More Info
How did the ancient Israelites, a notoriously “stiff-necked” people, govern themselves? Moses used the metaphor “stiff-necked” in Exodus 32 to describe the recalcitrance of his people, their stubborn tendency to resist divine authority. Derived from agriculture, the metaphor compares the people to an ox refusing to follow the farmer’s yoke. The biblical writers offered several possible models of leadership in the face of human recalcitrance: patriarchs, prophets, kings, and priests. Our four-week course will consider each of these in turn, and conclude with an account of the innovative type of leadership that emerged when the Second Temple and its priesthood gave way to the synagogue and the rabbi.
Bruce Thompson, Ph.D., is a lecturer in the Departments of History and Literature and the Associate Director of Jewish Studies at U.C.-Santa Cruz and also teaches at the Institute. He received his Ph.D. in History from Stanford; his areas of scholarly research include European intellectual and cultural history, French history, British Isles history, American Jewish intellectual and cultural history, the history of cinema, and the history of espionage.
