concrete 00:15:21.210 --> 00:15:24.419 border posts and fences are built. in 1919. It 00:15:24.419 --> 00:15:26.379 really highlights the immense power of text. 00:15:26.840 --> 00:15:29.159 We tend to think of geography as purely physical, 00:15:29.679 --> 00:15:32.500 you know, rock, dirt, rivers. But geography is 00:15:32.500 --> 00:15:34.100 also imagined, it's cultural. Right, it lives 00:15:34.100 --> 00:15:37.080 in our heads. Exactly. A single phrase can survive 00:15:37.080 --> 00:15:39.519 the collapse of ancient kingdoms, the rise of 00:15:39.519 --> 00:15:42.259 massive empires like Rome and the Ottomans, and 00:15:42.259 --> 00:15:45.299 centuries of relative silence, only to reemerge 00:15:45.299 --> 00:15:47.899 and draw lines in the sand that affect millions 00:15:47.899 --> 00:15:50.480 of people today. It makes you wonder what other 00:15:50.480 --> 00:15:52.620 ancient boundaries we are walking around inside 00:15:52.620 --> 00:15:54.720 of right now without even realizing it. That 00:15:54.720 --> 00:15:56.960 is the perfect takeaway for the listener to mull 00:15:56.960 --> 00:16:00.240 over. We look at a world map. And we see precise 00:16:00.240 --> 00:16:02.860 lines. And we just assume those lines were determined 00:16:02.860 --> 00:16:06.379 by modern logic or recent wars or economic zones. 00:16:06.700 --> 00:16:09.600 And in many cases, they are. But not always. 00:16:09.700 --> 00:16:12.379 No. In cases like this, the politicians were 00:16:12.379 --> 00:16:15.179 merely tracing ghost lines. They were following 00:16:15.179 --> 00:16:17.379 the geometry of a story that was written three 00:16:17.379 --> 00:16:20.580 millennia earlier. We often think of modern borders 00:16:20.580 --> 00:16:23.100 as lines drawn by politicians on fresh maps. 00:16:23.519 --> 00:16:25.860 But here they were tracing lines drawn by ancient 00:16:25.860 --> 00:16:28.879 scribes. Ghost lines. That is a haunting concept 00:16:28.879 --> 00:16:30.960 to end on. We think we are designing the future, 00:16:31.039 --> 00:16:33.100 but often we are just inhabiting the geography 00:16:33.100 --> 00:16:36.860 of the past. And sometimes that geography brings 00:16:36.860 --> 00:16:40.299 with it all the baggage of the past. The memories 00:16:40.299 --> 00:16:43.539 of unity, sure, but also the memories of conflict 00:16:43.539 --> 00:16:46.320 and the census and the plague. It's all baked 00:16:46.320 --> 00:16:49.399 into the definition. How many other modern borders 00:16:49.399 --> 00:16:52.059 are actually just ghost stories from ancient 00:16:52.059 --> 00:16:54.299 texts? That is definitely something for all of 00:16:54.299 --> 00:16:56.480 us to think about. Next time you hear a casual 00:16:56.480 --> 00:16:58.639 idiom or you look at a map of the Middle East, 00:16:59.379 --> 00:17:02.659 remember the journey from Dan to Beersheba because 00:17:02.659 --> 00:17:05.299 it's never just a line on a map. It's a story. 00:17:05.579 --> 00:17:08.259 A story that is in many ways still being written. 00:17:08.619 --> 00:17:10.500 Thank you so much for guiding us through this 00:17:10.500 --> 00:17:12.519 terrain today. It's been a genuinely fascinating 00:17:12.519 --> 00:17:14.460 trip. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. And 00:17:14.460 --> 00:17:16.339 to you listening, thanks for taking this deep 00:17:16.339 --> 00:17:17.779 dive with us. We'll see you on the next one.