The Bible as Literature

TEXTBOOK:

• The New Oxford Annotated Bible:  New Revised Standard Version with Aprocrypha, 3rd ed. (Oxford UP, 2007), ISBN 0195288831

COURSE DESCRIPTION.  In this course, we will read and analyze the Bible as a piece of literature.  In particular, we will examine the historical and cultural background of the various books of the Bible with an eye to understanding the peculiarities of Biblical narrative, imagery, and style.  We will read as much of the Bible as a single semester allows – from the Torah to the Gospels, from the historical books to the Second-Temple apocrypha, from the Prophets to the letters of St. Paul.  Through this course, you will become conversant in the most influential images, stories, and characters of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

GOALS.  In terms of my goals for this course, I want you

1. to read as much of the Bible as a single semester allows,
2. to increase your appreciation for the beauty and uniqueness of the ancient writings that make up the Bible,
3. to become more comfortable reading the Bible as a literary text,
4. to become more conversant in the most influential myths and images of the Judeo-Christian tradition,
5. to understand and appreciate the peculiarities of Biblical narrative, imagery, and style,
6. to become familiar with present-day theories about how the Bible was composed and transmitted to posterity,
7. to increase your sensitivity to the concrete historicity of texts and to the development of literary traditions, cultural values, modes of thought, and uses of language over time,
8. to add to your familiarity with a significant body of texts within – and on the margins of – a variety of literary traditions, and
9. to increase your understanding of the power of words by reading critically, interpreting responsibly, writing and speaking with clarity and grace, reasoning intelligently, and arguing thoughtfully and persuasively for a range of audiences and purposes.

REQUIREMENTS.  This course has the following graded assignments:

1. 12 two-page response papers (worth 2% of your final grade each or 20% total),
2. a mid-term exam (20% of your final grade),
3. a formal essay (30%), and
4. a comprehensive final exam (30%).

Your final grade will be based on the following scale:  A = 93%-100%, A- = 90%-92%, B+ = 87%-89%, B = 83%-86%, B- = 80%-82%, C+ = 77%-79%, C = 73%-76%, C- = 70%-72%, D+ = 67%-69%, D = 60%-66%, and F = below 60%.  This scale is absolute.  Because the response papers are in a sense a form of extra credit built into this course from the start, I do not give extra credit at the end of the semester to help students raise their grade even a whisker.  So, even if, at the end of the semester, you are just .0001 points away from an A-, your final grade will be a B+.

ATTENDANCE.  Regular attendance is a virtual necessity for successful completion of this class.  Class discussion constitutes important, useful preparation for your graded work.  If you miss a class, you will essentially lose out on that day’s contribution to your preparation, since it is never really possible to reproduce or recapture the dynamics and flow of information for a missed class meeting (even if you get notes from someone).  If, however, you positively must miss a class, I expect you to find out what you missed and to come fully prepared – without excuses – to the next class meeting.  And please, don’t ask, “Did I miss anything?”  Check out Tom Wayman’s poem about that question.

OFFICE HOURS.  My office is Bliss 216, and my office hours are 2:00-4:00 p.m. on TF.  If you cannot see me during these office hours, feel free as needed to call my office (771-2106) or to talk to me before or after class to arrange an appointment at another time.  You may also contact me by email (gsteinbe@tcnj.edu), or you may leave a message for me in my box at the English department offices in Bliss 124.  Email is generally the fastest way to contact me in an emergency.

I may, on occasion, want to e-mail everyone in class.  I generally only have access to your TCNJ e-mail addresses, however.  As a result, if you regularly use an e-mail address other than your TCNJ address, I recommend that you have mail from your TCNJ address forwarded to the address you use more regularly.  That way, if I e-mail your TCNJ address, my message will be forwarded to your other address automatically.  To forward mail from your TCNJ address, go to http://www.tcnj.edu/~helpdesk/Zimbra.htm and click “Forward Email.”  Follow the directions there to set up mail forwarding.

If you would like to send an e-mail message to one or more of your classmates, you can do so through SOCS.  To access SOCS, go to http://socs.tcnj.edu and, after you have logged in with your TCNJ e-mail username and password, choose this class from the list of your courses this semester.  Then, when our course page comes up, click the “Email” button.  From there, you can select individual e-mail addresses or the entire class and send a message to the address(es) you’ve selected.

Accommodations.  The College of New Jersey prohibits discrimination against any student on the basis of physical or mental disability or perceived disability.  The College will also provide reasonable and appropriate accommodations to enable students with disabilities to participate in the life of the campus community.  Individuals with disabilities are responsible for reporting and supplying documentation verifying their disability, and requests for accommodations must be initiated through the Office of Differing Abilities Services (Eickhoff Hall 159).  If you require special assistance, I will make every reasonable effort to accommodate your needs and to create an environment where your special abilities will be respected.

