 2014 - 2015 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 0671-2337-01 | Plants of the Bible Lands | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| FACULTY OF HUMANITIES | ARCHAEOLOGY & ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN CULTU | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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University credit hours: 2.0
Course description
The course will illuminate all the issues concerning the plant world of the lands of the Bible (the Fertile Crescent – from the Iranian plateau through east Anatolia, Syria, Israel and into Egypt). The course will focus on the identification of the plants mentioned in the Bible and in ancient Jewish texts in the light of different criteria: the biblical reality, botanical remains from archaeological excavations, tradition, philology, a comparison to other Jewish texts and Bible translations and ancient DNA studies from recent years. The course will also deal with Biblical man and his environment – the description of the holy land, its landforms, climate and vegetal landscape, diet, as well as man’s influence on the natural environment (e.g. agriculture activities, grazing, de-forestation , plants importation and plant extinctions). The role of plants in the Jewish religion will be discussed (for example the four pieces of the feast of Tabernacles), as well as other issues: “The Seven Species”, medical plants and perfumed mentioned in the Bible and so on.