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Research
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Research Presentation Topics
A
list of ten research projects follows. Each small group will
prepare one topic. Each topic has at least two listed readings
from which to choose, though more sources are listed in cases
where our library does not have all the titles. You can order
titles we do not have through Interlibrary Loan, but since this
can sometimes take time, begin by dividing responsibilities
for those titles our library does carry. Some of the
resources are books, and your group members should plan on dividing
responsibility for the chapters. Each student should take responsibility
for two essays, articles or chapters.
Click on Research
Groups to access a list of your group members and their
email addresses. The first five groups will present on Thursday,
February 3, and the last five groups will present on Tuesday,
February 8.
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- Moses
and the Making of America
- Many
Americans take the separation of church and state
for granted. But recent events, such as the controversy
over the 10 commandments monument in the Alabama state
judicial building, have shown that some Americans
consider the Judeo-Christian tradition integral to
their identity as Americans. And in fact the US Constitution
only bars the government from establishing a national
religion; it does not actually separate church and
state entirely. In this paper, explore the controversy
about the place of religion in American culture by
focusing on the role of Judeo-Christian scripture
and beliefs, particularly the figure of the lawgiver
Moses, in the origins of the United States. Feel free
to integrate recent controversies like the 10 Commandments
monument.
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- Research
Group:
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- Bibliography:
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Skinner,
Andrew C. "The Influence of the Hebrew
Bible on the Founders of the American Republic." In
Sacred Text, Secular Times: The Hebrew Bible in the
Modern World (ed. Leonard Jay Greenspoon and Bryan
F. LeBeau; Studies in Jewish Civilization 10; Omaha,
Nebraska: Creighton University Press, 2000).
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- Wright,
Melanie Jane. Moses in America: Cultural
Uses of Biblical Narrative, AAR Cultural Criticism
Series. New York: Oxford University Press,
2002.
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- Apocalyptic
Thought and the Origins of the United States
- Biblical
apocalyptic literature played a role in the self-understanding
of both the Puritans who settled in New England in the 17th
and 18th centuries and the leaders of the American Revolution.
Choose one or the other of these groups. Give a brief account
of the group and the historical circumstances in which they
lived. Then examine the relationship of the features of
apocalyptic literature to the outlook of the group.
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- Research
Group:
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- Bibliography:
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- Bush, Sargent, Jr. "The American Puritans and Millennialism." In
Fearful Hope: Approaching the New Millennium (ed. Christopher
Kleinhenz and Fannie J. LeMoine; Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press, 1999) 214-17.
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Hatch, Nathan O. The Sacred Cause of Liberty: Republican
Thought and the Millennium in Revolutionary New England. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1977.
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Skinner,
Andrew C. "The Influence of the Hebrew
Bible on the Founders of the American Republic." In
Sacred Text, Secular Times: The Hebrew Bible in the
Modern World (ed. Leonard Jay Greenspoon and Bryan
F. LeBeau; Studies in Jewish Civilization 10; Omaha,
Nebraska: Creighton University Press, 2000).
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Smolinski, Reiner. "Apocalypticism in Colonial North
America." Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism, vol.
3.
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- Biblical
Mythology and African-American Music
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From the great spirituals of the slave era to hip-hop
and rap, African-American music has incorporated the
mythology of the exodus from slavery and the promised
land. In this project, you will explore the many and
varied biblical themes present in at least two genres
of African-American music and analyze how the mythology
has functioned or continues to function in African-American
communities.
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- Research
Group:
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- Bibliography:
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- Bailey, Wilma Ann. "The Sorrow
Songs: From Ancient Israel and the African American
Diaspora." In Yet with a Steady
Beat: Contemporary U.S. Afrocentric Biblical Interpretation (ed. Randall C. Bailey; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2003) 61-83.
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McClain, William B. "The Bible
and African-American Music." Journal
of the Interdenominational Theological Center
27 (1999–2000) 215-240.
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Miller, Keith D. "City Called
Freedom: Biblical Metaphor in Spirituals, Gospel
Lyrics, and the Civil Rights Movement." In
African Americans and the Bible: Sacred Texts
and Social Textures (ed. Vincent L. Wimbush
and Rosamond C. Rodman; New York: Continuum, 2000)
546-57.
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- Pinn, Anthony B. Noise and Spirit: The Religious
and Spiritual Sensibilities of Rap Music. New
York University Press, 2004.
