RLST 7: Lecture Outlines

Here you will find outlines of the class lectures for the quarter. These outlines are here to help you prepare more effectively to learn in the class environment. Full texts of the lectures (which exist only in the remote recesses of the professor's skull) will not be provided: please don't ask. Each Roman numeral (I, II, etc.) represents one class period.

UNIT ONE: INTRODUCTION

WEEK ONE

I. Welcome to class

A. Read through syllabus

B. Introduction textbooks and materials and website

C. General questions?

II. "Western" Religions?

A. Where is "the west"? what is "the west?"

1. Geographic definitions: The western hemisphere

2. Political definitions: The "first world"

3. Cultural definitions: Western civilization

4. Religious definitions?

B. Alternative categories

1. "Monotheistic traditions": theological commonality

2. "Abrahamic traditions": genetic commonality

3. "Religions of the book": traditional commonality

C. Common features of study

1. Themes: Scripture/tradition; God; Authority; Ritual; Ethics

2. Ideas: Material Culture; Religion and Politics

III. Places and dates, names and faces

A. Demographics: Where do Jews, Christians, and Muslims live?

1. Concepts of origin, diaspora, and colonization

2. "World Religions"

B. Denominations: How many different types of Jews, Christians, and Muslims are there?

1. Division by practice

2. Division by creed

3. Division by geography

C. The range of stereotypes (applied to all 3 traditions)

1. Civilized/Barbaric

2. Egalitarian/Prejudiced

3. Peaceful/Warlike

4. Generous/Greedy

5. Strong/Weak

UNIT TWO: JUDAISM

WEEK TWO

I. Historical overview

A. The problem of beginnings: when does it all start?

B. The internal perspective: covenant and history

C. Periods of Jewish history

1. Prehistory and Ancestors: a special branch of humanity

2. Biblical history and covenantal foundation

3. diaspora and empire: covenantal failure?

4. Into the Middle Ages: alienation, exclusion, a covenant deferred

5. Modernity: New identities? (ethnicity? religion? "culture"?)

D. The major historical issues

1. Patterns of divine-human relations

2. Covenant as external and internal state

3. Diaspora/galut, alienation and redemption

II. Scripture/Tradition

A. torah: inscribing the relation between God and "Israel"

B. Torah as Scripture: The Bible

1. Composition issues: Documentary Hypothesis, canon formation of the tanak

2. Diverse elements: law, narrative, poetry, history, prophecy

3. Written memorial of the covenant

C. Torah as eternal word: the oral torah

1. The radical break: From Temple to synagogue

2. The radical innovation (?): the "two torahs" (rabbinic literature: mishnah, talmud, midrash)

3. The conservative ideology: Re-creating identity in the guise of traditionalism (and the reaction: karaites)

D. Torah as otherworldly goal: Mysticism

1. Modes of interpretation away from the letter

2. Torah as roadmap to eternity

III. God

A. Monotheism as a process

1. Monolatry, or, Did God ever have a wife?

2. When the God of Israel became the God of creation: from yhwh to god

B. Monotheism as a relationship

1. Covenant loyalty (hesed)

2. The monotheist confession (shema)

C. Monotheism as a mediation

1. Mysticism: the immediacy of the divine?

2. Messianism: must the divine be mediated?

WEEK THREE
I. Authority

A. Connecting to God: covenant experts and covenant communities

B. Biblical models: kings, prophets, priests as bygone models

1. Politico-theological: king as savior/scapegoat

2. Intermediary: prophets as sacred mouthpieces

3. Cultic managers: priests as ritual experts

C. Postbiblical applications

1. The shadow community: Dead Sea/Yakhad

2. Diaspora expertise: rabbinic communities

(a) textual experts

(b) ritual experts

3. Gifted leadership: mystics and hasids

D. Modernized schemes of authority

1. "Traditional" rabbinism

2. "Liberal" denominationalism (reform, conservative, reconstruction)

3. havurah: democratized judaism?

II. Ritual

A. Biblical background: covenant maintenance

1. Public aspects: sacrifice, liturgy, pilgrimage, festivals

2. Private aspects: prayers, vows, rituals of the home

B. Rabbinic maintenance: halakah (procedure)

1. Public components: liturgy

(a) Site of conservatism

(b) Site of adaptation

2. Private components

(a) Daily/weekly patterns (sabbath)

(b) Annual patterns (the cycle of holy days)

C. The ongoing, adaptive public/private performance of covenant

III. Ethics

A. Biblical background: the implications of covenant: 10 commandments and "the law"

B. Morality and halakah

1. Classical commandments (mitzvot): disciplining the self

(a) the 613 commandments

(b) "a holy people": laws of distinction and separation (kashrut)

2. Public morality: charity/tzedakah

C. Moving beyond the covenant community

1. Philosophy and halakah: a perfect match?

2. tikkun olam and social ethics: Jewish ethics save the world?

