From the DVD - Library ed.
Pt. 1. Disc 1. Lecture 1-6. Talking about ancient religious cultures
Early prehistoric religion
Prehistoric religion, the neolithic era
Egypt, a unique religious culture
Egyptian creation stories and their meaning
Pt. 1. Disc 2. Lectures 7-12. The Egyptian pantheon
Egyptian myths of kingship
Egyptian myths of the underworld
Egypt, the power of goddesses
Egypt, religion in everyday life
Egypt, the beginning of wisdom
Pt. 2. Disc 3. Lectures 13-18. Mesopotamia, the land between the rivers
Mesopotamia, stories of creation
Mesopotamia, Inanna the Goddess
Mesopotamia, Gilgamesh the King
Mesopotamia, the search for eternal life
Mesopotamia, the great flood
Pt. 2. Disc 4. Lectures 19-24. Ancient concepts of the divine
The gods of Syria-Palestine
Israel's ancestral history
Israel's national history
Prophecy in the ancient Near East
Early prophecy in Israel.
Pt. 3. Disc 5. Lectures 25-30. Classical Israelite prophecy
Syria-Palestine, the problem of evil
Early Aegean civilizations
Religious culture in the Iliad and the Odyssey
Religious culture in archaic Greece
Pt. 3. Disc 6. Lectures 31-36. Greece, how things came to be
The classical era in Greece
Greece, philosophy as religion
Religious culture in the Hellenistic world
Mystery religions in the Hellenistic world
Pt. 4. Disc 7. Lectures 37-42. Mystery religions from the east
Roman religious culture before the empire
Rome, saviors and divine men
Rome, divination, astrology, and magic
Rome, critics and charlatans
Jesus of Nazareth as a figure in history
Pt. 4. Disc 8. Lectures 43-48. Creating Jesus communities
Living and dying for the God(s)
Women's religious roles in the early empire
The Jesus movement in the Greco-Roman world
The death and rebirth of the old gods
Conclusion: persisting ideas and yearnings.
