REL 317 Illness, Healing and Miracles
This course examines the large role healing and miracles played in the lives of people living in the first millennium of the common era. By exploring how healing and miracles related to religion in this time frame, some comparisons can be realized in how religion is continually related to healing in the contemporary era. Primary and secondary texts are examined as well as archaeology and visual art, incorporating several different genres to illuminate the subject of illness and healing in the Late Antique and Early Medieval worlds and its continuing relevance in contemporary life. By looking to the past and considering questions of what Christian" healing actually looked like and why miracles proliferated at this time, students can begin to explain why miracles, particularly healing miracles, continually appear in religious contexts today."