Description: (Same as Jewish Studies M155.) Lecture, three hours. Focus on popular Jewish traditions of magic, mysticism, apocalypse, and various contours of Judaism's textual and material traditions in antiquity. Examination of texts and objects from Hebrew Bible to modern discussions of Kabbalah and end of world, concentrating on Jewish antiquity. Discussion of texts, including Hebrew Bible, Dead Sea Scrolls, extra-biblical Jewish texts, New Testament, and rabbinic and later Jewish literature. Discussion of sociohistorical context in order to decipher features and functions of magic, mysticism, and apocalypse in antiquity and modernity. P/NP or letter grading.

Units: 4.0