Provide a general understanding of the history and religion of ‘ancient Israel’ (itself a term, the meaning of which may not be unproblematic) from its beginnings (concerning which there is much debate) to the end of the Persian period (and later, inasmuch as what happened or is evidenced later is relevant to the assessment of what happened or is described as having happened earlier).

1. Develop an appreciation of the scholarly methods used in the investigation of these matters, and of the reasons for the diversity of interpretation in this area.
2. Explore issues concerning the interpretation of the Old Testament, particularly of those parts of it which give or at least appear to give an account of ‘ancient Israel’ and major figures in it (such as leaders, kings, prophets, psalmists and priests).
3. While recognising that within this framework expertise in archaeology or Assyriology, Egyptology, etc. is not feasible, nevertheless to open up the issue of how these disciplines can contribute to the questions discussed here and to look at some items of evidence from these fields.

To encourage students to make their own assessments of different methodologies and approaches to the material when they have studied a range of interpretations.

 On completion of the module a student should be able to:
 

Knowledge and Understanding: Describe and critically expound the key issues arising in the study of the history and religion of that community or those communities conventionally termed ‘ancient Israel’, ‘history’ here not necessarily being used in a comprehensive sense to cover all historical disciplines (such as social and economic history) but more focused on those aspects familiar to Old Testament scholars

 The teaching methods involve lectures and seminars.  Students should bring a copy of the Old Testament with them to lectures and seminars, as reference will often be made to particular passages in it and it will frequently be necessary to refer to those passages.  Happily, lightweight copies of the Old Testament can usually be easily purchased!  Some Ancient Near Eastern texts will be handed out during the course, and these must also be brought.

The precise numbers of lectures and seminars will be finalised when enrolment has been completed and the number of students on the course has been ascertained.  Initially there will be an ‘irregular’ pattern of lectures and seminars as we get started on the material and the interpretative issues, but later on in the autumn term we shall settle down in a pattern of one lecture and one seminar each week, with each student probably attending one seminar in four.  The seminars will include presentations and responses by students, as well as discussion of material presented by the teacher.  Student essays will serve as a basis for some seminar discussions

Intellectual Skills: Critically compare different ways of reading and interpreting major sections of the Old Testament (especially Pentateuch, Former and Latter Prophets, Psalms, Ezra-Nehemiah), and compare the evidence of the Old Testament with that obtainable from archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern texts

 Discipline Specific (including practical) Skills: Present findings and arguments in a clear and logical manner appropriate to the academic standards prevailing in the scholarly study of the subject.

 Transferable Skills:

• Listening to the voice of another from a different culture and/or time
• Interpreting and appreciating the messages of its representatives and their significance
• making them comprehensible in one’s own language and cultural context
• evaluating their character, worth and importance in a variety of ways and against a variety of criteria
• communicating the processes and results of one’s enquiries
• understanding the limitations of knowledge by the nature of the available evidence

ASSESSMENT:
Summative Assessment (evaluating student performance) consists of an examination of 1.5 hour and one essay of 2,000 words.

 The syllabus may be described in general terms as the history and religion of Israel and Judah from their beginnings to the end of the Persian period, but within this rather bland description the following may be mentioned as indicating the character of the course:

 The Old Testament as a source

The nature of the Old Testament’s account

Other possible sources of information

Accounts of ‘Israel’s’ origins

What was ‘Israel’?

Israeland Judah

Religion: God(s), religious practices, worship, psalms and prophets

Exile

Religion after the Exile

Judaism and the ‘Old Testament’/Hebrew Bible

INDICATIVE READING LIST:

HISTORY

M. Noth, The History of Israel (London 1960)

J. H. Hayes and J. M. Miller (eds.), Israelite and Judaean History (London 1977)

 -----------,  A History of Ancient Israel and Judah (London 1986)

K.W. Whitelam, The Invention of Ancient Israel (London 1996)

L. Grabbe (ed.), Can a History of Israel be Written? (Sheffield 1997)

J. A. Soggin, An Introduction to the History of Israel and Judah (London, 3^rd ed. 1999)*

N. P. Lemche, The Israelites in History and Tradition (London 1998)*

V. P. Long (ed.), Israel’s Past in Present Research (Winona Lake, 1999)**

I. Finkelstein and N.A. Silberman, The Bible Unearthed (New York and London, 2001)*

RELIGION

H. Ringgren, Israelite Religion (London 1966)

Th. C. Vriezen, The Religion of Ancient Israel (London 1967)

G. Fohrer, History of Israelite Religion (London 1973)

N.P. Lemche, ‘The development of the Israelite religion in the light of recent studies on

the early history of Israel’, and K van der Toorn, ‘The Babylonian New Year

Festival: new insights from the cuneiform texts and their bearing on Old

 Testament study’ in: J.A.Emerton (ed.), Congress Volume: Leuven 1989

 (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum, vol. 43, Leiden 1991), pp. 97-115 and 331-344

R. Albertz, A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period, vols. 1-2 (London 1994)*

D.V. Edelman (ed.), The Triumph of Elohim. From Yahwisms to Judaisms (Kampen 1995)*

USEFUL ‘BACKGROUND’ (together with ‘FOREGROUND’)

J. W. Rogerson and P. R. Davies, The Old Testament World (Cambridge 1989)

R. E. Clements (ed.), The World of Ancient Israel (Cambridge 1989)

W.G. Dever, Recent Archaeological Discoveries and Biblical Research (Seattle 1990)

A. Mazar, Archaeology of the Land of Israel (New York 1992)

S. Niditch, Ancient Israelite Religion (Oxford 1997)**

J. Barton (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation (Cambridge 1998)

Z. Zevit, The Religions of Ancient Israel (London 2000)

B.S.J. Isserlin, The Israelites (Minneapolis 2001)**

COLLECTIONS OF EXTRA-BIBLICAL TEXTS

 J. B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts relating to the Old Testament (Princeton 1969)

D. W. Thomas (ed.), Documents from Old Testament Times (Edinburgh 1958; New York 1961)

W.W. Hallo and K. L. Younger (eds.), The Context of Scripture, vols. 1/2/- (Leiden 1997- )