Spring 2021

Ethics and the Hebrew Scriptures

Listed in: Religion, as RELI-127

Faculty

Susan Niditch (Section 01)

Description

This course explores legal and narrative traditions of the Hebrew Bible as they pertain to questions about the nature of just and unjust behavior. We will study biblical texts that underscore the moral choices encountered by individuals and societies in a wide array of arenas: economic, ecological, sexual, gendered, political, and military. The goal is to understand variations in the responses of biblical writers to a range of ethical issues within their social and historical contexts. We will also attend to the influence of these ancient materials on subsequent cultural attitudes and human interactions, for the ethical traditions of the Hebrew Bible have been received, understood, and remade with varying results, positive and negative.

An integral remote feature of our course will be on-line participation by several internationally recognized scholars who have studied modern appropriations of biblical ethics. The will join us iin conversation and present some lectures in class.

Spring semester. Professor Niditch.

Keywords

Attention to Issues of Class, Attention to Issues of Gender and Sexuality, Attention to Issues of Race, Attention to Speaking, Attention to Writing, Online Only

Offerings

2022-23: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Spring 2019, Spring 2021