“No other book of the Bible is quite so R-rated. No other book is quite so ugly or grotesque. Judges offers its reader not a roster of angelic saints, but an astonishing tempest of brutality, feces, slaughter, assassinations, conspiracy, genocide, child sacrifice, rage, betrayal, mass graves, gang-rape, corpse mutilation, kidnapping, and civil war” (Stulac, Gift of the Grotesque). In this six-session course on the book of Judges, you will follow an experienced biblical scholar into the heart of Israel’s theological Dark Age, encountering there the transformative Word of God in ways you do not expect. Special attention will be placed to the idea that the violence depicted in Judges can be interpreted as a staging ground for Jesus Christ’s eventual crucifixion in the New Testament. The prophetic book of Judges, writes Stulac, “wants to gut you like a fish, because on the far side of that unenviable prospect, it wants you alive like you’ve never lived before.”

This six-session course will engage students in a close study of the biblical book of Judges, in conversation with the instructor’s recent book on this subject. Students should strive to finish the weekly reading prior to each online session. These sessions will take place on alternating Wednesday evenings 7:00-8:45 pm (see the Course Schedule below).

Texts
• A standard translation of the Bible, such as the NIV, NRSV, CEB, etc.
• Daniel J. D. Stulac, Gift of the Grotesque: A Christological Companion to the Book of Judges (Eugene: Cascade, 2022).

Course Delivery
This course will be delivered online by ZOOM. Registrants who provide an active gmail address can receive access to non-public class recordings.