Demons & Ghosts

What is a demon, and a ghost? Where do these ideas come from, and where do they appear in the Bible? An introduction to the course, its key terms, and what it means to study these spirits academically.

Before there were demons, there were fallen angels: semi-divine beings who betrayed their stations and descended to earth. The earliest biblical and apocryphal accounts of how evil entered the world.

Among the deeds of the fallen angels was the revelation of secret, forbidden knowledge to humanity. How ancient Jewish and Christian texts told that story, and why it mattered.

Paul tells the Corinthians that women should veil “because of the angels.” What did he mean? The angelic traditions behind the phrase, and the social work fallen angels did in the early Jesus movement.

Paul’s later interpreters read his angels through the fallen angels of 1 Enoch. How those apocryphal ideas shaped the social formation of early Christianity.

The most famous fallen angel of all makes surprisingly few appearances in the earliest texts. Where the idea of a chief demon emerged, and the famous passages, like Eden, where Satan’s presence has been questioned.

In ancient Jewish thought Satan begins as the adversary in God’s heavenly court, then becomes the evil chief demon we know as the devil. When, and why, that transformation took place.

How Satan appears in the earliest writings of the Jesus movement: the temptation in the desert, the possession of Judas, and Paul’s “angel of light.”

A double lecture on how Satan functioned socially in early Christian writing, as authors mapping out orthodoxy branded their opponents as Satan-inspired, and what that reveals about the period.

The fiery hellscape that awaits the unrighteous. The ancient Jewish and early Christian origins of hell, Satan’s role in administering it, and the social functions it served.

The end-times figure who opposes God’s people and carries out Satan’s will. The origins of the antichrist idea, its appearance in early Christian literature, and its link to Satan.

Like their neighbors, ancient Jews believed in ambivalent and malevolent spirits. The demonic figures of the ancient Near East and their appearances, in many guises, in the Hebrew Bible.

Some of the richest ancient ideas about demons and possession come from the Dead Sea Scrolls. Their historical context, their apocalyptic outlook, and the part demons played in it.

Like other Jews of their time, Jesus’ earliest followers believed in demonic spirits that caused disease and possessed people. The demon narratives of the gospels, and their Jewish roots.

The social significance of the demonic. The historical context of Jesus’ exorcisms, and how they fit his apocalyptic mission and his opposition to Roman occupation.

Ancient Jews and Christians believed prophetic spirits could possess people. How they told a divine possessing spirit from a demonic one, and how early Christians cast rival divination as demonic.

Many ancient cultures held that demons caused disease. The roots of that belief, its influence on New Testament demonology, and the competing ancient explanations, such as the Hippocratic.

A double lecture on demons as magical assistants in the ancient Mediterranean: how they appear in magical spells, and how magical formulas were used to thwart demonic attack.

The “powers and authorities” of the Pauline letters and their apparently evil forces in the cosmos. The roots of the terminology, its apocalyptic associations, and its place in early demonology.

What is a ghost, and where does the idea come from? The ancient roots of our modern concept, the surprising consistency of belief, and the classic ancient ghost stories.

The teraphim, household gods thought to be images of deceased ancestors. How these revered family ghosts likely figured in ancient worship, and how biblical authors later condemned them.

One of the Hebrew Bible’s most haunting scenes: King Saul has a woman at Endor conjure the dead prophet Samuel. Its roots in ancient necromancy, and its long interpretive afterlife.

The holy spirit said to inhabit Jesus and inaugurate his mission, later the foundation of the doctrine of the Trinity, set within the wider ancient world of divine spirits and ghosts.

At the center of Christian tradition is the risen Jesus, whom his own followers sometimes mistake for a spirit or fail to recognize. Ancient traditions of revived spirits, and their role in the resurrection stories.