0:04

G'day, I'm Gary

0:07

Stevens. Welcome to

0:09

the Afterlife of the History in

0:11

the Bible podcast. Hello

0:16

people, how have you been?

0:20

Well, I do hope so.

0:23

I know it has been a while. As

0:26

you know, the main narrative of

0:28

my show ended months ago. Still,

0:32

I persist with new episodes. Like

0:35

this one. I have

0:37

decided to rename them. After

0:40

all, I can hardly continue to call

0:42

them bonuses if there is no main

0:44

show. After

0:46

consultation with some of the finest

0:48

minds in history podcasting, I

0:51

have decided to call them Afterlife

0:53

shows. Of which

0:55

this is the first. This

0:58

Afterlife episode features Bernie

1:00

Maipolsky, the fan of History Show.

1:04

Available wherever you get your

1:06

podcasts from. He

1:08

and his co-host Dan Honing are

1:11

engaged in a steady march through

1:13

ancient history, one decade at a

1:15

time. It's a lot

1:17

of fun. In

1:20

this Afterlife show, Bernie

1:22

and I discuss what it is like

1:24

to be a history podcaster. I

1:27

do hope you enjoy it. The

1:29

next time we meet, I

1:32

will have a big announcement about

1:34

my next book in the History

1:36

in the Bible Podcast Companion Series

1:38

of Paperbacks. learn

4:00

it. They don't really just

4:02

teach you history. How could you go to college

4:04

for four years and be like, okay now you

4:06

know everything about history and quotes. There's so many

4:08

things but they teach you like the prime sources

4:11

and then secondary sources and then how to read

4:13

and how to write a paper and that kind

4:15

of thing. I feel

4:17

like I learned a lot from that and

4:20

so just through life I obviously

4:22

would read different things, encyclopedias, Wikipedia books,

4:24

just kind of randomly. But then when

4:26

it came time to be involved in

4:28

a history podcast, which I'll tell you

4:30

why I'm involved in it, it was

4:32

very helpful to doing the research and

4:34

things like that. So

4:36

that's my background. So

4:39

how I got involved was I listened to

4:41

this podcast, like it was written, this was

4:43

like 2018 and before that I might have

4:45

listened to this other history podcast, History of

4:47

the World or something. It was like some

4:49

guy was trying to do like everything. And

4:52

then I told this friend of mine and he said, oh

4:54

you gotta check this Dan Carlin guy out. I'm

4:57

like yeah yeah fine. And then I did, I was

4:59

like holy shit this guy's amazing. And

5:02

so I started listening to more podcasts and

5:04

at one point I was going through

5:07

some bits like things. Somebody was having

5:09

troubles and I was upset

5:11

and I couldn't sleep good.

5:13

Dan's podcast, the one I'm in

5:15

now, Fan of History, I had caught Dan when

5:18

he was sort of in between hosts and he

5:20

was doing these ancient, ancient, not even ancient, like

5:22

prehistory, like you know hundred thousand years ago and

5:24

I'm kind of interested in that too. And

5:28

so I started listening to it and every time I would

5:30

listen to it his voice would put me to sleep. I

5:33

started listening to it more and more because I

5:35

wanted to finish it. I

5:38

came falling asleep and then he had

5:40

this episode out that said I'm looking for

5:42

a co-host, I'm

5:44

looking for script writers, things like that and I'm the

5:46

kind of person who will reach out. So I waited

5:49

maybe a couple weeks after I heard that and I

5:51

finally just looked up on Facebook and I messaged Dan

5:53

and I was like hey I think I could do

5:55

it and I used to have like a little like

5:57

Wayne's World type of show. podcasts

10:00

run out at about 10 episodes. Really?

10:03

Yeah. Most shows

10:06

are very short-lived. I

10:08

could believe that. And

10:10

that's impressive then, especially because you're doing it yourself.

10:13

See, it's good. Well, I could see myself, if

10:15

I had, I'd probably do 10 if it was

10:17

just me. I could

10:19

see me, but Peter, no. Nobody

10:22

to hold you accountable to it. That's

10:24

true. That's true. You're doing it purely

10:26

by yourself. You

10:28

have 10 listeners. When you start, you're like, these guys

10:30

aren't going to care. So I

10:33

didn't know how long I'd be able to continue

10:35

it or whether I would in fact give up.

