Course Description
An exploration of various topics linking the languages of science and religion in the ancient world. For example, the relationships among Babylonian astrology and omenology, and Biblical and Greek thought, in the 8th-6th centuries BCE (the "Axial Age"), focusing on cosmology. Socially contextualized, this is a source of monotheism and philosophy.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
A full-blown research paper, prepared for publication;
engagement with the texts directly in at least one of the
original languages (Akkadian, Sumerian, Greek, Hebrew,
Egyptian, Aramaic); conducting at least one discussion session,
or, if enrollment is large, delivering a 30-minute lecture.
Athena Title
Monotheism and Science
Graduate Prerequisite
Permission of department
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
Typically, the thinkers of the "Axial Age" ("in which thinking became the object of itself," Karl Jaspers) are approached in isolation from one another. The principal objective here is to show students, through close reading, how to situate the primary texts in the contexts of an ongoing discussion. The second objective is to show the intimate connections between theology and philosophy in the ancient period and to trace the rise of monotheism and of philosophical monism.
Topical Outline
1. Traditional Israelite culture 2. Traditional Greek culture 3. The Assyrian empire 4. Israelite cosmologies 5. Babylonian and Assyrian omenology 6. Greek cosmologies 7. Egyptian cosmologies 8. The role of empire in the transfer of cosmologies
Syllabus