(a) the mystical connection

(b) the modernist ethics

WEEK FOUR

I. JUDAISM MINI-EXAM

UNIT THREE: CHRISTIANITY

II. Historical overview

A. The internal perspective: Dialectic of unity and diversity

B. The problem of Jewish origins: from the Jesus Movement to Christianity

C. Time periods

1. From martyrs to emperors: salvation and suffering?

2. Unity over diversity

(a) Orthodoxy/Heresy

(b) the rise of clergy: from bishop to pope

3. The return of diversity

(a) reformation and fragmentation

(b) colonialism and conquest

4. Globalism and modernism

(a) ecumenism: unity makes a comeback?

(b) nationalism: diversity reigns?

III. Scripture/Tradition

A. A new testament?

1. Origins and components

2. Can't have "new" without "old": Christian Scriptures

3. Reinventing the tradition: a New Testament for a New Israel

B. The openness of interpretation

1. Beyond literalism? (or "who needs two torahs?")

2. The elasticity of texts: Scripture in new contexts

3. The possibility (and problem) of ongoing revelation

C. The closedness of scripture?

1. Canon formation (the first 21 centuries)

2. Away with allegory: the rise of Inerrantism/Fundamentalism

3. "Private reading": removing the Bible from the public square

(a) Sola Scriptura: every Christian for her/himself

(b) religion and science go head to head

WEEK FIVE

I. God

A. The problem with Jesus

1. Messianic mediation mitigated

2. The God-Man debate

3. Trinitarian and Christological debate: the credal solutions

(a) Jesus as man?

(b) Jesus as God?

B. The human implications of the Man-God

1. Incarnation (God made flesh)

2. Divinization (humans made like God)

3. Inspiration (the Holy Spirit)

C. Challenges to the Trinity

1. Unitarianism

2. Rationalism

3. The rehumanization of Jesus

(a) the quest(s) for the historical Jesus

(b) W.W.J.D.?

II. Authority

A. From disciple to bishop: "routinization of charisma"

1. The Gnostic challenge

2. Patriarchy, papacy, primacy

B. Challenges to the clerical paradigm

1. Monaticism: charisma returns?

2. The "state": national churches

3. The problem of women

C. Reformation, reason, reaction

1. Congregations, elders, councils, kings

2. Individual authority

3. All-inclusive community?

III. Ritual

A. Embodiment of God and community: the sacraments

B. Baptism and Eucharist (foundational ceremonies)

1. Initiation and integration

2. Commemoration and dedication (divine presence, then and now)

C. Sacramental development

1. Catholic fullness: the sacramental life

2. Protestant restraint: the meaning of sacrament

D. Christianizing time and space

1. Daily, annual, eternal time

2. Holy space: church, shrine, pilgrimage

WEEK SIX

I. Ethics

A. In the beginning was the end: apocalypse and the power of sin

1. Atonement: reconceiving the divine-human

2. Morality: reconceiving the human-human

B. Christian moral superiority

1. Over against "the world"

2. Over against "other Christians" (Christian elitism, ascetic and monastic)

3. Christian moral inferiority? The Protestant redefinition of "grace"

C. Christians save the world (and themselves)

1. "Social Gospel"

2. Liberation Theology

3. "The moral majority"?

II. CHRISTIANITY MINI-EXAM

UNIT FOUR: ISLAM

III. Historical overview

A. The inseparability of religion and politics in Islamic history

B. From Arabic origins to global movements

C. Time periods

1. The prophet and the companions (rashidun)

2. The caliphs: expansion and hegemony

3. The fragmentation: kingdoms, empires, sultanates, emirates

(a) Fatimids, Ummayads, Ayyubids, and "golden ages"

(b) Military catastrophes and recoveries: Mongols, Mameluks, Monarchies

4. Empires: Ottomans, Safavids, Moghuls

5. Modernity: decline, recovery, reform, resistance

D. Global islam?

WEEK SEVEN

I. Scripture/Tradition

A. Qur'an: revelation, recitation, reformation

1. Religious revelation: Allah speaks to Arabs

(a) Muhammad's context

(b) Relation to previous Scriptures

2. Qur'an as text? The necessity of recitation

(a) origins (the wisdom of poetry)

(b) ongoing function: liturgy and unity

3. Qur'anic contexts

(a) Sura as revealed discourse

(b) Compilation, consonation, cantillation

4. Qur'anic interpretation

(a) eternal qur'an?

