RST 250O ST: Intro the Hebrew Bible/Old Testamen
The Hebrew Bible includes the same books as the Protestant Old Testament and the Catholic Old Testament (excluding the apocrypha), albeit in a somewhat different order. The word Bible means Book, but in truth, the Hebrew Bible is an anthology of many books, and many of the books themselves are complex and reflect the concerns of different times and places. This course will look at the Hebrew Bible both in its parts and as a whole. Specifically, we will look at critical approaches to the Hebrew Bible--how it came to be from the sum of its parts--and how different parts of the Bible inform and complicate how we read other parts. We will also focus deeply on the relationship between Biblical law and the narratives in which those laws are embedded. Occasionally, we will look at how later faith traditions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have understood the texts of the Hebrew Bible. Hebrew is not required for this course.