COURSES

REL 140 Introduction to Jewish Civilization
A survey of the history of the Jewish community from its beginnings to the present. Exploration of the elements of change and continuity within the evolving Jewish community as it interacted with the larger Greco-Roman world, Islam, Christianity, and post-Enlightenment Europe and America. Consideration given to the central ideas and institutions of the Jewish tradition in historical perspective.

REL 240/CLCV 240 Romans, Jews, and Christians in the Roman Empire
Geller and Rogers (History, Classical Studies)
At the birth of the Roman Empire virtually all of its inhabitants were practicing polytheists. Three centuries later, the Roman Emperor Constantine was baptised as a Christian and his successors eventually banned public sacrifices to the gods and goddesses who had been traditionally worshipped around the Mediterranean. This course will examine Roman era Judaism, Graeco-Roman polytheism, and the growth of the Jesus movement into the dominant religion of the late antique world. Students may register for either REL 240 or CLCV 240 and credit will be granted accordingly. Normally alternates with REL 241.

REL 241 Emerging Religions: Judaism and Christianity, 150 B.C.E.–500 C.E.
Both Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism emerged in Roman Palestine as responses to political, social, and theological problems churning at the beginning of the first millennium. This course explores the origins and development of these two religions in their historical and theological contexts by examining archaeological data and selections from Intertestamental Writings, the Dead Sea Scrolls, New Testament and other early Christian sources, Rabbinic Midrash, and Talmud. Normally alternates with REL 240.

REL 243 Women in the Biblical World
The roles and images of women in the Bible, and in early Jewish and Christian literature, examined in the context of the ancient societies in which these documents emerged. Special attention to the relationships among archaeological, legal, and literary sources in reconstructing the status of women in these societies.

REL 244 Jerusalem: The Holy City
An exploration of the history, archaeology, and architecture of Jerusalem from the Bronze Age to the present. Special attention both to the ways in which Jerusalem’s Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities transformed Jerusalem in response to their religious and political values and also to the role of the city in the ongoing mid-East and Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

REL 245 The Holocaust and the Nazi State
An examination of the origins, character, course, and consequences of Nazi anti-Semitism during the Third Reich. Special attention to Nazi racialist ideology, and how it shaped policies which affected such groups as the Jews, the disabled, the Roma and the Sinti, Poles and Russians, Afro-Germans, homosexuals, and women. Consideration also of the impact of Nazism on the German medical and teaching professions.

REL 342 Seminar. Archaeology of the Biblical World
An examination of the ways in which archaeological data contribute to the understanding of the history of ancient Israel, and the Jewish and Christian communities of the Roman Empire.
Prerequisite: At least one course in archaeology, biblical studies, classical civilization, early Christianity, or early Judaism.