10:38

So I thought I want to do as much

10:40

research as possible so that when I start recording,

10:42

I'll have maybe the material for 10, 20

10:45

episodes in my notes. And

10:48

I'm glad I did it that way because that

10:50

way you then get all those years to go

10:52

back, rework, rewrite,

10:56

come up with new ideas. You

10:58

can sit on a manuscript for years and you can

11:00

continually change it, can't you? You can chop it around.

11:03

But if you

11:05

start actually broadcasting your podcast, you can't

11:07

get out 8 episodes and

11:09

then think, oh, I really should

11:12

have talked about all this in

11:14

episode 1. Right. And

11:17

I always found as an academic, the best way

11:19

to write a paper was to sit on it. So

11:22

I'd write, say, the first draft, leave it for a

11:24

couple of weeks or months and then get back to

11:26

it. Oh, oh. Because

11:29

I found that way, I am then

11:31

mentally prepared to get rid of stuff.

11:34

Oh, I see. It's

11:37

like you really, I don't know how to

11:39

say script, but you write a lot of

11:41

what you are going to talk about and

11:43

you do it in such a natural way.

11:46

I'm really always impressed when once you shared your

11:48

notes, I'm like, wow, you just talk like you're

11:51

just talking. I write

11:53

notes, but I don't write it out very

11:55

much because then if I do, I sound

11:57

like I'm reading. So I just try to

11:59

remember, but then I... forget so I gotta

12:01

start writing. My

12:04

show is entirely scripted. I

12:07

mean it just sounds like you're talking. I mean you

12:09

are because I know you and you're

12:12

probably have a script there and you're probably saying

12:14

a couple of things around it and making it

12:17

funny because you are so funny. Yeah in fact

12:19

all our conversations so far has been entirely scripted

12:21

including your part. Really?

12:23

Amazing! What

12:26

do I say now? Line please. That's it. What

12:28

about history for you? Have you always been interested

12:30

in the Bible and he said you're interested in

12:33

the Bible? Yeah I

12:35

was just interested. I

12:37

mean I was interested too but I looked for

12:39

a podcast so you probably couldn't find one so you wrote

12:41

it. Thanks

12:45

for saying it. It sounds like I'm just saying

12:47

stuff. I suppose that just happened. And

12:50

then just in general I got so hooked on it

12:52

of all the different you know the history in the

12:54

Bible. Well thanks for

12:57

your appreciation and let me

12:59

say I enjoy your delightful interaction

13:01

with Dan on your show apart

13:03

from your What's New episode. Thank

13:06

you. So you both just work from dot points

13:08

or notes and then you just wing it. For

13:12

the most part Dan puts a lot in. So

13:15

Dan has nine other podcasts. He might have

13:17

14 podcasts now. He has a ton of

13:19

podcasts. That's his business. He has podcasts. And

13:22

this one is his first one and it's like a labor

13:24

of love. All the other ones are

13:26

money makers and stuff. Most of them are. Interestingly

13:29

and funny is that he has a

13:32

podcast sleeping with Dan now that he

13:34

just reads boring things in Swedish and

13:36

puts people asleep. So

13:38

he has all these other podcasts and when we

13:40

first started I used to write do pretty much

13:43

all the research to all the notes and sort

13:45

of drive the bus. But

13:47

I've been busy at work and just

13:49

things in general and he's been doing more.

13:51

But we definitely do it differently. I put

13:53

bullet points so that I'll remember. I'll do

13:56

bullet point, bullet point and then I'll tell

13:58

him. I'm

14:00

telling him something just

14:02

like if I was gonna board a hell out of somebody

14:04

at a bar About you know the 530s

14:07

BC. I see their eyes glossing

14:10

over So

14:12

I just do it with Dan and the listeners are

14:14

there obviously tuning into it so they want to hear

14:16

it, too The thing

14:19

difference is when you're at a bar just blast it

14:21

off You don't have all the details you could say

14:23

like well there was this guy You

14:25

know I don't remember his name But he can all caught

14:27

a fish with a ring in it and all this crazy

14:29

stuff But if you're doing a podcast you have to say

14:31

his name in the year, you know all that stuff So you

14:33

got to get the details right? You

14:36

seem to be quite good at

14:38

finding academic papers. Oh I

14:42

subscribe to this Academia.edu.

