Description
This course explores the relationship between the emergent Israelite faith in the early Iron Age and the cultural context in which the new nation developed. Readings will focus on the archaic poetry and earliest narrative sources in the Old Testament as well as several major Canaanite texts (in translation). A comparative study will highlight points of both continuity and discontinuity between Hebrew and Canaanite views of the creation, structure, and rule over the cosmos, the place of theophany, the function and background of covenant, the rise of human institutions such as the priesthood and kingship, and the use of liturgy in worship.
Replaced by OT 423 in new curriculum 2018-19.