(b) schools of interpretation: tabari, rationalism, mysticism

B. Other forms of tradition

1. The life of muhammad (sunna)

2. Enshrining the Arabic past: hadith

II. God

A. The confession of unity (shahadah): The singleness of Allah shapes life

B. Other divine beings?

1. The "pagan past"

2. Angels

3. Jinn

4. Satan(s)

C. Orthodoxy vs. orthopraxy in the eyes of God

1. The singleness of God, and human behavior

2. The singleness of god, and the umma (community)

D. Beyond confession: Islamic theology

1. Speculation on the divine

2. Mysticism and union with the divine

III. Authority

A. The foundations

1. Qur'an

2. Sunna & hadith: timeless replication of original perfection

B. Elaborations: shari'a and fiqh

1. The 4 "basics": consensus, analogy, Qur'an, and Sunna

2. Individual reasoning (ijtihad)

C. Embodiments of authority

1. Shari'a experts ('ulama): conservative subversion?

2. Caliphs and the caliphate: the politics of community

3. The shiat ali and the imamate: inspiration over deputation

4. Sunni vs. Shi'i

5. Sufis, shayks, and wali

WEEK EIGHT

I. Ritual

A. Faith (iman) and action (ibadat): the unity of practice in a diversity of belief

B. The Five Pillars

1. The purification before the pillars

2. Shahadah: the confession that puncuates all ritual life

3. salat: the prayer that santifies the day

4. zakat: the egalitarian heart of islamic ummah

5. ramadan

6. hajj

7. jihad: the sixth pillar?

B. Life cycle festivals

1. Birth to death

2. Local custom vs. Qur'an/Sunna

C. "Popular" piety: Sufi saints

II. Ethics

A. The straight path and ethical monotheism: morality as submission to Allah

B. Foundations for moral behavior

1. Metaphysical (the "conscience")

2. Muslim (submission): "God says..." (Qur'an, Shari'a)

3. Muhammad: Sunna

C. Applications of moral behavior

1. Intra-islam: the ethos of umma

2. Inter-religious: proselytism as a test case

3. The spectrum of behaviors: from prescription to proscription

D. Global vs. local custom? Islam in the majority, in the minority

III. ISLAM MINI-EXAM

UNIT FIVE: MATERIAL CULTURE

WEEK NINE

I. Jews and the space outside

A. "Playground of cultures": Diaspora Jews and inculturation

B. Buildings

1. The synagogue, then and now

(a) architecture

(b) decor

2. Domestic space, then and now

(a) the home as ritual space

(b) the home as ethnic showcase

B. The sacred word

1. The scroll

2. Artistic expression and the book (prayerbooks and haggadot)

C. Clothing

1. "A people apart": Black hats and cultural resistance

2. Traditional garments

(a) fringes (tzitzit)

(b) skullcaps (kippot/yarmulkes)

C. Jewish culture as integration, resistance, or both?

II. Christians between matter and spirit

A. Sacred matter

1. The incarnate God and matter

2. The transcedent god and spirit

B. Relics and remains: Christianizing time, space, and the world

C. The church: tying heaven to earth

1. Public space as Christian space

2. Transcendance through matter: the Gothic Cathedral

D. The holy image: Anti-images and the revenge of the spiritual

1. Orthodox iconoclasm: worship versus veneration

2. Reformation image-smashing: "inner-worldliness"

E. Christian popular culture: the Jesus fish and the Chick pamphlet

UNIT SIX: RELIGION & POLITICS

WEEK TEN

I. Christianity and the church/state dilemma

A. Relations to "the world"

1. Two kingdoms: early Christian resistance

2. Two cities: early medieval Christian dualism

3. Two swords: late medieval/early modern symbiosis and "just war"

B. Modernity and pluralism

1. From bloodshed to cooperation in modern Europe

2. Disestablishment and the U.S. ideal

3. The privatization of religion

C. Nationalism and confessionalism

1. Religious politics in the U.S.: Christian America?

2. Postmodern Europe: religion and/as ethnicity

II. Islam: Revival, Reform, and Modernity

A. The problem with secularism: integration of religious-political identity in classical islam

B. Modernity and its discontents

1. A new nationalism

(a) The "secular" nation of Muslims: Turkey, Iran, Egypt(?)

(b) The islamic nation: Pakistan, Iran, Egypt(?), Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan

2. Responses to modernity: Islamism and reform

(a) Fundamentalism?

(b) Political activism (Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic Group, and others)

3. Islam and the West

(a) a conflict of nations?

(b) a conflict of ideologies?

III. Conclusions

A. "Interfaith": the possibility of pluralism

1. interfaith and the discourse of "common ground" ("western religions")

2. interfaith and the discourse of "uncommon ground" ("religious tolerance/pluralism")

B. Why knowledge is a good thing

C. Final questions and course evaluations