Ancient Religion: Tradition and Transformation

Undergraduate credit

In the pivotal millennium from Alexander the Great to the Arab conquest, the religious landscape of the Mediterranean and the Middle East underwent profound changes. Though ancient ways of relating to gods, demons, spirits, and other beings were astonishingly durable, changing historical conditions - from Alexander's conquests to the rise and decline of the Roman empire - meant that new ideas and practices emerged as others receded. This course takes a broad comparative perspective on religious continuity and change in this world. Topics to be investigated include: official state religions and their popular counterparts; changing social contexts and religious communities; cross-cultural interactions; new forms of ritual and religious practice; new understandings of the cosmos and the human condition. Examples will be drawn from contemporary historical evidence for a range of ancient Mediterranean, North African and Middle Eastern societies, including the ancient traditions of these regions, as well as newer phenomena such as syncretic religions, astrology, magic, Hermetism, Gnosticism, and Manichaeism; early Christianity and early Islam, Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism.