Empathy, Suspicion, and Reading the Hebrew Bible: Comparative Methods in Studying and Teaching the History of Religion

ABSTRACT Many in today's society recognize the ability to empathize with others as an important personal virtue. In the context of higher education, extending empathy to students is regarded as a strategy that educators can employ to retain students and help them to succeed in their classes. Beyond its utility as a virtue and its role in student success, though, empathy is also an important tool for scholars engaged in the comparative study of religions. I argue that educators who practice and teach empathy to their students better prepare them to empathize with practitioners of ancient religions as humans. When we view these practitioners as humans, we are much better equipped to understand the worldviews that underlie their motivations, making us better scholars of religion and better historians.