Borns Jewish Studies Program

This course explores a range of ways the ancient Jewish and related Near Eastern texts imagine divine intervention in history. We begin by looking at various examples of people attempting to get information from divine sources -- prophets, prophecy, and divination -- in both the Hebrew Bible and beyond it. Along the way, we will meet other types of mediators between the divine and human worlds -- namely "anointed ones" (messiahs) -- and will deliberate how they differ (or not) from other kinds of prophets and diviners. In the final unit of the course, prophets, diviners, and messiahs will ultimately meet in a genre known now as apocalyptic literature. We will ask: what do these texts tell us about how ancient people imagined the nature of the cosmos, divine intervention, and humanity's ability to shape their world?