Devils and Demons: Agents of Evil in the Bible and Ancient World

While the words “devil,” “demon,” and “Satan” usually conjure the image of a horned and hoofed archfiend, this has not always been the case. Students in this course will discover both the origins of and complications to dominant popular images of “the Devil” by engaging ancient Middle Eastern and Mediterranean texts, including Mesopotamian literature, the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and other early Christian and Jewish texts. We will discuss Satan’s origins as the biblical god Yahweh’s henchman, Mesopotamian and Greco-Roman conceptions of subordinate divine entities, Hellenistic and Roman-period tendencies towards cosmic dualism, and much more. Students will also have the opportunity to explore pop culture and political discourse to examine how Biblical and other ancient demons productively recur in such contexts. A guiding question will be why the category of “demon” has proven so productive and necessary to diverse religious worldviews and what the common features and actions of these figures reveal about persistent human anxieties.