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- Genesis
and Science in U.S. Public Schools
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The scientific method embraced during the Enlightenment
challenged earlier views of the origins of the world.
Those who embrace scientific method advocate a world
that is more than 4.3 billion years old, while those
who embrace the biblical creation account as science
regard it as approximately 5,000 years old. There
is likewise a debate about the great flood recounted
in Genesis 6, about which scientists find no evidence
in the geological record. In this project, you will
explore the debates between scientists and biblical
fundamentalists in the U.S. today over the creation
of the world and the flood. You will analyze the mythologies
that are operative on both sides and the ways these
myths function in the U.S. today.
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- Research
Group:
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- Bibliography:
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Campbell, John Angus and Stephen C. Meyer, eds. Darwinism, Design, and Public Education. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2003.
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Numbers, Ronald L. The Creation-Evolution Debates. New York: Garland, 1995.
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Peller, Gary. "Creation, Evolution, and the New South." Tikkun 2 (5 1987) 72-6.
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Pleins, J. David. When the Great
Abyss Opened: Classic and Contemporary Readings
of Noah's Flood. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2003.
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Smout, Kary Doyle. The Creation/Evolution
Controversy: A Battle for Cultural Power. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1998.
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- Millennial
Groups in the United States and Apocalyptic
- Select
a contemporary western apocalyptic group and study it. Examples
would be Heaven's Gate, the Branch Davidians, the Christian
Identity Movement, Concerned Christians, and Jewish messianic
groups. The professor can help you select a group
and find some initial resources to get the project underway. In
your essay, examine the use and function of apocalyptic
language in the literature and outlook of your group. Is
the group using scripture as a source of motifs only, or
is it offering a comprehensive interpretation of apocalyptic
or prophetic books in the Bible? Apply the features
of apocalyptic literature we have been studying to the outlook
of the group to determine how they compare to the authors
of apocalyptic literature in the Bible.
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- Research
Group:
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- Bibliography:
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Gallagher, Eugene V. "'Theology Is Life and Death': David Koresh on Violence, Persecution, and the Millennium." In Millennialism, Persecution and Violence: Historical Cases (ed. Catherine Wessinger; Religion and Politics; Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2000) 82-100.
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- Katz,
David S. and Richard H. Popkin. "Rapture,
Great Disappointment and Waco." In Messianic
Revolution: Radical Religious Politics to the End of the
Second Millennium (New York: Hill & Wang, 1998) 142-69.
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- Robbins,
Thomas and Susan J. Palmer. "Introduction:
Patterns of Contemporary Apocalypticism." In
Millennium, Messiahs, and Mayhem: Contemporary Apocalyptic
Movements (ed. Thomas Robbins and Susan J. Palmer;
New York: Routledge, 1997) 1-27.
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- Strozier,
Charles B. "Apocalyptic Violence and the Politics of Waco." In The Year 2000: Essays on the End (ed. Charles B. Strozier and Michael Flynn; New York: New York Univeristy Press, 1997).
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- The
Reconstruction of Christian Origins in the Third Reich
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Hitler's Third Reich was founded on a principle of
racial purity that demanded the removal of those races
and peoples presumed to be inferior to Aryans -- namely
Jews, homosexuals, the mentally retarded and the disabled. While
his program was nominally "scientific" rather
than religious, its utopian impulse and its focus
on the Jews depended to great extent on a long history
of Christian idealism and anti-Judaism in Europe. Nor
was that dependence altogether in the past, for Germany
housed some of the great Christian theological schools,
and many of its leading theologians were actively
involved in Hitler's anti-Semitic agenda. Your
task in this paper is to explore how some of Germany's
biblical scholars and scholars of Christian origins
constructed a version of salvation history that supported
Hitler's murderous program, and how other Christian
scholars resisted conforming to this view. [Note:
More than four sources are offered below because you
may have difficulty getting some of them in time.]
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- Research
Group:
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- Bibliography:
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Bergen, Doris L. "Old Testament,
New Hatreds: The Hebrew Bible and Antisemitism
in Nazi Germany." In Sacred
Text, Secular Times: The Hebrew Bible in the Modern
World (ed. Leonard Jay Greenspoon and Bryan
F. LeBeau; Studies in Jewish Civilization 10;
Omaha, Nebraska: Creighton University Press, 2000). Reprinted
at Mark Elliott and Vicki Cox, The Bible and
Interpretation, online, http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/bergen_033001.htm.
