REL 30000 - Religions Of The Ancient World

Historical survey of the religious life of the peoples inhabiting the wider Mediterranean world from the Early Bronze Age through the end of the classical antiquity, especially as expressed in Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Syro-Canaanite, Israelite, Hittite, Iranian, Greek, Roman, and early Christian traditions. Topics addressed include myths and ritual, deities and the afterlife, ethics and law codes, divination and prophecy, concepts of pollution and purity, literary and artistic expression, theological and philosophic discourse, and the nature of borrowing and syncretism.

Cr. 3.
Student Learning Outcomes
1. Introduce students with little or no prior knowledge of the religious life of the ancient world to its main contours, especially in terms of the range of interactions and borrowings which obtained between different peoples cross the oikoumene stretching from the Mediterranean heartlands to the eastern reaches of Southwest Asia.
2. Introduce students to the study of religion as a modern academic discipline, primarily by guiding them in thinking, speaking, and writing analytically about religion not as some abstract essence or thing “out there”, but rather as a force which is shaped by human experience in time and space.
3. Encourage students to think seriously about the meaning of polyphony and heterogeneity in historical human experience generally, and in religion in particular, by calling upon them to “account for diversity” through critically reflecting upon its role in the religious lives of ancient peoples.