14:44

Oh, yeah, okay For

14:47

me for the academic papers. I think I might not

14:49

have to use them as much Maybe

14:52

just for certain things because our podcast

14:54

counts forward from 1,000 BC and I

14:57

started in 680 There's

15:00

not a lot when you're trying to get like what

15:02

happened in 680 to 680, you know 689

15:05

to 680 BC. There's not a ton of things necessarily

15:10

Sometimes you'll find like one little line on

15:12

a tablet or something and you're like well.

15:14

I don't really have no material So

15:17

a lot of times you will find these papers They'll

15:19

just you know really dissect the hell out of something

15:22

and then you could use it and there were some

15:24

great ones. I Remember like

15:26

finding out what the insults were to

15:28

Asher bannepal when he hung the guy's

15:31

head So it was

15:33

like Asher bannepal. He's the 640s He's

15:35

like the last great king of Assyria and

15:37

he was having this war with this guy

15:39

in Elam And he had basically had his

15:41

family because his family left the other you

15:43

know So this other guy's the king and

15:45

he's sending sending all these insults I guess

15:48

to Asher bannepal, which is like that's crazy

15:50

Yeah, and this one paper she found them. Yeah, but

15:52

he killed them eventually cut his head off and had

15:55

dinner out with them You know, he had dinner. Oh,

15:57

oh because this is why this is why it was

15:59

so great The insult that he said

16:01

was i can't wait to be dining in

16:03

nina. Maybe he's

16:05

gonna come in like kick his ass right and so

16:07

i should be able to like what you want to

16:09

die in no problem i'll cut your head off hanging

16:12

out of tree and i'll eat with. Eat

16:15

over and some people even say that the picture

16:17

with the queen is with maybe might have been

16:19

that guy's wife. These

16:21

guys were brutal in those days. I

16:24

do i'm glad you mentioned because i should keep

16:26

make sure i keep using them i was gonna

16:28

say i don't need them as much because as

16:30

i've gotten closer now we're in the five thirties

16:32

i've switched i'm almost to where like i have

16:34

to start taking stuff out. Like

16:37

i used to have to squeeze everything in like

16:39

oh some greek was captured by an a syrian

16:41

and six seventy two i'd use

16:43

that because it's all i had. But

16:45

now i have we're leading up to the persian

16:47

wars and there's a parot so

16:49

i mean i have so much stuff you have an immense

16:52

amount of stuff. Exactly and i'm

16:54

gonna learn to and i'm having the same issues

16:56

i had the same issues with china i didn't

16:58

have the source materials and i do. And

17:01

i have i literally have forty pages and

17:04

one decade and it's a lot of boring

17:06

stuff so i have to kind

17:08

of cut it out. Well

17:10

better more than less. I

17:13

guess but it could get pretty boring it's like the duke

17:15

went to see the king and the duke the king went

17:17

here it's like. So much

17:19

stuff in the chinese are so funny they're very

17:21

into this ritual. And

17:24

it's always like to be three paragraphs of how

17:26

the guy didn't bow his head properly when he

17:28

came to see it's like and it's translated from

17:30

chinese so i'm reading it three times like i

17:32

don't know if this is interesting or not. And

17:36

i find translations from chinese i

17:38

read it i think this sounds

17:40

really weird is it the translator

17:42

or is it the cultural difference.

17:46

Such a good question i and i've

17:48

never understood that. We're human

17:50

beings and we're very similar

17:52

but chinese is history and chinese

17:55

culture is definitely different it's definitely

17:57

both i think it's the

17:59

translate. and it's the fact that like how

18:01

do you translate something that doesn't actually have a translation

18:03

100%? This

18:06

is the great part about podcasting and doing

18:08

like I'm learning so much Chinese history now

18:10

and it is pretty interesting exciting to me.

18:12

I can

18:14

never get into Chinese history solely because

18:16

I couldn't pronounce the names to myself.

18:20

That's so true. And they all sounded

18:22

so similar. So

18:24

true. And the pronunciation is you know often

18:26

completely different the way the word is spelled

18:28

in English and you go... So

18:31

when I'm reading I don't try to pronounce it

18:33

I think and that's why when I'm doing the

18:35

podcast I'm screwed because I just look at that bluh.

18:37

I'm like okay bluh, duh, duh, duh, duh. I

18:40

don't even try to pronounce the name. I tried

18:43

very hard to get all the names, the Hebrew

18:45

names right. Oh right.

