RELGST 1102 - THE HISTORY OF GOD

Minimum Credits: 3
Maximum Credits: 3
Who invented God? The existence of a supreme, unitary, exclusive, invisible deity is one of the most influential ideas in the history of religion. Yet the history of the idea is shrouded in myth. Students in this course will use archaeological and textual evidence to trace the evolution of the God of Israel from a mountaintop deity of the southern Levant in the late second millennium BCE to a supreme deity worshipped by a small group of absolute monotheists based in Jerusalem in the mid-first millennium BCE. The cultural milieu in which God arose was marked by fluid and highly ritualized religious experiences¿a kind of theological diversity that would be stamped out by the authors of the latest strata of the Hebrew Bible. In modernity the character of the ancient deity has proven problematic to theologians, particularly on issues of LGBT rights, women's rights, and the environment. Reinventions and renunciations of God in the modern context will be covered in the second part of the course.
Academic Career: Undergraduate
Course Component: Lecture
Grade Component: LG/SNC Elective Basis

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