Paper short abstract:

This paper explores one of the many ways in which the study of religion draws on anthropology and archaeology. Within religion, this paper focuses on the field of Theological Ethics, and seeks to demonstrate how anthropology and archaeology are indispensable to this field. Through an analysis of Theological Ethic’s use of material culture and anthropological methods, this paper will suggest that Theological Ethics is a third space in which these two disciplines meet and are interdependent.

Paper long abstract:

Within the study of religion, the field of Theological Ethics provides a unique meeting point for anthropology and archaeology. Both of these disciplines are integral to posing and approaching the main questions of the field: What does it mean to be human? And as humans, how ought we live? Theological Ethics is, at its core, an interdisciplinary field of study, yet the contributions of both the matter and the methods of anthropology and archaeology are not always recognized or fully appreciated. This paper proposes to outline some of those contributions, while also arguing for the interdependence of anthropology and archaeology as they are viewed and used in the field of Theological Ethics. In short, Theological Ethics provides a vantage point from which anthropology and archaeology can be seen as mutually informative.

The task of theological ethicists, whether undertaken explicitly or assumed, is to formulate anthropologies, or conceptions of human life that account for and aim to amend our human condition. Within the Judeo-Christian tradition these anthropologies are drawn from textual artifacts, which are interpreted in a myriad of ways, and then used as beginning points or limits on anthropological constructions. These anthropologies are augmented by observations of human activity and lived experience. Thus, the process of constructing a theological anthropology engages both anthropology and archaeology, providing a dialogical locus for the two disciplines. This paper will highlight this process by proposing a theological anthropology that is explicit about drawing on these two disciplines.