RELI-3456 Digging for the Truth: Archaeology, Bibles, and Popular Media

This course explores the intersection of archaeology, the bibles, and popular media. More specifically, it explores how the popular media uses archaeology and the bibles to create history, and how their process differs from an academic approach. Some questions that will be addressed include: What is archaeology and how is it done? What can archaeology teach us? What can't archaeology teach us? What role should the biblical literature play in writing history? How does popular media's use of archaeology and the bibles differ from the historian's use of archaeology and the bibles? What kinds of motives - political, economic and religious - factor into the equation? Prerequisite: RELI 2354, or RELI 2355, or consent of instructor