GOVT 86.63 Ethics and Politics in the Bible

For better and worse, many of our ideas about killing, war, peace, slavery, freedom and government come from the Bible – not to mention our ideas about the origin and the end of the universe.  As the basis for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, no book has been more influential on world history and world culture than the Bible: much of our art, literature, and even politics is inspired by the Bible, ranging from holy war, crusade, and jihad, to abolitionism and the civil rights movements. At the same time, no book has been more controversial and more divisive than the Bible: it is the most beloved and the most hated book of all time. In this course, we shall discuss the moral and political ideas we find in selected biblical stories and in some commentary on those stories.

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Government