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- --------. Twisted Cross: The German Christian Movement in the Third Reich. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.
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- Cornwell, John. Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII. New York: Penguin, 2000.
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- Ericksen, Robert P. "Christians
and the Holocaust; The Wartime Writings of Gerhard
Kittel." In Remembering for
the Future: Working Papers and Addenda (3
vols; ed. Yehuda Bauer et al.; Oxford: Pergamon,
1989) 3.2400-2414.
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- Ericksen, Robert P. and Susannah Heschel, eds. Betrayal: German Churches and the Holocaust. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999.
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- Heschel, Susannah. "The Image
of Judaism in Nineteenth-Century Christian New
Testament Scholarship in Germany." In
Jewish-Christian Encounters over the Centuries:
Symbiosis, Prejudice, Holocaust, Dialogue
(ed. Marvin Perry and Frederick M. Schweitzer;
American University Studies, Series IX History
136; New York: Peter Lang, 1994) 215-40.
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- --------. "Nazifying
Christian Theology: Walter Grundmann and the Institute
for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence
on German Church Life." Church
History 63 (1994) 587-605.
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- --------. "New Testament Scholarship
on the 'Aryan Jesus' during the Third Reich." In
A Multiform Heritage: Studies in Early Judaism
and Christianity in Honor of Robert A. Kraft
(ed. Benjamin G. Wright; Scholars Press Homage
Series 24; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999) 303-321.
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- --------. "Redemptive Anti-Semitism:
The De-Judaization of the New Testament in the
Third Reich." In Literary Studies
in Luke-Acts: Essays in Honor of Joseph B. Tyson
(ed. Richard P. Thompson and Thomas E. Phillips;
Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1998)
235-63.
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- --------. "When
Jesus was an Aryan: The Protestant Church and
Antisemitic Propaganda." In Betrayal:
German Churches and the Holocaust (ed. Robert
P. Ericksen and Susannah Heschel; Minneapolis:
Fortress, 1999) 68-89, 202-205.
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- Phayer, Michael. The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930–1965. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 2001.
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- Steigmann-Gall, Richard. The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919–1945. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
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- Modern
Jewish Messianism
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The eschatological or end-time beliefs of some Jewish
denominations include a hope for the arrival of a
messiah to usher in God's kingdom. Events of the past
century, from the Holocaust to the founding of Israel
to the 1967 War, in which Israel occupied all the
lands of the ancient Davidic empire, have complicated
messianic hope. Some ultra-Orthodox Jews believe that
these events are signs that the messiah is near and
that humans can usher in his arrival, while others
vehemently deny that the state of Israel or human
effort can determine the divine act of redemption.
In this paper, you will explore the many Jewish positions
on the topic.
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- Research
Group:
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- Bibliography:
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- Agus, Jacob B. "The Messianic
Ideal and the Apocalyptic Vision." Judaism
32 (1983) 205-214.
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- Amir, Yehoshua. "Messianism
and Zionism." In Eschatology
in the Bible and in Jewish and Christian Tradition
(ed. Henning Graf Reventlow; JSOTSup 243; Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic Press, 1997) 13-30.
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Gruenwald, Ithamar. "Can Messianism
Survive Its Own 'Apocalyptic' Visions?" Journal
of Religion 78 (1998) 89-98.
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- Kellner, Menachem. "Messianic
Postures in Israel Today." Modern
Judaism 6 (1986) 197-209.
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- Kippenberg, Hans G. "The Restoration
of Israel as Messianic Birth Pangs." In
Apocalyptic Time (ed. Albert I. Baumgarten;
Boston: Brill, 2000) 327-40.
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Morgenstern, Arie. "Messianic
Concepts and Settlement in the Land of Israel,"
trans. Y. Lerner. In Vision and Conflict in
the Holy Land (ed. Richard I. Cohen; New York:
St. Martin's, 1985) 141-62.
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- Ravitzky,
Aviezer. "The Messianism of Success
in Contemporary Judaism." In Encyclopedia
of Apocalypticism, vol. 3, Apocalypticism
in the Modern Period and the Contemporary Age
(ed. Stephen J. Stein; New York: Continuum, 1998)
204-229.
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- Stone, John R. "Messianic Judaism:
A Redefinition of the Boundary Between Christian
and Jew." In Research in the
Social Scientific Study of Religion (Greenwich,
Connecticut: JAI, 1991) 237-52.
