Ancient Israelite Epic

The Hebrew Bible has been called “The Great Code” of Western culture. At the foundation of this great work are the Five Books of Moses, the Torah. Its stories permeate our literature, our art—indeed, our sense of identity. Its ideas inform our laws and have given birth to our structure of state, our social movements, and our revolutions. The narrative itself embodies a great epic of liberation. What are these books? Who wrote them? Who preserved them? In order to answer these questions, we will closely read Torah itself and do so in the light of its ancient Near Eastern context. As such, we will also read the Babylonian creation story, as well as the Epic of Gilgamesh.