Course Syllabus

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Culture and Belief 39: The Hebrew Bible

Fall 2017

Shaye J.D. Cohen, Nathan Littauer Professor of Hebrew Literature and Philosophy 

scohen@fas.harvard.edu 

Luke Wayland, ThD (Head TF)
lwayland@mail.harvard.edu

Section Times and Locations

Office Hours and Contact Information

Location: Emerson 105
M., W., (F.), at 10, and a weekly section to be arranged. 

 

Course Description

This course is a survey of the major books and ideas of the Hebrew Bible (commonly called the Old Testament). The course will also treat the historical contexts in which the Bible emerged, and the Bible's role as canonical scripture in Judaism and Christianity.

Note: All readings in translation. No prior knowledge of the subject is assumed. This course fulfills the requirement that one of the eight General Education courses also engage substantially with Study of the Past

NB: In this syllabus the word “Bible”  refers to the collection of books that Christians call “the Old Testament,” that Jews call Tanakh, and that ecumenically-minded and progressive people call “the Hebrew Scriptures” or “the Hebrew Bible.” It does NOT refer to the collection of books that Christians call “the New Testament.”

NB: This syllabus is work in progress; expect changes and improvements, especially in the assignments for the final sessions.

The Orientation Video
(courtesy of my friend Beardsley Ruml)
What is this course about? Who is the instructor? What do I have to do to get an A?

Key to the video:

00:00 intro

00:20 What is the Hebrew Bible?  What is the course about?

15:00 What do I have to do to get an A?  (Please note: the reference to quizzes at 18:00 can be ignored -- a good idea which proved hard to implement.  No graded quizzes. Instead of two short papers there will be weekly one-page response papers.  See below for further info.)

20:00 Who am I? What is the name "Shaye"?  Why do I wear a kippah (sometimes)?

Course Requirements 

  • The weekly readings. Note that much of the reading consists of biblical texts, which must be read s-l-o-w-l-y. Do not allow these assigned readings to accumulate; read them in a timely manner, whether before or after the lectures.
  • The lectures and the lecture notes. If I don’t get through the entire lecture, I still expect you to have read and understood the material on the notes. Lectures from previous iterations of the course are available at on iTunes and on this website (my thanks to my friend Beardsley Ruml for producing these videos). This year’s lectures should be available on the course page.
  • [25%] Attendance and participation in section (beginning the second week of the term). Attendance is expected, and is to your benefit since your TF in section will review material being covered that week. You are allowed two passes/absences, no questions asked. If you can’t attend your regular section, and do not want your absence to be counted, you may, having obtained the approval of the principals involved, sit in on a different section that week. The first item of business in section will be a brief (5 minute) check-in (it could be called a quiz), reviewing some of the terms and information of that week. It will be graded check-no check. Active participation in section is encouraged. Section attendance, check-ins, and participation count for 25% of the final grade. If you ignore section altogether you may fail the course.
  • [20%] A 50-minute midterm exam; this makes up 20% of your grade. ID’s (responses not more than two sentences), plus passages, plus a non-essay. 
  • [25%]  Writing requirement.  In the first half of the course (once the sections are up and running) this requirement is satisfied by a weekly one-page response paper. Papers should not exceed 300 words and are due by 5pm the day before your section meets each week (e.g. if your section meets on Wednesdays, your paper is due at 5pm the preceding Tuesday.) Weekly topics to be assigned by your teaching fellow. The second half of the course (after the midterm) will continue to have a writing requirement but it may take a different form. 25% of your grade.
  • [30%] A three-hour final exam. ID’s (responses not more than two sentences), plus passages, plus two non-essays.
Students with disabilities: If you require special accommodations for the assignments or the exams, please speak with the Head TF before the third week of class.

Required Texts

  • Adele Berlin and Marc Brettler, ed., The Jewish Study Bible (Oxford University Press, 2005) ISBN: 0195297547. Also available online here with a Harvard Student Login. Late breaking news: the hard copy edition is now the second edition; the online edition is the first edition.

  • James Kugel, How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture Then and Now. NB: You will need your copy of the Bible next to you when you read Kugel. To illustrate the passage under discussion, he frequently cites numerous other biblical passages and you will want to check at least some of them in order to understand the argument.

Collaboration Policy

You are permitted, even encouraged, to study together. Read the biblical assignments with a friend, discuss them together. With a friend or a group study the terms, IDs, short answer questions, and the like. Prepare for the midterm and final in a study group. However, when you submit a piece of writing with your name on it – the midterm, the final, the short papers – you are affirming that it is your own work and that it fairly reflects what you have learned. You may study with friends for the exams, but you take the exams alone. You may discuss the paper assignments with your friends, but when you submit your paper you are stating that it is your work, except insofar as you acknowledge (in a footnote or equivalent) any assistance that you received, whether from a friend, a published book or article, or an online resource

CB 39 and General Education

Western civilization derives from a union of three sources: the Hebrew Bible, Christianity (and the Christian Bible), and Greco-Roman culture, esp. high culture (philosophy, poetry, rhetoric, science).  (Islamic civilization combines these three with a fourth, the revelation of the Quran.)  This course is devoted to the first of these, the Hebrew Bible, what Christians usually call the Old Testament.

The Hebrew Bible is everywhere in the history of Christianity (see CB 23, The Hebrew Bible, Judaism, and Christianity, offered in the Spring).  It is also everywhere in the history of the West: philosophy theology, art, poetry, folklore, music. Whenever people talk about creation (creationism), beginning of life issues, the value of human life, end of life issues, gender issues, human rights, capital punishment, etc., whether they know it or not, no matter what their views might be, they are talking about issues and questions that ultimately derive from the Hebrew Bible.  General Education courses at Harvard are supposed to help the student prepare for engagement with the world “out there.”  A knowledge of the Hebrew Bible will help the student do precisely that.

Our approach in this course is social-historical, that is, we attempt to understand the Hebrew Bible within the context in which it was written.  We recognize that the Bible is regarded as true by many people, but in this course we are not much concerned with the facticity of the Bible's narratives or the truth of its moral claims. We read the Bible respectfully and carefully, to be sure, but we do not treat it as sacred or divine. That is, we read it the same way we might read The Iliad of Homer or The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer.  This too is part of General Education, to learn how to read a “religious” text from a non-religious perspective.  The tension between a modern academic approach and a traditionalist approach, whether Jewish or Christian, is one of the main topics that drives the course. 

Many questions about the Hebrew Bible are unanswerable.  The authorship of most of the biblical books is unknown; that is, we don't know who wrote these books or why or for whom.  We don't know know why or how these books became part of "the BIble."  Some biblical books bear attribution to named authors, but we do not know whether the attributions are factual, nor do we know how the books were redacted and transmitted.  On numerous points large and small, the Bible gives conflicting data and we have no way, except for hypothesis and conjecture, to resolve these tensions.  This too is an important lesson for GenEd students: many questions in the humanities and social sciences cannot be answered with a yes/no; we must rest content with the demonstration that either yes or no is possible; definitive truth eludes us. This is an important lesson for students to take as they go out in the world and encounter many people who demand, or claim to have, exclusive access to the truth. 

Course Summary:

Date Details Due