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- There are a variety of research topics you could choose for a course on Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The topics listed below are not meant to be exhaustive, but to stimulate your own thinking about the question you want to ask. The only limits are that your topic (a) focus on one of the three religions, (b) discuss how the interpretation of scripture is brought to bear on the topic, and (c) compare the beliefs and practices of a single religion in two different geographic regions.
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- Some Ideas
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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.
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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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- Genesis and Science in U.S. Public Schools
- 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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- The Aryan Jesus in the Third Reich
- 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.
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- Modern Jewish Messianism and the Ambiguities of the Jewish State
- 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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- Jewish and Christian Mythologies and the Contemporary State of Israel
- 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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- Women in Islam
- The place of women in Islam has been much discussed lately. The
traditional garb and lifestyle discussed in the Qur'an is
legislated differently depending on the Moslem country or
community in which one lives, but such fine distinctions
are seldom made in the Western media. Nor do
Western commentators appreciate the Moslem explanation for
these customs. Your task in this paper is to explore both
Moslem authors and Western critics on the place of women
in society, in order to appreciate more fully the terms
of the debate from both perspectives.
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- Women's Ordination in the Catholic Church
- Evidence from the early Christian church indicates that women held ordained office into the middle ages. So why do some Christian denominations allow this now, but the Catholic Church does not?
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- Apocalypticism in Islam
- Islam borrowed from Judaism and Christianity notions of
a coming Day of Judgment and the return of a rightly-guided
one (mahdi) who would restore true worship of Allah, similar
to the Jewish and Christian messiah. Explore Islamic apocalypticism today to determine its role in the belief systems of a selected group.
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- Celibacy in the Priesthood and the Sex-Abuse Crisis in the Catholic Church
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recent sex-abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church has
led many to call for an open discussion of the celibacy
tradition. Some argue that celibacy and an all-male priesthood
contribute to the problem of pedophilia (the sexual abuse
of children) and ephebophilia (the sexual abuse of adolescents),
while others argue that celibacy, properly understood, is
a productive and prophetic alternative to dysfunctional
love. In this paper, you will explore the celibacy tradition
and its place in the current debates.
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- Same-Sex Marriage: Religious Arguments
- Our current cultural debates over same-sex marriage often include discussion of the biblical tradition of marriage, as well as biblical texts ostensibly about homosexuality. What do the texts actually say?
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