Exploring religious diversity
Assistant Professor, Philosophy and Religious Studies, History
Some people see religion as being in decline, but to Jillian Stinchcomb, it’s as relevant
to understanding the world as it has ever been. “Becoming a religious studies major
allows students to navigate potentially-difficult discussions of difference,” says
Stinchcomb. “Students learn the vocabulary and categories used by different religious
groups and how those groups have developed and interacted over time, and the skills
developed in the process are constantly relevant to life in the modern world.”
“ “In Religious Studies courses, we do not assume our students have any particular religious background; instead, we explore the history and culture out of which religious texts and traditions developed, and how they were inherited, modified, and adapted into new contexts,” adds Stinchcomb, who has extensively studied Jewish, Christian, and Muslim interaction. ”
Her courses include an Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, Introduction to Ancient Israel,
Women in the Ancient World, and a graduate course on the Queen of Sheba. She is currently
working on a book project called The Queen of Sheba Between the Bible and the Kebra Nagast on the treatment of the Queen of Sheba, an obscure figure mentioned by the Hebrew
Bible, New Testament, and the Qur’an for visiting Solomon’s court at the height of
his rule.
In her work, Stinchcomb explores the way Jews, Christians, and Muslims remember the
biblical past in ways that come to be influenced by one another. She is particularly
interested in how concerns of later periods came to shape our understanding of texts
and traditions from earlier periods. At Towson, she hopes her teaching enables students
to engage with a messy, complex world where people read the same texts in a variety
of ways. She believes by understanding how radically different the past is from the
present, we are better equipped to imagine a different and better future.