kata ta biblia

a blog exploring Christian origins, biblical studies, social/cultural history, method, education and the journey through academia

You Have 50 Minutes to Teach about Hebrew Civilization and the Origins of Judaism. Go.

Coming this January, at a UCLA campus near you (or not so near, as the case may be), I will be presenting a lecture on Hebrew Civilization and Second Temple Judaism within the context of the course “Introduction to Western Civilization: Ancient Civilizations, Prehistory to Circa A.D. 843.” I will be TAing for two sections of twenty each for this course, but this lecture will be for the entire 300-something student class.

So, what would you like the bright and impressionable young minds of UCLA to know about the rise of Hebrew civilization, the history of Israel, the exile, the origins of Judaism, and the Hebrew Bible based upon a 50 minute presentation?

Remember that this is in the context of the broad sweep of ancient history, serving as the foundations for something nebulous called “Western civilization.” The course is unofficially known as “From Caveman to Charlemagne.” The lecture in the class meeting prior to mine is on “Egypt in the New Kingdom; The Mesopotamian Kingdoms,” while the one after is “Minoans, Phoenicians; The End of International Bronze Age (Troy).” We will have already read Hammurabi, Gilgamesh, and The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant. They will be responsible for reading the Book of Exodus the week of my lecture. The only other biblical document they will be reading is the Gospel of Matthew several weeks later.

I have some of my own ideas, of course, but I’d like to hear what others would choose to highlight with such a brief opportunity to cover such an important topic.

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5 Comments by Patrick George McCullough  /  December 9, 2009  /  Posted in: hebrew bible, history of Israel, judaism, lectures, pedagogy, teaching, Western Civilization
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  • http://danielomcclellan.wordpress.com Daniel O. McClellan

    What fun! Odd that they put you before Minoan/Phoenician civilization, though. If you want to present the Bible at its word, I would highlight the main elements of Israelite/Jewish identity: Twelve sons of Jacob, Moses receiving the law (show correlation between Hammurabi, Eshnunna, and Exodus, for example), monarchy and cult, ANE imperialism and the exile, Persian period, return to Israel and the rebuilding of the temple, scriptural interpretation, Hellenism, Maccabees, sectarianism, rabbinic period, and development of canon and orthodoxy.

    If you want to do it by the historical record, you could present the different theories about ethnography, settlement, monarchy, the development of identity based on scripture during the pre-exile, the Deuteronomistic reforms, exile, and then the rest from the list above. Different texts, artifacts, and archaeological excavations could inform the discussion as you go.

    Hey, if you run in to James sometime say hi to him for me. He was an interesting guy.

  • http://patmccullough.com/ Patrick George McCullough

    Thanks so much, Dan! On the Minoan followup, true, it is a bit odd. But it is also the shift from ANE to Greek and Roman civilization. Minoan/Phoenician being one of the earliest foundations, in a way, of what becomes the Greek world. So, it ends up being a bit of a conceptual leap.

    Thanks for the list, though. It’s a great start. Just to be clear, what are you referring to with “ethnography”?

    James is indeed an “interesting” guy! He is the crazy happy surfer of our program, never running low on steam. You should try rooming with him. :) But he is also an amazing scholar in the making. I’ll definitely send along the message.

  • http://danielomcclellan.wordpress.com Daniel O. McClellan

    Hey Pat. I guess that Minoan thing makes sense when you look at it like that.

    By ethnography I mean the ethnic origins of Israel. There are several models that try to account for Israel’s presence in Israel. Are they the Hapiru? Did they come up from Seir? Where they local Canaanites who organized and revolted? Did they come from the east? Where they scattered tribes who affiliated? Do Israel and Judah have completely distinct backgrounds? Stuff like that.

    When I first saw James I thought he seemed like a crazy surfer dude (and I’ve known plenty of them), but he was incredibly nice and just seemed curious about everything. He also kept telling me to apply to UCLA.

  • http://patmccullough.com/ Patrick George McCullough

    Ethnography. Gotcha. Yes, that was one of the issues I wanted to hit. Though, I have to be careful. There’s only so much nuance and deconstruction I can do in 50 minutes! :)

    When you’re doing social history, ethnography could refer to any number of historical situations. I didn’t realize that, in HB studies, there’s one primary thing that comes to mind with a mention of ethnography. Thanks!

    You should apply to UCLA! :) You’d love it over in NELC and they’d love you, I’m sure. Not only is it one of the best programs in HB, but I think you’d really appreciate the perspective of Ra’anan Boustan and Bill Schniedewind, not to mention a bunch of other great minds. I’ll be meeting with Boustan later today, in fact. If you’d like me to put you in touch with some folks (particularly grad students) from NELC, let me know. But I would certainly understand if you feel you don’t have time to add any additional applications at this point.

  • http://www.echoofeden.com slaveofone

    Well, since this is supposed to tie into the origins of Western civilization, I would focus more on aspects that have particularly influenced Western society and not worry about things like cult and Jacob’s 12 sons and questions of Israelite origin and all that superfluous stuff. I suppose I would start with the texts and make the texts the foundation of the lecture since the texts and not Israel’s history, ethnography, etc, are the point of influence. So maybe you could start talking about the Yahwism or the Deuteronomistic Theology of the texts that pushed against ancient Israelite society to recognize a source and foundation of its social, religious, and political structure with points of contact in things like the founding documents of the U.S. that base the entire society and its governance on ideas like natural freedom and inalienable right which exit because of a single Creator. Perhaps you could talk about idea of a Sabbath rest being highly influential in the creation of a weekend during which labor comes to halt and the wheels of Capitalism slow to a crawl, or bring up parallels between things like Moses’ leading the people out of Egypt toward another land in order to find religious freedom and people coming to America in order to find religious freedom, or discuss Western jurisprudence and how the idea of covenant, of witness, and of a great many other things has links to or parallels in ancient Israelite society. There are many avenues to explore which can touch on America specifically, the West generally, and ancient Israel particularly, with the point of contact between them all being the Hebraic texts.