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Course Descriptions

Semester Course Schedule Long-Term Program Dates Short-Term Program Dates Entrance Requirements Course Descriptions

ONLINE ARCH 5/313 Archeology of Religions in the Bible - Credit Hours: 3

Semester normally offered:

Course Description

A survey of the archaeology of Israelite/Jewish religion in the land of the Bible from the Iron Age I through the Roman Period. Emphasis is placed on the methods used for identifying religious/cultic sites, structures, and objects in the archaeological record and how such features relate to specific religious practices and beliefs as recorded in the biblical texts. This course will highlight the complexity and tensions of Israel’s cultic expression and its development over time from Yahwism (or Yahwisms) to Judaism.

Course Equivalencies

This course fills equivalencies in the following areas:

  • Bible

  • Biblical Archaeology

  • History and Culture of Ancient Israel

Course Objectives

By the end of the course, the student should be able to:

  • describe basic principles and methods related to the techniques of archaeological research, including survey and excavation, as well as advanced methods of analytical research that have been integrated into archaeological studies;

  • describe basic principles and methods of dating archaeological finds related to Israelite/Judaic religion;

  • describe cultic material culture from each of the major archaeological periods covered and distinguish significant differences between them (from the Iron Age I to the Early Roman Period);

  • recall the major sites associated with each of the time periods covered and the work of the archaeologists who excavated them;

  • describe, compare, and contrast significant connections between Israel’s cultic material culture and that of neighboring cultures for each time-period covered; and

  • associate specific archaeological finds with descriptions of events or items mentioned in literary sources, including the Bible.

Field Study