18:48

And I found a website called Forvo

18:51

which has it's just an informal site

18:53

and has various speakers pronouncing words because

18:55

I also use a fair number of

18:57

Hebrew words, Sarat or something, which is

19:00

psoriasis. So I go to the website, check

19:03

out the pronunciation and

19:05

I always make sure there's at least

19:07

three because the pronunciations would go sort

19:09

of, tadaat, tadaat. That

19:16

is a thing. I even asked my friend too like I said

19:18

do you have trouble with the names because they seem to just

19:20

know but I have trouble with Western names. Oh

19:23

right yeah. So he's

19:25

reading a book because he can't keep track

19:27

of the people like if I say like

19:29

Bill did this and then Tom did that

19:31

and Gary did that and you keep going

19:33

and then Gary built but when you're like

19:35

Xing Shu, Shaoshu and Shisha you're like which

19:37

guy is which? Yeah exactly, exactly. They're all

19:39

the same. Right. What

19:42

about you with the papers? You read the papers, the

19:45

academic papers? I usually

19:47

find say I give an academic

19:49

paper maybe 10-20 pages I will

19:51

get maybe two interesting facts. Okay.

19:54

Maybe just a few sentences

19:58

but I'll only be reading the paper

20:00

in the... first place because its topic

20:02

is something I'm interested in. So the

20:04

paper might be about the origin of

20:06

Jewish synagogues. Okay. And

20:12

in the end, right, okay, right, I got

20:15

two facts, right? So that was like an

20:17

hour of my life wasted, in a sense.

20:20

And there's one particular American scholar

20:22

who writes in a very flowery,

20:25

erudite way. He's still alive.

20:28

He's one of these legendary scholars, right? He's

20:30

probably in his eighties now. But

20:33

I read his paper and they're

20:36

just completely unnecessarily wordy and loquacious

20:38

and full of big words. And

20:40

his papers in particular, I think

20:42

you spent 15 pages, you could

20:44

have said that succinctly, clearly

20:47

and completely in a short

20:49

paragraph. Totally. You know, instead

20:51

of dancing around saying I am so

20:53

erudite, oh, I am so erudite. They're like

20:55

lawyers too, sometimes in historians and these papers

20:58

in a way they have to be because

21:00

it's so, you know, like you have the

21:02

total alt history or whatever they are, fake

21:05

history that, you know, they think these archaeologists

21:07

don't do anything and the archaeologists and the

21:09

historians, they really like, they'll still like

21:11

talk over the tiniest point, but they're basically

21:14

trying to say, yes, we are sure that

21:16

they use this arrowhead, but they might have

21:18

used this arrowhead, which was from the other

21:20

street. You know, I mean, in a scope

21:23

of things, it's not necessarily super important, but

21:25

it kind of is because they're trying to

21:27

like, like they need to do that

21:29

work. And I think the podcasters to get

21:32

it out to the masses, we were able

21:34

to like condense it a little bit better.

21:36

And I found when looking at the various

21:38

academic papers of say the dating of the

21:41

reigns of the kings of Israel and Judah,

21:43

there's lots of argument. Right,

21:46

exactly. Good point. Both

21:48

sides rely on the archaeology, but

21:51

they disagree completely. And

21:54

so academic A has built up

21:56

a theory based on the dating

21:58

of three olive Well,

24:00

isn't this exciting? An alien built the pyramids and all

24:02

these people are lying. And

24:04

who wants to read about how you found three

24:06

olive stones for an hour and a half? When

24:08

I could hear about UFOs and atomic wars, that's

24:12

always going to be more fun. But history is

24:14

so freaking fun, I think, with just the actual

24:16

history. We have to

24:18

make decisions. We have to sort out what

24:20

is going on to our satisfaction. Often,

24:23

I think we have to take a side. Because

24:25

there may be consequences. There's

24:28

only so far we can keep saying, some

24:30

say this, some say that. Exactly.

24:33

But I'm making the listener have to go through all that.

24:36

How far ahead do you prepare for a

24:39

show? Thing is,

24:41

I didn't know that I

24:43

had ADHD until I was like 40. I'm 56 now.

