Courses

The Old and New Testaments—are they literature? History? Or both? That’s been the subject of an ongoing debate. Meanwhile, archaeologists have contributed to this conversation by exploring the many Ancient Near Eastern places mentioned in the Old and New Testaments—all in an effort to determine whether the biblical stories actually have a basis in the archaeological record. In this course, we will explore the connections between current Near Eastern archaeological research and biblical texts, focusing on the earliest biblical times. Through slide-illustrated lectures and examination of actual artifacts, we will study the following: Mesopotamian and Egyptian life in the Middle and Late Bronze Ages; Canaanite, Philistine, and Phoenician cultures in the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age; Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian conquests; and Greek and Roman expansion from the Iron Age to late antiquity.

Were Abraham and Sarah plausibly real people from the Bronze Age? How did the city of Jerusalem function in late antiquity? What evidence do we have for the existence of kings David and Solomon? We will answer these questions and show how new archaeological explorations continue to fill in the historical record on the cities and larger-than-life figures of biblical history.