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- Biblical
and Modern Israel: Jewish Mythologies
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The great Davidic monarchy has long stood as a past
ideal and future promise for the Jewish people. When
the State of Israel was created in 1948, many Jews
felt that the promise had come true at last. This
belief was reinforced in 1967 when the state defeated
the combined forces of Syria, Jordan and Egypt and
occupied the complete territory that had long ago
been conquered by David. In this project, you will
explore the mythology of the land in the Deuteronomistic
history and the ways the Israelis have interpreted
their return to the land in the last half century.
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- Research
Group:
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- Bibliography:
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Ben-Yehuda, Nachman. The Masada
Myth: Collective Memory and Mythmaking in Israel. Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1995.
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- Garfinkle, Adam. "In the Beginning." Politics
and Society in Modern Israel: Myths and Realities. Armonk,
New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1997.
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- Ravitzky,
Aviezer. "The Messianism of Success in Contemporary
Judaism." In Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism,
vol. 3, Apocalypticism in the Modern Period and the Contemporary
Age (ed. Stephen J. Stein; New York: Continuum, 1998)
204-229.
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- Stone,
John R. "Messianic Judaism: A Redefinition
of the Boundary Between Christian and Jew." In
Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion
(Greenwich, Connecticut: JAI, 1991) 237-52.
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- Biblical
and Modern Israel: Christian Mythologies
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Christian evangelicals in the United States provide
a strong bloc of support for the State of Israel.
This is not necessarily because they are pro-Israeli,
however, but rather stems from their own apocalyptic
beliefs about the necessity of a restored Israel in
advance of the messiah's return. In this project,
you will explore the application of biblical apocalyptic
mythology to the creation of the State of Israel among
some evangelical Christian groups.
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- Research
Group:
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- Bibliography:
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Beegle,
Dewey M. Prophecy and Prediction. Ann
Arbor: Pryor Pettengill, 1978.
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- Boyer,
Paul S. "The Growth of Fundamentalistic
Apocalyptic in the United States." In
Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism, vol. 3, Apocalypticism
in the Modern Period and the Contemporary Age (ed.
Stephen J. Stein; New York: Continuum, 1998) 140-78.
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- Brasher,
Brenda E. "When Your Friend is Your Enemy:
American Christian Fundamentalists and Israel at the New
Millennium." In Millennial Visions:
Essays on Twentieth-Century Millenarianism (ed. Martha
F. Lee; Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, 2000).
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- Handy,
Robert T. "Zion in American Christian
Movements." In Israel: Its Role in
Civilization (ed. Moshe Davis; New York: The Seminary
Israel Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary in
America/Harper, 1956) 284-97.
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- Lindsey,
Hal. Israel and the Last Days. Harvest
House, 1991.
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Ryrie,
Charles C. What You Should Know About
the Rapture. Chicago: Moody, 1981.
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- Shupe,
Anson. "Christian Reconstructionism and
the Angry Rhetoric of Neo-Postmillennialism." In
Millennium, Messiahs, and Mayhem: Contemporary Apocalyptic
Movements (ed. Thomas Robbins and Susan J. Palmer;
New York: Routledge, 1997) 195-206.
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- Stone,
John R. "Messianic Judaism: A Redefinition
of the Boundary Between Christian and Jew." In
Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion
(Greenwich, Connecticut: JAI, 1991) 237-52.
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- President
Bush and Biblical Rhetoric
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Biblical rhetoric has long been the stock-in-trade
of U.S. politicians, particularly those like our current
president who have embraced a born-again lifestyle
or who want to appeal to those who have. In this project,
you will explore the biblical myths used by President
George W. Bush and analyze how they are being applied
in foreign and domestic policy.
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- Research
Group:
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- Bibliography:
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- Aronson, Raney, Director. "The Jesus Factor." Frontline, PBS (9 April 2004), online, available http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jesus/.
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- Bush, George W. "Address to a Joint
Session of Congress and the American People." The
White House (20 September 2001). Online,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html.
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- Bush, George W. "Statement by the President in His Address
to the Nation." (11 September 2001). Online,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010911-16.html.
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- Cherry, Conrad. God's New Israel: Religious Interpretations of America's Destiny. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.
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- Hughes, Richard T. Myths America Lives By. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004.
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- Kornblut, Anne E. "Strategist Focuses on President's Devotees." Boston Globe (30 August 2004).
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- Lowry, Richard. "Faith Based Warrior." National
Review (30 January 2002).
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