LANGUAGES ACROSS THE CURRICULUM.  A quarter-unit (one-credit) Languages Across the Curriculum independent study may be added to this course for those students who have intermediate level proficiency in Latin, ancient Greek, Aramaic, or Hebrew and who wish to complement the work in this course by utilizing their language skills. Please visit the LAC website at http://internationalstudies.intrasun.tcnj.edu or contact dcompte@tcnj.edu for more information. Students must meet with Dr. Compte to enroll in the LAC independent study by Monday, Jan. 25.

RESPONSE PAPERS.  In the course of the term, you are required to write 12 short, informal papers (about 2 pages each) on the readings for class.  You may choose which days and which readings you want to respond to.  I have posted questions about each day’s reading assignment for you to consider as the basis of your response. You should write your response paper before the class meeting at which we discuss the reading assignment covered in your paper and submit it in hard copy in class during that class meeting.

Response papers will be graded Pass/Fail.  I ask you to type them (so that they are easier for me to read), but they need not be a perfect, polished product.  Rather, response papers should be just what their name says – a response.  Think about the question(s) that I ask you to consider for the particular day’s reading assignment; then, write a response.  Don’t worry about answering every question I ask in the assignment.  In fact, focus on the one question that seems most interesting to you, and be as specific as you can, getting down as much as you can, as quickly as you can.  Treat response papers more like a journal entry than like a formal paper.  I don’t want a five-paragraph theme.  Rather, I want an exploration – as detailed and specific as possible – of the reading assignment for the day.  Normally, as long as you submit a response paper of suitable length, detail, and thoughtfulness (and as long as you submit it in class on the assigned day), you will receive all the credit that the response paper is worth (i.e., a 100%).  The purpose of the response papers is

1. to help you in your preparation for class discussion,
2. to help me see where you’re struggling with the readings for class, and
3. to help you develop your intellectual independence and your confidence as a reader.

You may submit more than 12 response papers in the course of the semester (to make up for any response papers that do not receive a grade of “Pass”), but no matter how many extra response papers you submit, you will not receive credit for more than 12.  You may not submit more than one response paper on a single day, nor may you submit a response paper for a day that you are absent from class.  (NOTE:  Even if you do not submit a response paper on a particular day, you should still come to class prepared to discuss the assigned questions for that day, since we will focus on those questions in our in-class discussion of the reading assignment; in other words the response paper assignments are a great guide for your class prep each day.)

FORMAL ESSAY.  Analyze the doublet of Exodus 16 and Numbers 11.  Write a formal paper (5-6 pages) in which you argue a clear and specific thesis about the doublet and its significance in characterizing God, Moses, and/or the Hebrew people.  As you think about what to write, consider the following questions:

• How would you characterize the two different versions of the story of the manna and quails?  Which characters are sympathetic and which are condemned or criticized?  Do the stories each have their own particular slant or bias with respect to God, Moses, or the Hebrew people?
• How do the two stories relate to one another?  Why were they both included in the Pentateuch?  What purpose does each serve?  What does each add to the other in terms of creating an overall picture of God, Moses, and the Hebrew people?

DO NOT answer all these questions in your paper; instead, use these questions to help you think through what you’d like to make the focus of your paper.  DO NOT speculate as to which strands (J, E, P, or D) the stories come from; instead, focus on the stories and what they reveal as individual stories, irrespective of strand.  Note:  You need not use outside sources for this paper (that is, sources in addition to the texts of Exodus and Numbers); in fact, I would encourage you not to use outside sources (because I'd rather hear what you think than what some published scholar thinks).

I encourage you, about a week before the paper is due, to submit a thesis paragraph (a draft first paragraph of your paper or just a paragraph that describes what you plan to write about) to me by email; if you do so by the date noted in the course schedule below, I will give you feedback on your proposed thesis before you submit your final paper.

Your paper will be evaluated according to the following criteria (in order of relative importance):

1. Does the paper have a clear, specific thesis?  Does the thesis offer an interesting perspective or “hook” that is provocative without being gimmicky or offensive?
2. Does the paper’s comparison of the two stories progress logically?  Does the paper have a clear and consistent overall organization that relates all the ideas of the paper together in support of the thesis with appropriate transitions to aid the reader (rather than simply a list of random similarities and differences without relation to one another or to the thesis)?  Does the paper have appropriate transitions to aid the reader in following the paper’s logic (rather than weak transitions, such as “The first...,” “Another...,” and “...also...”)?
3. Does the paper provide relevant, concrete evidence and logically persuasive reasons for every assertion?
4. Does the paper show sensitivity to the concrete historicity of the texts under consideration (rather than treat them as timeless museum pieces or reflect on them anachronistically)?
5. Does the paper exhibit confidence and insight when analyzing texts not discussed in class?
6. Does the introduction to the paper offer an interesting, helpful preview of the content, logic, and organization of the paper?
7. Is factual information in the paper accurate?
8. Is the writing in the paper clear, effective, correct (according to the norms of standard American English), and appropriate to an academic setting?

COURSE SCHEDULE.  This schedule is subject to change at the discretion of the professor.  Changes made after the beginning of the term will be shown in red.  For each of the books of the Bible that we are reading, I encourage you to read the entire book if you are able, even beyond what is assigned below, which represents the bare minimum that you should read.

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