Archaeology and the Bible

Catalog description

This course focuses on the intersection of material culture and the writings of the Judeo-Christian Bible within the broader framework of interpreting texts and the material record. The course introduces students to archaeological methods as well as to the critical study of texts. This approach involves the examination of coherence and divergence between historical documents and material culture, and it also involves the examination of advantages and limitations of both types of data. The regional and chronological focus is the eastern Mediterranean of the first half of the first millennium BCE, although reference will be made to the second millennium BCE and to the turn of the Christian Era. In addition to major political developments, course also includes what the material and textual evidence report about the lifeways of Iron Age people in the Eastern Mediterranean. Finally, the course reflects comparatively on cases and issues in Historical Archaeology outside the main regional and chronological focus of the course.