Gott als Mythos - Einzelansicht

It is often thought that Judaism, unlike other religions, has no myths. While other Ancient Near Eastern religions are rich with mythology, and we all know about Greek mythology, the Hebrew Bible, or the religion of Ancient Israel, so it used to be argued, is devoid of myth. Therefore, it can be taken for granted that post-biblical Judaism, too, is lacking in myth. But this assumption is no longer accepted in scholarship. In this course our focus will be on myth in Rabbinic Judaism, more specifically, on myth in Midrash, Halakhah and Early Jewish Mysticism. We shall read selected primary texts (in Hebrew and English) and scholarly studies in English. To contextualize our readings, we shall turn to the theory of myth from the perspective of History of Religions (called Religionswissenschaft in German) and philosophy.

Selected texts from Midrash, Halakhah, and Early Jewish Mysticism.

Studies on Myth from the field of History of Religions.

There will be weekly assignments of readings, whether of primary sources or scholarly texts. While the lecturer will present and explain the material, the students are expected to have read the texts, and to be ready to discuss them in class. Several writing exercises are to completed and submitted during the course, based on the readings and the classroom learning. These assignments will serve as the basis for the final grade. No knowledge of Hebrew is required. Ability to read academic texts in English is required.

Several writing exercises. 

Students will get to know various genres of Rabbinic Literature and learn how to interpret these texts. The attention to motifs, symbols, and hermeneutic strategies of these texts, as well as questions concerning their social and cultural context, will assist the student to make sense of this corpus as well as similar phenomena in the study of religion and cultural studies. For this purpose, they will be introduced to basic methodological questions in the study of myth.