The Court Narrative in Ancient Israel

A number of ancient Israelite and Jewish narratives are set in the court of the foreign king: the story of Joseph in Genesis 37-50, Esther, Daniel 1-6 (along with the additions from the Apocrypha: Susanna and Bel and the Dragon), and the Prayer of Nabonidus from Qumran. These entertaining narratives are often set off from the more strictly historical tradition, and seem to have been part of a resilient and international genre of popular stories. In this course we will read and analyze these narratives in their original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.