B28: How Did People Live in Jesus’ Day? - 3 units
Earle Hilgert             
Wed. 3:00–4:30 p.m. - Oct. 29, Nov. 5, 12, 19, Dec. 3         
Westminster Canterbury - Limit: 75

Earle Hilgert is Professor Emeritus of New Testament at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago.  Holding an A.M. degree from the University of Chicago and a doctorate in Early Christian Literature and History from the University of Basel, Switzerland, he has taught in the Philippines, Fiji, Germany and Romania, and for ten years was an evaluator of research proposals in religion and philosophy for the National Endowment for the Humanities. His research and writing interests have focused on the cultural and religious environment of early Christianity and the ways in which these factors influenced its development.

What was life like in Jesus’ time? Fortunately, a vast amount of information has come down to us in manuscripts, inscriptions, art, literature and the ruins of buildings. Such sources make possible a reconstruction of the variety of lifestyles and living conditions in which people found themselves in the first-century Mediterranean world. We shall consider such topics as wealth and poverty; what people ate; clothing and styles; marriage and the status of women; medicine, magic, and miracles; and law and its enforcement.

Suggested Reading: Louis Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World, Princeton University Press, 1996; Jerome Carcopino, Daily Life in Ancient Rome, Yale University Press, 1968; Naphtali Lewis, Life in Egypt under Roman Rule, Oxford University Press, 1984.