War and Peace in the Hebrew Bible and its Environment

An examination of the role of war and peace in the Hebrew Bible and in texts and art of ancient Israel’s neighbors. Topics include divine beings, war and peace-making; peace treaties; explaining defeat and victory; ideologies of warfare; the treatment of prisoners, corpses and captured bones; the warrior as masculine ideal; civil war and coups; treaty obligations; ritual dimensions of war and peace (e.g., mourning, animal sacrifice, child sacrifice, divination, memorializing war); visual representations of war as propaganda; the idea of a future, eschatological war between the forces of good and the forces of evil. No prerequisites.