Teaching Assistant: Airen Hall (aehall01 at syr.edu); office: HL 514; office hours: Tuesdays, 2-3:00 pm

Course Description: 
The ancient Near East produced the oldest written texts in the world, along with much art and other artifacts. They provide a window into the ways of life, rituals, beliefs, hopes and fears of people living 2,500 to 5,000 years ago and illustrate the interplay between religion and human culture in all its various forms. This course will explore the interaction of culture and religion by examining the social contexts of ancient religious ideas and practices through close readings of texts from ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine and Israel. 

The goals of this course are to have students : 

1. use the context of ancient Near Eastern cultures to think both critically and imaginatively about the nature of religion as a basic response to and expression of the human condition;
2. recognize and appreciate the difficulties and possibilities inherent in undertaking a coherent, disciplined study of ancient religion, and to become aware of the diversity of perspectives within that study;
3. come to a distinct yet corrigible conception of "religion," and to be able to recognize its appearance not only within ancient religious institutions of diverse cultures, but also in other social/cultural forms; 
4. develop an understanding of ancient Near Eastern cultures as key instances in the diversity of human religious phenomena, and achieve a fluency in interpreting and describing them.

Course Requirements:
The course consists of class discussions, lectures, student projects, and, most of all, readings. This course is a reading course, and students' completion of all reading assignments is essential for their success. Assignments, discussions, lectures and tests all presuppose that students have read carefully and on schedule the assigned readings. 

Attendance at lectures and participation in discussions is expected of all students and will influence evaluation of their work (10%), which will also be based on their performance on reading responses (50-150 word; 10% total), a midterm exam (20%), two 6-10 page papers (20% each), and a final exam (20%). 

Textbooks (available at the campus bookstore in Schine Student Center): 

• Coogan, Michael D. Stories from Ancient Canaan. Westminster, 1978. (=SFAC)
• Foster, Benjamin R. From Distant Days: Myths, Tales, and Poetry of Ancient Mesopotamia. Bethesda: CDL, 1995. (=FDD)
• Foster, John L. Ancient Egyptian Literature: An Anthology. Austin: U. of Texas, 2001. (=AEL)
• James, T. G. H. A Short History of Ancient Egypt. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1998 (=SHAE)
• Mieroop, Marc Van De. A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000-323 BC. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007 (=HANE)

• Tanak (New Jewish Publication Society Version)
• or New Oxford Annotated Bible (New Revised Standard Version)