24:47

When I was 40, I was like, that's

24:49

amazing. And I took like ADHD medicines and

24:51

they were very helpful. And then a few

24:53

years ago, I stopped. I

24:56

may have to start again. My procrastinating

24:58

is back. My executive functions aren't as

25:00

great. Plus, our world is so dopamine

25:02

loaded. ADHD people get

25:04

their best work done when there's like

25:06

crushed for time. So I put

25:09

a lot of it together at the end. But

25:11

what I do do is, well, for example, say

25:13

I was doing a topic on the Assyrians and

25:15

Israel and this, you know, Judah. I

25:18

might listen to your podcast. This is

25:20

weeks before. This is kind of what I'll do.

25:22

And I'll look for YouTube videos, some other historians.

25:24

That's why I shout out to my good friend,

25:27

Cy, history by Cy, Erwin Cy. He's

25:30

got good informational videos.

25:34

And I'll listen to the podcast. I try

25:36

to like suck it up. Just

25:38

understand it without the fact. Then

25:42

I start to put the facts in. I'll have like

25:44

a little bit of an outline. Then I try to

25:46

just put them in. And so

25:48

many times the last minute, though, everything

25:50

just clicks together. And

25:53

the best episodes kind of come out when Dan

25:55

cancels or one reason we cancel the morning of.

25:57

And then I'm like almost done. And then I

25:59

have a no. morning to do that and

26:01

then boom. What

26:03

about you? You're the opposite. Yeah,

26:06

I'm the opposite. I prepare

26:08

years in advance. Now,

26:10

do you pay attention to or

26:13

care about reviews and download stats?

26:16

Reviews in general, I would care about them. I just

26:18

don't really get them. I don't get

26:20

enough reviews and the stats I do like to

26:22

watch. Our podcast is

26:25

kind of smallish. It's

26:27

not tiny tiny but it's not like making lots

26:29

of money or anything but I think we have

26:31

a core group. I do like

26:33

to care about them, I think. Now

26:36

you? Well, I always like

26:38

having nice things said about me. True.

26:41

You do get bad reviews which then I

26:43

take out my voodoo doll, stab it with

26:45

pins. Some

26:48

reviews I find either ill-informed or

26:51

cutting, like one guy called me

26:53

an anti-seamite. Oh!

26:56

I'm thinking later, what? Who?

26:59

That's crazy. And

27:01

one guy took me to task about St.

27:03

Paul. He was really

27:05

upset. He said, some like quote,

27:07

you can hear his contempt

27:09

for Paul in his voice.

27:11

And I thought, wait a minute, I actually took

27:14

a lot of care about the St. Paul episodes and

27:16

I thought I was very sympathetic to the man. I

27:19

think you were too. Considering how you've teased

27:21

out and made fun of other people, I don't think it

27:23

did too bad to Paul. I

27:28

know, that's what I'm thinking. He slayed some other

27:30

people but not St. Paul. Have

27:32

you seen how they've they're learning

27:35

how to code or should say read

27:37

the Herculaneum scroll? Oh, isn't that brilliant?

27:40

Yeah. Supposed to do an

27:42

episode on it. We're gonna do it. I have it already. But

27:45

the technology they are using, they

27:48

look like just charcoal lumps, don't they?

27:51

Unbelievable. And they're managing to virtually

27:54

unwrap. Oh, wow. It's

27:57

amazing. But did you know that there was a guy who like

27:59

when they first found out? of

36:00

times what would happen is people would come, you know,

36:02

maybe they'd hear me on another podcast and you go,

36:04

oh, then you would start at 1000 BC and Bernie

36:07

wasn't there. We

36:09

took down all of our episodes from

36:12

before 680 BC and they're behind

36:14

a small paywall, which is called

36:16

Fan of History Plus, so you could pay like,

36:18

I think it's two to four dollars a month

36:20

and you will get all the back episodes and

36:23

no commercials and all that stuff. This

36:25

way, if you do go on, you could start at 680 BC,

36:28

which would be my first episode, which

36:30

was the death of Sinacharim. And

36:34

then we did the Siege of

36:36

Babel. I hope your

36:38

listeners enjoyed me and I hope my listeners enjoy

36:40

you as much as I do. Yeah,

36:43

cheers. Toodles. Toodles

36:46

and cheers. Thanks

36:52

for visiting. Remember, you

36:54

can buy the collected scripts and

36:56

show notes of the podcast as

36:59

paperback books from Amazon.